Enchantress Mine by Bertrice Small Page B

Now suddenly here was someone who offered her the love she had lost. Looking up into the Saxon’s face, Mairin touched his cheek with a delicate touch gently stroking the thegn’s rough beard with her little fingers. Then she smiled at him, and seeing her face transformed Aldwine Athelsbeorn drew his breath in sharply with wonder.
    Bishop Wulfstan chuckled. “I think you may have taken on more than even you anticipate, my friend. A face like that could one day gain you an earl for a son-in-law. Do not be in any hurry to match her lest you lose your advantage.”
    The servants brought them food, and the child ate hungrily for she had not eaten since the night before when they had been fed a cold gruel and some hard brown bread. This food was hot. A succulent capon that was so tender it fell from its bones. Her even white teeth tore at the meat, yanking it off the leg. She next ate freshly caught prawns that had been boiled with herbs, the taste of the sea contrasting strongly with the slices from a joint of rare beef that was also served. Warm, newly baked bread, a sharp, hard cheese, and sweet apples, the first of the season, completed the meal. Content, she had fallen asleep in the thegn’s lap, and Aldwine Athelsbeorn had smiled with pleasure.
    Early the next morning they departed London for Aelfleah, which was a good four days’ ride from London. Bishop Wulfstan traveled with them for he was returning to his seat at Worcester which although it lay another day’s journey from Aelfleah was in the same direction. They traveled west and had the good fortune to encounter fine weather the entire way. The roads over which they traveled had been built, Aldwine explained to Mairin, hundreds of years before by a people called the Romans.
    Mairin nodded at his words. She was but half-listening. She was far more concerned with Aelfleah which was to be her new home if the lady Eada liked her. She put her mind to concentrating on that for she had learned early that she could will something to happen if she really wanted it. She also had concerns more important to her than some long-dead roadbuilders called Romans.
    “Is this forest you spoke of nearby, my lord?” she questioned him.
    “Yes, my child,” he answered her, “but you must be careful for it is a deep and dense wood. I would not have you lost.”
    “I am not afraid of a forest,” she answered him. “My home is, was,” she corrected herself, “in the Argoat, an impenetrable and thick place of enchantment that has been there since the dawn of time. The forest is my friend. Old Catell, the wisewoman of our region, was teaching me of herbs and healing. She says I have the gift, and I do! I can see things that other people cannot,” she boasted with her child’s pride.
    “Can you see how much my Eada and I will love you?” he asked her.
    Mairin, who had been riding ahead of Aldwine Athelsbeorn upon his horse, leaned back against the Saxon, and tilted her head up to look into his blue eyes with her own deep violet ones. Mairin instinctively knew that this man would indeed love her with the unquestioning love of a father. In that instant she knew that she had found a place of refuge. “Would you really be my father?” she asked him softly, not quite able to believe her good luck.
    He nodded gravely. “Yes, Mairin, I would.”
    “I will not forget my real father,” she warned him.
    “I would not expect you to, my child.”
    “I think you will be a good father to me,” she said, and the matter was settled between them then and there.
    Gently he kissed the top of her small head. As he raised his own head up his eyes met those of Dagda, who smiled, his glance one of approval. Aldwine Athelsbeorn smiled back, realizing that for the first time in many months he was truly happy. There was not a day that would go by in his life that he would not regret Edyth’s loss. God was good, however, for he had given him Mairin. She needed him every bit as much as he needed