For My Lady's Heart (40 page)

A black figure stopped away from the wall beside the arched entrance. It
was Allegreto, shaking in the frigid air. “Wait,” he said, his voice a faint
tremor in the quiet.

She felt sick. “Is it over?”

“Nay,” he murmured. “Nay, he holds yet. It is early.” A shudder ran
through him. In the starlight she saw him grip his fists tightly. “I’m
sorry.”

She bit her lip. Then she shook her head. “It is your father.”

“I did not know—I never thought—” Another shiver broke his words. “You
must stay away from him. I never once thought he would come here!”

A soft frightened sound seemed to seep from him against his will. His
shaking increased. She reached out to him, for she thought he would fall,
and he caught her hand and held it hard against his face. She felt wetness
there—ice, his tears and his cheeks were, as if a marble statue wept.

“Don’t!” It frightened her beyond wit to feel him shake. She pulled him
close to her, against her breast to make him stop, pressing her back to the
wall and holding tight to force him to be still. With a groan he brought his
hands up around her shoulders and kissed her.

She said, “No,” but his cold lips and cheek touched hers, drawing life,
taking away what warmth she had with desperate greed.

“No!” She turned her face away. She twisted her fingers in his hair to
check him and yet still hold him—hold him like a child with his face buried
in her throat, her arms tight around him.

She kept him there, stroking his hair. She held him until her arm ached
with the strain. The tremors passed through him to her, easing, but before
they had left him, he shoved suddenly away from her and turned his back.

“Monteverde bitch,” he said, but he had no venom in his voice, only
anguish.

His figure cast a faint, smeared shadow on the wall beside her. She
opened her palm against it, but it was only cold and darkness, an illusion.
She did not have life enough in her, she thought, to give him as much as he
needed, even if she gave it all.

“Come with me,” he said coolly, as if he had never trembled in her arms.
“I have a scheme; I need your help.” He flashed a look at her, his face
stone white in the starlight. “But if you slip, Monteverde, you kill all
three of us.”

She could not look at Desmond. She was afraid to look; he made a sound as
the heavy door opened that was pain and terror, choked off into wordless
pants. There was no guard—Allegreto had told her to watch, and speak when
she was told to speak. She no more asked what he had done to the guard than
she looked at what they had done to Desmond.

A candle had been left burning in the larding cellar, lighting ordinary
things. Allegreto’s shadow passed across smoked meats and a bushel of
apples. “Now, my stubborn little ass, you’ve made acquaintance of my
father,” he said quietly. “You may take your choice between us.”

Cara wet her lips, her eyes fixed on the open door and the stair beyond.
No sound came from Desmond but the faint gasping of his breath.

“You have one hope to live,” Allegreto said. “You can tell me where she
is, and I’ll take you out of here before my father comes again.”

“Nay,” Desmond whispered.

“Then tell me where I can get a message to her. She must be told that my
father is here. She will not expect it. None of us—expected it.”

“Nay, you—will—tell him,” Desmond said, his voice a weak grate.

“Cara.”

She had to turn. She looked only at his face, his white face, his head
lying against the wall. His face was whole.

“You would not listen to me,” she hissed. “Listen to me now! Allegreto
means to get you free. You can’t fight Gian; he’ll kill you by inches, or
let you live, which will be worse. And we’ll die, too, if he finds we came
here to aid you! We tried—we tried to spare you this, and you would have
none of it! Well might you help yourself now, stupid boy, that Allegreto
risks life and limb for thee!”

His eyes closed. He rolled his head to the side, mumbling in English.

“Speak French,” Allegreto said harshly. “We can’t understand you.”

“I don’t know,” the youth muttered. He swallowed and groaned. “I don’t
know. It hurts.”

“Here’s my dagger,” Allegreto said. “Do you see it? I’ll cut you free,
and you won’t hurt. As soon as you tell me where to send, I’ll cut you
loose.” He turned Desmond’s head, to make him see the knife before his eyes.
“I give you until she counts to twenty, and then we leave you here to God
and my father’s mercy.”

He nodded to Cara. She began to count, as slowly as she dared, staring at
Desmond’s racked face. He turned his head from side to side, panting. From
somewhere up the stairwell, a dove cooed, waking.

“Eighteen,” she said, and closed her eyes. Nineteen.“

“I can’t tell you,” Desmond gasped. “But I can—take...”

Allegreto slashed the knife across one set of cords. Desmond cried out as
his arm fell.

“Take?” Allegreto demanded, the dagger hovering.

“Take ... near. You—give me... the message. Wait for— answer. I swear.
Help me!”

Allegreto cut him down.

A band of deep gray-blue threatened rain along the tops of the hills. As
the wind blew a warning of late frost from the north, the black branches
tossed, showing their tiny green buds in shafts of sunlight.

She had not flown Gryngolet long. Her moult would begin soon, and in this
weather any stray gust might sweep the falcon beyond a ridge and out of
sight. The horses plodded along beside the river, taking snatches at new
growth. Melanthe rode dreaming, her mantle close about her ears, thinking of
ways she might coax her husband into bodily fellowship.

The music at first seemed like part of the wind. She lifted her head,
listening. In a lull she heard it again, or thought she did. Sometimes it
seemed a melody, and sometimes only single uncertain notes. She turned in
the saddle to look at Hew.

“Yea, I hear, my lady.” He scowled up at the ridge. “Desmond, my lady. I
think me.”

Melanthe’s hand closed on her reins. “He’s come.” An old foreboding fell
over her, hearing that elvish measure on the high wind—but wavering and
broken, a travesty of the song.

Hew was still looking up over the sweep of trees to the heights. He
reached for the horn slung over his shoulder.

“Take me to him,” Melanthe said.

He paused, the horn lifted. “My lady, Lord Ruadrik said—”

“Take me!” She turned her horse. “Or I will finden my way alone.” She
urged it down the riverbank. The animal plunged in, fording the stream in
knee-deep splashes. They heaved up onto the overgrown track on the other
side.

Hew came behind. Without another word he splashed out of the water and
pricked his rouncy past her.

Ruck pulled up Hawk from his last gallop. While the destrier recovered
its wind, shedding a furry winter coat along with winter fat, Ruck guided
him out of the lists. He let his feet dangle out of the stirrups.

He smiled at the May pole that stood ready in the middle of the sheep
meadow, ribbons bound tight, the spring blast whistling through them as he
rode Hawk in a circle around it. The weather would not smile on their
celebrations, he feared; it seldom did, but hope sprang anew each year. If
the sun failed them, they would move the pole and festival into the castle
bailey.

He left his ax and mace leaning outside the wooden rail of the lists,
ready for him when he returned after eating, and let Hawk amble up the slope
toward the road. There were already twenty lambs, leaping and running, or
staring fixedly at him as if he were some pressing secret to be unraveled.
Joany Tumbster stopped him at the gatehouse and demonstrated how she could
vault up behind him over Hawk’s tail. The destrier bore it patiently, as
lenient with girls in fluttering dags as he was intolerant of full-grown men
in armor.

They rode into the yard with Joany standing on Hawk’s rump, her hands on
Ruck’s shoulders. Her brother, scraping cow dung into a barrow, yelled at
her to let go and stand straight. Just as she dared to chance it, a horn
sounded from far outside the walls, taken up by another at the gate.

“Desmond’s come!” Joany slipped and snatched at Ruck’s neck, bounding
free just before she strangled him.

“Nay. Hold!” His command caught her halfway across the yard to the gate.

She and the others halted, turning their young faces to him, wind-burned
and innocent.

“No one goes to him until I know that he does nought bring pestilence.”
He reined Hawk around. “Joany, you come with me, far enow to fetch the
princess back—she and Hew have gone downriver with the falcon. Tell her that
I wait on her in the bower when I return.”

Until he had heard the horn, Ruck had not known how much he dreaded it.
After he dropped Joany at the crossing, he let the destrier walk across the
bridge, as if by going slowly he could gain back the time that had slipped
away as the ice had melted from the river.

Hawk hoisted himself up a turn in the familiar path, his hooves sucking
in mud. He went without Ruck’s guidance, knowing the way out as he knew the
way in. They had climbed high on the slope, where the hawthorn buds were
still tight and purple-black instead of bursting, when the sharp scent of
fresh droppings jolted him from his brood.

He halted Hawk. The tracks were fresh, ascending instead of descending.
They had not been on the lower path—they had come in on a side trail.

It could only be Melanthe and Hew. Ruck scowled, unhappy that they had
rushed up here to meet the boy. Desmond had not been outside before; he was
young and impetuous; he might be fetching anything back—plague and more.

Ruck whistled, but the wind in the upper crags was whining too high for
hearing. He slapped the horse, urging him to a swifter pace.

Hawk heaved and blew frost, his ears flicking as they drew up to the
howling rock and passed it by. The slate cliffs loomed above. Ruck kept
expecting to hear Desmond’s flute, to meet them all coming down; his nerves
grew more taut as Hawk climbed on alone.

The destrier gathered himself for a lunge up onto the stony ledges.
Pebbles skittered down from under his feet as he made the shelf and broke
into a brief trot on easier ground. Ruck’s hair whipped his cheek in the
wind. Another ledge up, and another—and he guided Hawk into the stone
fissure.

The sudden hush of the tarn was like a sound of its own. Beyond the
moaning crevice, the pool was tranquil as it always was, black, still
ice-skimmed in the cold shadow of the cliffs. As they entered, Hawk shied
violently. Ruck grabbed for his sword as a figure rose from the bushes.

It was Hew, without the horses or Melanthe. Ruck controlled the destrier,
spurring him forward. “Where is she?” His alarm echoed off the slate,
mingling with the ring of Hawk’s hooves.

Hew sank to one knee, his head bowed. He had no blood or look of a fight
on him. Ruck threw himself from the saddle and grabbed the austringer’s
shoulders.
“What happened?”

“My lord—a message, my lord. For you, my lord.”

For an instant, sight and heart and lungs failed him. She was abducted.
Blindly he grabbed for Hawk, to remount. “How long? How many of them?”

“My lord!” There was a hot strain in Hew’s voice. “A message from my
lady!”

Ruck paused, leashing his urge to throw Hawk into a pell-mell charge down
the path. As soon as he turned, Hew stood up and closed his eyes. He looked
miserable and scared, squeezing the wool mitts on his hands.

“My lord, my lady commanded me. I am to sayen you as if she herseluen
spake, my lord, and her message to you be thusly—” He wet his chapped lips.
“ ‘I leave thee of my own desire. Desmond says that Al—Allegreto lives, and
his father comes in this country to wed me. I love this man as my life,
better than e’er I loved thee.’” He took a breath while Ruck stared at him.
“ ‘What was between thee and me is naught and nis,’” he recited with a
nervous flick of his tongue. “ ‘I sore repent it. Ne do nothing to abashen
me, for henceforth nill I desire to beholden thee, ne’er again, for base
shame and disgust of such a connection.’” He opened his eyes and flung
himself down on his knees. “And so did she charge me to sayen exactly, my
lord!” he cried. “I swear to you, for ne’er should I speaken such words
else!”

“It is false!” Ruck shouted. “The horses are gone! They took her; they
forced her!”

He gripped his hands together and bent his head down. “Nay, only Desmond
watz here, my lord, and she went apart and spake to him within the sight of
my eyes, lord! And she mounted him upon my horse, and said that he would haf
it to carry him, and bade me on pain to stayen you from following her.”

“Nay.” Ruck took a step forward. “She did nought!”

“My lord, she instructed me to sayen you, if ye would nought abide her
word”—Hew lifted wretched eyes—“to remember, my lord, that she warned you
once, that always she deceived.”

He had no memory of coming down from the mountain. Hawk was galloping,
pounding down the road before the castle. The May pole stood in the meadow.
He sent Hawk flying off the track, drawing his sword, careering down the
slope with his arm outstretched.

The sword hit, slashing through the ribbons, a violent impact in his
hand. The stave vibrated wildly as he swept past. He reined Hawk on his
haunches and spurred the destrier at the pole. He was yelling as he rode it
down, swinging his sword overhead. The bright silks flew in the wind. The
blow rang through him, opening a white gash in the wood.

Ruck carried away strips of blue and yellow; they fluttered and curled
around his gauntlet and the guard. He flung the weapon from him as he passed
the lists, leaning down to catch the haft of the battle ax. His arm took the
heavier weight. He swung upright in the saddle and charged the May pole
howling fury in his throat.

The blade flashed and bit deep in the wood. With a crack the pole bent
drunkenly. Hawk carried him by it as the upper half listed. He drove the
horse around with his legs, hefting the length of the ax in both hands. He
cut at the stave, spurring Hawk in ever smaller circles around the fractured
pillar, swinging again and again as wood chips flew past his face, chopping
until the log fell with a squealing groan.

He raised the ax over his head and brought it down, cleaving the standing
wood down the center with a crack like a lightning bolt. He yanked the
weapon free and dismounted amid trampled ribbons, assaulting the downed
spar.

The wood splintered beneath the blade. He lifted the ax and swung it,
lifted and swung, grunting, mangling the pieces, driving them into the muddy
ground. He had no thoughts, no idea of time. He hewed until his hands went
numb with the work, until he could not pull the blade from its seat but
stumbled forward over it when he tried.

He fell on his knees amid mutilated silk and sundered wood. His breath
burned his throat. With his dagger he stabbed at a scarred length of pole
beside him, the only thing in reach, grinding the knife tip around,
deepening and widening the wound, stabbing at it again.

He could hear nothing but his own heaving breath and the sound of the
point impaling wood. Sweat trickled down into his eye, sharp salt. He wiped
it with the back of his leather sleeve.

The cold wind bit his cheeks when he looked up. All of his people stood
at the edge of the lists, a cluster of color and silence except for one
little girl who was weeping. Their May stave and garlands lay maimed and
dismembered about him.

He shook his head. He shifted the dagger and speared the mud beside his
knee. He pulled it free and gored again, his fist rising and falling weakly.
He shook his head once more.

“My lord.” It was Will Foolet’s voice, heavy with fear and question.

“I cannought speak of it.” Ruck’s throat was hoarse. He shoved himself to
his feet. “I cannought speak of it. Ask Hew.”

He took up the ax and walked toward the lists, wiping his muddy knife on
his thigh. The tear-stained girl came up to meet him as he passed, reaching
for the hem of his surcoat. “Won’t we have a May then, m’lor, if you
please?” Her large eyes fixed him. “My lady’s grace said me that I might
carry her flowers to the stave—” Her mother hurried up, trying to lift her
away, but she clung stubbornly to him. “And ne can I now!” she cried.

“Beg grace, my lord!” her mother exclaimed, yanking the small fist free.

Ruck saw a lone figure walking toward them from far away down the track.
Hew. Soon enough they would all know, and stare at him, and pity him for a
wretched love-sot, more fool than they could invent in their best playing at
fools.

“I’ll fell another.” He turned from them, hefting the ax onto his
shoulder. “Ne do I desire company at it.”

Desmond had told Melanthe nothing more, but that Allegreto’s father had
come to Bowland. She had not asked. He did not use his bandaged hand, and he
moved like an old man, his young face unsmiling, his eyes bleak.

He brought her to her senses. She had looked on him, the boy who had left
with a merry melody that knew nothing of pain, and she had known that she
must go.

She could not let this come to Wolfscar. And it would come, if she
stayed, if Gian was here. The world would come no matter the depth of the
woven wood barrier. Gian would hunt her until he found her.

As dreams and vapor vanished, as a laughing youth came home a cripple, so
would such things perish if she tried to hold on to what she could not
possess. She had not forgotten who she was, but she had let herself forget
what it demanded.

She had looked back once, halting the horse at a crossroad where a monk
and a farmer worked to repair a harrow. Gryngolet sat on the saddlebow,
asleep, her head tucked beneath one white wing. The wind blew warmer here,
pushing fat low clouds and showers off the sea. The lowland was alive with
the work of spring, with cleared fields and flowers, church bells and
children chasing birds off the new seeds.

Behind her the mountains rose, catching the rain against their flanks—a
dark watch, a malevolence that made the eye long to turn to the new foliage
and fresh red soil. She stared at the boundary. High and impenetrable it
seemed, and yet precious frail, vanishing at a glance for anyone with the
key.

Her message to Ruck had been a more powerful kind of barrier, designed to
kill all trust and love. He would have followed her—she made a pit of broken
faith between them to prevent him.

Desmond did not halt or look back at her. His fat sluggish rouncy, taken
from Hew, carried him step by step. She had seen him wrap his good hand in
the mane, his mouth drawn hard against every jolt. Sometimes, when his face
grew too white, she had told him they would rest, and gave him time to
recover himself.

She wondered how many fingers he had left beneath the bandage. But
someone had been kind to him—it was only his left hand, and he could still
move his joints, if stiffly. He had not been racked for long.

So far from Gian, she had let herself drown in foolish visions. She had
done a thing unforgivable and irreparable, disdaining the danger. She had
loved, and let it command her.

If she had not, Desmond would be whole. He would still be in Wolfscar,
playing his mirthful flute. But she had never thought Gian would come. She
had thought Allegreto dead. She had thought she was free.

Free! Better she had obeyed Ligurio and gone into the nunnery. Better she
had flung herself from the highest tower of Monteverde. Better that she had
never, never known what she knew now—a man’s faint smile and the depth of
his heart and his faithfulness. She did not deserve it, she had never
deserved such, she had mistaken herself for someone else. Ligurio had
trained her, Gian would have her; it was beyond defying.

Even God Himself had stayed his hand. She had not conceived; she had seen
the signs denying it each month with regret—but she understood now what
mercy had been given her, that she was barren.

Fantasies and a lover she left behind. Only one thing did she do for
herself, brutally cruel as she could do it, so that she might have a hope of
sleeping. She made him hate her, so that he would not follow.

The moment that they rode within sight of the massive gatehouse and red
sandstone walls that guarded the abbey, Allegreto came striding out. He did
not keep to a walk—he began to run, avoiding puddles and a flock of peahens,
coming to a halt before her horse.

“My father,” he said.

His face held no expression, his voice no panic, and yet he radiated a
fear so deep that he seemed to breathe it in and out of him.

“Is he here?” She nodded toward the abbey.

“Depardeu, no!” He seemed to get a little hold of himself and shook his
head. He bowed to her. “No, lady. At Bowland. We came away in secret.”

“Let us go in, then. Desmond must have rest and food.”

Allegreto looked toward her drooping companion. He walked to the horse
and took its reins, reaching back to grip Desmond’s good hand. “Well worth
you,” he said, “for bringing her lady’s grace. You see I did not follow.”

Desmond gave a hollow croak of a laugh. “Not for lack of trying.”

Allegreto turned and clucked the rouncy into a slow walk. He looked back
at Desmond. “How were you injured, when they ask?”

“A mishap,” Desmond said weakly. “A mill wheel.”

Allegreto nodded. “Clever enough,” he said to the horse.

Melanthe saw Desmond smile feebly. He looked at Allegreto with bleared
and worshiping eyes.

“I have said a lady doing penance is expected,” Allegreto informed them.
“A great lady traveling poorly, to atone for her pride and vainglory. A
falcon brought the message to her in a dream.”

Melanthe sighed. “Ah, Allegreto—and I thought thee dead.” She pulled her
hood about her face and lifted the bird who had delivered the unfortunate
news of her pride and vainglory, pressing her horse toward the abbey gate.

She knelt beside Allegreto in the sanctuary, telling prayer beads with
her fingers. While the monks sang compline in the candlelit church, he spoke
softly to her, his voice a tight undertone to the motet and descant.

“I know not what you want, my lady. I don’t know what you intended by
fleeing. I have thought on it these three months, and still I cannot fathom
your desire.”

“It is not important,” she said.

“Yea, my lady, it is important to me. I am yours. You won’t believe me. I
cannot prove it. But if I must choose between you and my father, I have
chosen.”

She looked aside at him, keeping her head bowed. He was staring intensely
at her, the smooth curve of his cheek lit by gold, his eyes outlined in
shadow as if by a finely skillful hand. “Thou hast chosen me?” she asked,
with a soft incredulity.

“You do not want my father. That is all I can make of your move. Is that
true?”

Such a blunt question. She forced her fingers to tell the beads, her mind
to think. Was this Gian, trying to wrest words from her that he would use
somehow? Allegreto was his father’s creature; he had ever been, born and
bred to his devotion. As frightened of Gian as all the rest of them, loving
his father as a wolf cub loved its parent, in cringing adoration.

“You need not tell me,” he said quickly. “I well know you cannot trust
me. What can I do that you will trust me?”

“I cannot imagine,” she said.

He was silent. The monks sang an alleluia and response, voices soaring up
the dark roof. The straw beneath her knees made but a rough cushion; she was
glad to stand when the rite allowed it.

“Lady,” he said when they knelt again, “two years ago, my father wished
me to journey with him to Milan. Do you remember?”

She made a slight nod, without taking her eyes from her fingers.

“We did not go to Milan. We spent the time in his palace, lady. He told
me I must keep you from all harm. He taught me such further lessons as he
thought I needed, and watched me spar and fight, and—tested me.”

A tenor answered the treble song. Melanthe started the beads over again,
her head bent.

“My lady, there was a man who had done my father a wrong. I know not
what. He was loosed in the palace, and my father said I was to kill him, or
he would kill me.” Allegreto was unmoving next to her. “He was a master,
this man. He was better than I. I was at the point of his dagger when my
father delivered me.” Amid the chants, Allegreto’s voice seemed to become
distant. “I failed. My father told me that because I was his son, he saved
me, but I had to remember not to fail again. And so I was bound in a room
with the man I should have killed, and they took his member and parts.”

Melanthe shook her head. She put her hand on his arm to stop him, to
silence him.

But he kept speaking, trembling beneath her hand. “And while they did it,
my father came to me and said to remember I was his bastard, and he could
sire more sons, but was better for Navona that I could not. He laid the
blade on me, so I should feel it and bleed, but then—because he loved me, he
stayed it. He made me know that if I failed him again, that should be my
reward. I should not be reprieved.” He looked up at her, breathing sharply.
“And I have not failed, until this time.”

Melanthe’s hand loosened. She stared into his face.

“It has been deception, my lady, that I was gelded. He let me go and bid
me play it well, or it would be done to me in truth. It was so that you
would bear me to sleep near you, that I might keep you from your enemies. He
knew—” Allegreto’s mouth hardened. “He knew that he could trust me in all
ways.”

She closed her eyes and drew a shaky breath. “Christ’s blood. And I am to
trust thee?”

“My lady—” He put his hand over hers, gripping hard, desperate. “Lady,
this time he will do it. He promised it.”

She shook her head, as if she could deny all thoughts.

“I can’t go back without you, my lady!”

“Ah,” she said, pulling her hand from under his, “is that all thou
wouldst have of me, for thy vast loyalty?”

“Not all,” he said in a painful voice.

She looked sideways from under her hood. His hands were clenched together
on his thighs as he knelt.

“My lady.” He bent his head down over his fists. “Donna Cara is there. If
you tell my father of what she tried to do to you—”

His words broke off, requiring no completion. Melanthe gazed at his hands
and thought,
Cara?
Cara the bitch of Monteverde, whom he had
scorned so savagely and strained so hard to have sent away?

Away, away, out of Monteverde, Riata, Navona. Away, where she would
have been safe.

In profile he looked older than she remembered, his mouth and jaw set,
his beauty more solid. Growing. And a man, with passions in him that he had
kept dark and silent.