"It is because they take measure of thy form and vigor, and cannot conceive that a man like thee would be continent. So did that priest reckon me for excess in adornment."

He had not been perfectly continent, but he was not going to tell her more of the grinding inquisitions he received on the matter, not when the worst crime she was required to acknowledge appeared to be excess adornment.

"Is true, then," she asked, "that those things be not sin in marriage?"

"Some say yea, and some nay." He remained staring between his knees.

"Thou hast studied much on this matter?"

He nodded.

She rocked back on her hips and laughed. "Forsooth, we shall send thee to confession full oft, monk man, for thy further instruction!"

He let his gaze wander up to the window, to the chimney- to her, as she sat curled with the warm firelight on the curve of her back. He smiled slowly. "As G.o.d and my liege lady command me."

Chapter Eighteen.

The first thing Melanthe knew was the roar of a voice and the chime of rings sliding as the bedcurtains swept open and gray light poured over her.

"Baseborn wh.o.r.e! "

A monstrous black outline flashed, and something came hurtling at her. Through the blankets a blow smashed into her neck and shoulder.

The black flashed again. She heard a shout, the thing came at her, and suddenly another weight bore down atop her, between her and the a.s.sault. A sound like an ax on wood cracked through her head. The weight on her jerked, and jerked again under another hit. Through a daze she realized that it was Ruck above her, his body pressing her down as someone beat him, raining blows on his naked back.

"She is dead!" the voice bellowed. "Get off the strumpet, ye idle wh.o.r.eson! I haf slayed her!"

With each blow Ruck's body jarred, and his breath made a low sharp grind. But he held, shielding her, his arm locked over her face while the shocks. .h.i.t him and the bed, wild strikes sometimes high on his shoulders and sometimes low, sending quakes of violence through to her legs.

"High morn is it!" their attacker howled. "Rise, boy, or look ye to losen your hide! Thy commoner is killed; base wh.o.r.e thou took to wive, and I'll slay her b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to clean the nest! She was unworthy of you! Adaw, the swords await." His weapon cracked down again. "Up! Will ye j.a.pe a b.l.o.o.d.y corpse? Get up!"

The hits had lost a little of their energy. Ruck lifted himself. He raised his arm; she saw a grizzled man beside the bed-the descending wooden sword whacked into the palm of Ruck's hand. He held the weapon off and jerked it from their a.s.sailant's double grip.

Ruck rolled away from her. He cast back the bedcurtains and rose, hurling the wooden sword. It struck the open door and woke a thunder of echoes in the spiraled stair beyond.

"Cease off!" Stride-legged and naked, his back reddened by beating, Ruck glared at the savage old man. "Keep ye, that ye trespa.s.s no further!"

The man didn't even glance at Ruck. "Stinking b.i.t.c.h-clout, does thou breathe still?" He came for Melanthe, gray and powerful, his beard an untamed mat. "Hey and ware, I'll soon strangle thee!"

Ruck sprang to prevent him, ramming him back, holding him with an arm across his chest. "Nay, sir, 'tis folly! Heed to me!"

"Heed ye!" The man fought, big and strong enough in spite of his years to force Ruck to arm's length, but none of his struggle could break him free. "Heed ye, ye pillock, whilst ye degrade your mother, G.o.d a.s.soil her! Whilst corrupt your father's line with common blood!" He spat toward Melanthe.

"Enow! Cease off this blundering!" Ruck caught him by the shoulders. With a grunt of effort he forced the old man to his knees. "Abase you!"

The man made wild efforts to rise, but Ruck held him down. "I have no children," Ruck said fiercely. "Ye knows this. I haf said you many times. Now listen to me. Isabelle is dead years agone. My lady's grace is the Princess Melanthe, of Monteverde and Bowland. And my wife. I would you wist it clearly, and repeat my words, that I trow I may release you."

The old man ceased his combat. Melanthe clutched the sheet and her hand over her bruised shoulder. He turned pale, lifting his face to her. "Bowland?" he said, his voice suddenly atremble. "Lo, the daughter of Sir Richard?"

Ruck let him go. The old man's body shook. As he bowed down his head to his knees and began to weep, Ruck looked quickly toward Melanthe. "My lady-are ye hurt?"

Her arm throbbed, but the quilts had m.u.f.fled the impact of the sword. She was more stunned than in pain. Wordlessly she shook her head. He turned, kneeling to embrace their groaning attacker, holding him tight, as if he were a child.

"Who is this?" Melanthe exclaimed.

"Sir Harold." He did not say more, but gently urged the other man up. "Come, ye mote depart anon, sir."

Sir Harold pulled himself away. "Sir Richard? You have wed Sir Richard, boy?"

Ruck touched his shoulder and indicated Melanthe. "His daughter," he murmured. "The countess."

The grizzled knight twisted and pulled at his hair, possessed with frantic mumbling. He seemed to lose his strength, falling with his forehead to the floor, begging mercy, muttering in confusion of her father and Bowland and killing. Melanthe watched Ruck try to coax him away with no success.

"Come forward, Sir Harold," she said curtly. "Now speak plain words as a good trusty knight, or take thyself off."

The sharp command seemed to reach his scattered wits. He stopped his moving and mumbling, and crept to the bedside, his scarred hands knotted together. He raised his face to her. "My n.o.ble lady's grace," he said, "I haf a demon!"

"Yea, that is clear to me, Sir Harold."

"My lady," he said hopelessly, "me thinks I mote slay myseluen, to kill it."

"Nay, thou wilt not. Nill I nor Lord Ruadrik give thee leave. 'Tis against G.o.d, Sir Harold. And would deprive my lord of his rights to aid and counsel of thee." She softened her voice. "When the demon tries to seize thee, thou moste remember to ask G.o.d for counsel and solace, for He comes to the aid of those who wish to do good and act faithfully."

The old man gazed at her, dawning adoration in his face.

"Blessed be you, my lady. Oh, my lady, ye be the wisest and worthiest of the world's kind."

"This is not my wisdom, but my honored father's, G.o.d give his soul peace. I only mind thee of thy duty."

Sir Harold still wept, but he gave a little sigh. "'Gentle lady, truly the Lord G.o.d blessed this house on the day your lady's grace wed my lord. It was the unworthy b.i.t.c.h-mare I designed to slay, to keepen clean my lord's n.o.ble blood."

"G.o.d has saved thee from that mortal sin," Melanthe said. "Take thy near escape to heart."

He bowed his head. "My lady."

"Lord Ruadrik will adjudge thy punishment for striking me, but if it be heavier than a day in the tumbrel, then I will try to intercede for thee."

"Gr'mercy, my lady," he said humbly. "I beg my lady's favor."

"Thou hast my favor. Leave me now." She held out her hand from beneath the sheet to be kissed. He reached for her so quickly that for a moment she regretted the move, but he took her fingers gently, only the rough pads of his palms touching her as he made a courteous gesture of bending over her hand.

"G.o.d preserve your lady's grace." He rose, falling back from the bedside with his shoulders squared and his head lifted. Ruck had stood all the time beside him, as if ready to drag him out at any moment. Sir Harold gave him a deep bow, p.r.o.nounced himself at his lord's mercy whenever he should be pleased to devise a just punishment, and strode from the room.

Immediately Ruck closed the door and barred it. Without speaking, he took up his shirt, pulling it over his head, covering the fiery marks on his skin. For the first time Melanthe became aware of rain that pelted against the window glazing and the cold dimness of the room.

"Depardeu!" She sank back into the pillows. "What next in this place?"

"Ye ne are nought hurt, my lady?"

His cool tone warned her away from j.a.ping. Her shoulder throbbed painfully, but she held the silken quilt up close, watching him. "I live."

"He is formaddened, my lady," Ruck said. "Ne can he help himseluen when the fits are on him."

"Who is he?"

"My master in arms. In his prime he tooken a blow to his head that lay bare the brain, and since then has he no command of his rage. But he is a great knight, my lady, and taught me the best that I know of fighting."

"The secret of thy prowess. Thou dost fight like a madman because a madman instructed thee."

He shrugged. "Peraventure, it may be." He bent over a chest and took breeches from it, dressing himself without service. "Sir Harold esteems him gentle blood and bobbaunce above all things. Isabelle he despised, though ne'er did I bring her here. Only to hear her name arages him. He would haf had me taken a princess to wife."

With a little twist of his mouth and a glance at Melanthe, he acknowledged what he'd said, as if he'd just heeded his own words.

"Then I shall crush him with my magnificence, so as to gladden him," she said.

He took clothes from the chest and shut the lid. "Ye delighted him greatly, my lady, with your n.o.ble talking."

"It is a talent of mine, n.o.ble talking."

"Witterly," he agreed. "Enow to make a man's head spin."

"That is the purpose of n.o.ble talking. It has saved many a prince from certain death."

He rested one foot on the ornamented and embellished settle, lacing his hose. The gear was of gray silk, a fitted tunic embroidered in black and set with jet stones, trimmed in sable fur. She was pleased to see that amid his many-hued retainers, he alone went uncolored. It set him apart as no fantastical finery could, and did his comeliness no hurt at all, but underscored it.

"Will ye rise, lady?" he asked when he was done. "Or sleep away all your lifetime?"

She slipped down and pulled the sheet over her head. From beyond the white warmth she heard him move. The door bar made a grating slide.

She sat up. "Wait."

He stood at the door, his hand upon it. Melanthe held the blankets up to her.

"Ne do I wish thee to go," she said abruptly.

He made a slight bow and waited at the door, as if for an order.

"Ne do I wish thee to go," she repeated.

"My lady, they expect me in hall. Long haf I been absent, and many matters will await." He scowled down at the hasp. "Though it seem a strange place to you, I am master of it."

She understood a lord's duty as well as she understood how to breathe. But some imp inside her-it did not even seem to be herself-made her plump her body on the mattress like a spoiled child. She turned over with her back to him.

"When you rise, my lady," he said, "I will be below."

She heard the creak of the door and rolled over, flinging a pillow at him. It hit his shoulder. As he turned, she hurled another that struck him full in the chest.

She dropped down into the bed and yanked the coverings over her, curling facedown, her hands gripped together under her chin. She heard the door close. The sound of the boards beneath the carpets traced his coming to the bed. Then she was miserable and angry, not even knowing what to say, beyond a bare demand for his company and his indecent embraces. Too low to sink, to ask for what she had always denied; and too terrible if she should be refused, chosen over, and he went to his minstrels that he loved.

It was not witful to feel so. She herself would have gone to her duties first. She said into the mattress, "Thou art discourteous. Thou hast not even bade me good morn ere thou depart."

"Good morn, then."

"Good morn. And I hope thou dost break into boils and die."

She felt his hand on her back, then both hands sweeping aside the sheet and kneading her bare shoulders. He buried his face in the nape of her neck, his weight bearing down the mattress. With a whimper of relief, she turned up to him, ignoring the pain where he pressed her bruised shoulder, eager for his kisses.

"Ne do I hope for it," she said against his skin, against his cheek rough with new beard. "Ne do I. I would perish without thee."

"Melanthe." His fingers gripped her. "My sovereign lady," he whispered, and gave her freely what she wanted, without the asking, company and unchaste embraces and his body deep in hers, until she perished another way, blind with delight.

Ruck felt her sleep-always sleeping, this wife of his-this drowsy miracle, slumbering in his arms as if she were in some enchantment. He pressed his cheek to her loosened hair. The melancholy fathomed him, grief and fate encompa.s.sing him while he held on to her.

He waited for it to pa.s.s. He listened to the rain and thought of her, how she masked and dazed him. In her easy arrogance she did not confound him; nay, not her commands or n.o.ble talking. She was meant to be so, born to be so-it was only what was right.

But she threw pillows at him. And sand. A woman full grown, as old as he, a princess in one look and a looby the next. He had known court ladies to play the child, to pose and flutter and speak in small voices for to draw the men, but she was so unreken and left-handed at it, and so abrupt. He would have thought her more smooth and artful in dalliance. In good faith, he was more comely with love-sporting himself when he tried.

Sometimes it was as if there were another soul inside her. Or by chance it was all false leading, to mock him. He had allowed her in. carried her through the woven wood: she knew Wolfscar now. She would go out, speak of it to the world, j.a.pe at him and rob him of what was his. There was only Sir Harold left alive to say that he knew Ruck without nay or doubt. One mad old man to bring in favor of Ruck's claim, against the richest abbey in the northwest. And all hope of Lancaster's esteem and support with the king lost.

Yet she was so soft and slight in his embrace, her arms about him, as if he were her sole defense against any peril. He had shown her through the frithwood, but she had not slipped so quietly through the thickets that he had raised about his heart. She burned them down to find him, and then left him smoking ashes.

It was too late. She was here. He was at her mercy, as he had been from the moment he had beheld her.

"You have no choice, if you hold any hope for this sister of yours," Allegreto said, low and harsh. He leaned across the table. "You're a bungler, Cara. You're hopeless. You haven't got the nerve to work alone."

In the miserable little alehouse, the light through a barred window fell on his face, making a mask of him, an ancient pagan statue in the shadow of some ruin. Smoke from the open fire in the floor permeated every crevice and flavored her ale. She drank a sip, forcing herself to swallow the sour brew without looking down. It was cloudy and cold, like everything in this G.o.dforsaken northern land. Outside it snowed, when it was not raining. She put down the vessel and stuffed her hand back in the m.u.f.f he had bought for her.

A sennight she had been with him. Once, she had tried to steal her silver as he slept-a futile chance, and almost fatal. She had cut the length of his stiletto on the side of her neck, where he had nearly impaled her throat as he overturned upon her.

"How can I go in there?" she whispered desperately. "She said she would have me killed!"

"If she had wanted you killed, you would be dead." He leaned back, draining his ale. "She would have told me to see to it."

"So she said, that she would loose you upon me-only she would not say when, but she would not make me suffer to wait long!"

He laughed. "Naturally. And what did you do, goose? Bolted, just as she designed."

Cara glared at him. "As did you, Navona."

He nodded, his grin becoming a sneer. "Yea. I did. And I will pay for it in full, do I not remedy the matter."

His eyes slid away. He stared into the dark corner. Twice, when they had slept in barns and cow-byres on the journey, she had heard a faint sound in the night. He wept, she thought, but she was not certain. Perhaps he only dreamed.