Forbidden

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Cassandra will come to you at supper,” Erik said. “And so will I. Be here. See that the man you call Duncan is here as well.”

  Amber found herself looking into the cold, topaz glance of the wolf that lived within her childhood friend. Her chin came up. She watched him through narrowed yellow eyes that were as cold as his own.

  “Aye, lord.”

  Erik’s smile flashed beneath his dark gold beard. “Do you still have smoked venison?”

  She nodded.

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll be hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  Laughing, Erik urged the peregrine onto his wrist, set his spurs lightly to his mount, and galloped off into the forest. Sun struck golden fire from his hair and stormy gray from his mount.

  Amber watched until there was nothing to see but the rocky rise. Just as she turned to go back to the cottage, the merlin rose keening on the wind, seeking other prey. Amber cocked her head, listening, but heard no sound of hoofbeats approaching. Unlike Erik, Cassandra would wait until the hunt was over to talk with Amber.

  Relieved, Amber went into the cottage and shut the door quietly behind. Just as quietly, she lowered a stout piece of wood across the frame. Until she lifted that board, no one could enter short of chopping through the door.

  “Duncan?” Amber asked softly.

  There was no answer.

  Fear sank cold talons into her. She ran to the bed and yanked aside the curtain.

  Duncan lay on his side, his body relaxed, his eyes closed. Amber put her hand out and touched his forehead. Her breath came out in a rushing sigh of relief. His sleep was deep, but normal.

  The contrast between the powerful line of Duncan’s shoulders and the pale lace on the linen bedding made Amber smile. Gently she brushed his hair back from his forehead, savoring the warmth and smoothness of his skin.

  Duncan stirred, but not to turn away. Instead, he moved toward her touch. Blindly his hand found hers, circled it, and held on. When she would have withdrawn, his grip tightened. She sensed him awakening.

  “Nay,” she whispered, stroking Duncan’s cheek with her free hand. “Sleep, Duncan. Heal.”

  He slid back toward sleep, but he didn’t release Amber’s hand. She kicked off her shoes and sat on the edge of the bed, fighting against the exhaustion that she had held at bay through the long days and nights since Duncan had been dropped naked on her doorstep.

  She couldn’t sleep yet. She needed to think, to plan, to find the single thread in the tangled tapestry of Duncan’s and her own fate that would lead to enriched life rather than untimely death.

  So much depends on his memory. Or lack of it.

  So much depends on the prophecy.

  Aye. The prophecy. I must be certain that no more of its words come true. I fear my heart has been given, but not my body, not my soul.

  It must stay that way. I must not touch him.

  Yet even as the thought came, protest welled up from deep within Amber. Touching Duncan was the greatest pleasure she, the Untouched, had ever known.

  He is forbidden to me.

  Nay. Only the special touching of lovers is forbidden between us. Then my body will remain my own.

  Untouched.

  The prophecy will remain unfulfilled.

  Weariness finally claimed Amber. Her eyelids closed and she swayed forward, asleep before her head touched the bed. As her weight stretched along Duncan’s side, he woke slightly, gathered her closer along his body, and fell back into a healing sleep.

  Held within the very arms that were forbidden to her, Amber enjoyed the most peaceful sleep of her life.

  She didn’t awaken until a wolf’s harmonic howl rose into the twilight. Her first sensation was that of extraordinary peace. Her second was of a warmth like that of the sun behind her. Her third was the realization that Duncan’s naked body was cradling her and his sword hand was cupped around her breast.

  A curious heat shot through Amber. In its wake came a flush that made her cheeks burn. She began to ease out of Duncan’s grasp. He made a sleepy, protesting sound and tightened his hand. She gasped at the sensations radiating from her breast.

  Nay, this is the very kind of touching that is forbidden to us!

  Dear God, why is it so sweet?

  The wolf howled again, calling kindred spirits to a twilight hunt.

  As quickly as Amber dared, she eased from the bed. When Duncan threatened to awaken again, she soothed him with light touches and soft words until he lay quietly once more.

  Letting out a long sigh of relief, Amber hurried from the bed. She had to be alone when she talked to Erik and Cassandra. It would be much safer for Duncan that way.

  Amber threw on a mantle of green wool and fastened it with a large silver pin in the shape of a crescent moon. Ancient runes ran down the crescent, giving texture and grace to the beaten silver. When she set aside the board barring the door and stepped into the twilight, the pin shimmered as though made to gather light and hold it against the coming night.

  No sooner had Amber closed the door behind her than Cassandra appeared on the path from the forest. She was afoot, wearing her customary robes of scarlet embroidered at the edges with blue and green, but twilight turned the colors nearly black.

  Her pale, almost colorless hair was plaited and concealed beneath a headdress of fine red cloth. The cloth was held in place by a ring of woven silver strands. The sleeves on her dress were long and deeply flared at the cuff.

  Despite a lack of family that equaled Amber’s, Cassandra looked every inch a highborn lady. Older than Amber, wiser, Cassandra had raised Amber as though she were her own. Yet Cassandra made no move to embrace the child she had raised. She had come to the cottage as Stone Ring Keep’s wise woman rather than as Amber’s friend and mentor.

  Uneasiness prickled along Amber’s skin.

  “Where is Erik?” Amber asked, looking beyond Cassandra.

  “I asked to see you alone for a time.”

  Amber smiled with a brightness she was far from feeling.

  “Was Maid Marian’s hunt successful?” she asked.

  “Very. Was yours?”

  “I didn’t go hawking.”

  “I refer to your quest for information about the man Erik found asleep within the Stone Ring,” Cassandra said mildly.

  Saying no more, Cassandra watched Amber with penetrating gray eyes. Amber had to fight not to fidget or mumble the first words that came to her mind. At times Cassandra’s silences were as unnerving as her prophecies.

  “He hasn’t awakened since morning,” Amber said, “and then only for a few moments.”

  “What were his first words upon awakening?”

  Frowning, Amber cast about in her memory.

  “He asked me who I was,” she said after a moment.

  “In what language?”

  “Ours.”

  “Accented?” Cassandra asked.

  “No.”

  “Continue.”

  Amber felt as though she were being quizzed on a lesson. But she didn’t know what the lesson was, didn’t know the answers to the questions, and feared true answers in any case.

  “He asked if he was a prisoner,” Amber said.

  “Did he? An odd thing for a friend to ask.”

  “Not at all,” Amber retorted. “Erik had bound him hand and foot to my bed.”

  “Mmmm,” was all Cassandra offered.

  Amber said no more.

  “You have few words,” Cassandra said.

  “I follow your teaching, Learned,” Amber replied formally.

  “Why are you so distant?”

  “Why are you quizzing me like a stranger caught within the keep’s walls?”

  Cassandra sighed and held out her hand.

  “Come,” she said. “Walk with me in the hour that is neither day nor yet night.”

  Amber’s eyes widened. Cassandra rarely offered to touch anyone, especially Amber, to whom touch was often painful and always unco
mfortable.

  Except for the stranger. His touch had been purest pleasure.

  “Cassandra?” Amber whispered. “Why?”

  “You look hunted, daughter. Touch me and know that I am not one of your pursuers.”

  Hesitantly, Amber brushed her fingers along the other woman’s hand. As always, a sense of fierce intelligence and deep affection flowed from Cassandra.

  “I want only joy for you, Amber.”

  The truth of Cassandra’s words flowed through the touch like a bright scarlet ribbon.

  A bittersweet smile curved Amber’s lips as her hand dropped to her side. She doubted that Cassandra knew what a joy touching Duncan was to Amber.

  And if Cassandra had known, Amber doubted that she would wish more of it for her pupil.

  When the wise woman turned and walked slowly toward the moonlight pooled in the meadow just beyond the cottage, Amber followed, walking by Cassandra’s side.

  “Tell me about the man you have chosen to call Duncan,” Cassandra said.

  The words were as soft as twilight, but the command just beneath them was not soft at all.

  “Whatever he was before he came to the Stone Ring,” Amber said, “he knows none of it.”

  “And you?”

  “I saw the marks of battle on his body.”

  “Dark warrior…”

  “Yes,” Amber whispered. “Duncan.”

  “Is he a brute, then?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so certain? A bound man can do little save try to free himself by strength or guile.”

  “I cut his bonds.”

  Cassandra’s breath came out in an audible rush as she crossed herself.

  “Why?” she asked in a strained voice.

  “I knew he meant me no harm.”

  “How?” Cassandra asked, fearing the answer even as she demanded it.

  “The usual way. I touched him.”

  Hands clasped, Cassandra stood, swaying like a willow in a slow wind.

  “When he came to you,” she asked in a strained voice, “was it night?”

  “Yes,” Amber said.

  In shades of darkness he will come to you.

  “Are you mad?” Cassandra asked in a horrified tone. “Have you forgotten? Be therefore as sunlight, hidden in amber, untouched by man, not touching man. Forbidden.”

  “Erik required that I touch the stranger.”

  “You should have refused.”

  “I did, at first. Then Erik pointed out that no man gets fully grown without a name. Therefore, the prophecy holds no—”

  “Don’t presume to teach a falcon how to fly,” Cassandra interrupted angrily. “Did the man know his own name when he awakened?”

  “No, but that could change at any moment.”

  “By Mother Mary’s sweet smile, I have raised a reckless fool!”

  Amber wanted to defend herself, but could think of nothing to say. When she was away from Duncan, the recklessness of her own actions in touching him appalled her.

  Yet when she was with him, no other action seemed possible.

  As one, both women turned around to go back to the cottage. As one, they stopped.

  Erik was standing a few feet ahead of them.

  “Are you proud of your work?” Cassandra asked him acidly.

  “And a good evening to you, too,” Erik said. “What have I done now to earn the sharp side of a Learned woman’s tongue?”

  “Amber has touched a man with no name who came to her in shades of darkness. Brought, I might add, by a young thane with no more brains than a drystone wall!”

  “What would you have had me do?” Erik asked. “Gut him as though he were a salmon to be salted?”

  “You could have waited until I—”

  “You do not rule Stone Ring Keep, madam,” Erik interrupted coolly. “I do.”

  “Just so,” Cassandra said with a thin smile.

  Erik let out an explosive breath. “I respect your wisdom, Cassandra, but I am no longer yours to order about like a squire.”

  “Aye. And that is as it should be.”

  “We are in agreement on that, at least.” But Erik smiled as he spoke. “Since it is impossible to undo that which has been done, what do you suggest we do?”

  “Try to bend events so that life rather than death follows,” Cassandra said succinctly.

  Erik shrugged. “Death always follows life. ’Tis the nature of living. And dying.”

  “’Tis the nature of my prophecies to be accurate.”

  “In any event, the prophecy’s requirements haven’t been met,” Erik pointed out.

  “He came to her in—”

  “Yes, yes,” Erik interrupted impatiently. “But her heart and soul and body aren’t his!”

  “I can’t speak for her soul or body,” Cassandra retorted, “but her heart is already his.”

  Erik shot Amber a surprised look. “Is that true?”

  “I understand the prophecy’s three requirements better than anyone,” Amber said. “All three have not been met.”

  “Perhaps I should gut him like a salmon after all,” Erik muttered.

  “You might be gutting yourself at the same time,” Amber said with a composure she didn’t feel.

  “How so?”

  “You need to be in the north to hold Winterlance against the Norse raiders. Yet if you don’t stay here, you will lose Stone Ring Keep to your cousins.”

  Erik looked at Cassandra.

  “You need no prophetess to tell you of your cousins’ ambitions,” Cassandra said dryly. “They were so certain that Lady Emma would die without conceiving an heir for Robert that they had already begun fighting among themselves as to who would rule Stone Ring, Sea Home, Winterlance, and all the rest of Robert’s estates.”

  Without a word, Erik looked to Amber.

  “Duncan thinks of himself as a powerful warrior,” Amber said to Erik. “He could be very useful to you.”

  She gave Erik a shuttered look, wondering if he was truly listening or merely humoring her. There was no way to tell short of touching him. In the moonlight his eyes had the veiled gleam of a wolf’s.

  “Go on,” Erik said to Amber.

  “Give him time to heal. If his memory doesn’t return, he will vow fealty to you.”

  “So you think he is a Saxon or Scottish free lance looking for a powerful lord?”

  “He would not be the first such knight to come to you.”

  “’Tis true enough,” Erik muttered.

  Cassandra started to object again, but was cut off by Erik.

  “You may have a fortnight’s grace while I search out the stranger’s past,” he said to Amber. “But only if you will answer one question.”

  Amber waited, breath held.

  “Why do you care what happens to the man you call Duncan?” Erik asked.

  The calmness of his voice was at odds with the intensity of his eyes.

  “When I touched Duncan…” Amber’s voice died.

  Erik waited.

  She clenched her hands within her long, loose sleeves and tried to think of a way to tell Erik that she suspected he had within his grasp one of the finest warriors ever to be born of human woman.

  “Duncan has no memories, as such,” Amber said slowly, “yet I would vow on my soul that he is one of the greatest warriors ever to hold a sword. And that includes even you, Erik, whom men call the Undefeated almost as often as they call you the Sorcerer.”

  Cassandra and Erik exchanged a long look.

  “With Duncan on your side, you could hold Lord Robert’s land against Norsemen, Normans, and cousins combined,” Amber said flatly.

  “Perhaps,” Erik said. “But I’m afraid that your great, dark warrior belongs to Dominic le Sabre or the Scots Hammer.”

  “That might be true. But not if Duncan’s memory doesn’t return.” Amber drew a deep breath. “Then he is yours.”

  Silence spread while Cassandra and Erik considered Amber’s suggestion.
<
br />   “Such a ruthless little thing,” Erik said, grinning. “You would have made a fine peregrine.”

  And he laughed.

  Cassandra did not. “Are you certain Duncan won’t regain his memory?”

  “No,” Amber said.

  “What if he does?” the other woman asked.

  “He will be either friend or enemy. If he is a friend, Erik has an invaluable knight. A risk well worth taking, surely?”

  “And if he is an enemy?” Erik asked.

  “At least you won’t have on your soul the cowardly murder of a man struck senseless by lightning.”

  Erik turned to Cassandra. “Madam?”

  “I like it not.”

  “Why?”

  “The prophecy,” she said curtly.

  “What would you have me do?” he asked.

  “Take the stranger out into the Disputed Lands and leave him naked to find his own way.”

  “Nay!” Amber said before she could stop herself.

  “Why not?” Cassandra said.

  “He is mine.”

  The fierceness in Amber’s soft voice shocked the others. Erik glanced aside at Cassandra. She was watching Amber as though she had never seen her before.

  “Tell me,” Cassandra said warily. “When you touched him, what was it like for you?”

  “Sunrise,” Amber whispered.

  “What?”

  “It was sunrise after a night as long as time.”

  Cassandra closed her eyes and crossed herself.

  “I will consult my rune stones,” she said.

  Amber let out a sigh of relief and looked hopefully at Erik.

  “I will wait a fortnight, no more,” Erik said. “If your Duncan is revealed as my enemy during that time…”

  “Yes?” she whispered.

  Erik shrugged. “I will treat him just as I would any other outlaw found skulking about my keeps. I will hang him where I find him.”

  4

  DUNCAN spun toward the soft, unexpected sound. The movement drew the folds of his new under tunic tightly across his body, outlining its muscular lines in swaths of pale linen and shadow. As he turned, his right hand went to his left side, fingers grasping for the sword that wasn’t there.

  When the cottage door opened to reveal only Amber, his hand relaxed.