Medieval 03 - Enchanted

slender fingers reaching for the fabric…and curling into
a fist short of their goal.
    “You may touch the dress, Lady Ariane. It is
our gift to you.”
    “Our?”
    “The Learned. Despite Simon’s dislike
of our ways, we…value him.”
    “Why?”
    The blunt question didn’t displease
Cassandra. Rather, it made her smile.
    “He is capable of Learning,” Cassandra
said. “Not everyone is.”
    The shimmering richness of the gift in
Cassandra’s hands captivated Ariane. The subtle play of light
over the lush, dark fabric was entrancing.
    Abruptly Ariane blinked and went quite still,
compelled by something she could not name, only sense. Something
was condensing within the fabric, a picture calling to her like
chords from an ancient harp. Beneath the lightning strokes of
embroidery, embedded in the color and texture of the fabric itself,
there was a suggestion of two figures…
    Unknowingly, Ariane reached out to trace the
design. It shimmered throughout the cloth like an amethyst beneath
a full harvest moon. The play of color and light was as subtle as a
sigh breathed into a storm. Yet like a sigh,the
design was unmistakable to anyone who had the sensitivity to
discover it.
    As soon as Ariane’s fingertips touched the
cloth, she knew that the figures were not those of two knights
fighting or two noblemen hawking or two monks trans-fixed by
prayer. The figures were a man and a woman, and they were
intertwined in one another as surely as the threads of the cloth
itself.
    Silently Ariane traced the figures with her
fingertips, beginning with the woman’s darkly flying hair.
The cloth had a whisper of warmth. It was soft yet resilient, as
though it were alive.
    The feel of it was marvelous, but even more
fascinating was the pattern that became clearer with each moment
Ariane’s fingertips lingered. Though the faces of the figures
were concealed by the subtle sheen of the fabric, the weaver had
been so skilled that there was no difficulty in telling male from
female.
    A woman of intense feeling,
head thrown back, hair wild, lips open upon a cry of unbelievable
pleasure .
    The enchanted .
    A warrior both disciplined and
passionate, his whole being focused in the moment .
    The enchanter .
    Now he was bending down to
her, drinking her cries even as he drew more sounds from her. His
powerful body was poised over hers, waiting, shivering with a
sensual hunger that was as great as his restraint .
    Simon ?
    With a startled sound, Ariane snatched back her
fingers.
    “That cannot be,” she whispered.
    Cassandra’s eyes narrowed, but when she
spoke, her voice was soft, almost supplicating.
    “What is it?” the Learned woman asked.

“What do you see?”
    Ariane didn’t answer. Rather she simply
stared at the fabric.
    It was changing again even as she watched. Now
Simon’s midnight eyes were staring back at her, promising her
a world she no longer believed in, a world as warm and darkly
shimmering as amethysts and wine.
    Enchantment .
    “Nay,” Ariane whispered, “it
cannot be! It is but a mummer’s trick!”
    “What cannot be?”
    This time the Learned woman’s voice was less
soft, more compelling.
    Ariane’s answer was a wild shaking of her
head that sent black locks flying from their careful confinement.
Yet even as she stepped back from the fabric, she reached for it
once more.
    Or did it reach for her?
    “No,” Ariane said. “It cannot
be!”
    Cassandra draped the cloth over Ariane’s
hands.
    “There is no need to be afraid,” the
Learned woman said casually. “’Tis but
cloth.”
    “It appears—the fabric appears too
fragile to wear.”
    Ariane spoke the half-truth quickly, forcing
herself to look at Cassandra’s pale eyes rather than at the
dress that even now was curling caressingly over her hands.
    “Fragile?” Cassandra laughed.
“Far from it, lady. The fabric is as strong as hope itself.
Do you not see the unspoken dreams woven into the very warp and
weft?”
    “Hope is for fools.”
    “Is it?”
    Ariane’s mouth turned down in a curve too
bitter to call a smile. “Yes.”
    “Then Serena’s cloth will drape calmly
around you,” Cassandra said. “It responds only to
dreams, and without hope there are no dreams.”
    “You make no sense.”
    “’Tis a charge often leveled against
the Learned. Is your handmaid feeling well?”
    “Er, yes,” Ariane said, caught off
guard by the abrupt change in subject.
    “Good. Please remind her not to take more of
the potion than I