The Winter Mantle Read Online Free PDF

stern words and duty. Would it not be strange and wonderful to throw back her head for once and laugh with abandon?
    'He won't give her to you,' scoffed Edgar Atheling, shaking his head at Waltheof in disbelief. It was the second day of their journey to Fecamp and they were close enough to see the smoke from the city hearth fires and inhale the occasional eddy on the sea-salt breeze. 'Not when he has as good as promised his own daughter to Edwin of Mercia. He is not going to marry off all the virgins in his household to English captives.'
    'William has not said that he will give his daughter to Edwin, only that he will consider it,' Waltheof responded. 'It is as likely that he will give his niece to me as it is that he will give his daughter to Edwin.'
    Edgar snorted. 'Mayhap you are right, Waltheof,' he said. 'Mayhap neither of you is destined for a Norman bride.'
    Waltheof twitched his shoulders irritably and wished that he had not said anything to Edgar about his interest in Judith. He was annoyed at Edgar's scoffing, which reinforced the warning given by Richard de Rules that William the Bastard's niece was out of reach. She had not been out of reach yester afternoon, he thought. He could have abducted her across his saddle and forced a marriage by rape - a marriage that would have lasted about as long as it took the Normans to spit him on a lance. Waltheof grimaced. Perhaps Edgar and De Rules were right. Perhaps he should forget her and look elsewhere for a bride - a flaxen-haired English or Danish girl who would bear him. enormous Viking sons. But it was not what he wanted.
    What he wanted was travelling fifty yards behind in a covered wain, guarded by her mother like a dragon sitting on its precious treasure. What he wanted was to melt the ice and discover the fire.
    'Don't be a fool,' Edgar said. 'She is comely, I know, but there are a hundred better women you could consider for a wife.' He made a thrusting gesture with his clenched fist. 'And a thousand in Fecamp alone who would welcome you to their private chambers for no more than the price of a smile.'
    Waltheof snorted with reluctant amusement. The latter notion had already crossed his mind. Wooing and winning Duke William's niece was a matter for the future, albeit that how to do so was occupying much of his time. The tavern girls of Fecamp were accessible and would go a long way to cooling the heat of his blood - especially if he could find one with long, dark braids and sultry brown eyes.

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Chapter 3

     
    Sunlight splintered through the shutters and pierced Waltheof's closed lids. Groaning softly he rolled away from the stab of red light and came to rest against the hip and thigh of his sleeping companion. For a moment, he was disoriented by the sensation of another body beside his and then he remembered. He had been drunk, but neither to the point of oblivion nor incapacity.
    Outside a rooster was crowing and he was aware that the sound had been threading through his slumber for some time. There were other noises too, the creaking of a passing cart and the gruff bark of a dog, the swish of a birch broom on a beaten floor and two women shouting to each other across a courtyard.
    The girl at his side stretched and pressed back against him. Luxurious heat flooded Waltheof's groin. He was always receptive in the early mornings with the haze of sleep still clogging his senses. Rolling her over, he parted her thighs and, thinking only with his body, took his pleasure a second time.
    She was lithe and petite, with dark hair tumbling to her waist and eyes as black as sloes. It was her colouring that had attracted him, and the sultry way she had looked at him in the tavern. The other whores had made a blatant play for his attention, sitting in his lap, stroking his beard, but he had been indifferent and they had sought customers more eager. Edgar Atheling had disappeared up the stairs with two of them. Edwin and Morcar had plumped for a pair of identical Flemish