Medieval 02 - Forbidden

rubbed his midriff ruefully. It still ached from the blow Simon had given him yesterday.
    “Right now I feel about as skilled as a green squire,” Duncan said.
    Simon laughed.
    After a moment, so did Duncan. He felt a kinship with the blond knight that was as unexpected as it was strong.
    “I had the advantage in our battle,” Simon said. “I’ve spent a lifetime battling a man of your strength. You’ve had little practice against a man of my quickness. Except, perhaps, Sir Erik? There is a lean grace about the man that makes me wary.”
    “I’ve never seen Erik fight. Or if I have, I don’t remember it,” Duncan added broodingly.
    “If you haven’t seen him fight since you awakened in the Disputed Lands, you haven’t seen him fight at all,” Simon said beneath his breath.
    “What was that?”
    “Nothing of importance,” Simon said.
    He looked around the armory, cataloging the weapons with reluctant admiration for Erik’s fore-sight. The young lord would be a formidable enemy, if it came to that.
    And Simon suspected that it would.
    The sound of people walking toward the armory drifted like smoke through the half-finished stone keep. First came a man’s deep voice, then a woman’s musical laughter. Erik and Amber.
    Duncan turned toward the doorway with an eagerness that made Simon both furious and deadly cold.
    Hell-witch .
    Duncan comes to her lure like a starving hound to a meal of garbage .
    “There you are,” Erik said to Simon. “Alfred said you were likely here, seeing to the repair of your arms.”
    “Just appreciating the skill of your armorer,” Simon said, watching Amber run to Duncan. “Not since the Saracens have I seen such work.”
    “That is what I wanted to talk to you about,” Erik said.
    “The repairs made to my hauberk?”
    “No. Saracen arms. Something you said yesterday about their archers intrigued me.”
    With an effort of will, Simon forced himself to concentrate on Erik rather than on the girl who looked so innocent yet who was so deeply steeped in evil that she could steal a man’s mind with neither hesitation nor regret.
    “What was that, lord?” Simon asked.
    “Did their warriors truly shoot from horseback at a gallop?”
    “Yes.”
    “Accurately? At good distance?”
    “Aye,” Simon said. “And as quickly as hail falling.”
    Erik looked into the darkness of Simon’s eyes and had no doubt that whatever memories of war lay there were much of the reason for the man’s bleak, chilling competence.
    “How did they manage?” Erik asked. “A crossbow has to be armed by a man standing on the ground.”
    “The Saracen used a single bow. It was half the length of our longer English bows, yet shot arrows with a force like that of a crossbow.”
    “How can that be?”
    “It was a question that D—” Simon covered his error by clearing his throat and quickly speaking again. “It was a question my brother and I often argued.”
    “What did you decide?”
    “The Saracen curved and recurved their bows in such a way as to double or redouble their power without the penalty of heaviness that the crossbow bears.”
    “How?” Erik asked.
    “We don’t know. Every time we tried to make one for ourselves, we broke the bow.”
    “God’s teeth, what I wouldn’t give for a handful of Saracen bows!” Erik said.
    “You’ll need Saracen archers, too,” Simon said dryly. “There is a trick to using the bow that non-Saracen warriors have trouble mastering. In the end, honest Christian swords and pikes carried the day.”
    “Still, think what an advantage those bows would be.”
    “Treachery is better.”
    Startled, Erik stared at Simon.
    So did Duncan.
    “My brother,” Simon said, “often told me that there is no better way to take a well-defended position than by treachery.”
    “A shrewd man, your brother,” Erik muttered. “Did he survive the Holy War?”
    “Aye.”
    “Is he what you are seeking in the Disputed Lands?”
    Simon’s expression changed.
    “Forgive me, lord,” Simon said softly. “What I seek in these lands is a matter between me and God.”
    For the space of a breath, Erik paused. Then he smiled faintly and turned back to the hauberk that had recently been hung in the armory.
    “A fine hauberk,” Erik said.
    “Your armorer repaired the chain mail so deftly that it is better than when new,” Simon said.
    “My armorer’s skill is famed throughout the Disputed Lands,” Erik said matter-of-factly.
    “Justly so. Will he