6
CLOUDS separated, allowing pale gold sunlight to stream over the rain-drenched land. The green of grass and trees became incandescent. Pale stone gleamed like pearl. Bark was an ebony richness. Water drops gathered on every surface, making the land shimmer as though with secret laughter.
Amber shared none of the land’s hidden amusement. She had felt Duncan’s memories twitch and shiver, a dragon awakening deep within his shadows.
“Who is the fourth man?” she asked Erik.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Find out.”
The sharp demand in Amber’s voice surprised Erik. What surprised Duncan was the feel of her nails digging into his wrist.
“Is something amiss?” Erik asked.
Belatedly Amber realized what she had done. If the fourth man was indeed from Duncan’s past—and if Duncan was indeed the enemy she feared—she had put him in danger with her incautious demand.
“No,” Amber said, making certain that her voice was calm. “I’m simply wary of new warriors in the Disputed Lands.”
“So is Alfred,” Erik said dryly.
Amber’s smile was a brief shadow of her usual one, but only Duncan noticed.
Only he knew of her nails biting into his flesh.
“Who is Alfred?” Duncan asked.
“One of my best knights. He is the one on the white stallion, next to the stranger.”
“Alfred,” Duncan said, memorizing the man.
“Alfred the Sly,” Amber corrected.
“You’ve never forgiven him for calling you a sorceress,” Erik said wryly.
“He had the Church believing him.”
Erik shrugged. “The priest was a fat old fool.”
“That ‘fat old fool’ laid hands on me.”
Erik turned toward Amber so quickly that his horse started in alarm.
“What are you saying?” he demanded.
“The priest sought an alliance with the devil through carnal knowledge of me,” Amber said. “When I refused him, he tried to take by force what I wouldn’t give.”
“God’s teeth,” Duncan hissed.
Erik was too shocked to speak. Abruptly his features flattened beneath his beard, pulling his mouth into a thin line.
“I will hang that cursed priest where I find him,” Erik vowed softly.
Amber’s smile was chilling. “You won’t find him this side of Judgement Day.”
“What do you mean?”
“Several years past, the priest went to the Stone Ring with darkness in his mind. Lightning came. When it left, it took the priest to the very hell that so fascinated him. Or so Cassandra tells me…”
“Ah. Cassandra. A very wise woman indeed,” Erik said, smiling like a wolf.
“The priest,” Duncan said harshly to Amber. “He didn’t harm you?”
“I used the dagger Erik gave me.”
Duncan remembered the silver dagger she had used to cut his own bonds.
“I wasn’t wrong to be wary of you, was I?” he asked dryly.
Amber smiled at Duncan, a smile as warm as her other one had been cold.
“I would never harm you, Duncan. It would be like harming myself.”
“But I,” Erik cut in, “have no such problem. I will most certainly ‘harm’ any man who forces himself on Amber.”
Duncan looked past Amber to the cold wolf’s eyes of the young lord.
“You will note, Sir Erik, who is holding and who is being held,” Duncan said flatly.
Amber looked at her own hand, her fingers clenched on Duncan’s wrist, her nails biting into his hard flesh.
“I’m sorry,” she said, snatching her hand back.
“Precious Amber,” Duncan murmured.
He held out his hand, smiling. Without hesitation, she put her fingers in his.
“You could stick silver daggers into me,” Duncan said, “and I would ask only for more of your sweet touch.”
Amber laughed and colored, ignoring Erik’s look of concern and the disbelief on the faces of three of the four knights whose horses were trotting closer.
“Do you understand, now?” Duncan asked Erik.
There was a challenge in Duncan’s voice that Erik could not mistake.
“You have no claims of family or clan or duty on Amber, nor any intent other than to see that she is protected,” Duncan continued. “When my memory returns, I will claim the right to woo Amber for my wife.”
“What if your memory doesn’t return?” Erik asked.
“It must.”
“Really? Why?”
“Until I know what obligations I carry from my past, I can’t make new vows. And I find that I must.”
“Why?”
“Amber,” Duncan said simply. “I must have her. Yet I should not offer marriage until I know myself.”
“Amber?” Erik asked, turning toward her.
“I have always been Duncan’s. I always will be.”
Erik closed his eyes for an instant. When they opened, they were clear and cold.
“What of Cassandra’s warning?” he asked gently.
“There are three conditions. Only one has been met. Only one will be met.”
“You sound very certain.”
“I am.”
Amber smiled with a bittersweet beauty that was haunting. She knew that Duncan wouldn’t take her unless he remembered his past.
And if he did remember, she was afraid he wouldn’t have her at all.
Enemy and soul mate.
“I wonder if prophecies can be so neatly divided and thereby neutralized,” Erik muttered. “Or if it even matters.”
“You speak in circles,” Amber said.
“Both of you,” said Duncan.
The other two ignored him.
“Death always flows,” Erik said. “Rich life is always a possibility. Remember that, Amber, when you are offered a choice between a rock and a hard place.”
With that enigmatic advice, Erik turned away to face the knights who were riding up alongside him.
Silently Duncan watched while greetings were exchanged among Sir Erik’s knights. Three of the men he looked at briefly but without great curiosity.
The fourth man was different. Duncan stared at him intently, feeling almost certain that he had met the knight before. Almost certain, but not quite.
He would have questioned the knight, but a stark sense of danger sealed Duncan’s lips. It was the second time since the Holy Land that Duncan had felt such a warning deep within himself.
Duncan couldn’t remember what the other time had been, but he knew that it had occurred.
If the fourth knight recognized Duncan, he didn’t show it. In fact, other than an incisive glance from eyes like black crystal, the knight had shown little interest in Duncan at all.
Duncan couldn’t say the same. He kept staring at the knight’s features half revealed beneath his helm. The blond hair and high, sharply carved cheekbones plucked at chords of memories within Duncan.
Candles and voices chanting.
A sword unsheathed.
No, not a sword. Something else.
Something living.
A man?
Duncan shook his head fiercely, willing memory to stay rather than to slip back among the shadows.
Green flames.
No, not flames.
Eyes!
Eyes as green as spring itself. Eyes burning with a thousand years of Glendruid hope.
And other eyes as well. A man’s eyes.
Eyes black as midnight in hell.
A knife blade cold between my thighs.
A chill coursed through Duncan. It was a memory he could have died happy without ever recalling—the instant he had felt an enemy’s knife blade slide cold between his thighs, threatening to castrate him if he so much as twitched.
Duncan’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the fourth knight. The man had eyes as black as midnight in hell.
Was he once my enemy?
Is he my enemy still?
Wary, motionless, Duncan strained to hear whatever message the shadows would grudgingly yield. Nothing came to him but two conflicting certainties.
He is not my enemy.
He is dangerous to me.
Slowly Duncan straightened in his saddle, forcing himself to look away from the unknown knight. As Duncan moved, he realized that he was holding on to Amber’s hand as though to a sword on the brink of battle.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that went no farther than her ears. “I’ve crushed your fingers.”
“I’m not hurt,” she whispered unsteadily.
“You’re pale.”
Amber didn’t know how to tell Duncan that it was the stirring of his memories rather than his harsh grip on her hand that was causing her pain. Her thoughts beat as frantically as birds caught in a hunter’s net.
Not now!
Not with so many knights nearby. If Duncan is the enemy I fear, he will be killed before my very eyes.
And then I shall go mad.
Just before Duncan released Amber, he lifted her hand to his mouth. When his breath and mustache brushed over her sensitive fingers, it gave her a pleasure so great that she trembled.
Amber didn’t know that color returned to her face in a rush and that her eyes suddenly burned like candle flames caught within transparent golden gems. Nor did she realize that she leaned toward Duncan with unconscious longing as soon as his touch left her skin.
The fourth knight noticed everything and felt as though someone had slid a knife blade between his legs. Never would he have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.
Long, powerful fingers flexed around the pommel of his sword while black eyes measured Duncan for a shroud.
“I’ve found two warriors for you, lord,” Alfred said. “He and his squire are on a quest, but he is willing to stay and fight outlaws for a time.”
Erik looked at the fourth knight.
“Two?” Erik said. “I see only one, though God knows he’s big enough for two. How are you called?”
“Simon.”
“Simon…I have two men-at-arms with that name.”
Simon nodded. It was hardly an uncommon name.
“Who was your last lord?” Erik asked.
“Robert.”
“There are many Roberts.”
“Aye.”
Erik turned to Alfred. The knight’s features were as blunt as a fist, but he was a fine man in a fight.
“Not much for talk, is he?” Erik asked Alfred dryly. “Has he taken a vow?”
“He is talkative enough with that black sword he wears,” Alfred said. “He had Donald and Malcolm on their backs before they knew what happened.”
Erik turned back to Simon.
“Impressive,” Erik said. “Have you been blooded?”
“Aye.”
“Where?”
“In the Holy War.”
Erik nodded, unsurprised. “There is a Saracen look to your blade.”
“It drinks outlaw blood as readily as Turkish,” Simon said calmly.
Erik smiled. “And Norse?”
“The blade cares not.”
“Well, we have outlaws in plenty.”
“You have three less than formerly.”
Tawny eyebrows lifted in a combination of amusement and surprise.
“When?” Erik asked.
“Two days past.”
“Where?”
“Near a lightning-struck tree and a stream coming from a cleft in the mountainside,” Simon said.
“’Tis the boundary of Lord Robert’s lands,” Erik said.