Cursed in the Blood: A Catherine LeVendeur Mystery by Sharan Newman Page A

heretic had been sitting there naked, just like the barbarians of Galloway, who only put on clothes out of doors to protect themselves from the elements. And with a woman present! Algar was astonished that Ita and Kessog allowed such behavior in their house.
    “I need to walk this out,” Æthelræd said. “Finish your food and follow me up to the church.”
    Tying the makeshift skirt with a strand of woven leather, he stomped out.
    Algar scraped the last of the grease from the bowl and gave it back to Ita with thanks.
    “Do you know Æthelræd well?” he asked her.
    The woman smiled. “Not as well as you’re thinking, son, but we’ve been friends many years. He’s not mad, you know, however it looks, only bitterly unhappy.”
    “About the murders?” Algar asked.
    She shook her head. “A much deeper pain than that. We’ve tried to get him to pray it away, to let God ease his suffering, but we’ve had no success.”
    “Do you think he’ll come back with me?” Algar asked. “I don’t like to think what Waldeve will do if I return without him.”
    Ita pursed her lips in thought.
    “Tell him that,” she said at last. “He’ll come to protect you. At least that will be a good enough reason for him to save face. I think he’s secretly glad he was sent for. Go on now. He’s had time enough to think.”
    It wasn’t hard to find Æthelræd. Algar spotted him almost at once, sitting among the grave markers at the church at the top of the hill. It was obvious that he had worn little more than the skirt for weeks. His skin was bronzed by the sun; his hair flamed against the green of the vines running up the stone wall behind him. Climbing the hill to meet him, Algar felt as if he were one of the knights in the Arthur stories, about to face a giant. He rather liked the conceit.
    Æthelræd stood as Algar neared the top of the hill. By some chance, his head appeared directly in the center of one of the stone Celtic crosses. The sunlight coming through the spaces sent a nimbus around him that obscured his face. Algar saw only the light and the form of the man with the dark cross jutting out behind. His breath caught and he hurriedly blessed himself.
    Æthelræd stepped from the sun. He was frowning.
    “What made you do that, boy?” he growled. “You think I’m some kind of demon?”
    “No, Lord,” Algar stopped, embarrassed. He had no explanation.
    Æthelræd looked down at the young man. If Algar had been awed by the image of Æthelræd and the cross, Æthelræd was also moved by the face before him. Caught in the glow of the evening sun, Algar seemed so vulnerable. He looked up at the man he had come so far to find, blinking and guileless and far too trusting for a native Anglo-Scot. The sight made up Æthelræd’s mind.
    “Don’t fret yourself anymore, son,” he said. “I’ll return with you. What I do after that is between my brother and me. But no blame will come to you from it. You’ve fulfilled your charge.”
    Algar sighed in relief and the two men started down the hill. It still seemed to Algar that he was walking with a legend, one of the Viking kings sired by the gods. He kept a respectful silence. It came as a surprise when Æthelræd gave a great yawn and spoke.
    “So, which one of my dear brother’s enemies are we supposed to kill?” he asked.
    “No one knows,” Algar admitted. “There was nothing to tell who had done it and we’ve heard of no man boasting of their deaths.”
    Æthelræd’s eyebrows writhed with concentration.
    “I can’t believe that,” he said finally. “In all of Scotland, Cumbria and Northumbria, I can’t think of a man who wouldn’t want the world to know if he’d managed to defeat my brother.”
    He continued walking. The sun still lay on the horizon in the long summer twilight, but the path was bordered by thick stands of fir and the way was dark. Algar shivered. The farther north one came, the stranger the landscape. Still, he considered, it was