Simon started to speak, only to be stopped by a curt gesture from Dominic.
“I believe,” Erik said slowly, “that the dowry went with Geoffrey to the Disputed Lands. If so, the dowry lies somewhere between Stone Ring and the Silverfells.”
“She would have told me,” Simon said.
“You wouldn’t have let her go without you,” Meg said.
No one said what all knew: Ariane had gone alone rather than ask Simon the Loyal to leave his lord and brother in his time of need.
“Have two horses readied,” Dominic said to Simon. “You should quickly overtake her. Lord Erik, will you and your Learned animals accompany Simon?”
“With pleasure.”
“What will you tell Deguerre?” Simon asked Dominic.
“Nothing. Ariane has avoided him at every opportunity. With luck, he won’t even know she has gone.”
“And if you aren’t lucky?”
“Ride hard, Simon. I would like my wife to begin sleeping well again.”
33
Simon and Erik rode as though pursued by demons, but they didn’t overtake Ariane. They went as far north as Carlysle Manor, but she wasn’t there. Afraid they had passed by her in the night and storm, the men spent a miserable time trying to sleep while Stagkiller coursed the countryside, searching for any sign of Ariane’s camp.
The hound got nothing for his trouble but clots of ice between his toes.
Simon was up well before dawn, much to the wonder of the manor’s small staff. He had little interest in breakfast, for he kept thinking of Ariane out in the storm.
“She must be lost,” Simon said tersely.
Erik sliced cold meat with his dagger, speared a piece of cheese and a slab of bread, and dumped the lot in front of Simon.
“She is a finder,” Erik said curtly. “She can no more be lost than the sky can lose the ground.”
“Then why haven’t we overtaken her?” Simon demanded.
Erik had no answer that would soothe Simon’s pain. All he had was the truth and a pattern that became more bleak with each hour the storm raged.
“Stagkiller found no sign that we had passed Ariane in the storm,” Erik said. “She must have gotten a horse somehow. She is somewhere ahead of us.”
“It is so cold,” Simon whispered.
“She wears Learned cloth.”
“Is that enough to keep her warm?”
“Eat,” Erik said, ignoring the question. “We will ride until the storm eases. Then I will send my peregrine aloft.”
But the storm didn’t lose its strength until the men were at the edge of the sacred Stone Ring itself. The standing stones were not visible, for an icy mist clung to the ground. Erik and Simon reined in their weary horses while Stagkiller flopped on the ground and panted great puffs of silver that were quickly swallowed in mist.
The peregrine stepped from her saddle perch onto Erik’s gauntlet, fluffed her feathers and opened her beak as though already tasting the freedom of the wind. Erik whistled with piercing clarity. The falcon answered with a rill of music too sweet by far to have come from a predator’s throat.
With a swift movement of his arm, Erik launched Winter into skies that matched her name. The falcon’s narrow, elegant wings flared and beat rapidly as she climbed into the icy mist.
Simon watched the bird with fear and hope combined. Long after the brilliance of the mist-veiled sunlight made his eyes water, he stared into the distance, his whole body tense.
But it was nothing to the tension Simon felt when Winter quickly arrowed back down out of the sky with a long, keening cry. The Learned man whistled back and forth with his peregrine until Simon wanted to shout at them.
Then Erik turned and looked at Simon with grief in his tawny eyes.
“Nay,” Simon snarled fiercely. “I won’t hear it! Ariane is alive.”
Erik closed his eyes for a moment before he told Simon what neither man wanted to know.
“Ariane…” Erik’s voice faded into an aching thread of sound. “Ariane is beyond your reach.”
“She is alive.”
“Ariane lies motionless within the second ring of stones,” Erik said carefully. “That is all Winter was permitted to see.”
“Permitted? What in the name of—”
“The second ring,” Erik interrupted curtly, “can’t be weighed or measured or touched. It simply is. You have never acknowledged that. Therefore, alive or dead, Ariane lies beyond your reach. We shall see if she also lies beyond mine.”
Erik urged his horse forward. Tensely Simon watched. Once he had tried to track Meg into a sacred ring. He had failed. Then he had tried to help Duncan track Amber, only to be brought up short by another sacred circle of stones. Again he had been baffled by the ancient secret of the stones.
If there is any secret, Simon told himself savagely. If!
Yet even as he doubted, fear blossomed in a soundless black rush.
What if she is there and I cannot reach her?
No answer came to Simon save the growing certainty that the ancient places would test him as they had tested Dominic and Duncan in turn.
But unlike the other men, Simon feared he would fail. He had neither Dominic’s shrewdness nor Duncan’s berserker will.
How can I find something I can’t see or hear or touch? How in God’s name did Dominic and Duncan manage?
Erik’s horse stopped as though it had been turned to stone.
“It is closed to me,” the Learned man shouted angrily. “By all that is holy, it is closed!”
Fear and anger combined in Simon, making him savage. He spurred his horse toward the ancient monoliths whose faces were veiled in mist. His horse galloped up the hill and then stopped as though brought up against a keep’s wall.
Simon had been expecting as much. He kicked free of the stirrups and landed with catlike grace on the uncertain ground.
“There is no place I won’t go to find Ariane,” Simon shouted at the stories, “and to hell with what is and what is not.”
Like a warrior going into battle, Simon strode toward the monoliths looming out of the mist ahead of him.
“Ariane! Do you hear me?” he called.
Nothing came back to him but a falcon’s clear, keening cry rising from the throat of a Learned man.
Simon set his teeth and kept walking. Tall stones rose on either side. He stalked between them without looking to right or left.
“Ariane!”
This time even the falcon didn’t answer.
Simon kept walking. He walked to the mound in the ring’s center, circled its base, and saw no sign that anyone had crossed the snowy ground since before the storm. He scrambled to the top and looked around with a wildness he barely could contain.
He saw nothing but wind stirring mist into ghostly shapes that faded as soon as he looked at them.
“Ariane! Are you here?”
Not one sound came back from the mist.
“Ariane! Where are you?”
“Inside the second ring of stones,” Erik called from beyond the mist.
“Where is the second ring?”
“The mound is its center.”
“I am there. Where is Ariane?”
“Inside the second ring.”
“Show her to me!” Simon yelled savagely.
“Even if Stone Ring permitted me inside, I could no more show you Ariane than I could show a rainbow to a man with no eyes!”
Simon’s answer was a raw sound of rage.
“You are what you have chosen to be,” Erik shouted, “a man bounded by logic. You have held on to your blindness too long. Now you are paying the cost of seeing truth too late. Ariane is beyond your reach!”
Simon gave an anguished cry that was also Ariane’s name. The echo came back in ghostly whispers.
You are what you have chosen to be.
Ariane is beyond your reach.
But Simon could not accept losing Ariane.
“I will see her!” Simon shout
ed to Stone Ring itself. “Do you hear me? I will see her!”
Spectral whispers became the sound of wind stirring through nearby branches, branches that were laden with blossoms.
But no tree grew on top of the mound.
No flowers bloomed in winter.
And the wind did not move.
Yet the sound came again, a murmuring, rustling, mourning sigh; wind that could not be blowing through a tree that didn’t exist; wind ruffling impossible blossoms until they spoke with a thousand soft tongues.
Hurry, warrior. She is dying. Then you will be one with me, ever living, always dying, forever grieving for a truth learned too late.
Chills coursed over Simon. The part of him that weighed and measured and touched fought back fiercely, denying that he had heard anything more meaningful than wind over rock and ice.
And a part of Simon was driven to his knees by a whispering, measureless torrent of grief that was not his. Not quite.
Not yet.
Hurry, warrior.
See.
He looked around with black, wild eyes. He saw nothing that he hadn’t seen before.
“How can I see?” Simon cried. “Help me!”
Nothing came back to Simon except the certainty that Ariane was nearby, and her life was slipping away, taking her forever beyond the reach of any living man.
Love? What a pail of slops that is!
A ragged sound was torn from Simon’s throat as he heard Ariane’s sardonic words spoken by a thousand petal-soft tongues. But the whispering did not cease at his cry. It continued, telling him more than he thought he could bear, recalling a conversation only he and Ariane had shared…her courage and his cold response.
As soon as I am well once more, I will endure the marriage embrace. For you, my loyal knight. Only for you.
I want more than clenched teeth and duty.
I will give you all that I have.
And she had.
“Ariane!” Simon cried.
No answer came, not even the thousand whispers that could not exist.
Simon closed his eyes and fought the emotions that threatened to squeeze breath from his throat. His hands formed fists on his knees and he shook with the power of his longing.
“Nightingale,” he said in an anguished whisper, “I would give the heart from my body to see you again.”
Wind threaded through the branches of a nearby tree, set petals to stirring until they sighed.
Open your eyes, Simon.
See.
Yet even before Simon opened his eyes, he knew that Ariane was within reach, knew it in a way that couldn’t be weighed or measured or touched.
She was at his feet, lying huddled on her side, wrapped in her mantle. Where the wind had blown her mantle aside, an oddly muted amethyst cloth was revealed. The silver laces and embroidered lightning were only darkly gleaming, almost tarnished. Her skin was pale and cold as snow.
If Ariane breathed, Simon could neither see nor hear it. Nor did she awaken when he lifted her, called to her, tried to shake her from the grasp of cold.
Her body was slack, unresisting, as cold as he had once accused her of being.
“Nightingale…”
Loss turned like a dagger in Simon’s heart. As he lifted her gently into his arms, packets of spices and gemstones tumbled from her mantle.
Union with the right man can enhance a woman’s powers.
“Curse the dowry,” Simon said through clenched teeth. “It wasn’t worth your life. Nothing is!”
He kicked aside the spices and priceless gems. Then he held Ariane hard against his body, willing her to awaken, to look at him, to smile.
To live.
All that awakened were a thousand soft tongues whispering the words Simon had once spoken.
I am not Dominic or Duncan. I will never give that much of my soul to a woman. I will never see the rowan bloom.
Yet Ariane had come to Simon with her ravaged innocence and shocking bravery. She had burned wildly for him, giving him more than she had believed she had to give; her trust, her body, her very soul.
I love you, Simon.
Simon’s gift to Ariane had been his body.
And now she was cold beyond his warming.
Petals stirred, whispered, shaping words from stillness, murmuring to Simon, repeating his own words, wounding him until he bled the very tears he had fought against crying. More than he knew had died with Ariane. More than he had believed existed.
With great gentleness, Simon wrapped Ariane in his own mantle, saw her hair once more black against the soft white fur. Slowly he lowered Ariane to the ground, removed his sword, and set it between her hands.
“No warrior ever had more courage than you,” Simon said as he kissed her cool cheek. “Your bravery humbles me. Wherever you are, may the rowan bloom for you.”
Then Simon bent his head and wept as he hadn’t since he was a child. As he wept, fragrance drifted down over him, softness brushing his cheeks like kisses.
Open your eyes.
Slowly Simon opened his eyes and saw an ancient rowan blooming in the midst of winter. He saw, and knew that the truth he had seen too late was his own.
Blossoms drifted into his hands, petals from a tree that could not exist, blooming in a place that could not be.
Yet he saw the rowan bloom. He held its blossoms. He touched their transcendent beauty. He breathed their impossible fragrance as though it were life itself.
It is.
You saw too late. Now you are as she is, between two worlds, warmth bleeding into cold.
You may hold my tears and live as you did before, trusting your soul to no one. Or you may release my tears and accept what comes.
With a shudder, Simon opened his hands and let the rowan’s tears drift over Ariane, giving everything to her, more than he had ever believed he could give.
And he feared only that it would not be enough.
When the first flower touched Ariane’s cheek, she seemed to stir. When the second blossom caressed her, she shivered and drew a sharp breath, as though she had been too long without air. The third and fourth and fifth flowers rained down, and then there were too many to count, a swirl of warmth and fragrance permeating everything.
Simon sensed life rushing through Ariane’s body as certainly as it pulsed through his own. She stirred as though awakening from sleep. Then her eyes opened, and they were amethyst gems reflecting the beauty of a sacred tree blooming in the midst of winter.
“Simon?” she whispered.
He gathered Ariane’s living warmth into his arms, felt the strength of her arms circling his neck.
“I give to you the gift of the rowan,” Simon whispered against Ariane’s lips.
And the gift was love.
Epilogue
Baron Deguerre stood at Blackthorne’s moat bridge and saw the rowan’s triumph riding toward him, borne on the backs of horses that followed Ariane with neither lead rope nor groom to harry them into obedience. Each horse carried a burden of sacks filled with spices and silks, with gold and silver, with precious stones, with all that had been taken from Ariane by treachery and betrayal.
But it was not the dowry that convinced Deguerre of his defeat. It was the pommel of Simon’s sword, a crystal as black and clear as Simon’s eyes. Held impossibly within the crystalline midnight was a single luminous blossom.
Baron Deguerre looked at the rowan flower within the sword, called for his horse and led his knights away from Blackthorne Keep, for he knew no weakness remained there for him to exploit. Nor would there be any in the future. Even Charles the Shrewd had never discovered a way to undo love.
Carlysle Manor became part of Rowan Keep, home of Ariane the Beloved, a woman whose hands drew joy from her harp and whose gift assured that no child wandered lost and alone away from the keep’s safety.
Simon’s sword came to be called the Rowan, after the uncanny blossom encased within its black crystal pommel. In time, Simon himself was called
the Lord of the Rowan.
For it was Simon who had discovered what even the Learned did not know…
The sacred rowan is a woman born long, long ago, a woman whose refusal to see love cost first her lover’s life, then the lives of her family, her clan, her people.
But not her own life. Not quite.
In pity and punishment she was turned into an undying tree, a rowan that weeps only in the presence of transcendent love; and the tears of the rowan are blossoms that confer extraordinary grace upon those who can see them.
When enough tears are wept, the rowan will be free. She waits inside a sacred stone ring that can be neither weighed nor measured nor touched. She waits for love that is worth her tears.
The rowan is waiting still.
Author’s Note
One of the questions I am most often asked by readers is “Your Western and contemporary romances were so successful, what made you decide to write medieval romances?”
The answer involves a true story that really is stranger than fiction. I wouldn’t have dared to make it up, because no one would believe it! Here is how it goes…
For twenty-six years I have been well and truly married to the only man I ever loved. In addition to being husband, lover, friend, and father of my children, Evan is my writing partner. (We write as A.E. Maxwell and as Ann Maxwell.) Evan is also a hardheaded contrarian who loves to argue so much he’ll take either side of any issue.
In the course of doing research for The Diamond Tiger, Evan and I went to Britain. As Maxwell is a Scots name, we decided to drive to Scotland. My maiden name, Charters, is also Scots, a corruption of the name Charteris.
Evan and I weren’t chasing family ties, we just wanted an excuse to see a new piece of the world. We jumped in our rented car and set off north, sitting on the wrong side of the car, shifting with the wrong arm, and driving on the wrong side of the road.
By the time we crossed the border into Scotland, we were bored with super highways. We turned off into the first country lane we found and began winding along the edge of a windswept, shallow bay. When I spotted some distant ruins rising out of the land, I was ecstatic; I had been wanting to photograph ruins, but everything I had seen so far in Britain had been depressingly well kept.
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