For My Lady's Heart (15 page)

“The hunchback? He sickened and lived? He is protected, too?”

Ruck shrugged.

Allegreto urged his horse a little closer. “By hap thy presence confers
some immunity.”

“Haps.” Ruck looked at him with faint amusement. “Stay close, whelp.”

He kept the company to a brisk pace, not caring to tarry long outside the
sound of bells and habitation. But the mist yet lay heavy in the late
morning, and Princess Melanthe demanded frequent rests from the sway of the
litter. Ruck held to his austere outer composure, but he smoldered inside.
He was regretting his decision to chance the Wyrale with such a small guard.
This persistent vapor could hide too much. It seemed to cling, salty and
still, hanging as close as Allegreto clung to Ruck. The company said little,
but he could feel their nerves, and Allegreto was strung as tight as a
lutestring. Only Princess Melanthe seemed careless of the atmosphere’s
malevolent influence. Ruck half wondered if she’d called the mist herself.

They left the forest to cross the marsh far later in the afternoon than
he had intended. Moorland stretched away into white nothingness ahead. The
vapor closed behind them. When the maid sent word forward that Princess
Melanthe’s falcon was restless and Her Highness wished to pause again, he
threw Allegreto’s reins to the sergeant-at-arms and dropped back to ride
abreast of the litter.

“Your Highness, I pray you,” he said to the litter’s closed drape, “if it
displease you not—I advise all haste to continue.”

“Iwysse, then let us do so,” she agreed in English, a disembodied voice
from the curtain. “I will calm Gryngolet well enough.”

Such an easy capitulation was not what he had expected. He was left with
an unfocused sense of impatience, a restlessness that seemed to call for
something more to be said.

“I mind your safe conduct, madam,” he said, as if she had argued with
him.

Her fingertips appeared, swathed in ermine, but she did not pull back the
drape as the litter rocked along. “I give myself to your will, Green Sire,”
she answered modestly.

He gazed at the fine elegance of her fingers and looked down at his own
mailed glove resting atop Hawk’s saddle bow. The contrast, the delicacy of
her hand set against his metal-clad, cold-leather fist, sent a surge of
carnal agitation through his body.

In a low voice, past the hard rock in his throat, he murmured, “Passing
fair ye are, my lady.” He stared at the reins in his hand. “My will burns
me.”

As soon as he said it he wished it retrieved—repelled and aroused at once
by his own boldness.

Her fingers disappeared. “Faith, sir,” she said in a different tone, “me
like not such runisch men as thee. Study thou on my gentle Allegreto and
save thy love-talking for thy horse.”

For a long instant Ruck listened to the steady thud of Hawk’s hooves in
the sand. Her words seemed to pass over him—coolly spoken, unreal.

Then mortification flashed through him, a fountain of chagrin. He closed
his fist hard on the reins: his large and rough and runisch fist, green and
silver in her colors, darkened with mud in her service, stiff with cold,
with shame and passion.

“I am at your commandment, Your Highness,” he said rigidly and spurred
Hawk to the fore.

As Cara prepared Melanthe’s bed, she said, “My lady’s grace took pleasure
in the cockles this morn?”

Melanthe looked up from painting silver gilt on Gryngolet’s talons. Her
pot gleamed in the light of the half closed lanthorn. “Nay—I had not the
stomach for cockles this day. I made a present of them to our knight.”

Cara gave it all away—all of it—in the instant of horror that crossed her
features. It was gone in a moment, but too late. They both knew. Cara sat
still as stone.

Melanthe smiled. “Dost thou suppose he will enjoy them?”

“My lady—” The maid seemed to lose her voice.

“Thou art a very foolish girl,” Melanthe said softly. “I believe I shall
loose Allegreto on thee.”

Cara wet her lips. “My sister.” She whispered it. “They have my sister,
the Riata.”

Melanthe hid a jolt of shock at the news. “Then thy sister is already
dead,” she said. “Look to thine own life now.”

“My lady—ten years have I served you faithfully.”

Melanthe gave a quiet laugh. “Naught but a moment it wants, to turn
treacherous.” She placed a careful brush stroke. “Yes, I believe I shall
have Allegreto kill thee. Not tonight. I’m not certain when. But soon. Thou
hast served me faithfully for such a span of years, I shall be kind. Thou
needst not to beware it long.”

Cara was sitting on her knees, staring at the pillow in her hands,
panting with fear. Melanthe stirred the silver paint and continued with her
task.

“Thou dost love thy sister greatly,” Melanthe said in a mild tone.

Cara was shaking visibly. She nodded. A single teardrop of terror
gathered and tumbled down her face.

“Such love is ruinous. Thou placed thy own sister in jeopardy by showing
it. Now you are both doomed.”

Cara’s hands squeezed rhythmically on the pillow. Suddenly she turned her
face to Melanthe. “You’re the spawn of Satan, you and the rest of them,” she
hissed low. “What do such as you know of love?”

“Why, nothing, of course,” Melanthe said, placing a careful stroke of
silver. “I take good care to know nothing of it.”

Allegreto’s dread of plague was such that the youth forewent his place
with the Princess Melanthe and bedded down so close to his living talisman
that his hand curled, childlike, around Ruck’s upper arm. What his mistress
thought of this desertion was left unsaid. Ruck did not see her. As usual,
she left her litter only after her tent was pitched, shifting from one
silken cage to the other without showing herself.

As Ruck lay in the dark with the fire fading, staring upward into
nighttime oblivion, he had a bitter thought that it might have been to his
advantage that Allegreto had left the tent, if Ruck had possessed foresight
enough to discourage this inconvenient transfer of the youth’s attachment to
himself—and if she had liked such runisch men as he. But she did not, and
Allegreto went quickly to sleep in the blue mask, firmly holding to Ruck’s
arm, as effective as any governess in protecting his lady.

Not that she required protection, beyond a scornful tongue and that
mocking laugh.

Ruck attempted to form a prayer, asking forgiveness of Isabelle and God
for his carnal lust. But his prayers were never of the inspired kind; he
could not think of much more to avow than he was full repentant and would do
better.

Not that he ever did do better; for every confession day he had a penance
laid upon him for lusting in his heart after women. Sometimes for the mortal
sin of easing himself, too, which he would have done now, at the price of
barring from communion and any number of Ave Marys and hours on his knees
before the altar, if Allegreto had not had such tight hold of his right arm.
He was not a godly man; his mind went where it would and his body had limits
to its rectitude, but he had dishonored himself, and Isabelle, too, this
day.

He had the Princess Melanthe to thank for saving him from committing real
adultery—and that only because she liked not runisch men. It was no virtue
of his own that had saved him. If she were to rise and call him now into her
tent, he would go. He felt sullen and ashamed, thinking of it. He should get
away from her. He should go home, having nowhere else pressing to go at the
moment.

He slept badly, dreaming plague dreams, old dreams, in which he was lost
and searching. The howl of a wolf woke him, shaking him out of uneasy
dozing. He lifted his head. The fire had gone to dead coals—there was no
sign of a guard. The wind had come up, blowing off the vapor. By the height
of the moon over the moorland, it was three hours to dawn. Pierre should
already have woken him to share the last and most arduous watch. With a
silent curse Ruck slipped out of his warm place. Allegreto’s hand fell away
from him.

He stood up in the frigid night, sliding his feet into icy boots. He’d
ordered a double watch—but by moonlight he could see the silvered wind-sweep
of marsh reeds and the whole company sound asleep. The hourglass glinted
softly next to Pierre’s place, white sand all fallen through. A loose tie
fluttered on Princess Melanthe’s tent.

He gave the fur-covered lump that was Pierre a light kick. It did not
move. Ruck leaned down and tossed the mantle away.

A smell of vomit assailed him. Pierre lay with a terrible arch to his
twisted back, his dead eyes rolled up to show the whites in the dim
moonlight, a sheen of sweat on his face and his open mouth full of dark
spittle. Ruck swallowed a gag and threw the fur back over him.

He turned away and stood for a full minute, drinking draughts of clear
night wind. The fear of plague held him frozen on the edge of frenzy: the
lifelong terror—to be left alone, to be the last, to die that way ...

The moon hung over him, cold and sane. He stared at it, struggling with
himself.

Allegreto was sitting up, a faint outline against the light mist that
still clung to the grass. Ruck felt the youth staring at him.

He suddenly began to tremble, letting go of his breath.

Not plague. It was not plague. The stink was wrong.

Ruck had smelled pestilence until the fetid black odor had burned itself
into his brain—and this was not it. The loathsome stench of plague made poor
Pierre’s disgorgement seem halfway sweet. Ruck looked down at the shapeless
mass and saw what his mind had not recorded a moment before—the white shapes
of two opened cockleshells lying on the dark ground.

Horrible enough, if Pierre had purloined spoilt cockles and then choked
on his own vomit, unable to call for help—but not plague. Not plague. Ruck
took a deep breath. The reality of his man’s death was beginning to reach
him. Pierre, who had been with him for thirteen years, who filched small
things, never more than a penny’s worth, who’d learned to squire from Ruck,
who’d always been an enigma, mute, faithful as a dog was faithful, but with
no outward sign of affection.

Ruck glanced toward Allegreto. The youth was no longer visible sitting up
against the mist. Ruck hoped he’d gone back to sleep. He bent down and
gathered the furs about Pierre, keeping the small body wrapped close. His
mind flashed over possibilities, trying to think of a way to hide this and
prevent panic. Allegreto’s fears and mask had the rest on tenterhooks—Ruck
saw now that he should not have suffered any talk of plague at all.

“Is he dead?”

The youth’s suffocated voice startled him, coming from behind, at a
distance. Another man stirred.

“Of putrid shellfish,” Ruck said quietly. “He could not call us. He
choked, God give his soul rest.”

“Thou liest,” Allegreto hissed. “I saw him when thou lifted the mantle!
He’s warpened with death agonies. Has he the swellings?”

“Nay. Come thee and see for thyself.” Ruck laid the body back down and
threw off the cover. Now that he recognized what it was not, the smell was
bearable.

Allegreto stumbled backward with a little cry, waking another man.

“Silence!” Ruck hissed. “Listen to me. There’s no black eruption. The
smell be not of plague, but only plain vomit. Not six hours past he was fit
and walking like the rest of you. He stole cockles from the hermit and ate
them. The shells are here on the ground. None other ate such, did they?”

No one answered. He knew they were all awake now. He tossed the blanket
back over Pierre’s dead face.

“He choked to death,” he said softly. “Too quick it killed him, for to be
plague.”

“Nay, I saw it take a priest in half an hour,” came a shaky voice from
somewhere in the shadows. “There were no black boils. He fell dead over the
man he’d come to shrive.”

“ ‘Tis winter,” said someone else. “The cockles be sweet now.”

“The stench is wrong,” Ruck said.

They simply stared at him.

“Henri,” he snapped in a low voice. “Thou quitted watch without the next
man wakened.” He took a stride, hauling the culprit out of his coverings by
his collar. Before Henri had a chance to cower away, Ruck backhanded him so
hard that he fell over his heels. “Tom Walter!” He scanned the dark for his
sergeant. The man scrambled up. “Tie him, and John who was on duty with him.
Ten lashes at first light. Relight the fire. And if any speak so loud as to
wake Her Highness, tie him, too, and he shall have twenty.” He swung his
hand toward Allegreto. “Watch this one, also.”

He paused, to see if they would defy him, but Walter was moving toward
John to obey. Allegreto was only a motionless shape in the dark.

Ruck looked toward the tent and saw a pale face thrust between the drapes
at the entrance. He lowered his voice to a bare murmur. “My lady—she has not
been disturbed?”

“Indeed, she has.” It was the princess’s amused voice. “How could I sleep
in this uproar? What passes? Where is Allegreto?”

Her courtier made a faint sound, barely articulate.

“Your Highness, it is nothing,” Ruck said. “I beg you will return to your
rest.”

Instead she pulled a cloak about her and emerged from the tent, standing
alone without her gentlewoman. “What is it?” she asked, in sharper tone.

“My squire has died in the night.”

She sucked in a breath, staring at him.

“My lady!” Allegreto’s moan was like grief, like a plea for mercy, as if
she could save him. “The pestilence.”

“He died not of the pestilence, Your Highness,” Ruck said. “The smell is
wrong.”

“The smell!” she repeated blankly.

“Yea, my lady. Have you never smelled the plague stench?”

She stood silent a moment, then lifted her hand. “Uncover him,” she said.

“Nay, there is no need. He grew sick on cockles,” he said, “and gagged to
death.”

“Uncover him,” she snapped.

Setting his jaw, Ruck leaned down. Let her look then, if she must, and
choke on her revulsion.

But she did not cringe back from the body. Instead, she went forward,
gesturing. “A light.”

None of the men moved. Ruck finally squatted down and lit the lanthorn
himself. He opened the light on the corpse. Princess Melanthe gazed down at
it. She knelt and lifted Pierre’s stiffened hand. “Poor man. He suffered, I
fear.”

For a moment Ruck thought it was real, this sympathy, the echo of regret
in her voice a true emotion. Then she rose, turning toward Allegreto.

“Come to bed, my love. There is nothing to be done for him.” She walked
toward her young courtier. Allegreto made a gurgling gasp and backed away
from her. She beckoned.

“Come, do not be foolish. The man died of cockles. Come lie down with me
now.”

“Lady—” It was a whisper of horror.

Ruck watched her advancing slowly upon him, driving him to frenzy
apurpose. Only for the cruelty of it—she must be as certain as Ruck there
was no pestilence, or she would not have touched Pierre.

“Dost thou not love me, Allegreto?” she murmured in a hurt voice, moving
toward him with her hand extended. “But I love thee still.”

Allegreto groaned, beyond any reason. He scrambled back from her. “Touch
me not!” he cried. “Get away!”

She stopped. Over the moonlit distance he had made between them, they
gazed at each other.

“I won’t come,” he said in a deathly voice. “I won’t come.”

Princess Melanthe swayed slightly. She turned to Ruck. “Help me—help me
to my place. I do not feel strong.”

Before Ruck could respond, she fell to her knees. He moved on instinct,
catching her limp body in his arms as she toppled. He rose with her, shocked
beyond feeling, staring down at the pale column of her exposed throat.

Fear hit him again like a hammer. He carried her, seeing nothing but her
arm hanging lax over his in the moonlight, hearing nothing but his heart in
his ears, turning blindly for the tent. As he laid her down on the
featherbed, he called for her gentlewoman—he thought he shouted it, but he
could not hear anything over his heart.

No one answered. In the utter blackness of the tent he could see nothing;
he groped for a lanthorn, sparking the flint and steel by fumbling. As the
light rose, he looked toward her.

She was smiling at him. She sat up on her elbows and lifted her finger to
her lips for silence.

Ruck’s jaw went slack—and then stiffened in outrage. He shoved himself
off the ground, standing with his head against the silken roof. She raised
her hand, as if to hold him, but Ruck was too furious. He took up the
lanthorn, flung back the cloth, and strode outside in a black temper.

“My lady is in fine health,” he uttered through his teeth, jerking his
head toward Pierre’s body. “I need two men to bury him.”

In the tallow light no one moved. Allegreto shrank into the shadows, and
even the sergeant took a step backward.

“He’ll haunt us,” someone muttered.

“Accursed be you all!” Ruck snarled. “I want no succour from a pack of
cowards, then. I’ll leave him myself with the monks.” He lifted Pierre
again, turning toward Hawk. “Loosen his fetterlock,” he ordered the nearest
man, who covered his mouth and nose with his chaperon as he obeyed.

The horse disliked the load, flaring its nostrils and drawing in
suspicious noisy draughts of air, but Hawk was accustomed enough to the
smell of death to bear his burden. Ruck took his lead and turned him toward
the trickle of hazy moonlight that fell onto that track, heading toward a
dim black line of trees in the distance, silently asking pardon of God and
Pierre’s soul for what he was about to do.

There were no monks, not within his reach, for though he knew there was a
priory at the headland, it was yet so far away that he could not hear the
bells. But he wanted no more of these whining fears of hauntings and
pestilence. In his anger he wanted isolation in which to lay Pierre to rest.
He wanted the comfort of driving a spade deep in the ground until he was
weary with it, his muscles hurting instead of his spirit.

He wasn’t afraid of ghosts—he’d buried all his family in unconsecrated
ground and found their only haunting to be the gentle, lost voices in his
plague dreams. Poor silent Pierre didn’t even have a voice to haunt dreams,
unless his soul found one with the wild wolves that ran free in this place,
the way he had never been able to run in life.

Melanthe slept. She kept trying to rally, rising to the weary surface and
failing, losing herself again in the sweet dreamless warmth. With her
wakening mind she knew she must not let sleep have her, but she had lost the
will to fight it, falling back, luxurious collapse into rest and safety.

Full light flooded the tent, coloring everything with a rosy tint, when
she finally held herself awake. The light shocked her; she made the effort
to pull herself from the depths. It was difficult, as it had never been
before. She had slept oversound, and the slumber still sucked at her.

The difference came slowly. She realized that she was alone. Without
Allegreto’s restless clinging presence at her side, without Cara’s quiet
rustle.

The whole camp was unusually quiet. Her Green Knight always did his best
to restrain the men, she knew, attempting to serve his indolent lady by
maintaining peace of a morning—little as he might approve of her slothful
habits—but this morning he had succeeded well beyond his usual measure.
There was only a faint chink of harness, none of the low talk and dragging
sounds of packing and loading.