Medieval 03 - Enchanted

the wolf’s
head pin that fastened his mantle.
    Then the Glendruid Wolf turned away from Erik to
his brother. The amethyst of Ariane’s dress flowed like
twilight against the indigo of Simon’s mantle.
    “To the keep, then,” Dominic said
curtly.
    “Quickly,” Simon urged, striding to his
horse, “before the renegades realize they were defeated by a
Learned peregrine and a reckless little nightingale.”

14
    “’T is like an oiled
eel,” Meg muttered, turning to Cassandra. “Have you a
dagger? I can’t get a grip on the bandage to make it come
free.”
    Cassandra looked from Ariane’s white face to
the violet fabric covering her wound. Only a small amount of blood
had seeped through the Learned weaving.
    “Simon,” Cassandra said.
    “I’m here.” Simon stepped forward
from the doorway, where he had stayed to avoid getting in the
healers’ way. “What do you need?”
    Simon’s glance took in the room he had not
come to since his wedding night. Nothing had changed, except that
the bride lay more dead than alive on her bed.
    “Take off your wife’s bindings,”

Cassandra said.
    Without a word, Simon went to Ariane. A few deft
motions of his hands unwrapped the bandage he had put on after the
battle with the renegades.
    Baffled by Simon’s ease with the slippery
cloth, Meg looked from the bandage to the Learned woman. Cassandra
didn’t notice, for she was intent upon Simon’s handling
of the odd fabric.
    “Now,” Cassandra said. “The
dress.”
    Ariane neither stirred nor even moaned as Simon
swiftly unlaced the front of the dress. She lay as limp as sea
wrack stranded on a rocky shore.
    Silver laces slid free of their moorings with
gratifying speed. The dress opened, revealing fine linen
underclothing. The pale gold perfection of the linenwas ruined by a scarlet blotch running all the way
down one side.
    “God have mercy,” Simon said
starkly.
    “Amen,” said Meg and Cassandra as
one.
    Then, briskly, Cassandra said, “Stand aside,
Simon. This is work for healers.”
    Reluctantly he moved away from the bed.
    “Stay close,” Cassandra cautioned as
Simon once more headed for the doorway. “We may need
Serena’s fabric to stem the flow of blood.”
    “What does that have to do with Simon?”
Meg asked.
    “More than I have time to explain.”
    With that, Cassandra bent over Ariane, prodding
lightly along the senseless girl’s body with hands that
smelled of astringent herbs.
    Meg, dressed as Glendruid ritual required in the
clean linen shift of a healer, dipped her hands once more in a pan
of herbal water. A pungent, complex aroma rose from the hot
liquid.
    “Her bones seem intact,” Cassandra
said. “Her ribs turned aside some of the blade.”
    Cool sweat bloomed beneath Simon’s tunic at
the thought of steel meeting Ariane’s delicate bones. He made
an inarticulate sound and flexed his hands as though hungry to feel
a renegade’s neck between them.
    “Let me cleanse the wound,” Meg
said.
    Cassandra straightened and stepped away. As she
did, she gave Simon a sideways glance. His face looked carved from
stone, with a grimness his closely clipped beard couldn’t
soften.
    “Are you well, sir?” the Learned woman
asked.
    “Well?” Simon choked off a curse.
“Aye. Quite well, thanks to my wife lying near death on the
bed.”
    Cassandra gestured toward a trunk whose open top
revealed tray after tray of small pots, bundles of cloth, herbs,
sharp blades and even sharper needles.
    “If you feel faint, have a care not to fall
into the medicines,” she said.
    “Faint?” Simon said. “I’ve
seen blood before.”
    “And I’ve seen many a fine warrior fall
senseless at the sight of another’s wound,” Cassandra
retorted.
    “Simon won’t,” Meg said without
looking up from her task. “He nursed Dominic back to life
after a sultan amused himself for many days torturing his captive
Christian knight.”
    Cassandra looked at Simon with new interest.
    “’Tis rare to find a man with a gift
for healing,” Cassandra said. “Rarer still to find a
warrior so gifted.”
    The assessing look in Cassandra’s grey eyes
made Simon uncomfortable.
    “It was no more than common sense,”

Simon said curtly. “I simply cared for my brother until he
was able to care for himself again.”
    Simon might as well have saved his breath.
Cassandra was bent over Ariane once more. Learned woman and
Glendruid witch conferred in low voices, discussing plants by their
ancient names, the