Page 105 of Forbidden

“She be safe, lord, I swear it on my mother’s soul!”

“It is also known what punishment will come to any man who lays hands upon Amber the Untouched.”

The outlaw started to speak, but Erik was still talking softly, implacably.

“Alfred, take Bob to a priest. Shrive him. Then hang him.”

The outlaw turned and tried to flee. Erik’s foot lashed out with the speed of a snake striking. The outlaw sprawled in a smelly heap at Alfred’s feet.

“Do not make me regret my mercy,” Erik said.

“Mercy?” the outlaw asked, dazed.

“Aye, creature. Mercy. Under the law, I could have your hands, your testicles, and the skin from your back before I drew your guts through your navel, quartered your body, and left your sorry, unshriven soul for the Devil to feed on until the Second Coming of Christ.”

The outlaw made a low sound.

“But I am merciful,” Erik said distinctly. “I will see you shrived and hanged with a shrewd knot, which is more decency than you showed the maid whose hair hangs from a silver comb and whose blood lies black upon yon dagger.”

Fear shook the outlaw. “Ye be a sorcerer! Naught but such a man can know that!”

“Give the silver and the rest of this creature’s goods to the chaplain for the poor,” Erik said to Alfred.

“Aye, lord.”

Alfred bent and began dragging the outlaw away. Just before they reached the doorway out of the great hall, Erik called out.

“Alfred!”

The knight stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Aye, lord?”

“When it is done, burn the rope.”

AMBERdismounted before Duncan could come around his horse to help. Her knees gave a bit, then took her weight without further protest.

Duncan’s mouth flattened beneath his mustache at the evidence that Amber no longer sought his touch. Not that he blamed her. What should have been a sweet initiation into the mystery of sex had been accomplished with all the finesse of a bull mounting a cow.

“Thank you, Egbert,” Amber said when the squire stepped forward to take the reins. “Has Erik returned from Sea Home?”

“Aye. He is waiting for you in the lord’s solar. Do hurry, maid. He is in a rare mood.”

Duncan turned and regarded the squire with speculative eyes.

“How so?” Duncan asked.

“He had a man hanged not an hour ago.”

Amber turned toward him so quickly that her cowl fell away, revealing her disheveled hair.

“Why?” she asked starkly.

“The fellow had an amber bracelet in his purse. Rumor says it is yours.”

A quick glance at her left wrist confirmed Amber’s fear. Where three strands of amber had been, now there were only two. In the turmoil of the battle—and of what followed—she hadn’t noticed the bracelet’s loss.

“I see,” Amber said in a low voice.

She picked up her skirts and began walking quickly across Stone Ring Keep’s small bailey to the forebuilding. The door stood open, as though someone inside were impatient to see her.