Forbidden

by Elizabeth Lowell

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.”

  AMBER dismounted before Duncan could come around his horse to help. Her knees gave a bit, then took her weight without further protest.

  Duncan’s mouth flattened beneath his mustache at the evidence that Amber no longer sought his touch. Not that he blamed her. What should have been a sweet initiation into the mystery of sex had been accomplished with all the finesse of a bull mounting a cow.

  “Thank you, Egbert,” Amber said when the squire stepped forward to take the reins. “Has Erik returned from Sea Home?”

  “Aye. He is waiting for you in the lord’s solar. Do hurry, maid. He is in a rare mood.”

  Duncan turned and regarded the squire with speculative eyes.

  “How so?” Duncan asked.

  “He had a man hanged not an hour ago.”

  Amber turned toward him so quickly that her cowl fell away, revealing her disheveled hair.

  “Why?” she asked starkly.

  “The fellow had an amber bracelet in his purse. Rumor says it is yours.”

  A quick glance at her left wrist confirmed Amber’s fear. Where three strands of amber had been, now there were only two. In the turmoil of the battle—and of what followed—she hadn’t noticed the bracelet’s loss.

  “I see,” Amber said in a low voice.

  She picked up her skirts and began walking quickly across Stone Ring Keep’s small bailey to the forebuilding. The door stood open, as though someone inside were impatient to see her.

  Duncan caught up with Amber before she reached the entrance to the great hall. They entered the solar together.

  The sight that greeted them wasn’t reassuring. Though only one wolfhound and the peregrine were permitted into the solar’s warmth, their restlessness boded ill for Erik’s temper.

  “What is this I hear about an outlaw being hanged?” Amber said before Duncan could speak.

  After a moment, Erik set aside the manuscript he had been reading. He looked first at Amber, then at Duncan.

  “Hanging,” Erik said distinctly, “is the punishment for any man who dares to touch that which is forbidden.”

  Amber’s breath was drawn with a soft, ripping sound. Duncan had done a great deal more than touch her.

  And somehow Erik knew it.

  Erik reached beneath the manuscript and pulled out an amber bracelet. He held the gleaming jewelry out to her.

  “Yours, I believe?” he asked.

  Amber nodded.

  The enigmatic, tawny eyes switched to Duncan.

  “I hear you fought well,” Erik said. “You have my gratitude.”

  “They were but ruffians,” Duncan said.

  “They were ten to your one,” Erik said. “With wooden staffs and daggers and the cunning of wolves. They have defiled and killed at least one gentlewoman, and overcome three lone knights. Again, I thank you.”

  “May I speak with you alone, lord?” Duncan asked.

  “The last man who made that request came to an unhappy end,” Erik said, smiling slightly. “But I hold you in much higher regard. Warriors of your skill are very rare.”

  Duncan turned and looked at Amber, plainly expecting her to leave. She looked back at him and moved not one step toward the door.

  “Amber?” Erik asked calmly. “Will you leave us?”

  “I think not. What will be said here concerns me as much as anyone.”

  Erik raised his eyebrows and looked at Duncan, who didn’t notice. He was watching Amber with unhappy hazel eyes.

  “I wanted to spare you this retelling,” Duncan said in a low voice.

  “Why? It was a thing done by two, not one.”

  “Nay,” he said bitterly. “It was done by one to another.”

  Before Amber could open her mouth to argue, Duncan turned to face Erik.

  “I ask for the hand of your vassal in marriage,” Duncan said grimly.

  The peregrine gave an odd, trilling cry. The joyous sound rippling from the raptor’s hooked beak was quite startling.

  “Granted,” Erik said immediately.

  “Am I not to be asked?” Amber said.

  An amused smile softened the line of Erik’s mouth. “You have already given your permission.”

  “When?” Amber challenged.

  “When you lay with Duncan,” Erik retorted.

  She went pale, then flushed.

  Duncan stepped forward, standing protectively between Amber and Erik.

  “It was none of her doing,” Duncan said.

  The smile vanished from Erik’s face as though it had never been.

  “Amber,” he said distinctly. “Did Duncan force you?”

  “Nay!”

  “She was innocent,” Duncan said. “I wasn’t. The blame for what happened lies with me.”

  Erik hid a smile behind his beard as he made an unnecessary production out of replacing a loose manuscript page.

  “I will hear no talk of blame,” Erik said after a moment, looking up once more. “I will make no recriminations.”

  “You are generous,” Duncan said.

  “You want Amber. Amber wants you.” Erik shrugged. “There is no reason against the match and a great deal to recommend it. You will be married immediately.”

  Shadows shifted and writhed within Duncan, half-remembered voices calling, telling him that he must not, he could not—he would be forsworn if he married Amber.

  And he would be forsworn if he did not. He had given his word to Erik.

  If I take Amber’s maidenhead, I will marry her.

  Duncan closed his eyes, fighting against the part of himself that insisted there was an urgent reason not to marry.

  A name formed like bright, moon-washed water in his mind, glittering in the darkness of his memory, shining among shades of darkness that flowed and shifted, concealing and then revealing…

  Ariane.

  Just that. No more. A name from his cursed, unremembered past.

  A name, an urgency, a reason not to marry.

  But it was a reason and an urgency and a name from the time before Duncan had taken Amber’s innocence and given her only pain in return.

  Fingers cold with more than the autumn chill fastened around his wrist. Amber’s hand. Duncan looked down into her shadowed eyes and felt a chill condense along his spine.

  She was frightened.

  Of him?

  “Amber,” Duncan said in a low, ragged voice, “wed or not, I won’t touch you again unless you ask me plainly. I swear it!”

  Tears stood in her eyes, magnifying their sadness and beauty. When she shook her head slowly, the tears spilled in brilliant silence down her cool cheeks.

  Amber wanted to tell Duncan that she welcomed his touches, but she couldn’t. If she opened her mouth, she was afraid all that would come from her throat would be a keening sound of sorrow.

  She had heard a woman’s name whispered in the shadows of Duncan’s mind, an echo turning and returning from the unremembered past, tearing at her heart.

  Ariane.

  “Amber?” Erik said.

  He was watching her with an intensity that burned as clearly as the hearth fire.

  Amber closed her eyes and released Duncan’s wrist. Yet in the very act of letting go of him, her fingertips caressed the veins where the force of his life surged just beneath his skin.

  Erik sensed Amber’s sorrow as clearly as he sensed her love for the dark warrior who watched her with haunted eyes.

  “Duncan,” Erik said, “leave us.”

  “Nay,” Duncan said savagely. “I’ll
not have you shame Amber for what wasn’t her fault.”

  Erik looked directly into Duncan’s eyes and knew that the other man was walking on a knife-edge of control. Erik wondered what memories were returning, how quickly; and how much time he had before Duncan awakened and knew himself as the Scots Hammer.

  Erik’s enemy.

  Amber’s lover.

  Betrothed to a Norman heiress whom he had never seen.

  Vassal to Dominic le Sabre.

  A savage impatience flattened Erik’s mouth as he thought of how little time remained, how much could go wrong, and how great the stakes were.

  They must wed.

  Immediately!

  “I would no more humiliate Amber than I would my own sister,” Erik said carefully. “She is much cherished by me. She is also well known to me.”

  He turned to Amber. “Do you wish Duncan to stay while we talk about…wedding arrangements?”

  Amber’s smile was even sadder than her tears. Slowly she shook her head.

  Without a word Duncan turned on his heel and left the lord’s solar.

  Erik waited until the last harsh echo of Duncan’s footsteps had faded into the hiss of the fire. But even then Amber didn’t speak. She simply stood unmoving, slow tears turning her pale cheeks to silver.

  Uneasiness rippled through Erik. He had seen Amber many ways, in many moods, but never had he sensed such unremitting sorrow in her.

  As though something cherished had died.

  “If it wouldn’t cause you pain,” Erik said, “I would take you onto my lap and rock you like a child.”

  Amber’s laugh was little different from a sob.

  “There is only one person who can hold me thus without discomfort,” she whispered.

  “Duncan.”

  A look of profound loss shadowed Amber’s face.

  “Aye,” she whispered. “My dark warrior.”

  “You will be wed to him before the chaplain chants morning mass,” Erik said. “Why, then, do you grieve?”

  “I cannot marry Duncan.”

  “God’s blood, was he that great a swine with you?”

  At first Amber didn’t understand. When she did, a blush tinted her pale cheeks.

  “Nay,” she said.

  Her voice was so soft that Erik could barely hear it.

  “Are you certain? Some men are vicious when lust takes them,” Erik said bluntly. “No matter how badly I need Duncan as my own, I’ll not condemn you to spend your life lying beneath a rutting beast who is twice your size.”