Medieval 03 - Enchanted

coolly
against her palm.
    “Truth,” said Amber.
    “Did you put an evil witch’s potion in
my wine?” Ariane asked.
    Geoffrey’s head snapped around once more to
face his accuser. The amethyst dress Ariane wore seethed quietly,
making silver embroidery glitter and race like veiled lightning
throughout the cloth. The jewels in her hair glittered as coldly
violet as her eyes.
    “Nay,” Geoffrey said.
    “Lie,” Amber said.
    A murmuring ran through the assembled knights.
Ariane ignored it.
    “Did that potion make my mind heavy and my
body slack, unable to scream or fight?” Ariane asked.
    “Nay!”
    “Lie.”
    The murmur became a muttering of outrage. Warily
Duncan looked at Simon.
    Simon was absolutely calm, utterly in control of
himself. With an inner sigh of relief, and a silent thanks to Simon
for his restraint, Duncan eased his punishing grip.
    Simon didn’t move to take advantage of
Duncan’s looser grip. Soon the grip became more gentle
still.
    “Did you then carry me to my bed?”
Ariane asked.
    Silence, then, “Aye.”
    “Truth.”
    Ariane took a deep breath to still the hatred and
contempt that made her tremble.
    A scream voiced in
silence .
    “There you raped me, and when morning finally
came—”
    “Nay!”
    “Lie.”
    A betrayal so deep it all but
killed her soul .
    “—you brought my father up to see me
lying naked in bloody sheets—”
    “Never!”
    “Lie.”
    “—and you told him that I had seduced
you with a witch’s potion.”
    “Nay! You—”
    “Lie.”
    Ariane, the
Betrayed .
    The murmuring of her name and her betrayal went
like a storm wind through the great hall, telling Geoffrey the Fair
that Ariane had won.
    “Then you—” Ariane began.
    Geoffrey leaped out of his chair. Blunt fingers
closed around Ariane’s neck as though he would choke the
truth to silence, and her with it.
    With a savage cry Simon exploded free of
Duncan’s restraint and vaulted the lord’s table,
scattering costly goblets and plates in every direction. As one,
Duncan, Dominic and Erik went over the table after Simon.
    They weren’t quick enough. Simon hit the
floor running. Knights took one look at the black hell of his eyes
and scrambled to get out of his way.
    Suddenly Geoffrey’s high scream ripped
through the hall. Ariane’s long sleeves had whipped across
his face. Livid streaks of red marked wherever the dress had
touched his bare skin.
    “Curse you to hell, witch!” Geoffrey
raged. “I wish I had managed to kill you and your cursed
husband when I attacked you in the Disputed Lands!”
    Geoffrey whipped a dagger from beneath his mantle
and raised the blade.
    Simon’s dagger flew in a blur of silver
between the tables and buried itself to the hilt in
Geoffrey’s shoulder. Before anyone could draw a breath,
Geoffrey was falling and Simon was upon him.
    Simon snatched Geoffrey’s dagger as it rolled
from his numbed hand. Smoothly Simon returned the blade to
Geoffrey, point first between his ribs, exactly where Ariane had
been wounded by the renegade’s dagger. When the blade could
go no deeper, Simon twisted the haft sharply.
    “May you spend eternity in hell,” Simon
said softly.
    Geoffrey was dead before he hit the floor.
    Towering over his slain foe, Simon heard as though
at a great distance the words of the knights within the great
hall.
    Geoffrey the Fair .
    A renegade butcher .
    Deguerre’s beloved
knight .
    Dead .
    Simon the Loyal has finally
avenged Ariane the Betrayed .
    A shudder tore through Simon when Dominic’s
hand gently gripped his shoulder. Rage receded, sanity returned,
and Simon knew what he had done.
    Hating himself for his unruly passions, Simon
turned from Geoffrey’s corpse to face the Glendruid Wolf.
    “Again I have betrayed you,” Simon said
in a voice made harsh by restraint.
    “You have defended your wife’s honor
and her life,” Dominic said evenly. “There is no
betrayal in that.”
    “I could have spared Geoffrey. I did not.
Worse, if it were mine to do again, I know I would do the
same…only more slowly, more painfully, until the swine
squealed for me to end it.”
    Simon turned away, holding out his hand.
“Lady Amber, I beg a favor of you.”
    Amber hesitated in the instant before she touched
Simon. Her fingers jerked once, then were still. Her breath came
out in a long sigh. She watched Simon with haunted golden eyes,
waiting for him to speak.
    “Tell my wife,” Simon said without
looking at Ariane, “that I would have