Medieval 02 - Forbidden

awaken soon. Else you will be lost forever in a darkness that won’t end short of death.”
    The stranger made no sound. It was as though she had imagined the brief stirring.
    Straightening wearily, Amber looked at the incense bowl that was set like a candle holder into the wall. The teardrop-shaped bit of gemstone was almost consumed. She added another precious fragment from her store of medicinal amber. A tendril of thin, fragrant smoke curled upward.
    The stranger’s body twitched but he didn’t awaken. Amber was beginning to fear he wouldn’t. Too often that was what happened to people who were struck by stone or broadsword or horse’s hoof. They fell into dreamless sleep. Nor did they awaken. Ever.
    That can’t happen to this man. He is mine !
    The intensity of Amber’s feelings startled her. Uneasily, she began pacing the cottage. After a time she realized that dawn was sending tiny lances of light between the cottage’s shutters. Beyond the walls, cocks crowed their triumph into the dying night.
    Amber peeked through a crack where the shutters didn’t quite meet. The autumn storm that had been the stranger’s undoing had passed over the land. In its wake lay a world newly made, glittering with dew and possibilities.
    Normally Amber would have been up and about in the garden, checking on the herbs she grew for Cassandra and herself. Or she would walk to the fens to see if flights of plump geese had arrived, bringing with them the certainty of the coming winter.
    But there was nothing normal about today. There had been nothing normal since the instant Amber had touched a man with no name and discovered that she had been born to be this one man’s mate.
    She went to the bed and rested her fingers lightly on his cheek. He was still in the coils of unnatural sleep.
    “But not so deeply, I think. Something is changing.”
    The cocks outside no longer crowed, telling Amber that the sun was lifting to its accustomed rounds.
    “If you do awaken, I’ll scare you back to sleep with my appearance,” she said. “I must look as bedraggled as a winter garden.”
    Amber refreshed herself with a basin of warm water and evergreen-scented soap. She put on a clean linen shift, tugged bright red stockings into place, and pulled a dress of thick, soft wool over her head.
    The dress was another gift of Lord Robert, through his son, Erik, in thanks for the fine, dried herbs Amber supplied to Robert’s household. The gold embroidery around the front neck opening made a rich contrast to the indigo color of the wool itself. The dress was lined with yellow linen, which showed inside the long, trailing sleeves and at the hem of the dress.
    When she was finished dressing, the soft cloth clung to the curving lines of her breasts and waist and hips. She caught the wide hem of the sleeves and bound them with ribbons around her wrists where the cloth would be out of her way.
    With flying fingers she wrapped a triple strand of gold-painted leather around her hips and tied the belt in front. At the end of each of the six leather strands, opaque rings of amber glowed in shades of gold. A sheath of gilded leather hung securely from her waist. Within the sheath lay asilver dagger whose hilt held a single eye of blood-red amber.
    Grabbing a comb made of rowan wood set with orange amber, she hurried over to the stranger’s bed. A brief touch told her that he was still swimming like a trout beneath the surface of unnatural sleep. And like a trout, he was struggling to rise toward the gleaming lure of the sun.
    Amber shook him lightly. There was no response other than a muttering that had no meaning. She stood next to the bed and combed tangles from her long golden hair while she watched him anxiously.
    “You are closer to the sunlight with each heart-beat,” she said hopefully. “Please awaken and tell me your name.”
    His head turned restlessly and a hand twitched. Amber touched him but discovered nothing new.
    Amber felt as restless as the stranger’s sleep. Pacing, combing her hair, pacing again, she finally cracked the shutters just beyond the bed and looked out. No one was coming up the path from Stone Ring Keep to her secluded cottage.
    She pushed the shutters a bit apart and began braiding her hair, ignoring the bracing rush of air into the room. Her fingers were clumsy with impatience and anxiety. The comb slipped and fell onto the rush-covered floor next to the bed. She slammed the shutter closed.
    “What a bother my