Medieval 03 - Enchanted

harshly.
    “—suspect that I am the man who took
your wife’s maidenhead in passionate battle. Because you
suspect—”
    Ariane made a sound that was both Geoffrey’s
name and a savage curse.
    “—she is cold with you,” Geoffrey
continued, talking over all interruptions, “for she cannot
endure another man after having known me!”
    There was a stunned silence in the bailey.
    All that prevented Ariane from clawing
Geoffrey’s smiling face was her husband’s hand beneath
her mantle, locked about both her wrists. Though she struggled
subtly, she had no hope of winning free to do the damage she
wished.
    Nor could she undo the damage that had been
done.
    “If you were indeed my wife’s first
taste of love,” Simon said evenly, “’tis a
miracle that she didn’t swear off men entirely and take up
the veil.”
    Before Geoffrey could speak, Simon turned to
Sven.
    “Show our guest to the stable,” Simon
said. “He can bed down with his stallion.”
    “Aye,” Sven said. “This
way.”
    When Geoffrey began to object about the
inhospitable quarters, Sven cut across his words.
    “Be quick about it,” Sven said curtly.
“We have so many knights that the clean hay is soon
taken.”
    Geoffrey hesitated, shrugged, and set off after
Sven.
    Ariane let out a long, ragged sigh. She looked up
at Simon, wanting to explain how Geoffrey had twisted the truth to
make it appear that she had compromised her honor today—and
Simon’s.
    The words Ariane would have spoken fled as she
confronted the clear black savagery of her husband’s
eyes.
    “Listen to me,” Simon said.
“Listen to me very well. Whatever happened before you wed me
cannot be changed. But if you have cuckolded me—”
    “It wasn’t as Geoffrey made it
appear!”
    “—leave now, before I find out. Run
fast and run far or I shall catch you. Then we will spend eternity
in hell together. Do you understand me, wife ?”
    Ariane wanted to speak, but the only word she could
force past the constriction in her throat was Simon’s
name.
    “I see that you understand,” he
said.
    Abruptly Simon released his hold on Ariane’s
wrists. She drew in her breath swiftly, for beneath his cold fury
she sensed that there was something more. Something worse.
Something she, too, had known—the savage, consuming acid of
betrayal.
    “Simon,” Ariane said, reaching out.
    “Do up your laces,” Simon interrupted
curtly, stepping away from her touch, “lest you give the
gossips of this keep even more to drool and snigger over than you
already have.”
    Ariane looked down. Through the opening in her
mantle peeked the trailing ends of silver laces. A flush consumed
her pale skin when she realized that her dress was partly
undone.
    “It isn’t what you think!” Ariane
said passionately.
    “What I think is that you are very fortunate
the Glendruid Wolf values peace above war, and
that I value my brother above all else .”
    “My wound pained me,” Ariane said.

“I undid my dress to see if I had somehow hurt it
anew!”
    “Did your head pain you, too?” Simon
asked silkily.
    “My head?” Ariane asked, baffled.
    “Aye,” Simon said, turning, walking
away with cool finality. “Your hair is even more undone than
your dress.”

25
    A riane got up from the supper table
and went to her bedchamber with a few muttered words about being
tired. The truth was that she hadn’t been able to bear
listening any longer to Geoffrey’s insinuations strip away
Simon’s pride and her honor in front of the assembled knights
of the keep.
    Rather grimly Ariane wondered if Simon still
thought that marriage was no worse than the sultan’s hell
Dominic had once endured.
    The food grew cold on the supper tray Blanche had
brought to Ariane’s room, as Ariane simply sat and stared at
nothing at all. Footsteps came and went in the hallway leading to
the bath, but she took no notice.
    Even the harp was no consolation. Ariane was
finding that it was harder to abide Simon’s pain and
humiliation than it had been to endure her own. She hadn’t
caused her agony. But she was causing Simon’s.
    A knocking on the closed door dragged
Ariane’s attention from her own bleak thoughts.
    “Yes?” she said.
    “’Tis Blanche.”
    “Enter,” Ariane said without
enthusiasm.
    The door opened. A quick look around the room told
Blanche that nothing had changed since she left.
    “Are you not finished eating yet,
m’lady?” Blanche asked a bit impatiently.
    “I have no