Medieval 01 - Untamed

the sensual lure of broad shoulders and handsome faces. They see a man’s soul. Seeing that deeply makes love surpassingly difficult, for Glendruid women are also human.
    â€œUnderstanding someone, and loving him despite that understanding , is a trait more often found in angels than in mankind. Meg is a woman, not an angel.”
    Dominic’s eyes narrowed into splinters of ice, a reflection of the cold condensing in his gut as the old woman’s certainty and grief rolled over him like a dark wave. Without warning, his fist slammed onto the table’s surface. Bells leaped and jangled. After that brief, unmusical cry, silence came.
    No one disturbed it.
    Simon looked from the old woman to his brother. Dominic’s eyes were narrowed. He had the air of a man thinking very rapidly.
    Slowly the tension eased out of Simon. Once his brother concentrated on an objective, there had never been a keep, a city, or a wench that Dominic couldn’t take by force or stealth.
    Or treachery, if it came to that.
    After long minutes of silence, Dominic focused once more on the old Glendruid woman. His eyes were like ice, hard and very cold. His voice was the same.
    â€œThank you, madam. You have clarified the problem of heirs for me.”
    It was a dismissal, and Gwyn knew it. She nodded slightly and withdrew as quietly as smoke.
    Dominic turned to his brother and asked bluntly, “Do you believe the old witch?”
    â€œI sense she believes her words are the truth.”
    â€œAye,” Dominic said bitterly. “I saw enough in the Holy War to know that kind of faith can pass miracles.”
    â€œOr call down curses?”
    Dominic’s fist hit the table once more, making bells cry in protest for the man who would allow no protest of his own to escape his rigid control.
    â€œWhat will you do?” Simon said after a time. “Have the marriage annulled because she is infertile?”
    â€œNay,” Dominic vowed. “Never.”
    The force of his instant reply surprised both men.
    â€œWe could hold the keep even if the thanes and vassals rebelled,” Simon pointed out. “If the people refuse to work the land for you, our father has more peasants than his estates in Normandy need. The serfs would be glad to come here where each would get a garden of his own, and a pig.”
    â€œAye.”
    Dominic said no more. The solution Simon offered was workable, but Dominic refused it out of hand. He couldn’t precisely say why. He knew only that his instincts clamored against a solution that didn’t involve the Glendruid witch who was his wife.
    Frowning, Dominic looked at the delicate golden bells that shivered so musically with the least touch.
    If flowers could sing …
    If Glendruid witches could love …
    â€œAye!” Dominic said fiercely. “That is it!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe solution, my brother, is simple. I must teach the witch to love me.”

14
    D OMINIC AND S IMON CROSSED through the great hall on the way to one of the corner stairways that wound up the inside of three of the keep’s four towers. The soft music of the golden jewelry overflowing from Dominic’s left hand was lost in the noise of servants raking and scraping the wooden floor of the hall.
    As soon as the planks were bared, more servants with buckets of water, lye soap, and coarse brushes went to work. Heaps of soiled rushes were piled up along one wall, waiting to be burned. The fire in the huge hearth leaped high as it devoured all that it was fed.
    The steward hurried from group to group of servants, urging that they work harder and faster in order to please Blackthorne Keep’s new lord.
    â€œAt least the steward knows who his new master is,” Dominic muttered.
    â€œThey all know who their new master is. Some of them just find it harder to swallow than others.”
    â€œThey had best not take too long in the chewing,” Dominic retorted as he began climbing stairs with long strides. “I have little patience for some things. Sloth is foremost among them.”
    Simon’s laughter echoed in the twisting stone passageway.
    â€œYour knights well know it, Dominic. I doubt that your wife will be long in learning.”
    â€œThere will be no need of teaching in Lady Margaret’s case. Her breath and body are as sweet as spring itself. The cleanliness of her rooms tells me that it was John, rather than she, who was at fault for the