"Then let her write," Ruck said, and handed John his gloves.
* * *
"Sit there." The archbishop waved him to a bench, holding the papers, all in Latin, and spreading them out on the table before him. "This isn't a cause in which I'd intervene," the prelate said, "but that since I came here I've heard of nothing but the marvelous case of this unknown knight, who would have it that he's married to the Countess of Bowland—who would have it that he's not."
Ruck said nothing. His clerk spoken for him, but now the prelate wished to interview him alone. He sat straight, looking at the archbishop's peaked and embellished mitre. The churchman sorted through papers.
"You press your cause ardently, with nothing to make proof," he murmured, reading. "But of course, I'm told that the widow is an heiress of great fortune."
"Your grace," Ruck said, "I do not want her fortune, nor will have it."
The prelate ran his finger across a line. "I see that you have so testified, that you quit all right in her estate. And yet such a marriage can't be a disadvantage to you, for you have no property or place that you name. Sir who? Of where? What county?"
"Honorable father—I'm under solemn vow, that I will not undertake my right name before the world until I prove worthy. But I've written it, and lies it sealed there." He nodded toward the parchments on the table. "The Duke of Lancaster is my liege lord. Six gentlemen and knights of good character vouch upon me, that I'm no felon nor outlaw, but a true Christian man ready to keep the peace."
The archbishop made an irritated flick of his hand. "The Lord would be better pleased if young knights were not so hasty to swear such extravagant and profitless vows. But you must keep to your sworn word. Still—this want of conformity and open truth seems sufficient to arouse suspicion that you make your claim with worldly and wicked motive."
"My lord, I make claim because the Princess Melanthe is my wife, before God, and no other man may marry her while I live."
The archbishop tapped on the papers. Strong light shafted across the table from a lancet window, making a long shadow from his finger. "You testify that the Princess Melanthe took you to husband by your right name and knows your place."
"Yes, my lord. She lay at my hold, from February to May."
The churchman frowned at him thoughtfully. "Tell me, in your own words, what passed."
Ruck had told the story often now; he related everything from his dismissal by Lancaster to the bed at Torbec. The archbishop didn't break in to question him as the others had. He simply listened, shifting the papers on occasion. At the end he said, "My son, I fear that you've been wiled by a wicked and lewd woman. If those at Torbec could have testified to witness of the vows, the case might be different. I don't say that you've lied, but you have no proof."
"If I do not lie, then she is my wife," Ruck said. "She cannot marry another."
"I've seen her. I spoke to her right plainly, and put her in remembrance that her soul is at stake in this matter. She denies the words, and that you had company of each other, with great vehemence."
Ruck lifted his eyes in shock. He hadn't known she had already spoken her story.
But he didn't trouble to repeat to the archbishop the foolish claim that she spoke under duress. Thrice in as many weeks Ruck had received warnings from his "friend"—and thrice had he lived to value them. He wrestled between believing that his wife was attempting to murder him and hoping that she was behind the warnings that spared him.
He shook his head. "My lord, she is my wife, and she cannot marry another. I do not lie in this, on my soul and any other oath required of me, though for saying it Dan Gian Navona accuses me of deceit and falsehood. I defend my words by arms against him, with leave of the king's justices in the court of chivalry, honorable father, if by God's will you agree."
The archbishop scratched his forehead and read the paper before him again. "He does not fight himself, but sends a champion."
"His ankle is broken, my lord."
The prelate gave a slight laugh. "I see. God in his wisdom prevents a direct meeting, that you may not be charged with a killing to clear your way to his betrothed."
"She is not his betrothed, but my wife, my lord."
"You are zealous," the archbishop said. "So too was the princess in her denial. But—if you speak true, then she married without the king's license and now has a great lord for a suitor. Many a man and woman, rightly wed, has made mock of their vows for less than this." He leaned back on the settle and rubbed his nose. "And when I asked of her where she lay for the months of February to May, in her impudence she told me she'd spent the time so deep in prayer that she did not recall the place." He lifted his brows. "I'm little convinced that such a female can benefit your spiritual welfare, my son in Christ."
Ruck knew that she could not. His spiritual welfare was in bloody shreds. But he bowed his head and said, "Good father, I wish to honor the bonds of holy matrimony."
He did not dare raise his eyes, for fear the man of God would see the depth and heat of gall in him. He listened to the scratch of the quill as the archbishop made a note in the margin of the document.
"I will forbid the banns and delay sitting of the canonical court on this matter until the outcome of the combat," the churchman said. "If God sends that you're successful in your defense against the charge of falsehood, then follows it that between you and Dan Gian, the weight of truth is yours. The court will take fitting account of the point. If you fail—and live, by God's mercy—then I forbid you as a proved deceiver to make further cause before the church. In absence of any earthly witness, let the Holy Spirit direct."
* * *
They left the archbishop's lodgings, Ruck's canon triumphant with success and John Marking striding ahead, clearing a path through the orderly confusion of the courtyard with ox-like resolution. Even John had to pause for a moment as the horns rang out and an opulent procession came through the gate.
Ruck felt his elation grow cold. Behind a scarlet vanguard, Melanthe rode beside Navona, who didn't appear much discomfited by his ankle. She was robed in red and gold; he all in white. A tall knight trailed them, armed and horsed and squired—the Flemish champion, without doubt, looking about himself with a keen interest.
The rest of their company came behind, faces shocking in their strange familiarity in this surrounding—Allegreto, the gentlewomen—and Desmond in the scarlet livery, wearing gloves in high summer and sitting a delicate palfrey with bored arrogance.
"There he is!" John suddenly leaned close to Ruck. "Your friend, my lord, who gave warning of the sword."
Ruck looked at Desmond, so unfamiliar and familiar in his finery.
"He rides the fourth in line," John said under the rising sound of halloes and grumbles, "the first in the white surcoats. Young and comely."
"No—" As the company halted, Ruck's gaze shifted from scarlet Desmond to the first rider in the milk-white livery of the Italian. It was Allegreto. "Not in white?"
But at that moment Allegreto's lazy glance passed along the crowd. He looked directly at Ruck. His dark eyes took note, expressionless. With a deliberate move he pulled his light sword from its sheath and examined the blade.
Ruck found the area around himself opening. Someone pressed him forward from behind. The Flemish knight had dismounted; the space between them was suddenly empty—a confrontation, and the voices around rose in shouts of "Saint George! Saint George!"
The champion was a tall man, younger than Ruck by years. He skimmed the cheering English with a smile of delight and made a bow that held just the right touch of mockery, as if they were hailing him. It brought the shouts to a peak.
Ruck stood alone but for John. The Fleming examined him and then made a courteous nod. Ruck acknowledged it. He looked past the knight to where Melanthe sat her black palfrey. Though every eye in the courtyard was fixed on him and the man he would fight, she dismounted as if neither of them existed.
Her path lay away from Ruck. Her Italian lover t
ook her arm, showing only a slight hesitation in his walk as he led her toward the great double tower entrance of the royal lodgings. The Flemish knight saluted Ruck and turned to follow.
Ruck had been prepared for their first encounter by the ford, armored in hate and determination. He had wanted witnesses. This time he wanted witness as he would have wanted staring eyes on him while a lion tore his heart from his chest.
She denied him. To his face, to the church, before the court. And Desmond—who did not look at Ruck, who did not pause or speak—Desmond saw it, and that was worst of all.
* * *
"The madman haunts me," Melanthe murmured, before Gian could mention it.
He smiled, patting her arm. "Put him from your mind."
She paused in the echoing gate passage, lowering her voice below the sound of talk and movement, speaking Italian. "Indeed, Gian, I pray you not to have him killed before this cursed duel! Or after, if you please, for they'll never let you leave this misbegotten country then!"
"You upset yourself for no cause, sweet." His eyes went briefly to Allegreto. "Put your faith in me, and say no more."
"Gian! You don't understand the English! If he dies by any way but in this combat, you'll not go unscathed. Let the lawyers pay him off. Or the—"
"I've told you not to speak of him." His fingers closed cruelly on her arm. He made her walk slowly on.
"I only—"
"My dear princess, if you add another word, I shall be forced to think you plead for his life because you love the poor devil."
She bore his painful grip without wincing. "My dear Gian," she said, "if you do not heed me, I shall be forced to think you are a great fool."
"Shall you?" He slanted a look down at her. "But in truth, Melanthe—I don't think I am."
TWENTY-FOUR
Inside the tent the sound of the spectators was a steady mutter embroidered by music, the king's favorite airs. John knelt at Ruck's feet, fastening on spurs. His green plate was polished and restored, the dents beaten smooth and the silver bosses renewed.
Ruck wore her colors, but he went to the fight not knowing her. She was the argent and green of Monteverde, or the red and gold of Bowland. She was his murderess, or she was trying to save him. She kept Wolfscar a secret to preserve it, or to discount him as a nameless adventurer. She had sent Allegreto with the warnings, or her lapdog betrayed her.
He didn't know if she wished for Ruck to win and free her, or if she hoped that he would die and free her. He did not know.
But he shook his head to clear away fantasy. He knew. If she wanted him, all she had to do was speak what was true.
The flap of the tent flashed open, and Allegreto stepped inside, dragging the silk fully closed. "I've only a moment," he said quietly. "My father must not smell me here. The Fleming has been told that you cannot withstand blows to the head. Beware your helmet."
John instantly snatched up the bascinet helm. It glowed with the new burnish as he turned it over in his hands. Nothing showed on the surface. He lifted the aventail to examine the staples and then smoothed his hand over the outside curve.
With a sudden exclamation he seized his dagger, slashed through the padded lining, and scored the inner surface. "God's death." He held out the blade. "Look at this, my lord."
Dark bluish shavings lay curled on the shining surface. Ruck knocked them into his palm. "Lead."
John clouted the helm with the hilt of his sword. It cut a dent in steel too soft to withstand even a one-hand blow. He tore the leather out and explored the interior with his fingertips. "There." He pointed inside. "You can feel the place, my lord."
The patch had been made with masterly skill, sheathed on the outside by a thin skin of finer metal. The flaw was invisible, but rubbing his fingers over the inner and outer surfaces at once, Ruck could detect the faint difference in the finish at the edges of the place, and the slight hollow in the thickness.
It was too late to fit another bascinet. "I'll have to use the great helm and a mail coif," he said.
"My lord!" John stood up. "This is too much. Lay it before the marshal!"
"No," Ruck said softly. He looked to Allegreto. The youth tilted his head, a smile on his mouth that never reached his black eyes. "Why do you aid me?"
Allegreto put his fingers around the tent pole. He examined the ruby ring he wore. "You were kind to me once." He shrugged, with a short laugh. "I remember it."
"Who tries to kill me?"
"If you will make mischief—many people."
"Your mistress?" Ruck's voice was strained.
Allegreto lifted his brows. "Show a little wit, green man."
Ruck felt a tightness leave his muscles that he had not known was there. "Then it's she who sent you."
"Must someone send me?" Allegreto made a smirk. "I come for love of you, Green Sire. How else?" He swung about the pole and paused. "Be wary," he murmured, and vanished outside.
* * *
The sound shivered Ruck's head: pain first, a bright arc through his brain, and then his ears aching in the peal of metal. Each time he took a stroke, the clang stopped in his ear, building pressure, until the roar of the crowd and even the blows grew distant. He could only hear himself panting, sucking hot air through the helm; he could only see black and his opponent through the eyeslits and feel the violent swacks when he could not parry them.
In spite of the padding his great helm shifted whenever a blow caught it, obscuring his vision for an instant. The Fleming didn't take advantage; he flailed over and over at Ruck's head and only shifted a few times to any other assault. The strong onslaught left the man's body undefended on the side opposite his shield, but he rained blows so swiftly that Ruck was too occupied with deflecting them to attack.
If the helm hadn't blinded him, Ruck would already have cut under this crude beating and had the man on the ground. But he dared not leave his head unprotected long enough to strike, for fear the helm would be knocked askew too far to seat again and screen his sight entirely.
He defended with shield and sword, watching the Fleming's arm strokes. He squinted through the slit, blinking back the sting of sweat. Stepping backward, he let the champion have control of the rhythm, retreating slowly from the blows. Through the dint and clang, the dim shouts of the spectators rose to passion as he gave way.
The Fleming heard them, too: he renewed the vigor of his onset, faster and harder. Ruck parried in his attacker's cadence, falling back. Inside his brain, with the ringing clash, he sang a song of war that Bassinger had taught him, the swords tolling each note. The Fleming pealed the steady motet; Ruck answered in even time.
Then he took up the hocket—a hitch in the rhythm, counterpoint as he dropped the parry and swung his blade in attack.
Brilliant pain flashed in his ear, a tumble of light as the inevitable strike came. His sword bit, silence to him amid the belling in his head, but he felt the jolt and pause in his arm, swung through and past it, blind entirely. The Fleming missed his note, but Ruck sent the sword back in treble, up and up, a half breath off the beat, a full double-handed swing overhead and down.
He killed the man. He couldn't see it, but he knew it: an instant of impact as his sword cleaved steel—and the collapse, a dull chime of metal falling to the ground.
He stood in sweltering darkness, gasping with exertion, the skewed slash of eyeslit a white radiance above his line of sight, the cheek padding pressed painfully against his nose. It gave him a horrible moment of helplessness, his ears ringing and his eyes blind, without defense.
Then John was there, divesting him of the helm. It didn't come off easily, beaten and wedged as it was. Ruck could barely hear; he couldn't tell if the roar in his ears was the crowd or his head. As the helm fell, the warm summer air felt like a blessed rush of coolness on his face.
At his feet the Fleming champion lay in the trampled grass. His attendants and a physician clustered around him, but he was lifeless, his helm sundered through. Ruck stood straight. He lifted h
is bloodied sword and turned about to the stands. The constable and earl marshal sat beneath a canopy. A cross and Bible lay on the tapestry-covered table where Ruck and the Fleming had sworn their oaths. Beside them, on a slightly higher dais, sat King Edward himself, leaning forward, his face red with excitement, his long beard flowing down over his robes like a living and gleeful statue of Moses. The well-fed Lady Alice stood behind him, unashamed to have her hand on his shoulder.
Ruck barely found enough breath to speak. "I wish to know—if I have done my duty—to my honor," he asked of the justices. His own voice sounded strange to him, muffled and remote. When the marshal answered that he had, it seemed that the man spoke from very far away.
Ruck handed his sword to John and walked forward to the king. As he knelt, the block in his ear burst, and he could hear again.
All was silence, but for his own heart and heavy breath, and the rustle of the pages of the open Bible. The crowd in the stand waited.
"Rise, bold knight," the king declared in English. "You have defended your honor before our court of chivalry with skillful sword as proper." He chuckled. "A great dunt it was! A delight to see."
Ruck stood up. He lifted his eyes. The king was grinning, a little childish as they all said of him, but still a royal presence. He stroked his beard, his smile fading as he looked down into Ruck's face.
"But why do you wear those colors?" the king asked on an aggrieved note. "We don't like you to change, Ruck. Did we give you leave to change your arms?"
He spoke the name without hesitation or title, as if he knew Ruck like an old friend. A faint murmur passed over the crowd. In his amazement Ruck could not find his tongue to answer,
"Why does he wear green?" The king turned to Alice. "It should be azure ground, and the device a well huge werewolf painted in black. Where is our herald of arms?"