The reluctant shadow of a smile crossed her features. "The duke did say thou art a master of men."
He gave a slight shrug. "It is what I would do, were I one of them."
"Nay," she said. "Green Sire, thou wouldst not—for thou didst not run away to begin." She laid the volume aside. "But a gift thou hast, to read the hearts of lesser men."
He did not trust her compliments. "They are soldiers," he said. "More like to me than to my lady's grace."
She turned her eyes to him, her eyes the color of purple dusk, and gazed at him as if she were only just seeing him for the first time. She had looked at him so once before, as she had prepared to lead him into tournament, a glance that wished to see through to his heart. She had asked him his name then—as if she cared what it might be.
"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.
EIGHT
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 c
lose, 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 winter-bare 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 charg
e 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.
For My Lady's Heart Page 15