Medieval 01 - Untamed

offered him drink from her lips. It took no coaxing to gain his attention. As soon as her mouth brushed his, he turned hungrily toward her. Not until two bowls had been drunk did he get restless and begin his verbal rambling again.
    This time the words were in English. Meg found herself wishing they were not.
    â€œâ€¦endless bloody slaughter. James, dead. John the Small, dead. Ivar the Heathen, dead. Stewart the Red…”
    Dominic’s voice was that of a monk chanting an alien mass. While name after name fell from her husband’s lips, Meg leaned over and stroked his head as though to soothe a fevered child.
    But it wasn’t fever that drove Dominic, nor was he a child. He was a man who had known the gore of swords slashing and hacking, the havoc of lance and charger churning through men afoot, the slow wasting of siege and disease until children starved and women fought with cats over rats as thin as shadows.
    Dominic recited the roll call of the starving, maimed, and dead repeatedly until Meg thought she would scream if she heard one more name.
    â€œ There must be peace! ”
    Meg thought it was her own cry until the echo came back and she knew it was her husband’s voice.
    â€œ Do you hear me, Simon? There must be peace! ”
    â€œAye,” Simon said clearly. “You will bring peace to your land, Dominic. I know it as surely as I know the sun will rise on the morrow.”
    When Dominic cried out again, Simon answeredin the same way, trying to reach past the delirium of poison so that his brother could rest.
    Dominic’s pain, so well shielded when he was in control of himself, made Meg ache with compassion and something more, the enduring Glendruid hope that was her birthright and curse.
    No matter his motive, he touched me with great kindness. He was driven by a need as great as mine, yet he wooed rather than demanded .
    He could have slain every Saxon in the keep, yet he stayed his hand .
    Peace, not war .
    Dear God, would that I had the power to grant Dominic’s greatest desire .
    Yet Meg could not, and she knew it: the fabled Glendruid son would be born of love and love alone. She might feel a woman’s normal passion for a man, she might feel compassion for her husband’s past suffering, she might respect his intelligence, discipline, and ambition, she might grieve for all that could have been between them had she seen him less clearly and had he seen her more so; but she could not make herself love a man who could not love her in return .
    It was too much to ask of any woman. It was simply beyond her ability…as love was beyond his ability.
    Meg brought Dominic’s hand to her lips and held it there while the tears she couldn’t stem fell from her cheeks to his fingers. All of Dominic’s hopes were for naught, as were Glendruid’s. She was like every Glendruid woman before her.
    Cursed.
    â€œDominic changed after being the sultan’s captive,” Simon said in a low voice. “He had always been a wise soldier, but he became both brilliant and utterly ruthless. He planned each battle with greatcare. Not simply to win, but to destroy as little as possible in the process. Yet what he did destroy…”
    Simon’s voice faded, then strengthened. “What he did ruin was laid waste in such a way as never to be made whole again.”
    Meg brushed her lips over Dominic’s palm.
    â€œThere is an unnerving coldness in him now,” Simon continued. “No matter how greatly provoked, he will show mercy to the wise because it is intelligent to do so. To fools he shows only the sharp edge of his sword, no matter how minor the offense.”
    Silently Meg kissed Dominic’s palm again and wondered whether he would call her wise or foolish after she had broken her word to him to stay in her rooms.
    â€œWhen Dominic walked away from the wasteland that had once been the sultan’s domain,” Simon said, “my brother vowed that he would get land of his own at the farthest edge of the civilized world, away from the ambitions of kings and popes and sultans. He would husband that land so carefully there would be neither famine nor want. And then Dominic vowed to take a noble wife and breed strong sons who would also breed strong sons.”
    â€œSo that something of his accomplishments would live forever?” Meg asked.
    Simon shook his head. “Dominic learned that peace is possible only for the strong.