The Medieval Hearts Series

by Laura Kinsale

  She could feel Lady Beatrice’s judging look. She was no longer chaste. She did not feel different; she had no memory of what had been done to her—but the pirate made her sound as if she had been eager for it.

  In haps she had been. When he touched her so lightly, she felt as if there were a flash between them, a sting, an ache that ran from his fingertip across all of her skin.

  "Well, girl?" Countess Beatrice demanded.

  He moved away, as if to allow her freedom to choose. As he walked behind the countess, silent as a cat on the carpeted floor, he paused. He slipped the dagger from his belt and turned it in his hand, so that the morning sunlight caught the white diamond in the handle and sent a prism of light across his palm. The maid Margaret watched him placidly. He looked up directly into Elayne’s eyes.

  "What do you say?" The countess leaned upon her cane, her back to him. The stiff wings of her old-fashioned wimple made a screen around her face. "Has he forced you into this, child?"

  The Raven did not move, or take his eyes from Elayne’s. His face was gentle, perfect, his hand balancing the dagger and his dark brows slightly raised as he waited for her answer.

  And she understood him. With a clarity as brilliant as the gemstone on his weapon, she understood that he would kill the countess if Elayne denied him. Lady Beatrice would be a messenger with no doubt in her mind, or she would not be a messenger at all.

  "Do not think you are friendless," the countess said gruffly, unknowing of the viper poised to strike. "There is recourse for this kind of villainy, if you’ve spine enough to demand it."

  Elayne swallowed. She shook her head.

  "There was no villainy," she said faintly. "We are truly wed."

  The countess snorted. "God spare us, you witless chit! Not a moment since, you claimed there were no vows."

  "I only pretended to repent of it—for fear of your displeasure, ma’am."

  "Play me no May games! You tell me true if you’ve been plundered and forced to bed, or take your fine chances of life with this whoreson."

  Elayne saw his fingers close on the dagger; she saw him make a leisurely move.

  "I was not forced!" she cried. "We are wed; I said I took him for my husband before God."

  "Willingly?" the countess persisted, leaning forward. "This baseborn outlaw?"

  "Willingly!" Elayne flashed her hand outward. "More than willing! I wear his ring! I was eager to bed with him. Now take that message to my lady godmother and leave me. Leave me!"

  Lady Beatrice thumped her cane and raised her chin. "Bah! So I shall, then. Harlot."

  The pirate sheathed the blade without a sound. He inclined his head to Elayne.

  She pulled the sheets close around herself and turned her face to the wall. "Leave!"

  * * *

  From the tiled and arcaded gallery, Elayne watched Lady Beatrice sail away. It had not taken long for the countess to embark once she made up her mind. The Raven had Amposta’s ship prepared and waiting, laden with letters and gifts to soften the shock of the news she carried. Before noon the countess was departed.

  The craft moved swiftly, manned by two tiers of oars as it made boldly for the horizon. Elayne gazed after it from behind the fronds of a potted palm. She did not want to stand openly beside the parapet where anyone could see her. In a two-month, she supposed, Lady Beatrice would be safely back in England, spreading the word that Elayne was a harlot married to a pirate.

  She stood very still, containing shame and wrath and bitterness like a smooth-faced vessel with a whirlwind inside. From somewhere far below, invisible, the smoke and bustle of cooking drifted upward. People laughed. Someone seemed to be rehearsing music on a psaltery, plucking the same faint string of notes over and over.

  Elayne passed her hand over the pattern of silver-and-green leaves twining through the silk of her cote-hardie. There were hundreds of pearls embroidered into the low sweep of the neckline. The gown was a gift from Il Corvo, Margaret said, for Elayne to wear at the wedding feast. It lay heavily across her bathed and perfumed shoulders, more luxurious than anything she had ever donned, even at the Queen’s court—and like enough stolen from some passing merchant ship.

  Behind her, through an open arch in the faceted black stone of the castle, Il Corvo’s sumptuous bedchamber and anterooms waited. He had not returned there, only sent a courteously worded notice of Lady Beatrice’s imminent departure, describing the array of comforts and the strong guard he was sending with her. Their handmaids were no longer detained, made free to accompany her back to England as her attendants. He did not wish for Elayne to be concerned about the countess’s ease and protection.

  Elayne was not concerned for the countess or her maids. She felt the approach of evening like a descending hand.

  "My lady." Margaret’s voice came meekly from behind her. "My lady, the repast does not please you?"

  Elayne had refused to take any of the food or drink that Margaret had brought her. It sat disregarded on a table in the open gallery, covered by a diaphanous linen cloth.

  "I am not hungry," she said. She had no intention of being asleep when he came this time.

  "I will take it away." Margaret made a courtesy. "Pray, madam, if you will give me leave, I must begone for a short while to feed my son before the banquet."

  "Your son?" Elayne glanced at her. The maid seemed young to have a child.

  "Yea, my lady," Margaret said, keeping her face lowered. "I know it is blameworthy. I was in a bordel-house, to my shame, until my lord gave me sanctuary here." Her hands fluttered. "But I have full repented and done penance! I pray Your Grace will not cast me off."

  "Of course I would not cast you off."

  "God grant you mercy, madam. You are as kind and good in your heart as my lord. I will make a loyal servant to you, as he bid me." She bowed deeply again. "If you will give me consent, I will not be away long. I brought your privy chest, with your combs and fillets. We will have ample time to dress your hair when I return, I pledge."

  "Certainly, go," Elayne said. "Take as long as you wish."

  Margaret retreated, giving a courtesy with each step. Elayne turned back to the horizon, staring hard, unable to find the ship any longer.

  The weight of the pearl-encrusted cote-hardie was stifling in the midday heat. Elayne turned suddenly, walking from the gallery into the bedchamber. She looked at the bed, the vibrant hues of the silken hangings, the clean sheets and pillows that showed no imprint now of what had been done upon them. The very essence of the pirate lingered here, like a sinful promise, a perfume too faint to perceive. She remembered him touching her bared shoulder; the back of his hand sliding lightly against her skin. A strange shudder overtook her, a weakness beyond understanding. With trembling fingers, she yanked at the false sleeves until the threads gave way. She tore free the buttons of the elegant gown. It fell to the floor, where she left it in a costly heap.

  She instantly felt lighter. Amid the exotic furnishings was one small familiar coffer. She lifted the cover, inspecting quickly inside, relieved to find everything in place as she had left it.

  Her hair was still loose, but she managed to stuff all but a few disorderly strands into a net. As she hunted through the chest, she moved with more urgency. She found her journal and writing tackle, and thrust them into a leather purse, girding herself with a plain silk cord for a belt. She did not know what she was intending, dressed only in her short-sleeved smock, but she would not remain in this chamber any longer, meekly awaiting her fate.

  * * *

  Black stone walls surrounded the castle yard, stone that was like to some gem itself, glittering with tiny surfaces of peacock iridescence within the dark hue. There were no milk cows or friendly cook-fires in the courtyard; only racks of the guards’ staves and a water well at the center. Two great white dogs patrolled the court, their rough coats the hue of purest snow. They stood and stared with deep-eyed majesty, aloof and unapproachable.

  It seemed lonely for a castle. Deserted, as
if it had been built for some high lord whose retinue had departed, though she still heard voices and smelled the kitchen somewhere. A goat stood tied in harness, the cart loaded with baskets of fruits and soft cheese. No one guarded the food. It was as if the human inhabitants were invisible.

  The heavy main gates were closed, but there was one small doorway that opened from the courtyard to the outside. Elayne looked through, seeing a path along a corridor cut in the earth. It ended in steps that led upward and vanished around a corner. From inside the wall, she could see a gnarled tree and some sky.

  If he expected her to be humbly waiting, dressed and trussed like a prize fowl for his false celebration, he would be disappointed. She stole three plums and a pair of white-meats from the cart, and bolted through the doorway.

  Outside, it did not require long to make certain of what she knew already—that no unwilling bride would be making her escape merely by leaving the castle yard. The island was a natural fortress, girt by seacliffs only the screaming gulls could occupy, riven by tiny harbors and gorges spanned by the fabulous stone bridges. But the energy of anger—and something else, some hot misery that she could not name—propelled her feet, though she could find no destination. Below the castle, she could see whitewashed houses and a quay clustered around a diminutive beach. Fishing boats came and went in a bustle of activity. A pack of war galleys lay serenely off the shore, like wolves resting before their next hunt.

  Elayne could observe the village clearly from the cliff heights, but try the countless bridges and paths as she might, she could not find the way down to it. Her head still throbbed with an echo of drugged wine. Sea wind blew strands of her hair from the net as she wandered the maze of trails that seemed to lead nowhere but back to where they began. The frustrating twist and coil of the pathways back upon themselves only made her more furious at the pirate, enraged at the cheating games he played. She could all but feel him watching her from his black towers, laughing at her inability to reach the village that it seemed he must have placed deliberately, so tantalizingly close. She was breathing hard when she emerged finally onto a wind-blasted headland, surprising a goat that gave a kicking leap and vanished among the gnarled bushes.

  At the cliff’s rim, arising suddenly from the raw rocks, a smooth block of limestone lay uprooted from the ground. She made her way among the wind-racked shrubs to the huge ruined pedestal. Putting her hand upon it to steady herself, she looked down into a vertical chasm at dolphins playing in the jewel-blue water of the narrow inlet below.

  She glanced back, upward to the castle itself mounting the highest point of the island. The slender, fantastic spires of black stone seemed to dazzle in the afternoon sunlight like the Raven’s cloak. She looked down at the water again and took another careful step up around the pedestal, watching her feet to keep clear of the edge. Not until she felt safe did she look up, and then had to grab a bush and stifle the involuntary urge to jump backward.

  Enormous stone eyes stared at her. A colossal head, blind and tipped askew, lay broken on the ground where it had fallen from the pedestal. Elayne stared back at it, gripping the rough bush tightly. She had seen nothing like it in her fife; it was the size of three wagons, the nose alone as tall as she. Once it had been painted—traces of red and black clung about the eyes and the strange headdress. Carefully she reached out and touched the barbaric figure, running her palm down the full lips that were as smooth and perfect as a woman’s.

  She looked about her. She was hidden from the castle’s view, blocked by the peculiar, fan-like headdress of stone. With a sense of deliberate insolence, she dropped the bundle of cheese and fruit on the ground and hiked her skirts above her knees. She clambered up onto the statue’s neck. From there, balancing on the broad cheek and temple, she walked out and sat down against the headdress. It made an excellent throne and windbreak, blocked from the castle and commanding a view of the crevice and inlet.

  She pressed her hands over her hot cheeks. For a long while she sat still, hidden in this strange and magnificent place between the sea cliffs and the sky. Out of sight of the pirate’s citadel, she felt her furious breath come easier.

  As a girl she had wandered such wild places, sought them out when she was troubled or distressed, drawn there by that unwomanly side of her nature that Cara deplored. Lately that urge had seemed far away, lost in her passion for Raymond, in the bright colors and crowds at the King’s court. There was nothing here so gentle as the woods and pastures of Savernake, but she took some melancholy consolation in the emptiness, in the vast prospect that revealed every hue of nature before her.

  She put her fingers to her eyes. Green fool that she was, she had thought the Raven fascinating—dangerous—God save her, she had thought him almost alluring. For a deluded hour she had even believed she had found an ally, that she might make of him a friend.

  Shame flooded her. Shame for the loss of her honor, shame for the word that Lady Beatrice would carry back to England— shame and anger that for even a moment she had trusted him. Bargain, would she? Bargain with a treacherous outlaw, her sworn enemy; even her sister had despised him, by his own admission, but Elayne had not had wit enough to wonder why.

  And she knew why she had not wondered. Because she was frail. Because she was weak. Because he was so beautiful and mysterious that he had blinded her with it. And even now she felt the place he had touched her throat, even now she closed her eyes and ached with a hot, nameless ache when she thought of it.

  She leaned down with her skirt about her knees, hiding her face from the world. She rocked back and forth with her eyes squeezed shut, trying to erase from her mind the image of him in the dawn light, the figure of black and silver, the trace of a fleeting smile. Trying not to imagine him lying beside her, over her. Abruptly she took out her journal and ink-horn. In Libushe’s language she penned an insulting description of Il Corvo, in unfettered, grisly detail, making him a good degree more hideous and rough than was truthful.

  She gazed out at the horizon for a few moments, then dared to leaf back through the pages to the poems she had written to Raymond.

  She bit her lip. He would never hear her poems, never laugh with her, never kiss her or call her his foolish darling, his little cat, again. Until this moment, the truth of it had not penetrated her heart. It had seemed that somehow, someway, she would return to him. She stared down into the ravine and wondered if she flung herself off might she turn into a dolphin and swim away, as Libushe had once told her of a girl who transformed into a seal and vanished into the misted sea.

  She stood up. For a long, dreadful moment she thought of it.

  She thought of the fall, the rocks...the water.

  She had not the nerve.

  Bowing her head, she turned from the edge—and gave a low cry at the sight of a white dog tugging at her forgotten bundle of food. The animal startled and looked up at her, no more than a large puppy, almond-shaped black eyes in a downy white face. But it did not retreat or snap as she jumped down and grabbed the bundle away, only stood and stared up at her hopefully.

  "A fine thief!" she said gently, unable to scold such a sweet face. "Where is your family?"

  The puppy moved toward her, sniffing at her hem. It leaped up and rested its big paws on her thighs, grinning. Clearly it was no wild animal. She thought it must be from a litter of the great white dogs that guarded the castle, although as it began to play with the folds of her gown, it had none of the majestic dignity of those beasts. It was more a disgraceful tumble of white fluff, wriggling and turning its belly up to invite a pet.

  She bent down, stroking its soft fur as it twisted happily under her hand. She had missed her own dogs badly since leaving home. Lady Beatrice’s spaniel had been unfriendly, never loving when it could nip instead.

  She reached into her bundle and broke off a bite of the white meat. The puppy rolled upright and took it politely, nibbling the tidbit from her fingers. It sat before her with its tail wagging gently, looking into her face. El
ayne sat down and let it wriggle onto her lap. She rested back against the statue, stroking the dog’s soft fur, distributing the cheese between them and biting into the sweet plums herself.

  After they had devoured all there was, she wiped juice from the corner of her mouth and sat with the warm weight of the puppy in her lap. The sun heated her bare arms to a flush of pink. Her head ached. She supposed Il Corvo would be searching for her. Let him search. Let him have his wedding feast without a bride.

  It was quiet here, and so empty. There was no one to order her or caution her or arrange her future with an uncaring snap of their fingers. There was only the young dog, a friend with no demand or desire but to nestle close and share a meal.

  Its nose bumped her in greeting. The pup licked her chin and settled against her, heaving a sigh. She could feel its quick heartbeat against her skin. She bent her head and rested her cheek on fur softer than any costly pelt, smiling in her misery.

  SEVEN

  When she opened her eyes again, it was to see the pirate sitting on a rock, examining the pages of her journal by the angled pink light of the setting sun. The white puppy was playing with the tip of his boot. She sat up quickly as she realized what he had in his hands. "That is mine!"

  He was dressed differently now, plainly, in black hose and a simple white shirt belted with silver and onyx, his sleeves pushed up past his elbows. His hair fell loose about his shoulders, longer and blacker than any Christian man’s should be.

  "Then it is you who pines so sweetly for this Raymond," he said.

  It was as if his dark eyes saw through her body and into her past and future. She evaded the look, unsure if it was mock or menace in his voice. "Raymond?" she mumbled.

  "The name is not familiar to you?"

  She half-shook her head, denying it by instinct.

  "Perchance another wrote his name several times in your book, then."