Immortal Champion Read Online Free

others had given any sign the scars disturbed them. He had never seen his back, but he knew from the comments of various wenches that it was bad. He bore all the scars of a warrior who’d lived far too long, plus the terrible, raking marks of lion and bear and wolf and dog.
    Before they had resigned themselves to mostly solitary lives, all of the crew had suffered with attacks from the others as they swung back and forth between beast and man. Gunnar had been hunted as both human and bull in those first terrible years, and in the centuries since, he had more than once defended innocents from Jafri or Steinarr or Brand or one of the others. They were honorable scars, but to people who knew no better, they looked as though he’d been lashed as an outlaw. Or worse, as a slave.
    “You will want to clean off some of that soot, too, monsire , if I can say it,” continued the old woman, paying no heed to his discomfort.
    More heat rising beneath the grime, Gunnar reached for the damp cloth the woman wrung out for him and quickly scrubbed his face, then pulled on his singed gown, buckled on his belt, and slipped his sword into its scabbard as the boy waited.
    “Your name, monsire ?”
    “Sir Gunnar of Lesbury.” He gave the name of the estate near Alnwick that passed from man to man amongst the crew, and then followed the lad out and around to the stair that led up the outside of the keep to the main hall. From there, they climbed up the inner stair to the solar, where the duke’s lady sat in her tall-backed chair, surrounded as always by the score or so of young noblewomen who fostered with her. Now, however, she guarded a flock of dirty pigeons, the girls’ linen kirtles gray with smoke and their smudged faces streaked by tears. As the page announced his name, Gunnar glanced around, unsure which one was the screaming Lady Eleanor.
    Suddenly he realized the women had all come to their feet. He frowned as the duchess stepped forward and dipped in courtesy.
    “Ah, no, Your Grace,” he protested. “I am only a poor knight.”
    “You saved us, Sir Gunnar,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “We owe you all honor, as well as eternal gratitude. God must surely have brought you here tonight.” She dropped still lower, then rose and stepped back as the younger women similarly knelt and murmured their thanks.
    God had sent him? Perhaps. But surely a different god than the one who had let a fire start at night in a chamber full of sleeping women and children. Gunnar shook his head. “Any of your own men would have done the same. I was simply the first out the door.”
    “And the last out of the bower,” said Her Grace. “You are too modest. Our castellan told me what you did for Lady Eleanor when his men bore her in.”
    “I could hardly leave her to die. Or the other one either. Her, um, serving woman?”
    The duchess shook her head. “More maid-in-waiting than servant. A bastard cousin to Lady Eleanor from her father’s brother, come to serve her during her fostering.”
    “A brave creature.”
    A furrow creased the duchess’s high brow. “Lucy? Truly? I would not have thought it.” She crossed the room, and a servant hurried to pull aside a tapestry and open the door behind it. “Come. Lady Eleanor wishes to thank you herself.”
    He had little interest in the lady’s thanks, but he could hardly tell a duchess no. Mostly, though, he wanted to see how the brave maid fared. He followed the duchess up a curved stairway and down a short hall to a tiny chamber. A bed occupied one entire end of the room, and from behind the draperies issued great, wracking coughs, as though someone had the lung sickness.
    As he and the duchess approached the bed, a maid hurried out of the room while another, standing near the headboard, pushed the draperies aside and stepped back. As she murmured her thanks and dipped in courtesy, Gunnar recognized the girl from the hall.
    Then he caught sight of the occupant of the bed and