Medieval 02 - Forbidden

ecstasy that had no beginning and no end.
    In the midst of fire he came to her, and they burned together in a place where there were no shades of darkness, only fire.
     
    A MBER looked out upon the great hall. There were still many serfs, freeholders, and villeins standing about. Only a few of them had expressions that suggested they were still waiting for their seneschal’s attention.
    “Are you finished, my lord?” Amber asked.
    She had left Duncan long enough to translate a particularly difficult fragment of a manuscript so that Cassandra would have it when she returned from the north. But as soon as the translation was done, she had sought out Duncan.
    When Amber wasn’t with him, she felt uneasy, as though he would somehow be taken from her without warning.
    “Come sit beside me,” Duncan said, holding out his hand. “I’ll be finished soon.”
    The instant Duncan touched Amber, she sensed some of the tension leave both of them. At the moment, his memories weren’t stirring. He was concentrating only on the present and his duties as Erik’s seneschal.
    While Amber sat beside Duncan on the raised dais in the great hall, he listened to complaints, resolved them, and listened again. As he listened, he caressed her hand, recalling for both of them the pleasure and peace they had found in the hours before dawn, when their interlocked bodies had defeated the memories which stalked Duncan like a pack of wolves.
    “Has it been a tedious morning?” Amber murmured.
    “I have come to believe that all pigs should be hamstrung,” Duncan muttered as the next vassals stepped forward.
    Amber saw who the petitioners were and hid her smile.
    “Ethelrod must have let his pig root about in the Widow Mary’s garden again,” Amber said.
    “Does it happen often?” Duncan asked.
    “As often as Ethelrod and the widow lie with each other.”
    Duncan gave Amber a sideways glance.
    “The pig is quite fond of Ethelrod, you see,” Amber said in a voice that carried no farther than her husband.
    “No, I don’t see,” Duncan muttered.
    “The pig follows Ethelrod like a faithful hound.”
    Duncan’s smile was a white flash beneath his mustache.
    “I begin to comprehend,” he said. “Does Ethelrod have an enclosure stout enough to hold a pig?”
    “No. Nor can he afford one. He is but a serf.”
    “Do they wish to marry?”
    “The widow is a freeholder. If they marry, any children they have would be serfs.”
    Frowning, Duncan watched the couple who stood so uneasily in front of their new seneschal.
    “Does Erik lack for serfs?” Duncan asked very softly.
    “Nay. He is a strict lord, but not harsh,” Amber said. “No one flees his service.”
    “Has Ethelrod been a faithful vassal?”
    “Aye. He has never shirked.”
    “How is he thought of by the people of the keep?” Duncan asked.
    “They bring their problems to him sooner than they bring them to the priest or to the lord of the keep.”
    Duncan kept Amber’s hand within his as he turned back to address the couple standing in front of him.
    “Widow Mary,” Duncan said. “Other than Ethelrod’s status as serf, have you any objection to him as a husband?”
    The woman was so startled by the question, it took her a moment to answer.
    “Nay, lord. He be a hard worker and a kind man to those as is weaker. But…”
    “But?” Duncan said encouragingly. “Speak, woman.”
    “That pig of his will nae see the inside of my cottage save it enter on a roasting spit!”
    The vassals who had remained to watch their new seneschal at work laughed. The running battle between the widow and the pig was a source of much amusement at the keep.
    Smiling, Duncan switched his hazel glance to the serf who stood uneasily in the great hall, his cap in his gnarled hands and his ill-shod feet flat as a cart bottom.
    “Ethelrod, have you any objection to the widow as a wife?” Duncan asked.
    Red crept up the man’s bearded cheeks to his weathered forehead.
    “Nay, s-sir,” he stuttered. “She be a f-fine lass.”
    “Then the solution to the problem of the pig becomes clear,” Duncan said. “The day you wed Widow Mary, you will no longer be a serf.”
    Ethelrod was too stunned to do more than open and close his mouth.
    “Sir Erik’s present to you on your wedding day,” Duncan continued, “will be enough wood to build a stout swine pen.”
    A shout compounded of laughter, approval, and celebration went up in the great hall. In less than a fortnight, the