by Lisa Hendrix
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 …
“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.”
“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.”
“That is shite. I don’t care how foul a marriage looks to a woman, she’s not going to lie with a man she’s just seen turn from bull to man merely to get out of it. She no doubt thought you were some sort of demon.”
“Aye,” conceded Gunnar. “Till I told her I wasn’t.”
“And she believed what you said, just like that.”
“Not fully. She thought I might have enchanted her, and she feared the magic.”
“Yet she let you tup her—unless you forced her.” Brand’s voice hardened. “You didn’t force her, did you?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then she was willing. And no woman born would willingly lie with a man who she knows is a bull, who she suspects has enchanted her, who she fears is a demon, unless beneath it all, she truly loved him.”
Loved him. Gunnar pushed back against the surge of hope. “Even if you’re right, it doesn’t matter. She’s betrothed. She’s on her way to him by now.”
“Then stop her,” said Brand.
“You mistake me for Drengi Fastarrsson,” Gunnar growled. “I will not steal another man’s wife!”
“Ah, there it is. We get to the bottom of it at last. That she was in a fire makes you toss her and Kolla into one pot, and now you think she also lied like Kolla. But that is just more shite. Lady Eleanor is not that whore you married. This is not a moment’s lust on her part, nor do you seek revenge against her man for some imagined slight by taking her away. You need this woman. The gods put her in your path, in your very arms, in almost the same moment they led Ari to the amulet.
“She is the one, Gunnar,” Brand insisted. “Claim her. Whatever it takes, claim her and be healed. We will worry about the rest later.”
The world, askew since his confrontation with Westmorland outside Raby, straightened with a bump, leaving him lightheaded with hope. Claim her. Whatever it takes.
“You’re right. I am thick.” Gunnar headed toward the cave.
“We all are, sometimes.” Brand fell in beside him. “Where are you going?”
“To pack my gear.”
“Good. You may have a fight on your hands, you know.”
“There is no ‘may’ about it,” said Gunnar grimly. “Her father will try to take her back, as will her betrothed if he’s any sort of man at all. I will need your help to keep her.”
“You know you always have my arm, but in this, I will slow you too much. Jafri and I will stay here. Take Torvald and Ari.”
“Take us where?” asked Torvald as they entered the cave. He stood up and whistled the raven to his shoulder.
“Back to the old days.” Gunnar found hi
s saddlebag and started shoving gear into it. “We ride to Raby to steal a woman for me.”
BUT SHE WASN’T at Raby. Ari found that out, slipping into the castle by day to see where things stood. With that easy way of his, he convinced some maid or other to tell him Eleanor had been packed off to a nunnery at Clementhorpe even before Gunnar had spoken with Westmorland. So they hurried to Clementhorpe, only to learn she’d left there, as well, some ten days before, headed for Burwash, in Sussex, to be wed. Even at the speed a bridal train traveled, they would have already reached London. Perhaps even Burwash.
And so they headed for Burwash, and as they raced south along the Great Road, Gunnar was glad Brand had stayed behind. As much as he would have liked to have his captain and friend at his side, the bear would have slowed them badly, forcing them to hide deep in the wilds every day because of his strangeness and the danger he posed to others. With Ari along, they were able to travel during daylight hours—more slowly, granted, because he had to lead the bull along, but still travel. And sunrise and sunset only required a place private enough that they weren’t caught changing.
And of course at night, he and Torvald could ride hard, pushing the horses as fast as the moonlit roads would allow while the raven flew overhead. Even with having to skirt around London, they reached Burwash early on the fifth night after Clementhorpe.
They sat in the deep shadows of the village churchyard, staring at the manor across the way and listening to the music that drifted across the road on the evening air. The manor was a large, handsome hall, surrounded by a low stone wall that gave proof to the fact that this part of England had long been tamed, unlike the north, where even poor men needed high walls and towers to protect them from Scots and reavers and outlaws.
Lord Burghersh was no poor man, though. If the grounds of his manor didn’t prove it, the amount of clear glass in his brightly lit windows did. A fresh wave of doubt washed over Gunnar, different this time, but just as bitter.
“How can I ask her to leave this?” he asked Torvald. “What kind of life I can offer, on the run and in hiding?”
“You’ll be healed. You can carry her back home, start a new life with her by your side.” Torvald turned his horse toward the gate. “Wait here.”
So Gunnar waited, his mind turning over all the possibilities. He didn’t have long before he found out which was true. Torvald came back with the grim news. “She is married. Three days ago.”
Three days. The words cut Gunnar like a dagger. In three days, the marriage would surely have been consummated. His stomach roiled at the idea of Eleanor beneath another man, especially one she didn’t want. And whether she loved him or not, she surely had not wanted Burghersh. If he’d forced her, if he’d hurt her in any way, he would die, Gunnar resolved coldly. Whatever else happened, Burghersh would die.
“Is Westmorland there?” Gunnar half hoped he was. He could kill him at the same time.
“The guard said he left for London yesterday. But I saw an archer in Westmorland livery. He must’ve left men behind. Would they know you on sight?”
“I was there for over a fortnight. I spoke with most of them at one point or another.” Gunnar drummed his fingers on the pommel of his saddle. “I don’t want her caught in the middle of a fight. We must find a way to get her out safely.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps we don’t have to get her out at all.”
“Of course we do. That’s why we’re here. I need her.”
“You need her love, not her hand,” said Torvald.
“What are you talking about?”
“Steinarr was freed not when he married his woman, but when she said she loved him. The same for Ivar. It is the love that defeats Cwen’s magic, not the vows.”
“You’re mad.”
“No. I have been thinking about it along the way. You need only for her to say she loves you, with the amulet in her hand, touching you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”
“I wanted to see how things were. If she was still unwed …” Torvald’s slight shrug was his way of saying he would’ve helped Gunnar take her, no matter what. “But she’s not, and no matter how much she cares for you, she may not be willing to break her vows.”
“Balls. I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.”
“Find out what she wants,” said Torvald, as though that would be an easy thing to do. “Then we will make plans.”
Gunnar jerked his chin toward the archer pacing the front wall. “I’ll need a way past Westmorland’s men. I don’t fancy an arrow in my arse.”
“Done.” Torvald reached behind his saddle, untied a bundle Gunnar had been wondering about, and shook it out.
“What are you doing with a monk’s robe?”
“I long ago discovered that there’s always room for a wandering monk. I told them I found you on the road and asked if we could stay. We have entry. Just keep your head down so Westmorland’s men don’t see your face.”
A little later, a monk in robes a shade too small followed a wandering knight to the gate of Burghersh Hall
“Ah, good, you fetched him, sir,” said the guard at the gate as he passed them through beneath the watchful eye of Westmorland’s archer. “Welcome, Brother, welcome. You are out and about late for a monk.”
“Aye, and I will feel every hour of it on the morrow during prayer.” Gunnar pitched his voice a shade higher than normal and mumbled a bit, in case the archer was listening. “My ass fell down dead on the road and it is only through the offices of this good knight and his animal that I am safely here at all.” Gunnar gave Torvald a little bob he hoped looked monk-like.
“Well, the hall is too crowded already from the wedding party, so you’ll have to make your bed in the hayloft, the steward says. But you can go in and take supper. There is food and plenty for all.”
Gunnar bobbed his head again and followed Torvald into the yard.
A stableman appeared almost immediately. “I’ll see to your animals, sir.”
“We will leave before dawn,” said Torvald. “I want them close at hand.”
“I’ll put them in the first pen, then, monsire. Shall I show you where?”
“Aye.”
“Perhaps you can show me where the garderobe is while you’re at it,” said Gunnar.
“Of course, Brother. Just follow us.” The man took the horses and beckoned them forward. As they rounded the end of the hall, he pointed toward a torch flickering in the far corner of the yard. “There’s plenty of clean straw just outside.”
“My thanks,” said Gunnar and headed that way. Once in the shadows, he veered off and, after checking that no one was minding him, went off to explore the warren of outbuildings, making note of all possible routes out.
He described the layout to Torvald when they met outside the hall. “One of Westmorland’s archers stands guard on the rear tower, and another walks the wall.”
“The groom says he left ten men. That’s three watches, plus a captain. That means four in the hall, perhaps seven if the third watch is awake.”
“They won’t have their bows with them.”
“No, but they’ll have their eyes and their knives. Keep your head down and that hood well forward.”
“Of course, sir knight. I am a very humble monk,” said Gunnar, and headed for the door.
But when he got inside, he couldn’t help but look for her. For an instant, he couldn’t find her in the crowd on the dais. His heart fell, thinking that she must have retired already, that she would be bedded again before he could stop it.
Then a bulky merchant stepped aside and there she was, her eyes stark in her unsmiling face, the faint shadow of a bruise marking her cheek. And her nose. What was wrong with her nose? He squinted at the crooked bump that had never been there before. If Lucy wasn’t standing over her shoulder fidgeting, he’d swear it was she with her hand in Burghersh’s.
Had Burghersh beaten her? The fading yellow of the bruise said it was old, bu
t Gunnar studied the slight, brown-haired fellow at Eleanor’s side with suspicious eyes anyway. All this time, he’d been imagining an older, powerful man on the verge of being made earl. But this was a boy, so young that his jaw bore no shadow of a beard. He wasn’t old enough to be a knight. He wasn’t even as old as Eleanor, perhaps six and ten at the most.
“Look at him,” he muttered under his breath. “I could snap that twig with one finger.” He would, too, if he’d hit her. He’d kill the little weasel. Slowly.
“Head down,” said Torvald.
Gunnar yanked the monk’s hood forward and they went to wash hands, then took places as far from anyone wearing Westmorland livery as they could manage. It was all he could do to sit there and pretend to eat when she was just yards away, especially with that scrawny prick running his fingers back and forth along her wrist in some misbegotten effort to seduce her. But pretend he did … until he couldn’t stand it any longer.
He leaned over to Torvald. “Either we do this now, or I’m just going to slit his throat and be done with it.”
“Are you certain she won’t betray us? Even by mistake?”
“She is quick and steady. She will be fine.”
“All right, then.” Torvald took a last swill of ale, clumsily spilling a measure down the front of his cote. He rubbed the ale in well and then stood.
“How will you get it to her?”
“Just be ready,” said Torvald and, pulling a scrap of parchment from his sleeve, pushed into the crowd, heading for Eleanor.
CHAPTER 14
RICHARD NO LONGER picked his nose nor played with toads, but he still fiddled with everything constantly, and if he didn’t stop trifling with her wrist like that, she was going to scream. Eleanor nodded at the next well-wishers to come forward, trying to ignore her husband’s irritating touch, just as she’d been trying to ignore almost everything he’d done for the last three days and nights. Just now, it wasn’t working.
Finally, she jerked her hand away, pretending an itch on the opposite arm that needed thorough scratching. Richard merely glanced over and turned his hand palm up, waiting for her to be done and come back to him. She scratched as long as she could, then found some reason to fuss with her veil, but eventually she had to give in. This time, though, she laced her fingers with his. At least he couldn’t tickle her that way.
