Immortal Champion (23 page)
He swung up on Ghost and turned him toward the forest north of the castle, intending to put as much distance as he could between himself and Eleanor. He knew from experience that this strange, empty calm wouldn’t last, and he needed to be well away before it broke, before all the frustration and anger and loneliness came boiling up from wherever it hid below the void, and he raged against the
Nornir
for leaving him naked and alone, facing the agony of yet another dawn.
Nornir
for leaving him naked and alone, facing the agony of yet another dawn.
“COULD YOU HIT
him from here?” Westmorland asked the captain of the archers, who stood beside him on the wall as he watched Sir Gunnar gallop away.
him from here?” Westmorland asked the captain of the archers, who stood beside him on the wall as he watched Sir Gunnar gallop away.
The fellow wet his finger and stuck it in the air to check the wind, then pulled an arrow from his quiver, fitted it to his longbow, and half drew the string. “Do you want him dead, my lord, or merely wounded?”
Westmorland hesitated.
“My lord? It is getting dark and he is nearly out of range.”
“It is a difficult decision, good archer. He truly was a pleasant companion.”
Pleasant but treacherous. It was so tempting to punish that treachery. But in the end, he kept his word to Eleanor and let her lover ride out of range and into the wood. “If you see him within a mile of Lady Eleanor before she bears an heir to Lord Burghersh, take him alive and bring him to me in chains.”
“Yes, my lord.” The bowman eased the tension off the string and stood down. “I will pass the word.”
CHAPTER 13
“MOVE ON, NEWT.”
Gunnar flicked the little beast away and dragged the stool over by the fire to try to dry out.
Gunnar flicked the little beast away and dragged the stool over by the fire to try to dry out.
It was a futile effort. He was damp to the skin, all the fine, warm weather of early May having vanished in a bank of fog that had rolled off the northern sea the selfsame day he’d reached the dene, as though the weather was determined to mirror his mood. It had lain here ever since, over a fortnight now, squatting over everything like a great white toad, sucking the warmth out of everything and leaving the cave he and Jafri used as shelter even danker than usual. Moisture ran down the cave walls and dripped from the yews outside like rain. Moss bloomed in furry green mounds that covered every rock and log.
And then there were the newts. They’d always been plentiful, but with no need to hide beneath the forest litter to stay damp, they scuttled over everything like so many ants—even over Gunnar, if he sat still too long. Too bad the little devils weren’t fit to eat. He could have his fill every day three times over for a year and there would still be plenty left to breed.
“But even you won’t touch the foul things, will you?” he said to the wolf who had crept in behind him, so wet and miserable that he was willing to tolerate the close company of man to lie by the fire. Gunnar took one of the squirrels he’d snared and tossed it the wolf’s direction. “There you go.”
Watching warily through yellow eyes, the beast stretched his neck to sniff at the squirrel. Satisfied the offering wasn’t a trick, he tugged it close and started tearing at the tender belly. Gunnar skinned the other two squirrels, skewered them on sticks, and propped them over the fire. He’d just begun scraping the skins clean for tanning when the wolf lifted his head, a low growl humming in his throat.
Knife in hand, Gunnar came to his feet and stepped to the entrance. The one good thing about the fog was the way it hid their fire. Day or night, no one would guess anyone was in the dene at all, unless they knew where to look.
So either someone knew or some fool was lost, because even with the blanket of fog muffling sounds, Gunnar could hear two horses picking their way up the stream bank from the direction of the sea, snapping twigs and kicking stones as they came. From the pen, Ghost and the rouncey whinnied nervously, and the approaching horses answered. Whoever they were, they weren’t trying to be quiet. That was a good sign.
And then the squawk of a raven cut through the fog, followed by a man’s voice. “Quiet, bird. They must be here. I hear the wolf growling.”
“He always did growl a lot,” said a second man. Gunnar hadn’t heard either voice in years, but he knew both instantly.
Brand and Torvald. And Ari, of course, in the raven form he took each night. Gunnar’s tension drained away, only to be replaced by irritation. Years without seeing them, and they show up now, when he most wanted to be alone. Ah, well, Jafri would find Ari’s company pleasant, he supposed. With a sigh, Gunnar pulled a partly burning log off the fire and went out to guide his crewmates in. “Keep bearing this way. You’re almost here.”
The wolf gave one last growl, picked up his half-eaten squirrel, and trotted off into the fog, headed up the dene to finish his meal in peace. A moment later, the pair came riding out of the dark, Brand on a huge dappled horse, carrying the raven on his shoulder, and Torvald on a nondescript rouncey that would serve as a pack horse by day, when Ari would ride the white stallion that Torvald became. They exchanged greetings with much thumping of backs, then quickly unloaded the horses and led them into the pen to join his and Jafri’s animals. As they collected the gear to carry inside, Torvald wordlessly tossed a bag to Gunnar.
He could smell it without even opening it. “Fresh bread?”
“Baked just this morning.” Brand swung his saddle up over one shoulder and the packsaddle over the other. “We thought you could use it.”
“Always. Was your journey good?” Gunnar asked as they stacked things in the back of the cave, away from the damp wall.
“It was till we hit this fog. ’Tis thick as cream up there. We rode right past the castle. I didn’t even see the torches. I only realized where we were when we reached the sea.”
“Fog or no, there are no more torches to be seen. The castle is empty now and already falling down, and the village burned. Yoden, too,” he added, referring to the tiny hamlet that had lain to the north of the dene.
“War?” asked Brand.
“Plague. Two score of years ago. Maybe more.”
“Has it been so long since we were here?”
“Aye.” Gunnar upended a couple of unsplit logs near the fire and motioned for them to sit. “So many died, there weren’t enough left to till the land. The last few burned the cottages and fled.” He poked at the squirrels with the tip of his knife and decided they needed more time. “Men turn up now and then to knock down walls and cart off a few stones, but mostly things just sit. Another few years and you’ll never know men ever lived there at all.”
“That should suit you,” said Brand. “Less chance of anyone seeing you if no one’s around.”
“No one ever came down here anyway. We had them convinced that monsters live in the caves and pool. Where have you two been?” asked Gunnar. The raven chattered angrily, and he amended, “I mean, you three.”
“Shropshire and Wales,” said Torvald, and left it for Brand to fill in the reason and flesh out the story.
As they talked, the squirrels finished roasting and they ate, stretching the meager meat to make a meal for three with thick slabs of bread, and washing everything down with ale from one of the skins Brand had brought. By the time they tossed the well-sucked bones into the fire, Gunnar knew about Brand’s most recent effort to track down Cwen, the ancient treasure they had stumbled on instead of their amulets, where to find good hiding places along the Welsh march, and that Rorik and Kjell had finally abandoned their wenching in Hampshire.
“One of the king’s huntsmen shot the hart in the flank,” said Brand, touching his left side to show where Kjell had been hit. “He only escaped because it was near sunset. They decided things are too crowded and that they needed to move on. Last I knew, they were headed this way. I’m surprised you haven’t seen them.”
“Likely we missed them,” said Gunnar. “We were in the west for nearly three years. We only just came back.”
He told of their stay in Lancashire, but left out any mention of the tourney or his time at Raby. He’d spent the past fortnight trying to put Eleanor and her betrothal out of his mind, and he had no desire to explain any of it to Brand now. He took another draught of ale, swishing it around in his mouth before he swallowed. “So if Wales was such a pleasant place to hide, why are you here?”
“I needed to bring you something.” Brand and Torvald exchanged a peculiar look, then Brand drew a small linen pouch out of his shirt. He stared at it a moment, weighing it in his hand before he tossed it to Gunnar. “Ari found it.”
Gunnar knew what it was as soon as he felt the oblong lump in the corner. He’d spent so much time fingering it through the cloth of his shirt that even now, all these hundreds of years after Cwen had ripped it off his neck, the size and weight and shape remained burned into his memory. As he dumped the little bull’s head into his hand, the single red eye caught the firelight and confirmed it was his, sending his stomach sliding sideways.
Eleanor . . .
Eleanor . . .
“Where?” he asked.
“A few leagues from Shrewsbury. Ari went to sell off some of the treasure we found and spied it around the neck of the smith’s son.”
“When?”
“What was it, four weeks ago?”
“Five,” said Torvald.
Around the time she’d come down to him in the night.
Gunnar saw her in his mind’s eye, in that shadowed moment before she’d run into his arms. A sprite, he’d called her. A wisp of cloud. His fingers tightened around the amulet, pressing the bull’s horns into his palm.
“It is your turn,” said Brand, grinning like a fool, so clearly pleased for Gunnar. “All you need is to find the woman.”
“All I need,” echoed Gunnar hollowly. Then the hollowness filled with rage, and he stood up and flung the stool. It hit the wall over Brand’s head and shattered. “Piss on you. Five weeks to get here? Five? You could have been here in two. Less! Jafri would have sent you to . . . I could have been done with this.”
He stormed out, plowing blindly into the fog, careening from boulder to bush as the light of the fire receded to nothing, until finally he blundered over a root and fell.
Pain added to his fury. He exploded, driving his fist into the offending tree over and over, beating it as he wanted to beat Brand, Westmorland, the gods, Burghersh, Ari, Cwen, and himself, most of all himself, for still imagining she had actually cared. Only when his knuckles were a bloody pulp did he stop and sink to the ground at the foot of the tree, Eleanor’s name a groan on his lips.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there before he heard footsteps, just yards away.
“You can hit me instead, if you want.” A torch came looming out of the dark with Brand attached. “You’ll do less damage to your hand on my jaw than against that oak.”
“Begone.”
Brand squatted beside Gunnar. “Not until you tell me about her.”
“About who?”
“Whatever woman has you murdering this poor tree. Who is she?”
“No one,” he said, but Brand waited, torch in hand, just squatting there as if he had nothing else to do for the next hundred years or so, and eventually, Gunnar began to talk. He told of the fire at Richmond, the Castle of Love, the clothes, the flirtation, the cards, the dancing. Everything.
When he was done, Brand sat quietly for a little, stroking the bottom of his chin as though he still wore a full beard. “So . . . she saw you change. And she didn’t run?”
“Only into my arms,” said Gunnar.
“Your arms . . . You mean she lay with you?”
“Aye.”
“Right there in the forest? That night?”
He never should have told that part of it. “Aye. That night.”
“Balls, man, why didn’t you carry her away then, and keep her till the amulet turned up?”
“Her father would have hunted us down. What would I have done by day to keep her?” Gunnar leaned back against the tree and thumped his head against the trunk a couple of times, using the pain to steady himself. “I needed his leave to wed her. I feigned a journey to Durham and waited two days, so he wouldn’t suspect I had been with her. But when I returned to ask for her hand, he met me at the gate and told me she was betrothed and that she had been all along.”
“Betrothed.” That brought Brand up short, but then he brushed it off. “So what? What difference does it make?”
“None, in the end. She doesn’t love me.” There. He’d said it aloud. “There were things she said . . . She didn’t want to marry the man she was tied to. She only wanted someone to get her out of the contract. If I hadn’t come along, she would have found someone else and seduced him.”
“Bah.” Brand pushed to his feet and stood squinting down at Gunnar by the light of the torch. “Have I forgotten, or were you always this thick?”
Rage still clinging to him, Gunnar popped up and squared off with Brand, nose to nose, his fists bunched and ready. “You really do want to be hit, don’t you?”
“Hit away, if it will make you think. She gave herself to you.” Brand stabbed one finger into the center of Gunnar’s chest. “
After
she saw what you are.”
After
she saw what you are.”
“She only meant to fetter me, so she could persuade me to carry her away.” Gunnar batted Brand’s hand away. “She all but told me so.”
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