Medieval 01 - Untamed

around her.
    No way came. Meg interlaced her fingers and gripped so harshly that she drove blood from her hands and feeling from her fingers.
    â€œI—” she began, but her voice cracked into silence.
    The two men watched her with hazel eyes so alike and yet so subtly different. In John’s there was a hatred as old as her mother’s betrayal. In Duncan’s there was a hope as old as his understanding of who his father really was.
    â€œMeggie?” Duncan asked quietly.
    She bowed her head.
    â€œI shall do what I must,” Meg whispered.

5
    M EG LEFT HER FATHER’S ROOM so quickly that her wool mantle lifted and swirled behind her. She had much to do before she fled the castle. First she must prepare a quantity of medicines for the vassals who depended on her aid. Then she must sneak enough food and blankets from the castle to last her a fortnight.
    And then what? she asked herself.
    There was no answer except the obvious one: anything was better than being the stone upon which her beloved Blackthorne was broken.
    Candle flames bowed and whipped as Meg hurried by on flying feet, descending the tight spiral staircase at reckless speed. No sooner had she reached the great hall than Eadith spotted her and moved to intercept despite Meg’s obvious hurry.
    â€œMy lady—”
    â€œNot now,” Meg interrupted.
    â€œBut Lord Dominic wants—”
    â€œLater. I have medicines to prepare.”
    Startled by Meg’s curt manner, Eadith was for once speechless as she watched her mistress’s rapidly vanishing form.
    As though afraid Eadith would pursue, Megredoubled her speed. Once below the level of the great hall, she met no one on the ground floor but servants. She slowed to a more reasonable pace. Even so, her mantle still rippled and stirred behind her.
    Small, dark rooms—more like stalls than true rooms—opened on either side of Meg as she hurried down the aisle. Smells of piled roots and ale casks permeated the gloom, as did the odors of salted or smoked fish and eels in their barrels, and fowl hanging by their cool, faintly scaled feet. Beneath all the food smells was the arid, complex scent of the herbal that had been created by Lady Anna for the drying of her plants and the preparation of her medicines.
    Meg’s memories of her mother were vivid. Many of them involved standing in the herbal or in the garden with Anna, listening to her musical voice describing each plant and its properties for healing or soothing the small aches and great pains of the vassals’ lives. The herbal, the gardens, and the bath had been constructed according to Anna’s exacting requirements, for each was important to the rituals and well-being of someone raised in Glendruid traditions.
    Close to the entrance to the herbal were two tables for the crushing, chopping, and powdering of leaves, stems, flowers, roots, and bark; all of which were used in Meg’s medicines. Small chests, pots, bowls, mortars and pestles, knives and spoons were arrayed neatly at the back of the tables.
    Twelve paces into the hillside, supported by stone rather than wood, there was rack after rack of things drying or stored beyond the reach of light. Basins waited to be filled with the fresh springwater that welled to the surface in the center of the keep, for water was at the heart of many Glendruid rituals.
    Meg breathed deeply, letting the familiar mixture of scents fill her, driving out the malodorous air of the sickroom. After a few more breaths her hands stopped trembling and the ice in her stomach began to melt. Meg loved the serenity and generosity of the herbal, with its silent promise of aches eased and ills healed.
    But nothing in this room will cure war or the famine and bloodshed that attends it .
    The unhappy thought made ice condense once more in Meg’s stomach.
    â€œI can’t send my people into that bloody maw,” she whispered, looking around the herbal with eyes that saw only catastrophe. “And for what? For nothing! Duncan can’t win. Dearest God, make him see that!”
    But even as the prayer left her lips, Meg knew it wouldn’t change what was planned. Duncan would have Blackthorne Keep or he would have an early grave.
    â€œOh, Duncan,” she whispered, putting her face in her hands. “I would not see you dead. Of all the people of my childhood, only you, Mother, and Old Gwyn ever truly cared for me.
    â€œWhat will I do?”
    As