Medieval 03 - Enchanted

leaving
Ariane undisturbed but for her wild thoughts.
    Abruptly Ariane knew she must get out of the room
or scream her anguish so that all the keep could hear. But she
didn’t want to pass Simon in the great halland suffer yet one more of his cool, remote
greetings. She didn’t want to look into his eyes again and
see the knowledge of his betrayal reflected there with such bleak
clarity.
    Ariane the Betrayed had become Ariane the
Betrayer.
    With a small cry, she began unlacing and stripping
off the pale lavender dress that was one of the few she had brought
from Normandy. She wanted nothing of her former land touching her.
She wanted nothing touching her at all.
    Except Simon.
    Blindly Ariane reached for the Learned gift that
she hadn’t worn since discovering that the dress might be
like Erik’s animals—more clever by half than anything
not human should be.
    But right now Ariane didn’t care what the
dress was or was not. She wanted only to be warm when the winter
winds blew. She wanted to feel cherished. She wanted to be free of
her past and of the consequences of Geoffrey’s brutality. She
wanted…
    Simon .
    The dress flowed over Ariane like a velvet
benediction, caressing and soothing her flesh, her blood, her very
soul. The cloth clung to her in the manner of a cat too long
without petting. And like a cat, Ariane stroked it.
    Silver laces glistened more brightly than sunlight
on water, drawing together the edges of the dress from
Ariane’s knees to her collarbone. Silver stitches ran through
the amethyst fabric, gathering like runic lightning inside the
sleeves and making them flash with each motion of her arms.
    As though in echo of the secret silver lightning,
two human figures of the same profound, transparent black as
Simon’s eyes twisted and rippled sinuously through the cloth.
No matter where or how Ariane looked at the dress, the figures were
there, haunting her with the very thing she wanted and would never
have.
    Cloth seethed caressingly around Ariane’s
ankles, coaxing her to look at the silver and the black alike,
demanding that she see the man and the woman locked in mutual
abandon within the very threads of the weaving.
    “Lie still, dress,” Ariane hissed.
    Serena’s cloth will lie
calmly around you. It responds only to dreams, and without hope
there are no dreams .
    The echo of Cassandra’s words in
Ariane’s mind nearly shattered what small measure of
self-control remained to her. With a curse that would have shocked
anyone who overheard it, Ariane grabbed her mantle and flung it
around her shoulders, blocking out the sight of the uncanny
dress.
    But not its caressing warmth. That Ariane needed as
she needed to breathe fresh air.
    Moving as though pursued by demons, Ariane stuffed
her harp into its traveling case and slung it over her shoulder. On
the way out of the room, she grabbed a basket that held her
embroidery. Without regard for the delicate stitches and fragile
silk floss, she dumped the contents of the basket onto a table.
    Looking neither right nor left Ariane walked
swiftly down the stairs and through the keep to the forebuilding.
There the guard looked at her in surprise, but said nothing as he
opened the door for her.
    The wind in the bailey was like a drink of cold,
clear water. As heady as wine, as wild as Ariane’s thoughts,
the wind was a welcome companion. She let it rush her across the
cobblestones and to the sally port in the heavy, wide gate that
guarded the keep’s security.
    There the man known as Harry the Lame gave Ariane
an odd look and a smile. His eyes saw both the white lines of
tension around her lips and the tightness of the fingers clutching
the handle of the basket.
    “’Tis a cold afternoon to be collecting
herbs, Lady Ariane.”
    “I like the chill. And some herbs are best
collected in late afternoon.”
    “Aye, madam. So Lady Margaret tells
me.”
    “Is she in the herb garden now?”
    “I believe so.”
    “Thank you.”
    Harry touched his fingers to his forehead in brief
salute before he opened the sally port and allowed Ariane
through.
    She walked out with strides as crisp as the wind.
When the path forked, she took the branch that led to the herb
gardens. Not until she was out of sight of the sally port did she
turn sharply aside, taking a narrow lane that led to the banks of
the River Blackthorne. She had no desire to confront the Glendruid
green eyes of Blackthorne Keep’s lady.
    Ariane wasn’t the first person at the keep