For My Lady's Heart

  * * *

  Melanthe slept. She kept trying to rally, rising to the weary surface and failing, losing herself again in the sweet dreamless warmth. With her wakening mind she knew she must not let sleep have her, but she had lost the will to fight it, falling back, luxurious collapse into rest and safety.

  When she did open her eyes, it was difficult, as it had never been before. She had slept oversound, and the slumber still sucked at her.

  She realized that she was alone. Without Allegreto's restless clinging presence at her side, without Cara's quiet rustle.

  The whole camp was unusually quiet. There was only a faint chink of harness, none of the low talk and dragging sounds of packing and loading.

  She must have outslept all. She sighed and stretched, enjoying the soft liberty of the furs.

  Melanthe smiled as she thought of her knight, how he would lift that one dark eyebrow, conveying utter disdain while he spoke in the most courteous of phrases. He scorned her, this green man—scorned and still desired her.

  It was a compound new to Melanthe. She was not accustomed to disdain, not at least from the men who wanted her. She might already have pursued the matter in some way, if not for Allegreto. And Gian.

  Pulling an ermine about her shoulders against the icy air, she sat up. There was still no sound from outside, nor any scent of toast browning at the fire—or even the scent of a fire at all.

  The strangeness struck her. Her heart began to thump. The poisoned cockles—had any but the hunchback eaten them? Wild thoughts possessed her. Allegreto, nightwalker, assassin, capable of any butchery, had been driven half to madness by the fear she had roused in him. And this was wilderness, the knight had said, a place beyond the king's control, resort of outlaws.

  She looked quickly around—but there—there was Gryngolet, sitting hooded and calm on her perch. Melanthe slipped her dagger from beneath her pillow and left the furs, shivering. She broke open a chest, ransacking it for something to pull over her nakedness. The azure wool of a heavy tunic prickled her skin through linen. Her hands had begun to shake a little, suddenly anticipating what nightmare she might find outside.

  Covered, she knelt at the opening of the tent and listened. A horse blew softly, champing its bit, but there was no other sound of man or beast. She held the dagger at ready and pulled the drape slightly aside.

  A few feet away she saw a man's mail sabaton, old-fashioned, with a blunted toe. An upright leg—through a slightly wider slit, she could see two armored legs—he sat motionless on a half-rotted log a few yards from the tent. One toe moved, pushing a cockleshell a fraction of an inch, first one way, then the other.

  Relief shuddered through her. She had half expected a bloodbath and bodies in the sand—she had not even trusted those greaves and knee poleyns to belong to a still-living man until she'd seen the faint, ordinary movement.

  It was her knight, then, fretted with her. Following on the surge of reprieve, Melanthe felt an odd spurt of good humor. Had she slept so late that he'd sent all the others ahead and stayed to scold her?

  The idea pleased her, but she recognized the absurdity of it instantly. He would do no such thing—it wasn't his nature to openly rebuke his liege, and she had given him provocation enough. She found slippers and pulled them on, grabbed a mantle, and pushed aside the curtain, emerging from the tent.

  His war-horse, its green-dyed coat long since washed to a handsomer gray, pricked its ears toward her as it stood by the log. The knight sat for a moment with no expression, his breath frosting, his helm in his lap. He looked up at her.

  It was the only time in her life that any man but her husband or her father had not risen to greet her. That jolted her, made the empty, trampled clearing of marsh grass stranger yet, eerie in its silence and the blank way that he looked at her.

  "They've fled," he said. Then he seemed to come to himself and stood with a metallic sound. "My lady—I beg your forgiveness."

  "Fled?" she echoed. "All of them?"

  She stared around the barren camp. The only horse was his. They had ransacked the supplies and taken the animals, leaving bags and bundles broken open.

  "Allegreto?" she asked breathlessly.

  His brows drew together. "He's gone, madam."

  She gripped the dagger, holding her hands pressed over it. "Gone."

  His scowl deepened. He nodded, watching her.

  "He's gone?" She could hardly bring herself to speak. "How long?"

  "I don't know. I was away two hours, before dawn." He made a slight gesture toward the ground. "The tracks—they scattered apart from one another. Your maid, also. This talk of plague—it inflamed a terror."

  She was alone. Free. She had done it. But she had not meant to do it so completely.

  She met his green eyes and saw everything he thought of her. She let him think it. In his armor he stood perfectly still, black-haired and silent, a solidly potent presence on this empty moor.

  Allegreto was truly gone. He had left her.

  "Where did he go? What will happen to him?" She stared at the horizon.

  "I can't say which marks are his, Your Highness. We can wait here. Perhaps he'll grow frightened and return."

  Melanthe kept gazing at the horizon, the empty horizon.

  "I'd seek him for you, my lady," he said, "but I can't leave you alone."

  "Do not leave me!" she said.

  He dipped his dark head. "No, Your Highness."

  She looked about her again. It was so strange: she had never in her life been alone—never without attendants, never with one man, not even in her husband's bedchamber where his pages always slept on pallets beside the bed. The sky suddenly seemed bigger, dizzyingly huge, the moorland vast.

  "God shield me," she whispered. How beautiful it was, how quiet, only the wind and the wild fowl speaking far off at that strand of silver light where the sky came down to the land.

  "Perhaps they'll all come into their senses and return to us," he said.

  She realized that he was trying to reassure her. She turned to him. "No—they will not, between fear of plague and retribution."

  "Then they live outlawed," he said simply.

  His plain view of things seemed oddly befitting in this place, but she said, "I cannot comprehend Allegreto as an outlaw."

  He didn't return her faint smile. In his expression she saw the truth of what he thought of Allegreto's prospects in the wilderness.

  "What threatens?" she asked quickly.

  He hesitated. "Bogs and quicksands," he said at last. "Brigands. Poison water." He shifted, making that faint armor noise. "I heard wolves in the night."

  She pulled her lip through her teeth. "I don't like to linger here," she said, changing to English because it somehow soothed her to hear him speak in his own tongue, a thin common thread between them.

  "I don't like it myself," he agreed, shifting language in response as he always did, "but we'll dwell here for today, so that they may come again to us if they will."

  Melanthe shivered in the wind, pushing her hands beneath her mantle. "You're too merciful," she said. "Traitors deserve no such indulgence."

  Ruck watched her hug her arms about herself. He narrowed his eyes. "Indulgence they shall not have, Your Highness. But it was your lo—" He almost said "lover," but it curdled on his tongue. "—your courtier who unnerved them." It was she herself had been the one to set the seal on the party's panic, with her spiteful games, but he did not say so. "Away from Allegreto, they may think again."

  She stared toward the horizon. She seemed smaller somehow than she had seemed before to Ruck, the cloak bundled around her, less elegant and imperious.

  "Allegreto," she echoed, as if her tongue were not her own. She made a sound of frenzied laughter, and then stopped it, biting hard on her lower lip. Her knees seemed to give beneath her. She sat down on the ground and stared at the horizon, rocking. Then she leapt up again. "I see him!"

  Ruck turned sharply. He squinted, scanning the moor—and
saw the flicker of yellow motion. "No, Your Highness. It's no more than a plover bird." He looked back at her, but she had already sagged to the ground again. One lock of her dark hair had escaped the golden net that confined it, flying across her cheek in the cold breeze. He feared she was sickening in her mind for her lover—she seemed so lost and bewildered.

  "We shall not stay here," she said. "We shall not wait for them."

  "How do we go without an escort? My lady hasn't even her maid."

  "I say we shall not wait!" she exclaimed. But when she looked at him, it was a confused look, with no command in it. "I never thought—I didn't mean them all to go!"

  Ruck made no answer. She was no more reasonable now in her reaction than Allegreto had been in his last night, like a wicked spoiled child who had taunted her playmates until they fled, and now could not fix between anger and tears. The fugitives had taken the animals but bothered to load nothing heavy in their haste. He unpacked a wooden cup and filled it at the ale keg. As she sat huddled on the bare ground, he squatted beside her.

  "Will you breakfast, lady?"

  She accepted the ale, drank a few sips, and handed it back to him. He watched her shiver inside the fur mantle. It was cold, but not so cold as to make her shake in that way.

  "It would be no great thing to find us," she said in a troubled tone, glancing at the tent with its bright unnatural hues.

  He drained the rest of the ale. "In truth, we're easily seen. It's best in this place to hide such color, and lay down and watch." He stood up and went to the tent. He was about to duck inside when she suddenly rose, slipping past him.

  As he held back the drape, she emerged with the gyrfalcon on her gauntleted wrist. Her gestures had slowed; she moved softly with the bird as she transferred it. "Bring the block. Gryngolet will keep watch."

  Ruck obeyed, approving the idea. He shoved the spike of the cone-shaped block firmly into the sand.

  Princess Melanthe established the falcon, crooning as she removed the hood. "Beware of your favorite," she murmured. "'Beware Allegreto."

  The gyrfalcon stretched her wings wide, milky white, her bells tinkling. The bright, dark eyes focused briefly on Ruck and then beyond, fixing on the distance.

  "It's a noble bird," he said, in spite of himself.

  "Thank you." She seemed more composed now, not so shaken as she had been but a moment before. "I had her gift of a Northman." She glanced at Ruck. "He was nearly as tall as you, but fair."

  Her slanting look at him seemed to hold some message. This tall, fair Northman had been another of her lovers, he reckoned. He felt irritated and rough. To give her a gift of such value had not occurred to him.

  "He died in bed by a bodkin knife," she said, as if it were a piece of light gossip. "I believe his soul went into Gryngolet."

  Ruck crossed himself in reflex at the blasphemy, but he did not rebuke it.

  "If Allegreto comes, Gryngolet will know," she added enigmatically.

  "Well for it." Not only her witch's familiar, the falcon, but a jealous lover, too. He grabbed the handle of the chest inside her tent and hauled it out. "I can turn hand then, and ready us to go when we will."

  Ruck went about his work moodily, with half an eye to the horizon. He rolled her furs and piled them on the chest outside, then kicked each of the tent pegs loose in turn. As the bright pavilion fell in on itself, he pulled off his gloves with his teeth and stuffed them under his arm, grimacing at the taste of metal and sand. He squatted and began to untie the ropes.

  He looked up to see Princess Melanthe huddled at the other side of the cloth, engaged on the same task.

  "Fie, madam," he said in astonishment, "I shall do the labor."

  She was having little success with the tight knot. He stood up and caught the rope, pulling the stake from her hands.

  "Your Highness, it's not seemly," he said, vexed. He caught her elbow and drew her up. With a little force he guided her away from the tent, releasing her immediately.

  "I don't this waiting," she said, holding her fingers clasped tight together. "When may we go?"

  "If they don't return by morn, then we depart." He spread her furs on the log, searched inside her chest, found a book, and handed it to her. "One night is enough to spend alone in the Wyrale."

  He bent knee briefly before her, then stood up and went back to work. From the corner of his eye, he could see her sitting upon the furs. The shivers caught up with her sometimes, making the open book shake.

  "We wait for nothing," she said suddenly. "If they've lost their fear of plague, then they fear their punishment too well to come back."

  He rose from binding the tent. "They fear, right enough. But in the cold light of morning a man reflects that he has both wife and child, and doesn't care to live outlawed from God and home." The corner of his mouth lifted as he stood straight, setting his hand at his waist. "Wherefore, my lady, he bethinks him of a story, of how the others fled, but he alone among them was a brave man, and ran after, to bring them back. But he lost his way in the darkness, and only now comes to us again as fast he may find us."

  The reluctant shadow of a smile crossed her features. "The duke did say you're a master of men."

  He gave a slight shrug. "It's what I'd do, were I one of them."

  "No," she said. "Green Sire, you would not—for you didn't run away to begin with." She laid the volume aside. "But it's a gift you have, to read the hearts of lesser men."

  He did not trust her compliments. "They're soldiers," he said. "More like to me than to my lady's grace."

  She turned her eyes to him, her eyes the color of purple dusk, and gazed at him as if she were only just seeing him for the first time. She had looked at him so once before, as she had prepared to lead him into tournament, a glance that wished to see through to his heart. She had asked him his name then—as if she cared what it might be.

  "Perhaps so." She gave another peculiar laugh. "Perhaps not. I have me some talents in common with base liars and cowards—more than I think you have."

  Her fingers plucked at one another, her jeweled rings glistening. She looked away, staring out past him at the distant trees beyond the marshland. The wind blew more strands of her dark hair from under the furred hood. She brushed them back without elegance.

  Ruck realized he was watching her, standing still, as if he didn't know what else to do with himself.

  "I am always lying, green man," she said, without taking her eyes from the distance. "Always. Remember that I told you."

  He turned and slung a bag of bedding onto Hawk's rump. He went on packing, hot in his heart and his loins, half-frozen by the cold wind on his rough fingers.

  * * *

  The knight had no more to say; he merely finished his work and sat on the ground, leaning against the pile of baggage he'd made, facing away from her and Gryngolet to look out on the northern horizon. His destrier stood loaded as if they might leave at any moment.

  Melanthe pretended to ignore him, as he appeared to ignore her. The circumstance was too singular; she suspected he'd no more been so utterly alone with a lady than she had been with any man.

  In the long hours of waiting a peculiar curiosity possessed her. She wondered at his age, if he had children, brothers, a favorite dish. She didn't ask. She never asked such things, but found them out by secret ways if she felt the need. They were powerful holds, the small details, the life and loves of a man—things to exploit and manipulate. She didn't wish to use him that way; she only wished to know.

  But she took care to deny such an alien impulse, and let him keep court with her as stately as if they were in the palaces of kings. Already she'd said more than she should—why she had warned him of her lying, she could not fathom. She had simply said it, hearing herself with wonder as she did.

  At noontide he knelt, rifling among the bags. Wordlessly he brought her an orange, a soft herb cheese, and wine, along with five almonds and a twisted stick of violet sugar. He laid them on a cloth on the ground, proffering
a napkin and an ewer of rose water drawn from a silver cask. Melanthe dipped her fingers in the frigid water and dried them hastily. On his knees he cut a tiny bite from each food, tasting it himself before he offered it to her.

  She accepted this solemn ritual. It was a strange moment, a regal distance between them—and yet he knew what she customarily ate for a midday meal as well as if he'd shared it with her himself a hundred times before. When he came in his ceremonial tasting to the sugar penidia, he paused, looking down at the delicate and costly sweet.

  "I think it not seemly that I spend a portion of this on myself, Your Highness," he said.

  "Spend it all on yourself, knight," she said. "It's yours to savor. And it pleases me to give the orange to you, also."

  He glanced up at her. She saw for a bare instant the stark blaze of his desire, the quick touch of his green eyes on every part of her face, on her lips and cheeks and brow—almost palpable, vivid as the powerful beat of a falcon, light as the brush of hunter's wings.

  He looked down again.

  "Thank you, my lady," he said briefly, and withdrew with a bow, taking up his place again by the baggage.

  As if a little distance released him from court manners, he sat propped up in a relaxed fashion, his legs bent to accommodate roweled spurs, his armor plates shining dully in the hazy sun. His helmet rested on the ground within easy reach. Roughly cut black locks spilled over the folds of the chain mail hood at his nape. When he tilted back his head and drained a mug of ale, she had a great impulse to reach her hand out and caress his windblown hair.

  Queer reticence possessed her at such thoughts, and she couldn't even look at him in secret. Her mind distrusted; her heart could hardly bear to acknowledge the thought that Allegreto would not return, that Cara was gone—she was at last free of it all.

  She did not dare to plan beyond the instant, leaving decision in the hands of her knight. She heard him come to his feet, chinking armor and spurs.

  "Your Highness," he said quietly. "I must sleep now, so that I can keep the watch tonight."

  She looked up at him. He stood a few feet away holding the ewer, wary observation in his face. Melanthe had another lunatic urge to laugh at the way they prowled and met and recoiled from each other. Instead she nodded, lowering her eyes.