Forbidden Read online

  “He has something.”

  “What?”

  “The pendant. Do you recognize it?”

  Amber shook her head, making her hair burn as though it were the sun itself.

  “Have you ever seen or heard of its like?” he persisted.

  “Nay.”

  Erik let out an explosive sigh that was also a curse.

  “Perhaps Cassandra?” Amber offered.

  “Doubtful.”

  The room seemed cold despite the cheerful fire, for Amber felt the jaws of a trap both delicate and insatiable closing around her.

  Erik had come to her as he had many times before, seeking the truth about a man who could not or would not speak the truth for himself. In the past, Amber had learned what she could in whatever way she could.

  Even touching.

  The pain of touching was a small repayment to the son of the great lord who had been so generous to her. Touching hadn’t frightened Amber before.

  Yet she was frightened now.

  The prophecy that had attended her birth quivered in the room like a bowstring just released…and Amber feared the death that would be launched on the invisible, deadly arrow.

  But at the same time, a need to touch the stranger was growing inside her, pressing at her, barely leaving her room to breathe. She needed to know him as she had never needed to know anything, even her own true name, her own lost parents, her own hidden heritage.

  The ravenous need frightened Amber most of all. The stranger called to her in his silence, sung to her in a voice unheard, compelled her in a way she could not deny.

  “Cassandra knows more than both of us together,” Amber said tightly. “We must wait for her.”

  “At your birth, Cassandra named you Amber. Do you think it was a whim?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You were born to things amber in a way that Cassandra recognized but could not hope to equal.”

  Amber looked away from Erik’s intent eyes.

  “Do you deny that this stranger wears your sign?” Erik demanded.

  Amber said nothing.

  “God’s blood,” Erik muttered, “why are you being so difficult?”

  “God’s blood, why are you being so dense!”

  Shocked by Amber’s unaccustomed anger, he simply stared at her.

  “Do you know this man’s name?” she demanded.

  “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to—”

  “Have you forgotten Cassandra’s prophecy?” Amber interrupted.

  “Which one?” he retorted. “Cassandra sheds bits of prophecy like an oak sheds leaves hard kissed by frost.”

  “Spoken like a man who has never seen beyond his own hands.”

  “The sword master praised the length of my reach,” Erik countered, smiling thinly.

  Amber made a frustrated sound. “Arguing with you is like wrestling shadows.”

  “Cassandra used to mention that even more often than she mentioned casting pearls before swine. Her wisdom, my swine, of course.”

  For once Amber wasn’t swayed by Erik’s quick wit and wry tongue.

  “Hear me,” she said urgently. “Listen to what Cassandra saw for me at my birth.”

  “I’ve heard what—”

  But Amber was already speaking, words tumbling out, retelling the prophecy that had been born with her, casting a shadow across her life.

  “’A man with no name may you claim, heart and body and soul. Then rich life might grow, but death will surely flow.

  “’In shades of darkness he will come to you. If you touch him, you will know life that might or death that will.

  “’Be therefore as sunlight, hidden in amber, untouched by man, not touching.

  “‘Forbidden.’”

  Erik glanced broodingly at the stranger and then at the girl who was indeed like sunlight captured within amber, colors of golden brightness defined by a single dark truth: simple touch could cause her great pain.

  Yet he was going to ask her to touch the stranger. He had no choice.

  “I’m sorry,” Erik said, “but if spies of Dominic le Sabre or the Scots Hammer are abroad in Stone Ring Keep’s land, I must know it.”

  Slowly Amber nodded.

  “But most of all, I must know where the Scots Hammer himself is,” Erik continued. “The sooner Duncan of Maxwell is dead, the safer Lord Robert’s holdings in the Disputed Lands will be.”

  Again Amber nodded, yet she made no move to touch the man who lay senseless at her feet.

  “No man gets to this stranger’s age without having a name of some sort,” Erik said reasonably. “Even slaves, serfs, and villeins have names. ’Tis foolish to fear Cassandra’s prophecy.”

  The pendant on Amber’s palm burned like trapped flames. She stared at it, yet saw only what she had seen before. Sacred ring. Sacred rowan.

  Shades of darkness.

  “So be it,” Amber whispered.

  Clenching her teeth against the pain to come, she sank to her knees by the fire and laid her palm against the stranger’s cheek.

  The pleasure was so sharp Amber cried out and snatched her hand back. Then, realizing what she had done, she slowly reached for the stranger again.

  Involuntarily, Erik moved as though to protect Amber from more pain. Then he controlled himself and stood watching, his mouth flattened into a thin line beneath his short, tawny beard. He disliked causing Amber any discomfort, but he disliked the thought of killing a stranger needlessly even more.

  The second time Amber’s hand touched the stranger, she didn’t flinch. With a soft sound she settled more closely to him. Closing her eyes, shutting out the rest of the world, she savored the purest pleasure she had ever known.

  It was like being suspended in a pool of sweet fire, caressed by warmth, knowing the heart of light.

  And beyond the golden warmth of the pool, knowledge lay in shades of darkness.

  Waiting.

  Amber gave a low cry. She could think of few men who would have such a certainty of their own prowess in battle. Dominic le Sabre and Duncan of Maxwell! were two. A third was Erik.

  A great warrior lies beneath my hand, light and darkness, pleasure and pain, soul mate and deadly foe in one.

  “Amber.”

  Slowly she opened her eyes. The look on Erik’s face told her that he had called to her more than once. Intent, tawny eyes watched her. His concern for her was tangible, and warming. She forced a smile despite the turmoil seething beneath her calm surface.

  She owed Erik so much. His father had given her clothes, the cottage, men to work the land, and land for men to work. Erik trusted her as though she were a clansman rather than a waif with neither parent nor sibling to call her own.

  And she knew she was going to betray Erik’s trust for a stranger who might well prove to be Erik’s foe.

  Having touched the stranger, Amber could not deliver him to death at Erik’s hands. Not until she was certain that the man was whom she feared.

  Perhaps not even then.

  He could simply be a stranger, known to no one.

  The thought was as seductive as a hearth fire on a winter day.

  Aye! A stranger. Other knights have come to the Disputed Lands. I have heard their tales of being tested in the Saracen crucible. They were confident of their own might.

  This man could be such a warrior.

  He must be.

  “Amber?”

  “Leave him here,” she said huskily. “He belongs to me.”

  The temptation to continue touching the stranger was very great. Reluctantly she withdrew her hand. The emptiness she felt at the loss of touch dismayed her. Until that instant she wouldn’t have described herself as lonely.

  Erik let out a long, relieved sigh as he realized that touching the stranger had unsettled Amber, but hadn’t caused her true pain.

  “God must be listening to my prayers,” Erik said.

  Amber made a questioning sound.

  “I need skilled warrio
rs,” Erik said. “The Scots Hammer is only the first problem I must face.”

  “What else?” Amber asked, concerned.

  “Norsemen have been seen just north of Winterlance. And my dear cousins grow restless once again.”

  “Send them to fight the Norsemen.”

  “More likely, they would ally themselves and attack my father’s estates,” Erik said, smiling thinly.

  Amber forced herself not to look at the stranger. Having a warrior such as Dominic le Sabre or the Scots Hammer fighting with Erik rather than against him could easily make the difference between peace and prolonged war for the Disputed Lands.

  Yet she could as well wish to pour sunlight from hand to hand like water as wish the great Norman lord or his Scots vassal to ally with Lord Robert of the North.

  “What is my new warrior’s name?” Erik asked.

  “I’ll ask him when he wakens,” Amber said.

  “Why did he come to the Disputed Lands?”

  “That will be the second thing I ask him.”

  “Where was he going?” Erik asked.

  “That will be the third.”

  Erik grunted. “You didn’t learn much when you touched him, did you?”

  “No.”

  “The stranger’s sleep isn’t natural.”

  Amber nodded.

  “Is he spellbound?” Erik pressed.

  “No.”

  Erik’s eyebrows rose at the quickness of her response.

  “You sound quite certain,” he said.

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  Frowning, Amber probed her memory. The certainties that had flowed from the stranger into her were unlike any she had ever discovered by touch in the past. His basic nature—fierce, proud, generous, passionate, determined, bold—had been frighteningly easy to discover.

  Yet there were no shifting, chaotic images of the hours or days or weeks or years before he came to the Stone Ring and the sacred rowan. There was no bright sense of purpose stitching like lightning through darkness. There were no faces beloved or hated.

  It was as though the stranger had no memories.

  Without realizing it, Amber reached out to the man again. She willed herself to ignore the pleasure as she once had taught herself to ignore pain. Peeling away petal after petal of beguiling sensation, she searched for the stranger’s memories.

  There were none. There were only faint, fading glimmers of light that retreated even as she pursued.

  The man was as though newly born.

  “I don’t sense anything corrupt gnawing away inside him,” she said finally. “It is like touching a babe.”

  Erik snorted. “A babe? God blind me, but he is the biggest babe I’ve ever seen!”

  Amber withdrew her hand.

  “What else can you tell me?” Erik asked.

  She laced her fingers together so tightly that they ached. She didn’t want to share her fears with Erik, yet his questions were circling closer and closer to the core of her unease, a fear she acknowledged each time she denied it.

  Great warrior, deadly enemy, and soul mate in one.

  Nay! I don’t know who he is!

  I know only that he is a man with no name who is supremely confident of his own fighting skills.

  “Normally you ask the question, the person I’m touching answers, and my touch tells me if the truth was spoken,” Amber said slowly. “This time was…different.”

  Erik looked from the senseless stranger to Amber, who seemed almost a stranger herself at the moment.

  “Are you well?” he asked softly.

  She jumped. “Aye.”

  “You seem dazed.”

  A smile was difficult to manage, but Amber did.

  “’Tis the touching,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. God sends us nothing that we can’t endure.”

  “Or die trying,” Erik said dryly.

  Amber’s smile slipped as the words of the prophecy rang once again in her mind.

  Death will surely flow.

  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.