Shadowheart

  Ruck tried to lift his hand, to catch and strangle him, but he could not.

  "Wink your eyes if you hear me," the fiend ordered. Ruck closed his eyes. When he had eyes to open again, the demon was gone.

  * * *

  "He was waking, my lady," Cara said very softly.

  Melanthe laid her forehead down on the pillow. She had been waiting at the window, waiting and waiting. She had not thought Cara would ever come.

  It might have killed him, the poison they had used, a grain too much, a drop of wine too little—but Gian’s would have done it with mortal certainty.

  "He spoke, but made no sense, my lady," Cara said. "Allegreto sent word to you that he is weak, but will be well by morning."

  Melanthe lifted her head. The night air flowed in the open window. She put her hands on her cheeks to cool them.

  "My lady—" Cara said. "I wish to tell you—when I spoke—when I said I was betrothed. I had no right to make a contract without your leave. Forgive me!"

  Her words seemed distant to Melanthe. She flicked her hand in dismissal. "Later. I cannot think of that now."

  "My lady. Please! I have no wish to marry Allegreto."

  Melanthe made an effort to turn her mind to Cara’s distress. "After all he has done for thee? Poor Allegreto. Thou dost have thy claws in his heart."

  "I never meant to do so, my lady! He frightens me. And—I fear for Guy."

  "Such a tragic face. Guy? That Englishman from Torbec, I suppose. He is beneath thee. He hasn’t a florin to his name. Silly girl, his lord lives in a pigsty. Thou mayest believe me, for I saw it."

  "My lady—I love him."

  Melanthe gave one short laugh. "Verily, this is what comes of letting foolish female creatures sit at windows and lookout upon the street, is it not? We dream stupid dreams, and fall in love with any unsuitable man who walks past."

  Cara bowed her head. "Yea, my lady."

  "I spoke to thee once of love."

  "Yea, my lady."

  Melanthe pulled the window closed. She could see the reflection of candles in the glass, and a wavering darkness that was herself. "What did I say of it?" she whispered. "I have forgotten what I said."

  "My lady, you said to me that great love is ruinous, my lady."

  "And so it is." She put her hands over her hot cheeks again, watching the obscure movement in the glass. "So it is."

  "My lady—if it would please you—if Guy might find a place in your retinue when we return—"

  "God’s death, dost thou care no more for thy betrothed than to lead him into the viper’s nest?" Melanthe turned angrily on the girl’s brown-eyed innocence. "And what of Allegreto? Is he to sing a gleeful carol at thy wedding?"

  "My lady, it was Allegreto who proposed it"—Cara made a courtesy—"that Guy find a place with you, so that I might go home."

  Melanthe gazed at her. She could not see in the soft face anything but a tame doe’s stupid trust. "Do not press Allegreto too far." She rose, flinging the pillow aside. "Nay, if thou must have this Englishman, then you will both remain here. And count thy blessings."

  Cara bowed. She went to Melanthe’s bed and began to turn down the sheets. The manor bells tolled matins.

  "I’ll go to the chapel," Melanthe said. "In faith, I cannot sleep!"

  * * *

  She would have preferred to go to the garden, or the mews, but Gian had spies on her in the household, and she did not dare arouse any curiosity. As well accustom herself to altar and roodscreen—it would be the whole scope of her life soon enough.

  She thought perhaps she would surprise everyone and be a fiercely austere nun. The ladies who retired as religious and still kept high estate had always seemed pathetic to her—acting out a play without stage or spectators. No, she would give everything to the church, and fast, and have visions. And they would all be of a man who had loved her once.

  He hated her now. She had done all she could to drive him to it. She had a conversation in her head with him about it, to explain to him. She had poisoned him, yes, but it was to spare him. She imprisoned him, but it was to keep him safe until she and Gian were gone. If she denied him as her husband, broke her vow and murdered his heart, it was so that she did not have to live knowing that he did not.

  She could not kill Gian instead, she told him. She had thought on it long and deep. She knew of wives who had slain their husbands—one had been flayed alive, but the others had only paid fines. But it was no easy task, not with Gian, who had eluded the best of killers, and if she failed once, there would be no magistrate to sentence her, for she would not live so long. Allegreto would not aid her in it, nay, but oppose her.

  And if she succeeded—she would be theirs. She would belong to the Devil wholly.

  She told these things to Ruck. But it was not a conversation. He never answered. In her mind he stared at her with unyielding silence. He would not understand. Could not. Her deliberate dishonor was beyond his comprehension, as the black depth of Allegreto’s love was beyond Cara’s.

  They knew themselves—she and Allegreto. They knew how close the Devil had them. She could almost pity Allegreto, who still held to his own mysterious honor by a thin thread. If he had wished to rid himself of Guy as a rival, he would have done it, and yet this subtle suggestion of his that Cara and her lover return to Italy boded of darker intentions, or else foolish hopes. He was not so old, Allegreto, that he might not have hopes, but Melanthe would not allow Cara to drive him beyond endurance. She and Guy must stay in England, far away from him.

  In return for such a kind favor from Melanthe, Allegreto would make certain that Ruck hated her. He would say all the things that Melanthe did not have the strength to say herself, kill pride and hope and future. And Ruck would go home to live in his enchanted valley, where Melanthe had never been meant to go.

  They were old allies, she and Allegreto, strange friends and familiar enemies.

  "This is your last lesson, green man. Have you learned it?"

  "Ruadrik."

  "Ruadrik, then." Allegreto made a courteous bow. "Lord Ruadrik of Wolfscar."

  His voice echoed in the old brewery, calling from all sides, whispering back from the high slits of light made in the shape of holy crosses, the only windows in the curving wall. Ruck had shouted until his voice was nearly gone, but if anyone passed outside those windows, they did not come into his prison.

  She had done this. Allegreto made no secret of it. Ruck was to be kept here until she was gone from England, and if he followed her, he would die by some means just as unclean and secret as her sleeping poison, but lethal this time.

  His last lesson. If he did not appear to have learned it, then he did not leave this place.

  Allegreto sat on the far edge of the huge round well, his legs dangling in it. He pilled one of Ruck’s oranges and tossed the rind. Ruck heard it strike the water with a faint plop. A queer imprisonment, this, with food befitting a banquet table—or a princess—fruit and almonds, fresh cheese and white bread. The brewery was ancient, but his bonds were new and strong, the anchor sunk deep into the wall, the fetters no mere bands about his wrists and ankles, but a whole steel boot on his right foot and a fingerless metal glove that extended up his left arm to his elbow, padded inside, both fitted to him so perfectly that they must have been patterned on pieces of his own armor.

  John Marking, without nay. Ruck cursed his own witlessness. To suppose that she ever meant him well, to trust Allegreto for one instant—old Sir Harold had never been so mad and simple as Ruck when he had thought he had won.

  He remembered her face in that brief moment of his victory. Smiling at him. In the death-dreams, it was that expectant smile that had tortured him worse than demons.

  Allegreto sucked the juice from a segment of orange and spit the seed away. "She told me why she let you live," he said. "She said you prayed too much, and would haunt her to tedium if she killed you."

  "Tell her I’ll haunt her into Hell itself if she marries Navona."
r />   "Then prepare your howls and shrieks, for that’s what she’s going to do, green man."

  "Ruadrik."

  "Ruadrik. Late of Wolfscar."

  With a light move Allegreto stood up, pitching the last of his fruit into the well. He came around to Ruck’s side to draw water at the great crane. It might have lifted a ton of water. The bucket hooked to it now seemed absurdly small. Allegreto did not even work the elaborate machine itself, but only dropped the bucket in. The plash echoed, a memory of dreams, scraping and sloshing as Allegreto hauled the bucket up by hand and set it within Ruck’s reach.

  The youth sprang up the stairs three at a time. At the door he paused. "I leave you to ponder—will I return, or will I not? Her mind is much occupied with her wedding. She might forget you entirely, green man."

  "Ruadrik," Ruck said.

  "Did I tell you this was a walled park, my lord Ruadrik? Nothing but deer for two miles in all directions. And the river. I think you should shout, and hope they hear you on the river. Enlarge your skill at haunting." He gave Ruck a charming smile. "Verily, a place like this needs a ghost."

  The door boomed shut behind him. Thin crosses of light angled down, illuminating the stone floor, vanishing into the enormous well.

  * * *

  Cara kept herself in the background as she was bid while Gian visited them with his daily presence at supper. She was hopeless at concealing things, Princess Melanthe had said, and well Cara knew it. She could never have contended so coolly as her mistress did with him, insisting that they set forth at once for Italy against his new determination that they marry here in England.

  "These fools make a martyr of the fellow," Gian said. "There are a thousand candles for him after just a seven-night—next we’ll have a miracle, and his fingerbones sold in the market square."

  "All the more reason to depart." Princess Melanthe watched Gian’s own sewer, always with him, make a tasting from a platter. "Look, there is a fresh salmon, the best of the year, they say. I could almost be pleased that it’s a fish day."

  "Nay, we will not flee from deluded rabble. We’ve only to wait a little time for the banns, and then a feast to make them forget their saintly Ruadrik ever crawled out of whatever wolf’s cave he inhabited. I prefer it, my lady."

  "Gian, this business has disturbed your wit. So you are not popular here. You are foreign. What matters it? Let us go home and leave this unpleasantness."

  "You’ve been in no such hurry. Why so anxious to leave, my love?"

  "By hap I do not care for the ugly looks I receive when I go out," she said sharply.

  "Peasants," he said. "If anyone dares insult you, tell me."

  "I would rather not wait until it happens. I am telling you now, I wish to leave as soon as we may. If you love me, you will agree."

  He set down his wine. "That, my dear one, is a device you will do well not to invoke too often."

  "This fish needs spicing." Princess Melanthe examined the platter with a frown. "Cara, send to the kitchen—a fried parsley, I think. My deepest pardon, Gian, I cannot say why the herbs were forgotten."

  Gladly Cara left the chamber. She sent a page with the parsley, and did not return herself, for it was certain that Gian in this difficult mood might take any unholy notion into his head. With one of the laundry maids for chaperon, Cara slipped out into the yard instead, passing under the gate to the stables.

  In the late evening light Guy curried Gian’s horse himself. Cara stood in the shadow, too shy to approach him. She admired his hair, golden as it was in the last sun rays, and twisted her skirt and the present she’d brought together in her hands. She was glad he had stayed with the princess, even when the green knight had come. She hoped that he’d made his choice to be near her, though it might equally well have been only because the princess could reward him far more generously.

  He reached, sweeping his comb down the rouncy’s smooth gray haunch. All of her heart seemed to run out after him, just watching his sure and simple motions, the shape of his hand, and the breadth of his back.

  One of his grooms said a soft word, and all the men looked at Cara and the laundress. Guy straightened, turning. When he saw her, his face grew pleased, but he immediately looked down at the currycomb in his hand as if it held some vital mystery.

  It was the first time she had approached him in public since their private speaking. His men grinned, and one of them pitched a pebble at Guy. It bounced off his shoulder. He lifted his hand and brushed at his sleeve absently.

  Cara handed her present to the laundress. It was a silk lace. The maid went up to Guy and held it out to him. "From Donna Cara," she said simply. Cara thought she might have had the wit to embellish a little, but she was English.

  He looked about at the men instead of at Cara. She held her breath, worried at the solemn set of his mouth. But then he reached out and took the lace, holding it between his hands. Amid whistles and mockery, he grinned at her.

  Suddenly one of the grooms came under the gate and snatched her about the waist. He pulled her back. Cara gave a shriek, resisting him, but it was not a very serious abduction, for Guy chased him off with a few hard cuffs and caught her back against his chest. He smoothed her hair and went down on his knee before her, pulling his good white gloves from his sleeve.

  "Donna Cara," he said, "I give you these on condition that you will marry me. Will you agree?"

  She felt everyone in the yard looking at her. One of Gian’s men called to her in Italian not to be a fool, offering himself as a better choice. She gave him a glare and took the gloves. "Yea, sir. I agree."

  Amid the clapping, Gian’s men made ugly mutters. A sudden scuffle erupted, the English grooms converging, but as Cara gripped Guy’s arm, a boy came running from the house.

  "Make ready! My lord departs!"

  Instantly the fight dissolved. Guy shouted for the saddles, hastening to the gray rouncy. The meal could not possibly be over. Cara feared that Gian and her mistress must have come to open battle. She caught the laundress’s hand to run with her toward the kitchens, but already Gian appeared at the door, walking with such long and angry strides that his white cloak flared out in spite of its heavy embroidery and gold bosses.

  He came under the gate, passing Cara without a glance. Then to her horror, he halted, looking back at her.

  With a slight move of his hand, he made his men go past. The yard was full of confusion. Cara looked desperately for Guy, but he was swinging one of the elaborate saddles onto a horse’s back. And as she looked, she knew Gian saw her look, and cursed her own weakness.

  He smiled at her in a kind way and stood beside her as if he had suddenly become patient with waiting. "Donna Cara. It is a pleasant evening to be abroad in the air, is it not?"

  She made a slight courtesy, all she could manage on her weak knees. "Yea, my lord."

  "A pleasant evening for lovers. But where is Allegreto?"

  A flash of utter terror swept over her. She dropped her eyes. "I know not! I know not, my lord."

  She should not have repeated herself. She should have said it with more surprise. She did not know. Why should she know?

  "Why should I know, my lord?" She spoke it aloud, an attempt at the cool tone Princess Melanthe would use.

  "Indeed," Gian mused, "why shouldst thou?"

  His thoughtful tone dismayed her. She made another courtesy, afraid to look up at him.

  "He has been a little absent of late," he said softly. "He told me that he had a lover. I had thought—but thou wilt forgive me, Donna Cara, if I offend thy modesty—I was so dull as to suppose it must be thee."

  She did not know what to do. She never knew what to do. All she could think was that she should never have let him trap her.

  "Ah—but this is thy young man, is it not?" Gian asked in French as Guy led up his rouncy. When Cara answered nothing, her tongue frozen, Gian said to him, "My compliments to thee. A fair and chaste maiden for a bride."

  "Grant merci, my lord." Guy bowed deep
ly. "Donna Cara does me great honor."

  To Cara’s vast relief, Gian mounted. As he settled in the saddle, he looked beyond her. The rouncy threw its head and danced a step, though Gian made no visible move.

  Cara turned to see Princess Melanthe crossing the yard. Several of the other ladies hurried behind her, lifting her trailing skirts. She stopped beneath the gate. In the dusk her skin seemed white and cool, her breasts rising and falling evenly beneath the low neckline of her gown.

  "I came to see you well, Gian," she said. "I would not have us part in anger."

  "My lady," he said, "I would not have it, either, but you have tried me sore this night."

  She tilted her head, smiling slightly. "I did not think you chose me for my docile nature."

  "No more did I, but I would have you know who rules between us."

  "Then choose your battles more carefully, my love. For I make my respects to the king tomorrow and leave for London before sunset—and to Calais from there. It will be a lonely wedding without a bride."

  In the whole yard there was not a sound but for the chink and soft breath of the horses. Such brazen defiance was beyond Cara’s grasp—all the alarm and confusion that Princess Melanthe should be feeling seemed to be concentrated in Cara’s trembling limbs.

  "Then you have won, my lady," Gian said at last. "I’ll be at your side. But take care that your victories are not often bought so dear, or you may find that you’ve purchased defeat."

  She sank into a deep courtesy, spreading her skirts. The rings on her fingers caught light. "As you say, Gian. I look forward to your company on the road."

  * * *

  Cara folded and packed. It had all come much faster than she had expected. They were to leave, everyone to go home, and she was to be left behind.

  With Guy, she told herself. But still she was afraid. The house was in confusion and disorder with Princess Melanthe’s command to be gone by sunset, chests and trunks piling up on the wooden dock below the manor. When Cara had finished emptying the princess’s bedchamber and seen the baggage safely aboard the waiting barges, her duties here would be completed.