by Lisa Hendrix
For one brief moment, Alaida considered hieing off to Helenstowe while he was gone, but pushed the thought aside. She would not leave Alnwick and its people to the whims of this new lord—but neither would she sit here and listen to Bôte prate on about his virtues.
“Do what you must. I am going for a walk.” She retrieved her purse and yanked her cloak from its peg.
“’Tis foul out there, my lady, and cold as a dog’s nose,” said Bôte. “You will catch a chill.”
“Then I shall sneeze my vows.”
“But you must prepare, my lady,” said Hadwisa. “Which gown will you wear?”
“God’s truth, I do not care,” said Alaida, and she escaped.
THERE WERE TIMES , Ari thought, when he wished he could be a raven by day. Like now. It would be most convenient to be able to fly up to the lady’s window and see what plots she was hatching. Of course, as a raven, he wouldn’t be able to stop her from hatching them, but at least he would know.
He was having a hard time believing she had bent so easily to Ivar’s will, yet the buzz of activity as the household prepared for a wedding told him otherwise. Women had swept the dirty rushes from the floor and strewn fresh, mixed with rosemary to make the air sweet. A rider had been dispatched to Lesbury for the priest, and boys had dragged in boughs and vines to garland the hall. Fresh torches and candles perched in their holders, ready to be lit, and the tables, already on their trestles, bore enough fresh white linen to provide sails for a dragonship.
And all of this done since Ari had arrived at mid-morning—a ruse to convince watching eyes he had ridden in from Morpeth. Nearly every man had still been snoring when he’d entered the hall, and most yawned even now.
It was no wonder, as late as Ivo and Brand had kept them up. With so little time to live as men, they had all learned to make do with little sleep, and often with none but what their beasts snatched. The people of Alnwick would quickly adjust to their new lord’s hours, Ari guessed, staying up unnaturally late and thus sleeping later as well—which would suit Ivo perfectly. The fewer eyes open to see him and Brand ride out each morning, and Ari ride back in, the better.
But today the manor folk could only scramble to make up the lost time. For his part, Ari stayed out of their way, lounging in the hall while he waited for Ivo’s lady to appear. He had been waiting a long time; he’d composed most of a wedding poem in his head.
He was considering the final verse when a door slammed. Ari looked up, spotted Alaida at the same instant she spotted him, and came to his feet. She stopped. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“Lady Alaida, I take it.” Ari stepped forward and knelt. “Good morrow. I am—”
“If you’re another bachelor come to try to win me, you’re too late,” she interrupted, her voice as tart as a quince. “I will be married in a matter of hours.”
“Ah, I would try to win you, fair lady, but Ivo would have my manhood for my efforts, and I have grown most fond of it.”
“You are his man, then? You are too bold.”
“I am. I am. And I am Ari,” he said, rising. “My lord’s steward for the castle.”
“Good. Then stew.” She swept down the stairs, out the door, and across the yard toward the gate.
Laughing, Ari went after her. He signaled to one of the guards at the gate, who stepped aside to let them pass. “Where are we going, my lady?”
“Are you steward or jailer?” she demanded.
“Jailer is a harsh word. Let us say … escort.” Tiny shards of sleet beat against his cheeks, and he thought of the bear and the eagle freezing in the woods.
“I need no escort. I will not run.”
“Good. Then we may enjoy a pleasant walk together, if there is any pleasantness to be found in this weather. Where did you say we’re going?”
“I didn’t say, but if you must know, I’m going to the village to remind myself why I will not run.”
The people of Alnwick loved their lady, Ari discovered as she marched through the village. Cold-blanched faces brightened as she passed; greetings and good wishes followed her chilly progress. She led him to the far edge of the scattering of cottages, to the poorest of the lot. There she stopped long enough to stir up the fire and feed a bowl of pottage to the cottar’s ailing wife, then laid seven silver deniers on the table. She moved on to the next tiny hut, barely a hen richer than the last, where she repeated both the kindnesses and the charity.
As they left the third cottage, Ari gave in to his curiosity. “Why do you give alms now, instead of after the wedding, my lady?”
“Because I can.”
“I’m sorry, my lady, I do not understand.”
“This is my money,” she said. “After I’m wed, it becomes his money. I will give up many things tonight, but this, at least, I give on my own terms.”
“You have little understanding of the man you marry if you think he would take your purse.”
“He warned me himself what sort of man he is,” she said tightly. “He boasted he once tore down an abbey.”
Over two hundred years ago, Ari thought, but he could hardly tell her that. “It was in war and the monks were well armed. They split more than a few skulls, as I recall.”
“Monks? Not nuns?” She seemed surprised, but waved it off. “No matter. He said he would do it again, if I joined the holy sisters.”
Ari swore softly at Ivar’s thickness. Threats were no way to woo a maid—but then again, from what he’d seen last night, this was not one of England’s more delicate flowers.
“Then he probably would, if he wanted you enough,” he granted. “He can be a hard man.”
“No doubt. He is William’s man, after all.”
“William is king. All knights and nobles are his men, and if they are not, they quickly find themselves no longer knights and nobles.”
“Like my grandfather.”
“I am sorry, my lady,” he said when he saw the stricken look on her face. “But yes, like your grandfather. However, Ivar is not like the king. He is not cruel for sport.”
“Ivar?”
“What?”
“You called him Ivar.”
Ass. Ari kicked himself. He’d been able to keep the new name straight all morning, and to misspeak now, with her …
He thought quickly. “There was an old man called Ivar in my village when I was young. Sometimes my tongue slips.” For good measure he added, “I am not Norman-born.”
“Ah, that explains it. You have an accent I don’t know. Even when you speak Saxon to the peasants, it sounds odd. Like Sir Brand.”
“Brand and I come from the same region.”
She seemed satisfied and didn’t ask where, or about Ivar—Ivo—thank the gods. Apparently his mastery of the Normans’ French was more perfect, or else he hadn’t spoken enough for her ear to catch anything peculiar.
Freshly wary, he followed her as she did the rest of her almsgiving, largely keeping his mouth shut as he chanted to himself, Ivo, Ivo, Ivo.
The wind had died by the time they finished, but the clouds had lifted enough to let the air cool as the sun settled lower. Ari calculated how long until dusk with an ease honed by centuries of necessity. He would have to slip away soon, but first he wanted to know something.
“Now, my lady, will you tell me, how did this good work remind you of why you do not run?”
She stopped and looked at him, as though measuring his worth. She must have found him satisfactory.
“I had a dream last night,” she said. “I had run, and your lord burned the village to the ground to punish me for leaving. I want to carry my people’s faces with me to the church door, to strengthen me when I say my vows.”
“Ah, lady.” Ari shook his head at the fear his friend had somehow wrought in this poor girl. “It was a false dream. I fought beside Ivo for years, and to see a man in war is to know him. He would never make the village pay for your acts. Do not go to the chapel tonight out of fear. Go because you want a good husband
and a fine lord for Alnwick.”
She cupped her hands over her mouth, briefly warming her fingers before turning solemn, brown eyes up at him. “Will he be those things?”
“He will, my lady, I swear it. And if he is not, I will help you run away myself.” He screwed up his face as though in great pain. “We will have to flee to Byzantium to escape him—well, perhaps only to Rome—but I will help you.”
His exaggeration brought a slight smile to her lips.
“That is better. Now, go, my lady,” he said. “Here are the manor gates, and you have but little time to prepare for your groom.”
She started forward, then stopped and turned. “Thank you, Sir Steward. You have been a most kind escort.”
Ari stood by the gate until she disappeared into the hall, then turned to one of the men loitering nearby and sent him to fetch his horse. As he waited, he wandered over to the well and dipped into the bucket for a drink. He would have preferred something warm, plus time in which to scribble down the verses he’d constructed earlier, but the sun was dropping like a stone and he had to be away.
Well, his poem might go unheard, but at least the raven would see this wedding he had just promoted. He was staring into the bucket, thinking of the strangeness of the afternoon, when the water suddenly darkened and swirled. His heart began thumping wildly.
A vision. They had been common in his youth—a fact that had brought him great grief, since magic was the domain of women and unsuited to a warrior—but they had grown rare since Odinsbrigga. He hadn’t had one for years. He resisted for a moment, unwilling to slip into that nether-world where the visions lived, but the haze settled over him.
Surrendering to what must be, he calmed his heart and let himself drift into the half-dream that beckoned him. Images slowly formed on the mirrored surface of the water. He grasped at them, but they shifted, fleeting, too thin to see. A bird. Was it him or Ivar? An eagle. And then a woman, slowly swirling into view. Alaida, perhaps. Or not. Was that an infant? The eagle again. The images would not settle. They eddied, twisting one into the other and then into the next, without giving him a chance to read their meaning. He again reached out with his mind to try to catch one. Just one.
“My lord? Are you ill?”
“What?” The vision shattered and vanished. “No. No. I’m fine.”
“You were staring for so long, I thought you were having a fit.”
“I’m fine, I tell you.” Ari looked up, the fog only slowly lifting from his mind. The sun was lower yet, barely a finger’s width above the horizon. He had lost time and had nothing to show for it.
He spilled the bucket onto the ground in frustration, grabbed the reins away from the man, and threw himself into the saddle. As he tore out the gate, his mind raced ahead of the animal. There was too much to do in the moments remaining before dark. He must reach Brand and Ivar. He must leave them a message before the curse turned him raven for the night.
And most important of all, he must figure out what the gods were trying to tell him with their damnable vision.
CHAPTER 4
THE LAST GLEAM of the passing day still lingered on the horizon as Ivo and Brand rode out of the wilds and onto demesne land. Ivo had rushed after regaining human form, throwing on his clothes and urging Hrimfaxi toward Alnwick almost before his friend could follow. But now, here at the edge of the orchard, where the frost-covered trees stood like skeletons against the evening sky, he reined to a stop.
Brand rode up beside him, his hand on the hilt of his sword. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Just wondering if I’m going to have to run her to ground.”
“She’ll be there. Ari would not let her escape so easily.”
“He had to leave well before sunset,” said Ivo, glancing at the bird on Brand’s shoulder. “She’s had time to slip away.”
“Then we’ll find her and bring her back.”
“I don’t want a prisoner, I want a wife—and a willing one, at that.” Ivo shook his head in disgust at the situation William had put him in, then touched the scrap of bark knotted into his sleeve. “Come, let’s find some light and see what Ari had to say.”
This time, the gate swung wide as they approached, and a half-dozen men stepped forward to welcome them. Another two score or so hung back around the fire that blazed in the yard. It took Ivo a moment to realize they were the freemen of the village, come for the wedding feast, but also, he realized, to see what sort of man the king had set in Gilbert Tyson’s place. He greeted them, singling out the reeve, Wat, who had been in the hall the night before, then turned to his steward. “What news, Geoffrey?”
“The hall and food are ready, my lord. The village men have arrived, as you see, and Father Theobald waits in the chapel.”
“And Lady Alaida?” Ivo kept his voice easy and avoided glancing toward Brand.
“In the solar with her women, my lord, preparing.”
The knot in Ivo’s belly began to untangle itself. “Good. I will send for her shortly. Tell Oswald to have the men stand by.”
“Yes, my lord.” Geoffrey excused himself and disappeared off toward the kitchen. Ivo and Brand went inside and wove their way past the tables and scurrying servants to warm themselves by the hearth.
The message from Ari was brief and hard to make out, having been scratched into a scrap of bark with the point of a knife.
Gave all her money to poor. Feared you would take. Near 10s. Stop scaring.
Ivo reread the runes twice, then again, trying to make sense of them. He handed it to Brand, scowling at the bird on his shoulder. “You’d think a skald would be better with words.”
“It looks like he ran out of light,” said Brand. “’Feared you would take’? What did you do to the girl?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. Warned her not to run off to her convent. We barely spoke a dozen words. Frey’s pillock!” Ivo crumbled the bark in his fist and dropped it into the flames. “I’ve been in the forest too long. I used to know how to handle a woman.”
“That you did,” Brand agreed. He sucked on his teeth a moment, thinking. “Remember that sailmaker’s daughter in Kaupang?”
A smile spread across Ivo’s face as a vision of the girl’s ripe curves formed in his mind. “Ingigerd.”
“She began with no more love for you than your Alaida. Yet as I recall, it cost you a barrel of salted fish and a pound of silver when her father caught you giving her a ride in the sail loft.”
“She was worth every coin and cod,” said Ivo fondly. But even as he recalled Ingigerd’s enthusiastic gallop, his imagination strayed to thoughts of Alaida and how she might feel astride him, there on the big bed in the solar. He shifted to ease the sudden heaviness in his groin. “That was long ago—very long ago—and I had time to woo Ingigerd.”
“So woo Alaida.”
It had taken most of one summer to win over Ingigerd, Ivo thought. He would be lucky to have a month with Alaida, and he wanted every night of it in her bed. Plus there was the king to consider. “William so desires this castle that he waived the relief and pledged a hundred pounds to aid the building, but he waits for word that Alnwick and its lady are firmly in hand. I must bed her tonight, or she may yet run to a convent and have the wedding annulled.”
“Mmm. Well, you have ’til after supper,” said Brand, as though that should be ample time. “There’s some fire to her. It shouldn’t be too hard to kindle a full blaze. A little wine, a few sweet words … Of course, if she’s too much for you, we can ride away now. The king will find another lord to take her land and her maidenhead, and we can go back to hunting Cwen.”
Ivo didn’t bother to answer. “You.” He jabbed a finger toward a passing maid. “Fetch me some hot water and a clean chainse. And send Geoffrey to me.”
“I guess not,” said Brand to the bird. “Ah, well. At least she didn’t run. Perhaps she’s more willing than you think.”
“Perhaps,” Ivo conceded, though the worm of doubt wriggling up and down his sp
ine said otherwise.
It did seem Brand might be right, however, when Ivo sent for Alaida a short while later. She appeared at the top of the stairs promptly, her serving women close behind her, and though her face was pale and strained against the frame of her wimple, she came down with only a slight hesitation.
“You have no male relative to make the marriage contract,” he said for the benefit of the gathered witnesses. “Will you sign it with me, Lady Alaida?”
“Oui, monseigneur,” she answered quietly.
No, not quietly. Meekly. And with downcast eyes. And when she took his hand, her fingers were cold as sea ice and trembled on his palm.
Ari was right. She was afraid of him.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all. Some men might want wives who cowered, but he preferred a woman with more spine, like the fiery maid who had snapped her threats at Neville or the rebellious one who had plotted her escape and demanded that he make up his mind what he wanted from her.
Ransacking his brain for a reason for Alaida’s change, he led her toward the high table where the contract lay waiting. It was there, as the witnesses gathered around, that Ivo looked down at his bride and saw it. The severe white wimple. The plain linen showing at her neck and sleeves. The shapeless gown of rough, black wool tied with a simple braided belt from which hung a small, wooden cross.
The little vixen.
She might, indeed, be a little afraid of him, but beneath that fear, her rebellious streak still lurked, straight-backed as ever.
Disguised in the habit of a nun.
EVEN WITHOUT SEEING his face, Alaida knew by the way de Vassy’s fingers tightened around hers that he had deciphered her choice of dress. She had expected he would—whatever the man was, he was surely no fool—but now that she felt the rage that shook him, she rued the impulse that had led her to order Hadwisa to bring out one of her grandmother’s old gowns.
The gesture had seemed harmless enough there in the solar, a way to show she was beaten but not cowed, but now it only seemed foolhardy. What if Sir Ari had been wrong about his lord? And where, by the by, was the seneschal, he and his easy assurances of aid? Cowardly wretch.