For My Lady's Heart

  Kisses she knew, and courtiers' games of dalliance, but nothing of a man's member beyond the cramp and discomfort of her husband's bodily company, so long past and fleeting that it seemed to have no share of this. A spring of delicious sensation arose from this touching, ungentle though it was, a delight in fleshly vices. She let it take her, became his common wench and mistress in truth, as light as these brazen country maids whose loves made no difference to the world beyond their beds.

  He was wanton drunk; she knew it, but she made no warning or protest when he sought her lips and kissed her, searching inward with his tongue, wine-flavored and reckless in his trespass. She took his tongue into her mouth and pressed her lap to his in pleasure, welcoming the hunger in him.

  His open hands slid across her hips and up to her waist. Her hair was loose. She'd left off her heavy azure gown after her bath, to be brushed and cleaned, changing it for a loaned one of scarlet that was made for close measure and immodest display.

  He ran his hands up and down her sides, from her hips to her breasts. "I've seen this," he said, his mouth close to hers. "Your white skin." There was a doted awe in his voice. "Your body all bare, below your mantle."

  She smiled, tilting her head back. "Suis-je belle?"

  "You're beautiful," he said, closing his fingers on her hair. "By Christ, you are beautiful."

  From overhead issued a feminine giggle, smothered but distinct. His hands leapt away from Melanthe; he jerked upright, searching the shadowed chamber with appalled bewilderment.

  Melanthe put her fist under his jaw and made him look upward. Faint light from the hidden holes illuminated odd shadows, picking out detail in the dusk.

  She didn't know if he would recognize what he saw, but just as she was about to lean forward and whisper to him, the strange glimmer vanished as the spy pressed to the peek again, blocking it. Sir Ruck went stiff, turning his shoulder to the wall and staring up.

  "Hang them," he breathed, his lip curling.

  She put her hand over his mouth, leaning close to his ear. "They can't see us here beneath it. Only hear."

  Immediately he looked over her head, about the room, not too much in his wine to reason that there would be another peek to cover the blind position. Melanthe knew where it was, but she'd already pulled the bed curtain a little way, as if by chance, just blocking the line of sight to where they stood.

  His lashes lowered in wine-maze. He gazed down at her, then lifted his eyebrows and blinked, like a man struggling to wake from a walking dream.

  She brushed back a rough black curl that had fallen over his ear, brazen wench that she was. "I'll serve as your chamberlain, handsome sir, to prepare you for bed. Come."

  * * *

  If not for the wine in his head, Ruck thought, he would have found a more reasonable means of dealing with the spyholes. He wanted to. He thought of covering them, but she distracted him, putting out the candles, leaving only the firelight that sprang in crimson arcs over the folds of her gown. It was cut low across her shoulders and back, the gown; he watched the curve of her breasts as she leaned to take up a mantle that had been warming by the chimney, her black hair falling in a cascade across her shoulder—and then remembered again that he was thinking of some cheat for the spying.

  Darkness would do it, but there was the fire. He might bank that, take up his place on guard by the door; she was like a living flame in crimson.

  He could not keep his mind fixed, not with her beckoning him near the fire. He went, light of weight in his body and brain, soft wool brushing his skin. He sat on the stool and let her pull the robes off over his head. His linen lay drying before the hearth after washing—beneath the robes he wore only slippers and socks for his feet. She had seen him in his bath, his body and the scars of fighting that he carried, but it embarrassed him anew and painfully now to be exposed, his scars and his lust together, unworthy of her.

  She laid the warmed mantle over his shoulders. He dragged it around to cover him as she knelt and drew the socks from his feet, massaging them like a fond wife. Her hands moved up his calf, and then his thigh. He felt helpless, in utter wonder of what she might do next. Definitely he had taken too much wine. He could not think in straight lines.

  "Right seldom do I drink so deep," he muttered.

  "Well, I hope you're not unabled." She touched him beneath the mantle, caressing her hand boldly over his yard. He clapped his fingers on her wrist, sucking in his breath.

  "In good order, so I see!" she said laughingly, rubbing her palm against his rigid part in spite of his resistance.

  "My lady—" he said.

  She stood on her knees on the rush mat, putting her free arm about his neck. "You've named me common wench all the day—so now I'm become one." Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, "These spies, they must see loveplay, true? That I'm no more than your whore?"

  They must see it? He thought there was some flaw in that reasoning, and arrant iniquity, but her seeking touch seduced him from the last of his wit. She wasn't tender; her handling was without art to the point of hurting him, but it was her hand upon him, and her body leaning close, and he could achieve no more than to pull each breath into his chest with a harsh sound.

  "You are shameless," he said with effort. "Ah...Mary and Jesus."

  She hid her face in his shoulder, but she didn't stop her unchaste behavior. Then she twisted her wrist free of his hold and took his hand against her, strangely innocent in the way she held it over her womb, stilling her whole body, waiting.

  The power of his will broke. He stood, lifting her up in his arms. His limbs acted without his reason—he carried her to the bed. The mantle fell from his shoulders, cold air on his skin as he lay down with her.

  Then he let her go and sat up, yanking the bedcurtains closed, shutting out the spyholes, enclosing and muffling the bed in heavily quilted winter hangings.

  He stayed sitting up in the bed. He would wait until the fire died and the light was gone, he thought desperately, and then he would take his sword and lie by the door. He would pray. He tried to pray now, his arms gripped about his knees, his forehead down upon them, but his brains spun with drink and passion.

  He would think of other things. Important things—where they must go now, whether the falcon had been discovered, how far beyond Liverpool the plague had spread, if it had spread at all. Her leg rested against his hip. He felt her sit up beside him, running her fingertip down the leather cord about his neck, brushing her mouth against his ear, and then he could not think at all.

  "I will go," he whispered. "Lady, I am drunk; do not kiss me."

  "You like me not?" she murmured.

  "You slay me, my lady." He turned his face from her. "You slay my reason. I am in wine. I'll dishonor you."

  She rested her forehead on his bare shoulder and ran her fingertips down his back. "I wish it," she said, so low that he could hardly hear.

  "No," he said. "I will not."

  Her hand curled around his arm. She rocked him, her face still pressed to his skin, like a child entreating.

  "Ah, lady. I love you too well."

  Her fingers slipped away. She was silent, still leaning her forehead against him.

  "Who would know?" she asked, muffled. "Once. Only once. For this one night."

  He drew a deep breath, speaking low. "My sweet lady, you have a demon of hell in you, that takes hold of your tongue sometimes and tempts me beyond what I can bear."

  "It's no demon. It is me." Her hand crept up and twined with his. "I've been so much alone. You do not know." She squeezed his fingers. "I didn't know, until I found you."

  "My luflych, my precious lady, I have me a wife."

  She was still for a long moment. Then she said, "Is that why you deny me? For your wife?"

  "For my wife. And for the dishonor to you."

  "Do you love her still?"

  He gave a bitter chuckle. "Ten and three years has it been. I can't even see her face in my head. But she's my wife, before God
and man, for we were rightly wed."

  "I thought her a nun."

  "Yes," he said.

  She lifted her head. In the blackness of the heavy curtains, he could see nothing, only feel her.

  "But never have I adultered, or profaned my vows." He paused, gripping his hand tight in hers. "Not with my body."

  She stroked his hair, and his back. "Ah, what have they done to you, these priests?" she whispered sadly. "Have you lived in this thought, that you're wed and yet bound to be chaste, since that day I saw you last?"

  "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 se
nt 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 pure 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.