Medieval 02 - Forbidden

were none. There were only faint, fading glimmers of light that retreated even as she pursued.
    The man was as though newly born.
    “I don’t sense anything corrupt gnawing away inside him,” she said finally. “It is like touching a babe.”
    Erik snorted. “A babe? God blind me, but he is the biggest babe I’ve ever seen!”
    Amber withdrew her hand.
    “What else can you tell me?” Erik asked.
    She laced her fingers together so tightly that they ached. She didn’t want to share her fears with Erik, yet his questions were circling closer and closer to the core of her unease, a fear she acknowledged each time she denied it.
    Great warrior, deadly enemy, and soul mate in one .
    Nay! I don’t know who he is !
    I know only that he is a man with no name who is supremely confident of his own fighting skills .
    “Normally you ask the question, the person I’m touching answers, and my touch tells me if the truth was spoken,” Amber said slowly. “This time was…different.”
    Erik looked from the senseless stranger to Amber, who seemed almost a stranger herself at the moment.
    “Are you well?” he asked softly.
    She jumped. “Aye.”
    “You seem dazed.”
    A smile was difficult to manage, but Amber did.
    “’Tis the touching,” she said.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Don’t be. God sends us nothing that we can’t endure.”
    “Or die trying,” Erik said dryly.
    Amber’s smile slipped as the words of the prophecy rang once again in her mind.
    Death will surely flow .

2
    T HE smell of timeless evergreens permeated Amber’s cottage. Candles flickered in holders above the bed. They cast a shivering golden light over the man with no name. A man who lay captive in a sleep that had no dreams.
    Amber was certain he wasn’t dreaming, for she had spent the past two days rubbing precious oils and warmth into his body. During that time she had sensed nothing new. Nor had the pleasure that came with touching him changed. It was as keen now as it had been the first time.
    As Amber worked, she spoke to the stranger, trying to reach him with words as well as with the warmth of her touch and the pungent, healing power of evergreen and amber.
    “My dark warrior,” Amber murmured as she had many times before. “How did you come to the Stone Ring?”
    Her hands massaged first one powerful arm, then the other, shaping muscles that were firm even in relaxation. The dark hair on his forearms gleamed with oil and candlelight. The sight of the strong cords binding him to the bed frame made her frown. She touched one of the cords and sighed, but didn’t remove it.
    Erik had said the stranger was to be bound or else one of Erik’s squires would be with Amber atall times. She had chosen the bonds, for she wanted no one else around if the man woke up and was discovered to be the enemy she feared.
    Amber didn’t know what she would do if that happened. It was a thing she refused to think about, for there was no solution to the dilemma it would cause.
    Enemy and soul mate in one .
    “Were you afoot?” Amber asked. “Were you alone?”
    There was no answer but the rhythmic rise and fall of the stranger’s broad chest.
    “Are your eyes the gray of ice and winter, the gray of Dominic le Sabre’s? Or are your eyes darker, as the Scots Hammer’s are reputed to be?
    “Or are you a third warrior, unknown, come back from the Saracen full of certainty of your own ability?”
    There was no change in the stranger’s deep, even breathing.
    “I pray you are unknown,” Amber whispered.
    With a sigh, she resumed stroking the patterns of hair across the man’s chest. The masculine hair both intrigued and pleased her. She liked smoothing the crisp mat, feeling its resilience and tickling caress over her palms.
    “Did you take off your clothes so that you could enter the sacred circle and sleep safely at the rowan’s feet?”
    The man made a murmurous sound.
    “Yes,” Amber said eagerly. “Oh, yes, my warrior. Come to the golden light. Leave all the shades of darkness behind.”
    Though the man made no response, Amber was elated. Slowly, slowly, he was emerging from his unnatural sleep. She sensed his pleasure in being stroked and petted as clearly as if he could speak.
    Yet still no memories came from him to her, no images, no names, no faces.
    “Where are you hiding, my dark warrior?” she asked. “And why?”
    Amber smoothed thick, slightly wavy hair back from the stranger’s forehead.
    “Whatever you fear, you must