Medieval 01 - Untamed

into the keep’s yard.
    Proud warrior , Meg thought silently. But if legend be true, only an equal prowess in seduction might earn you female offspring from the body of your Glendruid bride .
    With clear eyes, Meg measured the man who worechain mail over black leather, his hair hidden beneath a steel helm, his war stallion as dark and savage as Satan’s dreams.
    As for sons, my black lord …
    Never .
    That is the curse of Glendruid. In a thousand years no one has lifted that curse .
    Seeing you, I fear that it will never be lifted .
    As though sensing Meg’s intense stare, the knight suddenly pulled his stallion to a halt. The horse half reared, as though facing an attack. Balanced on his muscular hindquarters, the charger lashed out with his forelegs, sending his hooves slicing through the air. Had a foot soldier been attacking, he would have died under the war-horse’s hooves.
    Dominic le Sabre rode the rearing animal effortlessly, never taking his eyes from the window high in the keep where shutters were partly opened. Though he could see no one through the opening, he knew Lady Margaret of Blackthorne stood within the stone walls, watching her future husband ride up to the keep.
    He wondered if she was like her father, still fighting a battle that had been lost in 1066, when William the Conqueror had taken England from its Saxon nobility.
    Saxon lady, will you accept my seed without a battle? Will you give me the sons I hunger for the way a thirsty man hungers for drink?
    A knight broke from Dominic’s retinue and approached at a canter. Dominic’s horse reared again, calling out a challenge. Casually he curbed his war stallion as the knight came to a plunging halt a few feet away.
    The second knight was in armor and also rode a charger. It was a breach of custom and common sense to use a valuable war-horse for ordinary travel,but no one had been certain if John of Cumbriland, Lord of Blackthorne Keep, had planned a wedding or a war.
    â€œStill thyself, Crusader,” Dominic said calmly to his horse. “There is no hint of treachery.”
    â€œYet,” said the other knight bluntly, coming up alongside.
    Dominic looked at his brother. Simon’s clear black eyes were watching everything, missing nothing. Simon, called the Loyal, was the most valued knight in Dominic’s retinue. Without him, Dominic doubted he would have managed the feats of battle that had won him the prize of a Saxon bride whose wealth in land was enough to make the English king envious.
    But not greedy. The Norman kings had learned to their cost that the fractious Saxons of the northern marches were too troublesome to be fought outright. Weddings rather than wars were to be employed.
    â€œHave you seen anything amiss?” Dominic asked.
    â€œSven came to me in the woods,” Simon said.
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œHe did as you asked.”
    â€œA true knight,” Dominic said sardonically, for what he had asked was that Sven go ahead to Blackthorne Keep disguised as a returning pilgrim and seduce one of the household maids.
    â€œThe wench was willing,” Simon said, shrugging.
    Dominic grunted.
    â€œSven learned that Duncan of Maxwell is in the keep,” Simon said succinctly.
    Dominic’s stallion half reared again, responding to the surge of anger in his rider.
    â€œAnd the lady Margaret?” he asked coldly.
    â€œShe is in the keep as well.”
    â€œA tryst?”
    â€œNo one caught them together.”
    Dominic grunted. “That could mean only that they are clever, not virtuous. What about the Reevers? Are they here, too?”
    â€œNo. They’re with Duncan’s cousin north of here, at Carlysle, one of Lord John’s manor houses. Or rather, one of your manors.”
    â€œNot yet. Not until I wed the daughter and the father dies.”
    â€œTwo days until the wedding. I doubt John will survive the feast that follows.”
    Dominic turned from his brother to Blackthorne Keep, looming above the green hill where it dominated the landscape. Lord John had spent himself into poverty building the four-story keep with its thick stone walls and blunt corner turrets.
    No expense had been spared to make the place into a military stronghold that would be all but immune to attack. Surrounding the keep at a distance of thirty yards was a half-finished stone wall. Completed, the wall would have been twice the height of a mounted man. But stone gave way to