Medieval 03 - Enchanted

after a few moments.
    “She did. For a time.”
    Dominic hid his surprise. He had always wondered
just how deeply Simon had succumbed to Marie’s practiced
lures.
    “She tried to bewitch you, too,” Simon
pointed out.
    Dominic nodded.
    “You saw through her cold game sooner than
I,” Simon said.
    “I am four years older than you. Marie
wasn’t my first woman.”
    Simon snorted. “She wasn’t my first,
either.”
    “The others were girls with less experience
than you. Marie was…” Dominic shrugged. “Marie
was trained in a seraglio for the pleasure of a corrupt
despot.”
    “She could have been trained by Lilith in
hell and it would all be the same. Marie cannot stir me
anymore.”
    “Aye,” Dominic said. “I watched
her try the whole journey from Jerusalem to Blackthorne Keep. You
were polite, but you would handle a snake sooner than her.
Why?”
    Simon’s expression changed. “Did you
send for me to talk about whores, lord ?”
    After the space of a breath Dominic accepted that
he would get no more from Simon on the subject of Marie.
    “Nay,” Dominic said. “I wanted to
ask in private about your coming marriage.”
    “Has Ariane objected?” Simon demanded
sharply.
    Black eyebrows shot up, but all Dominic said was,
“No.”
    Simon expelled a pent breath.
“Excellent.”
    “Is it? Lady Ariane has little taste for
marriage.”
    “Blackthorne can’t survive a war over a
Norman heiress who was jilted by a nameless Scots warrior,”
Simon said bluntly. “Ariane will be my wife before the moon
sets tonight.”
    “I am reluctant to give you over to such a
cold union,” Dominic said.
    Faint amusement showed on Simon’s face. With
a speed and skill that had unnerved more than one enemy, he drew
his belt dagger and casually speared a piece of cold meat. Strong
white teeth sank into the venison and chewed.
    An instant later the tip of the dagger flicked out
like a snake’s tongue. A brief movement of Simon’s
wrist flipped the slice of meat toward Dominic, who caught it
deftly.
    “Your marriage was little warmer, at
first,” Simon pointed out as his brother ate the venison.
    Dominic smiled slightly.
    “My small falcon was a worthy
adversary,” he agreed.
    Simon laughed. “She fair ran you ragged,
brother. She still does. I’ll settle for less passion and
more ease in my marriage.”
    The Glendruid Wolf’s silver-grey eyes weighed
Simon for a time. Beyond the stone walls, an early winter wind
howled around the keep so fiercely that heavy draperies
stirred.
    The room was luxuriously furnished, having been
designed for the lady of Stone Ring Keep. Now it was serving as
temporary quarters for Dominic and Meg, Lord and Lady of
Blackthorne Keep. But even the stout stone walls, thick draperies,
and slit windows could not wholly turn aside the ice-tipped talons
of an unseasonable storm.
    “You are a passionate man,” Dominic
said simply.
    The quality of Simon’s eyes changed from
clear blackto something deeper, more distant,
night in a sky that held neither stars nor moon.
    “Boys are controlled by passion,” Simon
said distinctly. “Men are not.”
    “Aye. Yet men are passionate all the
same.”
    “There is a point to this catechism, I
presume.”
    Dominic’s mouth turned down at one corner.
Though he was Simon’s older brother and his lord, Simon had
little patience for advice. Yet a more loyal knight had never
lived. Dominic was as certain of that as he was of his wife’s
love.
    “I have discovered,” Dominic said,
“that a passionate marriage is a pearl beyond
price.”
    Simon grunted and said nothing.
    “You disagree?” Dominic asked.
    The impatience in Simon’s shrug was repeated
in the flat line of his mouth.
    “Whether I agree or disagree matters not one
bit,” Simon said.
    “When you rescued me from that sultan’s
hell—”
    “ After you gave
yourself to the sultan as ransom for me and eleven other
knights,” cut in Simon.
    “—I came out of it a lesser man,”

Dominic said, ignoring his brother’s interruption.
    “Truly?” Simon asked in a biting tone.
“The few Saracens who survived your sword afterward must have
been relieved.”
    Dominic’s mouth shifted into a smile that was
every bit as hard as his brother’s.
    “I wasn’t discussing my fighting
skills,” Dominic said.
    “Excellent. For a time I feared that your
sweet witch-wife had addled your brain.”
    “I was discussing my lack of
passion.”
    Again, Simon shrugged. “The whore Marie