Medieval 02 - Forbidden

said.
    “You’ve done nothing wrong.”
    “Then why do you turn away from me?”
    “It is myself I turn away from,” Duncan said savagely, “but wherever I turn, I find I am already there. Leave me be.”
    When Amber lifted her hand, Duncan surged to his feet. He arranged his clothing with a few curt motions and stood with his fists clenched at his sides.
    “Can you sit a horse?” he asked through clenched teeth.
    “Of course.”
    “Are you certain?”
    “Duncan,” Amber said in exasperation, “I rode here with you, remember?”
    “And then I tore at you until you bled. I ask you again: can you ride?”
    “And I say again: aye!”
    “Good. We must go quickly to the keep.”
    “Why?”
    No answer came.
    Amber looked up at the sky. What had once been wildly threatening and riven by lightning was now the pearly gray of a dove’s breast.
    “Look,” Amber said wonderingly. “The storm is fled!”
    Duncan gave the sky a single, savage glance.Broodingly he turned and looked at the rowan that stood guard over the mound’s eternal sleep.
    Are you pleased, rowan ?
    Better that you had let me die than live to become a warrior with no self-control, a defiler of virgins .
    The bitterness of Duncan’s thought wasn’t lessened by the realization that he would have to endure Erik’s displeasure that his vassal was a virgin no longer.
    Duncan had taken that which was clearly forbidden. Now he must bear the consequences.
    And he must pray that in keeping one vow, he would not forswear another, unremembered vow.
    “Come,” Duncan said flatly, starting toward the horses. “There is a wedding to be arranged.”

12
    “L ORD , a weasel-eyed pilgrim demands to see you,” Alfred said.
    Erik looked up from his contemplation of a manuscript that consisted largely of enigmatic, elegant runes. The large, rough-coated wolfhounds at his feet looked up as well. The orange flicker of hearth fire leaped redoubled in their eyes.
    “A pilgrim,” Erik said neutrally.
    “Aye. So he says.”
    If the knight’s words hadn’t made his contempt clear enough, his voice and posture did. He fairly vibrated with disdain.
    With a last, lingering glance, Erik set aside the parchment he had been studying.
    “To what purpose does he wish to see me?” Erik asked.
    “He claims to have knowledge of the Scots Hammer.”
    The falcon above Erik’s chair sent a sharp cry through the room.
    “Does he really,” Erik murmured. “How intriguing.”
    Alfred looked sour rather than intrigued.
    “Where?” asked Erik. “When? Under what circumstances? And is he certain the man was indeed the Scots Hammer?”
    “The churl said only that he must speak to youalone, in a privacy greater than that of the confessional.”
    Erik leaned back in his riven oak chair, picked up his silver dagger, and began running his fingertips over the flowing runes inscribed on the blade.
    “How odd,” Erik said.
    Alfred grunted.
    The falcon’s hooked beak followed each motion of Erik’s fingers, as though in expectation of blood sport at any moment.
    “Bring him.”
    “Yes, lord.”
    As Alfred turned to leave, he eyed the peregrine warily. She had been known to fly at men rather than at feathered prey, and she suffered no leash such as other falcons wore while on their household perches.
    A soft whistle from Erik’s lips soothed the fierce bird. She flared her wings, folded them neatly at her sides, and resumed watching with unblinking intensity as Erik’s fingers caressed the dagger’s gleaming blade.
    A distinct odor preceded the pilgrim’s arrival to Stone Ring Keep’s great hall. The smell was a compound of greed, fear, eagerness, and a body that hadn’t known the kiss of water since baptism.
    “Did you find it in a hen roost?” Erik asked idly of Alfred. “Or was it buried beneath a pile of dead fish, perhaps?”
    Alfred snickered. “No, lord. It came walking up to me all of its own.”
    “Ah, well,” Erik murmured, “not everyone has a Learned appreciation of the solace of a warm bath.”
    The pilgrim shifted uncomfortably. Though the clothes he was wearing were made of fine cloth, they fit badly, as though cut for another man. Or several men. His hair would have been flaxen, if clean. He took in the great hall with pale, dartingglances, as though afraid to be caught looking at the gold and silver plates displayed in their accustomed tiers near the lord’s dais.
    Erik caught the direction of the pilgrim’s glance. The lord’s mouth