Forbidden

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Amber put her hands to her suddenly hot cheeks. “Stop!”

  Erik cursed beneath his breath, stood abruptly, and came to stand as close to Amber as he could without touching her.

  “Look at me, Amber.”

  A combination of regret, tenderness, and concern was mixed together in Erik’s voice and in the expression on his face.

  “Did Cassandra never talk to you about the ways of men and maids?” Erik asked.

  Amber shook her head.

  Erik sighed. “It must be that she believed you would never be able to touch a man’s hand without pain, much less hold part of his body within you in the marriage bed.”

  A small sound escaped Amber as she looked away from the tall lord she had known all her life.

  Yet never had they talked like this.

  “Nay,” Erik said. “There is no need to be embarrassed about the way in which men and women unite. It is a gift of God. Did you find it…distasteful?”

  Amber shook her head.

  “Hurtful?” he asked.

  She shook her head again.

  “Then he didn’t take you too quickly?” Erik pressed. “He’s not unskilled?”

  “Erik,” Amber said faintly. “We should not talk of such things!”

  “Why not? You have neither mother nor sister, and Cassandra has never experienced a man. Or would you rather talk about such things with a priest who has never experienced a woman?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it at all,” Amber muttered.

  The returning life in her voice sent a surge of relief through Erik. He didn’t know what would happen to Amber if she believed Duncan lost to her.

  Nor did Erik want to know.

  “You must talk about it,” he said, “if only this once.”

  A sideways look convinced Amber that Erik wasn’t going to be turned aside. Reluctantly, she nodded.

  “If Duncan is unskilled in the arts of love,” Erik said matter-of-factly, “it can be remedied. If he is a brute, there is no remedy.”

  “He is neither unskilled nor a brute,” Amber said.

  A long breath of relief was Erik’s first response. Then he smiled.

  “I begin to understand,” he said.

  “I’m glad one of us does.”

  Erik hid his smile.

  “I’m told that a maid’s first time is rarely her most, ah, memorable,” he said.

  “Nay,” Amber said huskily. “I shall remember it until the day I die. Feeling ecstasy pulse through my dark warrior into me was…extraordinary.”

  A hint of color that had nothing to do with the hearth fire showed on Erik’s high cheekbones. Then he tilted back his head and laughed.

  “You give as good as you get, lass,” Erik said.

  At first Amber didn’t understand. When she did, she laughed despite the color burning on her cheeks.

  “I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” she said.

  “I’ll survive,” he said dryly. “Now set your hair and clothes to rights before I call the priest to the solar. You will marry at a midnight mass.”

  Amber’s smile faded. “That cannot be.”

  “Why?”

  “Duncan has remembered a woman’s name.”

  “Ariane?” Erik asked casually.

  For a moment, Amber was too shocked to say anything.

  “You knew?” she asked, whispering.

  Erik nodded.

  “How?” she demanded.

  “Because your dark warrior is Duncan of Maxwell, the Scots Hammer.”

  Amber swayed as though she had been struck.

  “You knew?” she whispered.

  “I wondered. Then I hoped. Then I knew.”

  “Then you also know why I can’t marry Duncan,” she said.

  “I know no such thing.”

  “Duncan is married to this Ariane, despite his certainty that he has never married.”

  “Nay. He is betrothed to a Norman heiress whose face he has never seen and whose name he has heard but once, when Dominic le Sabre informed Duncan of the arrangement.”

  “Duncan is vassal to Dominic le Sabre,” Amber said in a shaking voice. She closed her eyes. “To marry me would be a betrayal of his vow of fealty.”

  “God’s wounds,” Erik snarled, his voice like a whip. “How can you be so blind? Wipe the tragedy from your eyes and look at me!”

  The cold authority in Erik’s voice shocked Amber as nothing else could have.

  “God has sent you the one man whom you may touch without pain,” Erik said. “God has sent me the one man whom I need to hold on to Lord Robert’s besieged estates.”

  “But—”

  “And God has sent the means of transforming a foe into an ally,” Erik continued relentlessly. “Wed to you, Duncan will be my vassal, not Dominic le Sabre’s!”

  The silence stretched until it vibrated like the string of a bow too tightly drawn.

  “It is wrong,” Amber said. “Duncan came to the Disputed Lands a knight with wealth of his own, a promise of an estate, and a noble wife to bear him heirs.”

  “Not so,” Erik countered savagely. “Duncan came to Stone Ring Keep more dead than alive, with no more memory than a babe, and you saved his life. He is newly born, and he is mine.”

  “His memory is returning,” Amber said unhappily. “Piece by bright piece, the shadows are diminished.”

  “Aye.” Erik’s smile was grim. “That is why you will marry by midnight.”

  “Nay. The prophecy—”

  “Hammer the prophecy,” Erik said harshly. “You’ve made your bed, now you will lie in it as Duncan’s wife.”

  “Cassandra will—”

  “Accept what she can’t alter,” Erik said ruthlessly, cutting across Amber’s protests again.

  “Two parts of the prophecy have been fulfilled. Does that mean nothing to you?”

  “It means you had better guard your soul most carefully.”

  There was a taut silence before Amber shook her head.

  “I cannot,” she said. “I cannot betray my dark warrior thus.”

  Erik’s face changed, all softness gone. The topaz blaze of his eyes was colder than a winter sunset.

  “You will marry the Scots Hammer at midnight—”

  “Nay!”

  “—or before the twelfth hour is struck, you will see Duncan hanged.”

  13

  “YOU look downcast for a maid who just became her lover’s wife,” Cassandra said, pitching her voice to be heard above the feast’s noise.

  Amber said nothing. Her golden eyes were fixed on Duncan, who stood on Erik’s right, receiving the congratulations of the assembled knights. Even among fighting men, Duncan stood out, taller than most, harder, yet with a laugh that no one could hear without laughing in return.

  Many toasts had been drunk, many stories told, and much food eaten. Now jugglers and rhymers moved among the people, entertaining them with clever hands and ribald verses on the subject of wedding and bedding.

  Erik’s wolfhounds foraged in a furry, toothed turmoil beneath tables that were all but swaybacked from the burden of food, silver and gold plates, and goblets set with precious stones. Prized hawks sat above the party on wall perches, watching every motion with unnerving interest.

  Cassandra watched Amber with the same kind of interest. No sooner had the wise woman returned from a birthing than she discovered a keep seething with excitement. A man hanged. A maid to be wed. Norse raiders rumored at Winterlance.

  And, perhaps, the memory of a great warrior stirring, waking, looking around at a world with the eyes of a bird of prey.

  There had been no time for Cassandra to protest, to agree, or to do anything except witness a marriage that never should have taken place.

  There certainly had been no opportunity to talk to Amber in private, to ask her why she was risking so much when the gain was so unlikely, to ask her why she had allowed her body to follow her reckless heart, given over to a man who had come to her in shades of da
rkness.

  Would that he remained that way.

  But Cassandra’s rune stones said that he would not. Duncan would awaken and then death rather than life would flow.

  “Have you told Duncan yet?” she asked.

  There was no need for Amber to ask what Cassandra meant. Amber knew. She had spent the hours before her marriage in solitude, asking questions of her amber pendant.

  The answers that came back to her were always the same.

  A choice of evils.

  “No,” Amber said.

  “Soon or late, someone will recognize him,” Cassandra said.

  “Yes.”

  “What will you do then?”

  “Whatever I must.”

  “It would have been better to let Erik hang him before the third aspect of the prophecy is fulfilled.”

  The look Amber gave Cassandra held the same tawny fires of hell that Erik’s eyes sometimes did.

  “I see.” Cassandra’s smile was real, and sad. “Heart and body are his. The soul is swiftly following.”

  “Other than see my dark warrior hanged,” Amber said coldly, “what would you have me do?”

  A toast was shouted by one of the knights. “Long life, wealth, and many sons!”

  Goblets were lifted high. Amber smiled as was expected and saluted with her own goblet before she took a sip.

  “Guard your soul,” Cassandra said.

  “How?”

  As Amber spoke, she watched Duncan’s hand. Strong, scarred, it made the heavy goblet he held appear almost delicate. After he set the goblet down, his fingertips roamed lightly over the gold design, testing its variations and textures.

  Amber would have given a great deal to have his hand caressing her rather than cold metal. She longed for him in a way that frightened her even as it set her afire.

  Then Duncan turned and saw Amber watching him. In the candlelight his eyes appeared more gold than hazel.

  And like candles, they burned.

  “Stay out of his bed, for one,” Cassandra said dryly.

  “What?” Amber said, looking at the other woman.

  “Each time you touch Duncan, you give him more of yourself. If you wish it to stop, then you must withhold yourself from the marriage bed.”

  “That is against God’s law.”

  “And your own desire.”

  Amber didn’t bother to deny it.

  “Erik knew the risk,” she said.

  “I wonder,” Cassandra muttered.

  “Be at rest,” Amber said dryly. “Erik’s gift is kin to yours, but is done without scrying stones. He sees—”

  “Opportunity for gain where others see only defeat,” Cassandra interrupted in a cold voice. “He is, however, human.”

  “So are all of us. Even you. In any case, Erik believed the gain to himself, the vassals, and the land was worth it.”

  “To himself?”

  “Yes. Why do you think he made Duncan steward of Stone Ring Keep?”

  “To give you a husband of reasonable wealth,” Cassandra said simply.

  “That is a result, not a reason.”

  Cassandra gave the younger woman a look from clear, rain-colored eyes.

  “Erik knows Duncan will be able to hold the keep,” Amber said, “freeing Erik to fight the Norse raiders at Winterlance.”

  “Ah, yes. The Norsemen.”

  Death will surely flow.

  Cassandra closed her eyes. “The Norsemen, too, know that a harsh winter is coming.”

  “Yes,” Amber said. “The messenger from Winterlance said that the raiders were but two days away.”

  “Did he say how many ships were sighted?”

  “One vassal saw four,” Amber said. “One saw two. One saw seven.”

  Another toast was shouted. Again Amber raised her smile and her goblet, sipped, and returned to watching her husband.

  “When does Erik leave?” Cassandra asked.

  “At dawn.”

  “How many knights is he taking?”

  “All but one,” Amber said.

  “Alfred?”

  “Nay. Duncan.”

  “Even the Scots Hammer can’t defend a keep by himself,” Cassandra muttered.

  “Four men-at-arms will remain.”

  “A risk, nonetheless.”

  Amber’s mouth turned down in a melancholy smile.

  “Is it?” she asked. “Duncan of Maxwell, lord of an unclaimed keep and vassal of Dominic le Sabre, was Stone Ring Keep’s greatest threat.”

  “And now Duncan is its seneschal, vassal of Erik the Undefeated,” Cassandra said. “Is that how Erik’s reasoning goes?”

  “Yes.”

  The older woman shook her head with a mixture of rue and admiration for Erik’s boldness.

  “Still, ’tis an appalling risk,” Cassandra said. “When Dominic le Sabre hears—and be certain that he will—he will attack Stone Ring Keep himself.”

  “There is no time to mount an attack before winter itself defends the land.”

  “There is always spring or summer,” Cassandra said simply.

  “By then, the Norse raiders will no longer threaten Winterlance. Erik can concentrate his knights here.”

  Cassandra let out her breath in a long, hissing sigh. She had never seen Amber like this, both sad and fierce, haunted and bold, vibrant and shuttered.

  “Or perhaps by next spring or summer,” Amber said, watching Duncan, “Lord Robert will finally realize that Erik must have more knights. Or perchance Erik will arrive at some understanding with Dominic le Sabre. ’Tis said he prefers peace to war. A true Glendruid Wolf.”

  “’Tis also said he asks no quarter—and gives none.”

  “The same has been said of Erik.”

  “Sometimes it’s true,” Cassandra said.

  “And sometimes it isn’t.”

  Laughter erupted from the knights at some sally neither woman had heard. Nor could anyone overhear them. The babble of festivities provided a haven for private conversation.

  Cassandra meant to take full advantage of the opportunity. She had cast the stones for a fortnight, and for a fortnight the answer had come back the same.

  A choice among evils.

  “What,” Cassandra asked carefully, “does Erik believe will happen when Duncan discovers his true name?”

  “If Duncan is simply told, he will know it, but he won’t feel it. He will be angry, but his feeling for me will outweigh his anger.”

  Amber’s words were uninflected, the monotone of someone repeating an answer that was memorized rather than understood or believed.

  “Do you think that?” Cassandra asked.

  No answer came from Amber.

  “What do you believe?” Cassandra asked in a clipped voice.

  “I believe I love the man who came to me in shades of darkness,” she whispered. “I believe he desires me all the way to his very soul. And I hope…”

  Amber’s voice faded.

  “Tell me,” Cassandra said, but her tone was as compassionate as it was insistent.

  Long, dark gold eyelashes swept down, concealing eyes that held more shadows than light. When Amber spoke, her voice trembled with the force of her tightly held emotions.

  “I hope and I pray that Duncan will learn to love me before he knows his true name,” she said. “Then, perhaps…”

  Amber’s voice splintered. Hidden beneath the table, her nails dug heedlessly into her palms.

  “Perhaps?” Cassandra asked.

  A visible tremor went through Amber.

  “Perhaps he will be able to forgive me for not telling him,” she said.

  “That is why you will go to the marriage bed,” Cassandra said, understanding at last. “You hope to win him there.”

  “Yes.”

  “You go knowing that you will give more of yourself each time he touches you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You go knowing that you will likely wake one day and find yourself hated by the very man to whom y
ou gave your heart, your body…and your soul.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know what will happen then?”

  “Yes.”

  “You agree so easily,” Cassandra said. “Look at me. Do you truly know?”

  Slowly Amber’s eyes opened and she turned to face the woman who was watching her with Learned eyes. The turmoil of the wedding feast receded as gray eyes searched golden ones for the space of one breath, two breaths, three. Four.

  Abruptly Cassandra looked away, for her Learned discipline was being eroded by the bleakness that lay within Amber’s eyes.

  “Aye,” Cassandra said raggedly. “You know. I salute your courage.”

  “While you deplore my common sense?” Amber asked.

  Cassandra looked back at the girl who was her daughter in all but birth. Tears glittered like ice in Cassandra’s eyes.

  Amber was too stunned to speak. Never had she seen the Learned woman weep.

  “I deplore only that God has asked this of you rather than of me,” Cassandra said in a low voice. “I would rather the suffering be mine.”

  Before Amber could answer, another toast came from the knights. She raised her goblet, smiled rather fiercely, and drank a small swallow.

  When she put down the heavy silver goblet, Duncan was standing in front of her. He held out his hand. She rose as gracefully as flame and went to him, putting her hand in his.

  The moment Duncan’s flesh met Amber’s, pleasure rippled through her. The lines of strain that had drawn her smiles as fine as a knife’s edge vanished like mist beneath a fiery sun. Her mouth softened, shadows retreated from her eyes, and she gave Duncan a smile that squeezed Cassandra’s heart.

  “Now do you understand?” Erik murmured in Cassandra’s ear. “She needs her dark warrior even more than I do.”

  “I understand everything save what you will do when he awakens Duncan of Maxwell and kills her—”

  “Nay,” Erik interrupted in a low voice.

  “—touch by touch, her heart bleeding—”

  “Silence!” he hissed.

  “—from ten thousand cuts no one else would have felt,” Cassandra finished relentlessly. “What will you do then, mighty lord?”

  “Duncan will love her in spite of all! How could a man not love a maid who looks at him with such transparent joy?”