Page 17 of Forbidden

“Are we related by blood?”

“Nay,” she said instantly.

“Thank God.”

Amber looked startled.

“Is Cassandra one of those whom you call Learned?” Duncan asked, changing the subject before Amber could pursue it.

“Yes.”

“Is that a tribe or a clan or a priesthood?”

At first Amber wondered if Duncan were toying with her. Any man who was found inside the Stone Ring asleep at the foot of the sacred rowan was certainly one of the Learned!

The thought was like a balm. She had heard many things about Duncan of Maxwell, the Scots Hammer, but never had it been so much as hinted that he was one of the Learned.

Whatever or whomever the stranger she had named Duncan had once been, he was now a different man, riven from past Learning by a bolt of lightning.

Frowning, Amber tried to find the words to describe her relationship with Cassandra and Erik and the few other Learned whom she had met. She didn’t want Duncan to look at her with superstition or fear, as some of the simple folk did.

“Many Learned are related by blood, but not all,” Amber said slowly. “It is a kind of discipline, like a school, but all those who attempt to learn aren’t equally apt.”

“Like hounds or horses or knights?” Duncan asked after a time.

She looked puzzled.

“Some are always better than others at what they do,” he said simply. “A few, a very few, are far better than any.”

“Yes,” Amber said, relieved that Duncan understood. “Those who can’t be taught say that those who can learn are cursed or blessed. Usually cursed.”

Duncan smiled wryly.

“But we aren’t,” she said. “We are simply what God made us to be. Different.”

“Aye. I have met a few people like that. Different.”

Absently, Duncan flexed his right hand as though to grasp a sword. It was a movement made without forethought, as much a part of him as breathing. He didn’t even notice the act.

Amber did.

She remembered what she had heard about the Scots Hammer, a warrior who had been defeated in battle only once, and that by the hated Norman usurper, Dominic le Sabre. In exchange for his own life, Duncan had sworn fealty to the enemy.

It was rumored that Dominic had defeated Duncan with the help of his Glendruid witch-wife.

Amber remembered the face she had glimpsed through Duncan’s thick veil of forgetfulness—hair of flame and eyes of an unusually intense green.

Glendruid green.

Dear God, could he be Dominic le Sabre, Erik’s sworn enemy?

Staring at Duncan’s eyes, Amber tried to see them as gray, but honestly could not. Green, perhaps. Or blue. Or brown. But not gray.

Amber let out a long sigh and prayed she wasn’t deluding herself.

“Where did you meet these unusual men?” she asked. “Or were they women?”

Duncan opened his mouth, but no words came. He grimaced at the fresh evidence of his lack of memory.