Knight and the Witch 02 - A Summer Bewitchment by Lindsay Townsend

speaking for the first time.
    “Unlike you, then, my lady, but as my Elfrida says, there has been rather too much silence.” Magnus slapped Oswin so heartily on his back that the herald almost stumbled. “Go back to your lord. We shall wait for your return and his appearance.”
    “I shall go with you,” said Lady Astrid.
    “And I.” Tancred moved closer to his aunt.
    Oswin dared not take such terms back to Lord Richard, nor have his lord’s quarrelsome family ride along with him. “That will not do.”
    “Aye, I thought it would not.” Magnus folded his arms across his chest. “What surety can you provide me with, herald? We might ride into a trap.”
    “The Lord Tancred, the Lady Astrid to remain with your men.”
    “No!” bawled Tancred, while the lady looked pained.
    “What else?” demanded Magnus.
    Reluctantly—his lord had ordered him to offer this only if nothing else was deemed acceptable—Oswin tapped the pouch attached to his belt. “I am further instructed to give you the holy relic of the Virgin, her bridal coronet, for your men to keep as hostage with my lord’s brother and aunt.”
    He untied the pouch and displayed the relic, turning it so the crown’s many jewels sparkled in the sunlight.
    Many gasped at the sight of this sacred object, but the man, Magnus, merely looked at the girl, Elfrida. She said something in a language that Oswin did not understand, but however she answered, Magnus held out his hand.
    “Done, master herald. Now let us be going.”
     

     
    Of course it was not so smooth or simple. Magnus did not expect it to be. Elfrida would not leave Ruth until the girl’s mother had arrived. Then she would not go until Ruth had stirred, which the child did at once when Elfrida touched her hand. Then Ruth had to have eaten and drunk something. After that, Magnus had found himself promising that Mark and two others would escort mother and daughter safely back to their homes on horseback.
    She will make a good mother, my Elfrida . Unless she does not wish to be a mother .
    More instructions followed for a bemused-looking Mark, then finally Magnus lifted his wife onto his horse and settled behind her. In a column of twos, the troop rode west along the cobbled road, cloaks swirling in the breeze. The haughty herald cast rather too many admiring glances at Elfrida for Magnus’s liking, but his witch was not concerned by such trifles.
    “I am most sorry for any long delay, Magnus,” she said at once in the old speech— our speech —though he chose not to be mollified quite yet.
    “Humph! That would be more convincing if you had spent less time gossiping with Ruth.”
    “Talking, husband—”
    “Still, she almost smiled at me just now instead of screaming, so that is progress and all to the good. Did you learn more from your talk?”
    She twisted about in the saddle to look up at him and he, used to her antics while on horseback, gripped her legs firmly with his so she did not fall. His horse, also accustomed to this shifting passenger, whickered and pranced a step or two along the road, to remind her to attend.
    Elfrida, not at all disconcerted, laughed at them both. “We spoke of food and midsummer. You were beside us and heard.”
    “Even so.”
    “Yes.” The brief merriment in her face faded. She turned slightly, looking straight forward between the horse’s ears, and spoke over the beast’s steady canter. “He is very close but well hidden. That is why I asked after food. A local dish may show us where he is. Ruth’s memories are scattered, a few images only. Corncockle flowers and meadowsweet. A pool. Red kites. Barley bread, a little stale. A soft cheese coated in brine.”
    That stirred a memory in Magnus and he mulled it while trees and fields flickered past at the corners of his sight. This was good, rising country with lush grass, a land for sheep and well-tended pea and barley crops. Elfrida was right. Silvester was camped close . If I can just remember the