2
THE smell of timeless evergreens permeated Amber’s cottage. Candles flickered in holders above the bed. They cast a shivering golden light over the man with no name. A man who lay captive in a sleep that had no dreams.
Amber was certain he wasn’t dreaming, for she had spent the past two days rubbing precious oils and warmth into his body. During that time she had sensed nothing new. Nor had the pleasure that came with touching him changed. It was as keen now as it had been the first time.
As Amber worked, she spoke to the stranger, trying to reach him with words as well as with the warmth of her touch and the pungent, healing power of evergreen and amber.
“My dark warrior,” Amber murmured as she had many times before. “How did you come to the Stone Ring?”
Her hands massaged first one powerful arm, then the other, shaping muscles that were firm even in relaxation.
The dark hair on his forearms gleamed with oil and candlelight.
The sight of the strong cords binding him to the bed frame made her frown.
She touched one of the cords and sighed, but didn’t remove it.
Erik had said the stranger was to be bound or else one of Erik’s squires would be with Amber at all times. She had chosen the bonds, for she wanted no one else around if the man woke up and was discovered to be the enemy she feared.
Amber didn’t know what she would do if that happened. It was a thing she refused to think about, for there was no solution to the dilemma it would cause.
Enemy and soul mate in one.
“Were you afoot?” Amber asked. “Were you alone?”
There was no answer but the rhythmic rise and fall of the stranger’s broad chest.
“Are your eyes the gray of ice and winter, the gray of Dominic le Sabre’s? Or are your eyes darker, as the Scots Hammer’s are reputed to be?
“Or are you a third warrior, unknown, come back from the Saracen full of certainty of your own ability?”
There was no change in the stranger’s deep, even breathing.
“I pray you are unknown,” Amber whispered.
With a sigh, she resumed stroking the patterns of hair across the man’s chest. The masculine hair both intrigued and pleased her. She liked smoothing the crisp mat, feeling its resilience and tickling caress over her palms.
“Did you take off your clothes so that you could enter the sacred circle and sleep safely at the rowan’s feet?”
The man made a murmurous sound.
“Yes,” Amber said eagerly. “Oh, yes, my warrior. Come to the golden light. Leave all the shades of darkness behind.”
Though the man made no response, Amber was elated. Slowly, slowly, he was emerging from his unnatural sleep. She sensed his pleasure in being stroked and petted as clearly as if he could speak.
Yet still no memories came from him to her, no images, no names, no faces.
“Where are you hiding, my dark warrior?” she asked. “And why?”
Amber smoothed thick, slightly wavy hair back from the stranger’s forehead.
“Whatever you fear, you must awaken soon. Else you will be lost forever in a darkness that won’t end short of death.”
The stranger made no sound. It was as though she had imagined the brief stirring.
Straightening wearily, Amber looked at the incense bowl that was set like a candle holder into the wall. The teardrop-shaped bit of gemstone was almost consumed. She added another precious fragment from her store of medicinal amber. A tendril of thin, fragrant smoke curled upward.
The stranger’s body twitched but he didn’t awaken. Amber was beginning to fear he wouldn’t. Too often that was what happened to people who were struck by stone or broadsword or horse’s hoof. They fell into dreamless sleep. Nor did they awaken. Ever.
That can’t happen to this man. He is mine!
The intensity of Amber’s feelings startled her. Uneasily, she began pacing the cottage. After a time she realized that dawn was sending tiny lances of light between the cottage’s shutters. Beyond the walls, cocks crowed their triumph into the dying night.
Amber peeked through a crack where the shutters didn’t quite meet. The autumn storm that had been the stranger’s undoing had passed over the land. In its wake lay a world newly made, glittering with dew and possibilities.
Normally Amber would have been up and about in the garden, checking on the herbs she grew for Cassandra and herself. Or she would walk to the fens to see if flights of plump geese had arrived, bringing with them the certainty of the coming winter.
But there was nothing normal about today. There had been nothing normal since the instant Amber had touched a man with no name and discovered that she had been born to be this one man’s mate.
She went to the bed and rested her fingers lightly on his cheek. He was still in the coils of unnatural sleep.
“But not so deeply, I think. Something is changing.”
The cocks outside no longer crowed, telling Amber that the sun was lifting to its accustomed rounds.
“If you do awaken, I’ll scare you back to sleep with my appearance,” she said. “I must look as bedraggled as a winter garden.”
Amber refreshed herself with a basin of warm water and evergreen-scented soap. She put on a clean linen shift, tugged bright red stockings into place, and pulled a dress of thick, soft wool over her head.
The dress was another gift of Lord Robert, through his son, Erik, in thanks for the fine, dried herbs Amber supplied to Robert’s household.
The gold embroidery around the front neck opening made a rich contrast to the indigo color of the wool itself.
The dress was lined with yellow linen, which showed inside the long, trailing sleeves and at the hem of the dress.
When she was finished dressing, the soft cloth clung to the curving lines of her breasts and waist and hips. She caught the wide hem of the sleeves and bound them with ribbons around her wrists where the cloth would be out of her way.
With flying fingers she wrapped a triple strand of gold-painted leather around her hips and tied the belt in front.
At the end of each of the six leather strands, opaque rings of amber glowed in shades of gold.
A sheath of gilded leather hung securely from her waist. Within the sheath lay a silver dagger whose hilt held a single eye of blood-red amber.
Grabbing a comb made of rowan wood set with orange amber, she hurried over to the stranger’s bed. A brief touch told her that he was still swimming like a trout beneath the surface of unnatural sleep. And like a trout, he was struggling to rise toward the gleaming lure of the sun.
Amber shook him lightly. There was no response other than a muttering that had no meaning. She stood next to the bed and combed tangles from her long golden hair while she watched him anxiously.
“You are closer to the sunlight with each heart-beat,” she said hopefully. “Please awaken and tell me your name.”
His head turned restlessly and a hand twitched. Amber touched him but discovered nothing new.
Amber felt as restless as the stranger’s sleep. Pacing, combing her hair, pacing again, she finally cracked the shutters just beyond the bed and looked out. No one was coming up the path from Stone Ring Keep to her secluded cottage.
She pushed the shutters a bit apart and began braiding her hair, ignoring the bracing rush of air into the room. Her fingers were clumsy with impatience and anxiety. The comb slipped and fell onto the rush-covered floor next to the bed. She slammed the shutter closed.
“What a bother my hair is,” Amber muttered.
As she bent down to retrieve the comb, her hair fell across the stranger’s bound right hand. Long, powerful fingers clenched in her hair, holding her captive.
Amber froze, then stared into piercing hazel eyes that were only a few inches from her own.
Not gray. Thank God, not the gray of Dominic le Sabre’s! I haven’t lost my heart to a man who is already wed.
“Who are you?” demanded a deep male voice.
“You have your wits! You have slept for two days and I feared—”
“Two?” he interrupted.
“Don’t you remember?” Amber asked softly, stroking the hand whose fingers were wrapped in her hair. “There was a storm.”
She waited hopefully.
“I remember nothing,” he said.
Amber didn’t doubt it. All that came to her from touching the stranger was the depth of his confusion.
“I—remember—nothing!” the stranger said violently. “By God’s holy blood, what has happened to me?”
There was fear as well as confusion in his voice. He tried to get up, only to realize that he was bound hand and foot. He could move his fingers and his head, but no more. He was so surprised that he released his grip on Amber’s hair and began straining at the cords binding his right arm.
His sword arm.
“’Tis all right,” Amber said, reaching for his hand.
“I’m bound! Am I a prisoner?”
“Nay, it’s just—”
“What in the name of Jesus and Mary is going on!”
She touched the stranger’s clenched hand. She sensed fury at being bound, turmoil at lack of memory, fear at his own helplessness; but nowhere did she sense any desire to hurt her.
“I wish you no harm,” Amber said soothingly. “You’ve been ill and out of your senses.”
She might as well have been talking to the wind. The man’s muscles bunched as he fought against his bonds. The wooden supports of the bed creaked and cords bit into his flesh, but none of the bonds gave way.
A feral snarl rippled from his throat. His body bucked and covers flew off as he struggled to free himself. Cords cut into flesh until blood flowed. He kept fighting.
“Nay,” Amber said urgently. “Stop!”
She threw herself across the stranger’s body and hung on to him as though he were an unruly horse, trying to hold him still so that he wouldn’t hurt himself any more.
The shock of being surrounded by a soft, fragrant woman and a wild fall of golden hair was so startling that the man stopped struggling for an instant.
It was all Amber needed. She brushed a kiss across his naked chest, further shocking him into stillness. Then she touched his lips with her fingers as though to stop his cries.
“Lie still, my dark warrior. I will free you.”