Immortal Warrior (30 page)

“Are you mad?” Brand’s voice was a savage growl in Ivo’s ear. “By the gods, I ought to cut it off and nail it to her door to remind you.” He bounced Ivo against the wall once more, just to knock the rest of the air out of him, then dropped him in a heap.

“Heh,” said Ivo, lacking wind for more.

“I
saw
you,” Brand hissed down at him between clenched teeth. “I came up and started to push the door open, and there you were on top of her. It was all I could do not to walk in and pour a bucket of water over you like the dog you are. And you had the balls to warn me off Merewyn.”

“She . . .” Ivo gulped down another breath and pushed himself up. “She’s with child.”

Brand froze, the same look on his face that Ivo knew had been on his own. “She what?”

“She’s with child. Now come. We will discuss this where there aren’t so many ears.”

They retrieved their horses and rode out in silence, and when they were far enough from the wall, Brand said, “After so long, I didn’t think . . .”

“Nor did I. Apparently the moon was with her after all.”

“Balls. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know.” Ivo had forced the whole mess out of his mind while he’d lain with Alaida; now it came rushing back. If Ari was right, in a few months they would have to figure out how to care for an infant who could fly. He remembered one day early on when sunset had caught him a hundred feet off the ground. He’d snagged a branch on the way down, but the vision of a child tumbling that far nearly made him vomit from the saddle. “Maybe we can find another witch, a white witch, to remove—”

“I’ve tried other witches. None of them are white,” said Brand curtly. “They all have souls black as this bird. What about one of their priests?”

“Who, Theobald?” Ivo asked, and Brand snorted. “Exactly. Besides, they burn what they see as evil, and I have no desire to see if we can die by fire.” He glared at the bird, “Call another vision. Ask for guidance this time.”

“They don’t always come when he calls them,” reminded Brand. “What will we do while we wait?”

“What choice do we have? We will live our cursed lives as best we can, and I’ll do what I can to keep Alaida safe and happy.”

There was a pause before Brand asked, “Keeping her safe tonight, were you?”

Ivo glanced at him, saw the glint of a smile, and felt a wash of gratitude at his understanding and forgiveness. “No. That was the happy part.”

“Well, it can’t do any harm at this point. You may as well enjoy her while you can.”

They rode on in silence. The forest grew thicker around them, dimming the gray light of the approaching dawn, though the birds chirruped and trilled around them.

“Have you ever heard that a male child makes a woman more . . . willing?” asked Ivo as they neared the spot where he would leave Brand.

“No.” His friend twisted in his saddle and studied him keenly. “Balls. I think a part of you is happy for this.”

“After three months denying myself? Aye, a part of me is
very
happy.” Ivo reined Fax to a halt at the edge of the grove where the bear would prowl that day. “But I would gladly let you cut that part off if it would make things right for her.”

Brand slid off Kraken, quickly stripped, and tied his clothes behind the saddle. As Ivo rode away, he called after him, “If it would make things right for her, I’d cut off my own.”

“I know,” said Ivo, grateful that he had such a friend.

CHAPTER 20

“NO MORE.”

Exhausted, Ari plunged his hand into the blood-reddened water and held it there as he looked to the eagle sitting on the dead tree across the pond.

“I cannot do this more. I’m spilling too much blood.” He groaned as the sting of the water worked its way past the numbness brought by his entreaties. “I’m sorry, my friend, they will not speak, and I’m no use to either of you if I cannot stay upright. It ends for now.”

The eagle stared with those golden-brown eyes, so unlike Ivo’s, blinked that strange front-to-back blink, then leapt into the sky and streaked toward Alnwick. Wincing, Ari reached for the clean strip of cloth he’d laid nearby. He had called the visions every day for nearly a month now, and his palm was striped with fresh cuts and fading scars. His constant bandage was raising questions in the hall, and the drain of bleeding so much and so often had turned his limbs to lead. He needed time to rest and regain his strength before he approached the gods again.

He struggled to his feet and went to his horse. The animal seemed to have grown immense while he bled. Swearing, he lifted his leaden foot into the stirrup, took a deep breath, and hoisted himself up, grunting as he had to pull with his bad hand. A nap, that’s what he needed. A long nap, a good meal, and a sennight without laying his veins open. With a sigh, he turned his mount toward Alnwick.

 

THIS ONE HAD even more magic about him than his friends.

Merewyn stood in the thick shelter of a willow and watched the seneschal ride away. She knew Sir Ari from the village, having seen him from a distance as he oversaw the building of the castle mound. Today, she had come upon him as he’d knelt, bleeding and calling to the gods, and watched silently from the green shadows as his efforts failed.
A seer who could not see, and who spoke to an eagle as to a friend. Very strange.

She added these new tidbits to what she knew of Sir Brand and his friends. Their odd comings and goings continued, despite the ever-shorter nights and the child, which was now common knowledge. A few well-placed questions had told her that none in the village or manor had seen Lord Ivo or Brand by day, nor this Sir Ari by night.

Nearly as strange, though, was how few seemed troubled by that. The village was thriving, the folk were happy at the prospect of a strong castle to defend them, and all three men were known as generous and fair-handed. Most believed that Lord Ivo and Brand hunted a great deal—though seldom successfully—and that Sir Ari’s nightly absence could be attributed to some whore in Lesbury. So long as things continued well and Lady Alaida stood by her husband, there would be little reason to question those beliefs.

Yet what Merewyn had seen today spoke of some deep trouble. The seneschal’s efforts had bordered on desperation; he had poured so much blood into the water that she would not want to harvest herbs from the pool’s edge for a good while.

And who was the “she” he was trying to help? Surely some Lesbury whore was not worth the expenditure of all that blood-magic. But who? And why?

Her morning’s picking ruined and her mind awhirl, Merewyn turned back toward home. As she walked, images floated past her inner eye: knife, blood, eagle, Lord Ivo, raven, Brand, the lady, love potion, Sir Ari, pond . . . They jumbled together, dark and troubling. And over them, the lady’s voice asked, “Can you help me? Will you?”

Here might be the purpose she’d been seeking all this time, the reason the gods had led Sir Brand to her door. They had surely set her in Sir Ari’s way today to put her more firmly on that path, as clear a message as they could give without pouring a true vision into her mind. As Merewyn absorbed this possibility, the clouds overhead suddenly parted, shooting a beam of light down through the tall trees to gild a woodland rowan, its branches thick with still-green berries.

“Yes, Mother,” said Merewyn. She dropped to her knees in the patch of gold before the sacred tree and raised her palms into the light, surrendering. “As always, I obey. But first, if you please, show me the rest, that I may understand and better follow your will. So mote it be.”

 

“. . . AND THE DUKE married the washerwoman, though she was not of noble blood, and she bore him a son who grew to be even greater than his father. But that is a tale for another day.”

“Well done, Thomas!” Alaida and the others clapped appreciatively as Tom finished. “If I had known you were such a fine storyteller, I would have claimed your services long ago, and my lord would not have a squire.”

“Hey,” protested Ivo from where he sat shirtless on a cushion at her feet.

“Then I’m glad you did not know, my lady,” said Tom, flushing with pleasure. “I fear ’tis not my own tale, though. I got it from Sir Ari.”

“Wherever it comes from, you told it well,” said Alaida.

“You haven’t been hounding the seneschal, have you, boy?” asked Oswald. He moved a stone on the Morris board.

“No, Marshal. I merely listen when he’s about. He is nearly always telling some tale or other.”

“Nearly always talking, you mean.” Ivo countered Oswald’s move and took a piece. “Keep listening to him, Tom. I like a good tale nearly as well as your lady does.”

“’Twas only to please her that I learned that one, my lord,” he confessed. “But I learn other things from listening. And not only to Sir Ari.”

“As you should. Marshal, what work do you have planned for young Tom tomorrow?”

“He’ll be running the hill, my lord.” Oswald looked Tom up and down. “Twice. In mail.”

Tom’s groan was barely audible, but Ivo laughed. “Go on to bed, then. You’ll need the rest.” He glanced up at Alaida. “As do you, my lady wife.”

“Come along, you lot.” Oswald scooped up the Morris board and stones, and he and the others followed Tom out, offering their “God’s rests” as they went. Only Bôte lingered to turn back the furs and fuss over the tray that Hadwisa had carried up earlier, slicing bread and spreading butter.

“Ach. That lazy thing.” She lifted a clay jar and clattered around in it with a spoon. “The honey’s gone hard as stone, and Hadwisa did naught about it. I’ll tell her to bring up better.”

“Just put it by the fire,” said Alaida. “It will soften long before Hadwisa straggles back upstairs.”

“Aye, I suppose it will, at that.” Bôte set the little clay jar at the edge of the coals and straightened with a grunt. “Don’t leave it too long, lamb, lest it boil.”

“We won’t,” said Alaida. “God’s rest, Nurse.”

“And you, my lady. My lord.”

As the door shut behind her, Ivo shifted up onto his knees, so his eyes were nearly even with Alaida’s.

“You’re doing well with Tom,” he said. “There’s less of the stable in him every day.”

“He would still embarrass you at court,” said Alaida. “But given time, he’ll serve. He’s as quick as his father, and if you’re lucky, he’ll prove just as brave.”

Ivo’s brow creased. “Oswald said he’s a bastard and an orphan.”

“He is. But ’tis clear who his father is. Was, I mean.”

“Oh? And who is—
was
that?” he teased.

“Merewyn’s husband. Aelfwine.” She pursed her lips at Ivo’s dubious expression. “Tom is the very image of him, down to the way he walks. Even Merewyn sees it—perhaps especially her.”

“What do you mean?”

“She never had a child of her own. I was too young to know, but Bôte said that’s why Aelfwine turned to other women. Tom’s mother was one of them.”

“Merewyn mentioned her husband dying, once when I stopped with Brand. What happened?”

“It was four, no, five years ago. I had just come back from fostering at Bamburgh. A dog attacked a flock of our sheep on Swinlees. Aelfwine heard and ran to help the shepherd. Both were bitten, not badly, but . . .”

“It was mad,” said Ivo quietly.

She nodded, lost in the memory. “Bôte and Merewyn worked so hard, and we all prayed, of course, but they both died of the mad fever within the month.”

“A terrible death.”

“And a terrible loss for the village: Merewyn and Ebba widowed, six children left with no father—and young Tom left with no one at all. His mother was already gone. Grandfather took pity.”

“That’s how he came to work in the stable?”

She nodded. “And how I ended up with Hadwisa. She was the oldest of Will Shepherd’s children. They needed her wage to eat.”

Ivo’s eyes brightened. “Aah.
That
explains much.”

“About what?”

“About why you’re so easy on the girl. She needs a firmer hand. You tolerate from her what you do not from the others, even from Bôte.”

Alaida sat back, frowning at him. “Perhaps you are correct.”

“Perhaps?”

“Oh, all right. You are correct. But I do tolerate much from Bôte as well.”

“Too much, even if she was your nurse.”

“How can I scold the woman who wiped my tears?” she demanded. “And what about you? You tolerate just as much from Sir Ari. He vanishes every night to go off whoring and you say nothing.”

“Whoring? Is that what he’s doing?” Amusement twinkled in his eyes as he said with all innocence, “I did not know there were whores among the good women of Alnwick.”

“Why? Are you looking for one?”

“I am not,” he said firmly. “Besides, when would I have time for one? Or energy?”

“
Phfft.
” She pushed away the hand he’d slid up to cup her breast. “He has a woman in Lesbury, Bôte says.”

“Ah, Lesbury. I knew it couldn’t be Alnwick.” His hand slipped back and she left it, enjoying the warmth.

“You should make him stay here, my lord, to amuse you, if nothing else. He does tell good tales, the few times I’ve been able to corner him into telling one.”

“I’ve heard them all.” He tugged at the edge of her robe to expose the upper curve of one breast and leaned forward to place a lingering kiss there. “Besides, I prefer the amusements
you
offer.”

“But he—”

“Enough, Alaida.” His voice was calm, but when he raised his head, his eyes sparked with warning. “Ari’s nights are his own.”

“Ah, yes. Like your days,
monseigneur
.” Angry, she pushed to her feet and stepped around him.

Behind her, he sighed. “Do not do this, Alaida. Things are as they are.”

She turned, ready to snap at him, but stopped. He suddenly looked so worn, so alone, staring off into the fire like that. “If you would just tell me why, perhaps I could . . .”