Medieval 01 - Untamed

fleet, graceful motions. When the hound was only a few paces from her, a horn sliced the silence. The hound stopped, spun, and bounded back in the direction it had come.
    Heart pounding, Meg shielded her eyes and looked across the mist-swathed vale where sunlight struck fire from drops of water. Two war-horses loomed at the crest of the hill. One of the horses had a rider. The other did not.
    Just as Meg recognized that it was Dominic’s battle stallion that was riderless, her husband’s voice came from behind her.
    â€œWhere have you been, lady?”
    She spun around. “You startled me.”
    â€œI shall do much more than that if you don’t answer my question. Where have you been? ”
    â€œCollecting herbs.”
    Dominic looked at Meg’s simple clothes. They were stained, rumpled, and showed every sign of having been ill used. They looked, in fact, as though they had been bedding for an illicit tryst.
    â€œCollecting herbs,” he said tonelessly. “Odd. Your clothes look as though you’ve been rolling around on the ground in them.”
    Meg glanced down, shrugged, and looked at Dominic again. Despite his carefully neutral voice, she sensed the icy fury in him. It was an avalanche looking for an excuse to come loose on her head.
    â€œThat is why I wear these rags,” she said crisply. “It makes no sense to ruin the good tunic I have by grubbing about on my hands and knees in it.”
    Dominic made another neutral sound. He looked around the area. Except for the cheerful daffodils, there was a singular lack of growing green things. He turned back and fixed Meg with an assessing gaze.
    â€œDid you collect here?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen where?”
    Meg was reluctant to discuss the ancient place. She knew that even the vassals who loved her thought the place was at best haunted—and at worst cursed.
    â€œWhat does it matter?” Meg asked. “I have what I need.”
    The rage in Dominic almost slipped free. With great difficulty he kept it leashed.
    â€œDo you?” he asked silkily. “And what was it you were lacking?”
    Again, Meg was reluctant to explain. If she discussed the antidote, then she would have to discuss the missing medicine too. She had promised Gwyn not to do that.
    Into the silence came the distant trills of birdsong and the much nearer sounds of the war-horsesapproaching as Simon rode up, leading Dominic’s stallion. The greyhound danced attendance, its long, narrow tongue hanging after the run.
    â€œMy lady,” Dominic said in a clipped voice, “what was it you lacked so urgently that you set off alone into the countryside without telling anyone?”
    â€œSeedlings,” Meg said, looking away from his eyes. “For my gardens.”
    â€œYou lie rather badly.”
    â€œI am not lying. I collected seedlings for my garden.”
    â€œShow them to me.”
    â€œNot until I plant them. Handling them too much makes them—”
    Meg’s words ended in a startled gasp as the harvest bag was ripped from her hands, upended, and shaken thoroughly. Whole plants and dirt showered onto the ground. Small leaves fluttered down like green rain.
    â€œNo!” Meg said frantically.
    She snatched the bag from Dominic, went to her hands and knees, and began combing the ground for the small leaves as though she were gathering tiny gold coins.
    Frowning, Dominic watched. He had doubted Meg’s words but he didn’t doubt her sincerity right now. She plainly valued the greenery in the harvest bag.
    â€œSimon.”
    â€œYes, liege?”
    â€œBacktrack her.”
    â€œAye.”
    â€œIt will do you no good,” Meg muttered without looking up.
    â€œWhat Simon can’t see, Leaper can scent.”
    â€œNot in the ancient place. No dog will go there, nor horse.”
    â€œWhy not?” demanded Dominic.
    â€œI’m not a hound or a horse to answer that question,” Meg retorted as she put leaves back into the bag. “I simply know ’tis true. Animals sense some things more clearly than men.”
    â€œThe ancient place,” Dominic repeated, a question in his tone if not in his words.
    Meg muttered something and kept gathering leaves.
    An instant later there was a mailed fist beneath her chin, raising it, forcing her to meet her husband’s bleak eyes.
    â€œYou don’t fear this place?” Dominic asked.
    â€œWhy should I? I’m no