For My Lady's Heart (44 page)

“If I do not lie, then she is my wife,” Ruck said. “She cannot marry
another.”

“I have seen her. I spoke to her right plainly, and put her in
remembrance that her soul is at stake in this matter. She denies the words,
and that you had company of each other, with great vehemence.”

Ruck lifted his eyes in shock. He had not known she had already spoken
her story.

But he did not trouble to repeat to the archbishop the foolish claim that
she spoke under duress. Thrice in as many weeks Ruck had received warnings
from his “friend”—and thrice had he lived to value them. He wrestled between
believing that his wife was attempting to murder him and hoping that she was
behind the warnings that spared him.

He shook his head. “My lord, she is my wife, and she cannot marry
another. I do not lie in this, on my soul and any other oath required of me,
though for saying it Dan Gian Navona accuses me of deceit and falsehood. I
defend my words by arms against him, with leave of the king’s justices in
the court of chivalry, honorable father, if by God’s will you accord.”

The archbishop scratched his forehead and read the paper before him
again. “He does not fight himself, but sends a champion.”

“His ankle is broken, my lord.”

The prelate gave a slight laugh. “I see. God in his wisdom prevents a
direct meeting, that you may not be charged with a killing to clear your way
to his betrothed.”

“She is not his betrothed, but my wife, my lord.”

“You are zealous,” the archbishop said. “So too was the princess in her
denial. But—if you speak true, then she married without the king’s license
and now has a great lord for a suitor. Many a man and woman, rightly wed,
has made mock of their vows for less than this.” He leaned back on the
settle and rubbed his nose. “And when I asked of her where she lay for the
months of February to May, in her impudence she told me she had spent the
time so deep in prayer that she did not recall the place.” He lifted his
brows. “I be little convinced that such a female can benefit your spiritual
welfare, my son in Christ.”

Ruck knew that she could not. His spiritual welfare was in bloody shreds.
But he bowed his head and said, “Good father, I wish to honor the bonds of
holy matrimony.”

He did not dare raise his eyes, for fear the man of God would see the
depth and heat of gall in him. He listened to the scratch of the quill as
the archbishop made a note in the margin of the document.

“I will forbid the banns and delay sitting of the canonical court on this
matter until the outcome of the combat,” the churchman said. “If God sends
that you are successful in your defense against the charge of falsehood,
then follows it that between you and Dan Gian, the weight of truth is yours.
The court will take fitting account of the point. If you fail—and live, by
God’s mercy—then I forbid you as a proved deceiver to make further cause
before the church. In absence of any earthly witness, let the Holy Spirit
direct.”

They left the archbishop’s lodgings, Ruck’s canon triumphant with success
and John Marking striding ahead, clearing a path through the orderly
confusion of the courtyard with oxlike resolution. Even John had to pause
for a moment as the horns rang out and an opulent procession came through
the gate.

Ruck felt his elation grow cold. Behind a scarlet vaunt-guard, Melanthe
rode beside Navona, who did not appear much discommoded by his ankle. She
was robed in red and gold; he all in white. A tall knight trailed them,
armed and horsed and squired—the Flemish champion, without doubt, looking
about himself with a keen interest.

The rest of their company came behind, faces shocking in their strange
familiarity in this surrounding—Allegreto, the gentlewomen—and Desmond in
the scarlet livery, wearing gloves in high summer and sitting a delicate
palfrey with bored arrogance.

“There he is!” John suddenly leaned close to Ruck. “Your friend, my lord,
who gave warning of the sword.”

Ruck looked at Desmond, so unfamiliar and familiar in his finery.

“Rides he the fourth,” John said under the rising sound of halloes and
grumbles, “the first in the white surcoats. Young and comely.”

“Nay—” As the company halted, Ruck’s gaze shifted from scarlet Desmond to
the first rider in the milk-white livery of the Italian. It was Allegreto.
“Nought in white?”

But at that moment Allegreto’s lazy glance passed along the crowd. He
looked directly at Ruck. His dark eyes took note, expressionless. With a
deliberate move he pulled his light sword from its sheath and examined the
blade.

Ruck found the area around himself opening. Someone pressed him forward
from behind. The Flemish knight had dismounted; the space between them was
suddenly empty—a confrontation, and the voices around rose in shouts of
“Saint George! Saint George!”

The champion was a tall man, younger than Ruck by years. He skimmed the
cheering English with a smile of delight and made a bow that held just the
right touch of mockery, as if they were hailing him. It brought the shouts
to a peak.

Ruck stood alone but for John. The Fleming examined him and then made a
courteous nod. Ruck acknowledged it. He looked past the knight to where
Melanthe sat her black palfrey. Though every eye in the courtyard was fixed
on him and the man he would fight, she dismounted as if neither of them
existed.

Her path lay away from Ruck. Her Italian lover took her arm, showing only
a slight hesitation in his walk as he led her toward the great double tower
entrance of the royal lodgings. The Flemish knight saluted Ruck and turned
to follow.

Ruck had been prepared for their first encounter by the ford, armored in
hate and determination. He had wanted witnesses. This time he wanted witness
as he would have wanted staring eyes on him while a lion tore his heart from
his chest.

She denied him. To his face, to the church, before the court. And
Desmond—who did not look at Ruck, who did not pause or speak—Desmond saw it,
and that was worst of all.

“The madman haunts me,” Melanthe murmured, before Gian could mention it.

He smiled, patting her arm. “Put him from your mind.” She paused in the
echoing gate passage, lowering her voice below the sound of talk and
movement, speaking Italian. “Avoi, Gian, I pray you not to have him killed
before this cursed duel! Or after, if you please, for they’ll never let you
leave this misbegot country then!”

“You upset yourself for no cause, sweet.” His eyes went briefly to
Allegreto. “Put your faith in me, and say no more.”

“Gian! You do not understand the English! If he dies by any way but in
this combat, you’ll not go unscathed. Let the lawyers pay him off. Or the—”

“I have told you not to speak of him.” His fingers closed cruelly on her
arm. He made her walk slowly on.

“I only—”

“My dear princess, if you add another word, I shall be forced to think
you plead for his life because you love the poor devil.”

She bore his painful grip without wincing. “My dear Gian,” she said, “if
you do not heed me, I shall be forced to think you are a great fool.”

“Shall you?” He slanted a look down at her. “But in truth, Melanthe—I do
not think I am.”

Inside the tent the sound of the spectators was a steady mutter
embroidered by music, the king’s favorite airs. John knelt at Ruck’s feet,
fastening on spurs. His green plate was polished and restored, the dents
beaten smooth and the silver bosses renewed.

Ruck wore her colors, but he went to the fight not knowing her. She was
the argent and green of Monteverde, or the red and gold of Bowland. She was
his murderess, or she was trying to save him. She kept Wolfscar a secret to
preserve it, or to discount him as a nameless adventurer. She had sent
Allegreto with the warnings, or her lapdog betrayed her.

He did not know if she wished for Ruck to win and free her, or if she
hoped that he would die and free her. He did not know.

But he shook his head to clear away fantasy. He knew. If she wanted him,
all she had to do was speak what was true.

The flap of the tent flashed open, and Allegreto stepped inside, dragging
the silk full closed. “I’ve only a moment,” he said quietly. “My father must
not smell me here. The Fleming has been told that you cannot withstand blows
to the head. ‘Ware your bascinet.”

John instantly snatched up the helm. It glowed with the new burnish as he
turned it over in his hands. Nothing showed on the surface. He lifted the
aventail to examine the staples and then smoothed his hand over the outside
curve.

With a sudden exclamation he seized his dagger, slashed through the
padded lining, and scored the inner surface. “God’s death.” He held out the
blade. “Look at this, my lord.”

Dark bluish shavings lay curled on the shining surface. Ruck knocked them
into his palm. “Lead.”

John clouted the helm with the hilt of his sword. It cut a dent in steel
too soft to withstand even a one-hand blow. He tore the leather out and
explored the interior with his fingertips. “There.” He pointed inside. “You
can feel the place, my lord.”

The patch had been made with masterly skill, sheathed on the outside by a
thin skin of finer metal. The flaw was invisible, but rubbing his fingers
over the inner and outer surfaces at once, Ruck could detect the faint
difference in the finish at the edges of the place, and the slight hollow in
the thickness.

It was too late to fit another bascinet. “I’ll have to use the great helm
and a mail coif,” he said.

“My lord!” John stood up. “This is too much. Lay it before the marshal!”

“Nay,” Ruck said softly. He looked to Allegreto. The youth tilted his
head, a smile on his mouth that never reached his black eyes. “Why dost thou
aid me?”

Allegreto put his fingers around the tent pole. He examined the ruby ring
he wore. “You were kind to me once.” He shrugged, with a short laugh. “I
remember it.”

“Who tries to kill me?”

“If you will make mischief—many people.”

“Thy mistress?” Ruck’s voice was strained.

Allegreto lifted his brows. “Show a little wit, green man.”

Ruck felt a tightness leave his muscles that he had not known was there.
“Then it’s she who sent thee.”

“Must someone send me?” Allegreto made a smirk. “I come for love of you,
Green Sire. How else?” He swung about the pole and paused. “Be wary,” he
murmured, and vanished outside.

* * *

The sound shivered Ruck’s head: pain first, a bright arc through his
brain, and then his ears aching in the peal of metal. Each time he took a
stroke, the clang stopped in his ear, building pressure, until the roar of
the crowd and even the blows grew distant. He could only hear himself
panting, sucking hot air through the pierced breaths in the helm; he could
only see black and his opponent through the eyeslits and feel the violent
swacks when he could not parry them.

In spite of the padding his great helm shifted whenever a blow caught it,
obscuring his vision for an instant. The Fleming didn’t take advantage; he
flailed over and over at Ruck’s head and only shifted a few times to any
other assault. The strong onslaught left the man’s body undefended on the
side opposite his shield, but he rained blows so swiftly that Ruck was too
occupied with deflecting them to attack.

If the helm had not blinded him, Ruck would already have cut under this
crude beating and had the man on the ground. But he dared not leave his head
unprotected long enough to strike, for fear the helm would be knocked askew
too far to seat again and screen his sight entirely.

He defended with shield and sword, watching the Fleming’s arm strokes. He
squinted through the slit, blinking back the sting of sweat. Stepping
backward, he let the champion have control of the rhythm, retreating slowly
from the blows. Through the dint and clang, the dim shouts of the spectators
rose to passion as he gave way.

The Fleming heard them, too: he renewed the vigor of his onset, faster
and harder. Ruck parried in his attacker’s cadence, falling back. Inside his
brain, with the ringing clash, he sang a song of war that Bassinger had
taught him, the swords tolling each note. The Fleming pealed the steady
motet; Ruck answered in even time.

Then he took up the hocket—a hitch in the rhythm, counterpoint as he
dropped the parry and swung his blade in attack.

Brilliant pain flashed in his ear, a tumble of light as the inevitable
strike came. His sword bit, silence to him amid the belting in his head, but
he felt the jolt and pause in his arm, swung through and past it, blind
entirely. The Fleming missed his motet note, but Ruck sent the hocket back
in treble, up and up, a half breath off the beat, a full double-handed swing
overhead and down.

He killed the man. He could not see it, but he knew it: an instant of
impact as his sword cleaved steel—and the collapse, a perception, and a dull
chime of metal falling to the ground.

He stood in sweltering darkness, gasping with exertion, the skewed slash
of eyeslit a white radiance above his line of sight, the cheek padding
pressed painfully against his nose. It gave him a horrible moment of
helplessness, his ears ringing and his eyes blind, without defense.

Then John was there, divesting him of the helm. It did not come off
easily, beaten and wedged as it was, but when Ruck bent over and let the
squire give the steel a bang from behind, the helm loosened. Ruck could
barely hear the hit; he couldn’t tell if the roar in his ears was the crowd
or his head. As the helm fell, the warm summer air felt like a blessed rush
of coolness on his face.

At his feet the Fleming champion lay in the trampled grass. His
attendants and a physician clustered around him, but he was lifeless, his
helm sundered through. Ruck stood straight. He lifted his bloodied sword and
turned about to the stands. The constable and earl marshal sat beneath a
canopy. A cross and Bible lay on the tapestry-covered table where Ruck and
the Fleming had sworn their oaths. Beside them, on a slightly higher dais,
sat King Edward himself, leaning forward, his face red with excitement, his
long beard flowing down over his robes like a living and gleeful statue of
Moses. The well-fed Lady Alice stood behind him, unashamed to have her hand
on his shoulder.

Ruck barely found enough breath to speak. “I wish to know—if I have done
my duty—to my honor,” he asked of the justices. His own voice sounded
strange to him, muffled and remote. When the marshal answered that he had,
it seemed that the man spoke from very far away.

Ruck handed his sword to John and walked forward to the king. As he
knelt, the block in his ear burst, and he could hear again.

All was silence, but for his own heart and heavy breath, and the rustle
of the pages of the open Bible. The crowd in the stand waited.

“Rise, bold knight,” the king declared in English. “Thou hast defended
thy honor before our court of chivalry with hende sword as proper.” He
chuckled. “A great dunt it was! A delight to see.”

Ruck stood up. He lifted his eyes. The king was grinning, a little
childgeared as they all said of him, but still a royal presence. He stroked
his beard, his smile fading as he looked down into Ruck’s face.

“But why dost thou wear those colors?” the king asked on an aggrieved
note. “We ne do not like thee to changen, Ruck. Did we give thee leave to
changen thy arms?”

He spoke the name without hesitation or title, as if he knew Ruck like an
old friend. A faint murmur passed over the crowd. In his amazement Ruck
could not find his tongue to answer.

“Why doth he wear green?” The king turned to Alice. “It should be azure
ground, and the device a well huge werewolf depainted in black. Where is our
herald of arms?”

While Ruck stood with his limbs and his speech beyond command, the herald
came forward to wait on the king. The ladies in the stands craned over the
railings, staring. People whispered and leaned near one another.

“Lord Ruadrik of Wolfscar,” the king said, waving at Ruck. “Tell his
arms.”

The herald bowed. “Sire, the lord of Wolfscar of the County Palatine of
Lancaster may bear him a blazon of bright azure, the device a werewolf of
sheer sable within.”

“There, we are exact in our memory!” The king looked triumphantly at
Ruck. “We command our subject Lord Ruadrik of Wolfscar to divest himself of
these and bearen his right device and colors.”

“Sire,” the herald said softly, “Lord Ruadrik died in the year of the
great pestilence, and all his household with him.”

“Nay.” Ruck heard his own voice, still short of breath from his fight,
but strong and clear. He fell on his knees before the dais. “Sire, I have
sworn to conceal my name and place until I was proved worthy of it, but if
God has sent to you to descry me, by what grace or method I know nought,
then I avow that I am Ruadrik, son of Ruadrik of Wolfscar and my lady mother
his wife Eleanor.”

The audience broke into a clamor. The king looked bewildered.

“What proof hast thou of this, sir?” Lady Alice’s sharp voice cut through
the noise.

Ruck ignored her. She was the king’s mistress. He had heard that she
would have profited greatly from Dan Gian’s betrothal bargains.

“Sire,” he said to the king, “my sovereign and beloved lord, gladly will
I obey you and resume my own arms of Wolfscar from this day forward.”

The king nodded, his perplexity brightening to simple satisfaction. “We
are pleased. Full oft have we been glad to see thy blazon spread in battle
with our enemies. Thou mayest rise, our trusty and well-loved Ruck.”

Lady Alice put her hand on his arm and whispered into his ear. He frowned
and shook his head as he listened to her. “Nay, my dear lady, we are not
mistaken.” He patted her hand. “The herald supports us. It is the
azure-and-black wolf. Lord Ruadrik himself doth admit our verity.”

“Voire.”
Ruck stood with his smile breaking, impossible to
restrain. The king had recognized him. Or mistaken him for his father, but
that was no less a triumph, and an elation in itself, for he had not known
it possible. “Truly, sire, it is as you say.” He felt sweat trickling down
his temple and had to prevent himself from wiping it away.

“Thy prize,” the king said, looking about him. A man came from among the
attendants, offering the king a wallet of coins. “How much?” the king
whispered audibly as the attendant bowed at his knee.

The man murmured. King Edward frowned and nodded, beckoning Ruck to
approach.

“One hundred mark,” he declared.

Ruck stepped onto the dias and bent knee, his armor clunking loudly as it
hit the wooden platform. He accepted the modest purse and rose at the king’s
command. Edward stood up with him.

“A dear fight! God and Saint George!” The king clouted Ruck’s face
between his palms and kissed him on the mouth.

Then he fumbled at the golden clasp on his robes and pressed the jeweled
pin into Ruck’s glove. “And here—a small love-drury, for thy service at
Nottingham.”

Ruck lowered his eyes, shaking his head at the mention of Nottingham and
the king’s love. “Sire, ne can I nought accepten this. My father it watz who
climbed from the cellars with you and the others, sire, at Nottingham
Castle. Ne yet watz I e’en born upon earth that day.”

The king held the clasp, blinking down at it. He rubbed his thumb across
the gold. “Not born, by God,” he muttered. “Not born.” He gave a deep sigh.
“Yea, it is long ago now.” He looked up, his eyes vague. “Thou wert not
born?”

“Nay, sire. Watz my father who was with you, sire.”

The king seemed to grow shamefast. “Ah. Thy father. Who is he?”

“Ruadrik of Wolfscar, sire. You called him Ruck, as I am called, too.”

“His son!” A pleased smile grew on the king’s face. “But how thou art
much like him, in thy face, and thy uncouth northern tongue! Remember when
we—” Then he shook his head. “But he is dead. All of them dead, Montagu and
Bury— the best of men.” He suddenly took Ruck’s face between his hard old
hands again, the clasp pressing into Ruck’s cheek. “The most remembrance
that I have shall be upon thee, and on thy needs. Keep this, I command
thee.”

He pushed the clasp into Ruck’s hands and strode from the dais before
Ruck could even say his thanks. Alice and the royal attendants hurried
after—he might be wavering in his mind, but the king’s body was in no wise
impaired.

Ruck made a belated bow. He stepped down from the dais. In a maze of joy
he walked toward John and the gate as noble spectators flooded down from the
stands, crowding about him offering compliments and cheer. John gave him a
towel to dry himself. Someone thrust a cool goblet into his hand. He glanced
and saw it was Allegreto, with a triumphant grin and wink—Ruck’s dark and
strange savior, her envoy.

Beyond the crowd around him, beyond the knot of men still on the grass
beside the Fleming champion, a chariot was drawn up beside the lists. Ruck
stopped, lifting the goblet to his mouth. She was still there, beside her
treacherous lover—watching him with a faint smile. He drank, washing
exertion and passion down his dry throat in one great swallow, taking
boldness in with the wine. He started toward her, to demand that she come to
him, his wife, the wine a bitter sourness on his tongue.