Untamed by Elizabeth Lowell

intone over Dominic le Sabre’s corpse. May it be an early grave and as deep as Hell itself.”
    The hate in Eadith’s voice made Meg flinch. Eadith had never forgiven the Normans who had slain her husband, father, brothers, and uncles, and taken their estates.
    Into the uncomfortable silence came the slow dripping of water. The sound made gooseflesh rise on Meg’s arms. She found herself holding her breath, counting, wanting to stem the relentless drops.
    Silence came.
    The silver bowl was dry.
    â€œQuickly,” Meg said, holding out her arms. “Let us get it done with.”
    Within moments Meg was wearing folds of cloth that fooled the eye like moonlight on a river. Eadith pulled laces at the back, making the fabric snugagainst Meg’s body. As light as mist, the garment clung and swirled in silver stirrings that outlined the supple feminine form beneath.
    When Eadith was finished, Meg turned a full circle. The cloth lifted and then flowed into place as though made for her rather than for her mother before her.
    â€œAre you certain you won’t wear the brooch Lord Dominic sent you?” Eadith asked.
    â€œBefore her marriage, a Glendruid girl wears only silver. After it, she wears only gold. I will wear the brooch soon enough.”
    If I live .
    â€œFoolishness,” Eadith muttered. “You will look a drab creature next to the Norman whore.”
    Eadith held out a very long, intricately made chain of silver and clear crystal. Like the clock, the chain had been passed down through generations. No wider than Meg’s smallest finger, almost as flexible as water itself, the chain circled her waist, crossed behind at her hips, and returned to her front in a shining girdle.
    The ends of the chain reached to the hem like silent, slender waterfalls. And like water, the crystals in the chain transformed light into elusive flashes of color, fragments of rainbows caught and held for an instant of time.
    Meg lifted hands naked of rings and pulled the combs from the hair piled on her head. Her hair tumbled down around her shoulders, over her breasts, falling to her hips and beyond. Against the ethereal silver of the dress, her hair burned with all the passions she had never felt.
    â€œWell,” Eadith said grudgingly, “it does make your hair look bright.”
    The handmaiden held out the plain silver circlet that was all Meg would wear to hold her hair fromher face. Incised on the inside of the band were ancient runes.
    â€œI could fasten the brooch to—” Eadith began, only to be cut off.
    â€œNo.”
    Meg gathered her hair into a single long fall down her back. Without a word she held out her hand for the hooded silver mantle that fastened to the dress at the back of her shoulders with two silver clasps. The fluid weight of the cloth swept down her back to the floor and beyond in a rippling silver train.
    A quick motion of Meg’s hands lifted the hood into place, covering her hair. Eadith put the circlet on her mistress and looked disapprovingly at the results.
    â€œYou’ll not outshine the whore,” she said bluntly.
    â€œStill your tongue,” Old Gwyn said from the doorway. “You know nothing of what is at risk today.”
    When Meg spun toward the door, subtle currents of silver ran the length of her dress and crystals flashed fragments of rainbows, but it was her eyes that drew Gwyn’s attention. Within the silver cloud of Meg’s mantle, her eyes burned like green flames.
    Gwyn’s breath came in with an audible hiss. She touched her forehead in silent obeisance to the Glendruid girl who smoldered before her, wrapped in rituals and hopes as old as time.
    Before Gwyn could speak, church bells rang, summoning Meg to marriage.
    And war.

7
    I NCENSE AND PERFUME PERMEATED the wooden building’s sacred hush. Pews shone with recently applied beeswax. Myriad tongues of light rose from massed candles. Costly brooches, necklaces,