Free Lady of the Lake by Elizabeth Mayne

needed.
    The deep well sunk in the center of the stockade and the one inside the keep were rank and fetid. Water for all purposes had to be carried from the Avon River, outside the gates of the fortress. The river itself had dropped five feet below the lip of the gate built to flood the moat surrounding the fortress on the deliberately raised motte of Warwick.
    The absence of water in the deep moat to put out an assaulting enemy’s fire made Embla Silver Throat’s wooden stockade even more ridiculous, especially with so much ready stone about. Edon couldn’t see how she could be so dense. And in her greed to acquire more and moreland, she allowed her freemen to continue to slash and burn the woods, when the land was dry tinder!
    His second order of business that morning was to stop the felling of the woods. Edon had already outlawed all fires save the cooking fires in the fortress kitchen, the hearth fires in each Viking’s longhouse and the forge in the ironmaster’s shed.
    The stillroom wasn’t as cool as it should be. Cool meant icy to a Viking, and Edon was typical in that regard. The room was located at the bottom of a declivity cut into the hill. The spring beneath had also run dry because of the drought.
    The groove cut in the stone floor of the stillroom, where normally chilly water from the spring should flow freely, was covered with a layer of moss. Edon used his knife to dislodge it. His reward for that effort was a few beads of water.
    He squinted in the dim light of the underground stillroom. Was it smaller than he remembered? Ten years was a long time to recall details.
    “This is unusual. Springs of this sort rarely dry up,” he remarked casually.
    “Aye,” Embla agreed testily. “Warwick’s wells churn out nothing but poison or dust, thanks to the witch.”
    Here we go again, Edon thought. He remained on one knee, studying the chamber carved into the bedrock. The stillroom retained some but not much dampness, a quality necessary for the preservation of meats and vegetables. The trench in the floor had no pools in it, though it should. “Did you enlarge this chamber, niece?”
    Embla started, surprised by his question. “No, it is as it was. I saw no need to improve it,” she said gruffly.
    “Thank you,” Edon said.
    He’d built the stillroom himself ten years ago, when he’d chosen Warwick as his home. It was curious. Riversmight alter their course, but in his experience, waters in the bedrock rarely did.
    He rose to his feet, brushing off his hands. “I’d like to see the quarry next.”
    On their way to the granite quarry, they encountered Embla’s soldiers riding out for their daily patrol. Edon spoke to the captain of his nephew Harald’s disappearance. When Asgart replied, he talked of Harald in the past tense. Edon noted that.
    Of course, Guthrum had told him what he believed had happened to their nephew. Edon did not want to accuse Lady Embla of murdering her husband without proof. That proof might only show up in the form of his nephew’s body. Edon intended to investigate the matter thoroughly.
    The truth would out eventually.
    He spent the morning at the quarry, making careful notations on the drawings Maynard the Black prepared for him. Embla disdained to discuss anything with Maynard, even though he was obviously trusted by the jarl. She thought all Mercians fit only to be thralls and therefore unworthy of conversing with her. Edon was glad when the woman walked off to another part of the quarry.
    “Do you see any indication of the work here at the quarry having any effect on the springs under the cliffs?”
    “None, my lord,” Maynard said somberly. He was always somber. Maynard dwelt in concrete reality and predictable certainties.
    “And what do you make of three wells and two springs on Warwick Hill gone dry as yesterday’s cake?”
    Maynard shook his head. “It defies explanation, but proof of the drought is abundant There has been no rain since the first of May, I