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

compel her to talk!”
    “Ruth does not know.” Before Magnus could stop her, Elfrida stepped directly in front of Lady Astrid. “Her recollections are cloudy. Silvester drugged her with a tincture of the eastern poppy.”
    “An expensive potion,” Magnus threaded in seamlessly, understanding the thrust of her conversation. “One beyond the reach and purses of all but the very rich and powerful, the Norman rich and powerful—like the sweets Silvester feeds them.”
    The lady disguised the tiny start she made then by tweaking the folds of her long cloak. “How does this serve?” she snapped. “You, sir, are meant to be a tracker. Why have you not found my ward?”
    Magnus looked as genial as he ever could with his scars, and his reply sounded mild but was to the heart. “You delayed in seeking my help, Lady Astrid. You also gave me no trace of the other victims.”
    “Though you surely had it. Gifted to you by anxious, trusting parents.” With that insight Elfrida appreciated more. Curbing a livid flash of temper, she said, “Had you not been so single-minded and selfish in your search, you might have recovered Rowena with the other girls.”
    She heard a restive shuffling among the followers of the lady and knew they agreed.
    “Silvester is not, as you have it, a traveling player,” Magnus remarked quietly.
    “Nor a Jew, as you also told us. As you lied to us,” said Elfrida.
    Lady Astrid said nothing.
    “We know he is handsome,” Elfrida went on. “We know he has a covered wagon that he uses to lure the young maids he wants. Sometimes he takes a girl along with him, to show favor and to beguile other victims.”
    Magnus slapped his hand against his thigh. “So he seems safe to them,” he said. “Of course.”
    “He plays the pipes to soothe,” Elfrida said, this time watching Lady Astrid’s maids. Githa stared at the ground. Seeing her through the eyes of the spirit world, Elfrida saw Githa’s panic as a dark nimbus around the young woman’s perfectly groomed head. I must talk to her alone. She does know this stranger, of that I am sure . With any luck, Githa would later seek her out.
    “These excuses serve no purpose. You have not found Rowena.” Lady Astrid attacked again.
    “And you have not told us the whole story, Madam, so we are quit.”
    Lady Astrid tried to stare down her nose at the taller, sinewy Magnus but could not. “I do not owe you any explanation,” she began, but he glared at her and she fell silent.
    “Someone should explain,” he commanded. “Or I am done here.”
    “’Fore God, my lady, say for Rowena!” shouted one of her men, instantly stopping as Lady Astrid swept about to skewer the speaker with a glance.
    “I will.” Leading his own pony and Apple, Rowena’s bay, Tancred nudged through the knot of older men and maids. Elfrida marked how they made way for him. The boy looked determined, older than his years. He launched into a spate of Norman French.
    “English, if you please,” said Magnus. “Have you found Ruth’s mother and kindred and told them that she is safe?”
    Tancred scowled and began afresh in English. “They know. Your men told them. Her mother is walking over. I rode ahead.”
    He stopped, perhaps realizing how cold that sounded. Elfrida could only hope he realized it.
    Magnus certainly did. “A true knight, to leave a widowed mother plodding in your dust. Go on.”
    The boy’s shoulders slumped for an instant and then he spoke, his voice a little shrill and his words very formal, as if learned by rote. “Rowena Gifford is now the sole heir of William the fair. Her father intended her for the church, but that was not Rowena’s wish. She and I plighted our troth many years ago, when we were children. Father Jerome witnessed our vow.”
    “That fellow is everywhere,” remarked Magnus, “And another who seems to believe that truth is a feast he need only pick at, that he may choose to share what he likes.”
    “How do you know that her