Immortal Champion

by Lisa Hendrix

  Fury roared up out of Tunstall’s throat, giving him a last burst of strength. He lifted his sword to strike. Gunnar shoved Eleanor aside and blocked the blow, then struck. Tunstall’s guts spilled and he collapsed, dead.

  Brand threaded his way between the horses and took a look at Tunstall, then at Eleanor, standing white-faced behind Gunnar. “Get her away from here, Gunnar. It is not the place for a woman.”

  “I told you, I cannot.” He spoke in Norse. “You take her, Torvald.”

  “Gunnar …”

  “Take her,” snapped Gunnar. He couldn’t. She wasn’t his, and if he held her before him on a horse the way he had on May Day, so long ago, he would never be able to send her back to her husband. “I will follow after we are done.”

  Shaking his head, Torvald stepped forward. “My lady. Come with me.”

  Eleanor ignored the hand he offered and stepped around Gunnar to look down at the body. Her eyes were hooded, her face as blank as a death mask. She stood there for a moment, then turned away and walked off, stiff backed. She got about a dozen steps before she stopped. Her shoulders sagged and she covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

  In three steps, Gunnar was at her side, scooping her up, holding her, sheltering her. She curled against him and clutched at his bloodied shirt, trying to say something, but the words came out so muddled with tears he couldn’t understand.

  “… dead …” he thought he heard. “… couldn’t … Henry …”

  “Shh. You are safe. I have you.” He kissed the top of her head, and she sobbed harder.

  Torvald gave him a nod. “I’ll get your horse.”

  “Just bring him when you come back,” said Gunnar, and carried her home.

  By the time he waded through the creek at the bottom of the dene, Eleanor had stopped crying and started shaking. He’d expected she would. He’d seen enough men get the shakes after the heat of battle faded—had even suffered them himself a few times—to know they were coming and that they were no sign of weakness. Eleanor might not have borne weapons, but she had fought a battle, the gods only knew for how long, and now that it was over and she was safe, the strain was catching her unawares.

  “You need something warm in you and then a sound sleep,” he said as he settled her on a stool beside the dead fire and draped a blanket over her shoulders. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  She nodded, and he went to work, gathering his flint and steel and laying a fire in the thin light that filtered through the mouth of the cave. Despite working mostly by feel, he soon had a good ember, and he tipped it into the tinder and breathed over it until the flame flared to life.

  “It is y-you.”

  Her whispered exclamation made him look up. She was staring at him, eyes round and bright as silver pennies in her ghost-white face.

  “Aye, it is,” he said gently. He so much wanted to hold her, comfort her, kiss away the fresh tears that trickled down her cheeks. Instead, he fed a few twigs and sticks into the fire. “Did you doubt it?”

  “I j-j-j-ust …” She surrendered to the chattering of her teeth and simply shook her head and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders.

  Gunnar kept adding small wood until the fire burned hot and true, then added three fat logs to keep it going and make enough coals for proper cooking later. He sloshed a good measure of the wine Brand had brought into a kettle and nestled the pot into the space between the logs to warm. “I don’t have spices to mull this properly, but it will do you good anyway.”

  He got no answer, and when he turned to look, Eleanor was lost in the fire, barely blinking at whatever she saw in the flames. He sat back on his heels and took a good look at her now that he had enough light. Other than a shallow cut on her neck that had already stopped bleeding, she appeared unharmed.

  Thanks belonged to Jafri for that. If he hadn’t seen her, if Ari hadn’t brought the message, if Torvald hadn’t been there, if Brand and he hadn’t …

  His own hands began to shake as he considered the many ways this night could have gone sour.

  What the devil was she doing out here? How had she fallen into Tunstall’s hands? Where were the men who should have been protecting her?

  He had a hundred questions—and no right to ask them, any more than he had the right to reach across the narrow space between them and brush that tear-dampened wisp of hair off her cheek.

  Those rights belonged to her husband, the careless fool who had let her wander into danger. Had he made her Countess of Gloucester yet? he wondered, that prick of a husband she would return to.

  Anger propelled Gunnar to his feet. He grabbed the leathern pail, muttered something about needing water, and escaped out into the night.

  He filled the pail, then stripped off his blood-spattered gown and anchored it in the edge of the stream with a heavy stone so the current might wash away the stains, then plunged his head into the water as well, in the hopes it might carry away some of the darkly possessive desire that seethed inside him.

  It helped. When he hauled the water back inside, his head was indeed clearer and the wine had begun to steam. Eleanor, however, still sat staring. He placed the pail near the fire to take the chill off the water, then poured some wine.

  “My lady?” Nothing. “Eleanor.”

  She flinched and came partway back from wherever she was to meet his eyes.

  He held out the wine. “Drink. It will help.”

  She nodded and cupped the bowl between two hands. She still shook badly, but she managed a sip, and then another, and then she heaved a great sigh, drained the bowl in one long draught, and held it out. “More.”

  “I told you it would help.” He poured more, and watched her drink that, too, though considerably more slowly, and when she’d finished, he took the bowl, dampened a clean cloth, and offered it to her, indicating the side of her neck. “You are hurt.”

  Eleanor touched the wound, wincing, but didn’t seem to register what she should do with the cloth.

  Gunnar hesitated, unwilling to step right back into temptation when he’d only just escaped it, but in the end, he took away her wine and set to work, gently tipping her head to the side so he could daub away the blood without reopening the wound.

  By the time he’d wiped the tear streaks off her cheeks, the wine was making her sag and yawn and his senses were so full of her he could hardly bear it. He tossed the cloth aside and tugged her to her feet. “Come, my lady.”

  “Where?”

  “To bed.” He caught her as she swayed. “Before you fall over.”

  He led her a few steps to the recess where he slept, when he bothered to sleep. He’d built a rough bed years ago, a simple frame of pegged logs and netted rope that served to keep a straw pallet off the damp floor, but which could be broken down and hidden away when he and Jafri moved elsewhere. It was not the sort of fine bed she was used to, but it had blankets and furs and a mattress of sweet grass hay. She would be warm in it, and she would be safe, and that was what mattered for now.

  Gunnar flipped back the furs and motioned for her to sit, then knelt before her to unbuckle her boots.

  Tugging them off unbalanced her. She reached out to steady herself, and her hand flattened against his bare chest. For all that she shivered, her fingers burned like hot irons, marking his flesh as hers. Gunnar closed his eyes, struggling to remember his place, to remember she wasn’t his and couldn’t be, to muster the will to turn away. But as he won, as he started to pull away, he heard a quiet plea.

  “Don’t go.”

  “I go nowhere but the fire.” He pried her fingers off his skin and pressed her back onto the bed. It was all he could do not to follow her down. “Close your eyes, my lady. Rest.”

  She stared at him a moment, then her eyes drifted shut. An instant later, they popped open. “I c-cannot. He is there, inside my h-head.”

  “He is dead.”

  “They are all dead. His men. My men. My waiting woman. All of them. And it is my fault.”
Her voice slurred with exhaustion and wine and the threat of fresh tears. “If you hold me, maybe I won’t see their faces. Or him.”

  Hold her? He couldn’t. He mustn’t. “My lady, I—”

  “Please.”

  That single, bereft word went straight to Gunnar’s soul, breaking him, shredding his resolve. With a groan of surrender, he lay down beside her and wrapped his arms around her. Three long years turned to smoke.

  She burrowed against his chest, weeping in earnest. He could do nothing but hold her and let her cry until her tears went dry and she fell silent, then longer, until her breathing said she slept.

  He told himself that asleep, she no longer needed him, that he should get up, concede the folly of this night, and move away from her. He had no right to hold her, to take such pleasure from her weight in his arms and the warmth of her cheek against his breast.

  He should get up … but he might wake her. Or she might catch a chill, or a nightmare might find her.

  He gave himself one excuse after another to keep holding her, until finally he simply admitted to himself he didn’t want to let her go and pulled her closer. She murmured something and burrowed against him, and as the night sky spun outside the cave, he whispered his gratitude to Freya for letting him have her in his arms once more.

  Even for just this brief while.

  Even knowing she wasn’t his to keep.

  CHAPTER 18

  BETWEEN THE EXHAUSTION, the wine, and the blessed sanctuary of Gunnar’s arms, Eleanor slept long and hard. By the time she found her boots and crept out of the cave, eyes gritty and mouth tasting like the inside of a witch’s stewpot, the day was well along.

  “Stirring at last, are we?”

  The unexpected voice made her jump, then wince as her brain rattled inside her skull. Shading her eyes with one hand, she squinted around trying to find the speaker. “Hello? Where are you?”

  “Over here, my lady, beneath the tree. Good day to you.”

  She got her bearing and spotted him at last, a lean, dark man on the far side of the stream. The hand he raised held a shuttle-like net needle, and across his knees lay a fishnet he was mending. He looked like he desperately needed to get it fixed so he could have himself a good meal.

  “I know you. You are J- … J- …” She shrugged helplessly, unable to get to his name through the haze. “You are his friend from Alnwick.”

  “Jafri,” he said. “I suspected you knew who I was that day when you fled so quickly. But how?”

  “I recalled you had been at Richmond. One of the Alnwick men confirmed you were his friend.”

  “Mmm.” His grunt said nothing, but the tiny shake of his head reeked of disapproval. “Are you hungry, my lady?”

  “I have more thirst than hunger.” She started to kneel by the stream.

  “Don’t drink there. If you will let me finish this knot, I will pour you some ale. Or if you truly want water, I’ll fetch a pail from the burn down the way. It runs pure and sweet.”

  “What’s wrong with this water?”

  “Usually nothing, but Ari’s up at the pool. He is, er, bathing.”

  The way he said it made it sound like far more than bathing. Eleanor wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I shall wait for ale, then. Or better yet, tell me where to find it, and then I can pour for myself and you can keep at that net.”

  “Inside, to your sword hand. There’s a skin in the nook.”

  She found the ale and a bowl that looked clean enough and carried them out into the light. As she wrestled the unwieldy skin up to pour, she asked, “Why do you sit there, Sir Jafri?”

  “To watch over you, m’lady.”

  “I mean, why there, so far off?”

  “Ari said it would be better if you did not wake to find a strange man skulking over you.”

  “It was a kind thought.” She sealed the skin and laid it aside, then took a tentative sip from the bowl. The ale was thin, but not bad. She’d certainly had worse, even at her father’s table. She took a deeper drink, then carried her bowl over to sit on a weather-bleached log from which she could see Sir Jafri easily. “Who else is here, besides you and this Ari?”

  “Today, just us. Tonight there will be two besides Gunnar.”

  “The horsemen.” Images from the previous night crystallized along the border between nightmare and dream. “The thin, pale knight who came to Burwash.”

  “Torvald.”

  “And a big man I have not seen before. Even bigger than Gunnar.”

  “That would be Brand.”

  “They saved me. They and Gunnar.”

  “Aye, they did that, and they did it three against ten.” A begrudging grin twisted his mouth. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  “I wish I had not,” she murmured as an unattached head tumbled past her mind’s eye.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing. I am only thinking to myself. Are all of you …” She hesitated, not knowing how to ask. “Gunnar told me there were others who change like he does.”

  His smile faded, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Aye. We change.”

  “Ah.” His chariness warned her against the next, most obvious question, about what sort of beast he was. She filled the awkward silence by taking another draught of ale, then looked to the slim strip of cloudy sky visible overhead. Was that the glow of the sun upstream? But if the stream flowed east to the sea … A sudden sense of disorientation swamped her. “What hour is it?”

  “Well past halfway-Nones.”

  “What? I thought it was yet morning.” She shook her head in denial. “No. I cannot have slept the whole day through.”

  “You did. If you were up top, you might hear the Vesper bells at Monk Hesledon anon.”

  “A whole day … I have never slept through a day when I was not ill. You should have woken me.”

  “Why? After yesterday, you needed the rest, and you’ll want to be awake for Gunnar anyway. And he’ll most assuredly want you awake,” he added, bringing heat to her cheeks.

  She finished her ale in silence, then searched out a willow for a twig to rid her teeth of the fur and the stewpot. By the time she’d finished, Sir Jafri had tied the final knot in his net. He trimmed the line and stood up to stretch the net wide to inspect his work.

  “There. Even Ari can’t complain about that. He’s the best fisherman amongst us,” he explained as he collected his things and came hopping stone to stone across the stream. “But he’s particular about his casting net.”

  “You would be, too, if you had to fish for Brand.” A golden-haired man came strolling around a bend upstream, looking like a misplaced young god from one of old Carolus’s tales except that he was dressed all in red. He gave Eleanor a wink and a pretty bow. “He gulps herrings down like a great whale, dozens at a time. Good day, Lady Eleanor. Are you well?”

  “Well enough. You must be Sir Ari.”

  “I have often thought that I would prefer to be elsewise, but if such a fair lady says I must be Sir Ari, then how can I not?”

  “Oh, shut up.” Jafri tossed the casting net over Ari’s head and gave the draw cord a pull, trapping his friend like a crayfish.

  “Hey!”

  Jafri said something Eleanor didn’t understand. Ari answered with a laugh, but as he fought his way free, she noticed him favoring his left hand. She looked closer and spied a bloodstained strip of linen peeping out from the edge of that glove. He started gathering the net into proper folds, and the tone of their conversation grew more serious.

  “She just now awoke,” said Jafri, shifting back to English. “You see to it. I’m heading out.”

  Ari raised a brow. “So early?”

  “I must go farther tonight.” He nodded to Eleanor. “Good night, my lady.”

  “Good night, sir. Will I see you on the morrow?”

  “If you are awake, you will. But whether you are or not, I will be here to watch over you.” He looked at Ari and spoke in their language again, some kind of warning, by th
e sound of it. Ari rolled his eyes and waved him off. With a final look of caution, Jafri recrossed the burn, trotted a few yards upstream, then cut between the rocks, following a barely visible trail up the steep side.

  “I thought I heard horses neighing downstream earlier,” said Eleanor.

  “You did.”

  “Then why doesn’t he—”

  “Because he goes on foot. Are you hungry?”

  So, he wasn’t going to tell her anything either. Fine, then, she would deal with something less interesting but far more pressing. “No. But I do have need of your garderobe.”

  Ari snorted back a laugh. “Garderobe is far too fine a word, my lady. We have a pit. Come, I’ll show you.”

  She fell in beside Ari as he started downstream. “When we come back, perhaps I could tend to that hand for you?”

  He glanced down, frowned, and poked the bloody bit of linen up into his glove so it didn’t show. “My hand is fine. However, if you wish to make yourself useful—”

  “I do. I need distraction,” she admitted.

  “Then I will find you some small chore to do.”

  “Good. Do you think you could you find me a comb as well?”

  “I’m sure I can. This patch of moss is slick. Watch your step.”

  “I always do, monsire.”

  IT WAS THE most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  Gunnar crouched behind a rock on the slope of the dene, staring at Eleanor across the way. She sat on his three-legged stool at the lip of the cave, her black hair spread around her like a mantle, the rose of sunset mixing with the fire behind her to set the wisps at her temple a-glint with ruddy bronze. She held an ivory comb he had never seen before—probably Ari’s, popinjay that he was—and she worked it through her hair one long strand at a time, seven strokes each before moving on to the next.

  Seven. Seven. He counted with her, his pulse slowing to match the rhythm of her comb, as even and steady as a monk’s chant. Seven.

  She surely hadn’t meant for anyone to see her like this, head uncovered, hair unbound. She’d waited until dusk, after all, when she could expect to be alone for a time. But the bull hadn’t wandered far afield today, and Gunnar had thrown on his clothes and all but run back, anxious to see that she was safe and well.