For My Lady's Heart (17 page)

“Per chance so.” She gave another peculiar laugh. “Per chance not. I have
some talents in common with base liars and cowards—more than I think me thou
hast.”

Her fingers plucked at one another, her jeweled rings glistening. She
looked away, staring out past him at the distant trees beyond the marshland.
The wind blew more strands of her dark hair from under the furred hood. She
brushed them back without elegance.

Ruck realized he was watching her, standing still, as if he did not know
what else to do with himself.

“I am always lying, green man,” she said, without taking her eyes from
the distance. “Always. Remember that I told thee.”

He turned and slung a bag of bedding onto Hawk’s rump. He went on
packing, hot in his heart and his loins, half-frozen by the cold wind on his
runisch fingers.

The knight had no more to say; he merely finished his work and sat on the
ground, leaning against the pile of baggage he’d made, facing away from her
and Gryngolet to look out on the northern horizon. His destrier stood loaded
as if they might leave at a moment, the most tangible evidence of his
expectations.

Melanthe pretended to ignore him, as he appeared to ignore her after
their first brief moments of intercourse. The circumstance was too singular;
she suspected he had no more been so utterly alone with a lady than she had
been with any man.

In the long hours of waiting a peculiar curiosity possessed her. She
wondered at his age, if he had children, brothers, a favorite dish. She did
not ask. She never asked such things, but found them out by secret ways if
she felt the need. They were powerful holds, the small details, the life and
loves of a man—things to exploit and manipulate. She did not wish to use him
that way; she only wished to know.

But she took care to deny such an alien impulse, and let him keep court
with her as stately as if they were in the palaces of kings. Already she had
said more than was wont—why she had warned him of her lying, she could not
fathom. She had simply said it, hearing herself with wonder as she did.

At noontide he rolled over and knelt, rifling among the bags. Wordlessly
he brought her an orange, a soft herb cheese, and wine, along with five
almonds and a twisted stick of violet sugar. He laid them on a cloth on the
ground, proffering a napkin and an ewer of rose water drawn from a silver
cask. Melanthe dipped her fingers in the frigid water and dried them
hastily. On his knees he cut a tiny bite from each food, tasting it himself
before he offered it to her.

She accepted this solemn ritual. It was a strange moment, a regal
distance between them—and yet he knew what she customarily ate for a midday
meal as well as if he’d shared it with her himself a hundred times before.
When he came in his ceremonial tasting to the sugar
penidia,
he
paused, looking down at the delicate and costly sweet.

“Me think it nought seemly that I spend a portion of such on myseluen,
Your Highness,” he said.

“Spend it all on thyself, knight,” she said. “It is thine to savor. And
it pleases me to give the orange to thee, also.”

He glanced up at her. She saw for a bare instant the stark blaze of his
desire, the quick touch of his green eyes on every part of her face, on her
lips and cheeks and brow—almost palpable, vivid as the powerful beat of a
falcon, light as the brush of hunter’s wings.

He looked down again.

“Grant merci, my lady,” he said briefly, and withdrew with a bow, taking
up his place again by the baggage.

As if a little distance released him from court manners, he sat propped
up in a relaxed fashion, his legs bent to accommodate roweled spurs, his
armor plates shining dully in the hazy sun. His helmet rested on the ground
within easy reach. Roughly cut black locks spilled over the folds of the
chain mail hood at his nape. When he tilted back his head and drained a mug
of ale, she had a great impulse to reach her hand out and caress his
windblown hair.

Queer reticence possessed her at such thoughts, and she could not even
look at him in secret. Her mind distrusted; her heart could hardly bear to
acknowledge the thought that Allegreto would not return, that Cara was
gone—she was at last free of it all.

She put her face in her hands suddenly. For a long time she stared at the
black inside of her cold palms, feeling the winter wind chapping her skin,
breathing short hot breaths of agitation.

She did not dare to plan beyond the instant, leaving decision in the
hands of her knight. She heard him come to his feet, chinking armor and
spurs, and still she did not lower her hands, unable to admit light to her
eyes.

“Your Highness,” he said quietly. “I mote sleepen now, so that I can keep
the watch tonight.”

She drew her palms down and looked up at him. He stood a few feet away
holding the ewer, wary observation in his face. Melanthe had another lunatic
urge to laugh at the way they prowled and met and recoiled from each other.
Instead she nodded, lowering her eyes.

Without a word he knelt again before her and offered the ewer. When she
had ceremoniously dipped the tips of her fingers, he cleared the cloth of
her half-eaten meal. She stuffed her cold hands into her furs and watched
him bed down in full armor beside his sword and helm. He turned his back to
her, pillowing his head on a pack saddle.

She envied him his easy sleep. She felt as if she had never had enough.

Ruck ate her discarded orange by moonlight and the sound of wolves. A few
hundred yards away he could just see the spark of the three fires that he
kept going in their original camp, returning at intervals to add fuel and
stand a brief watch. His men would reappear tonight, he felt, those who
could. The fires were to reassure them—and give the impression of a
well-manned camp to any others.

He would have moved farther from the flames, beacon and decoy that they
were, but the wolves hunted close. He’d made Princess Melanthe’s bed here in
the dark. Cold, perhaps, but more likely to be overlooked if something human
took him. The wolves would find her no matter where she hid.

He sucked the fruit, allowing the rich bitter juice to run on his tongue.
He’d had oranges in Aquitaine a few times, at feasts and Christmas—but to
eat one every day as she did was something utterly beyond his experience.
And the
penidia:
he’d never tasted white sugar but once, a score
and more Christmases gone, a child at the high board with his father and
mother.

He held the fragile stick to his nose, smelling his own fingers, smoke
and orange, and on the sugar a very faint scent of flowers. He closed his
eyes and touched his tongue to it. It was a thousand times sweeter than the
fruit, flooding his mouth with potent flavor, erotic as sin and springtime.

He lowered it and looked away from the fires, into the darkness. She was
there, close to him, though he could see nothing but blackness.

He lifted his hands again. He did not eat the sugar stick, but sat with
it cupped to his mouth, watching the dark and the fires, breathing the scent
of a world beyond his reach.

An instant of sleep, it seemed, and the urgent voice was at Melanthe’s
ear, whispering out of the dark.

“Your Highness, we moten get us gone.” He laid a heavy hand on her
shoulder. “Lady, wake ye, all haste!”

His urgency drove through the waves of sleep. She rolled toward him,
allowing frigid air to hit her face. In the moonlight he was leaning down
over her, very close, his breath frosting about her face. She could hear
voices somewhere in the night.

“We are marked,” he murmured harshly, grasping her arm amid the furs,
pulling her upright. “Come!”

She was sitting, but he did not even give her time to rise. He thrust his
arms beneath the furs, lifting her all in a bundle. Melanthe gave a small
cry of surprise. His arms tightened as he made a hiss to silence her. The
featherbed slipped away, but he did not stop. He carried her to the
horse—and Melanthe wakened fully to the sense of things now. She took hold
of the saddle and dragged the furs about her shoulders, struggling into
position atop the lumpy bags as he pushed her up. He mounted before her. She
fumbled to take hold of his sword belt beneath his mantle, grabbing it just
in time to save herself as he spurred the destrier hard, clapping his hand
over hers as the horse leapt forward.

They rode through the dark as if the Wild Hunt were at their heels.
Melanthe saw nothing, her face pressed into his cloak as the freezing wind
whipped her, clinging for her life with the reckless pace. He’d loaded the
stallion with this in his mind, for though she bumped and swayed, the bags
formed a slight hollow that let her keep her seat. But there was no margin
for modesty or coyness in the full-tilt sprint— she locked both her hands in
his belt and felt his glove gripped tight over them, stiff leather and
freezing metal pressing her arms into the hard plates at his belly.

Her chin and face jolted against his shoulder armor, padded only by his
mantle. The furs slipped, but she loosened her hold with one hand long
enough to grab them back, depending on to his grasp to anchor her. The horse
twisted and turned in the darkness on some frenzied path of its own, but the
knight rode as if he had the mind of the beast itself, holding her with him
when the strength of her own fingers began to fail.

A sudden falter threw her forward onto his back. The stallion stumbled
and came almost to a halt, the marsh sucking at its hooves. With a shaft of
horror Melanthe felt its haunches begin to sink beneath her—before she could
find the voice to cry out, the knight let go of her and raised both arms.
She felt his body drive; he gave a great shout, and the horse reared,
leaping and floundering forward. Melanthe grappled to keep her hold, cutting
her fingers, pinching them painfully against the sharp-edged metal belt as
he bent at the waist and impelled the destrier forward into another rearing
leap.

With a jolt and a heave, the horse scrambled free. Melanthe gave a faint
mew, holding on as the animal broke again into a gallop. The knight’s hand
closed on hers, locking her fingers into his glove, crushing her fingers
between his. She hid her face against his back, concentrating on the pain,
welcoming it as the only thing that assured her she would not fall.

After an eternity of this mad race, she felt the stallion’s endurance
wane. She could hear its laboring breath and feel the slowing pace. She
cracked her eyes open and saw the barest hint of dawn light. It almost
vanished as they plunged into the gloom of tall trees, but when she turned
her head to look behind she could see silhouettes of trunks against gray
mist.

The horse shied, a great leap sideways that nearly hurled her loose from
her clinging perch. The knight grabbed her, holding her arm so tight that
she gave a desperate squeak. He dragged her upright, settling the horse to a
walk.

It came to an abrupt halt. He swore quietly on Saint Mary.

Melanthe was panting as hard as the horse. She could not seem to command
her fingers. They were frozen to his belt and armor; she could not spread
them open, she could only droop against his back, staring mindlessly at the
barely perceptible dawn.

A bird called amid the barren branches, and suddenly motion returned to
her fingers. “Gryngolet!” she gasped, shoving herself awkwardly away.

“I cut the falcon free,” he said softly. “Be still.”

He was looking ahead of them. Melanthe realized that the horse’s ears
were pricked—she closed her hands again on his belt, but he brushed them
aside and dismounted, dropping the destrier’s reins over its head to trail
on the ground.

“Move nought,” he murmured, and drew his sword. She watched him duck off
the faint track into a thicket of branches, each step a gentle chink.

Then, in the growing light, she saw it. Between the winterbare twigs, a
spot of bright yellow and blue.

Allegreto.

Her heart began to pound as if it would explode. She held her bloody
hands around her stomach, huddling in the furs.

She heard the knight’s quiet steps move about beyond the tangle of
branches. Allegreto was utterly motionless—hiding—she could not see him,
only that splash of color through the thicket and the mist. She had a
horrible fear for her knight walking into murderous ambush.

“Do not kill him!” she cried fiercely in French. “Or I shall see thee
flayed alive.”

The footsteps paused.

“It is too late, madam,” the knight said in a cold voice. “He is dead.”

Melanthe froze in place. She stared at the patch of yellow and blue.

Then she slid from the horse, pushing back branches, shoving them away as
they whipped in her eyes and stung her cheeks. But the knight met her,
stepping solidly before her, turning her with a rough push.

“Ye ne wants to see it,” he said in English.

She turned back, trying to pass. “I mote see him!”

“Nay, madam.” He held her firmly. “Wolves.”

Her panting breath frosted between them as she stared up into his eyes.
He shifted his gaze, tilting his head toward something beside her.

She followed his look. On a low branch, brushing her skirt, hung a tangle
of black hair dirtied with blood and fallen leaves.

“Your maid,” he said quietly. “Her gown is there, too.” Melanthe turned
her head aside and down. Nausea swept over her. She tore herself from the
knight’s grasp and floundered through the brush. Leaning against the
stallion’s steaming flank, she bent over, shuddering. But the tangle of hair
had clung to her skirt—she shook it frantically, panting in great hysterical
gulps. Still it clung. The cold air seemed to draw slimy fingers over her
flushed cheeks, as if the bloody hairs touched her face. She shrieked,
flapping the azure wool, shaking harder and harder, but the black tangle
adhered to her. She turned, as if she could run from it, and collided with
the knight.

“Off!” she cried, her voice peaking shrilly. “Take it off me!”

She held out her skirt, her hands trembling. When he hesitated, she
screamed at him, “There!
There!
Dost thou see it?”

He reached down and plucked the black mass from her skirt, then took a
step back, casting it away. Melanthe didn’t look to see where it went.

“Is there more?” She lifted her dress toward him with a frenzied move. “I
feel it!”

The knight pulled off his gloves and put his hand on her shoulder. He
bent a little and with his other hand smoothed over her skirts. He turned
her, running his bare palm briskly over all of the woolen folds, her sides,
her back and hips. “Nay, my lady. No more.”

She retched, falling to her knees, holding her hands over her stomach.

“Oh, God,” she moaned, and began to laugh. “Allegreto!” The crazed
hilarity echoed in the barren wood. Ruck stood over her, looking down at the
vulnerable white nape of her neck beneath the bedraggled netting that barely
contained her hair. He retrieved the furs she’d dropped. Kneeling, he
wrapped them about her and lifted her onto Hawk as he’d done before. She
made no resistance, reaching for him even as he mounted. She slid her arms
around him, clinging hard, still laughing and sobbing dry half sobs.

Allegreto and the maid
would
haunt him, Ruck feared. He chose
not to linger even to bury the remains, anxious to lengthen the distance
between themselves and the camp. His men had indeed come back in the night,
some of them—bound and at knifepoint, held by the felons who haunted this
ungoverned wilderness. He had not waited to watch. Small enough torture it
would want to loosen his soldiers’ tongues about whose camp it was and what
a prize was ripe for the taking in Princess Melanthe if she could be found.
He could do no more for his hostage men than he could do for Allegreto and
the maid. His whole charge lay now with the princess.

She clung to his waist, leaning hard against him as he guided Hawk
through the woods. Over the soft thud of the stallion’s hooves on the damp,
littered ground, he heard her breathing, still punctuated by small gasps and
shudders, the residue of her fearful fit of grief for her young lover.

They passed between fir and barren oaks and birches, the frigid morning
sun laying bars of light and shadow across Hawk’s path. Ruck kept a wide
watch, turning to inspect underbrush and thickets as they passed, careful of
ambush. Once a red deer broke cover and crashed away from them, leaving his
heart speeding.

His frosting breath curled about his face and vanished. In hopes of
confounding pursuit, he made for the priory at the headland instead of going
east out of the Wyrale, but as the morning rose a fear grew in him that he
had lost his direction, for still he could not hear the bells.

Near midday they came abruptly out of the wood to the edge of a low
cliff, where the wind off the sea blew in his face. Below, the forest
thinned to bogs and fenny copses that ended in a range of sandhills; beyond,
the western sea, running brisk with whitecaps. To the south, far across the
estuary of the Dee. the Welsh peaks made a line of misty gray.

He turned Hawk away from them, heading north along the ledge. Ruck was
uneasy with the wilderness silence. On the back slope of the hill the land
dropped down to an inlet of another great river. Rising above the leafless
birches, the square bell tower of rose-colored stone marked the priory not a
mile away. And yet he heard nothing.

They came across a narrow, sandy track that led downward off the slope.
He urged Hawk to a slow canter, ducking branches as the path took them again
into the woods. Princess Melanthe held to him, quiet now.

He brought Hawk to a quick halt at the edge of the trees. In a burst of
noise a flock of wild geese took wing from the deserted garden plots.

Beyond the fallow earth lay the priory, sharp sandstone walls rising
clear of the wasteland, the imposition of God on the wilderness. The bell
tower stood solid and lofty, crowned foursquare by spires, with the domestic
ranges huddling in its shadow. Ruck had not seen the priory for half a dozen
years, and then only for a night’s lodging before the monks ferried him
across the river. Ten and six habited brothers and a few laymen had occupied
it then, a small house—but at least they had kept the garden plots neat and
enriched, and their livestock fed.

Now only a single white goose, wings clipped, was left behind on the
empty field. It waddled toward where Hawk stood, honking impatiently.

Ruck examined the open space and all the distance along the trees. “Wait
here with the horse,” he said softly. He dismounted, tossing Hawk’s reins
over a branch to make the destrier stand. Halfway across the field the goose
paused, turning a bright eye toward Ruck.

Using the thickets of bog myrtle as cover, he circled the priory’s
cleared land, moving out toward the river. The ferry landing was deserted.
Only one of the monks’ sturdy rafts lay beached, tied by a thick, sandy
snake of hemp to its high-tide mooring.

Ruck squinted up at the priory. It was possible that behind the walls and
heavy doors, the monks worshiped as usual, that it was simply
happenstance—or fear of outlaws—that kept all inside, including the lay
brothers, on this winter day.

But there were no bells.

For a long while he lay in a copse and watched. The white goose poked and
prodded in the open ground, feeding near Hawk. When he was sure Nones had
passed, with no bell rung and no sign or sound of human voice, Ruck finally
decided to chance crossing to the gate beneath the guesthouse. The goose
came hurrying after him, demanding and impudent, nipping at his heels. He
knocked the bird aside, but it followed, making loud claims on his charity.

Before the gate he paused with his hand lifted—and then pulled the bell
rope thrice in slow time. The sound seemed huge and clear, though it was
only the gate bell and not the tower.

There was no answer. He gave the gate a push, but it was barred from
inside.

The goose renewed its excited honking. Ruck turned, walking along the
wall and around the corner to the church porch with the goose following
doggedly. He shoved at the outer door. It gave easily beneath his effort,
squeaking wide on strap hinges. Beyond, the church doors stood open,
revealing the tall, stark void rising in ranks of double arches that
demanded the eye follow them to the great window where the white light shone
down, jeweled with the small figures of saints.

Ruck swept a wary glance about the sanctuary. It stood silent after the
echoes of his entry died away.

It seemed sacrilegious to go armed into a church, but he made a brief
obeisance, crossing himself and asking pardon in respect of the holy place.
He walked to the side aisle. The sound of his steps on the stone-tiled floor
came back in more reverberations, each finished by the jangle of his spurs.

He unbarred the side door and opened it onto the cloister. The monks’
carrels and book cupboards stood unused, but there was a volume lying open
upon a lectern, with parchment beside it and an inkpot still uncapped, as if
a black-robed figure had left it just a moment before. Loose chickens
scratched in the dirt.