"I recall every evil deed I’ve done in my life," she said. "No great difficulty is it, to remember a good one."
"A good deed, lady? To shame me before the church? To name me adulterer in my thoughts?"
She paused. And then her lips curved upward gently, as if the recollection pleased her. "Yes...I remember that. I saved you."
"Saved me!" With a harsh chuckle he pulled the woolens close about him. "My lady saved me of a wife and a family, so did she, and set me for to live alone as I do." He swept a stilted bow. "May God grant you mercy for such a favor!"
"Wee loo, what a sad monkish man it is."
"I am no monk!" he exclaimed in irritation, turning his shoulder to her.
"In faith I’m glad to hear you know it." Her tone had warmed. "If I caused you any such injury as to compel you to live alone, Sir Ruck—I’ll repair it and look about me in my household for a suitable spouse to comfort you."
He whirled back to face her. "Mock me not, my lady, if it please you!"
Her brows lifted at his vehemence. "I mean no mockery. I bethought me just this morn that I would look out a good-wife for to cherish you."
"You’ve forgotten," he said shortly. "I have me a wife, my lady."
For a clear instant her startlement was palpable. Then she gave him an accomplished smile, of the kind that court ladies excelled in. "But how is this? 1 had thought you a single man."
It seemed impossible that she did not remember, if she recalled the rest. But her face was puzzled and attentive, a faint shadow of question in the tilt of her head.
"My wife took nun’s vows." Ruck inhaled cold air. His breath iced around him as he let it go. "She is—a sister of Saint Cloud." A little of the wonder and agony of it always crept into him when he spoke of Isabelle, thinking of the radiant image that forever knelt and prayed in his mind.
"Is she indeed?" Her voice became vague as she knelt beside the half-burned carcass of the duck. "And is she well there?"
"Yes," he said. "Very well."
"I’m pleased that she writes good word of her health," she said in an idle way as she pulled the wing of the duck between her thumb and forefinger, examining the scorched area.
"She writes me not," he added stiffly, "for her mind is fixed on God."
"Indeed, I’m sure your wife is a most holy personage," she said, inspecting the duck with immoderate concentration. "She married you, did she not?" she murmured.
His mouth grew hard. "I send money for her support each year. The abbess would advise me if anything were ill."
"For certain. There is no doubt of it." She looked up at him with a brilliant smile. "Now say me true, Sir Ruck—do you suppose this duck can be saved?"
He stalked away from her, leaning down to sweep up the heron from the sand as he passed it. "I’m dry now for to dress. I’ll wash this when I’m geared, and roast it, so that we may eat before we starve of hunger."
* * *
In the thin peasant clothes, without furs or camel’s hair, Cara could barely move her fingers. All night she had lain on the bare ground, the cold seeping up through her. She had not been able to curl tight enough to warm herself. It seemed that she ought to have died, but it was worse to be alive in this horrible country, with this dreadful companion, in these hideous clothes, and no other choice that she could fathom. If Allegreto felt the cold as she did, he had some way to conceal it. He never shivered. She wondered if he was a demon.
The bare trees and spiky bushes reached out claws to tear her. They had yet to see a living soul, or a dead one either, only one village in deserted ruin, but the overgrown path out of it must lead somewhere, she told herself. What she would do when she arrived there, she had no notion, but the hope of food and warmth was enough to move her.
Yesterday she had wished to die, but the process seemed so endless and miserable that she had given up on it. At first light, too cold to sleep, she had heard Allegreto rise, and had stumbled to her feet and trudged behind him without a word, without even a prayer, until the suspicion that she might be following a real demon to the abyss made her recite prayers with silent diligence.
He didn’t change shape or disappear, though he stopped and waited for her when she fell behind. She limped up to him, and he made a face at her. With renewed hate for him, she lifted her head and passed by.
He gripped her from behind. Before Cara could even scream, sure that this was the end, that he would transform to a fiend and rend her to bits, he stopped her mouth with his hand.
She felt his breath rise and fall against her back, but he made no sound. Only when the thump of her own heartbeat slowed did she hear the chinking creak of a harnessed animal.
A woman’s voice muttered, then gave a sharp command. The clear sound of a blade scraping against hard soil rang through the cold morning air.
Cara exhaled relief. No bandit, then, but an ordinary peasant. She waited for Allegreto to realize it and release her, but his body grew even more tense. He gripped her harder. She felt a tremor grow in him.
They stood there, frozen, for endless moments.
Finally she lifted her hand and pulled his away. He did not object; he freed her all at once, staring through the trees.
He was dazed by terror. She could see it. Like a rabbit panting beneath a circling hawk, he was arrested in place, only the white puffs of his breath showing life.
Cara began to laugh.
She could not help herself. The frenzied hilarity echoed about her, a sound halfway to weeping, an echo as if someone else answered.
He was afraid of the plague. She almost pitied him.
"I’ll go first," she said. "I don’t care how I die."
She hobbled on, but he caught her again. "No. Cara—wait."
He had such urgency about him that she halted. He held her hand, wrapping it between both of his, pressing a small bag into her fingers. "You stay here. Use this."
He left her standing alone with the herbal purse. With his silent ease and muddy leggings, he moved ahead. A thicket swallowed him, as this heavy English wood ate everything a few yards away.
Cara looked down at the bag. It was one of the perfumes against pestilence that he had about him always—he must have taken it back when he’d killed their bandit guard and his mistress. She threw it down. Even the thought repelled her, made her remember stumbling over the woman’s body in the dark as Allegreto had urged her with him, the sick shame of being stripped of everything she wore down to her shift; the dread of worse, but by God’s mercy the bandit’s drab had put a violent stop to that, boxing her man’s ears and covering Cara in her own filthy rags.
The woman had treated her with an uncouth kindness, talking in this ugly English speech, stroking the silk again and again as she paraded back and forth between lamplit bushes in Cara’s gown, almost pretty in her awe and pleasure in it. She must not have looked at Allegreto’s black eyes, Cara thought, or she would have seen death watching her.
With a half-mad chuckle, Cara picked up the perfumed bag again. How amusing, that death was afraid of the plague. How gallant of him, to leave his charm to protect her. How courageous, to approach some poor peasant woman only trying to plow the icy clods!
She would save this for him, his little shield. She carefully dusted off the bits of leaf. She chuckled again, baring her teeth. God’s body, any more of this reckless chivalry, and she would be like to think the Navona loved her.
"Monteverde!" His voice from the path ahead was triumphant. She limped quickly forward, favoring the worst of the blisters on both her heels. In a clearing the peasant plow and ox stood abandoned. Allegreto held up a food pouch with a grin.
"They ran before I showed myself," he said. "Perhaps your laughing sounded like some fiend out of the wood. It was ghastly enough."
She ignored his mockery. "There must be a village nearby," she said. "We can buy shelter, if you thought to recover more than your plague apple from the thieves and got my silver, too."
"Silver enough," he said
, looking into the pouch. "But we shan’t chance a village."
"Please yourself, wretched Navona, but give me my money. I don’t fear pestilence so much that I want to sleep on the ground again tonight, or steal food from churls. I’m going to the village."
He glanced up at her. "Nay—you would not."
"I will."
"I tell you, I won’t go in amongst people!"
"Then don’t, for God’s grace. We’ll part here, and gladly. As soon as you give me my coin."
He turned a sullen shoulder. "Monteverde goose! You wouldn’t last a day without me."
"What’s that to you, Navona?" she snapped. "I don’t even owe you thanks for freeing me—you and yours have done me more mischief than you could ever repay!"
"Go then!" He dropped the food pouch and strode away over the frozen dirt. "It’s nothing to me. Nothing!"
"My silver!"
He stopped, slanting a look over his shoulder. "I don’t work for free, carissima. It’s mine now."
She held the herb bag behind her. "A fair exchange. Your plague perfume for my silver."
"I’ll buy another herbal."
"Without going in amongst people?"
He turned slowly to face her, a look upon him that sent a chill to her heart. "Monteverde goose," he said softly, "I can take it from you before you can draw breath."
"Then slit my throat if you must!" she cried defiantly. "And be damned for it! Plague or murder, it makes no mind to me. I’m dead no matter what I do." Her voice began to quaver on the last words, and she shut her mouth, lifting her chin.
Allegreto was impossible to read, his black eyes watching her. "You work for the Riata, don’t you?" he asked slowly. Cara tried to stare him down. For a moment he only studied her—then something in his expression changed, grew more penetrating.
"I didn’t see you when we found the hunchback dead." He said it with a voice of discovery. His hand curled over his dagger. "You were already gone from the camp."
She managed to keep her breathing even. If her life was over, she should commit her soul to God, but in the moment of peril all she could do was think that he was too young and comely to be what he was.
"And you took money with you—you knew you were leaving. You were already running. Oh, Mary, Mother of God—" He took a step. "Why?"
She didn’t answer him. She only closed her eyes and waited for him to kill her.
"What did you do? Was it poison?" A note of panic hovered in his question. "Did you try to poison her?"
His concern for his evil mistress sent a spurt of wild rage flooding through her. "Yes, you harlot—I tried to poison her. And if she hadn’t sickened for death of plague as you tell me, I would try again, God forgive me, to save my sister!"
In three steps he had her: "Was it the cockles?"
She tried to jerk free, and could not. He shook her until her teeth rattled and her head rang, and stopped with a jerk.
"Was it the cockles?" he asked, in a voice so quiet and soft that it turned her limbs into water.
She nodded, trembling. He stared down at her with horror, with that same frenzy that he had of plague.
"God save me." He let her go and turned, breathing like a winded stag. "She’s not dead. Oh, Mary; oh, God and Jesus, she contrived it. She isn’t dead." He dropped to his knees, his fists pressed to the side of his head. As Cara watched in shock, he tore his fingers down his face, drawing blood. "I let her fly, she’s not dead, she’s not dead, she’s not dead! My father!" With a mortal groan he lifted his face to Heaven. "Lord God have mercy on me!"
ELEVEN
Thin golden chains fastened to her garters held up the long muddy toes of Melanthe’s boots. They were not intended for the march; she could feel every pebble and twig through the soft soles, but she barely noticed that. It was too good to be free.
She had no fear. That was not quite rational, she knew—her knight was plainly of the opinion that there was much to cause alarm, but such was the disposition of any worthy watchdog. She enjoyed treading along beside him, skirting grass tussocks and pushing branches aside, hiking her skirt to leap little puddles and rivulets. In spite of her gown, she was not much more encumbered than he in his armor. She guessed it must weigh half a hundred pounds and surely affected his stride, checking him to a speed she had no trouble to maintain.
They didn’t speak to each other beyond necessity. Although the hunt had seemed to Melanthe to have created some momentary degree of intimacy, softening the edge of awkwardness between them, he’d stung her with his suspicions. She supposed that she wouldn’t look him out a wife after all.
His mail chinked in a rhythm that worked its way into her brain in the hours of silent march. The horse’s hoofbeats changed from soft thumps to thuds as the marshland rose to higher ground. Meadow gave way to open woods, gray and black, straight young birch trees like a thousand cathedral columns springing up from a strange undulating floor of hawthorns and green winter grass.
"Tilled field," he said, breaking the quiet. He gestured with his mailed hand to the furrows and edges that spread like huge ripples in the earth, the massive ghosts of peasants’ plows, birch trunks growing out of the spines and hollows.
"Mary," Melanthe said softly. "Abandoned?"
"Twenty years and more, on measure of the trees."
"The Death."
"Yes, my lady. Was never a much peopled place, I think. What souls were left—" He shrugged. "Why keep it, when they might find better livelihood to the east, where men were wanted to work easier lands?"
She nodded. So it had been everywhere, the marginal surrendered to desert when there were barely enough people to till the richest fields. She’d been nine years old. Her mother had died and left Melanthe and her little brother, Richard. Her father had wept, and never married again, nor smiled as gaily—and wept once more a few years later when Melanthe set out for Italy in the rich train Prince Ligurio had sent for her.
She had never seen her father after that day. But he had remembered her. He hadn’t blamed her for Richard’s death. In his will he had confirmed her as the heiress of Bowland. She couldn’t recall his face—Richard’s boyish grin intruded, Richard of the fond smiles and songs for the ladies. In the few months that Melanthe had kept him with her, she had basked in those smiles. She had loved him so easily, known him so surely, as if they had never been parted.
Another life. Other places.
She had been afraid. She had always been afraid, every minute, every hour of eighteen years since she had left home.
She felt a fierce will that the plague might kill them all, Navona and Riata, while she sojourned here in isolation and wildness. Perhaps she would never return, not even to Bowland. She and her knight would hunt dragons and battle wildmen of the woods, and never go back to the world of human things.
Here was nothing but peace, that she could see, and what danger there might be was her knight’s charge and not her own. She wanted peace. Even more than she wanted Bowland.
She gazed at the silent English woods. When he had first told her what the peculiar ridges were, she had felt a quick superstitious dread of such eerie signs of long-dead men. But as she looked on them now, they seemed to signify the weakness of human power in this place, where trees grew without effort from the heart of men’s hardest labor.
"In such remote desert we must find us a damsel in sore straits, Green Sire, and rescue her," she said.
"We must find us safe haven, lady," he said, pulling the horse on.
Melanthe picked up her skirt and came abreast of him. They climbed up a plow ridge and went down the side. "Nay—a damsel, passing fair, and in distress."
"Full enough in distress is my lady, I trust. We need none other."
She tugged her skirt free of a thorn bush. "Alack, sir, are you satisfied with such a small adventure? Where is our venomous serpent? Our fiery worm?"
"My lady doesn’t wish to meet a dragon, in truth."
"You wound me! I do."
; He shook his head. "You know nothing of what you speak."
She looked toward him, intrigued by the note of certainty in his voice. "Have you seen one?"
"Yes, my lady."
He said it in the same dispassionate tone that he might have said he thought it like to come on rain. Melanthe pursed her lips. "You won’t fool me, Sir Ruck. My husband said that all such beasts were drowned in the Deluge."
He gave a faint snort and glanced at her. "I thought I heard my lady say she wished to war with one such."
"Tush, I’m but a woman," she said lightly, "full of a woman’s fantasies."
"Oho," he said, and nothing more.
They walked along in silence. Melanthe freed herself from another thorn.
She listened to the steady chink of his mail. They went up one side of the ridges and down the other, up and down and up and down again. She slanted him a sideways look.
"So, knight—where did you behold this dragon?"
He nodded in the direction that they walked. "To the north. Not far from here."
"Fie upon you! You undertake to frighten me!"
"Hah! My lady has no proper dread, not of wolves nor outlaws. Wherefore should I suppose a firedrake might make you shrink?"
"No firedrake abides in Britain still," she insisted. "My husband said me so. They’re now all in Ethiopis and India and hot places."
He walked steadily onward. "Perhaps I slayed the last one," he said. "Perhaps it wasn’t the last, though I’ve seen none since. I don’t know that your lord husband could know so much of it, lest he spent the years that I’ve done in the hunting of the beasts."
"He read deeply. It may be that you were mistaken in what animal you slayed. It’s said the likeness of a dragon can be forged on the carcass of a great ray."
He halted and turned with an exclamation of disgust. "It was not a fish!"
Melanthe stopped, facing him, her curiosity fully roused. "Describe it to me."
"I won’t," he said, turning to go on.
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