Shadowheart

by Laura Kinsale

  "In truth," he said, "I’ve lived in thought of you." He pulled from her and lay back on the bed, staring into darkness. "Awake and asleep, I’ve thought of you. Else I’d be dead of despair a hundred times, I think me, if I’d not you in my mind to bind me to virtue." He shook his head. "I am no monkish man, I tell you, lady."

  She gave a bewildered soft laugh. "I don’t understand you. I bind you to purity? You mock me."

  "I swore to you, my lady, in Avignon. When you sent the stones. Then I thought—but I was in a frenzy; I recall it little, but that I swore my life to you. I sold the lesser emerald for arms and a horse, and took me to fighting tournies for the prizes, and then to my liege prince, when I had some money and good means to show myself. I made your falcon my device and took your gemstone for my color. And when my body tempted me, I thought of you and Isabelle my wife, I thought how you both were pure and good and blameless, better than me, and I must live with honor for your sake, because I was her husband and your man."

  "Oh sweet knight," she murmured. "Your wife—and I? Blameless and pure? You’re a blind man."

  "I knew nothing else to do." He pressed the heels of his hands over his eyes. "And it’s impossible, it’s not the same, now that—"

  He broke off and blew all the air from his chest in a rough sigh.

  "Now that you know me for myself," she said with a tone he could not read, whether amused or sad or bitter, or all three.

  "I love you, my lady," he said, his voice suppressed. "It’s all certain that I know. With my heart, with my body, though I’ve not the right to think of it, though you are too high—in faith, though I burn in Hell for it." He swallowed. "God forgive me that I say such things. I’m in drink enough to drown me."

  She lay down beside him, half on top of him, her arm across his shoulders. "Do you love me?" she whispered, with an intensity that made him turn his face toward her in the dark.

  He lifted his hand—he allowed himself that for the fierce plea in her voice—and brushed the back of his fingers over her cheek. "Beyond reason."

  "Oh," she said, and buried her face in his shoulder, hugging herself close. "Yesterday I was a witch in your estimate."

  "Aye, and now you be a wanton wench, and in a moment you’ll be a haughty princess, and I know not what next to plague and bemaze me."

  "Your lover."

  "No, lady." He started to rise.

  She caught him, holding tight. "No. Do not go."

  "I’ll keep watch by the door."

  "No. I won’t be able to sleep, if you’re not near where I can reach you."

  "Lady," he said, "for all the hours you sleep, I think this one night be not such a great loss."

  Still she held him. "I can’t sleep." Her voice was soft, but her fingers had the grip of real dismay.

  "God shield, am I to lie beside you in a bed all the night?" he asked. "Have mercy on me."

  "I cannot." She would not cease; she pulled him slowly downward. "I cannot have mercy. Please you—stay."

  "Enough!" he said harshly. His shoulder sank into the featherbed. He turned his face to the bolster. "Only touch me not then, my lady, for your pity."

  She let go. He felt her roll over away from him. She was angry, he thought, childish in her tempers as only those of high estate could be. But she asked too much; to lie here beside her—in bed, unclothed, as if they were married. He was already mired in mortal lust; now she would have him pay his soul for fornication. God have mercy on him if he died this night, for he was bound for everlasting flames.

  Yet she lay still in the blackness, without word or demand, and it gradually came into his head that she was weeping. He listened, trying to subdue the sound of his own breath. He could hear nothing.

  She said she had been alone until she had found him. He closed his eyes. Alone he had lived all his life, it seemed, dwelling among dreams of things to come. They were all of them shattered now, lost to her whims—he had hated her for that, and hated her yet, but love and hate turned so close in his heart that they seemed to dazzle him together as one passion. He could tell them apart no more than he knew if she was beautiful or plain—she was neither, more than both, his very self, that he might love or hate as he pleased, but could not disown short of the grave.

  He reached out his hand. It came to rest on her hair that was loose, spreading over the pillow. She lay silent. Softly, haltingly, he found the shape of her with his fingertips, her temple, her brow. He touched her cheek and lashes, and felt warm tears.

  "I did not give you leave to handle me at your whim, knave," she said sharply.

  He moved, folding her in his arms. "I knew you would come the high princess soon enough," he said with a painful laugh. He leaned near and rocked her against his chest. "My lady queen, your tears are like to an arrow through my body."

  "Pouf," she said. "Monkish man."

  He crushed her to him and rubbed his cheek against her hair. "Do you want my honor? I give it to you, I’ll lie and adulter with you, my lady—and God and the Fiend torment me as they will."

  He felt her turn toward his face, though he couldn’t see her in the dark. For a long moment she lay very still.

  "Were I your wife, it would not be sin," she whispered.

  He made a bitter sound of mirth. "Aye—and were I king of all England and France, and a free man."

  She put her hands up, seizing his face between her palms. "Listen to me."

  The sudden urgency caught his full heed. He waited, but she said nothing. Her fingers moved restlessly, forming fists against his face and opening again.

  "Ah," she said, "I know not how...it frightens me to wound you. Best-loved, my true and loyal friend, have you never guessed all these years why I denounced you in Avignon? Why I sent you thence in haste?"

  In a far deep place inside himself, he felt his soul arrested. Slightly he shook his head.

  "Your wife—think you that they released her to this convent at Saint Cloud? No, they sent her to the Congregation of the Holy Office. They sent her to the inquisitors, and they would have sent you, too, if you’d shown that her preachings and raving had convinced you of anything. They could not bide her, do you see? A woman to preach, to interpret Scripture—to demand of you her own oath within your marriage."

  "No," he breathed. "No—the archbishop—he said a place was made for her at Saint Cloud. I paid for it! For her keep—my money and my horse and arms."

  She didn’t answer. In the hush he thought of the letters he’d sent, the money, every year with no word of reply.

  "Oh, Mary, Mother of God—where is she?" He sat up, gripping her shoulders.

  She stroked her palms up and down his face.

  Ruck groaned. He let go of her and rolled away, trying to find the breath that seemed suddenly to have left his lungs. "Imprisoned?"

  But he knew she was not imprisoned. He knew by the silence, by the way the princess did not move or touch him, only waited.

  "I forsook her." His body began to shake, his hands clenching and unclenching, beyond his command. "Helas, I abandoned her."

  "Listen to me." Her cold voice abruptly cut like a scourge. "She abandoned you. I heard her, if you’ve forgot. She was no saint, nor holy woman, nor even a fit wife for such as you."

  "Her visions—"

  "Pah!" she spat. "They were no more of God than a peacock’s preenings. I tell you, sir, when I married I did not love my husband, but I gave back to him the same honor and duty that he gave to me. I didn’t weep and scream and claim God sent some handy vision to free me from my vows. Nor do the world of women, but live the half of them without complaint in such subjection as you cannot conceive, not one in ten thousand so fortunate as she!" Her voice was a throbbing hiss. "I loved my husband well enough in the end, but the life that I’ve lived for his sake—I would have given my soul to have your wife’s place instead, with a good steadfast man to defend me and children of my own. And she foreswore you, for her vain pride, no more, so that she might be called sainted and pu
re by such foolish sots as would drivel upon her holiness. By Christ, I would have burned her myself, had she taken you down with her as she was about to do!"

  He took a shuddering breath of air. "She was burned?"

  "Yes," she said in a calmer voice. "I’m sorry. There was nothing to be done for her, for she brought it upon herself. They declared her a Beguine, an adherent of the Free Spirit."

  "Isabelle," he said. Horror crept over him. "In God’s name, to burn!" He began to breathe faster, seeing the image of it, hearing it.

  "She did not suffer," the princess said in a steady voice. "She was given a posset to stupefy her, even before she heard the sentence passed, and kept so to the end. I’ve no doubt she went to sleep still in full assurance she was regarded as a saint."

  He turned toward her in the dark. "You know it so, my lady?"

  "Yes. I know it."

  He stared at her, at the source of her cold and even voice. "I don’t believe you."

  "Then I’ll given you the name of the priest I paid to intoxicate her. He was Fra Marcus Rovere then; now he’s a cardinal deacon at Avignon."

  "You—" He felt benumbed. "Why?"

  "Why! I know not why! Because her witless husband loved her, stupid man, and I knew you could do nothing. Because my window gave out on the court, and I didn’t wish my nap disturbed. Why else?"

  He lay back, his hands pressed to his skull. No tears came to his eyes. He thought of the times he’d wished Isabelle dead, to free him, and the penance he had done for it. Of how she’d been a burgher’s daughter—never could he have brought her openly to Lancaster’s court even before she came to believe she was consecrated to God, never could he have held a knight’s place there with a baseborn woman to wife. He thought of the first days of their marriage, his joy in her body and her smile, the end of his loneliness, it had seemed, and in his first battle the worst, most shameful unvoiced fear, not of pain, which he knew well enough, nor of dying itself, but of dying before he might bed her again, couple with her on the pillows and look at her.

  She was the only woman he had ever lain with in his life—and she had been dead for thirteen years, ashes and charred bone.

  He heard the sound he made, a meaningless dry moan like a man at the last reach of his strength. He should weep. But lament choked in his throat. He could only lie and hold his hands to his head as if he could imprison the melee of thoughts there, his muscles straining with each indrawn breath.

  "I can’t remember her face!" he cried. "Oh, sweet Mary save me, I can only see you."

  "Shhh." She put her finger to his lips. "Hush." She rubbed the side of his face in a quiet cadence, a firm chafing pressure. "That is not marvelous. Indeed, I’m here with you, best-loved. It’s no more than that."

  He reached up and caught her arms. "Do not stray out from my shield, my lady," he said fiercely. He pulled her down against him. "Leave me not."

  "Never," she said. "If it be within my power, never."

  Her breath stirred lightly on his face. She lay half atop him, the wool of her gown spread over his leg and thigh. He held her there.

  "Nor will I leave you." He bound her wrists in both his hands. "Never, lady, lest you send me from you."

  The rise and fall of his chest lifted her, so close she was. Though he could barely see her as but a blacker shadow on blackness, he felt her weight, her hushed submission to his grasp. Her loose hair fell down between them, as if she were a maid. As if she were his wife.

  "Lady," he whispered, "God shield me, I have thoughts in my head that are very madness."

  "What is your true name and place?" she asked softly.

  A distant part of him seemed to know what came to him, what gift of unthinkable value, but his tongue felt near too numb to form the words. "Ruadrik," he said in a dry throat. "Wolfscar."

  His hands where they gripped her arms were trembling. Only her steadiness held him motionless.

  "Sir Ruadrik of Wolfscar," she said, "here I take you, if you will it, as my husband, to have and to hold, at bed and at board, for better for worse, in sickness and health, until death us depart, and of this I give you my faith. Do you will it?"

  Only a little shiver beneath his hands and a break in her final question gave a hint that she was not calm.

  "My lady, it is madness."

  Her body tightened in his arms. "Do you will it?"

  He stared up into the dark at her, bereft of words.

  "Do you believe it’s no bargain for me?" she asked in a voice spun as fragile as glass. "I told you what I would give to be wife to you. Do you will it?"

  "Lady—have a care of your words, and make game of me not, for I have the will in my heart to answer you in truth."

  "In truth have I spoken. Here and now I take you, Ruadrik of Wolfscar, as my wedded husband, if you will have me."

  He turned his right hand, lacing his fingers into hers. "Lady Melanthe—Princess—" His voice failed as the immensity of it overcame him. He swallowed. "Princess of Monteverde, Countess of Bowland—my lady—I humbly take you—take you—ah, God forgive me, but I take you with my whole heart, though I be not worthy, I take you as my wedded wife to have and to hold, for fairer or fouler, in sickness and in health—for my life so long as I shall have it. Thereto I plight you my troth." He closed his fist hard over her fingers. "I have no ring. By my right hand I wed you, and by my right hand I honor you with the whole of my gold and silver, and by my right hand I endow you with all that is mine."

  For a long moment neither of them moved or spoke. Beyond the heavy curtains there was a faint sigh of coals falling in upon themselves.

  "I don’t have flowers, or a garland to kiss you through," he murmured, cupping her face. He leaned up and pressed his lips softly against hers. At first she seemed frozen, cool as marble, and a bolt of apprehension passed through his heart, for fear that she had done it all as a mocking jest—but then she gave a low whimper and kissed him in return, hard and ruthless, as her kisses were wont to be. She put her arms about his shoulders and held to him tightly, her face pressed into his throat.

  He lay gazing upward, full of bliss and horror. The world seemed to go in a slow spin about him. He didn’t know if it was drink or amazement.

  Then he embraced her and rolled her onto her back, overlying her, using his hands to master the awkward tangle of her skirts, his rigid tarse to search out her place urgently. He mounted her, sinking inside with a groan like a beast. A fearsome ache of pleasure shot from his belly through his limbs. It drowned his senses; from a distance he felt her clutch at him, heard her swift breath—but with all the strength in him he couldn’t stop to satisfy her. With a violent thrust he spilled his seed in her womb.

  He used and possessed her to bind his right, before God, sealing her beyond resort or recourse as his wife. And when it was finished, he laid his face against her breast and wept for Isabelle, for joy, and for mortal dread of what they had just done.

  FOURTEEN

  She held him as he grieved, and lay waking long after the shudders of rough sobs had passed through him. He wept like a man who had lost child and kin and future. And then he slept profoundly, weight upon her such that she could hardly breathe, but she never ceased stroking her fingers through his hair.

  She was jealous of his silly and dangerous wife, that he mourned her so. And yet Melanthe thought that it was his lost years and distorted vision that he mourned—pure and gentle nun that he had seemed to make the woman out for be. Melanthe remembered a shrieking and offensive female, full of herself and her prophecy, and a part of her longed to recall it to him in forceful detail. But she thought, with a little wonder at herself, that she didn’t care so much for her own discontent, if to undeceive him would cause him further pain.

  Lying with him seemed enough. It was entirely new to her, so different was he from Ligurio, and from Allegreto’s lithe and constant tension that had haunted all her nights. Ligurio had been gentler, without urgency, courteous in his dealing with her. She suspected now
that he had already been ill when he had consummated their marriage, coming to her bed for the first time on her sixteenth birthday, and seldom enough in the year after, until he hadn’t come at all.

  She felt now as she thought other women must, with her lover sprawled warm and heavy upon her in trusting insensibility. Where Allegreto had the supple light shape of a beardless youth, Ruadrik’s arms and shoulders were solid, hard-muscled, his cheek prickly on her bared breast and his leg a dense weight across her thigh. Even to bed, Allegreto wore hose stuffed to make him appear full intact and more; Sir Ruadrik lay with the broad expanse of his back naked to the night air, quite undeniably whole and male, having wept and gone to sleep still filling her, sliding gradually free until she felt the strange touch of his parts, heated between their bodies, a feather brush now where he had been stiff, a gentle pressure instead of invasion.

  She ran her fingers down his body and then pressed her arms lightly around him. She hoped his man’s sperm engendered a child in her already; and let the king...

  God shield them, let the king and the court not know until she had time to consider. Never until this extraordinary hour had it come into her mind to make a secret marriage, and to such a man as this. It was incredible. She would have scorned to ashes the witlessness of any other woman who was so foolhardy besotted of a lover as to put her possessions in such peril.

  Neither crown nor church would dispute her right to marry—but to wed without the king’s permission, to carry her vassal lands with her to a man without her liege lord’s approval—that was another offense entirely. Not a jury in the land would uphold her claim to such a thing. She might find herself a poor goodwife in truth for this night’s work.

  And yet she cared nothing. If she could have him lie over her all the nights of her life, if she could bear his children—she would sweep the hearth herself if she must.

  But she wound her fingers through his hair and considered. It was perhaps not so impossible a thing that she had done. The old king, besotted himself, might be persuaded to smile upon her, a weak-willed and love-smitten female. It wasn’t a match that would threaten any royal power or prerogative. Indeed there were advantages. She hadn’t thought of marrying because she had never thought she would care to marry again. Certainly she’d never had the uncouth thought she would marry beneath herself, or relinquish her lawful right to refuse any man below her station.