For My Lady's Heart (20 page)

With the corner of his eye he saw her yawn deeply. The ermine fell from
his knee as she drew her cloak close about her.

“Sore weary I am,” she murmured, leaning back against the fur-covered
seat he’d made for her.

“I will lay you a place to bed, Your Highness.” But he did not rise,
unable to shake off the witching of her nearness. He was weary himself, and
hungry. And when she closed her eyes, with her chin tucked down against the
folds of the cloak, he could watch her without her knowing.

“Thou mote be wondrous sleepy thyself, knight,” she mumbled. “It is my
turn to stay waking.”

“Nay,” he said quietly. “I will keep thee, lady.”

A faint smile curved her lips. She let go a long, deep sigh.

Melanthe slept easy against the hard lump of the saddle as she had never
slept in silk and featherbeds. She was vaguely aware of awakening sometime
in the dark, with the knight arranging furs and a softer cushion for her
head. She knew him by the light chink of his armor and the scent of orange
and leather and metal as he tucked something soft beneath her cheek—Ruck,
she thought with cloudy fondness, and felt pleased and secure.

“Grant merci,” she said, but if he heard her he did not answer. For a few
instants she saw him through leaden eyes, down beside her on his heels, with
one knee pressed into the sand, the firelight gleaming on the curved fan of
his poleyn.

Thou wilt keep me ...
She dreamed of his dark silhouetted figure
beside her all night, and slept sound in the wilderness.

There was no start or dread in waking. The first thing she saw was
Gryngolet, and the next was her knight, squatting at the river edge
bare-chested, splashing water against his face. With his back to her, he
shuddered in the cold like a wet dog, flinging droplets from his fingers as
he whooshed a harsh breath of air between his teeth. The steam made a frosty
curl against the bright river and vanished.

He held a razor to his face, and then cursed softly.

Melanthe saw a scarlet welling of blood mingle with the wetness at the
edge of his jaw.

She sat up. “What art thou about?”

He startled and grabbed up his tunic, pulling it over his head as he
turned. The linen clung to his chest, showing damp through it, and the dark
lump of some amulet he wore. Blood from the place he had nicked himself
trickled down to a pale band of reddish-orange that ringed his throat where
sweat had rusted his mail and stained the linen and his skin.

“My lady—your pardon—I thought you heedless in slumber.”

She squinted at the sun overhead, surprised at the height of it. “Have I
slept so long!”

He turned, gathering up his surcoat and armor. “Anon I go a way off, my
lady, and dress my horse.”

She realized that he was offering her a discreet spell of privacy. As he
turned and walked away, he wiped at the nick on his jaw and smeared bloody
fingerprints on the hem of his linen shirt.

“What thou art dire in need of, Sir Ruck,” Melanthe murmured into the
furs, “is a neat, goodly housewife to love thee.” She smiled, sinking down
in her warm coverings. “I will arrange it for thee.”

From the river she heard the dim conversation of ducks and geese. She
pushed her nose out of the furs, welcoming the chill morning air. It made
the moment real, an awakening from deep nightmare into life: this was sure
fact, this cold morning, this river and woods and this muddy sand, the small
smoking flame in a circle of gray and black ash, the curling rinds of
oranges on a cloth spread on the ground—no servants to distrust, no
Allegreto, nor slim daggers or poison, no Navona or Riata or Monteverde.
Only her knight nearby to keep her from all harm.

In the warm security of it she flipped the fur back over her cold nose
and closed her eyes. Her body relaxed in the soft haven. She lay slipping,
half dreaming, letting the silent river take her safely again.

Ruck donned his armor, watered Hawk, checked the horse’s hooves, and
curried his coat. He took his time, yawning, lingering until he was certain
that he could not possibly shame either of them by returning while she was
still in the midst of her gearing.

As he led the horse back, he made sure that they raised a noise, rattling
dead reeds as they passed through. He called softly, not caring to advertise
their presence too much abroad, neither to outlaws nor to the great flocks
of ducks that floated and fed near shore. He was looking forward to breaking
his fast.

On the sandy bank where they had made camp between the water and the
coppice-alders, there was no sign of her. A spark of alarm flared in him. He
dropped Hawk’s lead and strode forward.

Just as he drew a breath to shout for her, he glanced down. He froze half
a step from treading on where she lay, still wrapped about in furs and
cushions.

He gazed at her, incredulous. She had gone back to sleep! Here in this
desolate place, on a saddle, as if at any moment they might not be set upon
by perils human or unhuman.

He sat down hard on a hummock. He had never in his life known man nor
woman to sleep so much as the Princess Melanthe.

He put his jaw on his fists. He waited. As the shadows grew shorter, the
ducks floated past and flew on. at first a few pairs, and then covies, and
then whole- flocks, as if at some soundless call to the distance. The noise
of their wings resounded across the water, feathered thunder. The gyrfalcon
roused eagerly, standing first on one foot and then the other upon the bowed
stave, but its mistress did not wake.

After a long time Ruck picked up a pebble and aimed it for a point a few
feet away from her head.

It hit the sand with a light plop. She didn’t move.

His belly growled. He tried a slightly larger pebble, a little closer.

Melanthe dreamed it was beginning to rain. She heard the single drops and
felt their airy impact on her coverings. A faint stinging drop struck her
hair and she jerked awake.

She sat up, scrambling to pull her hood over her head, looking about for
shelter.

On a grassy tussock a little distance from her, she saw the knight
hastily lower his hand. He was full dressed and armored; he stood up,
flashing her a look as guilty as a thieving boy caught up a pear tree,
before he fell to one knee and lowered his face in formal respect.

There was not a cloud in the cold sky. The tanned folds of the fur
overtop her were littered with tiny pebbles, as if it had rained stones.

“Knave!” she gasped in laughing outrage. “Thinkest thou to cower behind
this meek bow?” She threw off the furs and scooped up a handful of sand,
sending it toward him in an extravagant spray.

He flinched back, lifting his arm against the shower. She sat up on her
knees and dug both hands into the ground. Her second discharge spewed over
him, making him duck his head. Melanthe took advantage, laughing and
scooting forward, kicking up a relentless cloud of sand with her hands as he
tried to rise and step back, his arms up to defend himself. Awkward in his
armor, he tripped over his spurs, falling on his seat with a surprised
grunt.

She gave a hoot of victory and tried to stand in preparation to launch a
triumphant volley from both hands. Her cloak tangled underfoot and she
lunged forward, saving herself and losing her balance, catching on the cloak
in half steps as she tottered wildly. She loosed the sand, sprawling full
atop him with a cry of merriment, grit in her mouth and under her palms, a
bruising impact against hard metal. The jar knocked him back against the
tussock as they fell together.

It took the breath from her. She blinked her eyes open, pushing herself
up against his shoulders.

He lay with a look of utter consternation, his face close to hers. No
humor answered her amusement. He was frozen still beneath her hands.

She felt the short rise and fall of his breath under her. Dirty sand
dusted his cheek and brow. His green eyes, so close to hers, refused to see
her. He stared past her and tightened his mouth, as if she were some enemy
set to slay him.

A terrible abandon seized her. She could do anything here in the empty
wilderness; she did not have to lie—

She bent and kissed his mouth, fierce as Gryngolet, senseless and violent
as Allegreto in a temper, forcing herself on him. He made a despairing
sound, half turning; but she followed, letting her weight fall against the
rigid curve of his breastplate beneath the tunic, sliding her hands up
beside his head.

He was breathing hard into her mouth, kissing her and pulling back at the
same time, opposing his own action. He might have pushed her off with a
fraction of his strength, but Melanthe held him with only her fingers spread
in his hair.

She softened her touch, brushing her lips featherlight where she had
pressed ruthlessly a moment before, exploring his jaw, tasting grit and dirt
and the faint, rusty note of blood. He held motionless, arrested in a
straining tension.

She pulled back a little. His mouth was drawn into tautness. His eyes
glittered with water, the black lashes spiking-together. He brought his hand
up and pushed back her hood. He touched her hair, lightly, and curled his
fist and dropped it.

“I beseech thee,” he uttered from deep in his throat. He closed his eyes.
“I beseech thee. Lady—I cry peace.”

“A bargain,” she said. “One kiss of thine—and I will let thee go.”

“Nay.” He moistened his lips. “Ne can I play a courtier’s game.” He would
not look at her. “I cannought, lady, for God’s love.”

“Why, monkish man? Because thou art my servant? One kiss. I command
thee.”

“One!” He gave a bitter laugh and laid his head back. He squeezed his
eyes hard, baring his teeth like a man in pain. A drop rolled from the
corner of his lashes down his temple. “Kill me now, my lady, and let me live
in Hell, and you will be kinder.”

She pushed herself from him and sat back. Immediately he rolled away,
shoving to his feet. Without looking at her he walked to the furs and hauled
his saddle from beneath them. He shouldered it, carrying it to his horse.

Melanthe looked down at her palms. Sand clung there, the same sand that
seasoned her tongue with the taste of him and cleaved in ragged arcs to the
back of his tunic where he’d lain pressed against the ground.

She blushed hot.

To fling sand at him—to press her mouth against his as if she could be
part of him by doing it—to force herself upon him—the clumsiness appalled
her.

The wilderness abruptly seemed a strange surrounding, and herself
stranger yet.

She had known that he wanted her. A hundred men had wanted her. She
trifled gracefully with them. In smooth gallantries she had heard her beauty
praised, her hair adored and her lips cherished, her eyes compared to jewels
and stars. Every gift and finery had been proffered, extravagant
self-destruction threatened if she withheld her favors. She toyed and smiled
and refused, binding them on a velvet leash.

But she dared not look in mirrors; she had never been certain if she was
truly so tempting in herself, or only the irresistible symbol of her power
and position.

And she had not known that she wanted him.

Until now, when she had gazed down at his face, into another kind of
mirror—and thought that all before had been the mere shadow of this desire.

She stood, shaken and mortified. He did not look at her, but went about
his work with grim concentration, as if absorbed in it beyond thought.

She brushed sand from her cloak and strode toward the high reeds and
blessed privacy.

Ruck stilled as he heard her go, sitting on his heels above the soft furs
where she’d slept. He bent his head.

His soul seemed near to shattering within him. With laughter she smashed
his shield to splinters. She lay upon him, careless as a child—reckless as a
whore.

He touched his jaw where she had touched it, drew his fist down his own
skin where her mouth had brushed him, and then stared at his knuckles.

As long as she held aloof and disdained him, he was safe. Her tempers and
arrogance defended him; her station was a wall between them even in this
desert; if he felt himself weakening, he had only to recall that she liked
her not rough and runisch men.

But nothing could save him if she was to cast this spell of laughter.
That was where her power lay, he thought, not in charms and incantations—she
had laughed at Lancaster and brought a king’s son to his knees; she laughed
now and Ruck was lost, helpless as one of Circe’s beasts.

And he hungered for his downfall. The ache in his belly was nothing to
the tension of waiting, to the hot pain of love’s appetite. A lance through
his body was nothing to it.

He closed his eyes. He’d sworn himself to the Devil’s daughter. Thirteen
years—ill-omened number—and she came for him again.

The bird must be fed. That demand went unspoken. All the gems on the
princess’s gauntlet and lure, all the books left behind in her chests, all
her furs and pearl-encrusted gowns were not worth the price of the white
gyrfalcon. Ruck’s empty stomach, the question of where safety lay, the
awareness and awkwardness between the two of them—all of that diminished
before the first necessity of properly keeping the falcon.

She had not been fed for two days; she was in highest flying condition,
restless, showing herself ready to hunt by her roused feathers and fretful
talons. Ruck had some hope of what was left, after the falcon had taken its
reward, although by now he thought that the princess must be hungry again,
too. He waited silently while she prepared, changing the jesses and
examining the leash and hood.

The huge flocks that had floated so close early in the dawn had vanished
but for a few stragglers. In spite of her command of the falcon’s lure, he
was not certain what sort of hunter the princess might be in a true quest
for food—her morning indolence did not promise great skill or experience of
more than ladies’ crossbows and deer-parks. But he was no master falconer
himself. He looked on their situation beside the wide estuary with
misgiving—it seemed to him that the fowl must flush away from shore, and the
strike be made inevitably over water.

He had once been in the courtyard when Lancaster and his brother the
prince had returned from a day of flying a score of high-bred falcons at
crane and heron. Among the large and colorful party, there had been dripping
servants, damp courtiers, wet dogs, and great good humor—on a temperate day
with the castle and a warm fire at hand.

Here they had no dogs or servants to retrieve if the gyrfalcon lost its
prey over the depths. And as the only courtier present, Ruck felt he would
be exceedingly fortunate if he did not have to swim.

Perhaps she had witchcraft to enchant the quarry. She seemed confident
enough as she swerved and bent ahead of him through the reeds and coppice,
carrying the hooded falcon. The hawking-pouch hung over her shoulder, gems
shining under her cloak as it flared, so that as she moved she seemed some
Valkyrie of ancient dreams, a silent war-maiden striding to battle. Ruck
moved quietly behind. He had taken off his spurs and stripped himself of
plate and mail for stealth, wearing only his leather gambeson and sword.

Beside a brushy bank she paused, staring out through a dense clump of
leafless alders. Ruck saw the pair of mallards floating fifty feet from
shore. What he did not see was any hope that they would flush in the
desirable direction.

“These will do,” she murmured, so low he could barely hear. She slanted a
glance at him. “Look thee to biden there, in the farthest reeds, for to
await my sign. We will not delayen till she towers up so high this time.

He inspected the stand of reeds, gauging a hidden path to it. “What
sign?”

“A blackbird’s call.”

“Lady”—he squinted through the branches and whispered barely above the
sound of his own breath—“hatz ye a sorcery to direct them?”

She gave him such a look askance that he felt chagrined and added in
haste, “Were I to swimmen, I may sink or take ill and leave my lady without
protector.”

Her lilac gaze seemed to cut a hole through him. “Or get thee wet!” she
mocked.

It did not seem such a jest to him. He muttered tautly, “The weeds I wear
be all I haf, my lady.”

Her lip curled. “So I will not watch thee strip, monkish man, dost thou
dislike it.”

She had not the modesty of a stoat. He set his jaw, feeling the burn of
mortification—worse, feeling his own body’s instant reaction to such words.
Even she seemed to feel it; her eyes sliding abruptly away from his.

She nodded toward a layer of cobbles and gravel in the sand bank. “Thou
art master stone-hurler of our little company. Cast one up so comes it down
beyond the ducks. Mayhap it hies them toward us.”

Ruck thought even a mild charm had a better chance than that. “Lady—only
a natural magic. A small one. God will forgive us.”

She lifted her fine eyebrows. “I perceive thou art monkish only when it
agrees thee.”

“I am no monk,” Ruck muttered, having rapidly tired of that nekename.

“No more am I witch.” She stared at him, her eyes level. “I await thy
readiness.”

Ruck set his jaw and squatted by the bank, prying out two cobbles that
filled his hand, round and heavy to land with a generous splash. Bent low,
he moved out of the coppice and down amongst the reeds, parting them slowly
as he passed through. His feet sank into sandy mud; he had to lift each one
carefully to avoid a loud sucking. Cold water quickly began to seep into his
boots.

Melanthe had a secret sympathy for his disinclination to enter the cold
river—though she would have smothered herself in a hair shirt before she
would have said so aloud. But she had no magic beyond her wits and
Gryngolet’s to please him. The falcon had experience enough to wait until
her quarry was over land to strike. The ducks, though, would likely flush
into the wind which came down the wide length of the river, and, if they
were wary and wise, fly within its compass, never leaving the safety of
water below them. Lady Fortune had provided mallards, big fowl confident of
their own size and speed, furnishing the only hope that the quarry might
chance an overland passage to escape. They belonged to Gryngolet then, for
in level flight she could outfly any other bird under God’s Heaven.

Impossible to guess how far away the kill might occur in that case. In
more common circumstance—a well-mounted party with falconers, beaters,
servants, and hounds—following the gyrfalcon on such a cross-country chase
was a joy. But that was sport; the catch less to be admired than the
elegance of the flight, the valor of the bird. They hunted in earnest now.
Gryngolet must make a quick slaying, or there would be no dinner and haps no
falcon, either, once she was beyond sight and sound of the lure.

Melanthe kept a divided watch between the mallards that still fed
peacefully off the bank and the faint sway of reeds that marked the knight’s
passage. It was a delicate moment: if she dallied too long, the ducks might
flush and be lost before the falcon was ready, but if she unhooded Gryngolet
and cast her off too soon, the anxious and hungry falcon might lose patience
with waiting for her quarry to be served and rake off on her own hunt.

The reeds had ceased swaying. Melanthe saw the mallard drake glance
alertly toward shore and begin to paddle away. She caught Gryngolet’s brace
in her teeth and struck the hood. Lifting her arm a little, she faced the
wind and gently plucked the hood free by its green feathered plume.

The gyrfalcon slowly roused, expanding herself. She muted. Melanthe did
not take her eyes from the ducks, but from the edge of her vision she could
see Gryngolet survey the horizon deliberately. Her feathers tightened, and
she roused again. Melanthe opened her glove, losing her hold on the jesses.

Gryngolet spread her wings and bounded upward.

The ducks began to paddle faster, making wide V’s in their wakes. They
would be soon out of reach of stone or yell; already they were almost too
far from the bank to fear it more than the white shadow of death overhead.
Melanthe glanced up, saw Gryngolet circling out wide and returning at a few
hundred feet. She gave a low blackbird’s whistle.

The knight should have exploded into motion, shouting and waving,
throwing stones or any other maneuver that would frighten the ducks into
flight.

“Go!” she whispered under her breath.

Instead, that light sway in the reeds was silent, moving, paralleling the
bank until it was directly before her and she lost sight of the subtle
movement through the interlacing of coppice twigs and branches.

“God’s bones!” she hissed between her teeth. She whistled again.

Gryngolet circled idly; falling downwind as she waited, losing position.
The ducks still paddled, gliding farther and farther beyond flushing.
Melanthe made a faint whimper of dismay in her throat. She reached for the
lure at her belt, preparing to call the falcon down before she raked away.

A boom of feathers erupted from the reeds. Like a huge ghost, a gray
heron—king of river quarry—leapt into the air with a shriek, the knight
hallowing and waving as the bird lumbered along the edge of the reeds,
running with wings outstretched, trying to regain the safety of the thick
cover. The knight drew back his arm and hurled a stone, fired the second one
after it a with a powerful heave of his arm, sending the heron clawing
upward, gaining the sky in great ringing circles.

Gryngolet snapped to business; she instantly began a kindred spiral. For
a hundred beats of Melanthe’s heart the two birds circled for advantage,
their flights arcing over the bank and then back above the river as they
gyrated upward, Gryngolet ever gaining, passing the desperate heron,
mounting aloft.

Suddenly the gyrfalcon seemed to capsize, overturning, empowering her
downward plunge with three mighty strokes of her wings before she fell into
her stoop. She hit the heron like Vulcan’s lightning hammer; threw upward,
rolled over, smashed a daring mallard that had risen before Melanthe even
perceived it, and then drove straight back up and turned head-on into the
second duck as it pumped for the horizon. They met with a crack like solid
stones colliding. The mallard exploded in feathers.

The two ducks dropped dead well out in the river, but the big heron
tumbled and listed, shedding feathers, collapsing into the reeds as
Gryngolet wheeled and followed it down. The falcon and the huge wildfowl
disappeared, battling, Gryngolet shrieking defiance of her quarry’s superior
size and strength. Melanthe heard a great splash as she broke out of the
coppice running.

She pulled her skirts up, elbowing branches and reeds aside, racing for
Gryngolet’s life. Wild plashing and screeching came from the reeds. She saw
stalks fall, swept aside as if by a scythe, and despaired of the falcon’s
survival of such a combat. “Towe-towe-towe,
hawk!”
She cried
Gryngolet to her as if she could save her that way.

She stumbled on the long toes of her boots and slid in thick mud, gained
her feet, trying to run, ignoring the water that poured in at her ankles.
The reeds ahead swayed violently. Suddenly the splashing ceased, an instant
of silence that stopped her heart. Then Gryngolet screamed again with
lunatic frenzy. Melanthe whipped the stems aside and came upon the
battleground.

The gyrfalcon was mantled, her wings arched in a white canopy as she
stood shrieking atop the heron’s body. The knight lay full length, facedown
in three inches of water, with one arm over the heron and its broken neck
between his fists.

Gryngolet had footed his elbow, seizing it with a savage shrill of anger,
one claw buried in her quarry and the other in his leather-covered arm as if
to fend him off. Ruck had his face turned away from her, hiding it in the
crook of his other arm as he yelled muffled curses in answer to the falcon’s
screams.

Melanthe pressed her fingers over her mouth. She suffocated an appalling
urge to burst out laughing.

“Stand up,” she said unsteadily. “Get off her dinner, and she will let
thee go.”

Slowly, shielding his face, he humped himself to his knees while
Gryngolet screamed. Water poured off the front of him and dripped on the
gyrfalcon, startling her into a moment of confounded silence. Then she bated
ferociously, attacking him with both feet. He stood up with her hanging
upside down off his elbow, shrieking and flapping as if she were demented.
Melanthe jammed her fingers harder over her mouth to contain herself,
holding back hilarity with fierce resolution.

The knight gave her a look as malevolent as the falcon’s rage. He
appeared to know there was nothing to be done until Gryngolet decided to let
go—which she did, with startling suddenness, dropping in a delicate sweep
onto her prize. She mantled over the dead heron’s body again, staring
suspiciously at the knight.

He moved back promptly, shoving aside the reeds and slogging away without
a word. Melanthe slipped her knife from her belt and lifted her skirt. She
made in quietly, sliding her bare hand into the cold water to lift the
heron’s head and cut it off. Gryngolet, recalling her manners, accepted that
as her rightful due, stepping onto the gauntlet like a high-born lady.

With the falcon busy tearing feathers and skin, Melanthe stood. She
dragged the heron by its feet. It was the largest she had ever seen, a
weight that felt well over a full stone as she pulled it up on the dry bank.

She dressed it there, giving Gryngolet bone marrow and the heart. The
falcon ate eagerly, then paused, mantling covetously over the spoils again
as it stared behind Melanthe.

She turned. The knight stalked barefooted up through the reeds, soaked,
wearing only linen that molded to him so perfectly he might have had on
nothing at all. Every muscle showed as he moved, every feature, his ribs and
chest, his waist, his thick calves and thighs, even tarse and stones. His
shoulders gleamed wetly, big and straight beneath the dripping tails of his
rough black locks.

She was accustomed to men who diminished by a third when they shed their
armor, but he almost seemed larger, looming up over her as she knelt beside
Gryngolet. He dangled the mallards by the neck in one hand, his sword and
leather gambeson wadded together under the other arm. His small amulet pouch
swung from his wrist, the leather darkened with wet. He did not appear
mirthful.

He cast the ducks down beside her and stood dripping. Melanthe looked at
his bare muddy feet and saw a shudder run up through his whole body. She
raised her face warily.

He squatted beside her, his eyes for a moment on Gryngolet, who was
rending her food with renewed energy, glancing frequently at the knight as
if she were determined to consume it before he could steal it from her.