Medieval 02 - Forbidden

don’t know,” he said finally. “But I know it’s true just the same.”
    “It’s also true that a man who fights himself can’t win.”
    Silently the stranger absorbed that unhappy truth.
    “If you are meant to remember,” Amber said, “you will.”
    “And if I’m not?” he asked starkly. “Will I go through the rest of my life a man with no name?”
    His words were too close to the bleak prophecy that had haunted Amber’s life.
    “Nay!” she cried. “I will give you a name. I will call you— Duncan .”
    The echoes of the name beat at Amber, horrifying her. She hadn’t meant to say that name. She truly hadn’t.
    He can’t be Duncan of Maxwell. I refuse to believe it. Better that he remain forever a man with no name !
    But it was too late. She had given him a name.
    Duncan.
    Breath held, her hands clenched around one ofhis, Amber waited for Duncan’s response.
    There was a distant sense of straining, of shifting, of focusing, of…
    Then it was gone, fading like an echo heard for the third time.
    “Duncan?” he asked. “Is that my name?”
    “I don’t know,” Amber said unhappily. “But the name suits you. It means ‘dark warrior.’”
    His eyes narrowed.
    “Your body bears the marks of battle,” Amber said, touching the scars on his chest, “and your hair is a most pleasing shade of darkness.”
    The light caress of her fingers lured and beguiled Duncan, encouraging him to accept his strange awakening into a world both familiar and forever changed.
    And whether it was strange or familiar, Duncan was too spent to fight anymore. The long climb up from darkness had sapped even his great strength.
    “Promise you won’t bind me if I sleep again,” he said huskily.
    “I promise.”
    Duncan looked at the intent, intense maid who was watching him with such concern. Questions crowded his thoughts, too many questions to sort out.
    Too many which had no answer.
    He might not remember the details of his life before he had awakened, but he hadn’t forgotten everything. At some time in the past he had learned that a frontal attack wasn’t always the best way to take a fortified position.
    And in any case, at the moment he hadn’t the strength to attack a butterfly. Every time he gathered himself to fight, the pain in his head all but blinded him.
    “Rest for a bit,” Amber said encouragingly. “I’ll make some tea to ease the pain in your head.”
    “How did you know?”
    Amber reached for the fallen covers without answering. Her unbound hair fell over Duncan and was drawn beneath the covers as she pulled them up. With an impatient sound, she swept the long mass back over her shoulders, only to have a handful escape once more.
    “You hair is like amber,” Duncan said, stroking a soft lock. “Smooth and precious.”
    “That is my name.”
    “Precious?” he asked, smiling slowly.
    Amber’s breath caught. Duncan had a smile to melt sleet and call meadowlarks from a midnight sky.
    “No,” she said with a soft laugh, shaking her head. “My name is Amber.”
    “Amber…”
    Duncan looked from her long hair to her luminous golden eyes.
    “Yes,” he said. “Precious Amber.”
    Duncan released the silky strand of hair, stroked her wrist, and let his hand settle onto the thick fur cover.
    The lack of Duncan’s touch was like having a fire go out. Amber had to swallow a sound of protest.
    “So I am Duncan and you are Amber,” he said after a few moments. “For now…”
    “Yes,” she whispered.
    Desperately Amber wished that she had called Duncan by any other name.
    Yet at the same time she knew she couldn’t have withheld what she feared could be his true name. She, called simply Amber, knew only too well the hole in the center of life that came from having no name, no real heritage.
    Perhaps it is simply my fears playing upon me, drawing shadow monsters upon an empty wall .
    Do I fear that he is Duncan of Maxwell simply because I want so much for him to be someone else ?
    Anyone else .
    “Where am I?” Duncan asked.
    “In my cottage.”
    He glanced around, seeing beyond Amber to the large room. There was a central fire burning cheerfully as smoke was drawn to the hole at the peak of the thatched roof. Something savory cooked in the small cauldron suspended from a trivet over the fire. The walls had been limed to whiteness and the floor was covered with clean rushes. Shuttered windows were set in three walls. In the fourth was a door.
    Thoughtfully Duncan fingered the