Viking Love Beyond Time (Time Travel Romance) (37 page)

             
Quivering from his back, neatly between his shoulder blades, was the sharp knife Alodie had last seen in the belt of young Swein.  “Die, cowardly woman beating
nithing
!” hissed the lad “die and go to
Hel
for you will certainly not be welcome in
Valhalla
!”

             
With a gurgling half scream, Luke sank to his knees and crumpled to the floor, then, after jerking twice, lay still.  Swein walked over and pulled out the knife, wiping it on a handy piece of cloth, then rolling Luke onto his back knelt down and put his ear to his chest.  “He is dead ladies” he announced, then stood up.

             
They stared at the corpse for a few seconds, neither of them moving.  “Now  what?” said Godgyth, breaking the silence.  Alodie thought, quickly.

             
“There is no one in the hall but me, you and Swein.  We’ll get Luke up to  the bedchamber and if anyone asks say he’s gone out into the forest then, later on tonight, we, the three of us, will drag him to the river.  I’ll have the villagers look for him tomorrow - he will be discovered - set on and killed by outlaws!”

             
“Do you think it will work, lass?” asked Godgyth, doubtfully.

             
“Well, let’s not stand here debating it, the servants will be in shortly, let’s move him”

             
With much puffing and panting the two women and the boy managed to get the dead weight up the stairs and into the bedroom where they unceremoniously bundled him under the bed but not before Alodie divested him of autodoc.

             
“T’is my view that the wight was possessed!” said Godgyth, later as they mopped up the last of the bloodstains.

             
“There was something wrong, certainly” replied Alodie.

             
“There’s no sin in killing a man possessed who was going to murder us all is there Alodie?” she asked, anxiously.  Alodie smiled wanly and patted the older woman’s arm.

             
“Do not give it another thought ladies” chirped up little Swein “‘twas none of your doing anyway, I did it.  I would not have rested easy if I had
not
killed him - I had sworn a blood oath - I
would
have killed him sooner or later, I would have been happier if it had been in a hand to hand fight though - a knife in the back is so - Saxon!”  With that he wandered into the kitchen in search of food.

             
Alodie and Godgyth smiled thinly at each other, “Give him another five years and he’ll be harryin’ our shores with the best of ‘em” sighed the older woman “just you mark my words”

*********************

             
Luckily there was a new moon that night, the sky was inky black and the only light came from the stars.  The darkness was almost total.

             
When the hall was silent and everyone was hopefully asleep Alodie opened her window and she, Swein and Godgyth half pulled, half pushed Luke’s bloated body out.  It fell soundlessly onto a cart filled with new meadow grass which Alodie had ordered pushed under her window earlier in the day claiming it made her room smell fragrant.

             
Swein and Alodie then went round to the stables and quietly led out Martin, Oswy’s horse, who was getting slightly fretful with lack of exercise, and fastened him to the cart.  Alodie tied some sacks to his feet and they slowly walked through the night black village toward the gate and into the forest.

             
Strangely enough, Alodie felt sad.  Not for what Luke had become but for what he had once been.  Before the drink had taken hold and he had undergone his personality change he had not been a bad companion.  He was the only link she had with her own time, there was no one now left on Earth with whom she could converse in modern English.  She suddenly felt very vulnerable and very alone.

             
Within half an hour they reached the place where ironically, only eighteen months earlier, they had first set eyes on Oswy, when Luke was a bronzed, muscular warrior, not a bloated, alcoholic monster.  They backed up the cart to the river and, with Godgyth holding the horse’s head, Alodie and Swein pushed the hulk that he had become into the water.  It took him with a loud splash and he bobbed, slowly at first, but as the current caught him more quickly, down the stream.  Then silently, Alodie, Godgyth and Swein, now leading Martin, walked back through the inky black woods to the hall, each thinking their own thoughts and each wondering what was going to happen next.

*****************

             
Luke’s body was found a week later, by Ham and Edwin, caught in some weeds less than two hundred and fifty yards from where it had been pushed into the river.  He was brought back to the village on a board, his bloated and by now putrid body almost unrecognisable, and buried almost immediately.

             
As Alodie had rightly guessed outlaws were blamed but no real effort was made to find the culprits.  Luke had, by that time, become almost universally hated by the villagers who had been looking to the day when Oswy died and he took over with dread.

             
Oswy died on October 14th, two days after Luke had been found. When he had been told of Luke’s death he had expressed no regret.  “I’m glad he’s gone, my dear” he croaked through parched lips as Alodie bathed the sweat from his brow and tried to make him a little more comfortable.  “I can die easy in my mind knowing he won’t be here to harm you or my beloved people.  I have never seen a man go down so quickly through drink - it will all go to Tom now” he whispered “you and Godgyth do a good job of bringing him up and lass...” he gripped her arm “Edric of Lamporth will be coming to my funeral, the Exeter match came to naught, she did not look enough like you.  Make yourself pretty, you’re too thin - you could do a lot worse than Edric and Tom needs a father”

             
“Go to sleep you silly old fool” she said quietly and kissed his clammy forehead, brushing away the tears which quivered on her eyelashes.

             
He died, holding Alodie’s hand, at nine in the evening.  When she was sure he was gone she kissed his forehead and quietly taking autodoc from him slipped it into her pocket.  She had put it on his wrist immediately after having removed it from Luke but apart from relieving him of the worst of the pain he was too far gone for it to do any good.

             
She found Godgyth asleep in the chair by the fire, her foot on Nerissa’s cradle, young Tom in her arms.  She had kept up an almost constant vigil by Oswy’s bedside for the last few weeks and was exhausted.  “Whaa - what?” she muttered as Alodie gently shook her.

             
“Godgyth dear, he’s gone - Oswy’s dead, I’m so very sorry” as she spoke she felt the tears well up into her eyes and flow unchecked down her cheeks.

             
The woman was silent for a moment then she rose and put Tom back in his cradle, the child cried out softly in his sleep, then was still.

             
Godgyth nodded to the far end of the hall where the servants were gathered, by some collective instinct knowing the bad news.  “I’ll go up to him lass, you - you tell the servants”.  With that she walked slowly up the stairs and into the chamber she had shared with Oswy for so many years.  Quietly she closed the door.

             
A warm breeze blew past Alodie and she genuflected then, glancing down the hall, she saw the servants doing the same.  She stumbled toward them, tears streaming from her eyes.

             
Edwin and Herluva walked met her with outstretched arms.  Wordlessly, Alodie flung her arms around their necks and began to sob uncontrollably.

*******************

             
The next few days were spent in a fever of activity.  Alodie sent letters to
Winchester
, Lamporth and a village in the north of
Wessex
where Godgyth’s only sister lived, her much travelled brother having died, unmarried and childless, some years earlier.

             
“Write to Eadyth Alodie and tell her” Godgyth had asked “she is the only kin I have now that Emma is dead, she won’t be able to come and mourn with me but she had better be told”

             
Alodie took up her quill “Didn’t Oswy have any kin?” she asked. 

             
Godgyth shook her head  “nay, only Luke and now the babes.”

             
Alodie fought down a stab of guilt at this.  Godgyth depended on her so much, she and the children were her whole world.

             
Alodie was in charge for all intents and purposes now, with the servants coming to her for their daily orders.  Since he had been made reeve Edwin was in charge of all the tithes and dues payable to the lord of the manor and he also reported daily to her.  Worrying her, but pushed to the back of her mind, was her autodoc bracelet.  Where had Luke hidden it?  She was badly run down and needed the vitamins and minerals that the diet in ninth century
Wessex
could not provide.  He would not have destroyed it, not when there was a serviceable psi gun attached.  The arrangements for the funeral, however, and caring for a Godgyth who seemed to be growing more and more listless and desolate with each passing day, took precedence.

             
To Alodie then, fell all the arrangements for preparing the manor and the guest rooms, she gave orders for the old rushes to be swept out and all the bedding thoroughly washed and aired whilst the men were sent out hunting every day - Edric and his father were expected at any minute and they had to be well fed and made comfortable.

             
The day of the funeral dawned - Alodie, who had awoken early, was lying dozing in bed, listening to the sound of the servants chattering and banging as the hall came to life.  She was debating whether or not to turn over and go back to sleep or to get up and begin her chores and had almost decided on the former when the door burst open and Godgyth ran in, pink cheeked and breathless.  “Oh, Alodie, thank the Lord you’re awake, you must get up, now!”

             
Yawning, she sat up.  “Gytha, what on earth is the matter?  Is the hall afire?”
             

             
“Alodie, my dear” gasped the older woman “I completely forgot.  The daughter of the house must make the funeral bread, t’is a tradition and there is not much time left, the dough should have been rising all last night!”

             
Alodie laughed out loud for the first time in weeks.  “Be serious Gytha, I can’t bake bread, it would be completely inedible!”

             
“You must” whispered Godgyth.  “T’is tradition and you are the daughter of the house, or as near as makes no difference!”

             
Alodie looked at her dearest friend.  Her tears had been shed in private but they had been shed and plenty of them.  Oswy’s death would leave a hole in all their lives that no one would be able to fill but his loss had almost totally destroyed Godgyth, her traditions were all she had left to cling to, it would be churlish of Alodie to refuse.

             
She swung her legs from the bed.  “Very well, Godgyth, of course I’ll make the funeral bread, on the condition that you write to your sister” she put up her hand to halt Godgyth’s protest “I know I wrote to her to inform her of Oswy’s death but I think you should write a letter to her as well.  It will be good practice and just think how impressed Eadyth will be when she realises her sister can read and write!” With that she kissed Godgyth on the top of the head and hurriedly dressing, tripped downstairs to find Herluva, who would have to oversee her every move.

             
Shrieks of childish laughter greeted her as she reached the hall and on further inspection she discovered that Swein had the twins propped up on cushions and was making two wooden dolls pretend to fight, complete with realistic grunts and groans as they fell.

             
Luke had only been dead a few days but even in that short time the atmosphere in the hall and indeed the whole village, had changed.  It was as if they had released a collective sigh of relief.  They were all in deepest mourning for Oswy, naturally, but the spectre of having Luke as their lord was now gone.  They could look to the future.

             
Tom was fascinated but Nerissa seemed bored and was glancing round the room.  Alodie crouched down next to Swein and watched them fondly.  On seeing her mother Nerissa crowed and began to kick and wriggle.

             
Alodie took the baby in her arms and planted a kiss on her plump little cheek.  “Well madam, are you being a good girl?” she asked, speaking instinctively in modern English.

             
Swein looked up “What language is that lady?  You used to speak it with your - Luke”

             
“Bohemian” Alodie said automatically, kissing the tip of Nerissa’s tiny nose and stroking Tom’s blond head.