Immortal Warrior Read Online Free PDF Page B

firmly on her feet. “Come. I want the men to see you at my side before they sleep tonight.”
    It was the last thing she wanted, but resistance would serve little purpose. “Yes, my lord.”
    “No argument?” His brow furrowed in suspicion.
    “First you demand resignation, and then you question it,” she snapped. “Truly, my lord, you must make up your mind.”
    “Ah, there we go.” Chuckling, he took her hand and led her toward the hall.
    There he kept her until well past midnight, taking homage from the rest of the household with her at his right, so every man would know she acknowledged his position. Then, as the women drifted back to the solar and the men retrieved their bedding and settled in for the night, he had the accounts brought out, and he and Brand pored over them, asking her and Geoffrey and Oswald countless questions. By the time he finally released them to bed, she was so exhausted that she fell asleep as her head touched the pillow.
    Even then he harried her, though, filling her dreams with kisses and her nightmares with visions of burning abbeys and ransacked villages. By the time she woke, well past midday, she knew she could not run—even if she somehow did manage to think of a place to hide besides a convent.
    So she summoned Bôte and Geoffrey and told them to prepare for a wedding.
    “We already prepare, my lady,” said Bôte, beaming.
    Geoffrey confirmed this. “Lord Ivo said we are to be ready for your wedding feast when he returns.”
    “Returns? From where?”
    “He rode out before dawn with Sir Brand, my lady. He said to expect him late, likely after sunset.”
    “And you are to be married then,” added Bôte. “Though I’ve never heard of a wedding at night. In the morning it should be, with the feast to begin at a proper hour. Odd, it is.”
    More than odd, but nothing about this situation was usual. “He’s gone? For the entire day?”
    “Yes, my lady.”
    “Up all night and still riding out today to see his lands,” said Bôte. “I tell you, he will make a good lord, if we must have a new one, and a good husband, too.”
    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