Medieval 02 - Forbidden

keep’s wall.
    Amber and Cassandra spun toward the sound.
    Even as they turned, another cry came, the scream of an outraged peregrine. Before the cry had faded, Erik walked into the great hall. He was alone but for the sword sheathed at his side. Beneath his long crimson cape he wore chain mail. A battle helm hid all but his dark gold beard.
    Duncan came to his feet in a fierce movement. With one hand he swept up his battle helm from the back of the chair. The hammer that was never far from his reach appeared in his other hand. Smoothly he put the helm on.
    Like Erik, Duncan now was dressed from head to feet in links of steel.
    “Greetings, Duncan of Maxwell,” Erik said gently. “How is your wife?”
    “I have no true wife.”
    “Does the Church agree?”
    “Aye,” Dominic said from the doorway behind Erik.
    Erik didn’t turn around. He watched Duncan with the unflinching stare of a falcon.
    “Is it done, then?” Erik asked.
    The gentleness of his voice made Amber long to scream a warning to everyone within the room.
    “I have only to fix my seal to the document,” Dominic said.
    Again Erik didn’t look away from Duncan.
    “And you, Duncan,” Erik said. “Do you agree to this?”
    “Yes.”
    The wolf called again, and was answered by the peregrine’s high scream. Erik smiled savagely.
    “I demand blood right,” he said. “Single combat.”
    “You have no kin here,” Duncan said.
    “You are wrong, bastard . Amber is my sister.”
    A shocked silence spread in the wake of Erik’s words. Amber was the most stunned of all.
    Erik looked at her for the first time since he had walked into the great hall. Smiling almost sadly, he held out his hand.
    “Touch me, sister. Know the truth. Finally.”
    In a daze, Amber walked to Erik and placed her fingers on his hand.
    “You are the daughter of Lord Robert of the North and Emma the Barren,” Erik said distinctly. “You were born minutes after I was. We are twins, Amber.”
    The truth of what Erik was saying went through Amber like thunder through a narrow glen, shaking everything.
    “But why…?” whispered Amber.
    Then she could say no more.
    “Why were you denied your birthright?” Erik asked.
    She nodded.
    “I don’t know,” Erik said. “But I suspect that it was the price of my conception.”
    “That I be denied?” Amber asked.
    “That you be given to the Learned woman who would suffer no man long enough to quicken with her own babe.”
    Cassandra made a stifled sound.
    Erik looked at her for a moment only. Then he looked back at the girl whose true paternity he had discovered when he first had regarded the problem with Learned eyes.
    “Is that true?” Amber asked, turning to Cassandra.
    “When you were born…” Cassandra’s voice thinned into silence.
    “The prophecy,” Amber said.
    Death will surely flow .
    “Aye. The amber prophecy,” Cassandra said, sighing. “Emma feared it, and you. She refused to nurse you.”
    Amber closed her eyes. Tears glittered among the lashes that rested against her pale cheeks.
    “But I loved you from your first breath,” Cassandra said fiercely. “You were so tiny, so perfect. I believed if I could teach you enough Learning, rich life might flow.”
    Amber’s laugh was sadder than her tears.
    Better you had left me for the wolves .
    Yet the words were never spoken aloud, for Amber had no wish to wound the woman who had taken an unwanted babe and raised her as her own.
    “In the end, my lack of talent for Learning doomed your hopes,” Amber said.
    “The fault was in my lack of teaching,” Cassandra said.
    Amber simply shook her head.
    After a moment she opened her eyes, looked at Erik…and saw her brother for the first time. Tears came again, but differently. She touched his cheek, his hair, his lips, letting the truth of him sink into her.
    “The river always runs down to the sea,” Amber said, “no matter how you try to stay its true course. Let it go, my brother. Let it go.”
    Before Erik’s answer came, the peregrine flew at the partially opened shutters that kept her from her master. The falcon’s shriek was as shrill as Erik’s voice was gentle.
    “Never,” Erik said.
    “I don’t want you to do this!”
    “I know. But it must be done.”
    “Nay!” Amber cried, gripping Erik’s arm with one hand.
    “A gentle, sheltered girl called Duncan’s soul from darkness,” Erik said.
    Abruptly links of metal chain began to chant of death, sliding one over another as the