Medieval 03 - Enchanted

what must be done.
    And how.
    To leave secretly, I must find
the keep’s bolt-hole. Where has it been hidden ?
    After a few breaths a vision formed, torches
burning in a long hallway where rooms opened on either side;
buttery and barrels of salted eels, fowl with cool, faintly scaled
feet hanging ready for the roasting spit, fruit both fresh and
dried. Where the hall ended, the herbal began, rack upon rack of
plants drying.
    And beyond the last rack, dug deep into the
hillside, hidden in darkness and stacks of twine, a small door was
bolted shut.
    Next, the horse. Surely
someone has lost one in all this tumult. Perhaps one of my
father’s knights has a drunken squire or groom .
    It look longer this time, for the loss was less
precise. But slowly, slowly, a vision condensed from the
darkness…a horse in Norman trappings standing with its broad
rump to the wind and its nose in a Blackthorne haystack.
    Carefully Ariane eased herself from Simon’s
arms. When he murmured as though in protest, she kissed him lightly
and smoothed her hand over his cheek. He nuzzled against her hair,
sighed and relaxed again.
    “Sleep, my love,” Ariane whispered.
“All is well. I know where my dowry is.
    “And I know how to save Blackthorne
Keep.”

32
    “V anished?” Simon
demanded. “What do you mean she has vanished?”
    Sven looked warily from Dominic to Simon. Sven had
been on the Holy Crusade with both men. He would not relish
fighting either of them, and Simon looked like a man on the edge of
battle. Sven glanced in unwitting appeal to Meg, who was sitting on
her lord’s right in the solar’s warmth.
    “Softly,” Meg said to Simon. “The
baron is never far from us.”
    Simon’s mouth flattened but he didn’t
disagree. Instead, he stood, pushed aside the remains of his midday
meal, and stood close enough to Sven to touch him.
    “Explain,” Simon said.
    Though soft, his voice was no less savage.
    “Lady Ariane wasn’t at morning
chapel,” Sven said quietly.
    “Aye,” Dominic said from behind Simon.
“I thought she might have taken service with her
father’s chaplain.”
    “The one who called her a wanton and demanded
penitence for a sin she never committed?” Simon asked in a
low, scornful voice. “I don’t think so. She would
rather take service with swine.”
    “Ariane spoke to neither chaplain this
morning,” Sven said. “Nor is she bathing. Nor is she
embroidering. Nor is she harping sad songs.”
    “What of the kitchen?” Meg asked.
“She has been teaching them savory tricks with the
stews.”
    “The guard Lord Dominic posted in the
forebuilding said that no one but servants had gone out into the
bailey,” Sven said.
    Dominic smiled and looked at Meg, who had once
slipped past Sven while dressed as a servant. Sven saw the look and
smiled ruefully.
    “The guard was one of Blackthorne
Keep’s old knights,” Sven said. “The servants are
well-known to him.”
    “’Tis no wonder Ariane stays away from
the kitchens today,” Meg said. “The devil’s own
storm is howling out there. Thank God the harvest is within the
walls.”
    “But Lady Ariane is not,” Sven said
succinctly. “She is not at the wellhead. She is not in the
barracks. She is not in the armory, the buttery, the privy, or any
other cursed place I have searched.”
    “Deguerre,” Simon said bitterly.
“I will have his manhood for this!”
    “Where would he hide her?” Sven asked
in neutral tones. “He, too, is inside the keep.”
    Dominic looked at Meg again.
    “Small falcon?” he asked softly.
“How are your dreams?”
    Meg closed her eyes. When they opened, they were
haunted.
    “I slept well enough before the storm,”
Meg said. “Better than in many weeks. As though something had
been set aright.”
    “And now, while you are awake?” Dominic
asked. “Do you dream?”
    “When the storm broke during chapel, I felt
as though I were out in it.” She shivered. “It is very
cold out there, my lord. Deathly cold.”
    “I know that all too well,” Simon said.
“I was out at the wooden palisade herding stonemasons as
though they were stubborn oxen.”
    “Is the gap closed?” Sven asked.
    “Soon,” Simon said succinctly,
“if I have to carry each icy stone myself. And I may. The
storm shows no sign of dying.”
    “Aye,” Meg said, frowning. “I
didn’t expect such a severe storm this soon in the
season.”
    “Go to your herbal,” Dominic said to
his wife. “Your people will require balm to ease