Immortal Warrior (39 page)

He froze with one foot in his breeks. “Gone? Gone where?”

“Run from you, my lord. From the eagle.”

Ivo groaned. “Alaida . . . Why didn’t Ari and Oswald bring them back?”

“Your men think they were stolen away for ransom, and Sir Ari let them believe it, to protect both you and her. But he tracked them. They’re on foot. The raven will show you their path—he comes with Brand.”

“They’re all right, though?”

“Yes, my lord, but there is much troubling about what passed this morning.”

He continued dressing while she told him of how Ari had been delayed in reaching the manor and of what he’d found there.

“I also slept too hard,” said Ivo, dread slithering up his spine like a viper. “That’s how I was caught. I thought I was merely tired.”

“’Twas more than that, my lord.” She turned, her brow furrowed with concern. “The morning mist was strange. I was milking my goats when it came up. It rose suddenly, from everywhere at once, and I could taste the evil in it. The birds felt it as well. They’ve not sung all day.”

Ivo shook his head. “I sensed nothing.”

“Perhaps because the eagle is not truly a bird, my lord.”

“Tell my wife that.” Bile scalded his throat.

Her eyes filled with sympathy. “I will if you wish, my lord. I can come with you and explain it to her, soothe her fears.”

Ivo shook his head. He’d seen the terror, the repulsion, on Alaida’s face. “She has seen too much magic already to be soothed by more, even from you. Anyway, Bôte saw me as well. Things are too far gone.” He fastened his boots and rose. “My sword?”

“With Tom. He knows none of this, my lord. Just that someone stole them away. I left it for you to tell him if you choose.” She led him back toward the cottage.

Tom met them at the edge of the clearing. “My lord! I heard screams, like an injured man. I thought—”

“’Twas the eagle,” said Merewyn, making Ivo’s heart skip a beat. “On a squirrel.”

“I find myself without weapon, Squire,” said Ivo, anxious to get Tom on to something else and take that doubt off his face.

Tom retrieved the sword and belt. “’Tis sharp, my lord. I honed it while I waited.”

“Good lad.” As Ivo buckled his belt, Merewyn slipped into the cottage and returned bearing a bowl and spoon.

“Eat, my lord, while you wait for Sir Brand.”

Ivo took the bowl gratefully and began shoveling the hot pottage in as fast as he could. Merewyn made another trip inside, this time reappearing with a skin of ale, a loaf of bread, and a plump cheese. Tom stowed them on Fax while Ivo finished his meal.

The sound of heavy horses crashing through the underbrush told them Brand was coming. Ivo handed the bowl to Merewyn and swung up on Fax. Tom went to his dun.

“Where are you going, Squire?”

“With you, my lord.”

Ivo shook his head. “I want you at the castle. Oswald needs men for the wall.”

“But, my lord, I—”

“The wall, Thomas.”

He bowed his head, however unwillingly. “Yes, my lord.”

Brand rode up, leading Ari’s bay. “What is this damnable bird trying to tell me? Where were you this morning? What’s Tom doing here?”

“I’ll tell you on the way,” said Ivo. “My thanks, Healer.”

She stepped forward. “Take me with you, my lord. Lady Alaida will need—”

“No. I won’t put you in danger as well.”

“Danger?” said Brand. “Who’s in danger?”

“Later,” snapped Ivo. “Leave Ari’s horse and come.” He put the spurs to Fax and headed for the river.

 

BRAND HESITATED A moment, then gave Merewyn a smile and a shrug, tossed the bay’s reins to Tom, and tore off after his friend.

Merewyn watched him go, burning the memory of how he looked into her heart. She might see him again, for a little, but once he and Lord Ivo brought the women back safely, they would be gone forever. Every memory became suddenly precious.

Behind her, Tom cursed softly. She blinked back the tears and turned to find him wearing a sullen frown. “Why are you so angry?”

“Lord Ivo made me squire,” he grumbled. “But he never lets me ride with him.”

“He wants you better trained first, so you’ll be safe.”

“But he doesn’t even take me hunting! I’m good with a bow.”

“Your time will come, Tom. Patience.” He would need a great deal of that now, to find another knight willing to have a bastard stableboy as squire. “Come inside and finish your meal before you go.”

She refilled his bowl and cut him a thick slab of cheese, then left him while she went to care for her animals. When she had finished, she found him standing in the doorway, still aggrieved, fiddling with some small charm that hung on a thin chain around his neck and looking so much like his father that her heart squeezed tight.

“What have you there?” she asked, trying to distract him from his disappointment.

“Hmm? Oh, this.” He held the bit of silver up. “ ’ Tis my good luck piece.”

Merewyn looked closer, and the hairs rose on her arms. “Where did you get that?”

“My—A man found it in the well the last time they cleaned it. He gave it to me.”

A man
. Aelfwine, he meant—he’d been the one lowered into the well five years ago to scoop out the muck, the only one who’d been willing to go down. This was probably the last gift he’d ever given the boy. But that wasn’t what chilled her. “Has Lord Ivo ever seen it?”

He looked at her oddly. “I don’t think so. I keep it under my shirt most times. But I think its luck made him choose me for squire. See?” He tilted the token in the fading light. “’Tis an eagle, like his shield.”

No, like the one Brand had shown her in Ari’s book—Lord Ivo’s amulet.
Well. Curse. Token. Monster. Sleeping men.
Her mind spun over it all at dizzying speed, and suddenly her cottage vanished and she was sailing over the land north of the river, watching Bôte lay Lady Beatrice before the standing stone.

“Merewyn?”

She thumped back to earth and, without pausing to think, ran inside and grabbed her rune sticks off the shelf. “Mother, what must I do?”

She dropped the sticks on the table by Tom’s empty bowl. Only three fell face up: Guide, Lover, Death. Her breath caught in her throat, but she nodded, obedient to the Goddess even in this. “I understand, Mother. So mote it be.”

Tom stared at her from the door. “I had heard you were a witch.”

“Only a small one. Squire, are you willing to disobey your lord to help save his lady and daughter?”

He jerked his head toward the runes. “Do your sticks say I must?”

“No. They say
I
must, but I have no way to follow them. Will you help me?”

He stared at her, then nodded and started toward the horses. “The bay is faster. Sir Ari will forgive us, I think.”

When he put a hand down to help her up, his strength surprised her. “You’re becoming a man, Tom.”

“Aye.” He gave her a wise look over his shoulder. “As good a one as my father, I hope.”

So he did know.
Merewyn wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him the hug she would never give a son of her own body. “If you are, you will surely become the knight Lord Ivo wants you to be. Can we catch them?”

“Aye. Hold tight.” He dug his toes into the bay’s ribs and they were off.

CHAPTER 29

TO AVOID THE bridge and the eyes of Alnwick’s guards, Brand and Ivo forded the river above the upper weir, then turned west. As they followed the raven over the moors, Ivo explained the situation as best he could.

“So we are through here,” said Brand heavily. “Once we see them safely home, we must go.”

To hear it put so bluntly made Ivo’s gut knot, but he nodded. “Aye.”

“I had finally . . . Merewyn.” Brand’s groan came from so deep it seemed to rise from the soil beneath them. “I didn’t even tell her farewell.”

“I could say nothing before the boy. I’m sorry.”

“She knows, though?”

“Aye. She’ll understand.” Unlike Alaida, who would never understand why he’d done what he had, how badly he had wanted her and all she represented. The only good thing in all this was that he hadn’t had to take Beatrice from her—Beatrice, whom he would never hear laugh or see walk. “I should have stayed in the woods.”

“No. You were right to come out. We cannot hide forever. You’ve shown us we can live among men again.”

“Only to leave. No matter what we do, no matter how long we make it last, we will always have to leave.” Leave wives and daughters and friends and eager young squires.

“’Tis no worse than other men face when they go to war,” said Brand.

“Other men go to war hoping to come home. We leave with no hope at all.” He thought of Beatrice again, and of Alaida, who had warmed him clear through and now would teach his daughter to fear and despise him. “We can never return.”

“Perhaps you can find a way,” countered Brand. “But even if you cannot, at least you’ve tasted a man’s life once more.”

“And found it bitter.”

“No, Ivar. You’ve had a wife and a child. That is as sweet as life ever gets.”

Ivo had nothing to say to that truth. They rode on in silence until the raven veered south from the track. The land seemed familiar from the day the eagle had followed Alaida. Suddenly, he knew where they must be going. “The standing stone.”

“From Wat’s story?”

Ivo nodded. “’Tis just ahead, in the wood near the bottom of that hill. What would they be doing at the stone? They haven’t come very far.”

“I’m more curious about the fog,” said Brand. “There’s something odd about it.”

He was right. The fog that wove through the trees in moonlit ribbons lay only on the north flank of the hillock, around where the stone stood. Ivo thought of what Merewyn had told him about the morning mist. In his need to get to Alaida, he’d passed off her concerns, but now . . .

They rode to the foot of the rise, then skirted the edge of the enshrouded woods till they came to a narrow path. Down it, the fog glowed dimly yellow, as if from a fire. Brand nodded toward the glow and touched his ear. Ivo cocked his head to listen.

The sound rose faint and sweet—a distant lullaby, crooned by a familiar voice. Ivo’s concern eased. If Bôte was singing lullabies by the fire, surely all was well. He motioned for Brand to dismount, and they secured their horses and stepped into the fog, leaving the raven perched nearby.

From within, the pall of mist swallowed the moonlight and obscured anything more than a foot away. As they felt their way between tree trunks, Ivo inhaled deeply, drawing the damp air over his tongue. Bitter, it was, and clay-cold, and his wife and daughter were somewhere in the middle of it. He should have listened to Merewyn. He should have brought her to help.

The path abruptly widened, leaving not even the ghostly trees as guides. Ivo groped his way forward, certain the stone was near and anxious to find Alaida and Beatrice and get them away from this place. Bôte’s song swelled around them and the mist glowed more brightly, seemingly on fire.

In the next step, the ground vanished.

Ivo plunged down some unseen slope and slammed to a stop at the bottom. Brand smashed into him an instant later. They scrambled up, winded, swords in hand.

Before them lay a wide, low cavern, glowing with the light of an uncanny fire that blazed in the center. At the edge of the flames stood Bôte, swaying gently side to side, singing to the infant cradled in her arms. Alaida lay unmoving on a pile of fresh-cut heather off to one side.

Bôte’s song faded away, and she looked up with a strange, pleased smile. “You have found us. Good. I have waited a long time for you to come. A very long time.”

Uneasy, Ivo stepped farther into the cave. “Nurse. Is all well?”

“Very well.” She stroked Beatrice’s cheek. “Such a good bairn. She’s not cried this whole time.”

“And my wife?”

“Asleep, as you see,” said Bôte.

Brand’s gaze traveled the rock walls. “What is this place?”

“The place beneath the stone,” said Bôte, continuing to sway. “The place where Sir Egbert chased the dragon to ground. But of course, that is only an old tale. There was no dragon.”

“And no heart,” said Brand. “The sound in the well is but the echo of distant waves.”

“Only men who spent time with the sea would know that.” She spoke as if to herself. “Aye, ’tis waves, but the heart cut out was real enough.”

Ivo sheathed his sword and went to kneel by his wife. “Alaida?”

“Are you certain you want her awake?” asked Bôte. “She will not be pleased to see you.”

The old woman was probably right. He shook Alaida anyway. “Wake yourself, sweet leaf.”

“Ivo?” Alaida stirred and slowly opened her eyes, a smile on her lips until she woke enough to remember. The smile vanished, and she sat bolt upright and scrabbled back, flattening against the rock wall. “Why are you here? Go away.”

Ivo held his empty hands out so she could see he meant no harm. “I’ve come to take you and Beatrice home.”

“No. I know what you are.” The fear in her eyes soured Ivo’s stomach. “I saw you turn into that . . . that thing.”

“An eagle. The same eagle you claimed as your pet, who watched over you and protected you from de Jeune. Come, let me see you safely home.”

“We cannot go home. The Church . . .”

“No one will know. Once you’re safe, I’ll vanish, I swear. You can say I was killed. No one will know.”

“But Beatrice . . .” She bit back a sob. “Her father is a demon.”

“No. I’m no demon. I’m a man, Alaida. A cursed man, but only a man.”

“Only a man,” echoed Bôte, chucking Beatrice under the chin. “Men do not have feathers and fur, do they, sweeting?”

“Eagles have no fur,” said Brand.

“No, no, no, of course not. What has fur, sweeting?” Bôte cooed. “Lions and horses and wolves and stags and dogs and bulls.”