"You lie!" Gian’s shout rocked off the water and the trees. "Whoreson, who paid you to say this?"
Ruck’s gaze went instantly to him, like a wolf that had sighted its prey at last. His sword made a singing sweep into guard. "I do not lie, nor speak for gain. I am no son of a whore, but I’ll be pleased to kill thee for thy slander.
"No." The earl held out his arm. "Nay, sir—Dan Gian is not armed."
Without hesitation Ruck reversed his sword, offering it to Pembroke. As the earl grasped the hilt, Hawk lifted his great hooves, treading sideways, shouldering into Gian’s horse. Gian didn’t flinch—he made a murderous stab toward Ruck’s eye with his poison-dagger. For an instant they grappled together, and then Ruck had Gian’s wrist in his grip, the horses splashing and circling.
Hawk sidestepped against Gian’s mount, shoving, his bulk compelling the other horse to scramble for footing as Ruck forced Gian’s arm overhead. Like a slow ram, the destrier impelled the lighter horse to move, to lurch and falter in the stream. Gian wrenched free and threw himself toward Ruck, driving the dagger at his face as the rouncy went down with a floundering splash.
Heavy drops sprayed over Melanthe as her mount shied back. The ladies screamed, clinging to their reins and their bating hawks. Amid a flail of hooves and water Gian was half-trapped, his leg beneath the horse, but the animal rolled and heaved forward, struggling upright in a glistening sheet.
Frantically she scanned Ruck’s face, dreading to see a poisoned scratch within the shadow of his helmet. But there was no blood, only the forbidding set of his mouth as he met her eyes.
It was this he had wanted from the start, she saw. Not his command to her to go with him—but Gian, dripping and humiliated beyond human bearing, shamed into challenge and combat.
"She is my wife," he said, looking on Gian as the downed man groped to his feet in the middle of the stream. "Thou wilt not touch her or see her again."
"Thou art an open liar and false knave." Gian’s leg gave beneath him, and he went to one knee, but even his soaked velvet did not diminish the proud savagery of his response. "I’ll have thy contemptible life."
"Name the occasion. And come armed."
Gian drove himself to his feet. "Thou wilt receive my messenger."
"I await him. The Ospridge at Colnbrook." Ruck tossed Gian’s dagger into the water. He turned Hawk, reining the destrier up onto the bank, and halted beside Melanthe. "For courtesy, I do not compel my lady’s grace to attend me at a common inn."
"Mary, I would not attend thee at Westminster Palace, thou poor deluded churl." Her rouncy pirouetted. "Begone thee. Gian, your little sperverhawk has taken a stand in that oak—" She spurred her horse, gesturing urgently at the sparviters who had held the spaniels and gaped all through the scene. "Come quickly, we must retrieve her ere she escapes us!"
* * *
All the towns and villages about Windsor Castle were full while the king was in residence. For a fortnight Ruck had sat in taverns and listened to the talk of clerks and squires, of knights in waiting. He’d heard it all—how this Italian lord would wed her, what terms he bought and how he bought them in his dealings with the king’s ravenous mistress and her favorites, where he resorted, and how often he attended the Lady Melanthe at her bury hall of Merlesden.
Navona kept his own lodging three miles off, in the town hard by the castle. If he had not, Ruck thought, he would already be dead.
Warm air, smelling of dust off the street, flowed into the upstairs window of the inn. Ruck sat with his feet propped on the sill. He could see Merlesden from his chamber, an admirable court hall of pale stone on a wooded hillside across the water meadows, the sun sparkling from its many windows.
He hated it. He hated her, with a fine relentless hate, a cold will down to his heart and sinew.
He would not endure her to make mock of him. To discount him, as if he did not exist. How long she must have planned it, he could not fathom—she had rused and wiled, and he had been so sotted and glad that he had not pressed her. Or haps she had never planned it, but only heard that her great love had come for her, this Dan Gian, this Italian lord—father of her lap-dog lover; vice beyond conjecture—and she forgot all else but to warn Ruck not to presume on her for shame of him.
He swung his legs down and stood, pacing the width of the private bedchamber as he had walked the towers of Wolfscar. She had called him mad, and he had gone near mad in truth, lost he knew not how long in silent ferocity, a violence locked up in himself, so that he could not speak even when he heard common voices talking to him.
He was out of his right mind yet, he knew. She would have her way, he did not doubt: he would not have her back—nor wanted her. She had not even looked as he remembered. Ever the witch, she had changed herself again: thinner, delicate and narrow like a phantom spirit clothed in richness, her eyes deep and dead when she gazed upon him. Her flowers were a japing mock, virgin’s blossoms to adorn a ramp.
He leaned his hands on the painted boards and put his forehead to the wall. He listened to the sound of his own breathing.
Ruck wanted to slay her as she slayed him, but he could only take the oiled and painted carpet knight. By the church or by the challenge, he would deprive her of that connection. In his madness to prevent her, he was blessed with detached reason, as if he were two men, one who burned and one who was ice.
He had hired counsel in canon law. He made his case to the bishop, giving solemn oath of his truth—on the morrow she would have notice of that, and peraventure her foreign lord’s great preparations for a feast would be gone to waste. Ruck had even found his green tournament plate, stolen in the Wyrale and ransomed back from an armorer in Chester, missing the emerald, yes, but fit for use. He had chosen his place and time with perfect care—to speak before witnesses who would put the word about court and countryside swift as gossip’s wing could carry it.
If they dared to carry on with their betrothal, Ruck intended to sour the wine in their mouths.
The canon clerk had advised him to assert that she could not speak freely for fear of someone near her, a trick to counter her foregone denial. That Melanthe had ever feared anything, even unto Hell itself, Ruck greatly doubted, but he could see the usefulness of the pretense. He had also given a hoard to the clerk’s safekeeping, in case they should try to have him arrested on charges of deceit and falsehood, and set down names of men who would let mainprize for his surety. He trusted her as he would trust a viper in his bed.
He lifted his head at the sound of a horse coming fast in the road. Two days had he waited for Navona’s agent. He turned eagerly, to hear if the rider came to a halt, but the hoofbeats did not slow. The horse rushed beneath the window.
A pale object flew through the open glass, startling him. It thumped on the floor, a small white sack, while the horse passed on without a pause.
He swept it up, yanked open the string, and poured pebbles from inside. A folded paper fell after them into his hand.
For an instant his whole heart changed—he pressed open the folds with a hope that lasted only long enough to see that it was French. She would not write him in French, not if she meant well. Neither her name nor her sign marked the paper.
"On guard," it said only. "The wine."
He held the paper, rubbing it between his fingers. There was no hint—but it must be her, to warn him of this wine. Who else...
Comprehension came to him. He had seen Desmond here, at a distance, loitering with Allegreto and a crowd of honey-fly gallants and laughing ladies, dressed in a short hamselin coat with delicate embroidery and fur tips. Desmond, too, she had perverted, but this much faith the boy must have left, to forewarn Ruck—in French no less—that his wife or her lover tried to poison him.
He made a small laugh, tearing the parchment and flicking the pieces away. And when Navona’s agent came at last, bearing a flask of wine and news that Dan Gian, his ankle broken in the fall beneath his horse, would have a champion in his place rather than delay their reckoning,
Ruck did not drink to seal the arrangement.
A champion. But let him cower behind tainted wine and champions, the fisting cur. He would not have her.
Ruck gave the wine flask to the landlady and told her to poison rats with it—for which she thanked him in the morning and said that it had done very well.
* * *
The champion was to be imported from Flanders. Ruck learned of it when he went to the jousting ground in search of exercise, and found no dearth of offers.
He fought in the lists all morning. He did not usually encounter so many who wished to trade spars with him, but he was glad enough for the fierce activity. The betrothal feast had not been set aside; it went forward at Merlesden after a promise on the church porch—the canon lawyer assured him that the priest’s words would include "if the Holy Church consents," a caution Ruck could depend upon to protect his interest, but he knocked a squire clear from his saddle with a wooden waster when he thought of Navona’s face.
It came now to forbidding the banns. He would not have to stand up in church and object; his clerk already worked to present his case, and at least until it had been investigated, the betrothal could be carried no further. Ruck chafed at these bishops and clerks, but it was a rite that had to be observed. He expected no success; she would deny him to the bishop as she had denied Ruck to his face, and so it was his word against hers. He had but one way to prove himself, with a sword.
He dismounted, starting to take a ladle of water from a page who ran up to offer it—and then hesitated. He let the water pour onto the ground and called another waterboy from outside the lists.
"Wary bastard!" A knight halted beside him, some foreigner with an accent of the south. He said in a loud voice, "These stinking coquins must watch their backs."
Ruck ignored him, squatting down to cup his hands and drink from the bucket.
"Miserable wretch, how much money dost thou think to get for renouncing your foul tale? Tell me, and I’ll take the message to Dan Gian, to save thee the toil."
Ruck stood up. "If thou hast come from Navona," he said, calm and clear, "then advise him to save his silver, for to hire the man who dies in his place." Ruck wiped his face with a towel. "Since he’s too much a woman to fight himself."
"He’s injured, caitiff."
Ruck smiled up at the knight. "I’d be pleased to wait, but I think his ankle won’t be so brave as to knit soon."
The foreigner looked about at the crowd that gathered and deliberately spit on him. "Fight me. Now."
Ruck wiped his cuir bouilli with the towel and threw it down. "With the greatest delight, thou son of a mongrel bitch." He turned to Hawk and tightened his girth. Immediately the spectators split, pages and squires pressing up to serve him with helm and a steel sword instead of the wooden wasters for practice. The blunt-fingered squire who held out the helmet dropped it an inch from Ruck’s hand.
As they both bent to retrieve it, the squire hissed, "Your friend says beware the sword."
Ruck looked up at him. He was a stranger, backing away with a quick bow. A quick scan of the spectators lined along lists revealed no Desmond, nor any other friend.
They were sympathetic to him, though, halloing him vigorously as he mounted. He turned the sword he’d been given, running his glove along the edge. Light flashed up and down it. He could see no flaw, but he was not fool enough to chance it. He called for another—and as he handed down the first blade, he saw it: a ghost across the metal, the faintest flaw of color.
"Who gave me this?" he shouted in English. He held it overhead, reining his horse in a circle, spurring toward the quintain. "Who gives me a sword nought worth ambs-ace?" With a violent sweep he brought it flat against the stout practice post.
The blade broke, the sundered half flying through the air to land with a skidding puff of dust.
"Witness this, that I was goaded into combat by no will of my own, and given that to fighten with." He glared around at the staring faces. "I am in health and whole today—if I die afore I prove my truth against Navona’s slander, then I pray you, for your honor, to search into the cause." He threw away the broken hilt and turned his mount toward the gate. "I ne do nought fight with a foul nithing."
They jeered; he supposed it was at him, until he reached the rail and they started to duck under it and run into the lists. His challenger did not make it to the gate, surrounded by an angry swarm. They pulled him from his horse, tearing his helmet and weapon away the better to beat him.
Ruck watched for a moment, with a habitual urge to stop the disorder. He was not certain that the man had been behind the flawed sword. But there were boys taking hold of Hawk’s bridle, excited squires and pages escorting him out the gate. He remembered that foreign voice and deliberate spit, and turned his back.
He realized that the bull-shouldered squire who had given him the warning was walking beside him, hand on his stirrup.
When he dismounted, the man took his shield and helmet with a seasoned efficiency.
"Who does thou serve?" Ruck asked in English.
He made a smart bow. "My good lord Sir Henry of Grazely died at Pentecost, may Lord Jesus grant him grace. I be withouten place since."
Ruck frowned. "Who spake thee as my friend?"
"Ne do I not know, sir, but will I try out the creature and find him, an you liketh." He looked at Ruck with a sober expression that did not quite disguise the glint of hope. "John Marking is my name. My lady Grazely will write a letter to attest me, should it fall out that you be in need of a humble squire, God save you, sire."
"Then let her write anon," Ruck said, and handed John his gloves.
* * *
At the archbishop’s pleasure, Ruck knelt with his canon in the inner closet where the prelate was lodged at Windsor. He listened to the canon review his case, as he had listened to it laid before priest and archdeacon and bishop. When the clerk had finished, the archbishop sat in silence for a few moments, and then said he wished to speak to Ruck alone.
"Sit there." The prelate waved him to a bench, holding the papers, all in Latin, and spreading them out on the table before him. "This is not a cause in which I would intervene," the prelate said, "but that since I came here I have heard of nothing but the marvelous case of this unknown knight, who would have it that he’s married to the Countess of Bowland—who would have it that he’s not."
Ruck said nothing. He sat straight, looking at the archbishop’s peaked and embellished mitre that he’d taken off and set upon the table. The churchman sorted through papers.
"You press your cause ardently, with nothing to make proof," he murmured, reading. "But of course, I’m told that the widow is an heiress of great fortune."
"Your grace," Ruck said, "I do not want her fortune, nor will have it."
The prelate ran his finger across a line. "I see that you have so testified, that you quit all right in her estate. And yet such a marriage cannot be a disadvantage to you, for you have no property or place that you name. Sir who? Of where? What county?"
"Honorable father—I am under solemn vow, that I will not undertake my right name before the world until I prove worthy. But I have written it, and lies it sealed there." He nodded toward the parchments on the table. "The Duke of Lancaster is my liege lord. Six gentlemen and knights of good character vouch upon me, that I am no felon nor outlaw, but a true Christian man ready to keep the peace."
The archbishop made an irritated flick of his hand. "The Lord would be better pleased if young knights were not so hasty to swear such extravagant and profitless vows. But you must keep to your sworn word. Still—this want of conformity and open truth seems sufficient to arouse suspicion that you make your claim with worldly and wicked motive."
"My lord, I make claim for cause the Princess Melanthe is my wife, before God, and no other man may marry her while I live."
The archbishop tapped on the papers. Strong light shafted across the table from a lancet window, making a long shadow from his finger. "You testify that
the Princess Melanthe took you to husband by your right name and knows your place."
"Yea, my lord. She lay at my hold, from February to May."
The churchman frowned at him thoughtfully. "Say me, in your own words, what passed."
Ruck had told the story often now; he related everything from his dismissal by Lancaster to the bed at Torbec. The archbishop did not break in to question him as the others had. He simply listened, shifting the papers on occasion. At the end he said, "My son, I fear that you have been wiled by a wicked and lewd woman. If those at Torbec could have testified to witness of the vows, the case might be different. I do not say that you have lied, but you have no proof."
"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."
The Medieval Hearts Series Page 41