For My Lady's Heart (36 page)

A sennight she had been with him. Once, she had tried to steal her silver
as he slept—a futile chance, and almost fatal. She had cut the length of his
stiletto on the side of her neck, where he had nearly impaled her throat as
he overturned upon her.

“How can I go in there?” she whispered desperately. “She said she would
have me killed!”

“If she had wanted you killed, you would be dead.” He leaned back,
draining his ale. “She would have told me to see to it.”

“So she said, that she would loose you upon me—only she would not say
when, but she would not make me suffer to wait long!”

He laughed. “Naturally. And what did you do, goose? Bolted, just as she
designed.”

Cara glared at him. “As did you, Navona.”

He nodded, his grin becoming a sneer. “Yea. I did. And I will pay for it
in full, do I not remedy the matter.”

His eyes slid away. He stared into the dark corner. Twice, when they had
slept in barns and cow-byres on the journey, she had heard a faint sound in
the night. He wept, she thought, but she was not certain. Perhaps he only
dreamed.

“Well,” he said, “she has outwitted herself. She never meant for her
escort to leave her to a man, of that we can be sure. I wager even the green
fellow deserted her in the end— or died for her when the bandits fell on
them, more like, as these love-drunk champions are wont to do. So we’ve only
to see to her ransom, and she’s delivered back to us tied up in silk
ribbons.”

“Haps they killed her,” Cara said, feeling guilty and hopeful.

“They’re a foolish lot of brigands if they did. She’s worth their wildest
dreams, and I’ll wager they know it. We’ll have her back for the right
price.”

“Mary, if you’re so anxious to save her, you should have gone to the
prince of that Chester city and begged his aid.”

“The cities don’t have princes here, or patricians. I don’t know what
they have, but you can be sure that whoever rules so close to that nest of
outlaws is like a hand in their glove. And even if she made a fool of me
with her cursed plague trick, still pestilence might lurk in the cities,
though we’ve seen the countryside clear. Nay, we will work from out of the
princess’s own hold, where we can have some command of matters.”

“I can’t go in that castle!” Cara kept her voice low, watching the
alewife who watched her. No one here spoke a civilized language, only a few
words of broken French, but they did not seem oversurprised at foreign
travelers. She feared that meant the Princess Melanthe’s retinue from London
had already arrived. Her stronghold of Bowland was but an hour’s ride from
here, if the alewife’s nods and babble could be depended upon. “What if the
others have come?”

“Hah! Who did she leave to charge of them? Sodorini, that fluttering old
buffoon! They’ll go in such circles they won’t be here for weeks. And why
should you fear them anyway?”

“I—” She stopped herself suddenly.

Allegreto smiled in the barred light. “Who is it, Monteverde goose?”

She took another gulp of her unpleasant ale.

“Cara,” he said patiently, “do you suppose I don’t know there is a Riata
among them? You have no choice. I tell you. Come to us—we serve and keep our
own, not like the Riata dogs—and Monteverde is gone forever.” He leaned
forward across the table. “I’ll speak to my father. We’ll even get your
sister back, if she’s still alive.”

“You cannot promise that,” she said.

He shrugged. “Nay, for she may be dead already.”

“You cannot promise for Navona.” Her lip curled. “He broke my family. My
father—”

“Was a foolish man,” Allegreto said soberly. “If he had cared for his
family, he would have done what was asked of him. And your mother did not
fare so badly when she married again.”

She turned her face away from him, so full of hate that she could not
even speak to uphold her father. She did not know what Navona had asked of
him; she only knew that he had been tortured to death on a false accusation,
and Navona had caused it.

She pushed away from the table and stood up, flinging her muff onto the
smoky fire. “My mother was terrified to be wed to Ligurio’s brother. She
lived the last days of her life in dread that she would bear a son and see
him killed by Gian. I cannot deal with Navona.”

He rose as quickly, at the same time that the alewife darted forward and
snatched up the muff. The woman held it uncertainly, and then retreated to
the far corner like some stray dog with a scrap.

“Cara.” He stood between her and the door.

“I cannot,” she said.

“Cara!”

“I will not.”

“Oh, no, have mercy on me.”

“On you!” she shrieked. “Who ever had mercy on my father or my mother or
my sister or me? Nay, why should I have any mercy on
you,
ten-times
damned creature that you are!”

“Cara.” He was pleading. “For God’s pity! I’ll have to kill you!”

She stilled, knowing it and yet shocked by it. He had already trapped
her; she could not reach the door beyond him. She stared at the knife at his
side.

“Don’t try,” he said. “Don’t try. Please.”

A cat rose from a pile of rags and stretched. In the moment that she
glanced at it, the stiletto was in his hand. The alewife whimpered, backed
in her corner.

“Only say it.” He held the knife relaxed at his side. “Only say you’re
with us. I’ll trust you.”

The fire smoked sullenly.

“I cannot. Not for my life.”

He made the same grieving sound that he made in his sleep. His fingers
moved on the weapon, rotating it in his hand. “Do you hate me so much?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “More.”

“I’ll save your sister. On my soul, I’ll see her safe.”

“You have no soul to swear upon.” She was shaking. “Liar and murderer.”
She began to walk past him. “Hell will embrace you.”

He moved. Cara flinched, her pride withering into a humiliating recoil.
His hand gripped her; the tip of the knife touched her rib through the
coarse wool.

She could see the pulse in his throat. She was trembling so hard that the
stiletto goaded her, stinging like a pinprick, forcing tears to her eyes.

“So do it, Navona!” She showed her teeth like a cornered animal, to defy
him.

His beautiful black eyes stared into hers. The knife tip touched her
again, and she jerked.

“Don’t!” she cried. “Don’t taunt me!”

“You’re with us,” he said.

“Nay, I’ll kill you if I can!” The fear possessed her. She heard herself,
long past reason to mindless, witless, hopeless defiance. “I’ll work for the
Riata; I spit on the name of Navona; I’ll wipe it from the face of the
earth!”

He pressed the knife to her, and the tears spilled over. It stung
violently; she imagined the blade sliding in, a thousand times greater pain.
She waited for it. She had a panicked thought that she would be unshriven;
but she could not even confess in her heart; she kept saying farewell to
Elena, over and over, until it took up all of her perception.

When he let go of her, it happened so suddenly that she fell backward
against the trestle table. It rocked beneath her weight as she clutched the
edge.

A shadow passed the window. She heard a horse, its feet squelching mud. A
voice hailed from outside.

The alewife ran forward. Allegreto stopped her, pressing his fist hard to
her mouth and jerking his knife in her face. He freed her slowly. She shrank
back and slunk into her corner again.

“Ave!” The door swung open, rain splattering on the sill. A young man
walked through, pushing his hood back, showing blond hair. “Ave, godday!” He
carried his own drinking vessel. He plunged it into the cask himself,
dropping the cover back with a bang, and asked something of the alewife. It
was English, but the word
Bowland
at the end of his question was
roundly clear.

The wife ducked a nod, her glance flicking to Cara and Allegreto. The
newcomer turned.

“God bless,” he said in a friendly way, and waved toward the door,
whooshing another English comment through his teeth, obviously a complaint
on the weather.

“May God protect you,” Cara said boldly in French, seeing a savior in
him. She held her fingers pressed over her side, staunching her stinging
cut.

He bowed. “Grant merci, and God smile on you, lovely lady,” he replied,
his French accent ungraceful but his words distinct enough. He nodded at
Allegreto. “Good sir.”

Allegreto bowed, indicating the table. “Honor us.”

“Gladly.” The young man smiled, doffing his cloak and shaking the drops
from it before he hung it on a peg. He wore flesh-colored hose with dirty
wool bandages wrapped up to the knees for protection. They were an absurd
color, but after a week with Allegreto, an open face and easy smile were
enough to please Cara. “I’m Guy of Torbec,” he said. “But I think—you aren’t
English, sir?”

“We serve the Princess of Monteverde,” Allegreto said.

“Ha! Montverde? Then Bowland it was, by God! I guessed it.” Guy straddled
the bench. “I am on the right road at last. Has he got your lady safe back,
praise God?”

Allegreto grew very still. “Back?”

Guy seemed suddenly to realize that he might have been indiscreet and set
the pot down, glancing over his shoulder. “The lady of Montverde and
Bowland,” he whispered. “She was not—away?”

Cara put her hand over Allegreto’s arm. “She was attacked,” she murmured.
“We were in the party. Do you say she is safe?”

“Or bring a ransom demand?” Allegreto asked sharply.

“Nay, nay—by God’s love,
I
had no part of any such notion!” Guy
leaned forward. “I only bring news. I wish to help.”

“What news?” Allegreto murmured.

Guy chewed his lip, eyeing them warily. “I was bound for the castle. I
thought the green knight might give me a place in his company.”

Allegreto’s arm relaxed beneath her hand. “If it’s reward you want, then
tell me. I’ll see you get a place if you deserve it.”

In spite of his peasant clothes, Allegreto had that easy arrogance about
him that bespoke authority. She could see the Englishman puzzling over it.

Guy tapped his fist rapidly against his knee. Then he sighed through his
teeth. “Can you? But I don’t have much news, I fear. Only that I saw her,
with a knight who named himself by his color green, at Torbec Manor, in
Lancashire.” He nodded in a direction that meant nothing to Cara. “But they
fled west, with my—with the man who holds Torbec Manor at their heels. He
lost them at the coast. We—he thought they must have gone south along the
shore, but I thought the green knight clever enough to come back through the
pursuit. And I remembered Bowland, on the falcon’s varvel, and that the old
earl’s daughter was wed to a foreign prince. So I came here, because I
couldn’t stay at Torbec.” He wet his lips. “I hoped they would have come by
now. I—did him a little good, the green knight, I think, so I reckoned he
might look well on me.”

“When was this?” Allegreto demanded.

“Four days past.”

“And she was with the green man alone?”

Guy nodded.

Allegreto smiled at him. “Well done,” he said. “Well done, Guy of Torbec.
Come with us. We’re for the castle. I think you’ll find a place.”

It was the finest bed to sleep in that Melanthe could imagine. She did
not leave it for three days, but lay enveloped in warmth, enfolded in
slumber and safety while the rain slid down the windows. Ruck leaned over
her, already garbed, and kissed her beneath her ear.

“Thou moste be in some witch’s thrall,” he murmured. “The alder-most
slothful witch in the world.”

She flipped the sheet over her nose, languid in the aftermath of their
morning love. “Send drink and bread. And return to me full soon.”

“I wen well where to finden thee, at the least.”

She smiled with her eyes closed. “Melikes thy mattress, my lord. By hap
will I never leave it.”

He did not answer, but pushed away from the bed. She heard him cross the
chamber. The door opened and closed. Before, each morning as he left, she
had settled into the bed, satisfied and sated with their coupling, sustained
on the wheaten bread and ale someone left on a trestle beside her, drowsing
until he came again. She had not thought of where he went; she had not
thought of anything at all with more than a torpid interest that passed into
pleasing dreams.

But a small doubt crept into her mind, because he had not answered her
when she had said she might never leave. The two Williams would be out
there—unlikely they were singing her praises to his ears, or urging him to
prolong her stay. She opened her eyes.

She sat up and swept back the bedcoverings. Chill air touched her skin.

Fool. Fool! No woman held a man with bed-play alone, not with his
favorites whispering poison in his ears.

She had felt safe. She
was
safe. But if there was one lesson
greater than any other Ligurio had pressed upon her, it was that to give a
man what he wanted was to lose all mastery of him. Ruck was so sweet and
stirring when he came, she had not sensed the danger until this moment.

She thrust her feet from the bed. There was no maid, of course. She had
to serve herself as he did, but in rooting through the chamber chests she
found a linen smock, stiff and unworn. It smelled very faintly of herbs.
There were robes too, but she refused to appear in the raiment of the former
lady of the castle like some resurrected ghost. She put on her own faithful
gown and azure houpelande over the clean linen.

Her hair she could only cover with a kerchief, with no one to dress it
for her. She found one clustered with jasper and chalcedony. All of the
clothing in the chests was richly adorned with embroidery and gems. No poor
knight’s hold, this Wolfscar.

She thought of the minstrels who sojourned here at their ease, and
narrowed her eyes. But she would move carefully. A man’s favorites could be
delicate matters, not subject to common reasoning with his wit, as the
history of any number of kings could attest.