Enchanted

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Nay,” Geoffrey said.

  “Lie,” Amber said.

  A murmuring ran through the assembled knights. Ariane ignored it.

  “Did that potion make my mind heavy and my body slack, unable to scream or fight?” Ariane asked.

  “Nay!”

  “Lie.”

  The murmur became a muttering of outrage. Warily Duncan looked at Simon.

  Simon was absolutely calm, utterly in control of himself. With an inner sigh of relief, and a silent thanks to Simon for his restraint, Duncan eased his punishing grip.

  Simon didn’t move to take advantage of Duncan’s looser grip. Soon the grip became more gentle still.

  “Did you then carry me to my bed?” Ariane asked.

  Silence, then, “Aye.”

  “Truth.”

  Ariane took a deep breath to still the hatred and contempt that made her tremble.

  A scream voiced in silence.

  “There you raped me, and when morning finally came—”

  “Nay!”

  “Lie.”

  A betrayal so deep it all but killed her soul.

  “—you brought my father up to see me lying naked in bloody sheets—”

  “Never!”

  “Lie.”

  “—and you told him that I had seduced you with a witch’s potion.”

  “Nay! You—”

  “Lie.”

  Ariane, the Betrayed.

  The murmuring of her name and her betrayal went like a storm wind through the great hall, telling Geoffrey the Fair that Ariane had won.

  “Then you—” Ariane began.

  Geoffrey leaped out of his chair. Blunt fingers closed around Ariane’s neck as though he would choke the truth to silence, and her with it.

  With a savage cry Simon exploded free of Duncan’s restraint and vaulted the lord’s table, scattering costly goblets and plates in every direction. As one, Duncan, Dominic and Erik went over the table after Simon.

  They weren’t quick enough. Simon hit the floor running. Knights took one look at the black hell of his eyes and scrambled to get out of his way.

  Suddenly Geoffrey’s high scream ripped through the hall. Ariane’s long sleeves had whipped across his face. Livid streaks of red marked wherever the dress had touched his bare skin.

  “Curse you to hell, witch!” Geoffrey raged. “I wish I had managed to kill you and your cursed husband when I attacked you in the Disputed Lands!”

  Geoffrey whipped a dagger from beneath his mantle and raised the blade.

  Simon’s dagger flew in a blur of silver between the tables and buried itself to the hilt in Geoffrey’s shoulder. Before anyone could draw a breath, Geoffrey was falling and Simon was upon him.

  Simon snatched Geoffrey’s dagger as it rolled from his numbed hand. Smoothly Simon returned the blade to Geoffrey, point first between his ribs, exactly where Ariane had been wounded by the renegade’s dagger. When the blade could go no deeper, Simon twisted the haft sharply.

  “May you spend eternity in hell,” Simon said softly.

  Geoffrey was dead before he hit the floor.

  Towering over his slain foe, Simon heard as though at a great distance the words of the knights within the great hall.

  Geoffrey the Fair.

  A renegade butcher.

  Deguerre’s beloved knight.

  Dead.

  Simon the Loyal has finally avenged Ariane the Betrayed.

  A shudder tore through Simon when Dominic’s hand gently gripped his shoulder. Rage receded, sanity returned, and Simon knew what he had done.

  Hating himself for his unruly passions, Simon turned from Geoffrey’s corpse to face the Glendruid Wolf.

  “Again I have betrayed you,” Simon said in a voice made harsh by restraint.

  “You have defended your wife’s honor and her life,” Dominic said evenly. “There is no betrayal in that.”

  “I could have spared Geoffrey. I did not. Worse, if it were mine to do again, I know I would do the same…only more slowly, more painfully, until the swine squealed for me to end it.”

  Simon turned away, holding out his hand. “Lady Amber, I beg a favor of you.”

  Amber hesitated in the instant before she touched Simon. Her fingers jerked once, then were still. Her breath came out in a long sigh. She watched Simon with haunted golden eyes, waiting for him to speak.

  “Tell my wife,” Simon said without looking at Ariane, “that I would have silenced the swine sooner, had Blackthorne been stronger.”

  “Truth.”

  “Tell my wife that I am certain of her fidelity to me.”

  “Truth.”

  “And finally,” Simon said softly, “tell my wife that I hold her in no greater regard for being certain of her innocence.”

  “Truth.”

  Instantly Simon released Amber.

  “I regret the pain I have caused you, lady,” Simon said.

  “There was none.”

  “You are as kind as you are beautiful.”

  Simon turned and looked at Ariane.

  “Nightingale,” he said softly, “are you at peace, now?”

  Ariane couldn’t speak. Tears wrenched her throat and spilled from her eyes, for she heard all that Simon did not say. Her reckless determination to prove her own innocence had caused Simon to betray the brother whom he cherished more than he cherished anything in life.

  In defending Ariane, Simon had slain Blackthorne’s peace as surely as he had slain Geoffrey the Fair.

  Marie’s words about betrayal and the Holy Land echoed in Ariane’s mind, telling her another truth that had been learned too late: Simon is a man of extraordinary passion. It will be many more years before he forgets. Or forgives me.

  Ariane feared it would be the same for her.

  29

  “My lady?” asked Blanche.

  “What is it?”

  Ariane winced at the sound of her own voice. Geoffrey’s death today had been enough to bring strain to anyone, but Baron Deguerre’s messenger announcing the imminent arrival of his lord had been the final straw. Blackthorne Keep’s nerves were strung to a high pitch as people waited to find out precisely when the baron would arrive, and more importantly, with how many warriors.

  “I can’t find your favorite comb,” Blanche admitted unhappily.

  Ariane barely heard. She was certain she had heard the sound of the sentry above the crying of the wind.

  “M’lady?”

  “’Tis under the bed in the corner near the window,” Ariane said curtly.

  Blanche was halfway across the room to retrieve the comb when she stopped and spun back to Ariane.

  “Your gift has come back to you!”

  The words got through Ariane’s preoccupation. She gave Blanche an impatient look.

  “Nay,” Ariane said. “I merely saw it there earlier.”

  “Oh.”

  Blanche went to the bed, got down on her hands and knees, and pawed through the draperies.

  “’Tis keen eyesight you have,” Blanche muttered. “I can barely find the cursed thing with both hands.”

  “Did you say something?” Ariane asked.

  “No,” Blanche muttered.

  As the handmaiden scrambled to her feet, she was grateful that the amber witch wasn’t nearby to catch her out in a lie.

  Ariane barely noticed Blanche as she combed and braided and piled her mistress’s black hair high. Ariane was thinking of the coming night, when Simon finished walking the battlements.

  She wondered if he were as angry with her as he once had been with Marie…or if Simon would come to his wife in the darkness, teaching her all over again that ecstasy was always new, always burning.

  Nightingale, are you at peace, now?

  Tears burned against Ariane’s eyelids.

  She was not at peace. She had risked more than she knew when she put Geoffrey to Learned questioning, only to discover that the answer truly meant nothing to Simon.

  But that
same answer had forced him to again betray his brother.

  Simon had not loved Ariane before.

  He would not love her now.

  “When do you think he will come?” Blanche asked.

  “Simon?” Ariane asked huskily.

  “Nay. Your father.”

  “Soon. Very soon.”

  “Tonight?” Blanche asked, startled. “’Tis already quite late.”

  “It would be like the baron to arrive when everyone assumes he will wait.”

  “Oh. How many warriors will he have?”

  “Too many.”

  A cry rang down from the icy battlements. Ariane listened, motionless, and heard the sentry announce the coming of Baron Deguerre through darkness and storm.

  “My Learned dress,” Ariane said. “Quickly.”

  Blanche brought the dress and stepped back after giving it to her lady, well pleased not to touch the fabric anymore.

  Even as Ariane’s fingers flew over silver laces, Dominic, Simon, Erik, and Duncan were sweeping through the keep, calling out orders to knights.

  “A gentleman would have waited until tomorrow to come to the keep,” Simon said under his breath, “when most of us wouldn’t be abed.”

  “Deguerre is hoping to find our knights fully stupid with ale, and us along with them,” Dominic said.

  “Always the tactician,” Simon said.

  “Deguerre or Dominic?” Duncan asked dryly.

  “Deguerre,” said Dominic.

  “Dominic,” said Simon.

  The Glendruid Wolf smiled sardonically.

  The four men stepped into the bailey. Ice gleamed sullenly in the backlash of torchlight.

  “Erik,” Dominic said, “I ask you to conceal your cleverness. Let Deguerre think you are…”

  “Stupid?” Erik suggested.

  “That would be too much to hope,” Dominic retorted. “Deguerre is diabolically shrewd. But if you are silent, there is at least a chance of surprising him with the clarity of your mind.”

  Erik smiled like a wolf. “I didn’t think you had noticed.”

  Simon swallowed laughter as he picked his way across slick cobblestones. Erik’s ability to see patterns where others saw only chaos had set the Glendruid Wolf and the Learned sorcerer at one another’s throats more than once.

  To Dominic, Erik was very much a double-edged sword. Yet Dominic could not help but respect the younger man’s courage and uncanny mind.

  When the four men were close to the gatehouse, Harry the Lame pushed open the door. Inside, a fire in the brazier burned like a great orange eye set amid an ebony chill.

  “Do you think Deguerre will surrender his arms?” Duncan asked as he stepped into the gatehouse.

  “Why shouldn’t he?” Simon asked blandly. “You and your knights did. So did Erik and his knights. Neither of you owes fealty to Dominic. Particularly the sorcerer.”

  “Aye,” Erik said under his breath. “The Glendruid Wolf has given me nothing but trouble.”

  “Thank you,” murmured Dominic. “I didn’t think you had noticed.”

  “What if Deguerre doesn’t accept the ban?” Erik asked, ignoring Dominic.

  “Then he sleeps in the fields with ice for his pillow and wind for his blanket,” Simon said.

  “You sound as though you relish the prospect,” Dominic said.

  “I would prefer the baron slept in hell with his beloved swine-knight than in the clean fields of Blackthorne Keep,” Simon said.

  Dominic gave his younger brother a wary look.

  “Have no fear,” Simon said tightly. “I am yours to command, so long as it doesn’t add to what Ariane has already suffered.”

  Duncan and Erik exchanged a glance in the wavering torchlight. It was the first time either man had heard Simon put a boundary on his loyalty to the Glendruid Wolf.

  “And if more suffering is required?” Dominic asked.

  “Then, Glendruid Wolf, you had best restrain me more carefully than before. I find I am fed to the teeth with men who would torment a helpless nightingale.”

  “Not quite helpless,” Dominic said dryly. “You saw the marks upon Geoffrey’s face.”

  “Aye,” Duncan muttered. “Lady Ariane must have fingernails like daggers.”

  “Not nails,” Erik said. “A dress from the most accomplished weaver the Silverfells clan has ever produced.”

  “What do you mean?” Simon asked.

  “Serena’s weaving responds to Ariane as though she were an ancient Learned warrior commanding skills we have long since lost,” Erik said.

  “Explain,” Dominic said bluntly.

  “For Ariane, the dress is armor and weapon both. I wonder if Cassandra foresaw that.”

  “Just as you are wondering how you can use it to your advantage,” Duncan said rather grimly.

  As much as Duncan liked Amber’s brother, Duncan hadn’t forgotten who had set in motion the dangerous events that had ended with Duncan betrothed to one woman, married to another, and foresworn in the bargain.

  “To my advantage?” Erik challenged softly. “Nay. To the advantage of the Disputed Lands. Like the Glendruid Wolf, I prefer peace to war.”

  The sound of many horses trotting toward the keep made the four men look at one another.

  “A pity Deguerre isn’t a peaceful lord,” Erik said. “How many fighting men does he have with him?”

  “I shall know when Sven returns,” Dominic said.

  “Ah, yes. The Ghost. I could use a man like him,” Erik said. “There are places in the Disputed Lands that are…closed…to me.”

  “Should we manage to blunt Deguerre’s sword, you may have Sven with my blessing. And his,” Dominic added dryly. “Peace bores him.”

  “Lord,” Harry said. “A knight comes.”

  “Alone?”

  “Aye.”

  A chill moved through Simon.

  “’Tis more like a parley between enemies than a visit from a father-in-law,” Duncan said under his breath.

  “Simon,” Dominic said. “Can you control your temper long enough to speak for me?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then do so.” Dominic turned to Erik. “Is your wolfhound a reliable, er, scout?”

  “Aye.”

  “Can you send it to patrolling all the places more than one or two men might hide beyond the keep’s walls?”

  “Aye.”

  “Please do so. Quickly.”

  Erik whistled. The sound was as clear and carrying as that of a pipe.

  Stagkiller materialized from the shadows just behind the gatehouse. Erik spoke to him in an ancient tongue. The wolfhound looked at Erik with unearthly golden eyes, then turned and trotted through the open sally port. A heartbeat later Stagkiller vanished into the darkness and wind.

  Beyond the moat, a horse snorted and a knight spoke sharply. Harness and chain mail trappings jangled as the horse shied.

  “Go,” Dominic said quietly.

  Simon walked out into the wind. His mantle lifted and whipped, showing flashes of the luxuriant white fur lining.

  The knight’s horse snorted again and stepped sideways. Though it lacked a war stallion’s muscular power, the animal had a lean, long-legged look of speed about it. In the torchlight the horse’s coat was as pale as the lining of Simon’s mantle.

  “Lord Charles, Baron of Deguerre,” the knight said loudly, “comes not far behind me. Will Lord Dominic le Sabre, called the Glendruid Wolf, receive the baron?”

  “Aye,” Simon said, “if the baron will agree to leave all arms and armor at the gate. Lord Dominic permits no arms inside, unless they are locked in Blackthorne Keep’s armory.”

  “By the Cross,” the knight said, shocked. “Who are you to order the Baron of Deguerre?”

  “Lord Dominic’s brother and his seneschal,” Simon said succinctly. “My words are his.”

  “You are Sir Simon, called the Loyal?”

  “Aye.”

  “Husband to Lady Ariane?”

&nbs
p; “Aye.”

  “I will take your brother’s cold welcome to the baron.”

  The messenger turned his horse, spurred it, and galloped back into the night.

  “What do you think he will do?” Dominic asked Simon as he walked back into the gatehouse.

  “Leave enough armed men beyond the keep’s wall to lay siege,” Simon said.

  “Erik?” Dominic asked.

  “I agree,” Erik said. “The baron will come inside with a handful of spies and assassins. When he has estimated the strength and temper of the keep, he will leave.”

  “Will he lay siege?” Dominic asked Erik.

  Erik shrugged. “That depends on how much weakness he finds inside and what excuse he can cobble together to justify a battle, if that is what he seeks.”

  “Have you any other insights, Learned or otherwise?”

  Erik narrowed his eyes until they were little more than gleaming yellow slits reflecting torchlight.

  Dominic waited. However impatient he might become with the heart-stopping risks Erik was willing to take, he respected the Learned man’s tactical abilities. It had taken a brilliant strategist to pull victory from the ruins of Amber and Duncan’s forbidden love, and peace from the endless turmoil of the Disputed Lands.

  “There are many possibilities,” Erik said finally. “Too many. The baron could be bent on seeing his daughter well settled with an unexpected husband, or the baron could be bent on war, or he could be anywhere between.”

  “Aye,” Dominic said softly.

  “How is your Glendruid wife sleeping?” Erik asked.

  “Badly.”

  “She dreams?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even in the day?”

  Dominic’s breath caught. “At supper. Yes.”

  Erik’s hands went to the sword that wasn’t there. His fingers flexed and he sighed.

  “Then there is more wrong than Geoffrey’s death put aright,” Erik said simply.

  “What else is there?” Simon demanded.

  “I don’t know,” Erik said.

  “Nor do I,” Dominic said. “But I know this—if there is a weakness, Baron Deguerre will find it.”

  The sound of horses cantering toward the keep came clearly in a pause between gusts of wind.

  “He comes,” Duncan said.