But there had been only a few sweet weeks of kissing and bedding, with Isabelle as loving and eager for it as himself, before the king's army had called him to France. When he'd come back, knighted on the field at Poitiers, full of the future, triumphant and appalled and eager to bury himself and the bloodshed in the clean tender arms of his wife—he'd come back, and found that God had turned her dizzy prattle into prophecy.
For a week he'd had his way with her, in spite of the weeping, in spite of the praying and begging, in spite of the scolds, but when she'd taken to screaming, he'd found it more than he could endure. He'd thought he ought to beat her; that was her father's advice, and sure it was that Ruck would gladly beat her or perhaps even strangle her when she was in the full flow of pious exhortations—but instead she'd beseeched him to take her on pilgrimage across the heap of war-torn ruins that was France. And here he was, not certain if it was God's will or a girl's, certain only that his heart was full of lechery and his body seethed with need.
They entered the palace through an arch beneath two great conical towers, passing under them to an immense courtyard, larger than any castle he'd ever seen, teeming with beggars and clergy and hooded travelers. The clerics and finer folk seemed to know where to go; the plain pilgrims like themselves wandered with aimless bafflement, or joined a procession that ran twice around the perimeter and ended at a knot of priests and clerks.
Isabelle began to tremble in his arms. He felt her bones dissolve; she sank from his grip to the pavement, with a hundred pairs of feet scuffing busily past. As her wail rose above the noise, people began to pause.
Ruck was growing inured to it. He even began to see the advantages—not a quarter hour elapsed before they had a church official escorting them past the more mundane supplicants and into a great columned and vaulted chamber full of people.
The echoing roar of discourse stopped his ears. The ceiling arched above, studded with brilliant golden stars on a blue field. His eyes kept sliding upward, drawn by the gilded radiance, the vivid color—abruptly the clerk pushed him, and he collapsed onto a bench. Isabelle looked back over her shoulder at him with her hand outstretched and her mouth open as she and her escort were engulfed by the crowd.
"Isabelle!" Ruck jumped to his feet. He shoved after them. She'd been named heretic for her sermoning more than once. He had to stay near her, explain her to the wary and suspicious. He floundered into a clearing and found himself in the midst of a circle of priests in rich vestments. The robed and tonsured scribe looked up from the lectern with a scowl, the plaintiff ceased his petition and turned, still kneeling before the podium.
Ruck backed out of the gathered court, bowing hastily. He turned and strained to his full height, a head taller than most, looking out over the massed assembly, but Isabelle was gone. A guard stopped him at a side door and pretended not to understand Ruck's French, making an obscene gesture with his finger and jerking his chin toward the benches.
A shimmer of color sparkled at the corner of Ruck's eye. He turned his head reflexively, as if a mirror had flashed. Space had opened around him. At the edge of it, two spears' length distant, a lady paused.
She glanced at him and the guard as she might glance at mongrels scrapping. A princess—perhaps a queen, from the richness of her dress and jewels—surrounded by her attendants, male and female, secluded amid the crowd like a glitter of silent prismatic light among shadows.
Cold...and as her look skimmed past him, his whole body caught ice and fire.
He dropped to one knee, bowing his head. When he lifted it, the open space had closed, but still he could see her within the radius of her courtiers. They appeared to be waiting, like everyone else, conversing among themselves. One of the men gave Ruck a brief scornful lift of his brow and turned his shoulder eloquently.
Ruck came to a sense of himself. He sat down on the bench by the guard. But he could not keep his gaze away from her. At first he tried, examining the pillars and carved animals, the other pilgrims, a passing priest, in between surreptitious glances at her, but none in her party looked his way again. Concealed among the throng and the figures passing in and out the door, he allowed himself to stare.
She carried a hooded white falcon, as indifferently as if the Pope's hall had been a hunting field. Her throat and shoulders gleamed pale against a jade gown fashioned like none he'd seen in his life—cut low, hugging her waist and hips without a concealing cote-hardi, embroidered down to her hem with silver dragonflies, each one with a pair of jeweled emerald eyes, so that the folds sparkled with her every move. A dagger hung on her girdle, smooth ivory crusted with malachite and rubies. Lavish silver liripipes draped from her elbows to the floor, worked in a green and silver emblem that he didn't recognize. Green ribbons with the same emblem laced her braids, lying against hair as black as the black heavens, coiled smooth as a devil's coronet.
He watched her hands, because he could not bear to look long at her face and did not dare to scan her body for its violent effect on his. The gauntlet and the falcon's hood, bejeweled like all the rest of her, glittered with emeralds on silver. She stroked the bird's breast with white fingers, and from four rods away that steady, gentle caress made him bleed as if from a mortal wound in his chest.
She turned to someone, lifting her finger to hold back the gauzy green veil that fell from her crown of braids to her shoulder—a feminine gesture, a delicacy that commanded and judged and condemned him to an agony of desire. He could not tear his look from her hand as it hovered near her lips: he saw her slight smile for her ladies—so cold, cold...she was bright cold; he was ferment. He couldn't comprehend her face. He hardly knew if she was comely or unremarkable. He could not at that moment have described her features, any more than he could have looked straight at the sun to describe it.
"Husband!" Isabelle's voice shocked him. She was there; she caught his hand, falling on her knees beside the bench. "The bishop will speak with me on the morrow, to hear my confession, and discourse together as God's servants!" Her blue eyes glowed as she clutched a pass that dangled wax seals. She smiled up at him joyfully. "I told him of you, Ruck, that you have been my good and faithful protector, and he bids you come also before him—to confirm your solemn vow of chastity in the name of Jesus and the Virgin Mary!"
* * *
Isabelle insisted that he leave off his armor for the interview with the bishop. Her brief timidity, her snugging against Ruck for protection, had vanished. All night she'd sat up praying, pausing only to describe in endless particular the triumph of her examination by the clerks and officials. They had heard of her—her fame had really spread so far!—and wished to prove to their own satisfaction that her visions were of God. They had questioned her fiercely, but she'd known every proper answer, and even given them back some of their own by pointing out an error in their orthodoxy concerning the testament of Saint James.
Ruck had listened with a deep uneasiness inside him. He could not imagine that those arrogant churchmen, with their bright vestments and Latin intonations, had been won over by his wife. Isabelle attracted a certain number of adherents, but they were of kindred mind to her, inclined to ecstasies and spiritual torments. He hadn't seen a single cleric here who gave the appearance of being any more interested in holy ecstasy than in his dinner.
He'd slept fitfully, dreaming of falcons and female bodies, waking fully aroused. For an instant he'd groped for Isabelle and then opened his eyes and seen her kneeling at the window next to a sleeping tailor. Tears coursed silently down her cheeks. She looked so radiant and anxious, her eyes lifted to the dawn sky, her hands gripped together, that he felt helpless. He wanted this bishop to give her whatever it was that she desired—sainthood, if she asked for it.
He dreaded the interview. He was afraid as he'd never been before a fight; he felt as if he were facing execution. As long as that vow had been private, between him and Isabelle, it had not seemed quite real. There was always the future; there were mitigating circumstances; he had not sp
oken clearly just what he swore to. She might change her mind. They were neither of them so very old yet. Women were erratic, that was known certainly enough. He ought to have beaten her. He ought to have put up with the screams and got her with a child. He ought to have told her that decent women stayed home and didn't drag their husbands over the face of creation in pursuit of canonization. He watched her prayerful tears, his lufsom, his sweet Isabelle, and could have wept himself.
In the great audience hall he was informed he must wait, that only Isabelle was required. A hunchbacked man held out his hand, leaning on his staff, and Ruck put a coin in it. He got a mute nod in return.
All the morning he sat there, feeling naked in his leather gambeson without armor over it, swallowing down apprehension and despair. There was no way he could find out of the thing short of disavowing his own words and revealing himself a false witness in public, before a bishop of the church. Worse, he was afraid that they might trap him into it, perplex him with religious questions and turn him about like a spinning top, as Isabelle could do, until he swore whatever they wished.
Three clerks came for him. He rose and followed them through corridors and up stairs, until they entered a high, square room. His blood beat in his ears. He had an impression of silence and intense color, frescoes on all the walls and many vividly dressed people, before he followed the clerks with his head bared and lowered. He went down on his knees before the bishop without ever looking into the man's face.
"Sire Ruadrik d'Angleterre." The modulated voice spoke in French. Soft slippers and the gold-banded hem of white and red robes were all Ruck could see. "Is it your will that your wife take the veil and the ring, to live chaste henceforth?"
Ruck stared at the slippers. The veil. He lifted his eyes as high as the bishop's knees. Isabelle had never said anything about taking...
Was she to leave him? Go into a nunnery?
"He has sworn." Isabelle's ardent voice reverberated off the high walls. She spoke English, but the interpreter's French words came like a murmured echo.
"Silence, daughter," the bishop said. "Your husband must speak."
Ruck felt them all looking at him, a crowd of strangers at his back. He hadn't been prepared for this. He felt as if a great hand gripped his throat.
"Do you understand me, Sire Ruadrik? Your wife desires to take the vow of chastity and retire to a life of contemplation. A placement can be made for her among the Franciscans at Saint Cloud, if her situation is your concern."
"Saint Cloud?" he repeated stupidly. He lifted his eyes to find the bishop regarding him with an inquisitive look.
"Do you understand French?" the prelate asked.
"Yes, my lord," Ruck said.
The bishop nodded in approval. "'The wife hath not the power of her own body, but the husband; likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife,'" he intoned. "As Saint Paul sayeth to the Corinthians. She must receive your consent to do this. Is it your will, my son, that your wife take these vows to be chaste?"
They were asking his permission. He could say no. He turned his head, and Isabelle was standing wringing her hands, weeping as she had in the dawn, pleading with him silently.
Isabelle. Luflych.
He imagined denying her, holding her by force—imagined saying yes and losing her forever.
She made a deep moan in her throat, as if she were dying, and held out her hands to him in supplication.
He turned his face away from her. He bent his head. "Yes, my lord," he said harshly to the slippers and the golden hem.
The bishop leaned forward. Ruck clasped his hands and put them in the holy man's cool grasp, sealing his consent. Now he had no wife. No true wife. He didn't know if he was married or not.
"You may rise, my son," the bishop said.
Ruck stood. He started to bow and move back, but the prelate raised his hand.
"Sire Ruadrik—do you believe this woman's visions are given to her by God?" he asked mildly.
"Yes, my lord." Ruck knew well enough to answer that in a firm voice. Any other reply, he felt, could be twisted to mean that they were Hell-inspired.
"You follow her in her preachings on that account?"
"She is my wife," Ruck said, and then felt a flush of embarrassment rise in his face. "She was. My lord—I—could not let her go so far alone."
"You did not require her to stay modestly at home?"
He stood in shame, unable to admit that he'd found it impossible to command his own wife. "Her visions enjoin her," he said desperately. "She is God's own servant."
His words died away into a profound silence. He felt they were laughing at him, to offer that as an excuse.
"And you have given a solemn vow of chastity to her some five weeks past, on the road from Reims?"
Ruck gazed helplessly at the bishop.
"In obedience to this woman's visions," the bishop repeated insistently, "you lived chaste in your marriage?"
"Oh, I think not," said a light female voice. "He is not chaste. Indeed, he is an adulterer."
Ruck stiffened at this astonishing accusation. "No, I am not—" His fierce denial died on his tongue as he turned to find the lady with the falcon standing not a rod behind him.
She strolled forward, sliding a glance at him over her shoulder while she dropped a token reverence toward the bishop. Her eyes were light, not quite perfect blue, but saturated with the lilac tinge of her dress and lined by black lashes. She seemed ageless, as young as Isabelle and as old as iniquity. The emeralds on the falcon's hood glittered.
Ruck felt his face aflame. "I have not adultered!" he said hoarsely.
"Is not the thought as sinful as the deed, Father?" she asked, addressing the bishop but looking at Ruck, her voice clear enough for her words to resonate from the walls.
"That is true, my lady. But if you have no earthly evidence, it is a matter of absolution between a man and his confessor."
"Of course." She smiled that serene and indifferent smile, lifting her skirts, withdrawing. "I fear that I presumed too far. I wished only to spare Your Holiness the mockery of hearing a solemn vow of chastity made by such a man. He stared at me quite boldly yesterday in the Hall of Great Audience, causing me much uneasiness of mind."
A low sound of protest escaped Ruck's throat. But he could not deny it. He had stared. He had committed adultery in his heart. He had desired her with an inordinate desire, a mortal passion—her eyes met his as she retired gracefully to one side—he read absolute knowledge there; she laid him bare, and she knew that he knew it.
"I am grieved to hear that you have had any cause for annoyance in the house of God, my lady," the prelate said, not sounding particularly disturbed. "Modesty in manner and dress, daughter, will temper the boldness of ungodly men toward you. But your point is well-taken with regard to the vow. Sire Ruadrik—can you swear to your purity both in thought and in deed?"
Ruck thought God Himself must be subjecting him to this mortification, holding him to a standard of truth beyond the strength of human flesh. Why else should all these great people take up their time with him? He was nobody, nothing to them.
He could not bring himself to answer, not here in front of everyone. In front of her. She might be the agent of God's truth, but he thought no woman had ever appeared more as if she'd been sent by the Arch-Fiend to enthrall a man.
The silence lengthened, condemning him. He looked at her, and at Isabelle's open tear-streaked face. His wife stared back at him.
Ruck closed his eyes. He shook his head no.
"Sire Ruadrik," the archbishop said heavily, "with this admission of impurity, and other considerations, the vow given to your wife must be considered invalid."
As the interpreter translated, Isabelle broke into a great wail.
"Silence!" the archbishop thundered, and even Isabelle drew in her breath in shock at the suddenness of it. In the pause he said, "You must be heard by your confessor, Sire Ruadrik. I leave your penance to him. For the othe
r matter—" He glanced at Isabelle, who had crawled forward and lay tugging at his hem. "In the usual course, one spouse is prevented from taking such a vow of chastity, if the other does not consent to it and vow also the same. Consent alone is not sufficient, as without the consolation of a solemn commitment to live celibate and close to God, the temptations of the flesh may prove too great." He looked at Ruck. "Lacking this true commitment, you will see the wisdom in such requirement, Sire Ruadrik."
Ruck could barely hold the man's eyes. He nodded slightly, burning all over.
The archbishop lifted his hand. "Nevertheless, this woman appears to me to be a special case. With the proper provisions, I am willing to allow that she may be attached to the convent and live in obedience to the rules of the house without her husband's concurrent vow. After I have examined her further in the articles of the faith and found her response to be satisfactory, and the provision for her support has been received, she may be admitted to the order."
When Isabelle heard the translation of this, she kissed the archbishop's hem and showed clear signs of working herself into an ecstasy. The archbishop made a gesture of dismissal. Ruck found himself escorted toward the door.
He wrenched his arm from the clerk's hold and turned back, but people had crowded in. From the corridor all he saw was the lady of the falcon, lifting her hand to her ear with a look of pained sufferance as Isabelle's voice rose to a shriek. The door closed. A clerk accosted him, informing him that an endowment of thirty-seven gold florins had been promised on behalf of Isabelle and would be accepted at once.
Thirty-seven gold florins was all the money that Ruck had, the last of the ransom from the two French knights he'd captured at Poitiers. The clerk took it, counting carefully, biting each coin before he dropped it into the holy purse.