Immortal Warrior

by Lisa Hendrix

  “Still, ’tis strange she didn’t bind such a deep wound,” said Alaida.

  “She did. It came loose.”

  Alaida pushed up his sleeve and found that gash open to the air as well. “This one, too?”

  “He tore the bandages off,” said Ivo. “Said they itched—and you see how pigheaded he is.”

  “Aye,” said Alaida sympathetically. “Well, you are lucky indeed, messire. This one is healing as cleanly as the other. I do not know what herbs Merewyn used, but if you were not here to tell me otherwise, I would think your wounds were a week old, at the least. Let us dress these, and then we will see to the one on your leg.”

  “He needs a bath first,” said Ivo. “He reeks of the boar’s filth.”

  Alaida shook her head. “’Tis unwise to bathe an ill man.”

  “I’m not ill,” said Brand.

  “You will be if you have a bath,” said Bôte. “A chill will set in.”

  “Bah, I dunk myself in rivers when there’s snow on the ground,” argued Brand. “Fetch me water and soap. I will scrub the stink off myself if I have to.”

  “And tear your wounds open?” Alaida shook her head. “No, messire. If you must have a washing, you will get it— but from gentler hands than yours. Then your wounds will be dressed and you will be put to bed. And that is my order as your lady.”

  “But I …” he began, but Ivo cleared his throat and Brand finished without enthusiasm, “At your command, my lady.”

  “Wash his hair, too, and trim his beard while you’re about it. In fact, shave him, if he’ll stand for it,” said Alaida in an aside to Bôte as servants came forward with soap and toweling. “And ensure he stays warm.”

  “We will, my lady.”

  “He needs fresh clothing,” said Ivo. “His are beyond repair. Merewyn loaned those.”

  “We shall see they get back to her and—”

  “I’ll take them back,” interrupted Brand. “I need to say a proper thank-you.”

  “As you say, messire. And as I was saying, we will provide new for you. For both of you,” she said, noting for the first time the blood staining her husband’s tunic. “Hadwisa and Eadgyth, help Bôte while I see to dressing our hunters.”

  Alaida took up a candle and headed for the wardrobe as the others began easing Brand out of his clothes. Few on the manor had shoulders so broad, and it took some searching to find a chainse and winter gown she thought would fit. Then there was the matter of braies. She quickly found the patched ones meant for the servants as part of their yearly boon, but hunted through the cupboards without finding any of the better quality that would go to a noble knight. If Geoffrey were here, he’d know just where to lay his hands on them, but he hadn’t yet returned with the extra men. Perhaps they were in with the women’s things. She unlocked the other chest and began sorting through the contents, digging deeper and deeper in her search.

  “Was your mother frightened by a badger while you were in the womb?” asked Ivo from behind her just as she located the braies. Alaida straightened to find him leaning in the doorframe. He had shed the stained gown and wore only his linens and a crooked smile. “Every time I turn around, I find you tail up, tunneling your way into something.”

  She was in no mood for his teasing. “Then your mother must have been frightened by an ass. Hunting boar with just two men!”

  “The disposition of a badger as well,” said Ivo, his smile gone. “We were not hunting the boar, it was hunting us—or Brand, at least, since I was not with him. Do not make that face at me, woman.”

  “What face?”

  “That one.” He jerked his chin toward her. “The one that says you don’t believe me, and that if you did, you would see me whipped. Yes, that one.”

  She snorted and began replacing the items she’d pulled out of the chest. “Very well. Tell me the rest, my lord, and I will try to mind my face.”

  “There’s little more to tell. We were separated. I heard the fight, but by the time I reached the spot, the boar was dead and Brand had stumbled off, bleeding. I spent most of the night trying to find him in the dark.”

  “And then chose to dress out the boar rather than bring him home,” she said without masking her disgust.

  “Ah. The face,” he chided. “Ari dealt with the carcass while Brand rested, as he much needed to do.”

  “One of you might have come for help. We could have sent a wagon for him and—”

  “It would have been worth my life to try to load him in a wagon,” said Ivo with certainty.

  “I suppose it would have,” she granted after considering a moment how Brand would view such treatment. “But could you not have sent Sir Ari to tell us what had happened?”

  “It wasn’t possible.”

  She waited for him to explain why, but he didn’t, and when she glanced up, he wore that closed look that came over his face every time he spoke of his and his men’s odd absences. Well, piss on him. She rose, dropped the lid of the chest with a loud clunk, and picked up the clothing she had chosen for Brand. She started around Ivo, but he shifted so he blocked her more completely.

  Exasperated, she backed up a step or two and glared up at him. “Is there something you need, monseigneur?”

  Amusement flickered across his face. “To have my curiosity satisfied.”

  He was doing it again. She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she did. “Curiosity about what?”

  “You. As we rode in, I thought I saw some … concern on your face.”

  “Tom said a man was injured.”

  “And you worried it was me?”

  “I worried it was anyone. We are sore short of knights and cannot afford to lose one. Even one who only appears after dark.”

  “So it was concern for Alnwick.” He stepped closer. “And that is why you wished for Ari to tell you where we were?”

  “We were inconvenienced. We waited supper on you both nights.”

  Another step. “But you weren’t worried.”

  “No.”

  “Are you certain? You weren’t worried about …” He was on her now, a handspan away, looming over her, his eyes dark and mysterious in the dim light. “Anything at all?”

  Yes, she wanted to say. Yes, I was worried about you, that you were hurt, that I would be widow before I am hardly wife. She wanted him to kiss her and carry her upstairs and release this desperate ache that rose up in her every time he came near, and in the same thought she wanted to beat her fists against his chest in frustration and rail at him never to touch her again. As his head came slowly, slowly down to her, she chose neither course. “Actually, you are right, my lord. I was worried. About my silver thymel.”

  That brought him up short. He reared back. “Your what?”

  “My thymel. For sewing,” she added when he looked blank. “I wagered it today. The women were guessing what game you would bring home from your hunting. As you rode in, I realized I had lost it to one of the spinsters—Rohesia guessed a boar—and I was thinking how I shall miss it.”

  “Your thymel,” he repeated.

  “My thymel,” she said firmly. “Sir Brand will be needing these.”

  She sidestepped around him, but his hand shot out and curled around her arm to stop her. “What was your guess?”

  “That you were not hunting at all.” His hand burned through the cloth, as warm as if it lay against bare skin, and suddenly the choice was open again and she took the risk, offering herself up. “Your things are upstairs, my lord. Will you come up with me?”

  The noise from the hall filled the silence that stretched out between them. Finally, he gave his answer. “I think I had better make use of the soap and hot water as well. Send them down, if you will.”

  She did so, and by the time she went back down the next morning to break her fast and pray, he and Brand were long gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  FIVE DAYS HAD passed since Sir Brand vanished into the dawn when Merewyn once more knocked her knife off the table. It stuck itself
in the same spot.

  Thus, it was no surprise when she rounded the corner of her little cottage that evening after feeding her chickens and saw him there, a shadow man on a shadow horse against the dark trunks of the trees. Beside him sat another man on horseback—a friend, from the ease she felt between them. She started toward them, and they nudged their horses out into the clearing and met her halfway.

  She smiled up at the face she had come to know so well in a single night. “You shaved your beard.”

  He stroked his chin, chuckling ruefully. “Not by choice.” “It looks well, my lord. I hope you find yourself better than when you left here last.”

  “Much better, thanks to you, Merewyn, but stop calling me ‘lord.’ I’ m only a knight.” He indicated his friend. “Him, you can ‘m’lord’ as you please. He is the new lord of Alnwick.”

  “Lord Ivo,” she said as she knelt to the pale-haired nobleman. “I’ve heard your name in the village. You wed Lady Alaida when you took the hall.”

  “You are at the advantage, Healer. All I know of you is your name and that my wife was pleased when she heard who had cared for Brand. She said she would have sent for you herself.”

  “I have often carried my herbs to the manor and will gladly do so again if your lady asks, my lord. But what has brought you both to me this evening?”

  “I came to thank you properly and to return the clothes you loaned me,” said Sir Brand, twisting to untie the bundle behind his saddle.

  “You thanked me well enough, my”—she caught his glance and made the shift at the last instant—“messire. It is my work to heal.”

  “Nonetheless, I do thank you again, and I bring you a gift.” He handed the clothes down to her, then unhooked a brace of hares from the pommel and held them out. “I set a snare today, thinking you might find some use for fresh meat.”

  “They are most welcome, my—Sir Brand.” This time all three of them smiled at her near slip. She took the hares with pleasure. Fresh meat was rare in her pot, and the skins would make warm mitts for next winter. “Will you stay a little? I would see how you are healing.”

  “We cannot stop long,” said Sir Brand. “They wait supper on us at the manor.”

  “It will take only a moment. Please, messire.”

  He looked to Lord Ivo, who shrugged. “Let her look. Then I can tell Alaida her healer has seen your scars and perhaps she will stop grumbling about you riding out each day.”

  “All right.” Sir Brand swung easily off his horse—remarkably easily, considering the hole in his side. Merewyn took a moment to set the clothes on a bench by the door and hang the hares on a peg beside it, then turned back to the knight. “Arm first, messire, if you please.”

  She had thought Lord Ivo exaggerated when he spoke of scars, but when Sir Brand pulled up his sleeve, that was all that remained of the wound on his arm—a rough, red scar that looked to be perhaps a month old. She turned his hand up and touched his palm where the tears and scrapes had faded to mere lines. A shiver ran up her spine, and she glanced up to find eyes the color of a summer sky sparkling down at her.

  “I told you I heal quickly,” he said.

  Cheeks heating, she dropped his hand and stepped back a pace. “You will have to loose your braies for me to see the others.”

  “I’ve had more women asking me to drop my breeks this week than in many a year,” Brand said to Lord Ivo, who laughed. He lifted his shirt and put his hands to his ties. “Does your husband not mind you having men, uh, bare themselves?”

  “I have no husband, sir.”

  His brows knitted together in puzzlement. “My mind was clouded, but I would wager a good horse that you said those were your husband’s old clothes.”

  “So I did. But my husband is dead some five years since.”

  “I am sorry for that, but grateful you still had his clothes. They got me back to Alnwick without freezing my … without freezing.”

  She smiled at his quick change of direction. “Someday you must tell me how you came to be naked in the woods.”

  “Someday.” He eased his braies down just enough to show her his hip and her smile faded. This wound, too, was healed far beyond expectation. The bruise, which should have been just beginning to fade, was nearly gone, and the edges of the wound had completely closed and healed, though a thick scab still clung to the part she had not been able to stitch. “This is … most strange. And most remarkable. Where are all my stitches?”

  “I plucked most of them out. They pulled as it healed.” She nodded absently. “I had no silk to use. Now the thigh, sir.”

  He dropped his braies lower, gave her barely a moment to see the angry red scar, then tugged them back up hastily.

  “Quick healing is one thing, messire, but this is …” Magic, she wanted to say, but she knew too little of these men and where they stood with the Church to use the word. She repeated, “Remarkable.”

  “My wife’s old nurse spread a poultice of honey and comfrey over the wounds each time she rebound them,” explained Lord Ivo. “She said it would speed the healing.”

  Merewyn nodded, still absorbed by what she had seen. “Bôte is wise. I had no honey left, else I might have done the same.” Not that honey had done this, nor all the comfrey in England. There was something most strange about this man and his healing. “Tell your lady that Sir Brand is fit to do what he pleases, my lord, and that I say she may stop grumbling at him.”

  “’Tis me she grumbles at,” he said, his eyes flashing with good humor, and she took a sudden liking to this new lord, despite the mystery surrounding his friend. He pulled his purse from his belt and drew out several coins, which he held out to her. “I wish to reward you for the aid you gave him.”

  Merewyn shook her head. “I cannot take your coin, my lord. My family long ago pledged to aid the lords of Alnwick in return for free range of the woods. If I take your silver, the pledge is broken.”

  “You took Brand’s hares,” he pointed out.

  “He offered them as a gift, my lord, as I offered my care to him.” Her cheeks grew warm as Sir Brand smiled down on her.

  “And I offer these coins as thanks,” said Lord Ivo.

  “You may call it thanks, but I fear you mean it as payment.”

  “’Tis a fine point.”

  “On such fine points are pledges made and kept.”

  “True enough,” he conceded. “But what if Brand had offered his hares as payment?”

  “I would have taken them,” she said matter-of-factly. “For he is not lord of Alnwick.”

  “And thankful for it,” said Sir Brand, chuckling. “By the saints, Ivo, this land of yours comes with more covenants and pledges than the throne of England.”

  “This pledge goes back further than the throne, sir. The women of my family have been healers in these woods to a woman, back to a time before my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother. Before Alnwick was a vill, or England united, we were bound here to help those who need us.”

  “Well, I for one am glad you were here, whatever pledges are behind it,” said Brand.

  “As am I, even if you will not take my coin,” said Lord Ivo.

  Sir Brand made moves to get back on his horse, and disappointment surged through Merewyn. “Would you not come in before you ride on, my lords? My table is poor, but I am a good cook with what I have. And I have ale and a little wine to share. You would be most welcome.”

  “’Tis a kind offer, Merewyn, but we cannot,” said Lord Ivo. “My lady awaits, and it would not do to stop her grumbling about Brand only to have her start up again because we are late for supper.”

  “Blame me, my lord. Tell her I insisted on poking and prodding to see why your knight heals so well, so that I may use his secret on others.”

  “You may not want to do that,” said the nobleman. “It might make the others as stubborn as he. We will share your hospitality another time perhaps.”

  The edges of the clouds still glowed as Sir Brand swung up onto his
roan horse. Merewyn stood by her door watching them away.

  “I will keep a pot of ale waiting for you, my lords,” she called out.

  “And I will come to drink it one day,” promised Brand as they turned onto the path to Alnwick. “Fare you well, Merewyn of Alnwood, and once more, my thanks.” Just before the forest dark swallowed them, he whistled, and a large raven sailed down off a branch and landed on his shoulder.

  The breath caught in Merewyn’s throat: the Father’s sacred bird, companion to a knight who healed far too quickly. No wonder the omens had been so clear. The seriousness of his wounds and the strange hurry in which he’d left had distracted her from the signs, but now that she turned her mind to it, there was little doubt—magic swirled around Sir Brand and his lord like gnats around a flame. It would be interesting to see why the gods had sent him into her life.

  Other than to bring her meat, of course.

  She looked at the hares, and her mouth watered with the thought of such a treat. One whole hare to roast, and another for the pot. She sent a silent blessing sailing off down the path where the two knights had disappeared and took up her knife to skin her meal before it grew too dark.

  CHAPTER 14

  UNDER ARI’S STEWARDSHIP, the motte gradually bulged upward behind the bailey like the cap of a sprouting toad-stool. Geoff returned from Durham with nearly two score men, which pushed things along more quickly and freed the village men, under Wat, to expand the bailey ditches and strengthen the paling wall.

  Ivo and Brand got into the habit of checking the progress each night as they rode out of the forest, circling the growing mound before they headed in and handed the horses over to the ever-ready Tom. After supper they read the day’s message from Ari and scribbled instructions back to him before settling in for games or other entertainment. Most nights, Alaida sat nearby, silently stitching away on some project or other, then retired early, seemingly exhausted by the presence of the extra men and the work they entailed. Her fatigue worked in Ivo’s favor; she went to sleep so quickly and slept so deeply that he felt no jeopardy at all in slipping into her bed every few nights.