Immortal Champion (26 page)
“Richard. Oh, thank goodness.” She grabbed his arm and clung, burying her face against his shoulder, the way a wife might with a husband she cared for. Gunnar clamped his jaw against the howl of outrage that would have betrayed them all, and looked skyward, silently begging the gods for the strength to bear this.
“God’s knees, Eleanor, why were you down there?” Burghersh squinted down the alley and both Torvald and Gunnar held their breath.
Her answer started out muffled, then cleared as she raised her head. “. . . separated from Lucy and took a wrong turn.”
“I was looking for her, my lord,” offered Lucy with a shaky voice.
“I have been groping around in the dark like a blind woman,” lied Eleanor, far too easily for Gunnar’s comfort. Kolla had been a good liar, too. “I fear I do not know the way as well as I thought.”
“It is a maze back here,” said Burghersh. “That’s why I wanted to send others with you.”
“I should have listened. Now I have left all those people waiting.”
“Never mind them. They can come back another day. It is you I am concerned about.”
He didn’t sound like a prick. Gunnar wanted Burghersh to sound like a prick, wanted some ready excuse to slit his throat now and carry her off, no matter what she said she wanted. Instead, the bastard put his arm around Eleanor, trying to comfort her, acting like a decent man, a good husband.
Patient
, she’d said.
Kind.
May Hel take him for being kind—but he’d damned well better stay kind.
Patient
, she’d said.
Kind.
May Hel take him for being kind—but he’d damned well better stay kind.
“You’ve had a difficult evening, what with that drunkard and now this,” soothed Burghersh. “Come, I will take you to bed.”
There was the excuse.
Gunnar reached for his knife. Torvald tightened his grip and braced to stop him.
Gunnar reached for his knife. Torvald tightened his grip and braced to stop him.
“No,” said Eleanor, saving her husband’s life for the moment. “My foul sense of direction should not disappoint your people.”
“They are your people, too, Eleanor.”
“Which is why we must return to the hall. What would they think of their new lady if I abandon them now?”
“I care not.”
“But I care. They must respect me. I have a duty to them, just as they have a duty to me.” Her back grew straighter and her voice firmer with every word. She turned her head slightly, so her voice carried down the alley straight to Gunnar’s ears. “We cannot always do what we wish. None of us.”
“No. No, you’re right. Come, then, we will see to our people. Together.” Burghersh gently turned her toward the hall, Lucy falling in behind. “York was right, you are going to make me a very fine wife.”
She would, Gunnar thought as their footsteps grew faint. She would turn that half-grown lad into a man and fine lord, make him fit to be earl. And in time, she would be his countess, as she was born to be. He would be kind to her.
And she would lie with him and bear him children and...
He shoved Torvald off and started after them. Torvald’s quiet voice stopped him. “You cannot kill him. Not right now.”
Gunnar stood there sucking at the air and rubbing at his breastbone, trying to rid himself of the rock that had formed in the center of his chest and which was growing larger by the minute. It wouldn’t go away, though, and eventually he gave up and stalked off toward the pen where the boy had put their horses. Torvald followed.
Working in silence, they readied their animals and rode out, letting the guards at the gate believe that Torvald’s supposed drunkenness had made them unwelcome—a notion bolstered when Torvald stripped off his cote and wrung out the last of the trough water over one man’s head before he rode out.
The guard joined his fellows in good-natured laughter, but as Torvald swayed off down the road, the man’s smile faded. “I don’t care if he is a knight, he’s a pig’s arse and I’m glad he’s going. Are you certain you want to go with him, Brother? You would still be welcome here.”
“I doubt that,” growled Gunnar and rode after him.
Torvald was waiting at the edge of the churchyard. He fell in alongside Gunnar. “I’m sorry, my friend. I must have been wrong. We’ll figure out how to get her away. She can have the marriage annulled and—”
“No,” said Gunnar. “It is done. She is wed, and ’tis clear she wishes to stay that way. She’s not the one.”
“But she is. She loves you.”
“No. She is young. What she thinks is love is only gratitude. Or simple lust.” That was his fault. He’d taught her of lust, just as he’d taught Kolla of it all those years ago. “Or perhaps I was right to begin with, and she was so set on getting away from Burghersh that she was willing to do anything to do it, even lie with a man who is a bull. But now that she knows her husband, she realizes he’s not as bad as she thought.”
Kind . . . And now that twig would enjoy the lessons she’d learned so willingly.
Kind . . . And now that twig would enjoy the lessons she’d learned so willingly.
“Gunnar . . .”
“It is done,” he repeated. He stripped off the monk’s robes and tossed them at Torvald, and rode on.
They were at the far edge of Etchingham when Gunnar spotted a torch-lit cottage from which poured a bawdy song and realized what he needed. He reined Ghost toward the tavern.
“I’ll pay,” said Torvald.
“Aye. You will. And I hope you’re strong enough to carry me, too, because by dawn I don’t intend to be able to walk.”
THERE WASN’T ENOUGH
ale in all the taverns of England to wash out of his skull the image of Eleanor in her husband’s arms, but that didn’t stop Gunnar from spending a good portion of the trip back trying. He made his way tavern to tavern, and Torvald proved his strength more than once, throwing a well-soaked Gunnar over his horse so they could make a few miles before dawn. As a result, it took much longer to ride back than it had to go south.
ale in all the taverns of England to wash out of his skull the image of Eleanor in her husband’s arms, but that didn’t stop Gunnar from spending a good portion of the trip back trying. He made his way tavern to tavern, and Torvald proved his strength more than once, throwing a well-soaked Gunnar over his horse so they could make a few miles before dawn. As a result, it took much longer to ride back than it had to go south.
Eventually, though, somewhere along about Saint Swithin’s Day, they reached the dene. In the fullness of summer, the fog had long since cleared and the valley was in its glory, as fair as ever it had been, green and rich with life, the ground beneath the trees awash in a rainbow of wildflowers that made the salty air sweet with their perfume. To Gunnar’s mind, it was the fairest wild place in England, the place he and Jafri had called home for most of the last hundred years.
And he couldn’t stand it.
“It is too close to Raby,” he told Brand and Torvald as they sat around the fire that first night, after they’d told Brand what had passed in Sussex. “I am tempted already to go hunting her father, but I can’t do that to her, no matter how things stand between she and I. I need to go off somewhere till my anger cools.”
“You could come with us,” said Brand. “Help me hunt Cwen.”
Gunnar shook his head. “I already carry enough scars from the bear.”
“Most of yours came from the lion.” Brand sliced another chunk off the flitch of ham Ari had bought along the way and handed it to Gunnar, then cut another piece for himself. “Besides, the bear’s claws are no longer a problem. We have a wagon now.” Brand’s face pinched a little as he added, “One with bars.”
Gunnar froze with the meat halfway to his mouth. “A cage? Shite, Brand.”
“No pity,” ordered Brand. “’Twas my idea, and I use it willingly if not happily. It lets us go where we could not go before. People think the bear is being taken somewhere for baiting, and we can stay closer without danger to anyone. It give us more hours to work and saves a good deal of running back and forth.”
“I can see it would,” said Gunnar. They’d learned early on to separate widely at dawn and dusk; those who took dangerous forms ran a mile or more on foot before each changing to keep from harming the others or their own mounts. Not having to do that would save hours in every day. “But still . . . a cage.”
“Aye, a cage.” Brand chewed a bite of ham, then grinned. “But every morning as I turn the key behind myself, I remember that Ari must pass the day as a carter instead of a knight.”
“That might make it tolerable,” agreed Gunnar, smiling for the first time in a long while. A half smile, she’d called it, and he had to lock his fingers in his fist to keep from feeling the corners of his mouth to see. “Where is this wagon? You didn’t come with it.”
“We left it in Easington. I saw no point in bringing it up the dene until we were certain you were here. I fetched it after you left. Because of it, Jafri remains safe and uneaten, as will the bull.”
“How did you get it down here?”
“Brought it up from the beach. We couldn’t get it all the way up, so it’s down past the lower cave, but it’s close enough. So, will you come with us?”
“I don’t know . . .”
“It will be good. As we travel, the bull will make the baiting story look even more true.”
“Where would we go?”
“Lancashire, east of Morecambe. On the way north Ari had a vision. Dark dealings, he said. I want to see if it’s Cwen.”
“Lancashire isn’t safe for the wolf any longer,” said Gunnar. “It is too well hunted. We must stay farther north.”
“Then you go with Brand, and I’ll stay here with Jafri,” suggested Torvald.
Gunnar shot him a sideways glance. “He never liked you that much, you know.”
Torvald laughed. “We’ll never see each other anyway.”
“True enough.”
“Come with Ari and me,” urged Brand. “You need the company and so do I. I tire of Torvald’s monkish ways. A talker would be a good change. Not to mention a drinker.”
“Gunnar
is
that,” said Torvald.
is
that,” said Torvald.
The idea of more time spent with a friend tempted Gunnar. Monkish or not, it had been good to have Torvald’s company these past few weeks, and Brand and he had always enjoyed an even easier friendship. In the end, though, Gunnar shook his head. “Jafri is my responsibility.”
“I never understood you,” said Brand. “Kolla treated you like a turd, and yet you insist on seeing to her brother.”
“He became my brother, too, when I married her. That didn’t change when she died. Anyway, I like him, or did the last time I talked with him. We’ll go up into the hills along the marches this time, maybe even into Scotland proper. Wherever we can find a thick patch of forest without too many hunters.”
“You won’t like Scotland,” predicted Torvald.
“I don’t like any of this cursed island,” muttered Gunnar, and reached for another piece of meat.
CHAPTER 15
Autumn 1414
SCOTLAND DPROVED AS
unpleasant as Torvald had warned, though Gunnar couldn’t figure out why. The people carried a fair measure of Norse blood in them, after all, and the weather was more like home than that of England. Yet the Scots seemed unfamiliar, and the land constantly reminded them they were neither in England nor truly at home. Jafri and he moved deeper into Scotland’s wild westlands trying to find a place they liked, but in the end they lasted but two winters and a miserable spring before they exchanged messages agreeing to return to the dene by summer’s end.
unpleasant as Torvald had warned, though Gunnar couldn’t figure out why. The people carried a fair measure of Norse blood in them, after all, and the weather was more like home than that of England. Yet the Scots seemed unfamiliar, and the land constantly reminded them they were neither in England nor truly at home. Jafri and he moved deeper into Scotland’s wild westlands trying to find a place they liked, but in the end they lasted but two winters and a miserable spring before they exchanged messages agreeing to return to the dene by summer’s end.
By then, Gunnar’s anger had faded enough that he could grant Westmorland his due. The man was Eleanor’s father, after all, and it had been his right to contract her marriage as he saw fit and see that contract fulfilled. If Gunnar had a daughter who had been sporting in the woods with some errant knight, he likely would have done much as Westmorland had. If their paths ever crossed, Gunnar thought he might not be able to avoid a fight over the beating he’d given Eleanor, but he no longer had the urge to go hunting the man. That would have to do.
He and Torvald slipped back across the border mid-August and finished out the month in the Cheviot Hills before heading east toward the great road that would take them south, taking advantage of their nearness to Lesbury to stop and see that the steward was doing his duty. The forests around Alnwick still stood thick enough to hide the wolf, and Alnwick itself had herds and fields so vast that another bull went unnoticed.
They quickly fell into the roles they had set on their only other visit, Gunnar as the knight who hunted all day, every day, and Jafri as his wastrel friend who lazed about until midday because he was off every night tupping some woman in Alnwick town. After the bleakness of Scotland, the little vill of Lesbury and its manor seemed a fine place indeed, and with harvest and threshing in full swing, no one paid them much heed. They decided to stay until Michaelmas, when the year’s accounts would be settled and Gunnar could collect what was owed him as lord.
A sennight passed peacefully, until one evening on the way back to the manor when Ghost picked up a stone. As Gunnar dismounted to remove it, he heard a distant rumble and saw the dust of a large group of riders coming his way from the direction of Lesbury. Not wanting to be seen by any more people than necessary, he quickly flicked the stone out and led Ghost deep into a stand of trees, then slipped back to the edge of the wood where he could watch from the shadows.
York.
Gunnar recognized the red and blue livery of some of the outriders as soon as they came into view, and the royal arms carried by the herald confirmed it. He spied the duke himself, looking older and a little heavier, like a man just reaching his prime, riding alongside another nobleman that Gunnar didn’t recognize. Gunnar remembered many of the flanking knights from those evenings before Richmond’s fire and was glad he’d hidden.
Gunnar recognized the red and blue livery of some of the outriders as soon as they came into view, and the royal arms carried by the herald confirmed it. He spied the duke himself, looking older and a little heavier, like a man just reaching his prime, riding alongside another nobleman that Gunnar didn’t recognize. Gunnar remembered many of the flanking knights from those evenings before Richmond’s fire and was glad he’d hidden.
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