“Yea, you must show us Toste so that we can help you,” Alinor added.
Esme wasn’t sure anyone could help her at this point, but she was happy to have two cohorts. Well, if not exactly cohorts, then confidantes.
Soon the three of them arrived at the woodcutter’s hut. Toste turned to look at her when she entered, then went wide-eyed with surprise, and indignation on seeing the two women who followed her. At least his body was covered decently. She’d spared him that indignity. She went to him and removed his gag.
Eadyth and Alinor were trying not to show their shock or amusement, but Alinor made the mistake of giggling.
“Are you three dimwits here to release me?” he asked icily.
“Well, nay,” Eadyth said.
” ‘Tis Esme’s decision,” Alinor said.
“Not yet,” Esme said.
“Then leave,” he ordered. “Now.”
“I just wanted to say—”
“Begone!” he roared.
Eadyth and Alinor scurried out of the hut, laughing loudly enough for Toste to hear.
As Esme raised the gag, about to put it back on his mouth, he told her, “I am going to kill you, Esme. And I am going to take great joy in the act. But death will be the easy part. It is what will come before that will be long and, let us say, difficult. You would not credit my vast imagination for torture.”
Welcome, home, baby… boy, have I got news…
Eirik, Tykir and Bolthor returned the next day, their voices booming with good cheer. The yuletide season was almost upon them. There would be guests aplenty at Ravenshire within a sennight, it turned out. And though the news from the Witan was not wonderful, it was not bad either.
Tykir took one look at his wife, Alinor, from whom he’d been rarely separated these ten years of their marriage, winked at her, then picked her up with a gleeful laugh and carried her off to their bedchamber for a real welcome. Eirik looked at Eadyth, and though normally not as playful as his younger brother, picked her up and did the same. Those left behind in the great hall just shook their heads at the brothers’ besotted behavior.
An hour later, Eadyth lay in her husband’s arms, both of them naked and sated, listening while he told of the Witan’s decision, or lack of a decision.
“Lord Blackthorne and his sons were there as we expected,” he told her. “A more scurrilous bunch I have never met. And the lies they told.”
“King Edgar… and the ealdormen of the Witan… did not accept his stories?” Eadyth asked running her fingers through the thick hair on his chest. Almost fifty years old, her husband was still a devastatingly handsome man. And he could still thrill her in the bed furs.
“Keep looking at me like that and I will not be able to answer,” he said with a chuckle, not at all displeased. “The king ever was Blackthorne’s bosom friend. Well, actually, ’tis Blackthorne’s son who is his comrade. But some on the council were swayed by Archbishop Dunstan, who counseled treading carefully. Dunstan is not one to be bullied… by anyone.”
“Dunstan! He was there?” Everyone knew that Dunstan had been the power behind the throne ever since he’d been called from exile three years earlier. “That wily weasel in monk’s garb!”
“That wily weasel in monk’s garb will be coming to our yuletide festivities, along with a whole contingent of Saxon nobles. They claim to want a personal audience with Lady Esme, but methinks they just want to lie about swilling your famous mead.”
“Here?” Eadyth shrieked. “They are coming here. Oh, Esme will die. And, Toste… oh, good Lord, Toste!”
“Interesting that you should mention Toste. I spoke with a priest who came from the minster in Jorvik, and he said Sister Margaret arrived there with one of our stableboys, not Toste. And no one has seen him anywhere.”
“Ummm… Eirik, there is something I must tell you.”
He sat up abruptly, alert to his wife’s nuances. “What are you up to now?” He knew her so well.
“It is not me who is up to something. It is Esme.”
“Esme?” He shook his head like a shaggy dog. “Why must you always confuse me? Speak plainly.”