Immortal Warrior (20 page)

“That you did, my friend,” said Ivo, and turned Fax toward thicket where the dead boar awaited them.

 

ALAIDA HELD SUPPER again that evening, waiting to see if Ivo and Brand would turn up. Their usual time for returning came and went once more, however, with no sign of them, and she reluctantly gave the signal to bring in the food. People were just filling their trenchers when the door burst open on young Tom.

“They come, my lady. Edric just spied them crossing the orchard, and he says they have large game and that one of them looks to be hurt.”

He flew back out without waiting. Oswald was up and after him, calling for men and a litter before Alaida could even get to her feet.

“Bôte,” she began, but the nurse was already snapping instructions. The household scrambled to obey, the meal forgotten, and Alaida was left with nothing to do but hurry outside.

The gate swung wide as two horses walked out of the dark. Ivo’s mount labored hard, but as it neared, she could see that was only because it dragged a rough sled with some large animal on it. Relief washed over her as Ivo swung easily off his horse. Sir Brand, however, wobbled dangerously in the saddle, and Oswald moved quickly to his aide, calling for the litter-bearers to hurry.

“I’m not that hurt,” growled Brand. “I just need a hand down and a jar of good ale.”

“Be careful of his right side,” directed Ivo as Oswald reached up to help him down.

Brand swayed a bit as his feet touched the ground, but he straightened and shrugged off Oswald’s steadying hand. “I’m fine, I tell you.”

“Oh, yes, you look quite fine. Since you’re so well, in fact, you may help
me
inside.” Alaida slipped her arm into Brand’s, and they started slowly off toward the hall. “What happened?”

Brand jerked his head toward the carcass. “That boar caught me on foot.”

“A boar!”

“A huge brute of a boar, my lady,” called Tom from the group clustering around the carcass. “’Twill feed us for days.”

“Aye, and he killed it with his bare hands and a twig,” said Ivo. His words drew a snort of pained laughter from Brand and a stir of admiration among the men. He fell in beside Alaida, calling back to the men. “Summon the butcher, and tell the cook Sir Brand wants the heart for supper tomorrow.”

Brand took one look at Bôte’s makeshift sickroom and shook his head. “No bed. A sturdy chair will do me better.”

Ivo picked up the lord’s chair and plunked it down before the fire. “Here. Sit.”

Brand gingerly lowered himself down. “Aaah. At last, something with steady legs. I never before realized how often that horse of mine stumbles.”

“Perhaps you were never before so unsteady to carry,
messire
,” Alaida pointed out. “Where are you hurt?”

“Thigh and arm, but the worst is here.” He touched his right side.

Bôte lifted his shirt and tugged down his braies enough to show the horrific gash that marred his hip, as long as Alaida’s palm was wide and fully two fingers deep, even with the powdered herbs and cobwebs packed into the gap where flesh was missing.

“Who stitched you?” asked Alaida.

“Some woman in the woods. Merewyn, she said her name was.”

“Good. You were far better off with her than you would have been here. In fact, I likely would have sent for her myself.”

“That’s good to know.” Brand jerked as Bôte probed the edges of the wound with one pudgy finger. “Be gentle there, old woman.”

Bôte poked another time or two, then laid her palm over the area. “There’s no fever in it. Fortune favored you, Knight, putting you in Merewyn’s hands.”

“Aye. She did well by me.”

Alaida studied the wound from over Bôte’s shoulder. She pointed. “I wonder why she put stitches clear out here, where the flesh is barely torn?”

“There was much blood and it was night,” said Brand, tugging his shirt down. “Likely she couldn’t make out the edges.”

“Still, ’tis strange she didn’t bind such a deep wound,” said Alaida.

“She did. It came loose.”

Alaida pushed up his sleeve and found that gash open to the air as well. “This one, too?”

“He tore the bandages off,” said Ivo. “Said they itched—and you see how pigheaded he is.”

“Aye,” said Alaida sympathetically. “Well, you are lucky indeed,
messire
. This one is healing as cleanly as the other. I do not know what herbs Merewyn used, but if you were not here to tell me otherwise, I would think your wounds were a week old, at the least. Let us dress these, and then we will see to the one on your leg.”

“He needs a bath first,” said Ivo. “He reeks of the boar’s filth.”

Alaida shook her head. “’Tis unwise to bathe an ill man.”

“I’m not ill,” said Brand.

“You will be if you have a bath,” said Bôte. “A chill will set in.”

“Bah, I dunk myself in rivers when there’s snow on the ground,” argued Brand. “Fetch me water and soap. I will scrub the stink off myself if I have to.”

“And tear your wounds open?” Alaida shook her head. “No,
messire
. If you must have a washing, you will get it— but from gentler hands than yours. Then your wounds will be dressed and you will be put to bed. And that is my order as your lady.”

“But I . . .” he began, but Ivo cleared his throat and Brand finished without enthusiasm, “At your command, my lady.”

“Wash his hair, too, and trim his beard while you’re about it. In fact, shave him, if he’ll stand for it,” said Alaida in an aside to Bôte as servants came forward with soap and toweling. “And ensure he stays warm.”

“We will, my lady.”

“He needs fresh clothing,” said Ivo. “His are beyond repair. Merewyn loaned those.”

“We shall see they get back to her and—”

“I’ll take them back,” interrupted Brand. “I need to say a proper thank-you.”

“As you say,
messire
. And as I was saying, we will provide new for you. For both of you,” she said, noting for the first time the blood staining her husband’s tunic. “Hadwisa and Eadgyth, help Bôte while I see to dressing our hunters.”

Alaida took up a candle and headed for the wardrobe as the others began easing Brand out of his clothes. Few on the manor had shoulders so broad, and it took some searching to find a chainse and winter gown she thought would fit. Then there was the matter of braies. She quickly found the patched ones meant for the servants as part of their yearly boon, but hunted through the cupboards without finding any of the better quality that would go to a noble knight. If Geoffrey were here, he’d know just where to lay his hands on them, but he hadn’t yet returned with the extra men. Perhaps they were in with the women’s things. She unlocked the other chest and began sorting through the contents, digging deeper and deeper in her search.

“Was your mother frightened by a badger while you were in the womb?” asked Ivo from behind her just as she located the braies. Alaida straightened to find him leaning in the doorframe. He had shed the stained gown and wore only his linens and a crooked smile. “Every time I turn around, I find you tail up, tunneling your way into something.”

She was in no mood for his teasing. “Then your mother must have been frightened by an ass. Hunting boar with just two men!”

“The disposition of a badger as well,” said Ivo, his smile gone. “We were not hunting the boar, it was hunting us—or Brand, at least, since I was not with him. Do not make that face at me, woman.”

“What face?”

“That one.” He jerked his chin toward her. “The one that says you don’t believe me, and that if you did, you would see me whipped. Yes, that one.”

She snorted and began replacing the items she’d pulled out of the chest. “Very well. Tell me the rest, my lord, and I will try to mind my face.”

“There’s little more to tell. We were separated. I heard the fight, but by the time I reached the spot, the boar was dead and Brand had stumbled off, bleeding. I spent most of the night trying to find him in the dark.”

“And then chose to dress out the boar rather than bring him home,” she said without masking her disgust.

“Ah. The face,” he chided. “Ari dealt with the carcass while Brand rested, as he much needed to do.”

“One of you might have come for help. We could have sent a wagon for him and—”

“It would have been worth my life to try to load him in a wagon,” said Ivo with certainty.

“I suppose it would have,” she granted after considering a moment how Brand would view such treatment. “But could you not have sent Sir Ari to tell us what had happened?”

“It wasn’t possible.”

She waited for him to explain why, but he didn’t, and when she glanced up, he wore that closed look that came over his face every time he spoke of his and his men’s odd absences. Well, piss on him. She rose, dropped the lid of the chest with a loud clunk, and picked up the clothing she had chosen for Brand. She started around Ivo, but he shifted so he blocked her more completely.

Exasperated, she backed up a step or two and glared up at him. “Is there something you need,
monseigneur
?”

Amusement flickered across his face. “To have my curiosity satisfied.”

He was doing it again. She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she did. “Curiosity about what?”

“You. As we rode in, I thought I saw some . . . concern on your face.”

“Tom said a man was injured.”

“And you worried it was me?”

“I worried it was anyone. We are sore short of knights and cannot afford to lose one. Even one who only appears after dark.”

“So it was concern for Alnwick.” He stepped closer. “And that is why you wished for Ari to tell you where we were?”

“We were inconvenienced. We waited supper on you both nights.”

Another step. “But you weren’t worried.”

“No.”

“Are you certain? You weren’t worried about . . .” He was on her now, a handspan away, looming over her, his eyes dark and mysterious in the dim light. “Anything at all?”

Yes,
she wanted to say.
Yes, I was worried about you, that you were hurt, that I would be widow before I am hardly wife.
She wanted him to kiss her and carry her upstairs and release this desperate ache that rose up in her every time he came near, and in the same thought she wanted to beat her fists against his chest in frustration and rail at him never to touch her again. As his head came slowly, slowly down to her, she chose neither course. “Actually, you are right, my lord. I was worried. About my silver thymel.”

That brought him up short. He reared back. “Your what?”

“My thymel. For sewing,” she added when he looked blank. “I wagered it today. The women were guessing what game you would bring home from your
hunting.
As you rode in, I realized I had lost it to one of the spinsters—Rohesia guessed a boar—and I was thinking how I shall miss it.”

“Your thymel,” he repeated.

“My thymel,” she said firmly. “Sir Brand will be needing these.”

She sidestepped around him, but his hand shot out and curled around her arm to stop her. “What was your guess?”

“That you were not hunting at all.” His hand burned through the cloth, as warm as if it lay against bare skin, and suddenly the choice was open again and she took the risk, offering herself up. “Your things are upstairs, my lord. Will you come up with me?”

The noise from the hall filled the silence that stretched out between them. Finally, he gave his answer. “I think I had better make use of the soap and hot water as well. Send them down, if you will.”

She did so, and by the time she went back down the next morning to break her fast and pray, he and Brand were long gone.

CHAPTER 13

FIVE DAYS HAD passed since Sir Brand vanished into the dawn when Merewyn once more knocked her knife off the table. It stuck itself in the same spot.

Thus, it was no surprise when she rounded the corner of her little cottage that evening after feeding her chickens and saw him there, a shadow man on a shadow horse against the dark trunks of the trees. Beside him sat another man on horseback—a friend, from the ease she felt between them. She started toward them, and they nudged their horses out into the clearing and met her halfway.

She smiled up at the face she had come to know so well in a single night. “You shaved your beard.”

He stroked his chin, chuckling ruefully. “Not by choice.” “It looks well, my lord. I hope you find yourself better than when you left here last.”

“Much better, thanks to you, Merewyn, but stop calling me ‘lord.’ I’ m only a knight.” He indicated his friend. “Him, you can ‘m’lord’ as you please. He is the new lord of Alnwick.”

“Lord Ivo,” she said as she knelt to the pale-haired nobleman. “I’ve heard your name in the village. You wed Lady Alaida when you took the hall.”

“You are at the advantage, Healer. All I know of you is your name and that my wife was pleased when she heard who had cared for Brand. She said she would have sent for you herself.”

“I have often carried my herbs to the manor and will gladly do so again if your lady asks, my lord. But what has brought you both to me this evening?”

“I came to thank you properly and to return the clothes you loaned me,” said Sir Brand, twisting to untie the bundle behind his saddle.

“You thanked me well enough, my”—she caught his glance and made the shift at the last instant—“
messire
. It is my work to heal.”

“Nonetheless, I do thank you again, and I bring you a gift.” He handed the clothes down to her, then unhooked a brace of hares from the pommel and held them out. “I set a snare today, thinking you might find some use for fresh meat.”

“They are most welcome, my—Sir Brand.” This time all three of them smiled at her near slip. She took the hares with pleasure. Fresh meat was rare in her pot, and the skins would make warm mitts for next winter. “Will you stay a little? I would see how you are healing.”