Medieval 03 - Enchanted

will certainly be in a
position to win, for he believes Duncan of Maxwell to be too poor
to hire knights without the dowry,” Meg said.
    “Nor will King Henry look kindly upon being
asked to go to war over holdings that some believe belong to Robert
the Whisperer in any case,” Dominic concluded.
    He turned to Ariane. “Your father is gambling
that he will have won the battle before King Henry has time to take
the field.”
    “It would be like my father,” Ariane
said, her voice flat, emotionless. “He is extremely good at
finding weakness where others see only strength. ’Tis why he
is called Charles the Shrewd.”
    “Then we say nothing,” Simon said.
    “What?” Dominic demanded. “We
can’t—”
    “I have no quarrel with my wife’s
dowry,” Simon said succinctly.
    Silence spread through the armory.
    Ariane’s bitter smile gleamed for an instant
in the torchlight. The tears she had not shed when she had awakened
shamed and dishonored at Geoffrey’s hands now threatened to
choke her.
    “Simon,” she whispered. “It would
have been kinder to kill me when I offered the chance.”
    His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.
    “The spider spins,” Ariane said
tightly, “and it is I who am caught like an insect. And
through me, you. No matter how we struggle, Baron Deguerre will
win.”
    “Explain,” Dominic said curtly.
“And explain most carefully.”
    “My father foresaw weakness and division. He
didn’t foresee loyalty and restraint.”
    Dominic gave a sideways look to his brother, who
was watching Ariane with dark, emotionless eyes.
    “My father expected me to die on my wedding
night,” Ariane said starkly.
    “God’s blood. What nonsense is
this?” Dominic demanded.
    Ariane turned to Meg.
    “This is the truth you sought so harshly,
Lady Margaret. I hope it pleases you.”
    “No,” Meg said, reaching out as though
to stop Ariane.
    But Ariane was already speaking, letting pain wash
through her, surprised only that she could still feel.
    “My father is coming to Blackthorne Keep
expecting to start a war on the pretext of avenging my death at the
hands of my husband.”
    “He will be disappointed,” Simon said
neutrally. “You are alive.”
    “Aye. But will I still live when you discover
that I came to this marriage not a maiden?”
    Simon became very still.
    “You knew this?” Dominic demanded of
Simon.
    Simon said nothing.
    “Our marriage is unconsummated,” Ariane
said. “I will swear that before a priest. An annulment
will—”
    “Nay,” Simon said, cutting across her
words. “I have no complaint with my marriage. No reason to
seek an annulment. No reason for
war .”
    “By Christ’s holy blood,” Dominic
snarled, “what of your honor?”
    “I gave up my honor the moment I lay with
another man’s wife in the Holy Land.”
    “Marie?” Dominic asked, startled.
    “Yes. I am the man Marie’s husband saw
sneaking into her tent. I am the reason the cuckold struck his
devil’s bargain with the sultan. I am the reason we were
betrayed and you were so cruelly tortured.”
    “Simon, it wasn’t your doing,”
Dominic said bluntly. “It was Robert the
Cuckold’s!”
    “I hold myself responsible. As does
God.”
    “You can’t know that.”
    “Ah, but I do. Don’t you see the
perfection of the punishment God designed for me?”
    “I see nothing but—”
    Simon kept talking over Dominic, wanting his
brother to understand once and for all time that what had happened
in the Holy Land was finally being paid for in the Disputed
Lands.
    And Simon had no quarrel with the payment.
    “I married for wealth, beauty and
heirs,” Simon said calmly. “The wealth is a chimera,
the heirs will never be conceived, and Ariane lies alone in her bed
every night as she prefers, her cold beauty a mortification of my
body. Aye, my bride is a fitting chastisement indeed for my sin of
lust and adultery.”
    “But—”
    “If it had been you in Marie’s bed and
I the one who had been tortured by the sultan,” Simon said,
“would you feel differently than I do now?”
    Dominic opened his mouth to speak, closed it, and
shook his head wearily.
    He would feel no differently than Simon.
    “You are my brother,” Dominic said
softly, “and I love you.”
    “As I love you, brother.”
    Then Simon smiled with all the pain of the time
since his unbridled lust for a married woman had nearly cost
Dominic’s life.
    “At least I won’t have to serve much
time in hell when I die,”