Authors: Elizabeth Lowell
M
elancholy, subtly clashing chords
quivered through Ariane’s corner room. Although Stone Ring
Keep seethed with hurried preparations for the coming wedding, no
one disturbed Ariane until the maid Blanche belatedly arrived to
see to her mistress’s needs.
A glance was all it took for Ariane to see that
nothing had changed in the handmaiden’s health. The
girl’s face was still too pale. Beneath a kerchief of
indifferent cleanliness, Blanche’s light brown hair had no
luster. Nor did her blue eyes. Obviously she felt no better today
than she had since the middle of the voyage from Normandy to
England.
“Good morning, Blanche. Or is it
afternoon?”
There was no censure in Ariane’s voice,
rather simple curiosity.
“Did you not hear the sentries crying the
time?” Blanche asked.
“No.”
“Well, ’tis to be expected, what with
finding yourself so soon to be married to a groom who is not the
man you expected to wed,” Blanche said with a maturity far
beyond her fifteen years.
Ariane shrugged. “One man is much the same as
another.”
Blanche gave Ariane a startled look.
“Beg your pardon, mistress, but there is
considerable difference.”
Ariane’s only answer was a series of quickly
plucked notes that sounded like dissent.
“Not that I blame you for being
uneasy,” Blanche said hurriedly. “There are some
surpassing odd fold here. ’Tis enough to make a body start at
shadows.”
“Odd?” Ariane asked absently, drawing a
questioning trill from the harp strings.
“Tch, m’lady, you have been talking to
your harp so long your mind has gone as numb as your fingers must
be. The Learned are odd ones, don’t you think?”
Ariane blinked. Her fingers stilled for a few
moments.
“I don’t think the Learned are
odd,” Ariane said finally. “Lady Amber is as kind as
she is lovely. Sir Erik is better educated—and more
handsome—than all but a few knights I’ve
known.”
“But those great hounds of his, and that
devil peregrine on his arm. I say it isn’t
natural.”
“’Tis as natural as breathing. All
knights love hounds and hawks.”
“But—” Blanche protested, only to
be cut off.
“Enough useless chatter,” Ariane said
firmly. “All keeps and their folk seem strange when you
haven’t lived within them very long.”
Blanche said nothing as she set about readying her
mistress’s bath needs. The sight of a long ebony comb
reminded Ariane of her earlier conversation with the mistress of
the keep.
“Have you seen a comb set with red
amber?” Ariane asked. “Lady Amber misplaced
one.”
Blanche was so startled by the question that she
simply stared at Ariane and gnawed on one ragged fingernail,
speechless.
“Blanche? Are you going to be sick
again?”
Numbly Blanche shook her head, causing a few lank
tresses to escape from the kerchief that was her only
headpiece.
“If you do find the comb,” Ariane said,
“please tell me.”
“’Tis unlikely I will find aught before
you do, lady.
Sir Geoffrey said many times how
like your aunt you were.”
Ariane went taut and said nothing.
“Was it true?” Blanche asked.
“What?”
“That your aunt could find a silver needle in
a field of haystacks?”
“Aye.”
Blanche grinned, showing the gap where she had lost
a tooth to the blacksmith’s pincers when she was twelve.
“It would be a fine gift to have, finding
lost things,” Blanche said, sighing. “Lady Eleanor was
always beating me for losing her silver embroidery
needles.”
“I know.”
“Don’t look so sad,” Blanche
said. “If Lady Amber has lost her comb, you soon will find it
for her.”
“Nay.”
The flat denial made Blanche blink.
“But Geoffrey said you found a silver goblet
and ewer that no one—” began the handmaiden.
“Is my bath ready?” Ariane interrupted,
cutting across the girl’s words.
“Aye, lady,” Blanche said in a low
voice.
The handmaiden’s unhappiness tugged at
Ariane’s compassion, but Ariane had no desire to explain that
she had lost her fey gift along with her maidenhead.
She also was weary of having her stomach clench
every time she heard Geoffrey’s name.
“Lay out my best chemise and my scarlet
dress,” Ariane said in a low voice.
Whether a wedding or a wake, the dress would do
quite well.
“I dare not!” blurted the
handmaiden.
“Why?” asked Ariane.
“Lady Amber instructed me that she would
bring your wedding dress to you personally.”
Uneasiness rippled through Ariane.
“When did this pass?” she asked.
“Another Learned witch—er,
woman—came to the keep,” Blanche said.
“When?”
“Just at dawn. Didn’t you hear the
baying of those hellhounds?”
“I thought it was but a lingering of my
dream.”
“Nay,” Blanche said. “’Twas
a Learned woman come to the keep with a gift for you. A dress to be
wed in.”
Ariane frowned and set her harp aside. “Amber
said nothing to me.”
“Mayhap she couldn’t. The Learned woman
was special fierce. White hair and eyes like ice.” Blanche
crossed herself quickly. “It was the one they call Cassandra.
’Tis said she sees the future. There be witches here,
m’lady.”
Ariane shrugged. “According to some, there
were witches at my home. My aunt was one of them. So was I.
Remember?”
Blanche looked confused.
“If it makes you feel better, I have met the
Learned woman face-to-face,” Ariane said. “Cassandra is
quite human.”
The handmaiden’s frown eased and she
sighed.
“The chaplain here told me that this was a
godly place no matter what the whispers,” Blanche said.
“’Tis a relief to hear. I would be fearful for my
ba—”
As though cut with a knife, Blanche’s words
stopped.
“Do not worry, handmaid,” Ariane said
calmly. “I know you are breeding. The babe will come to no
harm. Simon has promised it.”
Blanche still looked alarmed.
“Would you like Simon to arrange a husband
for you?” Ariane asked.
Wistfulness replaced alarm on Blanche’s face.
Then she shook her head.
“No, thank you, lady.”
Black eyebrows lifted in surprise, but all Ariane
said was, “Do you know who the father of your baby
is?”
Blanche hesitated, then nodded.
“Is he back in Normandy?”
“Nay.”
“Ah, then he must be one of my men. Is he a
squire or a man-at-arms?”
Blanche shook her head.
“A knight, then,” Ariane said in a low
voice. “Was he one of those who died of that savage
disease?”
“It matters not,” Blanche said,
clearing her throat. “No knight would marry a servant girl
who has no kin, no dowry, and no particular beauty.”
Tears stood in the handmaiden’s eyes, making
their light blue irises glitter with unusual clarity.
“Be at ease,” Ariane said. “At
least no man pursues you because of what you can bring to him. Nor
would any man take from you by strength or wile what you would keep
as your own.”
Blanche looked at her mistress oddly and said
nothing.
“Put away your fears,” Ariane said
crisply. “You and your babe will be well cared for, and you
won’t have to endure a husband in your bed if you don’t
wish.”
“Oh, that.” Blanche smiled.
“’Tis not such a trial. In the winter, a man is warmer
than a swine and stinks not half so much. At least, most men
don’t.”
Unbidden, the memory came to Ariane of Simon
leaning down until his breath brushed her nape.
Shall I have Meg blend me a
special soap to please your dainty nostrils
?
Your scent is quite pleasant
to me as it is
.
An odd sensation whispered through Ariane as she
realized anew just how true her words had been. Simon was as clean
to her senses as the sunlight that caught and tangled in his hair,
making it appear to burn.
If all I had to do as a wife
was to see to Simon’s house, his accounts, and his
comforts
….
But that is not all a man
wants from a wife. Nor is it all God requires
.
“M’lady? Are you well?”
“Yes,” Ariane said faintly.
Leaning forward, Blanche peered more closely at her
mistress.
“You look white as salt,” the
handmaiden said. “Are you with child, too?”
Ariane made a harsh sound.
“No,” she said distinctly.
“I’m sorry, I meant no insult,”
Blanche said hastily, her words stumbling. “It’s just
that babes are on my mind and Sir Geoffrey said you were
particularly eager to breed.”
“Sir Geoffrey was wrong.”
The lethal calm of Ariane’s voice told
Blanche that she had once again stepped beyond the boundaries of
her half-learned duties as a lady’s maid.
Blanche sighed and wished that all the highborn
were as charming and easy of manner as Geoffrey the Fair had been.
No wonder that Lady Ariane had become grim and removed after being
told that she would be sent to England to wed a rude Saxon
stranger, rather than remaining at home to marry Sir Geoffrey, son
of a great Norman baron.
Ariane the Betrayed.
“Your things are ready, my lady,”
Blanche said sympathetically. “Do you wish me to attend your
bath?”
“No.”
Though the marks of Ariane’s ordeal at
Geoffrey’s hands had long since faded from her body, she
could not bear even the casual touch of her lady’s maid.
Particularly not when Blanche kept bringing up the
name of Geoffrey the Fair.
A
brazier sent warmth and a small bit
of fragrant smoke into the third-floor room of Stone Ring Keep. The
draperies around the canopied bed were drawn. A frowning Dominic le
Sabre sat next to a table set with cold meat, bread, fresh fruit
and ale.
His expression gave a saturnine cast to his face
that made strong men uneasy. Coupled with his size, and the
Glendruid ornament on his black cloak—an ancient silver pin
cast in the shape of a wolf’s head with clear, uncanny
crystal eyes—Dominic was a forbidding presence.
Thinking about the marriage that would take place
in a few hours had done nothing to improve Dominic’s peace of
mind. The bonds of love between the two brothers were far deeper
than blood or custom required.
“You sent for me?” Simon said.
Dominic’s frown vanished as he looked up at
the tall, lithe warrior who stood before him. Simon’s fair
hair was windswept and his indigo mantle was thrown back to reveal
the scarlet tunic with purple and silver embroidery that had been a
gift from Erik. Beneath the elegant clothing was a body honed to
battle readiness. Despite being Dominic’s right band, Simon
never shirked the endless battle practice that the Glendruid Wolf
decreed for his knights—and for himself.
“You are looking particularly fit,”
Dominic said approvingly.
“You sent me running from the outer bailey
all the way up here to determine my fitness?” retorted Simon.
“Next time, run with me. It will give you
a better idea of my stamina and wind.”
Dominic laughed. Too quickly, his laughter faded
and his mouth once again fell into rather grim lines. He knew his
brother too well to be deflected for long by Simon’s quick
wit.
“What is it?” Simon asked, eyeing
Dominic’s expression. “Have you news from Blackthorne?
Is something amiss?”
“Blackthorne is fine. Ariane’s dowry
chests still lie unopened and undisturbed in the treasure room,
guarded by Thomas the Strong.”
“Then why are you so gloomy? Has Sven brought
news of Norsemen or Saxon raiders nearby?”
“Nay.”
“Where is Meg? Has that handsome sorcerer
Erik managed to charm her from your grasp?”
This time Dominic’s laughter was truly
amused.
“Erik is as comely a knight as I’ve
seen,” Dominic said, “but my wife would no more fly
from me than I from her.”
Smiling, Simon conceded what he knew quite well was
true. Lady Margaret’s loyalty to Dominic was as great as
Simon’s.
“I am glad you found it in your heart to
welcome Meg as your sister,” Dominic said. “Sit with
me, brother. Eat from my plate and drink from my mug.”
Simon looked at the dainty chair opposite Dominic
and grabbed a bench from along the wall instead. As he sat, he
resettled his broadsword on his left hip, hilt ready to his right
hand. The unconscious grace of the gesture said much about his ease
with the weapon.
“Of course I accepted Meg into my
heart,” Simon said, reaching for the ale jug.
“You have no love of witches, whether they do
good or evil.”
Simon poured ale into the nearly empty mug, saluted
Dominic silently, and drank. After a few deep swallows,
he put the mug aside and looked at his brother with
eyes as clear as a spring and as black as midnight.
“Meg risked her life to save yours,”
Simon said. “She could be Satan’s own sister and I
would love her for saving your life.”
“Simon, called the Loyal,” Dominic said
softly. “There is little you wouldn’t do for
me.”
“There is nothing.”
The finality in Simon’s voice didn’t
reassure Dominic. Rather, it brought back his frown. He reached for
the mug, lifted it, drained it, and refilled it.
“You were loyal to me before we fought the
Saracen,” Dominic said after a time, “but it was a
different kind of bond.”
“We are brothers.”
“No,” Dominic said, pushing the mug of
ale toward Simon. “It is more than that. And less.”
The quality of Dominic’s voice caught Simon.
Mug half-raised to his lips, he looked at his brother.
And found himself pinned by a glance that was as
unblinking as that of the wolf’s head pin.
“It is as though you feel responsible for my
torture by the sultan,” Dominic said.
“I am,” Simon said bluntly, and
drank.
“Nay!” Dominic said. “It was my
error that led men into ambush.”
“It was a woman’s treachery that led us
to ambush,” Simon said flatly, setting the mug down with a
thump. “The whore Marie bewitched Robert, and then she
cuckolded him with any man who caught her fancy.”
“She wasn’t the first wife to do so,
nor the last,” Dominic said. “But I couldn’t
leave a Christian woman to the mercy of the Saracens, no matter
that she lived among them since she was stolen as a
child.”
“Nor would your knights have allowed
it,” Simon said sardonically. “They were bewitched by
Marie’s harem tricks.”
Dominic smiled slightly. “Aye. She is a
skilled whore,
and I have need of such to keep
my Norman knights from seducing Saxon daughters and causing more
strife.”
Leaning back in the heavy oak chair that had been
brought up from the lord’s solar for the Glendruid
Wolf’s comfort, Dominic fixed Simon with shrewd, quicksilver
eyes.
“Sometimes I worried that Marie had bewitched
you,” Dominic said after a few moments.
“She did. For a time.”
Dominic hid his surprise. He had always wondered
just how deeply Simon had succumbed to Marie’s practiced
lures.
“She tried to bewitch you, too,” Simon
pointed out.
Dominic nodded.
“You saw through her cold game sooner than
I,” Simon said.
“I am four years older than you. Marie
wasn’t my first woman.”
Simon snorted. “She wasn’t my first,
either.”
“The others were girls with less experience
than you. Marie was…” Dominic shrugged. “Marie
was trained in a seraglio for the pleasure of a corrupt
despot.”
“She could have been trained by Lilith in
hell and it would all be the same. Marie cannot stir me
anymore.”
“Aye,” Dominic said. “I watched
her try the whole journey from Jerusalem to Blackthorne Keep. You
were polite, but you would handle a snake sooner than her.
Why?”
Simon’s expression changed. “Did you
send for me to talk about whores,
lord
?”
After the space of a breath Dominic accepted that
he would get no more from Simon on the subject of Marie.
“Nay,” Dominic said. “I wanted to
ask in private about your coming marriage.”
“Has Ariane objected?” Simon demanded
sharply.
Black eyebrows shot up, but all Dominic said was,
“No.”
Simon expelled a pent breath.
“Excellent.”
“Is it? Lady Ariane has little taste for
marriage.”
“Blackthorne can’t survive a war over a
Norman heiress who was jilted by a nameless Scots warrior,”
Simon said bluntly. “Ariane will be my wife before the moon
sets tonight.”
“I am reluctant to give you over to such a
cold union,” Dominic said.
Faint amusement showed on Simon’s face. With
a speed and skill that had unnerved more than one enemy, he drew
his belt dagger and casually speared a piece of cold meat. Strong
white teeth sank into the venison and chewed.
An instant later the tip of the dagger flicked out
like a snake’s tongue. A brief movement of Simon’s
wrist flipped the slice of meat toward Dominic, who caught it
deftly.
“Your marriage was little warmer, at
first,” Simon pointed out as his brother ate the venison.
Dominic smiled slightly.
“My small falcon was a worthy
adversary,” he agreed.
Simon laughed. “She fair ran you ragged,
brother. She still does. I’ll settle for less passion and
more ease in my marriage.”
The Glendruid Wolf’s silver-grey eyes weighed
Simon for a time. Beyond the stone walls, an early winter wind
howled around the keep so fiercely that heavy draperies
stirred.
The room was luxuriously furnished, having been
designed for the lady of Stone Ring Keep. Now it was serving as
temporary quarters for Dominic and Meg, Lord and Lady of
Blackthorne Keep. But even the stout stone walls, thick draperies,
and slit windows could not wholly turn aside the ice-tipped talons
of an unseasonable storm.
“You are a passionate man,” Dominic
said simply.
The quality of Simon’s eyes changed from
clear black
to something deeper, more distant,
night in a sky that held neither stars nor moon.
“Boys are controlled by passion,” Simon
said distinctly. “Men are not.”
“Aye. Yet men are passionate all the
same.”
“There is a point to this catechism, I
presume.”
Dominic’s mouth turned down at one corner.
Though he was Simon’s older brother and his lord, Simon had
little patience for advice. Yet a more loyal knight had never
lived. Dominic was as certain of that as he was of his wife’s
love.
“I have discovered,” Dominic said,
“that a passionate marriage is a pearl beyond
price.”
Simon grunted and said nothing.
“You disagree?” Dominic asked.
The impatience in Simon’s shrug was repeated
in the flat line of his mouth.
“Whether I agree or disagree matters not one
bit,” Simon said.
“When you rescued me from that sultan’s
hell—”
“
After
you gave
yourself to the sultan as ransom for me and eleven other
knights,” cut in Simon.
“—I came out of it a lesser man,”
Dominic said, ignoring his brother’s interruption.
“Truly?” Simon asked in a biting tone.
“The few Saracens who survived your sword afterward must have
been relieved.”
Dominic’s mouth shifted into a smile that was
every bit as hard as his brother’s.
“I wasn’t discussing my fighting
skills,” Dominic said.
“Excellent. For a time I feared that your
sweet witch-wife had addled your brain.”
“I was discussing my lack of
passion.”
Again, Simon shrugged. “The whore Marie never
complained of anything lacking in you before her marriage to
Robert. Afterward, she complained of little else.”
Dominic made an impatient sound. “Do not play
the
slackwitted serf with me, Simon. I know too
well just how quick your mind is.”
Simon waited.
“Lust is one thing,” Dominic said
flatly. “Love is quite another.”
“To you, perhaps. To me, both mean a singular
stupi—um, vulnerability in a man.”
Dominic’s grin was wolfish. He knew quite
well how Simon felt about men who loved women. Stupid was the least
insulting word he had heard Simon use.
But it had not always been thus. Only since the
Holy Crusade and the Saracen dungeon.
“Nothing I learned among the Saracens led me
to believe that a vulnerable knight was a wise one,” Simon
concluded.
“Love isn’t a war between enemies to be
won or lost.”
“For you, yes,” conceded Simon.
“For other men, no.”
“What of Duncan?”
“Nothing I have seen of Duncan recommends
love to me,” Simon said coolly.
Dominic looked surprised.
“God’s teeth,” Simon snarled.
“Duncan nearly died in that hellish Druid place where he
found Amber!”
“But he didn’t die. Love was
stronger.”
“Love?” Simon grunted. “Duncan
was simply too thick-skulled and stubborn to let feminine witchery
defeat him.”
The Glendruid Wolf looked broodingly at the
handsome, sun-haired brother whom he loved more than anything on
earth save his wife Meg.
“You are wrong,” Dominic said finally,
“just as I was wrong when I came out of the sultan’s
hell.”
Simon started to argue, thought better of it, and
shrugged instead.
“Aye,” Dominic said, “you do
understand what I am talking about. You were the first to see the
difference in me. I had no warmth.”
Again, Simon didn’t disagree.
“Meg brought warmth to my soul,”
Dominic said. “And then I noticed something that has troubled
me ever since.”
“Weakness?” Simon asked ironically.
A wolf’s smile flashed and vanished.
“Nay. It is you, Simon.”
“I?”
“Yes. Like me, you left all warmth in the
Saracen land.”
Simon shrugged. “Then the cold Norman heiress
and I are well matched.”
“That is what worries me,” Dominic
said. “You are too well matched. Who will bring warmth to you
if you marry Ariane?”
Simon speared another piece of meat.
“Do not worry, Wolf of Glendruid. Warmth will
be no problem for me.”
“Oh? You sound quite certain.”
“I am.”
“And how will you achieve this
miracle?” Dominic asked skeptically.
“I shall line my mantle with fur.”