Free Townsend, Lindsay - The Snow Bride (BookStrand Publishing Romance) by Lindsay Townsend Page A

Elfrida replied, using the word for “lord” from the creed, so Magnus would guess what she had said.
    “No mortal could be so misshapen. God would not allow it.”
    Just in time, Elfrida bit down on her answer that it was men’s knives, not God, which had made Sir Magnus as he was. Her instinct to protect him startled her and made her uneasy, because Christina needed all her care.
    She looked again at the widow, at her sagging, defeated body.
    “Does your son or daughter live with you?”
    The woman’s head came up, and pride sparkled in her yellow eyes. “Mary is married to a glove maker. She lives in a town now.”
    “What does she say?” Magnus demanded.
    Elfrida repeated it, to which Magnus added, “I am surprised she does not live with them.”
    The widow disliked his observation when Elfrida translated it and made no attempt to shield her fingers as she made the sign to avert the evil eye. “Martin is still with me. He is a good boy. He must learn his father’s woodcraft.”
    Magnus grunted when this was translated to him. “So where is the lad, and why is he not here to defend his mother?”
    The widow’s eyes flitted from his face to his stump as she made excuses. Martin had a cold. Martin was only nine years old. Martin was playing in the snow. He was not like the other boys. He was not strong.
    “Do you believe any of this?” Magnus asked.
    Elfrida shook her head and tapped the woman’s shoulder to silence her. “Where is your son now?” she demanded, keeping her voice low and cold.
    The woman shivered, crouching even lower in the snow.
    “Where is he?” Elfrida asked, and Magnus, taking heed of her rising voice, clenched his good hand into a fist and looked inquiringly at her, as if awaiting a signal.
    It was too much for the widow, who began to weep again. “I sent Martin away to the priest at Great Yarr to learn his letters. I had no choice.” She mopped at her face with the tattered ends of her cloak. “What else could I do?”
    Elfrida heard the clear pain in her answer and so, obviously, did Magnus, who lowered himself onto the snow beside her, sitting cross-legged on the ground as if it was the height of summer. The widow flinched at the sight of his peg leg, and Elfrida snapped her fingers to stop the woman staring more.
    “Why did you send Martin away?” she asked.
    “Who does she fear? Ask her that,” Magnus said.
    The widow hid her face in her hands and rocked to and fro, slithering on the ice until she was half sitting, half crouching. Were she not so drab and sad, Elfrida might have smiled. Instead she braced the woman’s trembling back with her leg and thought of Martin, the widow’s son.
    “Your son is a small, thin boy, very handsome, with tears at the knees of his tunic.”
    The widow took her hands away from her face and gaped at her. “How did you know?”
    “What did you say to her?” Magnus asked.
    “A lucky guess and a description that would fit a thousand small boys,” Elfrida replied to Magnus, while to the woman she said, “I am a witch. Your witch and no stranger. I can help you, if you will tell me.”
    The widow closed her yellow eyes. “He will kill me.”
    Magnus hunched closer to the woman when Elfrida translated her despairing answer, and patted her shoulder with his injured hand. “Ask her if she has heard of the Trial of Outremer. There, a man or woman accused of spying is dragged up to the tallest tower in Jerusalem and flung off the battlements. Those who float to the ground are deemed guilty.”
    “And those who are innocent?”
    Magnus shrugged, granting the widow another evil smile. “They are with God.”
    Watching his grim, mangled face and the widow’s prey terror, Elfrida felt compelled to warn him. “Magnus, this woman is already at stretch. Would you break her completely?”
    “Why not? She took gold from him.”
    Moving with shocking speed, Magnus gripped the woman’s sleeves and ripped them, one after another, from her