Immortal Warrior (12 page)

“What reason?” she challenged.

He shook his head. “You would not understand.”

“I am not witless, my lord. Explain it so I can. Was it punishment for my sharp tongue?”

“No.”

“Did I displease you so much in bed?”

“No! God’s legs, Alaida, is that what you’ve been thinking all day? You pleased me beyond words. Surely you know that.”

“Then why?” she demanded.

“I cannot tell you.”

“Cannot or will not?”

“Both,” he snapped back before he could stop himself. “And you may as well know now that I will ride out every day, without fail.”
There. It was out. Poorly, but out.

She looked as though he’d slapped her, open mouthed with shock. “
Every
day?”

“Every day, all day, fair or foul, and for the same good cause which has nothing—nothing!—to do with you or whether I am pleased or displeased. It is not my choice. It is . . . what I must do.”

“But why?” she fairly shouted.

“Because I must. Stop asking, woman. That is all the answer you will get.”

“It is—” she began, but Ivo moved toward her, warning in his eye, and she snapped her mouth shut again. With a “
Hummpf,
” she stalked over to the embroidery frame that sat near the window.

“’Because I must. Because I must,’ ” she repeated to herself, catching his tone precisely. She reached down, snatched up her needle, and jabbed it into the cloth. “
Coillons!
”

The sound of Brand’s favorite curse coming from the mouth of his lady wife—even this termagant of a wife and even in French—caught Ivo off guard. He started to laugh, and when she whirled on him, ready to do battle, it only made him laugh more. “I knew you would make no nun—unless nuns now talk like sailors.”

She choked on something that could have been either another profanity or a strangled laugh, and the fire suddenly drained out of her. She pressed her fingers between her brows as though her head pained her. “This is what I mean, my lord. You announce you will be husband only by night, you mock me, and yet you expect me to laugh with you.”

“Which you nearly did,” he pointed out, for which he earned a quick flash of almost-smile followed by a frown so sour it could have curdled milk. He tried a different tack. “Many men are husband only by night, and many of their ladies are glad of it.”

“Many ladies wish they had no husbands at all.” She heaved a sigh that sounded for all the world like she might be one of them, but when she spoke again, it was in resignation. “I am not going to change you in this, am I, my lord?”

“No.”

“And I suppose I am to wave farewell obediently each morning as you ride off.”

“I doubt you ever do anything obediently,” said Ivo. She looked up sharply, but he raised his hands in surrender before she could find reason to rage again. “I leave long before dawn, Alaida. I do not expect you to wake.”

“Before dawn,” she repeated in disbelief. “Every morning?”

“Yes. But I will return each night, and I promise you, the return will be more willing than the leaving.”

“So you say.”

“So I swear.” He ventured a little closer to her, and when she didn’t back away, closer still, so he could take her hands in his. “I do not wish to leave you, sweet leaf, but I must. I cannot tell you any more. You will have to trust me in this.”

“Trust you?” Her question carried a note of bitterness. “I barely know you, my lord. You are a stranger to me, for all that I lay beneath you last night. I have exchanged more words with your seneschal than with you.”

“That will change,” he vowed firmly, ignoring the flicker of envy that rose at her mention of Ari. Ari, who had already seen the sunlight touch her face, as he would never do. “You will come to know me over the next days and weeks, and trust will come with knowing.”

“And in the meantime?”

“In the meantime, I can offer only this as my pledge.” He swept her into his arms before she could protest and kissed her until he heard that little catch in her breath and felt her melt against him. When he finally set her back on her feet, her eyes had gone all smoky, in a way that made him feel reckless, like he would carry her off into the woods and keep her for his own no matter what came. “Do you understand?”

She swallowed hard. “I believe so, my lord.”

“Good. Now, would you like the gift I brought you?”

“I would not refuse it,” she said carefully. “But I did not put on a pretty gown as you asked. I was not happy with you when I dressed.”

“I suspect you are not happy with me, even now.” Ivo took in her plum-colored gown, laced just tight enough to show the curve of her body, and the pale yellow underdress that brightened her neck and wrists. On her head, instead of the head-swathing wimple, she wore a simple
couvre-chef
that let her plaits show. He nodded in approval. “’Tis plain, but better than that horror you wore last night. Hold out your hand.”

He pulled a pouch from his belt, unknotted it, and spilled its contents into her palm. A dozen small, dark green stones glinted within the knot of gold vines that formed the brooch.

“Emeralds!”

The surprise and delight in that one word was worth the fat purse it had cost him. “I’d been told you had red hair and thought you might have green eyes.”

“I am almost sorry I do not, even though they would likely mean even more freckles.” She held the brooch up, tilting the bruted stones against the firelight. “They are as if the leaves had turned to stone.”

As Alaida pinned her brooch in place and found a bronze mirror in which to admire it, Ivo glanced down at the piece on her embroidery frame. He immediately picked out his shield among the army of figures on the tapestry. He was beginning to puff up a bit at the idea that she had already stitched his image, when he noticed where her needle sat—where she had stabbed it so viciously only moments before.
Coillons, indeed.
His crotch throbbed as though she’d stabbed him instead of this bit of cloth. Wincing, he looked to his wife and the blade hanging at her waist, trying to decide whether he needed to disarm her before he sat beside her again. Then she turned, and thoughts of knives and needles faded in the glow of pleasure that lit her eyes.

“I have long wanted an emerald,” she said softly. “And now to have so many.”

“You like it, then?”

“I do, my lord, though once again I find myself lost in confusion, this time of my own making.” The light in her eyes dimmed a little as she touched the spot at the base of her throat where the brooch rested. “I vowed I would not be appeased with a bauble.”

“It was meant to please, not appease. I would have given it no matter what your mood.”

“Then you have accomplished your intent, my lord, for I am most pleased.”

“Good. Now, let us go show off your new jewels and have the contract read. I wish for every man in the hall to know how much I value my wife on all counts. Come.” He stepped out from behind her frame and held out his hand, and she crossed the few steps to lay her fingers on his palm. This time they were warm and steady. “Afterward, we will come back up here and I will try once more to convince you to say my name. Perhaps twice more.”

The gold of the firelight made the blush that rose in her cheeks look like sunrise. For the first time that evening, she smiled an honest smile, a woman’s smile. “If you must, my lord.”

It was as though she’d reached out to take him in her hand, so quickly did he harden. Supper was going to be a very long meal.

CHAPTER 8

“I CANNOT GRASP it. Three knights, one of them a baron, and all without squires.” Alaida contemplated the two men before her over folded hands. “You do not dance, sing, or hawk. Next you will tell me you do not play chess.”

Ivo laughed. “Not enough to be good at it.”

Aladia looked to Brand. “And you,
messire
?”

“Not at all, my lady,” he said, reaching for his cup of ale. With the wedding behind them, he had taken his place at Ivo’s right hand. By custom, Sir Ari should have been at the high table as well, next to Alaida, but he seemed to have vanished again shortly before supper, and Father Theobald sat in his place. It was Alaida’s comment on the missing seneschal, and on Oswald carving again, which had started this conversation and exposed the sad lack of graces among her husband and his knights. Why, even Neville and his pitiful friends had squires—and even their squires played chess. These two seemed to have been fostered by wolves.

“And what of Sir Ari?” she asked. “Does he play?”

Ivo looked to Brand, who shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

Alaida frowned. “What sort of land do you two come from,
messire
, that its noble knights do not play chess?”

Ivo shot Brand a glance as if in warning, but when he met Alaida’s eyes, his expression was bland. “What do you mean?”

“Sir Ari said he and Sir Brand are not Norman, and it is clear they are not English,” she said. She leaned forward so she could see Brand better. “But he did not say from where you do hail.”

“Uh . . .”

“Guelders,” said Ivo easily.

“Aye, Guelders,” echoed Brand.

Ivo took Alaida’s hand and began tracing lines down each finger, one at a time, in a way that sent shivers racing up her arm. “How did you come to ask Ari where he’s from?”

“We were talking of you, that first day, and he called you Ivar,” she said. His touch was distracting, but not so much so that she failed to notice the glances that passed between him and Brand again. Something about the topic made these two wary. She watched their faces carefully as she recounted the rest of her conversation with the seneschal.

Brand’s face grew more shuttered as she spoke, then suddenly brightened. “I remember Ivar! He was a good man—the kind you want by your side in battle—but a devil with the maids.”

“Really?” Alaida cocked an eyebrow. “Sir Ari said he was old.”

“Oh. Well, he probably seemed so to Ari. He’s much younger than I.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with good humor. “But I knew Ivar when he was still in his prime, and the women loved him as much as he loved them, and that was a great deal. He would find a willing wench near every night and—”

“Brand,” Ivo cut him off. “This is not a proper tale for my wife.”

“No. I suppose not,” Brand agreed even as his grin grew wider. “’Tis no wonder Ari thought of him, though. Ivar looked a lot like Father Theobald here.”

Alaida turned to eye the priest, with his belly like an ale-pot and his thinning hair the color of damp straw—not the sort she would have thought of as wenching his way through a village, even if he were not a priest. Her doubt must have shown on her face, for Father Theobald suddenly flushed, and Ivo and Brand burst out laughing. She felt her color rise, but then their laughter caught her and she fell into a fit of giggles.

“I am sorry, Father. It is just . . .” She realized she couldn’t explain without making things worse and succumbed to a full laugh. Father Theobald, bless him, simply looked down, patted his belly, and joined in.

When the laughter had died away, Brand addressed Alaida again. “So, my lady, you say that if I am to be a knight, I must learn to play chess.”

“The sooner, the better.” A few brisk orders sent two men upstairs for the chessboard and set other servants to clearing the tables.

As Alaida directed the placement of the board and chairs, Ivo stepped up behind her and rested his hands lightly on her shoulders. “What are you doing, wife?”

“Preparing to teach your man chess, my lord.”

He leaned forward to put his mouth next to her ear. “You are due for lessons of your own, if you will recall. Learning to say my name?”

If he had spread her legs right there, he could hardly have caused more havoc in her mind or her body. Desire swamped her, as it had earlier in the solar, when Lucifer himself had whispered into her ear that it might be pleasant to skip supper in favor of her husband’s lessons. She teetered on the edge of that wantonness as she answered, “I only try to do as you asked, my lord. Come to know you better.”

“By teaching
Brand
chess?”

“A man’s men are a reflection of his character,” she said neatly, but he only ground out a profanity that showed how much he disliked her argument. A few steps away, Father Theobald studied them with open curiosity, likely watching for any sign of intemperance to address the next time he had her at Mass. His concern was clearly warranted. Alaida affixed a neutral smile to her lips. “I cannot leave now, my lord. It would be ill mannered.”
Not to mention obvious.

“Show him the pieces and how they move,” said Ivo. “Then ask someone else to take over and excuse yourself.”

A part of her bridled at his high-handed order, but that other part of her, the part he had already taught to crave his touch, made her nod. “Yes, my lord.”

He squeezed her shoulders gently, and she heard the smile in his voice as he said, “Ivo.”

Then he was gone as Brand drew him aside for some conversation, and she was left wondering just how quickly she could explain the basics of the game and whether Father Theobald would be willing to help, considering how Sir Brand goaded him.

 

“WHERE THE DEVIL is Guelders?” demanded Brand in a low voice as soon as they reached a corner out of earshot of the others.

“Between Flanders and Saxony, I think. We can’t say we’re Norse. Memories are too fresh along these coasts.”

“And what do I do if I meet a man who really is from Guelders and he wants to talk of home?”

“Tell him you fostered elsewhere. Did Ari have any news?”

“I never got to his message. Oswald wanted to talk about getting him, er, you, more fighting men—it seems your king has all your knights in prison—and I found some other small distractions.” His gaze wandered, and Ivo followed it to a pair of golden-haired women who were stripping down a table. Their breasts bobbled merrily beneath their gowns as they shook out the cloth, and Brand sighed. “To my mind, all that Danish seed has improved the English.”