Shadowheart

by Laura Kinsale

  The onlookers murmured, some in disbelief. The pirate drew her veil over her face again. As he pulled her close, she felt his fingers slide up under the gauze and press against the skin of her throat. It hurt. It made her heart beat dizzily in her head. She tried to protest and wrench away, but to her horror a swift darkness was rising in her brain. From a distance she heard him speaking to her, as if he were not stifling the very pulse in her throat himself. "Madam, are you well? Are you—"

  The next she knew, the darkness opened to the hard pavement under her shoulder and a multitude of feet in her hazy vision. The pirate was bent over her, cradling her head.

  "Move away!" he snapped as the crowd pressed in. "Move back!"

  Elayne sat up. She struggled for air through the veil, bewildered, trying to remember who she was and where.

  "Take her to the church!" the guard captain said.

  "No, let me take her to my galley," the Raven said, kneeling beside her. "She’s half-dead with fright. Escort us, keep me in your eye, but let her be made comfortable. Then I’ll return with you to make a deposition."

  "Well enough," the captain said. He turned. "Who has the Signor’s purse? Count the coins. What should be in it, sir?"

  "Two hundred ducats," the pirate said. He looked up at the wall of the church across the square. "Let it be given to San Giacomo, in thanks for our deliverance, and restitution for my soul."

  * * *

  Elayne rubbed her throat, still trying to piece together what had happened. Her neck was sore and bruised from his fingers. Inside the stuffy little cabin on the galley, Margaret fluttered about her, trying to apply compresses which Elayne removed as soon as the maid pressed them to her forehead. The pup grabbed the cloths from her fingers and shook them vigorously, flinging drops of rose water into every corner of the small space, which made Margaret’s baby laugh and struggle in its swaddling. Matteo stood at the portal, his fingers curled anxiously about the ragged curtain as he held it open.

  "I’m not faint," Elayne said for the tenth time as the maid tore yet another strip of cloth to soak. Her voice was hoarse. "I’m perfectly well."

  "Yes, Your Grace," Margaret said, soaking the cloth in her bowl of rose water and stubbornly wringing the cotton to fold again.

  Elayne wiped a drop from her eyebrow. They had taken away her blood-soaked shoes, but even attar of roses could not seem to cleanse the smell of butchery from her nostrils. "He is a demon," she said.

  "Yes, Your Grace," Margaret replied, lifting the compress to Elayne’s forehead.

  "I can’t live this way," Elayne said, pulling off the cloth and resting back on the pillows. "I refuse to do it."

  "Yes, ma’am." The maid nipped her compress from Elayne’s fingers before the pup could steal it and prepared to soak the cloth again. Nimue bounded out onto the galley’s deck, looking for easier game.

  "Margaret!" Elayne cried faintly. "He killed those men. In the dark. He could not even see them!"

  "Yes, Your Grace. I am so glad."

  Elayne sat up. "As if they were brute animals. As if it were no more than slaughtering pigs."

  "They were pigs, my lady. Riata pigs."

  Matteo dropped his wide-eyed gaze and looked down at his toes. He stepped back and let the curtain fall closed.

  "But—in the dark," Elayne said, staring after him at the swaying drape. "Two of them. He had no weapon."

  Margaret put the compress to her forehead again. "Do you lie down, my lady, please."

  "He told me he was a manslayer," Elayne said, closing her eyes.

  "My lord is very skilled," Margaret said. "Zafer says he can kill anyone he pleases, Your Grace, no matter how well-guarded they believe themselves to be."

  "God shield." Elayne slumped back on the pillows. Rose water dripped down into her eyes. While she had been craving his touch, dreaming of his kisses, he had been planning how he would cut a man’s throat. He had choked her pulse until she swooned, there in front of a hundred people, and none had seemed to know the difference. "He is a demon."

  "Yes, Your Grace," Margaret said.

  "And he’s bewitched the whole lot of you!" she exclaimed. "I believe he can make the entire city believe he killed those men because they tried to rob us."

  "I pray so, Your Grace." The maid’s brow creased. "I pray so."

  Elayne plucked off the compress. "What would they do to a plain murderer?" she asked the ceiling of the cabin.

  "A murderer would be hanged, I think, Your Grace."

  "Hanged and beheaded and drawn and quartered," Elayne agreed harshly.

  Margaret stopped soaking the cloth in the rose water. She made a little frightened whimper. Elayne stared at the planks above her. He had caressed her that way, made her tremble with desire for him, in full knowledge of what was to come. She thought of the long bloody knife and felt a furious revulsion in her throat. She could hardly say if she was more terrified for him, or of him.

  She sat up. "Do not fear." She dipped both hands in the bowl and splashed cold water over her face. "They won’t execute him," she said angrily. "They could not. They can’t kill one of Satan’s own fiends."

  * * *

  He returned in the night. Elayne sat on the stern of the galley, hooded and cloaked in the cool air, watching a great harvest moon rise over the domes of San Marco and the glimmering roll of the water. She didn’t hear him come aboard; she only heard Dario’s soft salute and a stir in the water below the ship as a gondola poled away.

  Against the huge moon she saw his silhouette. He landed silently on the deck before her. Elayne exhaled deeply, feeling as if she had been holding her breath for hours.

  "The third Riata will not trouble us," he murmured.

  "You have killed him, too?" she said. "What a comfort."

  She could not see his face, only feel the warmth of his body near her in the night air.

  "Drowned," he said after a moment.

  Elayne folded her fingers tightly in her lap. His bridal ring pressed into her bone.

  "Did they accept your deposition?" she asked at length.

  "In large part. I still have some friends on the Quarentia. They voted to banish me from Venice. But I have a day’s grace to absent myself."

  "Fortunate," she said. "Just enough time to drown someone."

  He leaned against the rail beside her, a blacker shape against the black night. "Elena. You did well."

  "Thank you. Of course I’m glad to satisfy you with my conduct."

  "Even if you didn’t scream."

  "I never scream. I merely swoon when I’m strangled."

  He paused. "I regret that," he said. " But I needed to divert the guard captain. I ask your pardon."

  "Why should you? I’m at your service, to poison or throttle as you please, am I not?"

  "I won’t do it again," he said. "I swear."

  "Ah, now I will sleep easy."

  "You’re angry," he said. He touched her cheek with his knuckles. His hand seemed warm against the damp breeze off the water. "My hell-cat."

  "Don’t call me that."

  "She-wolf," he said.

  "Demon!" she hissed.

  "Yes. Ex-communicate and unshriven, too," he added. "Unless two hundred ducats can buy me relief."

  She shivered in the night air. Margaret’s babe began to cry, a muffled sound inside the cabin. It wept and then quieted at the maid’s soft hushing.

  "We must leave now," he said. "This galley will sail east at dawn, with Zafer and the others. You and I go west, under darkness, as fast as we can travel. Can you ride?"

  "Yes," she said.

  She didn’t move. He stood beside her. She thought of his hand at her back, the heat of his body so close to her in the Rialto. Silence fell again between them.

  A great silence, a dark silence.

  "Are you afraid of me?" he whispered.

  Elayne rose. She pulled her cloak closer about her shoulders and turned away, leaving him in the dark.

  * * *

&nbs
p; She could not live with him. The lies and ravishment, the study of poison and murder, the children left behind without mercy—all of that, she had borne, carried along on the tide of his will, drawn by his mystery, entranced by the way he moved and the thoughts he dared to entertain. Her other choices had seemed vague and distant, only leading to worse fates.

  But she saw clearly now. She must get away from him. He killed so easily, so naturally, without mercy or regret. He lied as if angels commanded his tongue. It was his nature. And a part of Elayne—a deep, hidden, dreadful part of her—reached toward him. A part of her wanted to take that power to herself.

  In truth, it was terrifying, the desire she felt for him. She was as blinded and besotted as Margaret and the rest. She had to get away.

  She must find a priest, she thought. There was but one answer now. She could not go home; she could not live in such a manner; she could not go to Melanthe or Lancaster or Raymond. She had never been a devoted admirer of the clergy, the reproving deans and plump-fingered rectors who had come to dine on eels and venison at Savernake, but she could not turn now to anyone but the church.

  They left Venice behind far across the lagoon, its domes and walls a black mass like a lion crouched upon the waters in the moonlight. The clouds towered up overhead, tumbled radiance, glowing at the edges with the silvery light. The boatman poled along a muddy bank, where there seemed to be naught but reeds and waterfowl making sleepy hoots in the darkness. Elayne said nothing. She let the pirate direct her. He meant them to travel by land; surely they would sojourn at some monastery—but then she wasn’t certain if a man ex-communicate from the church would be suffered to remain in a house of God. But somewhere, soon enough, she would find someone ordained, and tell him she was abducted, and throw herself on the mercy of the church.

  The boatman bent to his pole, holding them against a low bank where reeds whispered in the night breeze. The Raven jumped onto the bank. Elayne stepped out, her leather boots sinking a little, water pooling around them.

  A silent ostler brought two horses forward, their hooves making sucking noises in the soft mire. Elayne could only discern their size and outline—a stallion, she guessed, and a palfrey with a white blaze. The familiar smell and warmth of their big bodies permeated the damp air.

  The pirate looked at her. He had changed into finer clothing, a dark tunic and white shoulder cape with long indigo dags. He wore a hat like a hunter’s, the folded point pulled down over his face, but she could see the line of his cheekbone; the shadowed curve of his mouth. Behind him, luminous clouds and sky glowed with midnight blue and silver brilliance. The light gave him form and substance, the graceful shape of her murderous angel of the dark. She hugged her arms around herself and turned, trying to give nothing of her thoughts away.

  She had but a simple plan. Find a church, find a cleric. It seemed that it must be painted upon her forehead in burning letters. He stayed near her while the ostler threw saddlebags over the horses. She could feel his attention on her.

  He had asked if she could ride. She could ride near anything, and had done it at Savernake, from the feral colts to the half-tamed breeding studs.

  The ostler stood holding the smaller palfrey. The pirate reached for the stallion’s saddle and put his foot into the stirrup without hesitation, without even testing the animal’s girth. The big horse stood tense, head lifted, its eyes rolling white in the dimness.

  Elayne paused, listening to the stallion’s uncertain huffs, a sound that proclaimed it was ready to stand but happy to bolt given the smallest pretext. In the moonlight it began to turn, spinning in a circle, the hoofbeats growing more rapid and uneven. Il Corvo, the terror of the Middle Sea, hopped on one foot as the horse circled faster. He dragged on the reins. The stallion stepped aside, throwing its head in the air, its hindquarters coiled for an explosion.

  Too late, the ostler lunged for the animal’s bridle. Moonlight gleamed on the stallion’s haunches and shoulders as it reared. Only the pirate’s quick balance kept him from falling as he kicked free of the stirrup and landed on one leg, his dagged shoulder cape fanning out wildly. He bumped up against Elayne as he caught himself.

  "Hang that stablemaster," he muttered. "One of his whores would be easier to mount."

  Elayne chewed her lip. She moved back a little, reached down in the darkness, and pulled her back hem between her legs, knotting the silk shift up to her waist with a quick loop that she had made a thousand times. "I know something of horses," she said. "I think you alarm him."

  "Is it so?" the pirate asked dryly. "We’re of one mind, then. He alarms me."

  "Perhaps..." She took a step forward, then back, not wanting to appear overconfident. "I could try. If the man will hold him while I mount."

  "And break your neck, my lady? Why would I allow that?"

  "You’re anxious of him," she said, rather than declare the truth outright—that he was evidently nothing of a horseman. "He senses it. I don’t think he will be unruly with me."

  He stood silent, looking at the horse. "You brought no other mount?" he asked the ostler.

  "No, signor," the man said uneasily. "I wasn’t told to bring another. Two good horses, steady and fast, for a gentleman and a lady, I was told."

  "Steady!" Il Corvo said. "Bah."

  "He is not often disobedient, signor," the ostler muttered.

  Il Corvo snorted. "How long to bring another?"

  "In haste—I might be back by Matins, signor."

  The Raven made a sound of disgust.

  Elayne gave a little shrug. "Let’s wait for a gentler mount, then, if it wounds your pride that I might do it better."

  He blew air through his teeth. "Oh, I’m certain that you can ride him the better. Anyone could. God curse it. We cannot stay till dawn. If this evil creature harms you, I’ll see it in Hell."

  * * *

  She could have mounted from the ground, but she let the ostler help her. The horse stiffened under her, waiting for a reason to object. She gave him none, and after a moment the animal heaved a sigh and lowered its head.

  In the dark the palfrey stood patiently as the pirate swung himself into the saddle. She could see the black stretches of the marsh and his silhouette clearly in the light of the great moon as it hung near to setting. The palfrey’s white blaze nodded as the horse champed its bit. Elayne suspected the pirate was beleaguering the animal’s reins for no good reason, but it bore his interference tolerantly. It appeared to be a good mount for a green rider. She hoped it was just such a sturdy slug, even though the ostler claimed it had some speed.

  "This track will lead you to the canal-side, signor," the ostler said. "There’s a road along the bank."

  The palfrey’s bit jingled as Il Corvo clucked to the animal. It broke into a sedate trot down the only path visible in the night. Her stallion followed willingly, a steady thump of hooves in the sandy muck.

  Elayne had no notion of where they were or where they were going. She could see smooth, silvery expanses of water out across the flats, and the lumps and shapeless contours of vegetation beside the track. In some places she thought she discerned the mass of a hut or a weir, or even the towers of a distant town, but she could not be certain what they were. It seemed an empty place, given only to the night breeze and the water.

  It was so bright under the full moon that she could see a tuft of downy white caught on the thumb of her glove. Nimue had barked and cried, scrabbling to climb over the railing as their boat had pulled away from the ship. Elayne had not even been able to say a real goodbye to the pup. Or to Margaret and her baby, or Matteo, or any of them. She had not dared.

  She rolled the white puff of hair in her fingers, and then pushed it inside her glove. The sudden moisture in her eyes magnified the horizon for an instant. She caught a clear glimpse of a tower in the distance before she blinked and it became a blur again.

  The path widened to a cart track, pale marks between the windswept reeds. A meandering canal gleamed between low banks. Ju
st ahead, the palfrey paced kindly along, following the road. The horse was a true ambler; a fine smooth-gaited mount, the sort of horse that Sir Guy would have been proud to offer to Lady Melanthe for traveling.

  Elayne did not intend to keep to an amble. Her heart beat harder as she realized she was gathering herself; the stallion responded immediately with a lifting of his back, coiling under her.

  She gave a little false shriek, digging her heels into the animal’s barrel at the same time that she dragged back on the reins. He danced in protest. She begged silent pardon of the confused beast, driving him again, and again, still holding him back on taut reins until he twisted and reared in frustration.

  Elayne made an effort to scream. It came out as a yelp, but she hauled the horse around, prodding him cruelly again as his forefeet hit the ground. He squealed in anger. She sat back as she felt him duck his head. His body rose under her, a buck and hard kick. She rode the jerking motion twice, then saw the track and the palfrey standing before her. She released the tight reins.

  The stallion sprang forward. She managed a resemblance of a frightened shriek. It bucked again, aimed a kick at the palfrey as the other horse shied hard away, and began to run.

  She leaned forward, letting the reins slip through her fingers. The horse moved powerfully under her. She could not see more than the faint double track between silhouettes of weeds, the black lumps of hedges that vanished from the corners of her eyes. The wind tugged at her hood as the stallion’s stride lengthened, his hooves pounding on solid ground now, his great body coursing forward in familiar rhythm.

  Night air rushed past. She let the horse have full rein as it stretched into a true gallop. She felt suddenly freed, as if she might ride forever, as if the stallion were a magic beast that could fly across mountain and water to carry her home.

  At the moment of that willful thought, the horse surged ahead. The gallop that had been free and wild suddenly transformed. The stallion began to drive in earnest, flinging its forelegs out into an enormous stride, ears pinned back, body flattened into the hammering stroke of a horse in full charge. She could hear the drum of hooves behind them—the palfrey bolting, too, and fast. Startlingly fast, for an ambler with a poor rider. In an instant of guilty exhilaration, she knew that the pirate must have fallen off as the stallion had plunged past them, freeing his horse to sprint at speed.