Free Blood Sword Legacy 02 - Master of Torment by Karin Tabke

tracks.
     

    The hall was completely empty. Eerie silence rested on Wulfson’s shoulders with the weight of his mail. As the Blood Swords followed him in, they too abruptly halted at the emptiness. Wulfson drew both swords and ran to the stairway, his men following, sure he would findthe chamber door to the lady’s room flung wide and her gone.
    Instead, he was met with Gareth’s sword. “What goes on here?” Wulfson demanded.
    “Stand back, sir, the lady is not to be disturbed,” Gareth warned, standing his ground.
    In a great swipe, using both swords as one, Wulfson flung Gareth’s sword from his hands, and a brace of the Dane’s men stepped forward from behind him in battle positions. Wulfson pressed a sword tip to each of their chests, and pinned them to the wall. Rorick maneuvered Gareth in the same fashion, but against the opposite wall. “Do not engage me; you will die for the effort,” Wulfson warned.
    Slowly, angrily, the men raised their arms in acquiescence. Wulfson stepped back but held his swords. “Where are the servants, and that yap Rangor and his entourage? The hall is empty.”
    Gareth’s face flushed crimson in his anger. Or, Wulfson decided, his sagging pride.
    “Nothing is amiss. The servants tend Alewith’s messenger and men. I sent Rangor from the hall under the threat of violence. He is no doubt plotting both our demises amongst the ruins of the tower.”
    Wulfson scowled and backed farther away from the chamber door. He pointed to the door with his sword. “The lady?”
    “Continues to gain her strength within.”
    “What message does Alewith send?”
    “That my lord should arrive in time to break the fast on the morrow. He comes to see to the health of his charge, and, my guess is, to take her back to Trent.”
    “Trent?”
    Gareth nodded. “Aye, of all the places milady has lived, Trent gave her the most hospitality.”
    “You make it sound as if she lived a gypsy life.”
    Gareth’s lips drew into a tight line. “A gypsy had it easier.”
    Wulfson visualized a dark-haired, blue-eyed waif of a girl reaching out for acceptance only to find dirt kicked in her face. His jaw set. ’Twas a scene to which he could well relate. He had spent much of his own youth being tossed back and forth between a blood family that did not want the blight of him on their doorstep and a foster family that had grudgingly, but for a considerable sum, taken him in.
    Wulfson sheathed his swords to his back. “Give the lady notice. She is to present herself when her guardian arrives in the morn. Should she fail to do so in a timely manner, I will personally see her brought down.” Gareth opened his mouth to argue. Wulfson stayed him with a raised sword. “Her time is up, captain. We would know her condition.”
    Wulfson turned on his heel and strode down the stairway followed by his men, feeling, despite the day’s adventure, more restless than before.
     

    Tarian moved back from the doorway and looked to Edith. “My time is up.”
    The old nurse smiled, her wrinkles crinkling deeply around her eyes and mouth. “Nay, sweeting, your time is ripe. Tonight you will visit the Norman, and in the morn, when asked if you are with child, you can give the honest answer of ignorance.”
    “But—”
    Edith shushed her. “It can take months for some women to show the signs. Many women are not even aware. For others it is immediate. We have time, my love, be patient and trust me.”
    This was not an area Tarian was remotely schooled in. Horses, swords, and how to fashion an arrow she knew; of things domestic she did not. “How will I know?”
    “You will miss your courses, your breasts will become tender and plumped, and as slight as you are, your belly will swell within two months’ time as your body prepares to grow the babe. You may get the morning sickness, though it can last throughout the day. Your mother, poor thing, spent many a day hovered over a chamber pot.”
    Tarian stiffened at the