Enchanted (22 page)

“Pleased? By his daughter?” Ariane
laughed humorlessly. “That would be unprecedented,
lord.”

Dominic swept the armory with torchlight. The flame
was reflected back countless times over from weapons hanging on the
walls, from chain mail hauberks hung on wooden rests, and from
helms and gauntlets stacked neatly on shelves.

In one corner, seventeen chests were neatly laid
out according to size. The brass bindings of the chests were dulled
by salt air and neglect, but the locks were oiled and gleaming.

Dominic set his torch in a holder, reached beneath
his mantle, and pulled out a large purse. Inside were various keys
and a rolled parchment. The parchment’s neat printing
detailed the exact contents of the dowry chests, as well as other
aspects of the nuptial contract. The heavy wax seal at the bottom
of the document was repeated on the lids of all the chests in such
a way as to make it impossible to open the chest without breaking
the seal.

“The silks first,” Dominic muttered.
“Have you seen them, Ariane?”

“Aye, sir. They are very fine, with colors to
shame a rainbow. Some are sheer enough to permit sunlight to pass
through. Others are embroidered so cleverly that it is as if silk
had been woven upon silk until the fabric can all but stand on its
own.”

“Fine silks indeed,” Dominic said.

“If Simon agrees,” Ariane continued,
“I would like to give Lady Amber some cloth for her kindness
to me. And there is a green that would exactly match Lady
Margaret’s eyes.”

“Done,” Simon said instantly.

“There is no need,” said Meg.

“Thank you,” Dominic said over his
wife’s words. “I enjoy seeing Meg in green.”

“I fear the cloth is too sheer for ordinary
use,” Ariane cautioned. “From what I overheard father
telling one of
his knights, ’tis more
suited to a harem than a cold English keep.”

A sensual smile changed the lines of
Dominic’s face.

“I will look forward to that cloth most
particularly,” he said. “The sultan’s concubines
wore very, um, intriguing clothing.”

As Dominic spoke, he shook out the bag of keys.
Clattering and clanging, they fell onto a stone ledge next to
battle gauntlets. He selected a key and went to the biggest chest.
Grudgingly the lock gave way. The seal broke a moment later. With a
creak of brass hinges, Dominic heaved up the lid and looked
within.

“God’s teeth, what is this?” he
muttered. “Simon.”

At the sound of his name, Simon went to
Dominic’s side and glanced into the chest. Torchlight showed
sacks made of coarse fabric. With a speed that made Ariane blink,
Simon drew his dagger and opened one bag.

Coarsely ground flour spilled out. Simon grabbed a
handful, worked it through his fingers, and sniffed it. With a
sound of disgust he opened his fist and let the contents spill out
over the armory’s stone floor.

“Spoiled,” he said curtly.

“The silk?” Ariane asked, for
Simon’s broad back stood between her and a view of the
chest.

“Flour,” Simon said.

Dominic began poking around in the chest.

“What of the silk?” Ariane asked,
perplexed.

“There’s none in this chest,”
Dominic said, straightening. “The rest of the bags are dirt
rather than flour.”

With a startled sound Ariane pushed between the two
men. She looked at the scarred chest, then at the broken seal, and
then at the chest again.

“The seal,” she said. “Was it
intact?”

“Aye,” Dominic said.

“I don’t understand. I saw my
father’s steward fill the chests.”

“One chest often looks like another,”
Dominic said. “Perhaps there was an error.”

Simon said nothing. He simply took a key from the
pile and sought the correct lock. This key fit a smaller chest. He
inserted the key, broke the seal, and lifted the lid. The smell of
cinnamon and cloves wafted upward.

Simon didn’t speak.

“Well?” Ariane said.

“Sand,” said Dominic curtly.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked.

“Sand,” Dominic repeated.

“But there was cinnamon once,” Simon
said. “And cloves. The wood reeks of it.”

“I don’t understand,” Ariane
said.

Yet her tone said she was very much afraid that she
did.

In a silence that grew deeper with each chest
opened, Dominic and Simon went through Ariane’s dowry. The
creak of a lid was followed by a single terse word that described
worthless goods in place of gems, gold, silver, silks, furs, and
spices.

“Stones.”

“Sand.”

A Saracen curse was followed by more understandable
descriptions of what the chests held.

“Rotten flour.”

“Rocks.”

“Dirt.”

Ariane swayed and felt like stopping up her ears so
that she wouldn’t have to hear the ugly truth.

Betrayed
.

When the final chest stood open, Dominic surveyed
the lot with his hands on his hips. Ballast rocks still smelling of
the sea were all the chest contained.

The wolf’s head pin on Dominic’s mantle
seemed to snarl as he turned to face Ariane. His eyes were like
hammered silver.

“It would seem,” Dominic said smoothly,
“that there is a discrepancy between the dowry promised by
Baron Deguerre and that which was delivered.”

“Aye,” Ariane said in a raw voice.

Though Dominic waited, she said nothing more.

“Lady Ariane,” he said sharply,
“what say you?”

“I have been betrayed. Again.”

The bleakness in Ariane’s voice touched
Dominic in spite of his anger, as did the sight of her fingers
reaching for the strings of the harp she had left behind.

“It would seem that the baron is trying to
provoke a war,” Dominic said.

If Ariane heard, she didn’t answer.

“Aye,” Meg said tightly. Her small
hands became fists. “But what does he gain from such
dishonesty?”

“Freedom from an alliance he never
sought,” Dominic said.

“But he went back on his given vow,”
Meg protested. “Surely such dishonor in the eyes of his peers
costs him more than a few chests of spices and gold?”

“My father’s steward saw those chests
filled, sealed, and put under the guard of his finest
knights,” Ariane said tonelessly. “So did I. Those same
knights guarded the dowry until Blackthorne Keep.”

“In other words, if I claim there was no
dowry, I will be declaring war,” Simon summarized.

“A war that Deguerre 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,” Simon said. “My hell has come
to me on earth, and her name is Ariane.”

F
or the rest of the day Ariane sat in
her room and waited in dread for Simon to come and question her
about her lack of virginity.

He did not.

Simon went about his duties as Dominic’s
seneschal without so much as looking Ariane’s way. The chests
were locked once more, the keys were given into Dominic’s
keeping, and no one spoke within Ariane’s hearing about the
missing dowry.

In fact, it was as though she did not exist.

As though Simon did not care why she came to the
marriage without her maidenhead.

As though he did not care about his wife at
all.

And why should he
?
Ariane thought bleakly.
I am his punishment. A
mortification of his body for his sin of lust
.

I am his hell
.

Ariane shuddered. The ripple of movement pulled
discordant notes from the harp she held in her lap. Broodingly she
looked down at the instrument, but it was her own dark thoughts she
was seeing rather than the intricate, beautifully inlaid wood.

Aimlessly she walked around the room, strumming the
harp, seeing nothing of the color and luxury and warmth of her
quarters. Indeed, she felt more like a person in prison than a
highborn lady.

But the prison was of her own making. Not by so
much as a look or a word had the lord or lady of
Blackthorne Keep indicated that Ariane was no longer
a valued guest in their home.

Unhappily Ariane looked out one of the high slit
windows that ran down the side of her room. If she leaned into the
depth of the keep’s walls and braced herself on the chill
stone, she could see the sinuous ribbon of blue that was the River
Blackthorne.

During the last of the ride to Blackthorne Keep,
Ariane had enjoyed the silver rush and chatter of the river. It had
reminded her of her own home, and the river that had been her
companion on many a warm summer day. She had sat on the bank and
played her harp, patterning her music after her own thoughts, the
cries of the birds, the wind, and the distant calling of
herders.

It seems like a dream, now. I
was so innocent. So foolish. I trusted
…

Too much
.

A shout came from the bailey below, followed by the
sound of the keep’s stout wooden gate being opened. A
horse’s hooves drummed hollowly on the drawbridge, then
clattered over the bailey’s cobblestones.

Ariane went to another window just in time to see
Simon exit the forebuilding and stride across the bailey toward the
knight who had just ridden up. The pale flash of the knight’s
hair, and the supple grace of his dismount, told Ariane that Sven,
the Glendruid Wolf’s spy, had returned to Blackthorne
Keep.

Simon’s greeting was lost in the wind that
gusted through the bailey. Together the two men strode toward the
forebuilding’s steps.

A cat the color of autumn bounded across the bailey
and launched itself at Simon. Without breaking stride, Simon caught
the beast, draped it around his neck, and petted it thoroughly
while he listened to whatever Sven had discovered.

It seemed to Ariane that she could hear the
cat’s smug purring from four stories up.

She told herself that she didn’t envy the cat
being
stroked by Simon’s long,
exquisitely knowing fingers. Yet in the next breath she admitted
that she was lying.

Despite her brutal use by Geoffrey the Fair, Ariane
had learned to treasure one man’s touch, one man’s
caresses, one man’s hands moving sweetly over her body.

Just one man.

The man whose punishment she had become.

My hell has come to me on
earth, and her name is Ariane
.

Ariane longed to explain to Simon how her
maidenhead had been brutally taken. But she was afraid he
wouldn’t believe her.

No one else had.

I want him to believe me as no
one has ever believed me
!

I am not like Marie, a whore
to lie down with every man and love none. I am a girl whose honor
was dragged torn and bleeding from her body. I am a girl who
screamed her betrayal to God
.

And I was not
believed
.

Why should anyone believe me
now? Even you, Simon, who has touched me as no one ever
has
.

Especially you
.

The harsh cry of the harp jarred Ariane from her
thoughts.

Footsteps sounded down the hall, coming from the
staircase to Ariane’s room. She looked around almost wildly,
as though seeking an escape she didn’t really want.

The steps paused at her door.

Simon? Have you finally come
to me? Is this the hour when you finish what I could not on our
wedding night
?

The footsteps went on to another room, 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 hall
and 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 to
be drawn to the river’s edge. A path wound irresistibly
through bracken turned gold by the wild, chill kiss of autumn gone
to winter. The rocky point where the path ended was home to a
handful of birch and rowan trees whose toughness was equaled only
by their elegance of line.

In the most protected places, the trees still clung
to a few of their leaves, but the rest lay underfoot like coins
flung carelessly to the ground. More leaves floated on the small
river and caught among the cobbles that lined the banks.

Ariane walked through the golden landscape until
she discovered a natural rocky bench that hadn’t been visible
from the upper lane. The faint polish of the stone’s surface
suggested that people had been coming to this place and staying to
watch the water flow for as long as the River Blackthorne had run
down to the sea.

With a ragged sigh, Ariane settled onto the
time-smoothed stone. The empty basket dropped from her fingers. For
a while there was only the sound of the river swirling gracefully
over stones and the wind combing through branches naked of
leaves.

Slowly Ariane removed her harp from its case and
began to play. The sounds she made harmonized with wind and river
and season, beautiful and yet bleak with the certainty of
winter’s killing embrace.

Gradually Ariane’s thoughts turned to the
nightmare that did not end with the coming of the day. The
nightmare that had no end she could see. The nightmare that she
still struggled to understand…what had happened and why and
how she could weave that terrible thread into the pattern of the
rest of her life.

Eyes closed, Ariane let the harp sing of
unspeakable betrayal begetting more betrayal, of grief both savage
and unrelenting short of the grave.

And perhaps, not even there.

“I thought it must be your fingers making the
harp sing. But by Christ’s blue eyes, you play dire notes.
Have you been pining for me, my little cabbage?”

The music ended as though cut off by a sword.

Geoffrey. Dear God, it
can’t be
!

Ariane’s eyes snapped open. Her nightmare was
indeed standing in front of her, his mantle thrown back to reveal
the armor beneath.

Geoffrey the Fair.

Tall, brawny, good-looking to the point of beauty,
beloved by girls and noblemen alike, and a deadly fighter who loved
to battle three to his one.

The sight of Geoffrey standing proud and powerful
in his armor made Ariane’s stomach turn over. Nausea climbed
her throat as icy sweat broke on her skin.

“I thought myself rid of you,” she said
starkly.

Geoffrey smiled as though Ariane had called him her
dearest heart. Eyes as blue and opaque as robins’ eggs looked
slowly at her, taking in the sleek black of her hair, the matchless
beauty of her eyes, and the deep curve of her lips.

“By the saints, I long to bite that mouth
again,” Geoffrey said. “I have dreamed of hearing you
moan and bleed while I lick it up like a starving hound.”

Ariane fought nausea’s tightening coils. She
knew she must control her body enough to speak in her own defense,
for no one else would.

No matter what happened, this time she would scream
and curse and claw blood from Geoffrey’s smiling face.

“What do you want,” Ariane said.

There was no question in her tone, simply a demand
that Geoffrey state his business.

“You.”

“I do not want you.”

Geoffrey laughed. “Still the coy maiden, I
see.”

“I am married.”

“So?”

Geoffrey’s shrug made the chain mail of his
hauberk shift and gleam in the rich autumn sunlight.

“Unlike you,” Ariane said, “I am
honorable.”

“Truly? Then why did you go to your husband
deflowered?”

“Because you raped me!”

The smile Geoffrey gave her was the boyish one
Ariane had once found charming. But no more. It revolted her that a
man could look as innocent as one of God’s angels and yet
have the soul and the sensibilities of a pig.

“Rape? Nay,” Geoffrey said, rubbing his
gauntleted hands together. “Rather it was I who was ravished
by your beauty. I lay slack-witted from wine and awakened to find
your hands in my breeches.”

“You are lying!”

“Nay, little cabbage. There is no need to
pretend innocence. We are alone.”

“Then why do you bother to lie?” Ariane
asked scathingly.