The Medieval Hearts Series

by Laura Kinsale

  "My lord," Zafer said, placing a goblet with the embossing of a stag toward Allegreto—signal that he had some news. Allegreto took up the wine and rose, carrying it with him as he ducked out onto the tiny parapet walk that overlooked the lake.

  Zafer stood in front of the low door. "Franco was invited to the citadel, under guard, to see his son and parley with her," the youth said softly.

  Allegreto set his wine down on the parapet.

  The lake glimmered, blue and purple depths, the color of her eyes. She invited Franco. Winter and spring and summer, Allegreto had endured, his mind and body screaming for release from this velvet trap.

  She invited Franco. Allowed him inside the citadel.

  He hurled the goblet, watching red wine arch through the air as the cup turned and tumbled and fell. It receded to a mere glint against the stunning drop of the walls and the cliff, the huge surface of the lake. He lost sight of it.

  "What else?" he said.

  "Only the public audiences, my lord. And an envoy has arrived from the Duke of Lancaster. She spoke to him after in private."

  "In private?"

  "Dario was with them. The envoy is an Englishman, Raymond de Clare by name."

  Allegreto stilled. He turned his look on Zafer.

  There was a nearly imperceptible flaring of Zafer’s nostrils; a sudden wariness in his dark eyes. "My lord—he is an enemy?"

  An enemy. The sanctified knight of her love poems. The gallant, charming, faultless Raymond. She saw him in private, that mud-stained offspring of an English pigsty.

  Allegreto turned back to the lake. His knuckles grew white as he pressed his fingers into the rough stone parapet. He stood looking across to the citadel, containing the desire to cut his own throat and let himself fall, plunging downward like the cup spilling wine.

  * * *

  Elena made plans. It was courting jeopardy past reason or defense. On the night before the council meant to choose a husband for her, she left the citadel.

  She had Franco’s words that he recognized her as impartial—thus far. But there were those of his house who chafed under his surprising restraint, hating their lowered status and Navona’s elevation. Her grandfather had warned of such things in his book. Elena was trying to follow Ligurio’s counsel, working to bring them into some bettered situation, raising this one to new offices, bestowing a windfall on another, trying to make certain no one of the houses worked directly together, or worse, over one another.

  But if any rumor spread of her destination, all was at risk. And her life was always forfeit if she failed.

  She took only Dario, though he was loathe to do it, his obedience bought by the threat of being removed entirely from his post at her bedchamber door. Through the rainy night he rowed her across the lake to the eastern headland. Thunder rumbled above the mountains. By the light of a shuttered lantern, they came to the postern door of the castle, set deep within the rock.

  A guard met them there, one of Philip’s best men. Elena wore only a black shift with short sleeves, her hair wrapped up in one long cloth like a poor woman. But over that, she had a striped hood, the legal mark of a prostitute in Monteverde.

  She kept her face lowered as they climbed the stairs and passed through the tiers of guards. Any murmur of interest from the other soldiers was quelled with a cuff, or a gruff mumble: "It’s permitted to him for a night."

  By the time they reached the last heavily guarded door, Elena didn’t know if her heart was working so hard from the climb or for the moment when she would see him. The door opened. From her lowered gaze, Elena saw that someone moved into it, blocking the way.

  "Out," Dario said briefly. "He won’t want your company."

  She realized it was Zafer who stood in the door. He hesitated, and then obeyed. Dario gave her a hard little push. Elena walked through. She heard the lock and bolt made fast.

  She stood a moment, her heart pounding in her ears. At midnight several candles still burned, but the main chamber was empty, furnished with excellent comfort as she had ordered, the table covered with parchment and books. A pot of fresh ink gleamed black beside a sheaf of new-cut quills.

  A peculiar scent hung in the air over the fresh smell of rain, an intense reminder of his study on the island. She walked through an arched door. She saw no one, though the familiar blue light illuminated a table crowded with glass globes and vials and a mortar and pestle.

  She was about to speak when her arm was seized and twisted up behind her. The spike of pain would have made her cry out but for the hand gripped over her mouth. He held her trapped for an instant, driving sharp agony into her shoulder. Then he drew a deep breath at her throat and suddenly let her go.

  Elena sagged with relief, turning. She rubbed her shoulder, looking up under the hood at Allegreto.

  His face held no pleasure, no sign of any surprise or feeling at the sight of her. "I thought Franco might have sent a woman," he said without greeting.

  He meant someone sent to murder him. It wasn’t how she had hoped to begin.

  "I was afraid to send word ahead to you. That it might be discovered."

  He observed her impassively. "Your disguise is well-chosen."

  Elena lowered her chin, doubtful of how to take his meaning. He was as comely as she remembered—more so, with all traces of his bruises long vanished. He wore pure black silk trimmed with silver and pearls at his cuffs. His hair had grown long again, braided now behind his neck in infidel fashion.

  Raymond was a handsome man of even features and a charming smile. Allegreto was simply Lucifer made real, the lord of light fallen down to perfect darkness in the flesh.

  "What is it?" he asked. "Why have you come?"

  Now that she was here, facing his cool reception, she was hardly certain. She’d wanted to assure him that she wouldn’t give in to the council and marry. She had thought he’d have heard of what was planned. She thought he would care.

  In truth, she’d wanted to see him so badly that she had not let sense or reason stop her.

  She walked to the table, pushing the damp prostitute’s hood from her head. "The council meets tomorrow, to choose a husband for me."

  "I know it."

  She looked sideways at him over the folds of the black-and-white hood. "What should I do?"

  He gave a short laugh. "You pose it to me?"

  She wet her lips, looking quickly down again. She hadn’t meant to ask, but to tell him. But now—he was so cold. He seemed to feel nothing of the tumult she had inside herself, the pain and thrill in her blood, the sensation of merely standing in the same chamber with him again.

  "You’ve told me that we’re wed," she said to the stone and parchment.

  "I lied," he said bluntly. "You are free. You have the Pope’s own word on it, I hear."

  She turned and leaned back with her hands gripping the edge of the table. "In my heart, I’m not free."

  He walked past her to the far side of the board. "You came to torture me, is that it? Monteverde bitch. I wonder that I haven’t killed all the women who ever bore the name."

  She let go of the edge, watching him as he put his palms on the table and bent over an open book. The pearl-encrusted cuffs fell down over his hands.

  "Do you think it does not torture me?" she asked.

  With a slam he closed the book. He looked up at her. "Then why did you come?" he said fiercely.

  "Why are you still here?" she asked. "I know that you could escape."

  His hands opened wide across the leather binding, his fingers spread and white between the joints. "And go where? Do what? I’d have fought Riata, and won, but I won’t fight you."

  "That’s all?"

  He gave her such a look that she nearly stepped backward, though the table was between them.

  "You take pleasure in this, don’t you?" he said softly.

  She did take a step back then, when he came around the table toward her. He seemed to move with leisure, and yet he was before her suddenly, dauntingl
y, cornering her against the table.

  "You take pleasure in binding me here, while you bid Franco to the citadel and play with your English knight." His black lashes were like smoke, lowered over his dark eyes in disdain. "I know you."

  She shook her head. "Not in this!" she exclaimed. "I hate it."

  "Do you want to know how much it torments me? Do you want to see for yourself that I’ve a poison ready at my hand, for when I can bear this no longer?"

  "No!"

  He stood back. "But that’s a distraction only, to give me comfort. I won’t die a suicide. No, I’m ten times worse a fool—I think I might claw my way into Heaven somehow, and be with you when our lives are ended, since there’s no way now on the earth."

  She sank down on the stool, holding her arms and palms pressed together, rocking forward with her face in her hands. "Oh, God, if you would only make peace with Riata," she said. "Then you could be free. You could come into the citadel."

  "And see you wed to another, with that English dog prancing in and out of your bed as you please. What mortal bliss. Leave me here to contemplate my poison vial, grant mercy."

  She lifted her face. "I won’t wed. Never. I came to tell you so. I would take no one else to me."

  Thunder rumbled. The candle flames swayed in a draft of air, but the blue lights burned steadily. The sound of an increasing downpour drifted from the far chamber with the cool scent of rain.

  The grim set of his mouth softened a little. "You’ll not be able to hold to that. And you’re mad to trust Franco. You shouldn’t let him near you. I can’t give you any protection from him inside the citadel."

  She let her hands slide apart. "What protection do you give me?"

  "What I can. You haven’t made it easy."

  She bowed her head. "Is there no way—no chance—that you could have faith in Franco’s intentions?" she asked humbly.

  "Yes, when the Apocalypse comes to annihilate us all," he said.

  She gave a slight miserable laugh.

  He turned and walked to a shuttered window. He pulled it open. Outside the rain poured down, splashing and dripping, darkening the stone as he stared into the black night. "You wouldn’t take another to you?" he asked abruptly. "Not even your sainted Raymond?"

  Elena stood up from the stool. "No. Or I would not have come here."

  He shook his head slowly. The night air ruffled a lock of his hair that had come loose from the braid and fallen over his face. "I’m beyond a fool. Beyond it, to believe in this dream of Ligurio’s. To listen to what you say."

  "You believe in it?"

  "I do. Sometimes." He sounded distant. "But there’s no place in it for me, Elena. I was born for everything you want to bring to an end."

  She squeezed her eyes closed. She wanted to deny it, and yet she could find no way. Already there had been loud murmurs in the council that Allegreto and Franco Pietro should be tried as traitors to Monteverde. It was clear enough what outcome was intended.

  She turned back to the table. A Bible lay open to the Ten Commandments. On another parchment was a list of saints’ names with sums beside them, like the bankers’ ledgers in Venice.

  A brief memory flitted through her mind, of the abbot’s pleasure in accepting a score of Allegreto’s unscrupulous orphans to his house. She’d thought the abbot was an exceptionally kind and virtuous man, to refuse her offers to pay for their maintenance. She ran her finger down the list and saw the name of the patron saint of the abbey, with a startlingly large amount listed beside it.

  "I’m trying to buy my way in," Allegreto said as she touched the page of accounts. "If you know of any notably holy personages I might support, or a miracle I might sponsor, do inform me."

  She smiled painfully. "I have only one miracle to desire of you."

  "I’m flesh and blood. I have no miracles within me, Elena. You know it well."

  She turned her face away. "I seem to have none, either. Sometimes I think it’s been a great mistake. That my grandfather was wrong. We’re weak. We’re still divided. I’m a maid—hardly yet twenty. Milan is only waiting for me to fail. Or not that long." She drew a shuddering breath. "The stories I’ve heard of the Visconti...God save, they’re beasts, not men. Sometimes I’m so afraid. And I wish you were there at my side."

  The rain lightened to a steady mutter outside the window. She remained staring down at her finger on the parchment list.

  "Now you torment me in truth," he said.

  "And myself."

  She felt him when he came to her. When he stood behind her silently.

  "What do you want?" he asked softly.

  She could hardly speak. "Oh—do not ask." It came out as a mere rush of breath, barely words. She knew why she had come here. Had known it all along.

  She felt his hand touch the cloth wrapped about her head. It came free, drifting down to the floor as her hair fell around her shoulders. He moved near her, a heat and velvet touch all down her back and her hips. But no closer. He did not embrace her. Elena gazed at the woven mat on the wooden floor, feeling tears of anguish rising in her throat.

  "I should go," she said in a broken voice, and didn’t move.

  He pushed his hands into her hair and pressed his face to her throat. "Let me remember." He drew a hard breath beside her ear. "Let me remember first."

  She let her head fall back. Oh, to remember...

  She turned, lifting her face to him. He doubled her hair in his hands and pressed her cheeks between his fingers, kissing her, opening his mouth against hers. He leaned back on the table and pulled her to him fiercely.

  The sound of the rain seemed to rise to a roar in her ears, merging with her heartbeat. She let herself rest on him, his body strong and alive and real against hers. So long it had been, she’d near lost faith that he’d ever been more than a dream, her dark angel, a vision she’d seen once between sleep and waking.

  He pushed her abruptly away. There was no need to say that she had set aside any truth or lie that they had wed, that to conceive a child now would be utter disaster. And yet she had come here to him, and she knew not how she could leave again.

  A faint bitterness played at the corner of his mouth. "How you must enjoy to annihilate me."

  She shook her head. "I can’t help myself. I cannot."

  He cupped her face and kissed her again. "I can." His hands slid to her shoulders. "Though it slay me."

  She whimpered, seeking his lips, pressing herself to his chest. Through her plain thin gown, through his silk, she could feel his phallus erect. With a lascivious move, she rolled herself against him, begging.

  "Hell-cat," he muttered, tearing his mouth away. He pressed downward on her shoulders, pushing her to her knees before him. His fingers tangled in her hair, pulling her face against the hard shape of him under the silky cloth.

  Elena slid her hands up his thighs. He wore no breech; above his black hose and laces, her fingers touched bare skin. She drew her hands together over his naked shaft.

  With a deep sound he arched toward her. She kissed him through the black veil of silk, skimming her nails over his hot skin. He let go of her suddenly and gripped the edge of the table as she explored him, his body growing taut. She could hear him breathing between his teeth.

  She opened her mouth over his rod, sucking through the silk. Her own body wanted him inside; she drew on him with that desire, as if she could take him to her very heart. She closed her fingers hard at the base of his shaft and felt the pain she caused travel up through him as he thrust into her mouth in response.

  She tightened her hold and pulled and worked, tasting the wet cloth and another essence. She served him like a wanton, with no thought but to the way he trembled and plunged himself deep in her mouth. The silk pulled taut over the head of his rod with each shove.

  She drove her fingernails into him. Low in his throat he made a sound of agony. His shaft pulsed in her hands. He cried out, arching back, an echo of the rain and wind as his body seized and shuddered. Ele
na opened wide her lips to take him as he burst and spilled into the silken sheath.

  The exotic, earthy savor was only a trace through the cloth. She would have tasted deeper, but he pulled her up against him, thrusting his tongue in her mouth, holding her hard to his chest. When he finally broke away, she was lost for air or thought. She clung in his arms, wanting him still, consumed with folly and desire.

  "Beloved," he said fiercely. Suddenly he caught her up and carried her, ducking through the doorway. He laid her on the bed, half upon it, dragging up her gown. The edge of the high bed arched her body to him like an open offering; he leaned over her and kissed the mounded curls between her legs, thrusting his fingers up inside her.

  Elena gasped and twisted, lifting herself to his mouth. Where his tongue touched her, her body convulsed. She closed her legs and strained, panting under the stroke and press of his fingers. Sweet hot sensation unfurled, rising to an explosion. She clutched at his hair, pleading for it. When it came in a fury of pleasure, she sobbed for breath, squeezing tears from beneath her eyelids as the peak rolled through her.

  She had no long hours to tangle in sleep beside him. Keys and the slide of a bolt awakened her from what seemed a moment’s drowse at his side. Allegreto was already on his feet when a loud voice gave warning of the appointed time. Dario sounded gruff and irritable, but Elena heard the note of anxiety beneath. An hour had passed in the space of a moment.

  She rose hastily. The fact of imprisonment struck her with force as guards came through the door without consent. Allegreto turned her into his arms, pulling the black-and-white prostitute’s hood close around her face. He bent as if for a kiss, blocking her from the view of the guards. "Farewell," he said beneath his breath. "Farewell."

  He let go of her without lingering. She couldn’t look up at him again for fear of revealing herself.

  "For the girl." Allegreto tossed a gold coin to the nearest guard as he turned away. Elena kept her face lowered under the hood.