Enchanted (13 page)

“I have some small training in wounds,”
Erik said. “Permit me to help your wife.”

Painfully Simon shifted, but not enough to allow
Erik to see Ariane’s wounded side. The violet fabric of the
dress moved with Simon, covering both him and Ariane from the waist
down.

“Release her,” Erik said in a low
voice.

“Nay. She will die if I don’t hold her
next to me.”

Simon’s eyes were black, savage.

Erik’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but he said
nothing. He simply looked to Dominic for help.

After a single glance at his brother’s eyes,
the Glendruid Wolf shook his head, cautioning Erik. Erik
didn’t argue. He had seen enough battles to know that reason
was too often the first casualty.

Slowly Dominic knelt by Simon’s side. A hand
wrapped in chain mail settled as delicately as a butterfly onto
Simon’s leg. Beneath the mail gauntlet, the fey dress rippled
and shivered with every breath of wind as though alive.

“Simon,” Dominic said urgently.
“Let us help you.”

A shudder coursed through Simon. Gradually the
wildness left his eyes. He moved aside just enough for Erik to
reach Ariane’s wounded side. The amethyst fabric moved with
Simon, clinging to his thigh. Absently he stroked the cloth as he
would have one of the keep’s cats.

With great care, Erik’s fingers probed down
the side of Ariane’s dress.

“I couldn’t find a wound,” Simon
said roughly.

“The dress is binding it,” Erik
said.

“Then make it bind more tightly. She bleeds
too much.”

“The dress is only cloth,” Erik said.
“Very clever cloth, but still…cloth.”

Delicately Erik began to run his fingertips down
Ariane’s side once more.

“What happened?” Dominic asked Simon
quietly.

“I was ahead of Ariane. Two outlaws and three
renegade knights struck. The knights were in armor and riding war
stallions.”

“God’s wounds,” hissed
Dominic.

“I killed the two who weren’t in
armor.”

“You should have fled,” Dominic said
curtly. “Your horse was more than a match for war stallions
carrying fully armored knights.”

“Ariane’s mare was not.”

Dominic blew breath through clenched teeth, making
a hissing noise.

“You are as fine a knight as I’ve ever
known,” Dominic
said after a moment,
“but even you couldn’t defeat three knights in chain
mail riding war stallions. How did you survive?”

“I had help.”

“Who?” Dominic asked, looking
around.

“A brave, foolish nightingale.”

Dominic’s head snapped back around to his
brother.

“Ariane?” Dominic asked, shocked.

“Aye,” Simon said. “I sent one
knight running, but another was set to slice me in two. I was a
dead man. Then Ariane came out of the mist at a hard gallop and
slammed that blocky little mare right into the knight’s
stallion.”

Dominic and Erik were too surprised to speak.

“Before that tangle was sorted out,”
Simon said, “a peregrine came out of the sky like feathered
lightning and sent another stallion fleeing. I guess the remaining
knight decided that he had fought enough for one day and quit the
field.”

“Was Ariane struck on the head?” Erik
asked.

“I don’t know. All I saw was the dagger
blow. I would have killed the cursed knight, had not the blue-eyed
devil intervened.”

No one interrupted the silence that came after
Simon’s bleak statement.

“What of your wounds?” Dominic asked
finally.

“I’ve taken worse during your endless
drills.”

“You can thank those drills that you lived
long enough for help to arrive,” Dominic muttered.

“That and the big renegade’s
bloodlust,” Simon agreed. “It made him too
eager.”

Erik and Dominic exchanged a look.

“Would you recognize this renegade if you saw
him again?” Erik asked Simon.

“I think not. Thick-chested, blue-eyed
bastards are as common as rocks in the Disputed Lands.”

“What insignia was on his shield?”
Dominic asked.

“None,” Simon said succinctly.

“Do—”

“Enough,” Simon interrupted
impatiently. “’Tis Ariane who matters now, not the
misbegotten bastards who attacked us.”

While he spoke, Simon’s hand caressed
Ariane’s cheek as delicately as a shadow. The tenderness of
the gesture was at odds with the gaunt planes of Simon’s face
and the marks of recent battle on his body.

“Try to tear a strip of cloth from the hem of
her dress,” Erik suggested.

Dominic reached for the dress, only to be stopped
by Erik’s hand.

“Nay, let Simon do it,” Erik said.
Then, turning to Simon, “When you hold the fabric, think of
Ariane’s need to have the flow of blood staunched.”

Simon stripped off his hawking gauntlet, took the
fabric between his strong hands, and pulled. The cloth parted as
though along a hidden seam. Nor were any raveling edges left
behind.

“You did that as well as any Learned
healer,” Erik said with satisfaction.

“Did what?” retorted Simon. “The
stuff came apart in my hands. “Tis a wonder the dress
hasn’t fallen to pieces and left Ariane wearing only her
chemise.”

Erik smiled slightly and said, “Now, bind the
strip around Ariane’s wound. Do it so tightly that a dagger
would have difficulty getting between cloth and skin.”

When Simon shifted Ariane in order to bind the
wound, she moaned. The sound hurt Simon more than any of the blows
he had received fighting renegade knights.

“Why didn’t you run to safety,
nightingale?” Simon asked, his voice both soft and rough.

There was no answer but that of the Learned fabric
clinging like lint to Simon’s thigh while he worked to bind
Ariane’s wound.

“You would have been safe,” Simon said
to Ariane under his breath.

“And you would have been dead,” Erik
pointed out.

Simon opened his mouth but no words came for a
time. He hissed a Saracen phrase.

“I am a knight,” Simon said finally.
“Death in battle is my lot. But Ariane…Ariane
shouldn’t have to fight for her own life, much less for the
life of her husband!”

“Cassandra would disagree with you,”
Erik said. “The Learned believe that we all fight—man,
woman, and child—each according to need and skill.”

Simon grunted. Yet despite the grimness of his
expression, his hands were gentle on Ariane’s body. Even so,
she moaned from time to time as he worked.

“Nightingale,” he said softly.
“I’m sorry, but I must hurt you in order to help
you.”

“She knows,” Erik said.

“How can she?” Simon asked coldly.
“She is senseless.”

Erik looked at the amethyst fabric lying placidly
within Simon’s grasp and said nothing.

Overhead, a peregrine arrowed down out of the sky,
trilling a sweet, uncanny greeting. A second falcon followed, its
pale feathers bright against the sky.

Dominic pulled on Simon’s hawking gauntlet
and whistled Skylance’s special call. The gyrfalcon hovered,
then settled onto Dominic’s arm, accepting captivity once
more.

When Erik stood and held out his arm, his peregrine
swooped down with heart-stopping speed. At the last possible
instant, the falcon’s wings flared. With dainty care, the
peregrine landed on Erik’s hawking gauntlet.

“Well, Winter, what have you to show
me?” he asked softly.

Then he whistled an ascending trill. The peregrine
cocked her head, watching him with clear, knowing eyes. Her hooked
beak opened and astonishingly sweet trills poured out. For a few
moments bird of prey and Learned man whistled to one another.

Then Erik’s arm moved with swift, muscular
ease,
launching the peregrine back into the
sky. Winter climbed rapidly, vanishing into the distance.

“The outlaws are still running,” Erik
said, turning back to his human friends. “Stagkiller and Sven
still follow. They hold to an ancient trail.”

“Do you know where it leads?” Dominic
asked.

“To Silverfells. Stagkiller will bring Sven
back to the keep.”

“Why?” Dominic asked.
“Shouldn’t we know where the renegades are
camped?”

Erik said nothing.

Simon glanced from the gyrfalcon on Dominic’s
arm to the equally fierce profile of Erik, son of a great Northern
lord.

“Lord Erik?” Dominic asked.

The Glendruid Wolf’s voice was polite, but he
meant to have an answer. The well-being of too many keeps rested on
peace in the Disputed Lands.

“The land of the Silverfells clan is
forbidden to the Learned,” Erik said curtly.

“Why?” asked Dominic.

Again, Erik said nothing.

Simon stood, lifting Ariane with him.

“Come,” Simon said impatiently to his
brother. “We must get Ariane to safety.”

For a few instants Dominic’s eyes glittered
with the same hard light as the fey crystal in 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.”

“’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 linen
was 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 names incised in rune stones by women who died
long before Roman legions marched into the Disputed Lands.

To Simon, it seemed a lifetime before the two
healers stepped back from Ariane’s motionless body.

With a murmured word to Cassandra, Meg went behind
a screen, took off the soiled linen shift, and put on her ordinary
tunic once more. The linen shift would be ritually cleansed before
it was worn again.

“She is sleeping as peacefully as could be
expected,” Meg said to Simon.

“Dominic’s squire asked that you go to
your husband when you are finished,” Simon said.

Meg touched Simon’s hand in silent
reassurance and went out the door to seek Dominic. She found him
with Duncan in the lord’s solar.

“How is Lady Ariane?” Dominic asked the
instant Meg appeared in the doorway.

Duncan looked up from his steward’s inventory
of the food. The remains of a cold meal lay nearby on a table that
was covered by a colorfully woven cloth.
Duncan’s hazel eyes were intent, bright with
the leap of flames in the hearth. He knew that much depended upon
Ariane’s alliance with Simon—and through her,
Normandy’s alliance with Henry, the English king.

“Well enough,” Meg said. “With
care, good fortune, and God’s blessing, Ariane will mend.
Unless wound fever comes…”

Meg sighed wearily and rubbed the small of her
back. Pregnancy hadn’t been difficult for her until recently,
when the weight of the babe seemed to increase overnight, every
night.

“Come here, small falcon,” Dominic
said, holding out his hand to his wife.

When Meg was seated, Dominic stood and began
rubbing the aches from her back.

“Ariane is doing better than I feared when I
saw her linen underclothes,” Meg said after a moment.
“Whatever fiber the dress is woven of apparently stems the
flow of blood as well as any powder or salve known to Glendruid
healers. Or Learned ones, for that matter.”

“What of Simon?” Duncan asked.
“Erik said he was rather bloodied by the fight.”

“Scrapes, cuts, bruises, lumps,” she
summarized. “None of which he would let us tend.”

Meg sighed and leaned gratefully against her
husband’s knowing hands.

“He blames himself for Ariane’s
wound,” Dominic said.

“Why? How did it happen?” Meg
asked.

“Simon faced down five renegades in order to
give Ariane time to run away,” Dominic said.

Meg caught her breath sharply. She looked over her
shoulder at her husband with wide green eyes.

“But instead of running,” Dominic said,
“Ariane galloped right into the middle of the battle. Because
of her reckless courage, Simon lives.”

“It was that close?” Meg asked in a low
voice.

“Aye,” Dominic said, his expression
bleak. “I owe the cold Norman heiress a great
debt.”

“Cold?” Duncan asked. “A cold
woman would have watched Simon die without blinking. Rather I would
say that Ariane is a woman of deep passion.”

“But not for men,” Dominic said
bluntly.

The certainty in his voice made Duncan wince and
shake his head in silent sympathy for Simon the Loyal.

There was a sudden rush and moan of wind around the
keep. A shutter banged on the third floor. Simon’s gyrfalcon,
alone among all the unoccupied perches in the great hall, cried out
to her own kind. There was no answer.

The sentry called the time from the
battlements.

Dominic stood and paced uneasily. After a moment he
headed for the battlements with a determined stride.

“There has been no sign of renegades,”
Duncan called after him.

“’Tis not renegades I fear, but
winter,” Dominic said without pausing.

A few moments later the sound of his boots on the
keep’s spiral stone stairway echoed back down to the
lord’s solar.

Duncan glanced at Meg.

“What eats him, Meggie?” Duncan
asked.

She smiled at hearing the childhood name, but her
smile quickly faded.

“Blackthorne Keep is much on my
husband’s mind,” Meg said simply.

“Have you heard rumors of trouble?”

“Nay. Since Dominic dealt so harshly with the
Reevers, outlaws either avoid our lands or ride on through, leaving
our people untroubled.”

“Then what makes Dominic as restive as a
chained wolf?”

Meg closed her eyes for a moment. Beneath her
clothes the babe kicked strongly. She put her hands over her womb,
reassured by the life within her. How
ever
uncomfortable pregnancy was, the babe’s obvious health
heartened her.

“’Tis simple,” Meg said, sighing.
“I have dreamed.”

Duncan snorted. “Where your Glendruid
heritage is concerned, Meggie, nothing is simple.”

Meg shook her head. Golden bells sang and her long,
loosely plaited braids gleamed redly in the light.

“I dreamed of two wolves, one black, one
tawny,” Meg said. “I dreamed of an oak with hazel eyes.
I dreamed of a harp that sang with a nightingale’s pure,
poignant notes while held within the arms of a golden knight. I
dreamed of a storm around all of them. An evil storm.”

“’Tis no wonder Dominic is
restless,” Duncan said wryly.

“Aye. Thomas the Strong guards Blackthorne
while we are away. Thomas is a loyal knight and a brave warrior,
but he is no leader of men. If winter bars our return and trouble
comes in our absence…”

Cursing under his breath, Duncan raked blunt
fingers through his hair. In the firelight, scars from
long-forgotten battles gleamed palely across the back of his
hand.

“You must return to Blackthorne Keep,”
Duncan said abruptly. “’Tis long enough you have spent
at Stone Ring Keep dealing with problems I’ve
caused.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” Meg
protested.

“I know. But ’tis true all the
same.”

Duncan surged to his feet with a grace surprising
in a man so large. He looked into the fire for a moment.

“I’ll send men-at-arms with you as far
as Carlysle Manor,” he said. “After that, you will be
safe. I’d go myself, but…”

“Stone Ring Keep needs you,” Meg
finished for Duncan.

“Aye. Especially with this thrice-damned
renegade knight preying upon the weak.”

Duncan’s hands worked for a moment as though
feel
ing the chill weight of a battle hammer
sliding over his palms, coming into his grasp as though created
solely for him; and then the eerie hum of the hammer slicing deadly
circles from the air.

“I’ll send word that your horses and
goods be ready at dawn,” Duncan said. “Dinna worry,
Meggie. We’ll care for Simon’s wife in his absence as
though she were one of our own. When Ariane is well, we will bring
her to Blackthorne and her husband.”

Duncan didn’t doubt for an instant that Simon
would leave Stone Ring Keep with his lord and brother, Dominic. The
Glendruid Wolf had made no secret of how much he valued his
brother’s advice, companionship, and fighting skills.

Simon, called the Loyal.

Meg sighed and started to push herself to her
feet.

“Stay by the fire,” Duncan said
quickly, going to her.

“I have a patient to watch.”

Duncan lifted Meg to her feet and smiled down at
her with real affection.

“In better times,” Duncan said softly,
“you must take your Glendruid Wolf to the Stone Ring. The
rowan will bloom for the two of you, Meggie. I am as certain of it
as I am of my own heartbeat.”

Meg’s smile was like sunshine, all warmth and
light. Standing on tiptoe, she touched Duncan’s cheek with
her lips.

“We would like that,” she said.

Still smiling, Meg climbed the stairs to
Ariane’s room. As expected, Cassandra was there, sitting by
the bed, embroidering a tiny garment.

The bed curtains had been pulled, cutting off stray
drafts from the slit windows.

“How is she?” Meg asked.

“Asleep.”

“Fever?”

“None so far,” Cassandra said.
“Thank God for it.”

“Is Simon on the battlements with
Dominic?”

“Nay,” said a deep voice from behind
the bed curtains.

Simon pulled one of the curtains aside in time to
catch the surprised look on Meg’s face.

“Don’t worry,” he said.
“I’m careful not to harm her. But she is restless
unless I’m here.”

Meg looked beyond Simon to where Ariane lay. She
was curled beneath the bed covers, her face toward Simon. The
violet dress lay like a bridge between man and wife.

Frowning, Meg turned to Cassandra.

“I don’t know your Learned healing
rituals,” Meg said, “but Glendruids are quite firm
about giving nothing to the patient that hasn’t first been
purified.”

“Examine the dress,” Cassandra said.
“You will find it as pure as herbs, water and fire can make
anything.”

“’Tis true,” Simon said. “I
went over the dress myself, for I know how particular you are about
such things.”

Meg went to the bed. She picked up an edge of the
fabric, ran it lightly between her fingertips and sniffed. Slowly
she released the cloth. It fluttered down to rest once more against
Simon’s shoulder and Ariane’s cheek.

“’Tis as though newly woven,” Meg
said, baffled.

“Aye,” Cassandra said.
“Serena’s weavings are much prized among the
Learned.”

Meg watched Simon’s fingers stroking the
fabric as though it were a cat.

And like a cat, the fabric seemed to cling more
closely in response.

“Does Dominic need me?” Simon
asked.

“Now? Nay. But we leave tomorrow for
Blackthorne Keep.”

As though in silent protest, Simon’s hand
clenched on the fabric.

“Ariane isn’t well enough to
travel,” Simon said carefully.

“Aye. Duncan promised that he would care for
Ariane as though she were his own,” Meg said.