The Medieval Hearts Series Read online

  "If thou art vassal unto me," she said, "I shall love and value thee as Lancaster never could." And with that snare set, she turned before he answered, leaving his hunchbacked squire to lead him from the lists.

  * * *

  "Away, away!" Melanthe held Gryngolet on her wrist, urging the flustered falconers of Ombriere to haste. "I will away!"

  She turned her palfrey in the castle’s empty courtyard, watched only by her own retinue and a few dumbstruck servants. Outside the walls the sound of the tournament was a distant rise and fall of temper, the tensions between soldiers and squires and townsmen flaring. Melanthe cared nothing for that—it was the duke’s difficulty if he could not control his people—she only wanted escape from the tumult, releasing her own tensions in a flying gallop over the countryside with Gryngolet aloft before her.

  Allegreto stood sullenly under the arched entrance to the hall, waiting for a horse, one of his eyes turning black from his morning in the town stocks. He had not had a difficult time of it; no taunting of a foreign stranger could equal the excitement of a tournament, but he glared at Melanthe all the same.

  Her greyhound strained against its leash as Melanthe felt her heart strain for the open country. She had seen herons and ducks by the river; yesterday Lancaster had given her his leave to take what she could—and if he regretted it now, she was beyond having to care. The falconers, two underlings left behind to mind the mews, finally secured their drum and swung up double onto a thin poorly horse, carrying a trussed chicken in a bag in case the hunt should have no success.

  Melanthe reined her palfrey toward the gate. Across the bridge and through the barbican—and she could turn away from tournaments and courts and crowds and pretend she was alone with the open sky. Alone, as Gryngolet flew, but for the escort of hunters and falconers that chased the bird’s wild courses.

  Melanthe, too, was followed. Allegreto and Cara and a Riata rode behind her; Lancaster and Gian Navona and the ghost of Ligurio hounded her; and another hunted her now—the image of a man in green armor, bending slowly to the ground with his hands covering his eyes.

  All of them her constant companions, ever in pursuit, never lost to sight. Spur her horse as she might, she was only free as the falcon flew free—until she killed, or was called back again to the brilliant jewels and feathers of her lure.

  FOUR

  A witch, she was.

  Ruck stood beside one of the shadowed columns in the cathedral, staring blindly at the scaffolding beneath a newly installed stained glass window.

  He felt robbed. He felt utterly pillaged.

  Where was his lady, his bright unblemished lady, lovelokkest of all, who made the blood and boredom and solitary days worth bearing? He hadn’t asked that she be with him. He had never thought he was that worthy, but he had held himself to her standard—when they laughed at him, when he hurt for a woman’s body to the point of despair, he cleaved to the impossible measure that she set by her own perfection.

  He had dreamed about her in his bed or on the cold ground; he saw her beside the Virgin in the churches. He even imagined her with Isabelle in the nunnery, praying for his soul, both of them together, both of them the same, fair blue eyes and fair blond tresses and a face too lovely for any woman on earth...

  He turned his head and rested his bandaged temple against the pillar. The cut across his skull burned. His cheek stung and throbbed in spite of Pierre’s salve.

  The reality of Princess Melanthe had been like a bucket of ice-cold water thrown in his face. He was angry at himself, but he reserved his deepest fury and disgust for her—the witch—she probably had ensorcelled him. How else could he have managed to forget what she was?

  The Arch-Fiend’s whore, that was what she was, curling like a silken tiger on the bed with her Satan’s cub caressing her. He could not even find the image of fairness anymore. It had vanished from his soul, blasted by the sight of sable hair and eyes the color of unearthly twilight, the deep strange inner hue of hellish flowers. He recognized them now—but he had not remembered them so vivid-dark, or her coldness so numbing.

  She had laughed. He could hear it still, like an echo in the empty cold air of the cathedral, floating above the endless murmur of the priests’ chantries. The sound was branded on him. He had stood with swordpoint to the throat of his gallant liege, who had fought on wounded, unbowed, with no thought of submission—and she had laughed.

  The windows glowed with the last faint light of day, spreading colored radiance over the floors and columns, subtle warmth in the soaring blackness. Beyond the cathedral walls he could hear faint sounds of celebration. A few knights came and went in the nave, kneeling to cleanse themselves with prayer, and one youth had been keeping solitary vigil in the Lady Chapel for hours. Ruck stayed to himself, using the pillar for a prop when his cushion grew too uncomfortable for his knees.

  Outside of duty and the exercise yard, he spent most of his waking hours in chapels or cathedrals or churches of one sort or another. At first it had been the hardest effort of his knighthood—tedious to the point of screaming agony—but after thirteen years he had come to peace with the cold stone spaces and the fact that his knees could not support hours on the cushion. He stood now more than he knelt, sparing his frame for the field and fighting, sparing his soul with a regular confession of this small sin. He never even got a real penance, the priests being sympathetic in the matter.

  He seldom prayed during his hours in church. Isabelle, he’d thought, would be doing that for him better than he could for himself. He’d often imagined her at it, her face alight and the tears flowing, the other holy women ranged behind her. He felt closer to her in the churches and chapels, where he could banish the faint fear that she never thought about him at all. Sometimes he envisioned her in nun’s robes; more often in a sparkling gown of green and silver—and the lonelier the road, the bloodier the combat, the more beautifully and brilliantly she glowed, almost as real as if she stood in the shadows holding her falcon.

  It came as a sickening jolt to him now to realize just how often he had confused them in that way. His wife and his nameless liege lady—they had somehow across the years, within the stark isolation of his heart, melded together into a single female image—and he had spent his adult life in rigid devotion to her, celibate, devout, courteous, refusing to stoop to dishonor and bribes of money to win the favor of his prince.

  Never had he been invited into his lord’s inner chamber—yet he had waited patiently for God to send his chance. He had risen slowly in Lancaster’s service, earning his place in spite of the half-concealed amusement. He would lead men-at-arms and archers against the French, he would play at unicorn if he must; dragons he would hunt when his liege commanded. He knew the other knights preferred him safely away from court on such commissions. He was mad in action, so they claimed, dangerous, unreliable. By which they meant that he gave no quarter, demanding surrender when surrender galled them—the only way he had been taught to fight. But he had never lost the certainty that he would find a means of proving himself and winning his lord’s boon.

  The stained glass panel above him was a lancet, blue and rose, glowing with a painting of the Virgin and Child. Ruck gazed at the Blessed Mother’s pensive face as she looked down at the baby Jesus. He ached with grief and anger.

  It appalled him to realize what he had done, how the years had gone by, how he had deluded himself and confused her with his pure sweet wife. Tainting his memory, his only connection to Isabelle, who even now must be devoting herself to solitary worship. Alone, as he was. He was sure that she must have taken vows of seclusion and silence in the convent, for even though he sent money and tender greetings every year to Saint Cloud, she never wrote him back. He only received an acknowledgment of his gift from the abbess, with no word from Isabelle even by proxy.

  Her loss seemed a fresh wound now, stinging as sharp as the cuts on his cheek and head. He missed her—and he could hardly recall her face. All he saw clearly were purple hell
-flower eyes and a white flash of skin; all he felt plainly were wrath and anguish and the degrading burn of his body’s appetite in spite of everything. He struggled to remember Isabelle, to rededicate himself to the purer image, and could not. She was lost now, by his own folly, as lost as the bright illusion that had sustained him.

  Outside the bell rang to signal curfew. Ruck leaned down and retrieved his cushion, scowling at the worn white threads of the embroidered falcon that adorned it. He thought of having it ripped out and replaced with the azure ground and black wolf of Wolfscar, but to take up his own true arms now, in disillusionment instead of honor, seemed the final defilement of his dreams.

  He left the falcon be. He left all of his green-and-silver vestiture as it was, determined to wear it as a constant reminder to himself of how a woman—this woman—could twist a man’s mind into the Fiend’s knots.

  * * *

  As he pushed out the great wooden door onto the stone porch, his head aching, a hard hand cuffed his shoulder. Three guards in Lancaster’s livery stood just beside him. They offered silent sketches of bows, and one nodded toward the outer entrance.

  Pierre hung back in a corner of the porch, looking terrified. Ruck glanced at him and at the guards.

  "Ye alone are summoned, my lord," one of them said. His tone was curt, but not hostile.

  Ruck nodded. The door opened to the last of twilight spilling over the city roofs. The streets were already deep in shadow, but sparked with torches and wandering groups of revelers. They showed no sign of extinguishing their fires and going to lodgings in answer to the curfew. It was often so on tournament days, and armed guards usually much in evidence—but this evening every man they passed was armed, common soldiers mixing with the city watch. Colorful retainers of the tourneying knights roamed drunkenly with their swords still at their hips.

  "God’s love," Ruck muttered, "this is ripe to go ill."

  The guard at his side grunted an assent. But he did nothing to urge anyone to go home, only lengthened his stride, grabbing Ruck’s elbow to direct him into an alley. As they came out on the other end, a hoarse voice yelled, "Hark ye!" An English soldier came weaving drunkenly toward them. "Our lord!"

  His companions followed, their wayward steps enlivened by this new goal. Suddenly Ruck and his escort were surrounded by ungoverned men-at-arms, all of them familiar faces to Ruck, scowling and sullen with drink.

  "Unhand our liege, dog!" A soldier tried to pull Lancaster’s guard away from Ruck. "Nill ye not take him!"

  The guards’ hands went instantly to their weapons, but Ruck shoved the soldier back. "I am no liege of thine!" he snapped. "Watch thy tongue, fool. ’Tis stupid with ale."

  "He will not have you, my lord," a man shouted from the back, "nor throwen you in prison for his pride!"

  Ruck glared. "Get ye gone to your places! The curfew tolled a quarter hour since."

  "He will not arrest you!" There were other men accumulating now, attracted to the shouts, crowding nearer. "He goes through us first!"

  "Haf ye ran mad?" Ruck exclaimed. "Disperse! I order it!"

  Some of the ones nearest him made attempts to turn, as if to obey, but the growing wall of men behind them blocked their way. Lancaster’s guards stood with their swords at ready, a tense triangle around him.

  "Disperse!" Ruck bellowed. "I am summoned by the duke! Out of my way, whoreson!" He shoved viciously at the soldier nearest. The man lurched backward, creating a momentary opening. Roaring his displeasure and intention, Ruck knocked another one aside. The path begun by force began to open of its own accord. Lancaster’s guards came with him, but he stayed in front of them to show that he was not in duress.

  The way cleared before him. Though he didn’t look, he was aware that the men did not scatter, but only fell back, following close at his escort’s heels. He cursed them silently, deliberately taking a route down narrow alleys and close streets to spread them out into a weaker force.

  But outside the bannered lodgings of the highest nobles, the curfew was no more in force than in the lower streets, though it was full dark now. Knights and valets reeled in and out of the bright doorways, young squires singing war songs and scuffling. Ruck strode past, his eyes straight ahead, but his luck did not hold. A youth in blue-and-white reached out and grabbed his cloak. He jerked it free, but not before he’d been recognized. Shouts erupted, and as the men-at-arms issued from the narrow passage behind, they began to run, pressing up around Ruck, elbowing the noble retainers back. More men began to pour out of the doorways, filling the street with shouting shadows, with torches and the glint of steel.

  Ruck seized a fagot and jumped atop an upended barrel. He lifted it high, waving it, so that sparks flared.

  "What folly is this?" he roared. "Silence!"

  For an instant his voice caught their attention.

  "Who are ye?" he shouted. "The duke’s soldiers. The duke’s knights and their squires. I am the duke’s man! He calls me to him. Will you forestall me? Fight among yourseluen, if ye be great fools enow—but hinder me in obeying him, and I’ll see every villain of you with your guts strung on the city walls!"

  The silence held, a sullen acknowledgment. Threat or no, there was nothing that they wanted better than a reason to brawl, drunk as they were, commoners and gentles alike. He did not stay to see them come to that inevitable conclusion, but tossed the torch into a watering trough below him. It gave him a moment while they were still dazzled blind—he jumped down and slid between the crowd and a building’s wall, using the shadows for cover to get away.

  * * *

  The Duke of Lancaster had his arm in a sling. In his capacity as Lieutenant of Aquitaine, he sat sprawled on a throne, the walls and floor of the chamber draped in cloth woven with the arms of England and France. The flood of richly colored squares obscured the shape of the room, so that it seemed to Ruck that he and the men he faced floated in a bowl of gilded red-and-blue. At the duke’s side stood his brother the Earl of Cambridge. Ruck recognized their councillors—Sir Robert Knolleys, Thomas Felton, and the Earl of Bohun—men of military craft, veterans of all the savage campaigns of France and Spain.

  "Get up, knight," Lancaster said with a deep sigh.

  Ruck stood, sliding a secret look toward him. The duke appeared wakeful, but he had a sleepiness about his eyes that Ruck had seen before in men hit upon the head. His councillors had barely glanced at Ruck as he entered, but kept their close attention on Lancaster. Sir Robert scowled, standing by a table set with wine and food.

  The duke stared at Ruck for a long time, his eyes half-lidded. "It was," he said slowly, "a good fight."

  A great wave of relief fountained through Ruck. He wanted to go down on his knees again and beg forgiveness, but he kept his feet, only saying, "For the honor of the Princess, my dread lord."

  Lancaster laid his head back and laughed. His eyes focused from their drift with a sharper look at Ruck. "She has made fools of us both, has she not? Hell-born bitch."

  "My lord’s grace—" Sir Robert said warningly.

  "Ah, but my sentiment will not leave this chamber, if this green fellow hopes to avoid my most grievous displeasure, and such jeopardy for him as that may entail."

  "My life is at my lord’s pleasure," Ruck said.

  Lancaster sat up, leaning forward on his good arm, his mouth tightened against the pain of the movement. "See that thou dost not forget it. What is thy judgment of the temper outside?"

  Ruck hesitated. Then he said, "Uneasy, my lord."

  "Clear the streets, sire," Felton said.

  Lancaster turned a sneer on the constable. "With what? Your men-at-arms? They’re the ones in the streets, making mischief in the name of this green nobody."

  "They have not been paid, my lord," Felton said, without embarrassment.

  "And is that my fault?" Lancaster shouted, and then squeezed his eyes shut, laying his head back. "I’ll run my own coffers dry in the defense of your damned Gascon barons."

  "The princ
e your brother—"

  "The prince my brother is sick unto death. He is to know nothing of this! Do not disturb him."

  There was a little silence. Then the constable said tentatively, "I believe—if my lord’s grace appeared with this knight"—he made a faint gesture toward Ruck—"they would obey this man, my lord, if he ordered them to submit to curfew."

  "By God," Lancaster exclaimed, "he knocks me off my horse and holds his sword to my neck, and now I’m to stand by him while he gives orders to the men-at-arms? Why not appoint him lieutenant and be done with it?"

  Ruck pressed his lips together, appalled. He had felt the threat hovering over him; now it crystallized into real danger. He had never thought Lancaster would imprison him for pride—but suddenly a new and horrifying vista opened.

  The duke seemed to catch his mute response, for he looked again at Ruck. He stared for a long, speculative moment, an assessment that chilled Ruck to the bone.

  "What thinkest thee, Green Sire," he said, in a serious voice. "Canst thou control them?"

  "My lord’s grace has the right of it," Ruck said. "Me think it not seemly."

  "But thou canst do it?"

  "It be unmeet, my lord," Ruck repeated, trying to prevent any note of alarm from entering his voice. "It be not wise."

  "But if I cannot command them, nor their own constable here, and thou only canst keep the city from strife and riot?"

  Ruck shook his head. "I pray you, dread lord, ask it not of me."

  "I ask it of thee. I command thee to take charge of the garrison and the men-at-arms and control them."

  Yesterday such a command would have been a wonder for Ruck, a victory. Today it was the edge of a pit: the precipice of war between nobles and common soldiers, rebellion with himself at the center.

  "My lord," he burst out, "reconsider! Your head pains you to folly." He sucked in his breath, as if he could take back the brazen words as soon as they escaped.