The Medieval Hearts Series

by Laura Kinsale

  "She is my wife," he said, looking on Gian as the downed man groped to his feet in the middle of the stream. "You will not touch her or see her again."

  "You’re 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 your contemptible life."

  "Name the occasion. And come armed."

  Gian drove himself to his feet. "You’ll 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 you at Westminster Palace, you poor deluded churl." Her rouncy pirouetted. "Begone. 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 before she escapes!"

  * * *

  He hated her, with a fine relentless hate, a cold will down to his heart and sinew.

  For a fortnight Ruck had sat in taverns and listened to the talk of clerks and squires, of knights in waiting at Windsor. 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.

  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, too.

  Navona kept his own lodging three miles off, in the town hard by the castle. If he’d not, Ruck thought, he would already be dead.

  Ruck 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 couldn’t fathom—she had deceived and wiled, and he’d been so besotted and glad that he hadn’t pressed her. Or perhaps she’d 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’d called him mad, and he had gone near mad in truth, silent ferocity, a violence locked up inside 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 didn’t doubt: he wouldn’t have her back—nor wanted her. She hadn’t 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 jesting mock, virgin’s blossoms to adorn a whore.

  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 kill 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—so perhaps 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’d 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 give bond 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 he’d 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.

  "Be 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 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. He knocked a squire clear from his saddle with a wooden waster sword when he thought of Navona’s face.

  It came now to forbidding the banns. He wouldn’t 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 rogues must watch their backs."

  Ruck ignored him, squatting down to cup his hands and drink from the bucket.

  "Miserable wretch, how much money do you think to get for renouncing your foul tale? Tell me, and I’ll take the message to Dan Gian, to save you the toil."

  Ruck stood up. "If you’ve come from Navona," he said, calm and clear, "then advise him
to save his silver 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, wretch."

  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 himself with the towel and threw it down. "With the greatest delight, you 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. A 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, cheering 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 wasn’t 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 cheating sword?" 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 fight with." He glared around at the staring faces. "I’m in health and whole today—if I die before 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 don’t fight with a foul nothing."

  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 didn’t 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 wasn’t 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 do you serve?" Ruck asked in English.

  He made a smart bow. "My lord died at Pentecost, may Lord Jesus grant him grace. I be without place since."

  Ruck frowned. "Who spoke to you as my friend?"

  "I don’t know, sir, but I’ll try out the creature and find him, if you like." He looked at Ruck with a sober expression that didn’t quite disguise the glint of hope. "John Marking is my name. My late sire’s lady will write a letter to attest me, should it fall out that you be in need of a humble squire, God save you."

  "Then let her write," Ruck said, and handed John his gloves.

  * * *

  "Sit there." The archbishop waved him to a bench, holding the papers, all in Latin, and spreading them out on the table before him. "This isn’t a cause in which I’d intervene," the prelate said, "but that since I came here I’ve 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. His clerk spoken for him, but now the prelate wished to interview him alone. He sat straight, looking at the archbishop’s peaked and embellished mitre. 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 can’t be a disadvantage to you, for you have no property or place that you name. Sir who? Of where? What county?"

  "Honorable father—I’m under solemn vow, that I will not undertake my right name before the world until I prove worthy. But I’ve 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’m 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 because 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."

  "Yes, my lord. She lay at my hold, from February to May."

  The churchman frowned at him thoughtfully. "Tell 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 didn’t 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’ve 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 don’t say that you’ve lied, but you have no proof."

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

  "I’ve 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 hadn’t known she had already spoken her story.

  But he didn’t 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 agree."

  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, i
n her impudence she told me she’d spent the time so deep in prayer that she did not recall the place." He lifted his brows. "I’m 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’re 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 ox-like 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 vanguard, Melanthe rode beside Navona, who didn’t appear much discomfited 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.