Enchanted

by Elizabeth Lowell

  And stuck.

  Simon stepped back as though burned. The amethyst cloth followed until Ariane grabbed it and shook it down into place around her ankles.

  “You see?” Erik asked Simon.

  Ariane and Simon exchanged a dismayed glance.

  “That’s why you could rip a bandage from the dress,” Erik explained. “Anyone else would have had to fight the cloth, and his own distaste for handling it, to make a bandage. And even then, it would have required a knife to sever the threads.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ariane said.

  Simon wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  “The weavings of the Silverfell clan can be a kind of armor,” Erik said. “Whoever the fabric’s wearer trusts may do anything to the cloth, including tear it. Ariane trusts you.”

  A black glance was Simon’s only answer.

  “The cloth pleases you,” Erik said.

  It wasn’t quite a question, but Simon nodded, compelled by the intensity that burned just beneath Erik’s calm surface.

  “Yes. The cloth pleases me. Very much.” The words came from Simon as though dragged. “Witchery.”

  But there was no heat in his voice, for the cloth had saved Ariane’s life.

  “Learning, not witchery,” Erik corrected. “You have a gift for it, no matter how you fight and deny. And so does Ariane. Were she not Norman, I would swear she had the blood of ancient Druids in her veins.”

  “I do,” Ariane said.

  Her voice was so soft that it took a moment for both men to realize that she had spoken.

  “What did you say?” Erik asked, pinning her with eyes that could have belonged to a falcon.

  “My mother’s people were whispered to be witches,” Ariane said simply. “It wasn’t true. If you cut them, they bled the same as anyone. If you put a knife in their heart, they died. They cast no spells. Nor did they consort with the Dark Prince. They wore the holy cross and spoke God’s prayers without difficulty or fault.”

  “But some of your ancestors were different nonetheless,” Erik said.

  Again, it wasn’t quite a question.

  “Different, not evil,” Ariane said instantly.

  “Aye,” Erik agreed. “’Tis a hard thing for some men to accept, that difference isn’t evil.”

  Simon said nothing at all. The quality of his silence was chilling.

  “You need not fear,” Ariane said, turning to Simon. “My gift of finding things didn’t survive my…illness.”

  “Your knife wound?” Simon asked.

  “Nay. An illness that came to me in Normandy.”

  Erik looked at Ariane coolly as his mind sorted through the various possibilities and patterns that would fit what he knew of Ariane. No pattern emerged save one.

  And that one made him fear for the peace of the Disputed Lands.

  “Illness?” Erik asked softly. “When?”

  In an instant Simon’s body came to battle readiness. The softness of Erik’s voice was more dangerous than the sound of a sword being drawn.

  Ariane, too, heard the change in Erik’s voice. He was every inch the heir of Lord Robert of the North, a man whose wealth rivaled that of the king of the Scots.

  “I fell ill shortly before I left Normandy,” Ariane said to Erik.

  “What kind of illness.”

  Not a question. A demand.

  Ariane flushed to the roots of her hair, then went quite pale, wishing she had never brought up the subject. She had no intention of telling Erik the circumstances that had resulted in the loss of her gift.

  “My wife,” Simon said distinctly, “answers only to her husband, to her king, and to God.”

  For an instant it seemed that Erik would disregard the challenge in Simon’s words. Then the Learned man changed, intensity fading until he was once more an entertaining companion for the hunt and the hearth.

  “Forgive me,” Erik murmured to Ariane. “I meant no rudeness.”

  She nodded, relieved.

  “But if ever you would like to regain your gift,” he said softly to her, “come to Cassandra. Or to me.”

  Before Simon could speak, Ariane did. “My gift can never be regained.”

  The flatness of her voice closed the subject with the finality of a door slamming shut.

  “Just as well,” Simon said into the uncomfortable silence. “I have no love of witchery.”

  “And Learning?” Erik challenged softly. “What of it?”

  “The Disputed Lands are welcome to their Learning. I will put my faith in this.”

  Simon drew his sword with startling speed. The somber length of the blade gleamed in the daylight.

  “Ah, your black sword,” Erik murmured.

  He looked at the weapon with open curiosity. It was the first time he had seen it closely, for Simon used a different, blunter weapon for mock battles.

  There was something about the black sword that intrigued Erik. It was as though a pattern had once existed, then been erased.

  Holding out his hand, Erik said, “May I?”

  However much the Learned sorcerer might irritate Simon on occasion, he had no doubt of Erik’s trust-worthiness. With a deft movement of his hands, Simon reversed the sword and held it out pommel first.

  The pommel was as black as the blade, and as austere. It lacked decoration of any kind. Erik grasped the heavy blade carefully and held the pommel up to the light. As he turned the blade, sunshine poured over the dark metal of the pommel, revealing that it had been reworked.

  “As I thought,” Erik said. “It held jewels once. Gold inlay, too, I would guess.”

  “Aye,” Simon said.

  Something in Simon’s voice made Erik look up from his study of the sword.

  “Spoils of war?” Erik asked blandly.

  “Aye.”

  “A pity the pommel has been ruined.”

  “Ruined?” Simon laughed curtly. “It affects the blade’s balance and edge not one whit. In any case, Dominic’s life was worth far more than the handful of gems I pried out of the pommel.”

  “Ransom?” asked Erik.

  “Yes.”

  “An ancient Saracen custom.”

  “So is treachery,” Simon retorted.

  Erik’s smile was as cruel as the curve of a falcon’s beak. “Treachery knows no single people. Like Original Sin, it is a common heritage of Man.”

  Simon’s answering smile was a replica of Erik’s.

  “In the end, we freed Dominic by force,” Simon said. “Then we tore down the sultan’s palace stone by stone and scattered it across the desert.”

  With a smooth, swift motion, Simon sheathed the sword.

  “They are coming,” Erik said.

  Together Simon and Erik turned as Amber and Duncan hurried across the bailey’s cobblestones to bid their guests Godspeed.

  Duncan’s appearance had been a signal for one of his grooms. The young man came from the stable area at a trot, leading two horses. The first was the stout mare that had been Ariane’s mount while at Stone Ring Keep. The second was a filly with the same muscular build and clear, steady eye.

  “The dark mare is no racer,” Duncan said to Simon, “but she has the unflinching heart of a war-horse. So does her daughter. Take them, breed them to your stallion, and let their sons carry your sons into battle and safely home again.”

  “Lord Duncan…” Simon began formally. His voice died. “You are too generous. Already you have given me enough to furnish a keep, yet I have no keep to my name.”

  “I could give you all I have and still be in your debt,” Duncan said simply. “If you had not taken my place next to Ariane, there would have been bloody chaos and death where there now is peace and life.”

  Duncan gave Simon a quick, hard hug while their wives exchanged farewells.

  “I will miss you, Simon the Loyal,” Duncan said quietly.

  “And I you,” Simon said, returning the hug.

  As Simon stepped back, he smiled wryly at Duncan.

>   “To think,” Simon said, “that I first met you at my brother’s wedding, when I held my knife between your thighs to assure your good behavior.”

  Duncan gave a crack of laughter.

  “Glad I am that you have a steady hand,” Duncan said.

  “So am I,” Amber said dryly.

  Smiling, Simon turned to Ariane and held out his hand.

  “Allow me to assist you,” he said. “We must be on our way before more clouds gather.”

  Before Ariane could agree or disagree, Simon swept her up in his arms and deposited her on the back of his long-legged hunting horse. The animal snorted and sidestepped, sending shod hooves ringing against stone.

  Ariane curbed the spirited beast with an ease that made Simon smile. He turned to his own war stallion and vaulted into the saddle.

  Amid cries of Godspeed, the clatter of hooves, and the eager barking of Erik’s wolfhounds, Simon, Ariane, Erik, and their retainers set off for Stone Ring Keep. Very quickly the cultivated fields fell away behind them. Forest rose around the horses, an expanse of trees broken only by rare hamlets and even more rare circles where ancient, uneven stones lifted their faces to the sun.

  Unseasonable storms had largely stolen the blazing reds and golds from the trees, leaving naked branches black against the cloud-streaked vault of the sky. Drifts of leaves swirled on every gust of wind and piled against boulders and sacred stones alike.

  The closer the riders came to Stone Ring, the more uneasy Simon became. Perhaps it was simply the loss of leaves from the trees, but it seemed to him that there were more of the ragged stone ruins now than there had been the last time he had taken the trail.

  Ariane watched intently also, as though sharing Simon’s feeling that something about the nature of the land itself had changed.

  But it wasn’t until they reached Stone Ring that Simon’s unease became urgent to the point of discomfort. He didn’t want to look at the ragged curve of stone that made up the single rocky ring.

  Yet he couldn’t look away.

  “What do you think of the land?” he asked Erik.

  “There is nothing amiss that I can see. Perhaps Winter and Stagkiller will have different news.”

  Erik pulled up where the trail divided. To the south lay Blackthorne Keep. To the west lay Sea Home.

  Stagkiller emerged from the forest and bounded up the slope back to Erik. Moments later Winter appeared from behind a cloud and shot down to her saddle perch in front of Erik.

  The arrival of Erik’s beasts was noted only absently by Simon. The longer he waited at the fork in the trail, the more certain he became that the party was being watched.

  “The trail out of the Disputed Lands is empty,” Erik said to Simon. “You should have no trouble with renegades of any stripe.”

  Simon grunted.

  “Is something wrong?” Erik asked.

  Almost impatiently, Simon looked around the forest again. No matter how carefully he watched, he saw nothing except moss and lichen, ageless stone and living branches barren of all but green tangles of mistletoe.

  There was only one ring of stones. He was quite certain of it. The only shadows were those cast by the sun in its normal fashion. There was no mist to obscure the inside of the circle that was bounded by stones.

  Yet when Simon turned his back on the ring in order to talk to Erik, he was uneasy.

  “Nay,” Simon said. “All is well. Or seems to be.”

  “You sense something, don’t you?” Erik asked.

  “A cold wind.”

  Erik gave Simon a sidelong glance and turned to Ariane.

  “What of you, lady? Are you at ease?”

  “It seems,” Ariane said hesitantly, “that there are more stones than before.”

  Erik looked at her sharply. “How so?”

  She shrugged. “Just that. I see more stones than I did the last time I came this way.”

  “The last time you came this way,” Simon said curtly, “you were senseless from your wound.”

  While Simon spoke, he glanced around again. His eyes narrowed against the sunlight lancing between gathering clouds. Yet no matter how hard he looked, he saw nothing to justify the odd prickling sensation over his skin.

  “What do you feel?” Erik asked in a low voice.

  “A cold—”

  “Wind,” Erik interrupted impatiently. “I feel it too. What else?”

  Simon looked at Erik. The tawny eyes looking back at Simon were clear, intent, as fathomless as the sky.

  “I feel a prickling beneath my skin,” Simon admitted.

  “Danger?”

  “Not quite. But not quite safety, either.”

  “Ariane?” Erik asked, turning to her.

  “Yes. A prickling. ’Tis…odd.”

  “Excellent,” Erik said with satisfaction.

  “Not to me,” Simon said bluntly. “’Tis like we’re being watched.”

  “We are, but most people wouldn’t know.”

  Steel whispered against its sheath as Simon drew his sword with unnerving speed.

  “I knew those renegades wouldn’t stay in Silverfell,” Simon said.

  “Be at ease,” Erik said. “’Tis only the rowan.”

  “What?”

  Erik gestured with his head toward the stone ring.

  “The sacred rowan waits,” Erik said simply.

  “For what?” Ariane asked.

  “Even the Druids didn’t know,” Erik said. “They knew only that she waited.”

  “God’s teeth,” hissed Simon. “What drivel.”

  He sheathed his sword with a single sweeping motion.

  Erik laughed like a sorcerer and turned his mount toward Sea Home. The stallion reared and fought the bit, not wanting to leave the other horses. Erik rode out the stallion’s temper with the ease of sunlight riding water.

  “Godspeed,” Erik said to Ariane and Simon. “If you have need of anything, send to Sea Home. If it is within Learned power, your need will be answered. You have our vow on it.”

  For a moment Simon was too surprised to say anything.

  “The Learned? Why?” Simon asked bluntly.

  “Cassandra has cast the silver rune stones.”

  Simon waited in taut silence. He sensed that he wouldn’t like what was said next.

  He was right.

  “Your fate is also that of the Learned,” Erik said. “Whether you wish it or not, we are being woven into a tapestry of unknown design.”

  “Perhaps,” Simon said.

  His tone said he did not believe it at all.

  Erik’s eyes blazed.

  “Don’t hold on to your blindness too long,” Erik said softly. “The cost of seeing the truth too late will be more than any of us want to pay. Especially you.”

  19

  Thunder leaped down from the peaks and through the glen in a deafening drumroll of sound. Behind the thunder came a seething quicksilver curtain of rain. The air was cold and fresh, infused with the myriad scents of woodland and meadow.

  Just below the brow of the hill, in a place that commanded a sweeping view of fells, woodland, and glen, Simon had made camp in the ruins of a Roman fort. The fort itself had been built on the ruins of an even more ancient fortification. Though the ceiling of the long room was only half in place, that half provided shelter from the driving rain for Ariane. Warmth came from a bonfire burning wildly beneath an opening in the ceiling timbers.

  Another fire winked and leaped on the opposite side of one of the fort’s inner walls, where Simon’s squire and the three men-at-arms had set up their own shelter. The highest flames of their fire were visible, for the interior wall had crumbled until it was barely waist-high. Rich scents of meat and vegetables simmering in a pot rose with the smoke into the watery twilight.

  Men talked among themselves, sharing coarse jokes and rough laughter. Blanche’s voice wove through the darker tones of the men like high, trilled birdsong. Her laughter was breathless, sensual, as teasing as a lover’s
hand sliding up a thigh to stop just short of the goal…and then seizing the trophy with thorough care.

  Simon had no doubt that Blanche was giving the men quite a chase. For all of Blanche’s whining about lack of luxury on the trail, and the long hours of riding at the pace of a walking man, she had been very generous with her favors at the end of the day.

  For that, Simon was grateful. If Blanche had simply teased the men, or lain with one and taunted the others, there would have been the kind of ugliness that Marie once had created among Dominic’s warriors during the Holy Crusade. But apparently those kinds of vicious female games didn’t please Blanche. Having a warm man between her legs did.

  Her girlish laughter pealed through the twilight, followed by masculine shouts as she flipped an ancient brass coin and they called out their choice.

  “Heads!”

  “Heads!”

  “Heads!”

  The coin gleamed and turned almost lazily above the wall, reflecting the nearby flames. Blanche’s pale, dirty fingers flashed as she snagged the coin out of the air. Invisible behind the wall, she smacked the coin against her bare thigh.

  “Heads it is, lads,” Blanche said.

  A round of groans went up. Now the men would have to wait to discover who would have the first turn with Blanche.

  “Oh, blind me,” she said, laughing. “Come on. Come on. ’Tis room for all. Oh! Mind you warm your hands first, you cold bastard!”

  Hiding his smile, Simon turned back to the fire. Blanche might be as loose as a hound’s lips, but she wasn’t a girl to cause trouble among the men.

  He only hoped that Ariane didn’t understand the meaning of the grunts, giggles, and skirmishes that were going on barely four yards away. The ruined inner wall provided the illusion of privacy, but no more.

  “Are you certain that you’re warm enough?” Simon asked.

  Ariane looked up at the question. In the firelight, Simon’s eyes were both dark and golden with reflected fire. His hauberk gleamed with every muscular shift of his body.

  Ariane nodded, silently telling Simon that she was warm enough.

  The motion of her head sent firelight sliding like a lover’s hands through her unbound hair. Midnight strands coiled damply against her face and steamed slightly from the heat of the fire.