Enchanted (34 page)

The sound of footsteps in the hallway silenced the
men.

“’Tis only Amber,” Meg said
quickly. “I asked her to help me.”

With a low muttering of relief, they recognized the
golden glow of Amber’s hair in the doorway to the herbal. She
had a smile on her face and a comb set with bloodred amber in her
hair.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as
she spotted the men. “Surely you have more urgent duties than
chilblain balm.”

“Have you seen Ariane?” Simon asked
starkly.

“Not since early this morning. I passed her
in the hall and she told me my missing comb was caught behind the
torn lining of my travel chest.”

Meg made a startled sound.

“I went to the chest, and there it
was!” Amber said. “Isn’t it wonderful that
Ariane’s gift has come back to her?”

Simon was too stunned to speak.

Erik wasn’t. As soon as Amber mentioned her
recovered comb, a single pattern had condensed from a chaos of
possibilities.

“Ariane has gone after her dowry,” Erik
said flatly.

“Are you mad?” Simon asked. “She
is afoot in a winter storm! The cursed dowry could be anywhere
between here and Normandy!”

Erik’s tawny eyes narrowed as he reassessed
the possibilities that had tantalized him ever since he realized
that the dowry had been stolen.

Simon started to speak, only to be stopped by a
curt gesture from Dominic.

“I believe,” Erik said slowly,
“that the dowry went with Geoffrey to the Disputed Lands. If
so, the dowry lies somewhere between Stone Ring and the
Silverfells.”

“She would have told me,” Simon
said.

“You wouldn’t have let her go without
you,” Meg said.

No one said what all knew: Ariane had gone alone
rather than ask Simon the Loyal to leave his lord and brother in
his time of need.

“Have two horses readied,” Dominic said
to Simon. “You should quickly overtake her. Lord Erik, will
you and your Learned animals accompany Simon?”

“With pleasure.”

“What will you tell Deguerre?” Simon
asked Dominic.

“Nothing. Ariane has avoided him at every
opportunity. With luck, he won’t even know she has
gone.”

“And if you aren’t lucky?”

“Ride hard, Simon. I would like my wife to
begin sleeping well again.”

S
imon and Erik rode as though pursued
by demons, but they didn’t overtake Ariane. They went as far
north as Carlysle Manor, but she wasn’t there. Afraid they
had passed by her in the night and storm, the men spent a miserable
time trying to sleep while Stagkiller coursed the countryside,
searching for any sign of Ariane’s camp.

The hound got nothing for his trouble but clots of
ice between his toes.

Simon was up well before dawn, much to the wonder
of the manor’s small staff. He had little interest in
breakfast, for he kept thinking of Ariane out in the storm.

“She must be lost,” Simon said
tersely.

Erik sliced cold meat with his dagger, speared a
piece of cheese and a slab of bread, and dumped the lot in front of
Simon.

“She is a finder,” Erik said curtly.
“She can no more be lost than the sky can lose the
ground.”

“Then why haven’t we overtaken
her?” Simon demanded.

Erik had no answer that would soothe Simon’s
pain. All he had was the truth and a pattern that became more bleak
with each hour the storm raged.

“Stagkiller found no sign that we had passed
Ariane in the storm,” Erik said. “She must have gotten
a horse somehow. She is somewhere ahead of us.”

“It is so cold,” Simon whispered.

“She wears Learned cloth.”

“Is that enough to keep her warm?”

“Eat,” Erik said, ignoring the
question. “We will ride until the storm eases. Then I will
send my peregrine aloft.”

But the storm didn’t lose its strength until
the men were at the edge of the sacred Stone Ring itself. The
standing stones were not visible, for an icy mist clung to the
ground. Erik and Simon reined in their weary horses while
Stagkiller flopped on the ground and panted great puffs of silver
that were quickly swallowed in mist.

The peregrine stepped from her saddle perch onto
Erik’s gauntlet, fluffed her feathers and opened her beak as
though already tasting the freedom of the wind. Erik whistled with
piercing clarity. The falcon answered with a rill of music too
sweet by far to have come from a predator’s throat.

With a swift movement of his arm, Erik launched
Winter into skies that matched her name. The falcon’s narrow,
elegant wings flared and beat rapidly as she climbed into the icy
mist.

Simon watched the bird with fear and hope combined.
Long after the brilliance of the mist-veiled sunlight made his eyes
water, he stared into the distance, his whole body tense.

But it was nothing to the tension Simon felt when
Winter quickly arrowed back down out of the sky with a long,
keening cry. The Learned man whistled back and forth with his
peregrine until Simon wanted to shout at them.

Then Erik turned and looked at Simon with grief in
his tawny eyes.

“
Nay
,”
Simon snarled fiercely. “I won’t hear it!
Ariane is alive
.”

Erik closed his eyes for a moment before he told
Simon what neither man wanted to know.

“Ariane…” Erik’s voice
faded into an aching thread of sound. “Ariane is beyond your
reach.”

“
She is
alive
.”

“Ariane lies motionless within the second
ring of
stones,” Erik said carefully.
“That is all Winter was permitted to see.”

“Permitted? What in the name
of—”

“The second ring,” Erik interrupted
curtly, “can’t be weighed or measured or touched. It
simply
is
. You have never acknowledged
that. Therefore, alive or dead, Ariane lies beyond your reach. We
shall see if she also lies beyond mine.”

Erik urged his horse forward. Tensely Simon
watched. Once he had tried to track Meg into a sacred ring. He had
failed. Then he had tried to help Duncan track Amber, only to be
brought up short by another sacred circle of stones. Again he had
been baffled by the ancient secret of the stones.

If there is any secret
,
Simon told himself savagely.
If
!

Yet even as he doubted, fear blossomed in a
soundless black rush.

What if she is there and I
cannot reach her
?

No answer came to Simon save the growing certainty
that the ancient places would test him as they had tested Dominic
and Duncan in turn.

But unlike the other men, Simon feared he would
fail. He had neither Dominic’s shrewdness nor Duncan’s
berserker will.

How can I find something I
can’t see or hear or touch? How in God’s name did
Dominic and Duncan manage
?

Erik’s horse stopped as though it had been
turned to stone.

“It is closed to me,” the Learned man
shouted angrily. “By all that is holy, it is
closed!”

Fear and anger combined in Simon, making him
savage. He spurred his horse toward the ancient monoliths whose
faces were veiled in mist. His horse galloped up the hill and then
stopped as though brought up against a keep’s wall.

Simon had been expecting as much. He kicked free
of the stirrups and landed with catlike grace
on the uncertain ground.

“There is no place I won’t go to find
Ariane,” Simon shouted at the stories, “and to hell
with what
is
and what is
not
.”

Like a warrior going into battle, Simon strode
toward the monoliths looming out of the mist ahead of him.

“Ariane! Do you hear me?” he
called.

Nothing came back to him but a falcon’s
clear, keening cry rising from the throat of a Learned man.

Simon set his teeth and kept walking. Tall stones
rose on either side. He stalked between them without looking to
right or left.

“Ariane!”

This time even the falcon didn’t answer.

Simon kept walking. He walked to the mound in the
ring’s center, circled its base, and saw no sign that anyone
had crossed the snowy ground since before the storm. He scrambled
to the top and looked around with a wildness he barely could
contain.

He saw nothing but wind stirring mist into ghostly
shapes that faded as soon as he looked at them.

“Ariane! Are you here?”

Not one sound came back from the mist.

“Ariane! Where are you?”

“Inside the second ring of stones,”
Erik called from beyond the mist.

“Where is the second ring?”

“The mound is its center.”

“I am there.
Where is
Ariane
?”

“Inside the second ring.”

“Show her to me!” Simon yelled
savagely.

“Even if Stone Ring permitted me inside, I
could no more show you Ariane than I could show a rainbow to a man
with no eyes!”

Simon’s answer was a raw sound of rage.

“You are what you have chosen to be,”
Erik shouted, “a man bounded by logic. You have held on to
your
blindness too long. Now you are paying the
cost of seeing truth too late. Ariane is beyond your
reach!”

Simon gave an anguished cry that was also
Ariane’s name. The echo came back in ghostly whispers.

You are what you have chosen
to be
.

Ariane is beyond your
reach
.

But Simon could not accept losing Ariane.

“I will see her!” Simon shouted to
Stone Ring itself. “Do you hear me? I will see
her!”

Spectral whispers became the sound of wind stirring
through nearby branches, branches that were laden with
blossoms.

But no tree grew on top of the mound.

No flowers bloomed in winter.

And the wind did not move.

Yet the sound came again, a murmuring, rustling,
mourning sigh; wind that could not be blowing through a tree that
didn’t exist; wind ruffling impossible blossoms until they
spoke with a thousand soft tongues.

Hurry, warrior. She is dying.
Then you will be one with me, ever living, always dying, forever
grieving for a truth learned too late
.

Chills coursed over Simon. The part of him that
weighed and measured and touched fought back fiercely, denying that
he had heard anything more meaningful than wind over rock and
ice.

And a part of Simon was driven to his knees by a
whispering, measureless torrent of grief that was not his. Not
quite.

Not yet.

Hurry, warrior
.

See
.

He looked around with black, wild eyes. He saw
nothing that he hadn’t seen before.

“How can I see?” Simon cried.
“Help me!”

Nothing came back to Simon except the certainty
that Ariane was nearby, and her life was slipping away, taking her
forever beyond the reach of any living man.

Love? What a pail of slops
that is
!

A ragged sound was torn from Simon’s throat
as he heard Ariane’s sardonic words spoken by a thousand
petal-soft tongues. But the whispering did not cease at his cry. It
continued, telling him more than he thought he could bear,
recalling a conversation only he and Ariane had shared…her
courage and his cold response.

As soon as I am well once
more, I will endure the marriage embrace. For you, my loyal knight.
Only for you
.

I want more than clenched
teeth and duty
.

I will give you all that I
have
.

And she had.

“Ariane!” Simon cried.

No answer came, not even the thousand whispers that
could not exist.

Simon closed his eyes and fought the emotions that
threatened to squeeze breath from his throat. His hands formed
fists on his knees and he shook with the power of his longing.

“Nightingale,” he said in an anguished
whisper, “I would give the heart from my body to see you
again.”

Wind threaded through the branches of a nearby
tree, set petals to stirring until they sighed.

Open your eyes,
Simon
.

See
.

Yet even before Simon opened his eyes, he knew that
Ariane was within reach, knew it in a way that couldn’t be
weighed or measured or touched.

She was at his feet, lying huddled on her side,
wrapped in her mantle. Where the wind had blown her mantle aside,
an oddly muted amethyst cloth was revealed. The silver laces and
embroidered lightning were only darkly gleaming, almost tarnished.
Her skin was pale and cold as snow.

If Ariane breathed, Simon could neither see nor
hear it. Nor did she awaken when he lifted her, called to her,
tried to shake her from the grasp of cold.

Her body was slack, unresisting, as cold as he had
once accused her of being.

“Nightingale…”

Loss turned like a dagger in Simon’s heart.
As he lifted her gently into his arms, packets of spices and
gemstones tumbled from her mantle.

Union with the right man can
enhance a woman’s powers
.

“Curse the dowry,” Simon said through
clenched teeth. “It wasn’t worth your life. Nothing
is!”

He kicked aside the spices and priceless gems. Then
he held Ariane hard against his body, willing her to awaken, to
look at him, to smile.

To live.

All that awakened were a thousand soft tongues
whispering the words Simon had once spoken.

I am not Dominic or Duncan. I
will never give that much of my soul to a woman. I will never see
the rowan bloom
.

Yet Ariane had come to Simon with her ravaged
innocence and shocking bravery. She had burned wildly for him,
giving him more than she had believed she had to give; her trust,
her body, her very soul.

I love you, Simon
.

Simon’s gift to Ariane had been his body.

And now she was cold beyond his warming.

Petals stirred, whispered, shaping words from
stillness, murmuring to Simon, repeating his own words, wounding
him until he bled the very tears he had fought against crying. More
than he knew had died with Ariane. More than he had believed
existed.

With great gentleness, Simon wrapped Ariane in his
own mantle, saw her hair once more black against the soft white
fur. Slowly he lowered Ariane to the ground, removed his sword, and
set it between her hands.

“No warrior ever had more courage than
you,” Simon said as he kissed her cool cheek. “Your
bravery humbles
me. Wherever you are, may the
rowan bloom for you.”

Then Simon bent his head and wept as he
hadn’t since he was a child. As he wept, fragrance drifted
down over him, softness brushing his cheeks like kisses.

Open your eyes
.

Slowly Simon opened his eyes and saw an ancient
rowan blooming in the midst of winter. He saw, and knew that the
truth he had seen too late was his own.

Blossoms drifted into his hands, petals from a tree
that could not exist, blooming in a place that could not be.

Yet he saw the rowan bloom. He held its blossoms.
He touched their transcendent beauty. He breathed their impossible
fragrance as though it were life itself.

It is
.

You saw too late. Now you are
as she is, between two worlds, warmth bleeding into
cold
.

You may hold my tears and live
as you did before, trusting your soul to no one. Or you may release
my tears and accept what comes
.

With a shudder, Simon opened his hands and let the
rowan’s tears drift over Ariane, giving everything to her,
more than he had ever believed he could give.

And he feared only that it would not be enough.

When the first flower touched Ariane’s cheek,
she seemed to stir. When the second blossom caressed her, she
shivered and drew a sharp breath, as though she had been too long
without air. The third and fourth and fifth flowers rained down,
and then there were too many to count, a swirl of warmth and
fragrance permeating everything.

Simon sensed life rushing through Ariane’s
body as certainly as it pulsed through his own. She stirred as
though awakening from sleep. Then her eyes opened, and they were
amethyst gems reflecting the beauty of a sacred tree blooming in
the midst of winter.