Free Lady of the Lake by Elizabeth Mayne Page A

am told. Each of the rivers we crossed in coming from Anglia were low. Low, but not empty, lord.”
    “And what do you make of the Leam?” Edon leaned on a rock and gazed over the forest In the distant wood,the sun glistened and sparkled on the canopy of trees, lighting them with silver. The riverbed that meandered east toward Willoughby could be traced by the march of brown, dying trees lining its dry bank.
    “Were I a gambling man,” Maynard said cautiously, “I would wager someone has damned the Leam or diverted it. A river that size does not dry up in a year of no rain. Perhaps when the rains come, the springs will flow.”
    “You believe there must be rain above the earth for water to flow over it? How do you account for the vast quantity of water in the seas? Rock and soil are porous. Wouldn’t you assume the sea presses against its shores and seeps underneath? It does not rain in Syria, yet we have both drunk from springs as sweet and as pure as fresh rain. Remember how good the water in Petra tasted to us?”
    “I remember.” Maynard nodded. His prominent forehead furrowed in deep ridges. “What we need is a water diviner. There were many such among the druids in years past.”
    “A good idea. I shall make inquiries of the Mercians. Now, let us walk to the top of the cliff and have a good look over the valley. Perhaps we can trace the water-courses from the highest mount.”
    “An eagle would be the best mount,” Maynard suggested dryly. It was the closest he’d ever come to making a joke.
    When they finished viewing Warwick valley from the highest pinnacle, Edon left Maynard to his work of plotting and mapping. The jarl strolled down into the quarry and stood beside Embla, watching her laborers toil in the pit.
    Huge slabs of granite were cleanly split from the rim of the crater using the time-honored tools of fire and water. The slabs were then chiseled into quarter-ton blocks, suitable for the walls of Edon’s fortress and keep.
    “I don’t believe I saw buildings enough at your compound to house this many stonecutters.” Edon made a casualobservation. It seemed ludicrous to him to consider the woman his niece when she was at least five years older than he. “Are there barracks nearby?”
    “Stonecutters?” Embla countered, looking surprised by the question. “These are not the skilled masons you hired, sire. They are thralls, slaves taken in conquest of the land.”
    “Then let me put my question another way. Where do yonder thralls sleep?”
    “There.” Embla pointed to a cave in the pit.
    A yawning chasm gouged out of the earth provided little shelter from the elements for the men forced to work in the quarry. They were a sorry lot, to Edon’s eye.
    As a commodity, slaves were as important to a large holding as its cattle, and should be as well fed and well cared for. Clearly, Embla was not of the same opinion as he about many things. Her slaves labored endlessly to the crack and rhythm of a whip. Judging from the look of their thin bodies, their food was at subsistence level.
    “I see,” Edon said. “Then you have more slaves tending the fields, do you?”
    “Nay, the freemen have that right. Surely, Lord Edon, you have not been so long in the east that you forgot the ways of your own world?”
    “No, I’m just curious about the changes here. I recall no slaves on Harald Jorgensson’s last accounting, and I am new to this wergild that Guthrum has imposed.”
    Embla ignored the scold inherent in Edon’s words. She had her scribe making the accounts ready for his immediate inspection. She would prove him in error about her there, too. She could account for every gold mark put into and taken out of the jarl’s holding much better than stupid Harald ever could have. He would have given one-tenth of everything away as a tithe!
    By her reckoning, the long-absent owner, Jarl Edon Halfdansson, had always made a handsome profit off herfarmstead and his shire. A profit that by rights she