“Are you remembering?” Amber asked quietly.
At first Duncan didn't answer. Then he slowly uncurled one fist and held his hand out to her.
“Am I remembering?” Duncan asked.
The instant Amber's hand rested in his, the complex emotions, dreams, fears, and hopes that were Duncan of Maxwell poured through the touch. Never had the contact been so vivid.
Exhilaration after the victorious battle.
Fear for Amber's safety in the coming storm.
Determination to remember the past.
Rage at whatever had taken his memory.
And then, when the warmth of her flesh registered on his, there came a wave of desire so great that it all but brought Amber to her knees. She could feel nothing but Duncan's passion for her, see nothing, sense nothing. He flooded her mind and body with a sensual hunger that was like nothing she had ever felt before.
Duncan.
Though Amber hadn't said the name aloud, he opened his eyes and looked at her with eyes that blazed.
Duncan's fingers circled Amber's wrist like steel bands. He pulled her closer with a force that would have been impossible to resist. Nor did she want to resist. She wanted only to answer the elemental need that cried out to her from every fiber of her dark warrior's being.
When Duncan's arms wrapped around Amber, she made no objection, even though he held her so tightly she became light-headed from lack of breath.
Though she said nothing, Duncan knew.
“I'll breathe for you,” he said in a low voice.
He brought his mouth to hers in a kiss that would have been harsh had she not been fighting to get even closer to him, to taste him more deeply, to get inside his very skin.
It was the same for Duncan, fighting to get closer to Amber, to feel yet more of her sweet flesh against his, to slake the savage hunger of his body for her in the only way possible.
Distantly Duncan realized that he had dragged Amber down to the ground and that her hands were struggling against him.
“Please,” he said, “I need you.”
A sound that was neither aye nor nay came from Amber's throat. With an effort that left him shaking, Duncan managed to let go of her.
The instant Amber was free, she cried out as though at a blow. Duncan reached for her to comfort her, then realized he didn't trust himself.
“Duncan?” Amber said.
Her voice trembled, as did the hand she held out to him.
“You're a fire in my blood, in my flesh, in my soul,” Duncan said savagely. “If I touch you again, I'll take you.”
“Then touch me.”
“Amber—”
“Take me.”
For a long moment Duncan looked at the golden eyes and outstretched hand of the girl he wanted more than he wanted life itself.
Then he touched her, felt her burning, saw the wildfire of his own need blaze in her eyes.
Duncan's torrential male hunger poured over Amber in a river of fire. She was a spark caught in a whirlwind, recklessly burning, helplessly spiraling upward to an unknown destiny. With a woman's instinct, she sought Duncan's flesh both as haven and as fuel for an even greater fire.
Duncan pulled Amber close with a strength he could barely control. The feel and taste of her mouth made him groan with redoubled need. His body chained hers to the ground as his tongue shot between her teeth, claiming her mouth in urgent, elemental rhythms.
With a wildness that equaled Duncan's, Amber fought to get closer to him, to ease the torment of his arousal and her own, a suffering that was also a savage pleasure. Her hands searched over his body, seeking ways through and beneath his clothing.
The feel of Amber's hands on his face, his chest, his breeches, was heaven and hell combined for Duncan. When she found the aching source of his need, the pleasure nearly undid him. His hips thrust suddenly against her, once, twice, thrice, and a groan was dragged from the depths of his passion.
Amber felt both Duncan's pleasure and his driving, unfulfilled need. However great his enjoyment of her hand caressing him, it wasn't enough. She could feel the savage heat of him, taste the salt of his passion on his neck, and she knew that she was pouring oil rather than water on the fire of his need.
“Show me how to ease you,” Amber said urgently. “I can't bear the hunger tearing at you!”
The sound Duncan made then was indeed that of a man in torment. His hands swept down Amber's body to her hips. Strong fingers clenched there for an instant, sending pleasure lancing through her. Before she could do more than take a swift breath, his hands were sweeping down her legs to her feet and then back up again.
Amber hardly noticed the cool bite of autumn on her legs, for the anticipation in Duncan was spinning through her, driving out all else. When his hand pressed between her legs, tested the liquid heat of her body, and found it ready, his wild elation speared through her.
With it came a piercing pleasure that was hers, for in the act of withdrawing his touch he flicked over the aching nub of her own need. Instinctively she sought another such caress, twisting beneath Duncan in silent demand.
“Aye,” he said savagely. “I can wait no longer either.”
His hands clamped on Amber's thighs, stilling and opening her at the same instant. In the next instant he drove into her.
A searing pain clenched Amber's body, only to be burned away by the fierce pleasure that pulsed through Duncan as he felt himself fully sheathed in her. Then came a moment of utter stillness and disbelief.
Duncan struggled to control the wildness hammering in his blood, but it was impossible. Amber was a velvet fire surrounding him tightly, caressing every bit of his aching length. With a broken sound, he began to move, driving for completion within her body,
His release broke over Amber like a storm. She let out a long, ragged sigh and closed her arms around him, reeling both the ecstasy and the wild-ness pulsing through him into her.
Yet as soon as the last pulse was spent, there came not peace, but unhappiness. Duncan rolled aside and saw what he feared he would—his lover's blood bright on his body.
“I hurt you,” Duncan said through his teeth. “God's wounds, I never meant that! What is wrong with me? I've never been like that with a woman!”
“Nay,” Amber said, touching Duncan's cheek. “I'm not hurt.”
“You're bleeding!”
“Of course. Tis the nature of virgins to bleed when they first take a man into their body.”
The look on Duncan's face would have been amusing, if he hadn't been so clearly horrified.
“You were a virgin?” he asked roughly.
“How can you doubt it?” Amber asked, half smiling. “You wear the truth of it like a crimson banner.”
“But you responded so quickly, so wildly, like a falcon that has been flown many times.”
“Did I?”
“God's teeth, yes!”
“I wouldn't know,” Amber said simply.
Duncan closed his eyes and measured the extent of what he had done. She had been a virgin, she had given herself to him… and he had given her nothing in return but pain.
He was certain of it. He had felt the tearing instant as clearly as she must have, but he had denied it even as he had felt it.
If I take Amber's maidenhead, I will marry her.
With or without your memory?
Aye.
I will hold you to your vow.
With fingers that trembled, Duncan pulled Amber's clothing into place so that she was fully covered.
She watched with troubled eyes, not understanding. His touch told her that he was angry and sad and disgusted all at once, but touch alone couldn't tell her why.
“Duncan,” Amber whispered. “What is wrong?”
He looked at her with eyes that were more dark than light, more shadowed than she had ever seen them. His mouth was twisted with the same dark emotion.
“You were untouched,” Duncan said harshly, “and I rutted on you like an animal. God's teeth, I should be whipped!”
“Nay! You didn't force me.” -
“I didn't pleasure you, either.”
“What do you mean?”
Amber's look of confusion did nothing to restore Duncan's self-respect.
“The pleasure you knew in Ghost Glen” he said, “you knew none of it today.”
“I knew your pleasure most keenly today. Is that wrong?”
Duncan made a growling sound of disgust and turned away, unable to bear the sight of himself reflected in her anxious golden eyes any longer.
“Dark warrior?” Amber whispered.
The raggedness of her voice haunted Duncan. The merest touch of her fingers on his wrist chained his great strength.
“Tell me what I've done wrong,” she said.
“You've done nothing wrong.”
“Then why do you turn away from me?”
“It is myself I turn away from,” Duncan said savagely, “but wherever I turn, I find I am already there. Leave me be.”
When Amber lifted her hand, Duncan surged to his feet. He arranged his clothing with a few curt motions and stood with his fists clenched at his sides.
“Can you sit a horse?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Of course.”
“Are you certain?”
“Duncan,” Amber said in exasperation, “I rode here with you, remember?”
“And then I tore at you until you bled. I ask you again: can you ride?”
“And I say again: aye!”
“Good. We must go quickly to the keep.”
“Why?”
No answer came.
Amber looked up at the sky. What had once been wildly threatening and riven by lightning was now the pearly gray of a dove's breast.
“Look, Amber said wonderingly. ”The storm is fled!"
Duncan gave the sky a single, savage glance. Broodingly he turned and looked at the rowan that stood guard over the mound's eternal sleep.
Are you pleased, rowan?
Better that you had let me die than live to become a warrior with no self-control, a defiler of virgins.
The bitterness of Duncan's thought wasn't lessened by the realization that he would have to endure Erik's displeasure that his vassal was a virgin no longer.
Duncan had taken that which was clearly . Now he must bear the consequences.
And he must pray that in keeping one vow, he would not forswear another, unremembered vow.
“Come,” Duncan said flatly, starting toward the horses. “There is a wedding to be arranged.”
“LORD, a weasel-eyed pilgrim demands to see you,” Alfred said.
Erik looked up from his contemplation of a manuscript that consisted largely of enigmatic, elegant runes. The large, rough-coated wolfhounds at his feet looked up as well. The orange flicker of hearth fire leaped redoubled in their eyes.
“A pilgrim,” Erik said neutrally.
“Aye. So he says.”
If the knight's words hadn't made his contempt clear enough, his voice and posture did. He fairly vibrated with disdain.
With a last, lingering glance, Erik set aside the parchment he had been studying.
“To what purpose does he wish to see me?” Erik asked.
“He claims to have knowledge of the Scots Hammer.”
The falcon above Erik's chair sent a sharp cry through the room.
“Does he really,” Erik murmured. “How intriguing.”
Alfred looked sour rather than intrigued.
“Where?” asked Erik. “When? Under what circumstances? And is he certain the man was indeed the Scots Hammer?”
“The churl said only that he must speak to you alone, in a privacy greater than that of the confessional.”
Erik leaned back in his riven oak chair, picked up his silver dagger, and began running his fingertips over the flowing runes inscribed on the blade.
“How odd,” Erik said.
Alfred grunted.
The falcon's hooked beak followed each motion of Erik's fingers, as though in expectation of blood sport at any moment.
“Bring him.”
“Yes, lord.”
As Alfred turned to leave, he eyed the peregrine warily. She had been known to fly at men rather than at feathered prey, and she suffered no leash such as other falcons wore while on their household perches.
A soft whistle from Erik's lips soothed the fierce bird. She flared her wings, folded them neatly at her sides, and resumed watching with unblinking intensity as Erik's fingers caressed the dagger's gleaming blade.
A distinct odor preceded the pilgrim's arrival to Stone Ring Keep's great hall. The smell was a compound of greed, fear, eagerness, and a body that hadn't known the kiss of water since baptism.
“Did you find it in a hen roost?” Erik asked idly of Alfred. “Or was it buried beneath a pile of dead fish, perhaps?”
Alfred snickered. “No, lord. It came walking up to me all of its own.”
“Ah, well,” Erik murmured, “not everyone has a Learned appreciation of the solace of a warm bath.”
The pilgrim shifted uncomfortably. Though the clothes he was wearing were made of fine cloth, they fit badly, as though cut for another man. Or several men. His hair would have been flaxen, if clean. He took in the great hall with pale, darting glances, as though afraid to be caught looking at the gold and silver plates displayed in their accustomed tiers near the lord's dais.
Erik caught the direction of the pilgrim's glance. The lord's mouth curved. It wasn't a pleasant smile.
When the pilgrim saw Erik's expression, the odor of greed gave way to the acrid scent of fear. The hounds stirred and snarled softly among themselves. The biggest of them stood and stretched, yawning widely, giving the nervous guest an excellent view of teeth sharply gleaming.
“Stagkiller,” Erik said, “quit teasing it.”
The hound's jaws snapped shut. He scratched at the fragrant rushes with long, strong nails, turned around three times, and lay down.
“Great lord,” the pilgrim said, stepping toward Erik.
The hounds came to their feet in a single, lithe rush.
“Come no closer,” Erik said calmly. “They smell fleas on you. They can't abide the creatures.”
Alfred began coughing, only to stop at an incisive glance from Erik.
“Speak,” Erik said to the pilgrim.
“I hear there be a reward for knowing of the Scots Hammer,” the man said.
Erik nodded.
The pilgrim darted a quick glance at Alfred.
“You may leave,” Erik said to his knight.
Alfred, on the edge of objecting, caught a slight motion of Erik's dagger.
“Yes, lord.”
When the sound of Alfred's boots had faded from the great hall, Erik gave the pilgrim a hooded glance that was chillingly like that of the peregrine.
“Speak quickly and to the point, pilgrim.”
“I be in the forest and hear a scream,” the man said in a rush, “and I run to see what passes and—”
“In the forest?” Erik interrupted. “Where?”
“Yonder a few hours' walk.”
Erik followed the direction of the man's dirty finger.
“Near the Stone Ring?” Erik asked.
The pilgrim crossed himself nervously and started to spit on the floor, then thought better of it.
“Aye,” he muttered.
“What were you doing on my estate? In the forest. Have you a taste for venison, perhaps?”
The smell of fear redoubled, making the hounds stir.
“I be a pilgrim, lord, nae a poacher!”
“Ah, you were on God's mission, then,” Erik said gently.
“Aye!” the man said, obviously relieved. “I be a right reverent son.”
“Excellent. I'm always pleased to have reverent pilgrims on my estates rather than poachers or outlaws.”
As Erik spoke, the falcon cocked her head and watched the man with unblinking, predatory eyes.
“Continue,” Erik said. “You were in the forest, heard a scream, and ran to see what was happening?”
“Uh, yes.”
“And what was happening?”
“Some ruffians come upon a man and a maid. They be checking the fit of the other's stockings, if you take my meaning.”
Tawny eyebrows lifted. “Aye.”
“The ruffians sees the maid's amber gems all shiny and—God's bleeding wounds!”
The peregrine's shrill whistle had cut off the pilgrim's words and brought the hounds to their feet.
“The maid,” Erik said very gently, not looking away from the dirty guest. “Was she hurt?”
“Nay, lord,” the man said hurriedly. “ 'Tis what I be trying to tell you.”
“Did an outlaw lay hands upon her? Was she touched?”
“Uh…I…” The man swallowed. “She be dragged from her horse and cuffed a bit for sticking a dagger in the one what be taking her jewelry, 'tis all.”
Erik closed his eyes for an instant, afraid that the false pilgrim would see what lay inside and flee before he finished his tale.
“She was dragged from her horse” Erik said with great gentleness. “And then?”
“The man be dragged with her, but he lands on his feet and starts to swinging a hammer.”
A cold smile etched the line of Erik's mouth.
“God blind me, but he be a wizard with that hammer,” the false pilgrim continued. “I sees right soon that I—er, the ruffians—be overmatched no matter that they be ten to his one.”
Erik's smile widened but became no warmer.
“Then the maid sets to cursing in a heathen way and I sees that the ruffians got themselves that amber witch I hear talk of, the one what lives nearby this keep?”
A nod was Erik's only response.
The outlaw let out a silent sigh of relief that the lord wasn't going to ask any more uncomfortable questions.
“Some of the ruffians goes around the man's back to get under the hammer,” the false pilgrim said quickly. “Just before they has him, the witch yells and the warrior give a great leap up and turn around in the air and come down facing what his back be facing before and the hammer keep humming without a hitch and it all happen quicker than I be able to blink twice.”
Erik waited.
“Only one man be able to do that,” the outlaw explained.
“Aye,” Erik said.
He knew from experience that that particular fighting maneuver was more often talked about by knights than done successfully. In fact, Erik knew of only one warrior who could be depended upon to show such a combination of strength and skill. It was how the knight had received his name.
The Scots Hammer.
“I would like to have seen that,” Erik said.
And meant it.
The false pilgrim grunted. His expression suggested that he could have lived and died very well without seeing the Scots Hammer at work.
“Then what happened?” Erik asked.
“The ruffians that still be able, they run like deer. The witch and the Scots Hammer rides off at a gallop.”
“Toward this keep?”
“Nay. Away from it. I run here quick as I can, to tell you I see the Scots Hammer and get the reward.”
Erik looked at the blade of his dagger and said nothing.
“Do you nae believe me?” the outlaw said anxiously. “It be the Hammer. Bigger by half than most men, dark of hair and light of eye, strong as an ox.”
The dagger glinted as it turned idly in Erik's long fingers.
“It be not the first time I see the Hammer,” the outlaw said quickly. “I be in Blackthorne on my, er, pilgrimage, when the Hammer be fighting Dominic le Sabre. I be as certain as sin of it.”
“Yes,” Erik said, “I believe you saw the Scots Hammer.”
“The reward, lord?”
“Aye,” Erik said very gently. “I shall give you a suitable reward for your day's work.”
The peregrine's wings flared abruptly, startling the outlaw into backing up. His sudden motion brought the heads of all seven wolfhounds around to watch him.
The outlaw froze.
“Alfred,” Erik said pitching his voice to carry down the length of the great hall.
“Aye, lord!”
“Bring thirty pieces of silver.”
“At once, lord!”
Erik watched the outlaw with an unblinking gaze. The man shifted unhappily.
“One small thing, my good pilgrim,” Erik said softly.
“Aye?”
“Empty your purses.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Do it. Now.”
The gentleness of Erik's voice never varied, but the outlaw finally understood what lay behind the fine manners. It was no precious lordling he confronted, but a warrior in whose yellow eyes the fires of hell burned. With jerky motions, the outlaw began emptying the purses he had tied beneath his clothing.
The tip of Erik's dagger pointed to a table standing near the man.
Sullenly, the outlaw put the contents of the first purse on the table—two daggers with silver handles and steel blades. The stain on the blades spoke silently of blood.
The next purse revealed three combs of silver whose delicate designs suggested that they had once adorned the heads of fine ladies. A long, pale lock of hair was tangled in one comb, as though it had been ripped from a woman's head.
Erik watched with apparent indifference, but his eyes missed nothing.
Bread, meat, cheese, and a handful of copper coins appeared on the table. The outlaw looked up, saw Erik's baleful eyes, and cursed beneath his breath. Another purse spilled its contents onto the table. This time there was a gleam of silver and a single flash of gold.
“That be all,” the outlaw muttered.
“Not quite.”
“Lord, I be empty as a widow's womb!”
Erik came out of his chair with a speed so great that the outlaw had no time to flee. One instant Erik was sitting at ease. The next instant he had one hand buried in the outlaw's filthy hair and the point of a silver dagger resting against his dirt-caked throat.
“Do you wish to die unshriven with a lie still fresh on your lips?” Erik asked gently.
A single look into Erik's eyes convinced the outlaw that he would rather trade glances with Satan himself than with the sorcerer who was watching him right now.
“I—I—” stuttered the outlaw.
“The amber. Fetch it out.”
“What amber? I be not rich enough to—aiee!”
The lies stopped as the dagger's tip bit delicately into flesh. The outlaw's hands dug frantically beneath his mantle. A purse appeared. A string was yanked. A broken bracelet fell out onto the table and gleamed in shades of gold.
Amber, pure and transparent, valuable beyond the means of any but a wealthy lord.
Into the silence came the sounds of Alfred hurrying up the great hall. There was a hesitation in his steps when he saw the point of Erik's dagger pricking the outlaw's throat. An instant later, a large battle dagger flashed in Alfred's hand.
“Have you the silver?” Erik asked.
The gentleness of Erik's voice made Alfred wish to be elsewhere.
Instantly.
“Aye. Thirty pieces.”
“Excellent. Give them to this 'pilgrim.' ”
Alfred dropped the coins into the outlaw's shaking hand.
“Do you have a name?” Erik asked the man.
“B-Bob.”
“Bob the Backstabber, perchance?”
The outlaw went pale. Sweat stood visibly on his face.
“It is known throughout the Disputed Lands,” Erik said softly, “that the maid from whose wrist that bracelet came is under my protection.”
“She be safe, lord, I swear it on my mother's soul!”
“It is also known what punishment will come to any man who lays hands upon Amber the Untouched.”
The outlaw started to speak, but Erik was still talking softly, implacably.
“Alfred, take Bob to a priest. Shrive him. Then hang him.”
The outlaw turned and tried to flee. Erik's foot lashed out with the speed of a snake striking. The outlaw sprawled in a smelly heap at Alfred's feet.
“Do not make me regret my mercy,” Erik said.
“Mercy?” the outlaw asked, dazed.
“Aye, creature. Mercy. Under the law, I could have your hands, your testicles, and the skin from your back before I drew your guts through your navel, quartered your body, and left your sorry, unshriven soul for the Devil to feed on until the Second Coming of Christ.”
The outlaw made a low sound.
“But I am merciful,” Erik said distinctly. “I will see you shrived and hanged with a shrewd knot, which is more decency than you showed the maid whose hair hangs from a silver comb and whose blood lies black upon yon dagger.”
Fear shook the outlaw. “Ye be a sorcerer! Naught but such a man can know that!”
“Give the silver and the rest of this creature's goods to the chaplain for the poor,” Erik said to Alfred.
“Aye, lord.”
Alfred bent and began dragging the outlaw away. Just before they reached the doorway out of the great hall, Erik called out.
“Alfred!”
The knight stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Aye, lord?”
“When it is done, burn the rope.”