Medieval 03 - Enchanted

or Duncan,” Simon said.

“I wasn’t there. They were.”
    “Yet Duncan left the keep with you, Erik and
Cassandra, didn’t he?”
    Simon’s mouth tightened.
    “Our horses refused the trail to Ghost
Glen,” Simon said neutrally. “Duncan switched to the
mare we had brought for Amber to ride back. The mare took the trail
without difficulty.”
    Ariane watched her husband’s face, sensing
that there was a great deal of emotion beneath his dispassionate
words.
    “Duncan went into Ghost Glen,” Simon
said. “We did not. In time he rode out of the mist with Amber
in his arms.”
    “Odd that your horses refused.”
    Shrugging, Simon said, “The mare had been
over the trail before. The mist didn’t confuse
her.”
    “Hadn’t Cassandra and Erik been to the
glen before? It’s part of Sea Home’s lands, isn’t
it?”
    “No, they hadn’t. Yes, it
is.”
    “Why hadn’t they gone? It sounds as
though it’s a rich and wonderful place, able to support at
least one keep, probably more.”
    “God’s blood ,” muttered Simon.
    Watching her husband rather warily, Ariane waited
for the answer with an urgency that she herself didn’t
understand. She only knew that somehow, in some unknowable way,
Stone Ring and its attendant mysteries were important to her.
    It was the same kind of uncanny certainty she had
once had when she envisioned the location of items that had been
lost.
    “Simon?” Ariane coaxed, wanting the
rest of the story.
    Needing it .
    “Cassandra said that the sacred places accept
or reject people as they will,” Simon said tightly.
“She said that Ghost Glen rejected her, and Erik as
well.”
    “Did you try?”
    He nodded curtly.
    “And it rejected you?” she
whispered.
    Simon made a disgusted sound. “Nay, nothing rejected me. The cursed mist was
impenetrable.”
    Simon’s tone said more. Much more. It
revealed how maddening it had been for Simon to know there was a
trail ahead that could be coursed by neither hound nor
hunter…unless some incomprehensible, impossible, illogical
force permitted his presence.
    “But Duncan was accepted,” Ariane said.

“And Amber.”
    “Accepted?” Simon shrugged. “The
mist was lesser then, ’tis all.”
    “Is the mist there all the time?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Are you certain Duncan isn’t
Learned?”
    “Why does it matter to you?” Simon
retorted with barely leashed irritation. “You’re not
married to him.”
    “Are you and Cassandra allies?”
    The change of subject made Simon blink. He looked
at his wife’s eyes. Their violet clarity was breathtaking. It
reminded him of how she had looked by lantern light, eyes
half-closed, shimmering, fully in thrall to his kiss.
    “Dominic respects Cassandra’s gift of
prophecy,” Simon said finally.
    “And you?” Ariane asked.
    “I respect Dominic.”
    Ariane frowned and looked again toward the
shifting, enigmatic shadows inside the first of Stone Ring’s
circle of monoliths.
    “You reject Learning,” Ariane said
slowly, “yet the Learned value you.”
    Simon gave her a dark, sideways glance.
    “What makes you think that?” he asked
sardonically.
    “Cassandra told me. It was because of you
that they gave me this dress.”
    Surprise showed clearly on Simon’s face.
    “Perhaps they value me because they value
Dominic,” Simon said after a few moments.
    “No.”
    “You sound quite certain.”
    “I am.”
    “Second sight?” he asked
sarcastically.
    “Firsthand knowledge,” she retorted.

“Cassandra told me that they value you because you have the
potential of being Learned. Few men do.”
    “By the Cross,” muttered Simon,
“what flatulence.”
    Abruptly he removed the gyrfalcon’s hood, put
Skylance on his gauntlet and urged his horse into a faster pace.
The bird responded with an open beak and mantling wings. Only the
jesses firmly held in Simon’s fist prevented the falcon from
leaping onto the back of the wild wind.
    “Come,” Simon said curtly.
“Skylance grows impatient and so do I. The Lake of the Mists
lies just over the next rise.”
    With that, Simon galloped off beyond the reach of
more questions whose answers were as uncomfortable as they were
unknowable.
    Simon’s mount was fleet, long-legged and
eager to run. The mare Ariane rode was a heavy-boned, broad-beamed,
muscular animal whose colts were destined to carry fully armed
knights into battle rather than to race after stags in a hunt.
    Ariane’s mount had a singular lack of
interest in