Immortal Warrior (37 page)

“My lord?” she said, glancing up. “Are you unwell?”

“No.” He sat beside her and gently touched her cheek, remembering another time when she had asked that. “I was only thinking how very beautiful you are, Alaida of Alnwick.”

Her brow wrinkled. “You frighten me when you look at me so. ’Tis like you would take what you see into your very soul.”

“I would, to carry with me all my days.” With bitter awareness of what he was doing, he kissed her good-bye.

“Sleep well, sweet leaf. Dream of me,” he said when he finally pulled back. He stroked Beatrice’s cheek. “You, too, little one. Drink deeply, then sleep, for your mother’s sake.

“Bôte, see to them,” he said, and left, pausing on the landing to stare down into the hall and wait for Merewyn to follow.

“Ari rests nearby,” he said under his breath as she stepped out beside him. “He will be here just after sunrise.”

She nodded. “If things go foul, you will find me where we agreed, but in truth, my lord, I sense nothing strange. I think tomorrow you will be here with your wife and child.”

“I hope you are right, Healer.”
Odin, Frigga, Thor, Freyja, all of you—let her be right, I beg you. Please, let her be right.

CHAPTER 27

IT WAS TIME. Heart pounding, Merewyn stood over the cradle and waited for the sun to rise.

Behind her, Lady Alaida and the others slept soundly, lulled by a potion slipped into the ale shared in celebration of a child brought safely into the world. Those below lay in a similar stupor—Brand’s doing—and Sir Ari would divert the guards outside. All was in readiness.

As the moment approached, she quickly loosened the swaddling bands and traced a sign of protection on the babe’s chest. She pushed aside the tapestries and opened the shutter in case the eagle made its appearance fully fledged and ready to fly. She began mouthing the same prayer she’d repeated throughout the night, for the Mother to shield little Beatrice from this horrible curse, or if she could not, to aid those who worked to keep her safe and to ease Lady Alaida’s heart in what would be a terrible sadness.

The first ray of light breached the horizon and froze the breath in Merewyn’s chest. She scanned Beatrice, searching for the first sign of feather or claw, expecting screams as the pain of changing tore through her tiny body.
Anytime. Anytime.

Beatrice stirred, whining. Her little arms, free of the swaddling, flailed, flapping like wings. Tears filled Merewyn’s eyes.
Please, Mother, no.
The light grew brighter, the sky bluer, the clouds pinker. The child blinked a few times and drew her arms in. Her fists bunched and flexed by her chin, she snuffled twice, then, with a soft exhalation, drifted back to sleep, at peace. No pain, no feathers, no claws.

Stunned, Merewyn knelt by the cradle and quickly examined her. Fingers, toes, belly, back, head—nothing. Beatrice was a fine, healthy child with no mark of evil on her, and she stayed so, even as the sun gilded the land outside and the roosters crowed the morn. Words of thanks came to Merewyn’s lips as her tears, now full of joy, dropped onto the baby like rain.

She was still there on her knees when the sound of Sir Ari’s voice outside startled her from her thanksgiving. She rewrapped Beatrice and hurried to meet him on the stairs. He saw her tears and blanched before she could say, “All is well.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. See?” She showed him the babe, and he blinked several times as if fighting tears of his own. “Can you tell him?”

“You show him, at the window. He comes as we speak.”

Merewyn hurried back to the solar just as a dark shape whisked past outside. The eagle made a slow turn and lit on the paling wall barely a dozen yards away. Merewyn pulled aside the baby’s wrappings just enough to show her chest and arms and carefully held her up in the frame of the window. The eagle stared, blinked, then spread his wings and leapt into the air, sweeping past the window once more, his wing tip just inches away. The rush of chill air over her bared skin startled Beatrice awake and she wailed, the sound of a newborn, not an eaglet. Outside, the great bird rose up, soaring higher and higher, wheeling and spinning, joy evident in every wingbeat as he danced the sky.

“Bôte?” came a groggy voice behind her.

“Merewyn, my lady.” Merewyn hugged Beatrice to her chest and quickly rearranged her wrappings.

“Why is she crying?”

“We were greeting her first dawn, my lady.” Merewyn closed the shutter, wiped the last of the tears from her cheeks, and turned with a smile to carry the baby to her mother. “Your eagle came to visit, and Lady Beatrice was bidding him welcome.”

 

“ARE YOU NEARLY done, m’lady? Lady Beatrice sucks at her fist and ’twould be better for your milk if she sucked at you.”

“Fetch her here.” Alaida choked down the last of the bland oat gruel that was her supper and set the bowl aside as Bôte brought her daughter.

“Here we are, lamb.” Bôte perched on the edge of the bed, grinning broadly as Alaida put Beatrice to the breast. “Look at her. She knows what she wants. Suckles like a calf.”

“And me the cow,” said Alaida, wincing as Beatrice worked hard for milk not yet there. “What makes you smile so, Bôte?”

“You with a bairn, lamb. I always thought you would go off to marry and that would be the end of me. But here you are, lady and mother, and me still here to help. ’Tis a miracle.”

“Aye, that it is, Nurse,” said a low voice from the door.

“Ivo!” said Alaida, relieved beyond reason.

Bôte popped to her feet and stepped forward to block him from coming closer. “The lying-in room is forbidden to men, my lord, as the birthing room was last night—or should have been.”

“Rules invented by men without wives or children.”

Bôte crossed herself. “Sacrilege.”

“Truth.” He bypassed her and bent to kiss Alaida’s cheek. “Good evening, wife.” He bent further, to kiss Beatrice’s head. “And you, too, daughter.”

His breath warmed Alaida’s breast, and tears leapt to her eyes. She tried to hide them by ducking her head, but he was too quick.

“What’s this?” He lifted her chin and frowned. “Is Bôte right? Should I leave?”

“No.” She pressed a kiss to his fingers. “I just . . . I wondered all day if I would see you tonight.”

“You should
not
be seeing him,” said Bôte. “Not until you’ve been churched. You cannot stay, my lord.”

Ivo straightened, a smile on his lips but an angry glint in his eyes. “Nurse, would you like to find a new lady to serve?”

Bôte’s expression went flat. “No, my lord.”

“Then close that mouth. I will submit myself to the priest and do whatever penance he demands, but I will
not
wait forty days to see my wife and child. Now leave us. I will only stay a little. I know they both need rest.”

“Yes, my lord.” Bôte backed toward the door. “Of course you do, my lord.”

“She seeks only to protect me,” said Alaida when she’d gone.

Ivo came to sit on the edge of the bed. “Do you need protection from me?”

“Only on occasion.” She slipped one hand along his jaw and drew him back to kiss her properly. “You’re sweating. Is it warm out?”

“No, I rushed. I could not reach you quickly enough.”

She swallowed back a lump in her throat as more tears dribbled down her cheeks.

“Again? If I am going to make you weep at every turn, I will go and send the old woman back.”

“No!” She clutched at his sleeve. “Every time I dozed today, I dreamed of searching for you. I tire of it. I want you here.”

“And why did you hunt, in these dreams of yours?” he teased gently.

“To find you for Beatrice’s christening. I made Father Theobald wait for your return, you know, since she is so hale.”

“Ah.”

“And because your kiss last night felt like a farewell,” she added, accusation shading her voice.

Some strong emotion flickered behind his eyes as he stroked her cheek. “Well, it was not. I am here, lady wife, and here I will remain so long as Heaven permits.” He worked his finger into Beatrice’s balled fist, letting her tiny fingers curl around his joint as she suckled. “I have not attended a christening in many a year and paid little attention when I did. Remind me, what must I do?”

 

BEATRICE SNORED LIKE her mother, Ivo discovered later that night.

The next night, he learned that if he stroked gently down the bridge of her nose, her eyes would close despite herself and she would fall asleep, even if she was fussing. On the third, he realized that the nail on her smallest finger was no bigger than a barleycorn.

These discoveries all came in the silence after midnight, after Beatrice had woken to nurse and been put back in her cradle. Ivo would listen from the hall, wait to give Alaida time to fall asleep and for Bôte to crawl into her cot, then slip into the solar to hang over the child until dawn approached, marveling at what the gods and his lady wife had given him.

On the fourth night, a stool waited for him there by the cradle, beside a table with a cup of ale, freshly poured. When he glanced over to where Bôte lay, her narrow eyes glittered in the lamp light, watching him. He nodded his thanks, and wonder of wonders, she smiled, giving her blessing to his vigil.

So watching Beatrice became his whole night, just as watching the manor from a nearby tree had become the entirety of the eagle’s day. Each night, he would see what new thing he could discover about his daughter. The speed at which she grew and changed stunned him—he could see the differences day by day—and the more she grew, the more she looked like her mother.

Except those eyes were definitely not going to be brown, he decided as she stared at his ring one night nearly a month after her birth. He moved his hand and chuckled at her determination as she tracked the gleam from side to side with eyes somewhere between light blue and gray. It was good, he thought, that he’d left his mark on her somehow, but he was glad she looked like her mother in everything else—especially the nose. She began to whine a little, so he stroked that tiny Alaida-nose to put her to sleep before she could wake her mother again. He yawned as she yawned, exhausted from all these nights and days of watching her but unable to keep himself from it even for a little.

He reached for the spiced wine Bôte had left him that night and drained the bowl, relishing the pleasant warmth that flowed through him. Beatrice snuffled again in her sleep, and Ivo set aside the cup and knelt by the cradle to see if she was waking. She wasn’t, but he stayed there anyway, his chin resting on his folded arms, and watched her sleep.

The next thing he knew, roosters were crowing outside and his head felt thick as pease pottage. Trying to shake off the cobwebs, he struggled to his feet and opened the shutter. The fog outside glowed faintly pink.
Was dawn so close?
Panic rose just as the first pain of changing hit him.

Odin, no!
He started for the door then realized he had no time to escape. With little else he could do, he pushed the shutter fully open and peeled out of his clothes, kicking them and his sword beneath the bed where they might not be noticed. The second wave of pain ripped through him, tearing a groan up from his gut.

“Ivo?”

He whirled as Alaida sat up in the bed.

“No,” he begged the gods as pain ripped down his arms where feathers sprouted. Alaida stared, her face a mask of confusion that twisted into horror as his feet cramped into claws and he buckled to the floor, shrinking, drawing in to fit the eagle’s form. He clamped his mouth against the tearing pain, only his lips were no longer lips but a beak, and the eagle’s piercing cry covered Alaida’s gasp of shock.

This was what Ari had seen, the last vestige of Ivo realized as the sky beyond the open window beckoned. This was the vision the gods had given.
Him
, not Beatrice.

Hands clutching over her open mouth, Alaida tried to scream and failed, too terrified to make a sound. With another screech, the eagle leapt to the sill to test his wings, flapping them powerfully above the sleeping infant, then sailed out into the mist, away from the terrible silence.

 

SCREAMING. SHE WAS screaming but there was no sound and she couldn’t move and it was
him
.

Then Bôte was there, her familiar, safe arms gathering her close, and Alaida’s scream finally came out, muffled against the old woman’s bosom.

“Hush, my lady. Stop. Quiet yourself. Lady Beatrice is fine. She’s fine.”

“But it was
him
,” sobbed Alaida, trying to tell her. “It was
him
.”

Bôte hugged her tighter, half smothering her. “Aye, it was, but he flew away. He’s gone. All is well.”

No. It wasn’t well. Nothing was well. Alaida tore away from Bôte and scrambled over to the cradle where her daughter slept as though nothing had happened. Outside, the fog had swallowed any sign of the bird, and for a heartbeat Alaida doubted herself.
A nightmare,
she thought.
A trick of the eyes.
She slammed the shutter and latched it and stood there, breathing so hard her lungs burned.

Oh, God. It
was
him.
He had changed into a bird. An
eagle.
A moan welled up, building toward another scream.

Bôte grabbed her by the shoulders, her fingers digging into Alaida’s flesh as she shook her. “Silence, you fool, before someone hears you,” she hissed. “Where will you be if the others learn your husband is a demon? Where will Lady Beatrice be? They will burn you both.”

Her words cut Alaida’s scream short with an even deeper terror.

“A man who becomes a bird,” continued Bôte, her disgust clear. “’Tis no wonder he leaves you each dawn.”

“Then you saw it, too,” Alaida breathed, almost relieved, because it meant she wasn’t mad.

“Aye, I saw it, but ’tis our fortune no one else did, else they would be here even now, dragging all three of us off, to put you and me to torture and Lady Beatrice to death.”