Medieval 03 - Enchanted

a
godly place no matter what the whispers,” Blanche said.

“’Tis a relief to hear. I would be fearful for my
ba—”
    As though cut with a knife, Blanche’s words
stopped.
    “Do not worry, handmaid,” Ariane said
calmly. “I know you are breeding. The babe will come to no
harm. Simon has promised it.”
    Blanche still looked alarmed.
    “Would you like Simon to arrange a husband
for you?” Ariane asked.
    Wistfulness replaced alarm on Blanche’s face.
Then she shook her head.
    “No, thank you, lady.”
    Black eyebrows lifted in surprise, but all Ariane
said was, “Do you know who the father of your baby
is?”
    Blanche hesitated, then nodded.
    “Is he back in Normandy?”
    “Nay.”
    “Ah, then he must be one of my men. Is he a
squire or a man-at-arms?”
    Blanche shook her head.
    “A knight, then,” Ariane said in a low
voice. “Was he one of those who died of that savage
disease?”
    “It matters not,” Blanche said,
clearing her throat. “No knight would marry a servant girl
who has no kin, no dowry, and no particular beauty.”
    Tears stood in the handmaiden’s eyes, making
their light blue irises glitter with unusual clarity.
    “Be at ease,” Ariane said. “At
least no man pursues you because of what you can bring to him. Nor
would any man take from you by strength or wile what you would keep
as your own.”
    Blanche looked at her mistress oddly and said
nothing.
    “Put away your fears,” Ariane said
crisply. “You and your babe will be well cared for, and you
won’t have to endure a husband in your bed if you don’t
wish.”
    “Oh, that.” Blanche smiled.
“’Tis not such a trial. In the winter, a man is warmer
than a swine and stinks not half so much. At least, most men
don’t.”
    Unbidden, the memory came to Ariane of Simon
leaning down until his breath brushed her nape.
    Shall I have Meg blend me a
special soap to please your dainty nostrils ?
    Your scent is quite pleasant
to me as it is .
    An odd sensation whispered through Ariane as she
realized anew just how true her words had been. Simon was as clean
to her senses as the sunlight that caught and tangled in his hair,
making it appear to burn.
    If all I had to do as a wife
was to see to Simon’s house, his accounts, and his
comforts ….
    But that is not all a man
wants from a wife. Nor is it all God requires .
    “M’lady? Are you well?”
    “Yes,” Ariane said faintly.
    Leaning forward, Blanche peered more closely at her
mistress.
    “You look white as salt,” the
handmaiden said. “Are you with child, too?”
    Ariane made a harsh sound.
    “No,” she said distinctly.
    “I’m sorry, I meant no insult,”
Blanche said hastily, her words stumbling. “It’s just
that babes are on my mind and Sir Geoffrey said you were
particularly eager to breed.”
    “Sir Geoffrey was wrong.”
    The lethal calm of Ariane’s voice told
Blanche that she had once again stepped beyond the boundaries of
her half-learned duties as a lady’s maid.
    Blanche sighed and wished that all the highborn
were as charming and easy of manner as Geoffrey the Fair had been.
No wonder that Lady Ariane had become grim and removed after being
told that she would be sent to England to wed a rude Saxon
stranger, rather than remaining at home to marry Sir Geoffrey, son
of a great Norman baron.
    Ariane the Betrayed.
    “Your things are ready, my lady,”
Blanche said sympathetically. “Do you wish me to attend your
bath?”
    “No.”
    Though the marks of Ariane’s ordeal at
Geoffrey’s hands had long since faded from her body, she
could not bear even the casual touch of her lady’s maid.
    Particularly not when Blanche kept bringing up the
name of Geoffrey the Fair.

4
    A brazier sent warmth and a small bit
of fragrant smoke into the third-floor room of Stone Ring Keep. The
draperies around the canopied bed were drawn. A frowning Dominic le
Sabre sat next to a table set with cold meat, bread, fresh fruit
and ale.
    His expression gave a saturnine cast to his face
that made strong men uneasy. Coupled with his size, and the
Glendruid ornament on his black cloak—an ancient silver pin
cast in the shape of a wolf’s head with clear, uncanny
crystal eyes—Dominic was a forbidding presence.
    Thinking about the marriage that would take place
in a few hours had done nothing to improve Dominic’s peace of
mind. The bonds of love between the two brothers were far deeper
than blood or custom required.
    “You sent for me?” Simon said.
    Dominic’s