Melanthe gazed again into the poisoned wine. She moved her head to bid him rise. "Take it to the garderobe. The cup will sink. I want no use of it again."
"Yes, my lady." With youthful agility he rolled to his feet and made a flourishing bow. "A Riata to Hell and a few fish to Heaven—I call that a fine day's work for one garderobe."
* * *
The duke had overcome his scowls. Amid the call of trumpets echoing high in the clear cold air, he greeted Melanthe cheerfully as he drew rein beside her palfrey. "Good morn, my lady." He glittered in azure and scarlet, his shield emblazoned by the lions of England quartered with the fleur-de-lis of France. At his side a Moorish soldier walked a real lion on a leash of silk. "A place of comfort is prepared for you on the scaffold, if you'll honor us."
"Thank you," she said. "I'll come there when I will."
"I pray it be soon, for my pleasure in your company."
"When I will," she repeated mildly.
He bared his teeth in a grin, "I look forward with delight to that moment, madam. And to these contests."
Melanthe contained her palfrey's restless attempt to touch noses to his bay war-horse. "You're armed to take a part in the combat, my lord." She nodded in approval. "I've never seen a prince of the blood enter the lists before. I commend your valor."
"I'll break a lance or two, God willing. My lady will recall that there's a challenge in her honor."
Melanthe smiled serenely. "I recall it."
"Your champion is renowned for his skill." He shook his head, careless. "I'll attempt him, but I hold small hope of winning any prize in a joust with the celebrated Green Sire."
His casual tone was meant to give her surprise, she saw, for he looked at her with a glance that did not quite match his jocular indifference.
"But you're his liege, aren't you?" she said. "I'm amazed that you undertake to meet him at all."
"A short match only, for your amusement. With blunted weapons, he needn't fear to fight his master." He turned his horse, saluting her. "I 'll open the jousts and return to your side as soon as I may, my dear Princess!" With a swirl of bright color, he circled and rode rapidly forward, his men and squires and even the lion running behind him to keep up.
The assassin's body had been pulled from the river this morning and hauled away to be buried nameless in a paupers' graveyard. Allegreto spent the day in the public stocks for his trouble, dragged bodily out of her bedchamber by Lancaster's men, a small instructive exercise that Melanthe had arranged for him.
She could not trust Allegreto's malicious counsel, but neither could she wholly trust Cara, as comely and credulous as her gentlewoman's dark eyes and soft, simple features might be. Any member of her retinue could succumb at any time to treachery or cajolery—the Riata were masters of both.
The murder had brought no more than a brief respite anyway—a moment's reprieve and then the poisoned wine, to remind her. She was still watched by some creature of the Riata, and with a sharper threat, for now she did not know who it was.
All she knew certainly was that they would see her dead before they saw her married again, carrying her rights with her to a man who would assert her claim to Monteverde. Such a one as Lancaster, ambitious and powerful—or, worse for the Riata by a thousand times—Gian Navona.
The true house of Monteverde had already died with Ligurio. She had not given him an heir, only a black-haired daughter, and even that poor hope was lost, smothered in the nursery. He had done what he could to protect Melanthe. He had taught her what she knew: subtlety and corruption, Greek and Latin and astrology, charisma and cunning, strength—he had taught her the lion and the fox; the chameleon of all colors.
All colors but white. Ligurio had trained her to trust no one and nothing, to lie of everything to everyone. And so at the end she had lied to him, too. He had died in the belief that she would take refuge in the veil, retiring to the abbey he had founded in the hills of Tuscany, safe in a comfortable retreat with Monteverde's lands and fortune rendered up to the mother church, invoking all the heavenly power and earthly greed of the men of God. She knew the bitter gall it had been to him to see his house die, but better passed to Heaven than into the hands of his enemies.
Her last gift to Ligurio had been her promise to do as he wished. Gift and lie. She had loved him like a father, but he was gone. She betrayed both Heaven and her husband. The church would not have Monteverde or Melanthe—but neither would Navona or Riata have them, either.
She could not live a nun. She could not spend her days praying for her dead. They were too many—likely she would not be able to remember all their names, and would get into a great argument with God over the matter, and expire of black melancholy.
Nay, if she must live inside walls for her protection, then let them be walls of her own choosing, this one time.
* * *
The tournament procession poured out into the great level meadow where a field of color lined the entry to the lists: vivid tents, some orange, some blue and scarlet, some formed like small castles flying pennants from their peaks. Each bore the owner's arms a shield hung at the entrance. When Melanthe halted before a tent of green trimmed in silver, the cheering nearby suspended entirely, creating a void, a space of silence within the music and the throng.
Her green knight stood beside his war-horse, outfitted in full armor, sending silver sparks into the sunshine from the green metal. As she drew up, he bowed on one knee, his bared head bent so that she saw only the tousle of black hair and the tan leather-padded edge of his gambeson against his neck. "My liege lady," he said.
"Rise, beloved knight," she murmured formally.
With the metallic note of armor, he came to his feet. She extended her free hand. Without raising his eyes to hers, he moved near and went down again on one leg to offer his knee as a pillion stone. Melanthe stepped from the saddle to the ground, lightly touching his bare hand for an instant.
The knight rose. Melanthe soothed Gryngolet with one finger as he brought the huge destrier near her, its caparison of emerald silk and dragonflies rippling at the hem as the war-horse moved.
Having prompted this little play herself, Melanthe saw with wry relief that the twisted unicorn's horn, a yard long, had been replaced by a less threatening pointed cone upon the stallion's faceplate. The destrier's eyes were hidden behind steel blinders. It blew softly and chewed at the bit as the knight attached a silver cord to the bridle, presenting the lead to her with another bow of courtesy.
She hadn't really expected to be left holding this enormous beast herself, but the broken-backed squire moved away to help his master with pulling the helm and aventail over the knight's head, quickly smoothing any crimp out of the mailed links that fell over his shoulders. Melanthe realized with some surprise that he seemed to have no other servant. He pushed up the visor with his fist, keeping a cautious eye on his horse as he pulled on his gauntlets.
The uneasy moment passed without incident. He caught up the looping reins. His plated gauntlets were so thick that his fingers seemed set in their half curl, clumsy and skillful at once.
For the first time he looked directly at Melanthe. He said nothing, but there was a level strength in him, something quiet and open, without evasion. He seemed to wait, without expectation, with immeasurable steady patience in his green eyes. As impenetrable and beckoning as the silent shadows of a forest, and yet flickering with hints of secret animation: with its own mysterious life and will.
Unexpectedly Melanthe found she had no ready word, no deceptive smile to return. She felt—as if she had been falling...and under his calm regard found herself caught up from the endless drop and placed on solid ground.
The horse threw its head, ringing bells. She shifted her look, the first to break away, and nodded to the knight.
He swung up into the tourney saddle, adjusting his body against the high curve of the cantle. The little squire brought the lance. With a move that held the grace of countless repetitions, the hunchback sw
ung the heavy spear aloft in an arc. The weapon slapped into the knight's waiting hand, slipped down against his open palm, and couched in the rest. At the spear point the bells of Gryngolet's jesses rang their hunter's music.
He took up his shield with the image of the hooded falcon and looked down on Melanthe. Sunlight caught the large emerald at the base of his green plumes.
"Tell me your real name," she said in English, in a low voice.
She heard herself ask it, heard the intensity of her own voice—standing amid the crowd of onlookers, not even knowing herself why she should care to know.
His armor masked him now; all she saw was his shadowed face within the helm and visor. She thought he would not answer—he had sworn to be nameless, and yet there was no smell of subterfuge about him: an impossible contrast, new to her and unsettling in its strangeness. She felt a bizarre rush of shyness to have pressed him, and turned her face downward.
"Ruck," he said.
She looked up, uncertain of the English word.
"As the black ravens call," he murmured in his own language. His mouth lifted with a half-smile. "Ruck, my lady. It's not a fair name, such as yours, but crude and rough."
There was no presumption, no bold arts of love or offers of certain delight. Only that half-smile, rare and sweet, and vanished in a moment—but Melanthe saw then in him what Allegreto had claimed to see: a man's hunger beneath the reserve.
He sat mounted with his shield and lance, a warrior geared for combat. An uncouth rough name he might bear, but his armored figure aroused a thought in her that was stunning in its novelty.
She was no longer married. She might take a friend—a lover—if she pleased.
In the same moment that she thought it, she knew the impossibility. Nothing had changed. Gian Navona had grown smoothly savage over the years of waiting for his prize. He tolerated no gallant by her—any man who could not be discouraged in his attentions would meet his fate by some insidious means, so subtle that only gossip and evil tales followed Melanthe. So subtle that she had learned to befriend no one and smiled upon no man, cold as winter now in her heart.
She turned that icy disfavor upon the knight, so that anyone who watched would see her do it. "I care nothing for your uncouth font-name," she said, as if he'd been too dull to understand her. "What is your court, knight?"
He showed no reaction but a turn of his thick gauntlet, gathering the reins. "My court is yours, my lady," he said in French. "And his who rules the palatine of Lancaster."
"If you love me as your liege," she said, "for today your court is mine alone." She stared at him, to be certain that he took her meaning, a long moment with everything she knew of command in her eyes.
"Aye, then," he said slowly. "Yours only, my lady."
THREE
They called him by this north-name of bersaka with good reason. Melanthe was accustomed to games of combat, the innumerable tournaments and spectacles she had attended, celebrating every occasion from weddings to foreign embassies. A plaisance—pleasantries, as Lancaster had promised. But with his blunted tournament weapons, her Green Knight fought as if he meant to kill.
Melanthe had led him last into the lists. Two lines had formed: opposing ranks of destriers and knights, their banners waving gently over the fantastical crests of staghorns and griffons and outlandish beasts, as if each man vied to display a deeper nightmare than the next atop his helm. No less than a score of rivals, besides the duke himself, had signaled a wish to fight for Melanthe's favor. The trumpets sounded, clearing the lists. As the Green Sire reined his destrier into position, the jeers began. They would not sneer openly at Melanthe, but her champion was fair game.
The entire crowd burst into frenzied acclaim for Lancaster as the duke rode forward into place, surrounded by his squires and grooms. The Green Sire made no sign of noticing either applause or taunts.
Melanthe bowed to her champion, ignoring Lancaster.
The trumpets clarioned. The lances swung downward. The green destrier sprang off its haunches into a gallop and Lancaster's bay mount hit its stride, rolling the sound of hoof-beats over the stands and the crowd.
An instant before impact, the Green Knight threw his shield away. The crowd roared, obscuring the sound as the lances hit. Lancaster's bounced upward, flying free and solid into the air along with the shattered splinters of his opponent's weapon. The Green Sire pulled up at the far end of the list, carrying half of a demolished tournament spear in one hand.
Tossing away his shield was the entire extent of his consideration for his prince. In five more courses he broke five lances on the duke, and took off Lancaster's helm on the sixth—whereupon the marshal threw down his white arrow to end the match. To Melanthe's displeasure, Lancaster accepted this without demur, not even demanding to go on to the foot combat.
Amid a murmur that spoke faintly of disfavor from the crowd, the duke saluted Melanthe and his brother and left the lists with his retinue.
She had not counted upon such a paltry showing. Not even the partisan onlookers could accuse her of withholding her favor from him without reason. But when he joined her on the scaffold, he seemed unembarrassed—speaking favorably of his opponent's skill to his brother Prince Edward for a moment before he sat down beside Melanthe. The musicians behind them struck up warbling tunes.
"A fair fight, my lady," he said, "though your champion makes no fine distinction between battlefield and tourney. I only hope that he slays none of our guests."
She felt an irritated urge to rise to this bait. "He faced you without shield," she said shortly.
"So they told me, but indeed I didn't know it until he took off my helm, or I'd have done the same." He raised his hand for refreshment and took the cup his squire offered, drinking deeply. "Or perhaps not. Mary, I've no desire to be run through in a joust and buried in unconsecrated ground."
He laughed, but there was a glitter of deeper emotion in him. Melanthe watched him as he drained the wine, tossed the cup down, and turned back to the lists with relish. This was some artificial show—she felt it, studying his unabashed countenance. It wasn't over yet, not at all. Lancaster had no intention of concluding with such a poor display.
She turned a look of better humor upon him. "I won't believe you stand in such peril, sir. Come, you'll fight again, will you not?"
The flicker of hesitation told her all that she need know. "Why—no, madam. I'll take my ease at your side. Here, your champion is in the lists again."
A challenger, emblazoned in gold and black and crested by the gilt head of a leopard, was being led into position by two squires, while Melanthe's knight circled his courser and backed it into place. He had resumed his fighting shield. The lances dipped; a gold-and-black squire shouted and stabbed a stick into the rump of the other horse. The animal jumped forward under the goad, galloping wildly, half shying as her champion's stallion bore down upon it.
The green lance caught its target full in the chest. With a jerk he sailed from the saddle as the horse went down. They somersaulted in opposite directions, the destrier hauling itself upright in a flail of hooves and caparisons to trot intemperately about the list, evading attempts to capture it.
"Poorly mounted," Lancaster murmured dryly.
They did not proceed to the sword combat.
While the musicians played harmonious melodies and Melanthe sat calmly beside Lancaster, her champion smashed the pretensions of three more challengers. Two lances were shattered on him, but no contender fought as far as the swords, and one left the first course of axes with a broken hand.
Outside the lists, where common men-at-arms mingled with the squires and pages, there was a small but growing band of onlookers who met the Green Sire's victories with a ragged volley of cheers. Melanthe made no sign herself, but a feeling of pleasant awe began to steal over her, watching him fight. Berserker, indeed. It only remained to see that Lancaster be fired to face her champion again.
Melanthe already suspected the duke's intention. To a
llow a goodly number of challengers, wearing his rival down and painting him invincible at the same time...then perhaps a private visitation by some secret "friend," warning him of his prince's displeasure and designed to shake his nerve...and somehow Lancaster, fresh from hours of relaxation in the stands, would find a reason to meet the Green Sire at the end of the day.
She could appreciate Lancaster's design. It required a fine judgment—Melanthe smiled inwardly as he lifted a finger to communicate with the marshal of the lists, who instantly caused the heralding of a new set of combatants, allowing the Green Sire his first rest. It would not do to have him appear too easy—and just as vital to properly exhaust him before the coup de grace.
Melanthe prepared to ensure that the duke misjudged his moment.
She toyed with the jeweled jesses, turning a disinterested look on the new jousters. "Tell me of my champion," she said. "He's nameless in truth?"
"Nameless, my lady. A nobody. He gives homage and claims our service, but brings no men of his own beyond that malformed squire."
"No lands, then? But such rich gear, and a great war-horse. He's won many prizes in tournament, I expect?"
The duke laughed. "Few enough, for I've better use for him in real fighting, but it's true that when he enters the lists, he prevails. I've sometimes sent him on a dragon hunt, for sport, but he brings me no prize yet."
"And still he hasn't proved himself worthy of his name?"
Lancaster turned his palm up casually. "The fortunes of war and dragons, my lady. All must await their great chance at honor, if it ever comes." He shrugged. "Perhaps he has no name. God only must know where he thieved his gear. It's my thought that he's nothing but a freeman."
"A freeman!" Melanthe turned in amazement.
"Else why hide his lineage? That falcon device is recorded on no roll of rightful arms, so say the heralds. But the Green Sire has a talent to lead common soldiers. What men he commands, they come to love him, and the French dread his name. No great chivalry in that, but it's a useful art." He leaned back in his chair and smiled. "So we tolerate his whims and his unlawful device and green horse, Princess—and if he likes to call you his liege lady for a fantasy, then we'll enjoy the game."