Free Daughter of the Wolf by Victoria Whitworth Page A

to Widia.’ Roses and lilies to look at, but thistles and nettles, alas, in her voice.
    But however much he regretted the harshness of her tone the lack of deference was in itself refreshing. Ingeld found he had grown very tired, very quickly, of the people of Donmouth and their tiptoeing and whispering in the presence of their new lord abbot.
    â€˜Who are you?’
    She gave him a scornful look. ‘Don’t you know? Saethryth.’
    He shook his head.
    â€˜Luda’s daughter.’
    Luda’s eldest? He smiled, masking his astonishment, his ineptness. ‘Of course.’ He looked at her harder, searching for some resemblance to his brother’s hirpling, grizzled steward. Nothing.
    â€˜And I was planning on marrying Widia. Now look at him.’
    â€˜And that’s my fault, I suppose.’ Water was trickling down his ribs, raising his skin in little prickles. Heahred had come up with a fresh towel, and he reached for it gratefully.
    â€˜Your fault?’ She sounded surprised. ‘No. It’s dangerous, the hunt. I know that. I’m not stupid. But I’m not marrying someone who’s a cripple from the start.’
    â€˜No?’
    â€˜Not if I don’t have to. So, what happened to him? You saw it. Tell me.’
    â€˜Yes, I saw it.’ Ingeld closed his eyes. The eruption of the black, squealing mass. Flash of tusk. Widia falling. Grunting from the beast and screaming from the man. ‘Face. Ribs. If he lives he’ll likely be lame, and I don’t think he’ll be as pretty as he was. But he should be able to get about. If he lives.’ Bitterness settled back down around him like a cloud. ‘If.’
    â€˜And what about...?’ Her lashes were lowered and her voice quiet but the gesture she made was unmistakable.
    â€˜I...’ Why was he so reluctant to answer? ‘I don’t know.’
    Heahred offered the towel, his features tight and expressionless and still somehow disapproving, and Ingeld took it, burying his wet face, mopping up the water that still dripped pink-tinged. Widia had taken the force of the charge meant for him, and Ingeld still could not quite believe it was not his own slashed face, smashed ribs, spilled blood. But, as the girl had intimated, it could have been so much worse.
    Guts. Groin.
    Trux aper insequitur totosque sub inguine dentes... but this aper had only sliced into Widia’s ribcage with its dentes , not buried them between the man’s thighs as that other boar had done to Ovid’s poor Adonis. And for that both the huntsman and his cream-and-roses girl should be grateful.
    When he looked up again she had gone.

12
    Wynn waited until the clanging of the hammer had stopped before going up to the open side of the lean-to that sheltered the forge from the worst the weather could do and shouting her message.
    â€˜What?’
    She guessed the hammer-blows were still ringing in her father’s ears. ‘Mother says, will you be here for the night?’ She set the cloth wrapping the hard black bread and harder cheese down by one of the upright posts that framed the smithy entrance.
    â€˜Aye, we will that. We’ve a stack of sickles to see to. No harvest without the smith!’ Cuthred’s grin split his narrow, bearded face in half. He set his hammer down. ‘And I’ve had that long-faced misery guts Luda in here twice in the last couple of days telling me the barley’s ripe for the cutting, as though I’ve no eyes of my own.’ He spat. ‘And that’s just the hall-work, never mind the minster. Don’t go anywhere. I need you to set your hands to the bellows. I told Cudda to be here long before now but there’s no sign of him yet.’
    Wynn looked down to hide the smile that, try as she might, was tugging at the corners of her mouth. She loved everything to do with the forge, but when Cudda was there their father had little time for her. Cuthred jerked his