by Lisa Hendrix
“I pray you are good to your word, my lady. Follow me.” He set off along the seaward path.
They came out in a broader, shallower part of the dene, and Ari led her along the stony stream bank until they rounded a bend. The bright red and yellow of a players’ wagon jumped out from amid the green of tree and bramble. No, not a player’s wagon, but a bear-baiter’s wagon, and inside it—
A beastly roar rattled the air and set the wagon rocking.
Eleanor jumped back, but Ari caught her by the sleeve. “He cannot escape, my lady. Come closer.”
She edged a little closer and found herself staring into the almond-shaped eyes of the great bear that stood trapped behind the wagon’s iron bars. “Is th-that Sir Brand?”
“No. Never confuse that, my lady. He and the bear are not nearly the same,” said Ari as the beast roared again. “This is close enough.”
Eleanor had seen bears before, doing tricks on the green or chained to a pole for baiting, but never one as big and with such frightening demeanor. She was quite certain he would eat her whole if given a chance, and as if to prove her right, the animal reached between the bars, raking the air with a paw the size of a trencher and claws as big as grappling hooks.
“Oh.” She spread her hands, fingers curved, and matched by sight the distance between her nails and the bear’s claws. “Gunnar’s scars. Those claws are what marked him.”
“They are what have marked all of us, much to Brand’s torment. He is not like Gunnar and the rest of us. He cannot keep any piece of himself within the creature, no matter how hard he tries, and thus he knows nothing of what the bear does each day until he slips its hold that night. Fear of what it has done and might do again is what makes him shut himself in that cage each morning.”
“How terrible for him.”
“More terrible for everyone if he does not. You must stay well away from the beast, my lady.”
“Be assured, I will.” The bear clawed the air again, straining to reach her. She backed away. “You don’t actually bait him, do you?”
“No, but it makes a good guise for travel. A bear-baiter is welcome anywhere. But of course, we are always passing through to somewhere else, by order of Lord Thus-and-such.” A twinkle of devilry made Ari look more like a boy than a knight. “We have even used Westmorland’s name to move through the west counties.”
“Pray my lord father does not hear of it, sir. He would not be pleased.” She watched the bear for a little longer, then they started up the dene, headed back toward camp.
“Brand is as big as a bear and roars like one when he angers,” she mused aloud as they walked. “Gunnar is clearly a bull in both strength and temperament—calm until he suddenly is not. Torvald is noble and full of quiet fire, like that stallion—and his hair is as silken as the animal’s mane. And you—”
“Take care, my lady,” warned Ari, chuckling. “If you tell me I have a big beak, I may weep.”
“Your beak, sir, is handsome, as you doubtless know. A chattering tongue would be your raven’s trait. That and a good deal of mischief-making, I should think.”
Ari’s laugh echoed off the rocks. “Chattering? I think I shall take offense after all. But you have it right. The spirits follow us according to our natures.”
“Then Sir Jafri must be a wolf, for he is lean, hungry-looking, and wary.”
“God’s knees, you are quick.”
“Perhaps not so quick as you think,” she confessed. “I heard howls outside the castle the night they rescued me. At the time, I thought dog, but …”
“There is a dog amongst us, but he is elsewhere now. You heard Jafri because he rode the stallion to the castle, so that when Torvald came back to himself, he would be near enough to keep watch over you until Gunnar and Brand arrived. Jafri is the one who spotted you, with those keen eyes of his.”
A sudden flux of tears caught her off guard. These men saved her, guarded her, knowing nothing of her except that she was Gunnar’s. She blinked furiously to be rid of the tears before they choked her. “I knew already that he saved me. But for all that, I think he does not much like me.”
“It is not just you, my lady. He does not easily trust. He and Gunnar keep to the deep wilds for good reason.”
“The wolf bounty.”
“With the wolves nearly gone, it grows more difficult for him to hide with each passing year. Gunnar and Torvald can escape notice amongst the cattle and horses of any manor with little trouble, and I am always just one amongst many ravens. But if someone heard that there was a man who became a wolf, or one who became a bear, they could hunt them down with little doubt of what they had found.”
“And then they would torture them as devils. I understand, sir. No one will learn of them from me.”
“I think I do believe you, Lady Eleanor.” They reached a waterfall that tumbled down through a gap too narrow to pass, and Ari pointed to the way they would go around.
“You asked if I hurt like the others.” He stayed close at hand as she clambered over the rocks, ready to catch her. “For me, the torture lies not in the changing—though I would happily cut off my right arm and hand it to you if that would let me be done with it—but in the magic surrounding it. I am fey, my lady. Born to magic.”
“A sorcerer?”
“A seer, when it suits the gods to send me visions. But Cwen’s magic has somehow muddled my own. The visions come less often and less true with each passing year.”
She reached a broad area from which she could see the section of the dene where Brand and Torvald were making their camp, and the sight of the pen full of horses reminded her that he was supposed to be taking animals to market, not playing squire to her. But this was the first time one of them was speaking to her about the curse so openly, and she wasn’t willing to give up just yet.
“Is there nothing that can be done about your magic, monsire?”
“Only breaking the curse.”
“Breaking it?” Excitement coursed through Eleanor. “I didn’t know it could be broken.”
“Of course it can. Did Gunnar not tell you?”
“He told me how the curse was laid, and that two had escaped it, but not that they had broken the curse. I thought he meant they had somehow died despite it.” She could tell by the way Ari rolled his eyes that he was disgusted at Gunnar for some reason and tried to make an excuse. “Perhaps he didn’t know they broke it?”
“He knows. We have all known for more than three hundreds of years, since the first of us found freedom.”
“Then tell me, how is it broken? Can I help him somehow?” He considered her for so long, she thought she might have said something foolish. But it didn’t matter. She pressed. “Truly, sir, I will do anything. Just tell me. Please. I love him. I want to help him.”
A slow smile dawned across his face. “Ah, fair lady. You have brought joy to this tired heart today.”
“How is that?”
“Simple. You have said the magic words.”
CHAPTER 21
GUNNAR HAD HIS amulet and his woman who loved him. All was in place—and yet something wasn’t right.
Ari sat with Jafri outside the cave where Lady Eleanor slept the day away, barely able to concentrate on the game of dice they were playing. His left hand burned as though he’d poured salt in the wounds. He raked at it through the glove, but the leather kept him from finding much relief. He made so many mistakes and poor bets that Jafri finally scooped up the dice and put the cup behind his back.
“Hey.”
“You’re going to owe me the price of a good destrier if you don’t stop,” said Jafri. He dropped his voice low. “What’s wrong? Is there something about her?”
Ari glanced toward the cave and shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“You told me things are good. That she is ready.”
“She is. It’s just that … It is not right. None of it. I’ve known for months that something is coming, but I cannot … It should not be this difficult
.” Wincing, he ripped his glove off and stripped away the bandage so he could get to the itch.
“Balls, Ari. What have you done to yourself?” Jafri gaped at his bloodied palm with its lines of knife cuts, some so close together that the skin between them hung in tatters. “You are flayed. You will cost yourself a hand if you keep that up. Your visions cannot be worth such a price.”
“But there lies the problem—I have no visions. None. I have been calling and calling, and they won’t come. They haven’t come in months. Nay, years. I think the last one was the one that got me Gunnar’s amulet. Perhaps one after that.”
“Then you’re not meant to have them right now. Or you’re trying too hard. Let them go, and when the time is right, the gods will give them back to you.”
“I cannot wait for the gods. We are on the brink of something. I sense it and I don’t know what it is, or even whether it is good or bad. I feel like a blind man groping his way around a dungeon. All is black on black. I must … Aw, shite.” He pushed to his feet. “I’m going back to the pool again.”
“Don’t. Let it go.”
“I cannot. We need to be ready, and it is my lot to discover what we must be ready for. Leave a message for Brand, will you. He needs to know. And he may need to come fetch the raven. His wing …” He held up his hand.
“What about Gunnar?” asked Jafri.
“I don’t know,” said Ari. “I told the lady all would be well. Hope for her sake and Gunnar’s that it is.”
So he set off to go slice his hand open yet again in the hope that his blood would buy him a single glimpse into the future.
Just one. Please, Vör, grant me just one.
ELEANOR WAS WAITING at the stream’s edge when Gunnar came back that evening, and she wore a look that made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
“What is it?”
“You are late. Again.”
He grinned at her little jest. “It is a fault, my lady.”
“You have many faults, good sir, one being that you are a bull.” She reached into the neck of his shirt and found his amulet. He grabbed to stop her, but she pressed it into his chest. “But even so, I do love you.”
His heart stuttered and began to race. “Eleanor.”
“I love you, Gunnar,” she said again.
Free. He was free. Yes, oh yes, oh yes.
Nothing happened.
Eleanor tugged the amulet out where she could see it. Her expression was pure confusion, but a cold, distant part of Gunnar understood.
She wasn’t the one.
Whatever she thought she felt, whatever he wanted … It wasn’t his turn after all.
“I don’t understand,” she murmured. “Ari said this is how it is done.”
“Ari? He put you up to this?” Disappointment flashed to anger in an instant. “He should have kept his nose out of it.”
“I asked him how to help you. He said that all I must do is say I love you with your amulet in hand and the curse will be broken.”
Interfering ass. “Not just say it. Mean it.”
“But I do mean it. I love you.”
Anger at Ari. Anger at Eleanor. It didn’t matter. He lashed out. “There is no use in lying.”
“’Tis no lie,” she snapped back. “I love you.”
“If that were true, the curse would be broken. That is how the magic works. Either you lie, or you just think you love me. But you do not.”
“Do not dare to tell me how I feel. I love you.”
“Lust is not love. Need is not love. Wanting to escape your father and Burghersh and Percy is not love.”
“I could escape my father by becoming a nun. It would be far easier than dealing with you and a cave. But I want to be here. I risked all to be here. I know what love is, and I love you. I have loved you for years. I did everything I did because I love you.”
“Let Richard bed you, you mean? Oh, yes, that is surely love, my lady, letting another man fuck you like that.”
She slapped him.
In his madness, he barely felt the blow, but it was enough to stop his mouth. He turned and walked away.
His seething rage carried him up the dene until the pool and upper falls blocked his way. He stood a long while, watching the water gush through the narrow gap and into the pool below, letting its roar drown the roar in his head.
Why couldn’t Ari have left things alone? At least there had been hope. Now even that was gone once more.
Gunnar ripped off his clothes and plunged into the pool.
The water wasn’t as cold as he wanted or needed. Last night’s fog notwithstanding, the weather had been gentle of late, and the water lacked the bite that might have cooled his wroth. He swam beneath the fall and stayed there, letting it beat at him in the hope that would help. But the water chattering against his skull sounded like mad laughter, as if the very spirit of the dene mocked him.
And well it should. He had a woman who, if she did not truly love him, at least did not fear what he was, who was willing to welcome him into her bed, into her arms, into that sweet, sweet body. He should be happy with her gift. Instead, he’d all but called her whore. His disgust with himself grew and exceeded the disgust he felt for Eleanor’s lie. He roared his agony back at the torrent. “She was mine!”
“I am yours.” The words echoed back to him, as faint and watery as a poppy dream. He ducked under the surface to wash them out of his ears, then pushed toward the edge of the pool.
Dream met reality in the moonlight of Eleanor’s eyes and the stubborn set of her jaw. She stood at water’s edge, waiting for him, and as soon as he saw her, he knew it didn’t matter. Any of it. Not Richard, not the years of waiting, not even his amulet and the prospect of freedom. It all faded away in the way she looked at him.
With forgiveness. With passion. With certainty.
With love.
How could he have been such a fool? “Eleanor.”
She stripped out of her gown and hose more quickly than he would have thought possible. She soon wore only her linen kirtle, and then that, too, flew aside, leaving her clad only in a robe of pale light, like Máni’s bride.
She waded into the pool and headed straight for him. As the water closed over her hips and back, she gasped at the chill, but kept coming.
“I am yours,” she whispered as she moved into his arms and kissed him. She was fire in water, heat in the dark winter of his soul, and he burned with a need that went beyond reason or thought. He pulled her close, locking her to him, and the warmth of her body hardened him despite the cool water. When she felt him rise against her, she curled one leg around his waist, lifted herself up, and pulled him in. As she began to move on him, she leaned back in his arms to meet his eyes. “Surely you must know that I am yours.”
Gunnar’s gaze fell to the line where the water lapped at her body in a delicate series of arcs that spoke of womanliness in a way that he’d never seen. Fascinated, he put one finger to where the waterline curled against the side of her breast, then followed it around the full mound, into the valley between, and over the other breast. She shuddered and pressed to him, and he reached down and touched her where they joined.
She shattered instantly, arcing back again his arm, and her pleasure took him over the edge with her, not in the violent release he usually knew, but something different. More tranquil. More satisfying. They clung to each other, both trembling, the water around them fracturing into a million shards of moonlight then coming back together.
Like his heart.
“I had a wife back in Vass, all those years ago,” he began as their bodies finished with each other. It was the wrong thing to speak of at such a time, but something dragged it out of him anyway. “She betrayed me with a man who was first my friend and then my enemy, and when I went to take her back, he and I fought. In the midst of battle, a fire started. I could do nothing to help Kolla but listen to her die. I thought of her when the fire began at Richmond. I thought of her when you chose Richard over me
. And every time you say you love me …” Shame strangled his voice.
“She told you she loved you and then betrayed you, so when I say the words, you think of her, too, and you think I lie like she did,” Eleanor finished for him, understanding in that quick way of hers. “When the magic fails, you are certain of it.
“I am not she. Be certain of me, Gunnar, not this bauble, no matter what power it is supposed to have.” She flattened her hand over the little bull that lay against his breast and rose up to kiss him, whispering against his mouth, “Magic or not, be certain that I love you. That I always have and always will.”
There was a crackle, like distant lightning, and the water began to glow and surge around them. Pain slammed through Gunnar’s body, and the bull rose up within him.
He shoved Eleanor away in an effort to protect her, but the bull receded, then rose again, receded then rose. Each time the pain wracked him, as though the bull’s spirit couldn’t get out. Each time he felt his body being ripped, as though the creature tore at him from within with dull horns.
“Odin, please!” The bull rose again, tearing at him in its need to escape. Gunnar’s knees buckled with the agony of it and he sank into the pool, screaming. Water filled his mouth and nose. He began to drown.
“Gunnar! Oh, God, help!” screamed Eleanor. She grabbed for him, caught his hair, and dragged him up. He gasped for air then slipped under again as she shifted for a better hold under his arms. She hauled him back up again. “Help! Someone help us!”
She struggled toward the water’s edge, but the closer she got, the less the water supported Gunnar’s bulk. Thrashing, he slipped away from her once more, and by the time she could pull him back, he’d gone limp, and his eyes had rolled back in his skull. She gripped his water-slick skin and leaned back, hauling with all her strength, then shifted her grip and hauled again. Inch by inch she dragged him, until she had him in the shallows and his nose and mouth were clear. All the while the pool, glowing with that eerie light, boiled around them.
“Breathe. Oh, please, breathe.” She shook Gunnar until he groaned and gasped for air. A quick thanks to Heaven crossed her lips, and then another shout. “Help! Help us!”
