Immortal Warrior (11 page)

Ari considered himself fortunate in that regard. Whether by some flaw in Cwen’s magic or because the raven was the sacred messenger to Odin, he retained full awareness even when he was in bird form. The others lost a part of themselves to their beasts: some less, like Ivo, who could recall enough of what he saw through the eagle’s eyes to help him in his spying for the king, and some more, like Brand, who vanished into the bear completely each night, often to discover the next day that the animal had done great harm without his ken. Ari had never been able to speak to either man about it and knew only what he saw the beasts do or heard about later from Brand’s shoulder. As much as he missed what Cwen had taken, he was grateful for what had been left him.

The eagle leapt into the sky with a shriek, circled once, then wheeled away after a flock of gulls and was soon lost in the distance. For his part, Ari sat studying the manor a bit, then turned his mount west, toward the wood. He had passed a pool there as he’d ridden in this morning, and now that the day’s business was done, he had need of its quiet waters.

He soon found the spot, dismounted, and hobbled his horse with a twist of rope. As the animal began to crop at the grass, Ari knelt on a dry hummock at the water’s edge and rested there while he prepared his mind. When he was ready, he rose up on his knees, took out his knife, and touched the blade to his palm.

“Father of All, I call on you for aid.” He lifted his eyes and hands to the heavens. “I have tried, but I do not understand your message. Help me, Odin. Help me see what you and Vör mean for me to see.”

With a slash, he laid his palm open. Blood welled and gathered. He held it high for the gods to see, then tipped his hand and let it stream into the still waters and swirl away into the depths.

Odin liked blood and sacrifice. If there were enough of both, he might answer. Ari waited.

After a time, the blood began to slow and clot, and the sting in his palm faded to become one with the dull throb in his upraised arms. Still he knelt there, his arms high, the pain growing. Only when agony drew a haze over his eyes did he finally let his hands fall to his side.

“I am ready, Odin,” he called once more before he settled back on his heels and turned his eyes to the bloodred waters of the pool, waiting for the vision to come.

CHAPTER 7

TAKE THAT. WITH a grim smile, Alaida stabbed the eye of the little man she was stitching, the one she had given yellow hair and an eagle shield.

She had grown angrier as the day passed, irritated by the sideways stares and whispers that had trailed after her as she moved around the manor. It would have been appalling enough to walk through the world on her husband’s arm, with everyone knowing what they’d been doing all night. Facing it by herself had simply proved too much, especially when combined with the pity. She had retreated to the solar not long after dinner and created this little man to torture. It amused her.

A change in the voices that rose from the hall caught her ear, and she left her needle in the eye of her little lordling. “Is that Geoffrey I hear?”

Hadwisa cocked her head to listen, then rose and went to the doorway to check. “Aye, my lady. He and Oswald are below. I do not see Sir Ari.”

“’Tis Geoff I want. Tell him to bring the marriage contract to me.”

At some point, she had recovered her ability to think beyond the moment and remembered she needed to know what the devil she’d signed. Unfortunately, this realization had taken place after Ari had stolen away the steward, and she’d been forced to while away the afternoon with her embroidered tortures. Her limited patience was now wearing thin, and it threatened to fray entirely as she waited for Hadwisa to do her bidding. She plucked the needle out and poked it in lower, right at the spot where the little lordling’s legs met. Even better.

Geoffrey soon appeared with the document in question, a rare smile on his face that waned as he saw her glowering. “Sir Ari guessed you would be ready to see the contract by now. Would you like me to leave it, or shall I read it out?”

“Read it. I am of no mind to puzzle out your hand today.”

“As you wish, my lady.” He came to stand near the window, where the light was better. “There is a bit at the first about the authority for the contract. God and king. The usual. I assume you want to hear the endowment.” He waited for her nod.

“Let me see, then . . . Ah, here. ‘Therefore I, Ivo, Baron of Alnwick, by my authority and according to ancient practice, give thee, my wife Alaida, by this document, everything of mine within the vill of Chatton.’—And here it is all listed out, my lady, from the lands and the men down to the doves in the cote and the bees in the skep—’And I give thee in the vill of Houton five oxgangs of land, which you may choose of the best of the
demesne
excepting the orchard, and I give as well the mill and the perquisites of the hall-mote, and the profits of its wool. And I give thee in the manor proper of Alnwick, the pasture called Swinlees and its herbage. All these things I cede in perpetuity to thee, my wife Alaida, to have, to sell, to give, or to do whatever you wish with them at your will, saving only the obligations of fealty . . .”

There was more, including a section detailing the one-third portion that made up her dower, but Alaida barely heard it. At some point, along about the mention of doves and bees, her hands had begun to tremble. By the time Geoffrey listed out the names of those who had signed and witnessed, they were shaking so hard she had to twist them into her skirts to keep them from flapping about like crows.

“He gave me all of that?” she asked when he came to the end, surprised to hear that her voice was not shaking as well.

“Yes, my lady, all of it. That first night, after you went upstairs, he looked at the accounts again and told me what he wished you to have. I set it down as he said.”

Alaida tried to absorb it. A manor—a small one, worth only a half knight’s fee, but a manor—and the largest parts of the income from another, plus land of her own within the
demesne
. Even the marriage contract her grandfather had made had not secured so much for her outright. She had money and property now, of her own right, and all thanks to this husband she barely knew, whom she had fought at every turn, and who had ridden off this morning and left her to a day of humiliation. What was she to make of him?

There existed a more pressing problem, however. “I was foolish last night, Geoffrey. I do not have good witnesses to this.”

“Oswald and the others were in the hall as Lord Ivo commanded me what to write, my lady,” said Geoffrey. “They heard what he said. Their witness is sound, with or without the reading.”

“Nonetheless, I will have you read it out again at supper for all to hear. It will do me well to protect myself, even if I am late at it.”

“Very well, my lady. I will see that Wat and Edric are in the hall with Oswald to affirm their marks.”

“Good. Leave the parchment as you go. I wish to read it for myself after all. And have the accounts brought to me so I may see the value of what I own.”

Geoffrey left, and Alaida turned to where Bôte sat in the corner, hemming a gown and grinning to herself. “You are unnaturally silent, old woman. Out with it before you burst.”

“I have naught to say, my lady.”

“And I have a pig’s ears. Fetch me a wax tablet.”

“As you say, my lady.” Bôte broke off her thread and held her work out to admire before she rose. “As you say.”

 

EVERY EYE SWIVELED toward Ivo as he and Brand walked into the hall that night. Half of them asked the same question that had hovered beneath the guard’s words that morning, a question he was now going to have to answer for Alaida. The others—men mostly—were filled with a kind of open admiration, owing to Wat’s mouth, no doubt. A fierce scowl sent them all back to their business.

“I don’t see her,” said Brand. He lifted the raven off his shoulder and set him carefully on a perch. They had noticed the bird seemed to be favoring one wing and suspected an owl or hawk had hit him. “Perhaps your lovemaking drove her to the convent after all.”

Ivo scanned the hall. “She must be upstairs.”

Brand grunted. “Bad sign, that.”

“What?”

“Losing your sense of humor over a woman. And a wife, at that.”

“Hmm?” It took Ivo a moment to come back around to what Brand had said. “Oh. Lovemaking. Convent. Very funny. Ha-ha.”

Chuckling, Brand thumped Ivo on the shoulder with enough force to rattle his teeth. “Go on. See to your lady and make that pretty speech you’ve been practicing in your head all the way home. I will find me some ale and a place to read this saga your new steward left.” Brand patted the spot where Ari’s latest message hung in a pouch from his belt. “He must be trying to show you he’s good with words after all.”

“I heard much of it already. Tell me if he says anything important,” said Ivo. As Brand bellowed for ale, he trotted up the stairs, unpinning his cloak as he went.

Brand was right. Ivo had been playing out various explanations for his absence in his head and finding none of them satisfactory—especially the part where he had to tell her to expect him to leave every day before dawn. There was no way to do it, just as there had been no way to tell her last night amid the love play that he would not be beside her come morning. He should never have come to Alnwick, never have married Alaida, never have expected this madness to work, but he was here and he didn’t have it in him to leave until the gods or Cwen’s magic forced him to. He would tell her somehow.

When he pushed the door to the solar open, he found Alaida alone and bent over a thick book and a sheet of parchment that lay spread out on the table. She pursed her lips in concentration as she traced out a line of script with one finger then scribed a few marks onto a wax tablet with a stylus. Ivo watched her for a moment, enjoying the peace of it, until she heard some small noise and looked up. The crease between her eyebrows deepened.

“My lord.”

Not the cheerful greeting he’d hoped for, but neither was it the hostility he’d expected. He hung his cloak on a peg and pushed the door shut so their words would not feed the gossip. “Is that the marriage contract?”

“Yes, my lord. And the accounts.”

“I hoped you would take time for it today.” He went over and picked up the wax tablet. She had been tallying rents, by the look of it. “Are you satisfied?”

She nodded. “I am. I have asked Geoffrey to read it out at supper, for Oswald and the others to confirm their witness.”

“I will confirm it as well, for all to hear.” He handed back the tablet. “Never again sign a contract without knowing what is in it, Alaida. You are my vassal now, as well as my wife, and you owe me care in your dealings.”

“I have always been careful until now, my lord.” She looked down at her lap, so he couldn’t see her face. “I let my anger make me foolish.”

“Well, you are being wise now, and that is what is important.” Her words made him hopeful, and he dragged a stool around so he could sit before her. “Does this sudden wisdom mean you’re no longer angry with me?”

“Yes. No.” She raised her head to meet his eyes, and her lips thinned as she considered the question. “I do not know.”

He wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he waited.

“You confuse me, my lord. You threaten and yet you’re kind. You force yourself into my life and yet you woo me with a gentle hand. You take everything, even myself, and yet I discover you have done this.” She touched the contract almost reverently, as though it were some sort of holy relic. “This most generous thing. Few men would have given so much when they held the advantage that you hold over me.”

“My father always told his sons that too much of an advantage is a bad thing in a marriage, that a husband should be openhanded with his wife. The king gave me much and took all from you. The lands and monies are to . . . balance things a little, as well as to ensure that you are protected, no matter what comes.”
Like your husband suddenly disappearing,
he thought.

Her eyes narrowed and she looked at him aslant. “You wish to protect me,” she said doubtfully.

“You are my wife.”

“And yet you leave me here alone while your men come in to examine the stains of our lovemaking.” She shook her head. “It is strange protection you offer, my lord.”

Her voice was calm and even, but her words fell like a lash on Ivo’s guilty conscience. He pushed to his feet before she could see the blood she had drawn rise into his neck and ears. “Ari was here, as were your women. You were safe.”

“I was humiliated.”

“That was not my wish.”

“And then I had to go to Mass,” she continued without acknowledging him, working herself into a fine rage, no matter what she said about not being angry. “Also without my husband at my side. And there I knelt, trading blushes with Father Theobald while you galloped around the countryside. Was your hunting good, my lord? That’s what I told him you were doing. I thought it sounded better than saying I had no idea where you were or why you had gone. I decided lying to a priest was no more of a sin than some of the things we did last night.”

“It wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t s—”

“So you
were
hunting?” Her outrage lifted her off her stool. “You left me to go
hunting
?”

“No. I left for other reasons, but I did hunt a little while I was out, which means you did not lie to the priest. Nor did you sin with me.”

“That’s not what Father Theobald said. He spoke this morning of the intemperate acts husband and wife should avoid. We missed very few last night, I think.”

“For a man who has forsaken women, Father Theobald has over many opinions on the subject.” He fought to keep his voice calm. He was getting angry, and he was not the one wronged. “Nothing a husband and wife enjoy together is sin in any reasonable man’s religion. As to the humiliation, all I can do is say again that it was not my intention, and tell you I would not have left without good reason.”