Page 51 of Forbidden

“Aye. It is in your keep’s armory.” Simon smiled oddly. “It was that which made me stay.”

“The armory? How so?”

“I wanted to know more about a lord who builds a secure well, barracks, and armory before he builds quarters for his own comfort.”

“Your accent tells me you spent time in the Norman lands,” Erik said after a moment.

“’Tis hard not to. They rule so much.”

Erik grimaced. “Too much. Why did you leave?”

“The continent is too settled. There is nothing for a landless knight to do but hone his sword and dream of better days.”

Laughing, Erik turned to Alfred and nodded his acceptance of Simon.

“What of the other man?” Erik asked.

“The Norseman is tracking outlaws,” Alfred replied.

“A Norseman?”

“He looks it, though he speaks out language. Pale as a ghost. Called Sven. Fights like a ghost, too. Never seen a man so hard to pin down, except maybe you.”

“He canbea ghost for all of me,” Erik retorted, “so long as he haunts outlaws rather than my vassals.”

Alfred laughed and then nodded toward Duncan.

“I see that I’m not the only one who went fishing for warriors and came up with a prize.”

A glance at Duncan was Erik’s only response. Then he looked at Amber. Though he said nothing, she knew him well enough to understand that she wasn’t to argue with whatever might happen next.

“He is an unusual man,” Erik said calmly. “Almost a fortnight ago, I found him near Stone Ring.”

A murmuring went through the knights, followed by a flurry of movement as they crossed themselves.

“He was sick unto death,” Erik continued. “I took him to Amber. She healed him, but not without cost. He remembers nothing of his life before he came to the Disputed Lands.”

Erik paused, then said distinctly, “Not even his name.”

Simon’s eyes became measuring black slits as he looked from Erik to Duncan, and from there to Amber. Against the hundred shades of gray that were the mist and clouds, she burned like a shaft of sunlight.

“Yet he had to answer to something,” Erik continued. “Amber saw the marks of battle on him, knew the shadows veiling his mind, and named him ‘dark warrior’—Duncan.”

A subtle tension went through Simon, a tightening of the body as though for battle or flight.

None noticed but Duncan, who had been watching the fair-haired, dark-eyed stranger out of the corner of his eye. Yet Simon was looking not at him, but at Amber.

“Are you especially skilled with herbs and potions?” Simon asked her.

The question was polite and his tone was gentle, but the bleak midnight of his eyes was neither.

“No,” Amber said.

“Then why was he brought to you? Is there no wise woman to heal men in the Disputed Lands?”

“Duncan wore an amber talisman,” Amber said, “and all things amber are mine.”

Simon looked puzzled.