Melanthe drew back a little. "I don't hide."
"You do. I saw you. But I found you!" She turned and wedged herself into the space between Melanthe and the wall, taking a seat on the narrow stair. She put her arms about Melanthe's neck and kissed her cheek. "I love you."
"You don't love me," Melanthe said. "You don't even know me."
"You're the princess." She said it with an enraptured sigh. "I am Agnes." She laid her head on Melanthe's shoulder and took her hand, toying with the rings. "I play the tympan and the cymbals. I have a white falcon and lots of jewels."
Melanthe watched the small fingers trifle with hers. "You're a great lady, then."
"Yes," Agnes said. "I shall sleep all the day when I be grown. I don't like to nap now, though," she added scrupulously. "I shall marry Desmond."
"Desmond. The porter?"
"He'll be the king then."
"Ah," Melanthe said. "A man of ambition."
"A man of what?" Agnes looked up at her. "Oh. Are you sad?"
Melanthe shook her head.
"You weep, my lady."
"No. I do not."
"I love you." Agnes climbed into her lap and put her face into Melanthe's throat. "Why do you weep?"
Melanthe held the small body close to her. "I'm afraid," she whispered. She drew a breath against fine black hair, as if she could drink it like some fragrant long-forgotten wine. "I'm afraid."
"Oh, my lady, be not." Agnes hugged her. "All be well, so long as we bide us here as my lord commands, and go not out beyond the wood."
NINETEEN
They had pleased Ruck, those days that she spent tumbled in his bed like a dozing kitten. He would have thought she was ill, but that he knew her for a master in the art of idle slumbering, and she awoke well enough when he came.
While she had stayed in his chamber, Wolfscar was his yet. He spent the days in ordinary work, in spring plans and lists of repairs, the most of which would never get done, but he didn't have to make explanations or excuses to her. She had asked nothing, but only besought him in bed with her blunt and awkward wooing.
In truth, he lived all through the day in thought and prospect of it. He did not think that any woman on Earth or in imagination could compare with Melanthe, her black hair and white body, her sleepy eyes like purple dusk, the feel of her as she used him, mounting atop him in her favored sin. To have seen her so was worth a thousand years of burning to him. If he went to Hell for it, he only prayed God would not take away the memory.
Still, nothing about her came as he expected it. When finally she had left the bed and appeared in the hall, he was girded for her queries and objections. He saw her look about. He had grown taut in readiness for her censure—saw dust and decay that he'd never noticed before.
Will Foolet was terrified of her. Bassinger was not daunted to speak to any person alive—he would have sung his lays to the Fiend himself given the chance—but even he gave her a wide breach. All three of them, Ruck and Will and Bassinger, had heard her speak her mind about Wolfscar and its history.
But he was bewildered once again by his liege lady. She didn't speak of Wolfscar's unkempt state at all. She smiled at him like a shamefast maid, looking up from beneath a kerchief. She became modest; at night she withdrew from him and eluded his kisses. In the day she went about with a crowd of small girls. It was as if she had arisen from her spelled sleep transformed, turned from a haughty princess into a nun's acolyte.
The others gathered around her, enslaved as easily as she had vanquished Hew Dowl and Sir Harold. Will was complained of and called a hard taskmaster, only for directing that the ground-breaking begin in the fields. Performing before her lady's grace, their first new spectator in a decade of years, was much to be preferred.
Ruck and Will rode out alone to the shepherds and lambs, making rain-soaked notes of the fences and fodder, and lists of needed work. They ordered the labor by its importance, for never did they have enough bodies or skills to carry out all that cried to be done. Before there had been willingness and ready hands, at least. Now the fields and the bailey were empty, and Ruck walked into the hall to find it full of tumbling and singing before Melanthe.
He lost his temper. Flinging his wet mantle from his shoulders, he strode into the middle of the clear space, halting a pair of somersaults before they were begun. The music died.
"Is it a feast day?" Ruck glared around him. He threw his cloak onto the floor, sending droplets from it to spatter on the tile. "How be it that my gear is drenched and my rouncy in mud to his belly, while you make mirth and plays? Am I your lord or your servant?"
Everyone fell to their knees. A tympan tinkled in the stunned silence as a small girl crawled from Melanthe's lap and knelt, holding the belled drum before her.
"Thorlac," he snapped to one of the poised tumblers. "Stable my mount. Simon, take Will's. Stands he outside in the rain with the order of laboring. I'll see no one in this hall singing or playing until Lent is passed. Eat in the low hall, and give you thanks for it."
At once the great room emptied, light footsteps and shuffles and the odd note of a justled instrument. Only Melanthe was left, sitting on a settle drawn near the huge chimney. The gems on her kerchief gleamed as she bent her head, rubbing one hand over the back of the other.
"My lady must forgive me for ending your sport," he said tautly, "but the work demands."
"I ask your pardon," she said, without lifting her face. "I didn't know it. I thought they were at leisure."
"Not in this season, my lady. Spring comes."
"Yes," she said.
No more than that. He was damp, his hands still cold, though the fire beside her rumbled with more than enough wood and charcoal. "Have I displeased you, lady," he said harshly, "that you refuse my company?"
He hadn't meant to speak it out so abruptly. Her hands folded together in her lap, nunlike.
"I don't refuse your company, my lord. I am with you now."
"My embraces," he said.
She slanted a look up at him beneath the kerchief and her lashes, and then gazed down again, the picture of chastity.
He paced away. "Perhaps you tire of this place and wish to go now to Bowland."
"No, and risk the pestilence?" she asked quickly.
He turned. "Was little sign of it enough, my lady. Only at Liverpool."
"Who speaks to you of this—that I would go?"
"I think of your place, and your holdings. You can't look to sojourn here long, to your lands' neglect."
She stood up. "Who said you so?"
"It's common wit, my lady. I should have seen you to Bowland, as we intended. It's not fitting I should have brought you here to detain you."
"Your minstrels said you so!" she exclaimed.
"My minstrels?" he repeated blankly. He stopped in the face of her vehemence. "No, they said no such."
"William Foolet has whispered in your ears, and the Bassinger, to say you of my lands' neglect, and plague is no danger to me!"
"No they didn't."
"Do you care less for me than for your people? They're commanded to stay within your plessis wood for fear of pestilence!"
"That wasn't my meaning!" He found himself near to shouting in response to her wild accusations. "Faithly—I didn't know you feared the plague so much."
"I do."
Her violet eyes regarded him, shaded in black lashes. She had never seemed overconcerned to Ruck. She did not seem so now. With her head lifted, her kerchief sparkling with gems, she seemed more angry than alarmed.
"You don't choose to make all haste to your lands, then," he said.
"I fear pestilence."
He shook his head with a slight laugh. "My lady—I don't know that you ever speak me true."
"I do! I fear to go out, for the pestilence."
Her lips made a strange pressing curve—an aspect there and gone, a shadow between her brows before she smoothed her face again to cool composure. Always she was a secret, impossible to read. I
t could have been a hidden smile or a hint of tears. But he thought it was not a smile.
She faced him wholly. "You said that I may stop here, where no ill could come, so long as I wished!" She made it a challenge, as if she expected him to deny it.
"Then do we not go, my lady," he said, "until I know it to be safe for you."
"Oh," she said, and closed her eyes.
"I thought me that you would wish to depart soon."
She made a tiny shake of her head.
"Melanthe," he said, "will I never understand you?"
Her eyes opened. "When I wish it."
He bent and retrieved his wet mantle, throwing it across his shoulder as he stepped up onto the dais. "My lady," he said, giving her a brief, stiff bow before he went through the door and mounted the stairs.
He had stripped himself down for dry clothes when she came. She closed the door and looked at him with a look that made the blood run strong in his veins. He could not hide himself, though he turned away from her—but she came to him and touched him and put his hands at her waist.
He kissed her. He held her hard and laid her on the bed, knowing he'd been befooled somehow, that she meant to wile him by her days of denying and now giving, heartless wench that she was. But she'd only wiled him into what he wanted anyway, to keep her here and love and overlie her until she gasped in frenzy beneath him, her hair escaped from the kerchief to spread all about the pillows.
He buried his face in the black silken strands, groaning his release through clenched teeth. He lay atop her and felt her breasts rise and fall against him, her sheath tight and delicious, faint throbs in her that ran through him like sweet kisses.
She turned her lips beside his ear. "Now," she said, "you understand me."
He gave a laugh, his teeth still clenched. "No, Melanthe. Only you make me cease to care if I do or not."
* * *
In a careful fold over her arm, Cara carried an altar-cloth and the vestments she was to mend. She crossed Bowland's dim and busy hall, jumping back from a woodman's bundle of fagots as he stopped suddenly in front of her and dropped the load. The wood thudded almost on her toes.
"Beware!" she exclaimed, one of the English expressions she was learning well among these savages.
The servant turned with a great show of surprise, but he was smirking beneath it. He didn't even bow, but only leaned down to grab the roped bundle.
"You did that on purpose!" she cried in outrage. "Disrespectful oaf, you'd have broken my foot!"
He didn't understand her French, or pretended not to. She pressed her lips together. In less than a fortnight here, the small slights were mounting to open disdain. She hated this place, and these people. A hot sting threatened behind her eyes.
Someone stopped beside her. Still in his travel mud, the English squire Guy seized the woodman's collar and dragged him up close. He growled something in English. The servant's insolence vanished as he tried to choke out words and bow at the same time, his face turning red with effort.
Guy spoke again, short and fierce, and shoved the woodman back. He fell over his own pile of fagots, landing on the rush mat with a loud thud and yelp. Guy made a gesture toward Cara. When the servant was slow in heaving himself up, Guy stepped over the bundle and aimed a kick with his armored toe.
The man yelped again, scrambling into a kneel before Cara. He begged her pardon humbly, in perfectly adequate French.
Everyone in the hall had paused to watch. Guy swept a look over them. "Surely a noble house serves its ladies with good cheer," he said, his quiet voice carrying to the corners.
The hall was silent. Slowly, as Guy maintained his arrogant stare, one or two of them bowed, then more, until finally every servant in the hall had acknowledged him.
He gave Cara a curt nod and strode back toward the passage beyond the screens, his blue cloak flaring from his shoulders. She looked down at the still-kneeling woodman and the respectfully bowed heads around her, and hugged the vestments close, turning to go after him.
She caught up with him in the passage. "Sir!"
He stopped, looking over his shoulder. When he saw her, his face broke into a boyish grin.
"I must thank you, sir," she said, halting a few feet away from him and lowering her face.
"Did you see that?" he exclaimed. "It worked. I can't believe I did it."
The excitement in his voice made her look up. He was still grinning, with a streak of mud she hadn't noticed on his jaw. When she had first seen him, his blond hair had been damp and plastered to his head—she hadn't realized what a bright color it was, shining like a golden crown in the dismal passage. He didn't wear the flesh-colored hose now, but a soldier's armor. He did not appear silly at all.
"It's the manner," he said. "Soft and steady. Confidence."
"God grant you mercy, sir, for your aid," she repeated, taking a shy step backward.
He bowed. "It was an honor to serve you, my lady."
She almost retreated, and then paused. "You've been traveling."
He lowered his voice. "Seeking after news of your mistress. Navona and Lord Thomas have divided a few of us to search and report."
"You've found something?" Cara asked anxiously.
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, my lady. Nothing. But you must not fear that we'll fail." He gestured toward the door. "I must give my account to them now, and so haste, if I don't offend you."
"Oh no—of course you must go." She moistened her lips. "Where do you lodge?"
"Over the postern gate, with the squires."
"I'll see that a bath is made for you, your robes ready when you wish them." She wrapped the vestments close about her arm and went quickly toward the hall. She hesitated at the screen, glancing back.
He stood looking after her, his golden hair a faint gleam against the stone. She smiled, making a little courtesy, and hurried into the hall.
* * *
There were almost no other women in the castle—none at all of Cara's rank, and she had the upper rooms of the household range to herself. She'd found a place by a window and sat in the embrasure, bending over the vestments in the rain-soaked light and picking the seam loose with her needle.
Allegreto came upon her before she knew he was there. She reached for scissors and looked up, starting to see him leaned against the stone chimney mantel with his arms crossed.
"Blessed Mary!" she exclaimed, her hand on her breast. "You're as sly as a stoat."
He inclined his head, as if it were a compliment. Dressed in the Bowland livery, all scarlet but for a simple gold slash diagonal, he might have been a crimson angel or a devil from the fires below. Cara slipped her needle into the fabric, pretending to go back to work. He came sometimes to watch her, and then left again without saying a word—spying, she supposed, though to what purpose but to unnerve her she had no notion.
The disastrous news they had brought of Princess Melanthe's disappearance had worked heavily on the peace of the castle's constable, as well Cara could imagine. Sir Thomas seemed an able and efficient man enough, to see the sound state of the hold and garrison, but in this crisis his management failed him. She was aware that Allegreto had played no small part in the man's consternation, encouraging him in terrifying notions of who would be blamed if the news spread and the king heard. Allegreto had the natural presence of his father if he pleased to use it, and he did now. A bare sixteen years he might have, but Sir Thomas hung upon his advice as if he were a hundred.
"Put down your work," Allegreto said softly to her. "I have news."
A bolt of fear made her fingers jump. She barely missed pricking her finger. "Tell me!"
"A runner has arrived. The rest of our people will be here before night." He made a humorless chuckle. "And only a month since they left London! Sodorini outdoes himself."
She was glad she did not hold the needle, for in her shaking hand it would surely have pierced her. Allegreto watched, a flame and a darkness.
"I've waited, Cara. Now you mus
t decide."
The castle suddenly seemed a huge weight around her, pressing down upon her.
"Riata or Navona," he said.
She wadded the vestments in her fists. "My sister. My sister."
"We will ruse them. But I must know who it is."
"I can't tell you!"
"Little fool, do you think I can't find out for myself? I'll know by who kills you." He pushed off the chimney. "We came here together. I brought you. Cara, I brought you!"
She fixed her eyes on his crimson figure. With a blinding vision, she understood him, saw how it would appear in Riata eyes. The princess was still alive, free of any nunnery, outside of all reach—and only Cara and Allegreto, together, had returned with the word. Even a child must believe that they had conspired to effect it.
"Only tell me," he said. "I can safeguard you."
She closed her eyes.
"I beseech you. I beg you."
"Ficino," she whispered.
With a soft rustle across the rushes, he came close to her. "You're with us now. With me. I'll keep your sister if God wills."
He stood before her, the devil's perfection, invoking God. Abruptly he went to one knee and gathered the vestments and her hands within his, pressing his face into the cloth. As suddenly he let her go. He thrust himself back, as if he had touched a flame, and went to the passage.
He stopped there. Without looking at her, he said, "You must send him word to meet you in the cistern cellar, the one where the oils are stored."
She stared at him, bereft of words at what he had just done.
"Cara!" he snapped over his shoulder. "Repeat me, that I know you won't blunder it!"
She started. "The cistern cellar, for the oils," she said. Before she was finished speaking, he had gone.
* * *
The alarm bells came deep in the night, dread tolling and shouts of fire. All the ladies rushed about in the dark, trying to find their way among the half-packed baggage and chests. Cara was the first down the stairs, knowing her way, holding her candle aloft for the others to see.
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