The untarnished image of the lady he served had once sustained him, but it held him no longer. Nay, she drove him now toward infamy herself. The vision of Isabelle alone had never been enough to bind him; he'd needed his liege lady of the hawk to serve, governing himself for her honor. When he tried now to put Isabelle in her place instead, he found an abyss of anger opening up beneath his feet: anger at Isabelle, at the archbishop who'd let her leave him, at G.o.d Himself. Without his liege lady, his defense crumbled against the endless question of why, why, why he must live without a wife.

He raised his face to the gray sky and found no answer there. The archbishop had declared his vow before Isabelle invalid, but taken her anyway-leaving Ruck in an impa.s.se he could only understand as G.o.d's intention to hold him fast to chast.i.ty, archbishop or no.

It seemed too pitiless that he should only be given a few weeks of love in his life and never permitted to seek it again. He had no calling for holy orders, of that he was certain. He felt no urges to preach to the Ninevites-he wouldn't have known what to say to them if he had. He heard no voice telling him to wear sackcloth against his skin or wall himself up as an anchorite.

He was only an ordinary man, and ordinary men were suffered to marry instead of burn, to have sons and daughters, to have a bed and a fire and a wife waiting at the end of the journey.

Without his liege lady to fortify his resolve, he could only cleave to his bitter perfection, hating Isabelle and G.o.d ... or surrender honor and hate himself. He had never thought truly of yielding before, but he thought of it now. He felt the tent and the deep furs behind him, and the whisper of h.e.l.lfire on the nape of his neck.

Melanthe felt that today might be the time. Or tomorrow, perhaps. She waited for Allegreto to wake-or perhaps he was awake already: she thought he must sleep no more than she, always on the edge of consciousness, aware of her every move as she was aware of his. They had come to this compromise, that they slept so close that neither could move without the other heeding. She could feel his suspicions growing in the tightness of his arms about her.

To Cara, Melanthe had said this journey would end at an English nunnery, but that was to be kept secret from Allegreto. To Allegreto, she had declared they traveled to her castle at Bowland, and that was to be concealed from Cara. Melanthe herself waited for the moment that she could rid herself of both of them. They did not know the country; they could not speak to the English men-at-arms, and she had kept them strictly away from her knight. She had directed the Green Sire in a fickle course, invoking the fox to confound pursuit, leaving no scent in such places as towns and cities, winding and turning toward the safety of a strong and secluded earth.

She worked upon Allegreto's fears of plague. Like his fear of Gryngolet, it went beyond his reason-Allegreto, who had killed a man before his tenth birthday, would weep at her feet to protect him from plague.

So she thought. Sometimes she feared it was only another illusion, that he and his father were always ahead of her in their intrigues. Gian Navona had his own intentions, driven by pa.s.sion and mystery, as he had always been.

But the safe earth of Bowland was almost within her reach. Already she had left the whole of her retinue behind in London-they had not antic.i.p.ated that, for Melanthe traveled always in great state, however quickly she might move. She could not disperse her Italian household entirely yet without suspicion, but to organize their separate journey to Bowland, she had appointed her most hopelessly incompetent and aimless attendant, to be certain they did not arrive ahead of her- if ever, considering Sodorini's truly wonderful lack of efficiency.

Only Allegreto remained. And Cara. Innocent-eyed Cara, who slept in Melanthe's tent and brought her food; who would not be left behind, her devotion to her mistress was so very ardent. This sudden display of mulish loyalty confirmed all suspicions of the girl. Allegreto was right-the Riata had subverted her.

It made no matter. Melanthe was going to be free of her; free of Allegreto; free of any threat of Riata or Navona or Monteverde. Within the walls of Bowland no foreign strangers could pa.s.s unnoticed, no Italian a.s.sa.s.sins could slip past the gate. She had only to arrive there before any enemy, and live enclosed by a fortress of Englishmen loyal to her alone.

Cara returned to the tent. Melanthe pretended to wake, turning and stretching. She sat up, and Allegreto jerked a little, caught half drowsing before he was full awake the next instant, like a cat. He rolled away and made a dismayed mutter when he saw the foulness of the weather outside, catching up his pestilence-apple and holding it to his nose as he left the tent.

"Give you good morn, my lady," Cara said pleasantly, on her knees beside the chest as she laid out Melanthe's clothing. "The hunchbacked man, he brought fresh c.o.c.kles from a hermit here." She gestured toward a bowl, where they were already washed and opened. "Will you break fast while they are still sweet?"

"Bring them here," Melanthe said. "I'm in no hurry to leave my bed on such a morning. Where is my water? Not heated yet? Go-fetch it at once."

Cara bowed, still on her knees, and scurried out of the tent. Melanthe eyed the c.o.c.kles.

Though Melanthe had been first cousin to Cara's own mother, the soft-voiced maid was far more dangerous to her life than Allegreto. Cara could hide much behind her mild pleasantries, a sharp eye and perceptive mind the least of it. Yesterday she had asked quietly if she would be allowed to stay and attend her mistress in the English nunnery. Melanthe had returned some careless answer, but verily, should not Cara have shown more curiosity than that about the location and name of this religious house? She had asked no more or less in the whole time they traveled.

Melanthe stared at the c.o.c.kles. Then she grabbed up the sandy bag that Cara had laid aside and poured the sh.e.l.lfish in. Pulling up the silken floor of the tent, she pushed the bag down into the sand. She heard Allegreto returning and hurriedly smoothed the fabric back in place.

She did not bother to tell him of the suspicious c.o.c.kles. She was weary of hearing his spiteful accusations against Cara-and no more did she want to wake and find the maid dead of poison or a knife. Allegreto, at least, was determined that Melanthe should live to become his father's wife, at the cost of any other life but his own.

Forsooth, it was something strange that he had not killed Cara already.

Once across the river ford Ruck kept Allegreto close beside him on the traverse of the sands, dragging the patient cart horse along at his knee, following hard on the footprints of the mount in front of him. Ahead, lost in mist, the horses bearing Princess Melanthe's litter were immediately behind the hermit's donkey, held narrowly in the track to avoid quicksands. Each man had strict instructions to keep the man ahead and behind in sight or send an instant alarm.

Ruck and Allegreto brought up the rear, but the pace was so sedate that there was never any danger of Hawk falling behind, even burdened as he was. The war-horse proclaimed his displeasure at the sluggish speed by leaping from bank to bank of each sandy tidal stream instead of fording them, which annoyed Allegreto and his cart horse very much. The boy was already complaining of saddle sores. He held a smelling-apple of powders and herbs constantly to his lips to ward off pestilence. In a m.u.f.fled voice Allegreto kept Ruck fully informed of his sentiments regarding the danger of their position as last in the procession and the folly of allowing a stranger any contact with the party. He vacillated unhappily between fear of a.s.sociation with the hermit and desire to cross the quicksands directly at his heels.

When Ruck saw large broken sh.e.l.ls beneath Hawk's hooves and heard the sound of the mild surf that marked the solid sh.o.r.e of the Wyrale, he let go of the cart horse's reins and tossed them at Allegreto. But the youth gave a dismayed cry as his mount immediately began to fall behind. He pounded it into a trot, holding the reins out toward Ruck with his free hand.

"Do not leave me!" The order was arrogant and scared, half-stifled through the scented bag. "The vapor! Is it thicker behind us? It breathes poison-dost thou sense it?"

Ruck tendered no opinion on the vapor, but he took back the leading reins. Up a sharp, sandy bank with a heave and a scramble, and they were safe across the mouth of the river, the marsh and bleak forest of the Wyrale before them. He took a quick account of the party as he rode up to Pierre and the hermit, ignoring Allegreto's vociferous objections.

Pierre had thieved something-Ruck could tell by the beatific smile on his squire's lips. He fixed his broken-backed man with a ferocious scowl. Pierre's benevolent smirk faded. No doubt he'd found some mislaid trinket as they broke camp and folded the tents, but Ruck knew, having done it once or twice, that even if he upended Pierre and shook him by the feet, there would be no finding the hidden cache.

The hermit went to his knees, folding his hands for a benediction. Ruck dismounted, kneeling with the rest. Even Allegreto fell to the sh.e.l.ly bank, both hands pressing his herbal over his mouth. During a long prayer of thanksgiving for their successful crossing, Ruck took another count with his head bowed, considering each of the men-at-arms while repeating paternosters, deciding on the day's order of march. Once, his lowered gaze wandered to Princess Melanthe's litter: he saw the curtain pulled slightly back and her eyes upon him instead of closed in prayer.

The curtain dropped, hiding her. Ruck felt his body flush and harden with the chance of what her thoughts might be. She'd been looking at him, staring. He lost the sequence of the prayer, his "amen" coming too late and loud after the rest.

"Thou," Allegreto said imperiously from behind his smelling-apple. "Hermit! Hast thou heard tell of pestilence in this region?"

The man betrayed no sign of understanding. Ruck repeated the question more respectfully, in English, and got a negative shrug.

Allegreto wasn't satisfied. "The atmosphere is corrupted here. I feel it."

"We move onward," Ruck said, to forestall any enlargement on this unsettling topic. He gave orders, placing himself at the head of the cavalcade once more, the litter midway back and protected on both sides. With Allegreto's and Hawk's reins firmly in one hand, Ruck lifted his arm and shouted, "Avaunt!"

As they moved off the sandy sh.o.r.e and into the trees, Allegreto leaned forward, holding the rouncy's thick mane, keeping his bag of herbal protection pressed across his mouth and nose as he b.u.mped along.

"The recluse was bloodless, thinkest thee not?" he demanded through his bag. "He sickens."

"I saw aught of such," Ruck said in a deliberately disinterested tone.

"He sickens. He was ashen. By nightfall he is dead."

Ruck cast him a glance. "What is this? Thou art now a physician, whelp?"

"The miasma is infectious!" Allegreto insisted. He let go of the horse's mane and dug in his mantle, pulling out another bagged smelling-apple. He offered it to Ruck. "I have three. I've given my lady's grace the other."

Ruck lifted his brow in surprise. "Hast thou no need of it thyself?"

"Take it," Allegreto said. "I wish thee to have it, knight."

Ruck gave him a one-sided smile. "Nay. Keep it for thine own. The plague never touches me."

Allegreto crossed himself. "Say not so! Thou wilt call the wrath of G.o.d upon thee!"

"I speak only the truth," Ruck said mildly.

The youth changed hands, holding his apple with the left.

"Cramped arm?" Ruck asked, hard put not to smile.

"Yea," Allegreto said seriously. "It is a most wearing thing to hold."

Ruck raised his hand, signaling a halt. He drew the cart horse up even with him. "Where is thy scarf?" He leaned over and dug under the youth's furs, pulling the dagged silken scarf from his shoulders. With a few knots he made a cup in the middle of the length and reached for Allegreto's smelling-apple. "Hold in thy breath."

The boy reluctantly released the bag, making a small, choked sound of protest as Ruck dumped out the amber apple. As quickly as he could, Ruck secured the herb bag and apple within the scarf and reached over to tie it round Allegreto's mouth and head.

"There. Thou art safe from pestilent airs, whelp."

Allegreto looked down over his bright blue mask and tucked away his spare bag of herbs. "G.o.d grant you mercy," he said behind the scarf, the most courteous words he'd yet spoken to Ruck.

He answered with only a short nod. Allegreto looked foolish in his sapphire kerchief; foolish and young. Ruck wondered if it was possible to make a cuckold of a castrato-his mind pondered on the wordplay until he realized what he was thinking. He slapped Hawk overhard with the reins and yelled the order to move.

"Thou hast seen plague, then?" Allegreto asked from inside his m.u.f.fle.

"Yea," Ruck said.

"I was but a child when it came again. My father took me into the country, away from the malignant atmosphere."

"Give thanks for that."

"How comes it thou art certain it touches thee not?"

Ruck rode in silence, watching the trees ahead for any sign of hazard.

"Hast thou a charm?"

"Nay. None of man's making."

"What, then?" Allegreto urged. "What protects thee?"

"Nothing." Ruck frowned at the sandy track ahead.

"Something it must be. Tell me." When he got no answer, he raised his voice. "Tell me, Englishman!"

"I know only that all about me died, and I lived," Ruck said at last. "In the last pestilence my man sickened. I stayed with him when the priest refused to come, but it never touched me." "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 amus.e.m.e.nt. "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, "Pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sion.

"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 c.o.c.kles 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 c.o.c.kles 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 sp.a.w.n 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."

Chapter Seven.