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 greens and bear 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."
"No." 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've sworn to conceal my name and place until I was proved worthy of it, but if God sees fit that Your Majesty knows me, by what grace or method I know not, then I avow that I'm in truth 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 have you 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 often have we been glad to see your blazon spread in battle with our enemies. You may 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. "No, 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 admits 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 hadn't 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.
"Your 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 dais 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-gift, for your service at Nottingham."
Ruck lowered his eyes, shaking his head at the mention of Nottingham and the king's love. "Sire, I can't accept this. My father it was who climbed from the cellars with you and the others, sire, at Nottingham Castle. Not yet was I even 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. "Aye, it is long ago now." He looked up, his eyes vague. "You were not born?"
"No, sire. Was my father who was with you, sire."
The king seemed to grow shamefast. "Ah. Your 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 much you're like him, in your face, and your uncouth northern tongue! Remember when we—" Then he shook his head. "But he's 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 you, and on your needs. Keep this, I command you."
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, 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.
Her smile widened. She touched Navona's arm and nodded toward Ruck.
The moment that she did it, the cold enveloped him. His fingers numbed, his feet and his legs. As he took a step, his knee collapsed, cold rising to his waist, poisonous cold.
The wine killed him. He felt it stop his heart. Like a murderous hand, it strangled his throat. His lungs froze; his limbs seized.
His mind failed him. He felt himself die, the ground hurling upward to meet him.
* * *
Princess Melanthe sat on the window seat. She leaned her elbow on a pillow, looking out an open glass, staring down into the garden. Cara stood in attendance, gazing at the painted window glass where two angels held the message "Love God and dread shame."
"My dear one," Gian said, bending before the princess, "I beg your pardon for my delay." When she only lifted her hand for a kiss without turning from the window, he left her in the sunset glare and went to pour himself wine. "But it was entertaining, you may be certain."
"What have they decided?" Princess Melanthe asked idly.
He set down the brass ewer. "For two hours they debated over whether this green fellow had upheld his word after all. It turned on a fine point, my dear. A fine point. Did he leave the lists before he died or after? Had it been after, the case might have been different." He put on a mock solemn face, imitating a justice. "For then no one could assert that he had been killed by the Fleming, without a mark on him. But he was still in the lists when he expired, so it could be argued that the Fleming killed him with one of those blows to the head, but the effect was belated. You'll delight in the verdict, my love."
"Will I?" the princess asked. She turned her face to him. Cara thought her cold—so cold that there was not a shred of living feeling in her.
"Since the green fellow didn't lose, his cause was just and true. So he did not lie." Gian shrugged and smiled at her over his cup. "I suppose it must follow that you did, then, but we'll pass over that lightly in the circumstances, as our clever justices of chivalry chose to do. They have determined that God could not allow the green churl to lose, precisely—but clearly He did not think it a satisfactory match, and so put period to your late husband with a flourish, rather in the style of striking him with lighting. Be it a lesson to all abductors and rapists of innocent females."
The princess narrowed her eyes. "I will not remain here another day. We leave tomorrow, Gian. No more of this!"
He didn't answer her, but roamed the solar, his white velvet turned to rose by the late burn of the sun through the tall open windows. "So, my betrothed—you're a married woman and a widow in the space of a few moments. With all thanks to my precious boy—" He stopped beside Allegreto, who lounged against the bedstead. Gian stro
ked his son's cheek lovingly. "Ah, Allegreto, you're forgiven everything. You did so well. I saw his face as he died—and he knew it. He went to Hell knowing, and he'll burn there knowing. I couldn't have asked for more, my sweet son. I do love you beyond words."
He took Allegreto in his arms, a long and hard embrace. Allegreto's hands curled into the rich flowing cloth of his father's robe. He gripped the velvet as if he would not let go, near as tall now as Gian. He pressed his cheek against his father's shoulder, his face squeezed into a grimace of passion, a terrible thing to see.
"How can I reward you?" Gian murmured, stroking his son's black hair. "Will you have Donna Cara? I see your eyes when she enters the hall. She's not worthy of you, Allegreto—I'd have better for you, but if it would please?"
"I'm betrothed, my lord," Cara said sharply. Allegreto's face was hidden in his father's shoulder. Gian made him lift his head, "Will you have her?"
Cara began to tremble. She knew that she should not; it was the worst thing she could do, show her thoughts and feelings. No one else showed his heart.
"I'll have what you want for me, my lord," Allegreto said. "I am ever yours in obedience."
Gian smiled. "And in love," he said, touching Allegreto's cheek.
He looked into his father's eyes. "And in love, my lord."
Gian's thumb moved over his cheek. "You have your mother's comeliness," he murmured. "And my wit. We'll look far higher for you, sweet son. Let her have her English clod, or take her as your mistress. But no—" He grinned, tilting his head back. "No, I forget, you're a virgin still, poor Allegreto, on account of playing the role I gave you. And did well at that, too, as Lady Melanthe informed me with some wrath. Let me find a woman to teach you pleasure first, lovely boy. Then you can decide if this sour little milkmaid will satisfy you." He stepped back, disengaging himself gently from Allegreto's still clinging hold, and gave him another kiss.
"So touching!" the princess said viciously. She stood up. In the last shafts of light from the window, she was only a black silhouette against it, her hair haloed, sunset sparkling on the golden net and buttons lined down her sleeves. "Where have they taken the body?"
Allegreto shrugged. "The charnel house, I suppose."
"Fool! You should have found out!"
"My lady, I made sure he was dead and left him with the doctor and one weeping squire. I wasn't required to follow him to the grave!"
"You're certain of this poison," she said.
Allegreto lifted his brows. "I put a misericorde in his heart, my lady," he said. "He did not bleed."
She made a faint sound in her throat. Cara was afraid for her mistress suddenly; afraid she would swoon, afraid Gian would see and kill them all in his jealousy.
But Princess Melanthe only stared for a long moment at Allegreto. Then she said, "I'll not have him thrown in a pauper's grave. He will be buried properly, by a priest, in a church. There will be a stone made, marked by that name the king called him. I wish a chantry endowed for his soul." She moved toward the door. "Find him, Allegreto, and see to it. Tonight."
Gian caught her arm. "My lady," he said coldly, "you pay him such respect?"
"He prayed too much," she said. "I don't wish some tedious ghost haunting me with aves and hosannas." She pulled her arm from his hand. "And I do not care for restraint, from you or any man, Gian. Do not touch me so again."
He smiled down at her. "You're an unruly little dragon. I wouldn't have you slip your couple."
"Hold me with love, Gian," she said smoothly. "That works best."
"No, my dear," he murmured. "The fear that comes of love works best."
"Then I'm on a long leash," she said, sweeping from the chamber. "Come, Cara—why stand there like a gaping trout? See that Allegreto does my bidding." She paused at the door. "And pay no mind to this talk of looking higher for him. Marry your English squire—and if you're clever, you'll still have Allegreto panting after you as Gian does me. And then we may rule the world, I promise you."
TWENTY-FIVE
There were voices. It was a great well of stone, its compass lost in darkness, echoing, with shadows that moved and hulked across the curving wall.
He had no body. He could see and hear, but the voices made no sense. It had been only an instant's shift, a blink between crowds and color and the poison cup in his hand, then strangling death and this place. A deep horror possessed him. He was in Purgatory; demon-haunted; he had died without shrive or absolution of killing a man.
One of the demons counted. It was invisible, but he could hear the clink of its claws with each tally. "Two hundred and fifty," it said with a lurid satisfaction.
Was that his sentence? So many years? Fear drowned him. He tried to speak, to plead that Isabelle had prayed for his soul, but he could not speak. He had no tongue. He remembered that there had been no prayers. Isabelle was dead, as dead as he, burned for heresy.
The well echoed with fearful murmurs, with scrapes and footsteps, and then a great crash that thundered and rolled about him. He heard something come toward him splashing and dripping, and wanted to scream with fear of what monster it would be to gnaw and tear at his flesh for two hundred fifty years.
"He does look dead," the monster said in bad French. "A merry poison, this. I could make good use of it in my art."
"What, to physic your patients to death and bring them out again! Dream, you mountebank—you couldn't buy it in a thousand years."
Allegreto's reverberating voice shocked him. Like a demon-angel, the youth floated in the air, appearing and vanishing. He hadn't expected Allegreto to be here.
"I'd have him wake." Now it was his squire John Marking. "Never did I contract to be party to murder."
Had they all died? Their voices and faces kept slipping away from him. His nose hurt. He was dimly surprised to have a nose. He tried to open his eyes to see if the monster was gnawing on it, but he only had eyes sometimes, and other times not.
They were demons, he thought. Demons with voices and faces that he knew. He refused to answer them when they demanded that he wake. It was the Devil calling him. If it called in Melanthe's voice, then he would be sure it was the Devil.
The monster touched him, cold and wet. He tried to jerk back, his head hitting stone—he had a head suddenly, because it hurt. He'd never thought of this. He knew that his dead soul would be like a body so that it might be tortured for his sins, but he had not imagined it would be by single parts, with the rest still gone.
The wet thing licked over his face, a loathsome cold tongue, water in his eyes and on his chest. He had a chest. And a heart. The Devil spoke in the voice of a maid.
"Wake now, my lord." It was the gentlewoman who had served Melanthe. He could see her through slitted and dripping eyes, and felt sorry that she had died, too. Wolves, he thought. Wolves had eaten her. "Try to wake," she said. "Drink this."
He turned his head away. "De'il," he mumbled, the word barely passing his throat. "Deviel."
"He's alive," Allegreto said. "Are you satisfied?"
He could not make sense of it. Alive. Dead. Purgatory, and these were his demons. He didn't think the worst could have begun yet, for Melanthe was not among them, but he had no doubt that she would come and take delight to torture him. She had smiled as he drank her poison, knowing that she killed him.
* * *
Allegreto returned from the river, beckoning to Cara from the door at the top of the stairs. She was glad to leave this awful place, abandoned as it seemed to be by the monks who had built it, indeed, by God Himself. The great round cellar still held a few ale-kegs, but the water well dominated the brewery, a black pit as wide across as a castle turret.
She hurried up the arch of stone steps, leaving the water bucket full and one candle burning for their prisoner. Allegreto closed the heavy door, barred and locked it.
"I'll walk with you to the lodge," he said. "There's a horse, and a guide to take you back."
She followed him up the wide, sloped passage. At t
he outer door he opened the wicket and doused the candle. They both ducked through the small door.
A half-moon was rising, shedding light on the empty monastery. Buildings rose about them in black and gray bulks. She pulled her hood over her head and lifted her skirt as he led her across a grassy plot. Her footsteps echoed softly as they passed onto the paved cloister.
A half-year past she would have been terrified out of her mind to walk here in the silence and emptiness. But Allegreto was with her, and not even the ghosts of dead men could frighten her. An old monastery on a summer night, only abandoned because the monks had preferred some better place, held nothing so fearsome as he was.
He walked ahead of her, noiseless, turning through another passage where the moonlight shone in a pale arch at the other end. They followed the overgrown road to the gatehouse, and Allegreto gave her his hand to help her over the slanted timbers of the half-fallen door.
He let go of her instantly. But he stopped, facing Cara in the starlight. "Is it true—or did you say it for my father?"
She couldn't look into his face. Since they had left Bowland, she in Princess Melanthe's household and he in Gian's, there had been nothing but the briefest dealings between them, messages passed for her mistress and no more. She was safe with him, she knew; she did not even fear ghosts with him beside her, but Guy had been given a place with the princess as a yeoman of horse. He was well within Allegreto's reach.
"No," she lied. "No, I just said it, so that—" She stopped.
"So that my father would not force you." Mortification hovered in his voice. "I wouldn't have—I didn't, did I? I could have said yes to him."
"Let us not speak of this." She started past, suddenly fearing him as she had not before, fearing that they were alone here in the empty dark.
"Are you betrothed to him?"
"No." She said it too quickly, too breathlessly. That was to protect Guy, but she had no lie to protect herself if Allegreto chose to constrain her by strength.
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