Medieval 03 - Enchanted

admit to herself that she had been hoping for a chance to
talk with Simon.
    ’ Tis just as well he
isn’t interested in me , Ariane told herself. How do I ask my husband if he plans to force
me tonight or some other night entirely ?
    With an impatient word under her breath, Ariane
shoved aside the fears that had neither outlet nor encouragement.
Since their disastrous wedding night, Simon had ignored his wife
except to be polite when their paths crossed in the keep.
    Meg was sitting along one side of the big table
where the lords and ladies of the Disputed Lands normally took
their meals. Instead of food, Meg had an array of lotions, balms,
potions, tinctures and creams spread in front of her. Next to her
sat Amber. The combination of flame-colored hair next to gold was
arresting against the grey stone walls.
    “Cassandra says this works very well against
diseases caused by chill,” Amber said. “Though, for
mild cases, some Learned healers prefer nettle harvested at the
height of summer to berries taken from Lucifer’s
ear.”
    Meg picked up a pot, dipped her finger briefly into
it, and rubbed a bit of the cream between her thumb and forefinger.
When the cream was as warm as her body, she held her fingers up to
her nose, sniffed carefully, tasted lightly, and nodded.
    Quietly Ariane sat down nearby. Simon’s
squire—a boy barely old enough to grow a wretched shadow of a
beard—stepped forward instantly with a plate of cold meats,
fruits, cheeses, breads and a mug of fragrant tea.
    “Thank you, Edward,” Ariane said,
surprised.
    “It is my pleasure to serve my lord’s
lady,” the boy said carefully.
    Edward glanced aside at Simon, received a
fractional nod, and retreated hastily.
    It was clear that Simon was overseeing
Ariane’s breakfast. As she looked at the plate again, she
understood something else—Simon must have been monitoring her
food for the past six days.
    There wasn’t one item on the plate that she
didn’t like. The tea itself was a subtle blend of rose hips
and chamomile that Ariane had declared more than once was very much
to her taste.
    Under Simon’s watchful black eyes, Ariane set
aside her harp and began to eat.
    “Thank our Lord,” Dominic muttered as
he saw the harp leave Ariane’s hands. “The lady
won’t be making our falcons weep with her sad
tunes.”
    Simon merely glanced from Ariane to his own
gyrfalcon waiting on a perch along the wall of the great hall.
Hooded, patient, Skylance waited with other birds of prey arrayed
on perches in the hall. Occasionally a falcon shifted and flared
its wings. The movements made bells jangle on the ends of leather
jesses wrapped around the falcons’ slender, cool legs.
    Turning away, Simon resumed stroking the cat whose
head was tucked along the right side of his neck. The motion of
Simon’s arm caused the sleeve of his shirt to fall away from
his arm, revealing the scarlet line of healing flesh across his
biceps.
    “Meg’s balm has healed you quickly from
your, ah, accident,” Dominic said.
    Though the Glendruid Wolf’s voice was low,
Simon knew his brother well enough to understand that Dominic
didn’t believe the story of how Simon had gotten the cut
across his left arm.
    “Aye,” Simon said. “Meg is very
skilled.”
    “Odd that you were so clumsy. Tell me again
how it happened.”
    A black look was Simon’s only answer.
    “Ah, it comes back to me now,” Dominic
said. “Youhad too much wine, you were
showing your bride how to flip the dagger end over end, and the
blade sliced you. Is that how it went?”
    Simon shrugged and began demolishing an apple with
neat, flashing bites.
    “A pretty story,” Dominic said
judiciously, “but it is time to speak the truth to your
lord.”
    “What passes between a man and his bride on
their wedding night belongs to them, and only to them.”
    “Not when the death of one or the other would
bring calamity to Blackthorne Keep,” Dominic retorted.
    “We live,” Simon said dryly.
    “And the bridal sheets were duly stained. By your blood, I presume?”
    Silence.
    “Simon.”
    The Glendruid Wolf’s voice was low, urgent.
So was his posture as he leaned toward his brother.
    “My questions aren’t idle,”

Dominic said flatly. “Each night Meg dreams Glendruid dreams.
Each night her dreams are more frightening.”
    Simon’s mouth became a line as thin as the
scarlet wound across his arm. For long moments he made no motion
but to stroke His Laziness, increasing the cat’s