His breath frosted in the cold as he bit into an apple. Holding the fruit between his teeth, he pulled the green hose over his linen. A few gentlemen began to wander out of the great hall to relieve themselves, passing the open door of the buttery where the servants had grudgingly hauled the bathtub for Ruck.
"La la! See, Christine," said a feminine voice. "He’s not green all over!"
Ruck looked up from belting his hose to find a pair of ladies leaning in the door. He didn’t know either of them. He dropped the apple from his mouth and caught it in one hand. As he bowed, he grabbed his mantle from Pierre’s hands and tossed it around his bare shoulders. "A common man only, madam."
The dark-haired one giggled. The other, the one who’d spoken, was blonde and comely and she knew it; she moved upon him with a flow of brilliant parti-color robes. "Your body belies it, sir. You’re uncommonly strong and pleasing." Smiling, she traced him with her forefinger from the base of his throat down to his chest. "And uncommon brave, to proclaim such a challenge."
He lightly clasped her hand and lifted it away from him. "For the honor of Her Highness," he said evenly.
Her smile deepened. "Such wild courage," she murmured, lifting her mouth. "We’ve heard much of your ferocity in battle. Stay and tell us more."
He looked down at her offered lips, the soft smiling curve. "You tempt me to dally, but I can’t." He held up the apple, brushed her cheek with the rosy smooth skin, and pressed the fruit into her fingers, setting her away from him. "Accept this, and I’ll know I’ve shared a sweet with a gracious lady."
A shadow of pique crossed her features. But she stepped back, taking a bite with a crunch of white teeth. "The Princess Melanthe," she said airily. "You know her?"
"I know her," he said.
"Ah. Then you know to accept no apples of love from that one. She poisoned her own husband."
Ruck stiffened. "Madam—it would be better for you to keep truth on your tongue."
"Oh, I speak true enough." She licked a drop of juice from the apple. "Ask it of anyone. She was put to trial for the deed."
He scowled at her for a moment, and then held out his hand to Pierre for his tunic. His squire caught the mantle as Ruck shrugged it off and pulled the green wool over his head. A few more gentlewomen hovered outside.
"She’s a sorceress," his blonde temptress said, and looked to the others. "Is she not?"
"That gyrfalcon," another offered. "The bird is her familiar. She never flies it in the light of day."
"She bewitched the magistrate to release her—"
"She took her own brother for a lover—"
"Yes, and murdered him with that very dagger at her waist; while he was a guest in her husband’s house."
"And now on her way to gorge on his birthright! But no Christian knight will escort her there, for fear of his soul."
"No," Ruck objected, "she’s a princess."
"A witch! Sir Jean will tell you!" Feminine hands urged a knight forward from where he’d been lingering at the edge of the group, trying to woo one of the gentlewomen.
Pierre helped Ruck into his surcoat, smoothing down the cloth-of-silver. Ruck stood facing the other man, his jaw rigid. "Have a care," he said. "The chatter of the women is nothing. On behalf of my sworn lady, sir, I’ll not take your words so lightly."
"You’ve sworn to her?" the blonde asked, stepping back.
"Yes. I am her man."
"For the tourney," the other knight said. "My lord the duke will abide no more." He gave Ruck a shrewd grin. "It was a bold stroke you took. He’s angry now, but he’ll value you to show him at his finest on the morrow."
"I am her man," Ruck repeated.
Sir Jean looked at him. "You don’t mean to be serious in this?"
Ruck stared back, eyes level, showing nothing. "I am sworn to her. I am honored with her gift. I fight for the Princess Melanthe."
The spectators began to depart, withdrawing with sidelong glances and murmurs among them. Ruck threw his mantle round his shoulders and stabbed the pin of his silver brooch through the cloth. When he looked up, he and Pierre were alone in the buttery.
The mute squire elevated his eyebrows expressively. He dug in his apron and held out a leather-bagged amulet.
"She is not a witch," Ruck snapped.
Pierre crossed himself and mimicked a priest blessing the charm.
"Curse you! She is my lady!"
Pierre ducked and genuflected. With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head, he tucked his saint’s tooth away.
TWO
"Tell me," Melanthe said lightly in Italian. "I can see you’re full of your own shrewdness."
Allegreto Navona rested against the curve of the spiraling stairwell, his arms crossed, grinning down at her from two steps above. The last thin light fell between them from an arrowslit. "The green man is invincible, my lady," he whispered, leaning as near as he dared while she had Gryngolet on her fist. "Your fine Duke of Lancaster will have his tail feathers plucked tomorrow."
"Will he? After they have sent half their knighthood against my poor—champion?" She made a short laugh. "So I suppose I must title him."
"You miscalculate your knight, lady. They have another name for him here. They call him after some barbarian tale from the north—Berserka, or some such." He gave an elegant shudder. "I’m told it is the north-name of a savage in bear-coats. A warrior who would as soon kill as breathe."
"Berserker," Melanthe said, gazing at Allegreto thoughtfully. "You have busy ears, to know so much of him. Where did you find this great warrior?"
"Why, in the stable, my lady, braiding his green destrier’s green mane with silver, in preparation to fight in the tourney tomorrow. A most pure and courteous knight, well-liked by common men-at-arms. He keeps to himself and the footsoldiers and the chapel, and has no traffic with ladies. But when they ordered him to play your unicorn because of his color...I thought to take him aside, Your Highness, and tell him of your wishes."
"My wishes." She lifted her eyebrows.
"You wished to bestow your tournament favor on him, lady." Allegreto smiled angelically. "Didn’t you? But he’d have none of it, I fear—until I walked with him past the hall. I caused him to look upon you, lady...and sweet Mary, I only wish you might have seen his face."
"What was in his face?" she asked sharply.
Allegreto leaned his head back against the curving wall. "Indifference. And then—" He paused. "But what does my lady care of his thoughts? He’s only an English barbarian."
She stroked Gryngolet’s breast. The gyrfalcon’s talons relaxed and tightened on the gauntlet. Allegreto didn’t change his lazy stance, but he moved a half-step upward.
"Indifference, my lady," he said more respectfully, "until he had a fair sight of you. And then he became just such a witless lover as we needed to dissuade your duke, though he veiled it well."
"You made him no promises," she said coldly.
"Lady, the sight of you is promise enough for a man," Allegreto murmured. "I made none, but I cannot vouch for what blissful hopes he might have in his own mind."
She regarded him for a long moment. He was young and beautiful, dark as a demon and as sweetly formed as the Devil could make him. Gryngolet roused her feathers, pure ruthless white. He glanced at the gyrfalcon for the barest instant. Allegreto dreaded nothing on earth but three things: the falcon, the plague, and his father. Gryngolet was Melanthe’s one true shield against him, for she had no mastery of the plague—and none over Gian Navona, for a certainty.
Prince Ligurio of Monteverde had been dead three months, but for years before he drew his last breath, Melanthe had upheld her husband’s place and powers. As he declined into illness and vulnerability, she had defended him by the methods he had taught her himself. He it was who had schooled her to guard her back, who had been her father from the age of twelve when a terrified child had left England to wed a man thirty years her senior; he who had ordered her to deal with the Riata, to tantalize Gi
an Navona—because the triangle would always hold, there would always be the houses of Riata and Navona and Monteverde like wolves prowling about the same quarry.
Now Prince Ligurio was gone. The triangle of power fell in upon itself, leaving Melanthe between the wolves and the fortune of Monteverde.
She surrendered it to them. She did not want Monteverde, but to yield her claim was as perilous as to contend for it. Like a fox making for a safe earth, she must dodge and deceive and look always behind her as she escaped.
She had bargained with Riata—safe passage to a nunnery in England, in exchange for her quitclaim to Monteverde. She had bargained with Allegreto’s father, Gian Navona, smiled and promised to be his wife, gladly—so gladly that she would even travel to England first, to confirm her inheritance there, that she might bring that prize, too, with her to their marriage bed.
Promise and promise and promise. They were made to betray, in layer upon layer of deception.
She kept only one, if she died for it. To herself. She was going home—to England and to Bowland. The fox escaped to earth.
"I’m displeased with your interference," she said to Allegreto. "I had my own intent with regard to Lancaster."
Allegreto merely grinned at the rebuke. "Not to take him in marriage, lady, so I hope." He made a mock bow. "But my lady’s grace would not break my father’s loving heart that has bided so long in silent hope."
Melanthe returned his salute with an affectionate smile. "True, I won’t have Lancaster at any price—but Allegreto, my love—when next you write to your father, tell Gian I said that you’re such a tender gentle boy, there are moments I’d rather take you to husband in his stead."
Allegreto’s face did not change. He maintained the pleasant curve of his lips, his dark eyes fathomless. "I wouldn’t be so foolish, my lady. That price has been paid already."
Melanthe turned her face. She shamed herself even to taunt Allegreto with it. What price Gian Navona had taken of his bastard son, to be certain that Allegreto would sleep chastely in Melanthe’s bedchamber, was beyond cost or pity.
"Let us go." She lifted her skirt, stepping upward, but he made a faint hiss of warning and raised his forefinger. He turned, going lightly up ahead of her, his yellow-and-blue slippers silent on the stone stairs.
Melanthe’s pulse heightened. That was her weakness, as the falcon was Allegreto’s—she could not for her life keep her heart cool when her mind required it. Through the harder beat in her ears, she turned to listen behind her. She heard nothing but the rhythm of her own blood. This winding stair gave onto the ramparts above and the chapel below, with a door into a small stone passage connecting to her inner apartment. She had not liked the insecure arrangement when she saw it, and she liked it less now. After a moment she stepped up quietly after Allegreto, her hand on her dagger.
The door stood open to empty darkness. She hesitated, staring at it, assessing it. Gryngolet preened calmly, but the falcon was no dog to bark at danger. She held aloof from human matters, as did all her kind. Melanthe took her dagger from its sheath and turned the blade outward.
"Come, lady."
Allegreto’s ghostly voice drifted on silence, beckoning her. She took a quiet breath and stepped upward through the door.
He knelt behind it over a deep shadow. Melanthe saw a white shape, a limp palm half-open—and the shadow became a form: the Riata assassin sprawled dead in the half darkness.
There was no blood but on Allegreto’s slim dagger; she had seen him practice his thrust on pigs—to make a stab that stopped the life flow instantly—what little gore there was bled to the lungs and not the surface, as he had once informed her with his sweet pride and pleasure in his craft. He was not smiling now, but sober, skilled in his task, stripping the corpse of her livery.
She pressed her lips tight together. "To my garderobe," she murmured. "I’ll send Cara and the others away."
He nodded. Melanthe moved quickly back down the stairs to the chapel whence she’d come, spent a moment pretending to pray, and then climbed to her apartments by the grand staircase. She retired to the solar, demanding a preparation of malvoisie wine sweetened with scented flowers and roses, and peace for her aching head. Her ladies knew better than to be in a hurry to return when she gave such an order.
When she was certainly alone, she unbolted the door onto the passage. Allegreto waited in the darkness, his prey stripped naked at his feet. He hefted the body to his shoulder, adept at that, too, though he staggered a little beneath the weight. "Fat Riata swine," he muttered, and flashed Melanthe a grin over the pale legs of the dead man.
She stood back with an unforgiving stare—which made Allegreto laugh silently. Bravado, perhaps, or real amusement: it was no more possible to know his true feeling than it was for her to reveal the emotion that swirled in her stomach. She would punish him for this murder, because she had ordered him to refrain—but that did not diminish the horrible shock of triumph, the elation of safety, however brief; of knowing the thing done.
He carried the body before her, naked arms dangling—a sight that she disliked—but worse yet was the garderobe, a cold small chamber and stone bench, a revolting moment while Allegreto worked to arrange the Riata’s torso, forcing it head downward into the shaft of the privy well. He gripped the legs, panting a little with his efforts.
He let go. The feet vanished. For a long moment there was nothing. Then the sound as it hit the river—not what she’d expected, not a splash, but a boom like a stone catapulted against steel, echoing and echoing in the rank well.
He crossed himself and knelt before her. "I beg you pray for me, my lady," he said humbly. "I know I’ve displeased you, but I did it for your life."
She said nothing. He rose and caught up the pile of green-and-silver livery, folding it into neat lengths. From the shoulder of his doublet, he plucked a loose hair. He held it over the privy and flicked his fingers, sending the strand drifting into darkness.
Melanthe watched him. She had no nightmares. She never slept enough to dream.
* * *
The Princess Melanthe held audience amid Tharsia silks and exotic courtiers, warmed by a perfumed fire. And of course she did not remember him.
Ruck hadn’t recognized her himself at once, there in the hall, chafed as he’d been by the duke’s sudden demand to appear in full tournament armor for the pleasure of some highborn lady. He’d thought nothing of Lancaster’s guests, annoyed by the strange foreign youth’s insistence that Ruck pause at the door to look. He’d seen only a bored and black-haired feminine figure on the dais—until she’d turned her head and gazed with that cold irony upon Lancaster himself, had lifted her fingers to stroke the white falcon’s breast—not until that crystallized moment had her face and the silver-and-green colors that matched his own burst into recognition.
Now that he saw her again, he could not imagine that he hadn’t instantly perceived the lady of his life. She was precisely as he recalled; all of his dreams, all of his aspirations, thirteen years of fidelity and devotion come to pass in gemstone radiance...except that he had thought her hair not quite so dark, and her eyes a paler blue.
In fact, he’d thought her more like Isabelle, only comelier.
She was comely indeed; gloriously, magnificently beautiful, none could gainsay it, but in a bold style that made the ladies’ gossip just a trace more credible. Her chamberlain intoned, "The Green Sire, Your Highness," and she didn’t even glance up from the jewel casket that one of her gentlewomen held before her, merely lifting a hand toward the side of her bed.
He strode to the position. The dark, slender youth lounged against a carpet-covered chest, decked in hose of one leg yellow and one leg blue. From the extreme edge of his vision, Ruck could see the puppy staring at him. Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he had nothing to look at but his liege lady, and she was a vision like ebony hammered into gold.
She had changed her gown. It was not now the low-cut kirtle of green samite that she’d worn in the
hall: it was a golden brocade cote-hardi, long-sleeved, tight-fitting, trimmed in black, cut open and laced all the way down both sides—and it took him a long moment to realize that she wore nothing beneath it. He could see her white, bared skin all the way from her torso to her ankle.
He strove to keep his face expressionless. He dared not even blink. The sultry room made him hot beneath his ermine mantle. As she chose a necklace, the youth moved, sliding a grin at Ruck, lolling across the bed to pluck the jewelry from her hands.
She bent her head as he clasped the necklace at her nape and smoothed his fingers down her throat. He was sixteen, perhaps less, scarce half her age or Ruck’s, with black hair and skin as soft as hers. He stroked her as a lover would, bending to fasten a belt about her waist, kissing her shoulder as he did it.
She tilted her head, refusing to look into a mirror held up by one of the ladies. The youth watched Ruck beneath his lashes.
"Let me take down your hair, lady," he said. His fingers worked amid the crown of braids, unpinning them, spreading them. He held a curling lock up to his lips, laughing silently through it at Ruck. "Look, my love," he said, speaking clear while pretending to whisper in her ear. "The green man wants you."
"So much the worse for him," she said indifferently.
"Only look at him, lady!" The youth was grinning in delight at Ruck. "He wishes that he might embrace you as I do. Just so—" He slipped his fingers around her waist, never taking his black eyes from Ruck.
She brushed his hands away. "Come, leave your mischief. Do you wish to sharpen your claws on him, Allegreto? Play, then—but recall that he’s of use to me." She turned for one instant and met the youth’s eyes. "See that you don’t kill him, or I’ll set Gryngolet upon you."
This threat had a salutary effect upon her young courtier. He glanced at the falcon perched on a high stand at the foot of her bed. "Lady," he said submissively, drawing back from her.
"Do up my hair," she bid him. "The crespin net, I think."