Free Immortal Champion by Lisa Hendrix

not after seeing the maid and bull.
    Providence , she’d called it, using her Christian word. But he knew the truth: it was the Nornir , the Fate-spinners, who had woven their life-strands together. He might have been too dull-witted to see it when they’d set her in his path four years ago, but he could not mistake it now, not when she wore the confirming sign on her very body.
    Glancing around to make certain the others truly slept, Gunnar rose and approached the fire to spill a measure of wine into the dying flames. As the coals hissed, he whispered a word of thanks to be carried aloft by the sweet, rising steam, the first of what he knew would be many such offerings.
    For the gods had brought a gift to him, a boon for staying faithful to them through the long centuries. They’d given him a prize more valuable than any golden apple, indeed, more precious than all the gold in England: Lady Eleanor de Neville. The woman who could love him, even knowing what he was.
    The woman who could save him and, in saving him, lead him to the life—and in time, the death—he so much desired.
    He had much to be thankful for.

CHAPTER 5

    “PUT THAT CHILD down. You hold him more than the wet nurse does.”
    “Forgive me, madame . I did not mean to wake you.” Eleanor turned from the window, cuddling her new brother. “Edward was fretting and I thought to settle him. Look, he smiles at me.” She tilted him slightly so her mother could see.
    “Week-old babes do not smile. He has wind. Where is the wet nurse?”
    “Below, suckling her own son.”
    “She is supposed to do that while Edward sleeps.”
    “He was sleeping. As were you. As you both still should be.”
    “It appears we have both slept enough for now.” Lady Joan sat up and wrestled her pillows into shape before she eased back. “Did I dream it, or wasn’t Mary here before?”
    Mary Ferrers was another of Eleanor’s half sisters, this one from her mother’s first marriage—and very much more pleasant than those from her father’s first marriage. “She was. But I wanted to sit with you, so I sent her off.”
    “You did? Truly?”
    Eleanor nodded, paying no heed to the guilt that poked at her. She truly did want to be here, after all, though less for mother and child than for their windows: the lying-in chamber had clear glass windows that overlooked both inner and outer gates and the ward between. She could even see a bit of the road beyond the wall—the road down which Sir Gunnar was to ride today.
    Except today was already over, the sun having set on a misty, cold afternoon with no sign of him. And despite full knowledge that the man had lied with his promises before, the more the light faded, the more this particular lie stung.
    But her mother didn’t know any of that, and she beamed up at Eleanor, happy. Eleanor could only smile back.
    The baby started to fret again, tiny mewing sounds of distress, and her mother held out her arms. “Bring him here. There is nothing the nurse can do that I cannot. Except feed him, of course. I want you to watch. You will have babes of your own soon, God willing.”
    And God willing, they would not be Richard’s . Eleanor carried the tightly swaddled infant over and laid him in his mother’s arms. Lady Joan checked his clout to make sure he was still clean, then brought him up to her shoulder and patted his back until he produced a belch worthy of a smith.
    “See? Wind.” Her mother settled Edward into the crook of her arm, where he rooted at her bound teats a moment before sticking his own fist in his mouth and promptly going back to sleep. She patted the bed for Eleanor to come sit by her. “See, after twelve, I have learned a bit. You should have, too. You were meant to have experience of birthing and infants while with York.”
    “Her Grace cannot help that she is barren.”
    “She is not barren,” said Lady Joan.
    “But everyone said—”
    “They always say it is the woman’s fault, whether ’tis true or