Medieval 03 - Enchanted

asked.
    “Yes.”
    “You are wrong, madam. My wife has no
fondness for me.”
    “Indeed?” Cassandra murmured.
“Well, that explains it.”
    “Explains what?” Simon asked
impatiently.
    “Why she nearly died so that you could
live.”
    Simon’s mouth shut with a distinct clicking
of teeth. His jaw muscle worked.
    “I don’t know why she galloped into the
middle of the battle,” he said, biting off each word.

“It will be the first thing I ask her when she
awakens.”
    “If you leave tomorrow, I doubt that Ariane
will ever awaken,” Cassandra said matter-of-factly.
    Simon’s face paled. He spun to look at his
wife again. Her skin appeared to have been rubbed with chalk. Each
time she breathed, she groaned as though a knife were sticking
between her ribs.
    “Explain it how you will, Simon,”
Cassandra said, “or ignore it entirely, but Ariane heals more
quickly when you lie close to her.”
    “Can she travel?” he asked.
    “Tomorrow? Nay,” Cassandra said.
“In a fortnight? Probably.”
    Simon looked to Meg, but she was already on her way
out of the room.
    “Meg?” he asked.
    “I will bring Dominic here,” Meg
said.
    Simon headed for Ariane’s bed, only to be
stopped by Cassandra’s hand. He looked at the cool white
fingers wrapped around his wrist. A ring set with a red, a green,
and a blue stone gleamed like a captive rainbow on the Learned
woman’s hand.
    “First, let the Glendruid Wolf see Ariane as
she is, without your vitality infusing the cloth,” Cassandra
said.
    Simon started to ask a question, saw the gleam of
amused anticipation in Cassandra’s eyes, and decided to say
nothing at all.
    “What is this?” Dominic asked, striding
into the room. “Meg says that Ariane is suddenly
worse.”
    “Watch her closely, Wolf of Glendruid,”
Cassandra said.
    The tone of the Learned woman’s voice told
Dominic far more than her words. He watched Ariane as carefully as
a hunter would watch for the first sight of a stag leaping from
cover.
    “How does she appear to you?” Cassandra
asked.
    Dominic glanced at Simon.
    “Speak freely,” Cassandra said.
“Simon assures us that there is no affection between him and
his wife.”
    “She looks like a woman with childbed
fever,” Dominic said bluntly.
    “Or a knight with wound fever?”

Cassandra offered.
    “Aye.”
    “Glendruid healer,” Cassandra said,
turning to Meg. “Go to Ariane. Lay your hand upon the cloth
Serena wove.”
    With a questioning glance, Meg did so.
    Nothing happened.
    “Now your husband,” Cassandra said.
    As Meg withdrew, Dominic went to the bed and
touched the fabric.
    “Strange stuff,” he muttered. “I
can’t say I like the feel of it at all.”
    “Step back,” Cassandra said.
    She placed her own hand on the fabric. After the
space of four breaths, she moved away.
    Throughout it all, Ariane continued to whimper and
thrash restlessly. Scarlet burned along her cheekbones, telling of
fever’s fires rising within.
    “Simon,” Cassandra said.
    Reluctantly, Simon stepped forward and touched the
fabric.
    As always, the texture pleased him. It was like
Ariane’s kiss, never the same twice, changing even while he
savored it. The look of the fabric itself was also endlessly
intriguing, as though brilliant shadows of amethyst and violet and
ebony had been threaded through, creating pictures that shifted
with each breath, each moment.
    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 …
    “Do you see now?” Cassandra asked
Dominic.
    The sound of Cassandra’s voice sent a shudder
ripping through Simon. Raw yearning twisted within him.
    He felt as though he had almost touched something
that could be neither weighed nor measured nor seen.
    Nor touched.
    “Aye,” Dominic said. “Ariane
rests now. Is it a Learned thing?”
    “Not really,” Cassandra said. “It
is an aspect of some Silverfells clan weavings. Each is different.
Each becomes more different as it is worn. It
simply… is .”
    Dominic rubbed his nose thoughtfully, then turned
to his brother.
    “You will stay with Ariane,” Dominic
said.
    Simon opened his mouth to protest, but the
Glendruid wolf was still talking.
    “As soon as it is safe to travel, bring your
wife to Blackthorne Keep.”
    “What if winter keeps