Henry smiled. "Only let me carry it. A prince's falcon. When will I have such a chance?"
Sir Ruck stared for a moment at him, and then looked at Melanthe. "Let him carry it, then."
She drew in her breath, standing still.
"Give me the leash, wench, and mount," Ruck snapped. "Do as I say!"
She let the folded leash drop from her lower fingers, gathering it untidily in her fist.
"Bring me my glove!" Henry ordered. "All haste!" A servant ran. "Strike the hood. Let me see her."
Melanthe glanced at Ruck, feeling her heartbeat rise. "I know not how."
"Nay, I've had nonsense enow of thee," he said as he moved close. He drew the braces open himself, took the plumes between his fingers and lifted the hood. He reached to slip the wool from Gryngolet's shoulders, but now that the gyrfalcon could see, her patience reached its limit. She screamed, lifting her wings. Without thinking, Melanthe let the mantle drop, fearing she would bate and tangle in it, breaking feathers.
Gryngolet's white plumage glowed, marked only by the dark, shining fury in her eyes as she rowed the air, shrieking her displeasure with this place and her treatment.
In the astounded silence her shrilling was the only sound. Even the loose dogs stopped and looked up. Sir Ruck was the single human who moved, closing his hands about Gryngolet's body the moment that she folded her wings.
"Mount!" he said through his teeth as the gyrfalcon shrieked again. He lifted her from Melanthe's fist.
He was looking at Melanthe as vehemently as the trapped falcon stared at her tormentors. A boy ran up with Lord Henry's glove and bag. Melanthe held to Gryngolet's tangled leash, and let go. She gave Ruck a beseeching look, not to lose her dearest treasure.
But he only glared at her and jerked his head toward the destrier.
"A white gyr," Henry breathed reverently, pulling on his gauntlet. "Pure white, by all that's holy!" He took the jesses and wadded leash as Sir Ruck set the falcon upon his hand. "Ah...depardeu, she is glorious."
"I haf heard the penalty for theft of such," Sir Ruck said. "An ounce of flesh cut from the thief's breast and fed to the bird." He put his hands at Melanthe's waist and lifted her up onto the pillion.
"Nay, do you think I mean to stealen her?" Henry asked with a false and sweet indignation. He reached to untangle the leash, but Gryngolet bit wildly at him, almost bating off his fist. He jerked his hand away with a curse.
Sir Ruck was still looking up, scowling intently. Melanthe shifted her leg across the horse and sat astride.
"I think you too wise a man, my lord," he said, mounting up before her and glancing down at Henry. "Now ye hatz carried her, we will take her back to her true owner."
The lord of Torbec was still trying to straighten the leash. Unable to risk his free hand near the bird, he opened his lower fingers to let the tether fall free of its tangle. Melanthe saw him do it; she saw Gryngolet bate again, thrusting off, her powerful wings scooping air—and the falcon bounded free, tearing the twisted leash from his loose fingers and carrying it away.
Henry clutched at thin air, as if he could grab her, but she was gone, pumping up over the stables and the wall. "A lure!" he shouted. "Oh, Christ—here—bring her in!"
A chorus of whistles and frantic shouts followed Gryngolet. Sir Ruck reached back and grabbed Melanthe's arm, gripping so tightly that a whimper of pain escaped her instead of the cry to call the falcon home that sprang to her throat.
"Please!" she hissed. Gryngolet had swung back, circling and playing in lazy drifts over the yard, still gripping the tangle of leash, unaccustomed to being flown from inside manor walls where dogs and people were milling in confusion.
"Get back, give me room!" Henry held up a leather lure, with a hastily attached garnish of meat from the mews. He shouted and whistled, whirling the temptation overhead as the company scattered.
The falcon dropped playfully toward the toll and rolled out of her stoop halfway, dancing upward over the hall roof. She circled the yard, ringing up to a higher pitch before she stooped again. Henry threw down the lure as she came.
Ruck still held Melanthe in a death grip. Gryngolet dived on the downed lure and made a cut at it, leash and all, then passed right on over the gatehouse. She soared, silent without her bells. She was in one of her mirthful moods, twisting and pumping lazily, looking back at them as if in jest.
Henry whistled frantically, swinging the toll again. Melanthe's heart was in her mouth. She feared the garnish was of pork, a meat that Gryngolet loathed. With no bells to locate the falcon, the dangling leash was a death warrant for her if she escaped now—she would catch it in a tree and hang head downward until she died.
Gryngolet turned back. She almost came to light on the gatehouse, then changed her mind, nearly catching a loop of the leash on an empty banner pole. Curious of the whistling, the gyrfalcon sailed over them, looking for the other hunting birds that she would expect to see among the company—for Melanthe's usual call was no whistle, but her own voice.
The lure spun. Gryngolet trifled about it. She swung in dilatory circles just over their heads. After a few rings she began to ignore the lure and tighten her compass, centering on Melanthe.
Everyone in the yard stared in silence as the falcon swung about her, disdaining the meat, passing Melanthe's head so close she could feel the windy whisper. Sir Ruck kept her hand forced down.
"Princess!" It was the chestnut-haired gallant shouting. "Shut the gate! Look at it—Christ's rood, she's a princess!" He began to run for the passage. "That bird belongs to her!"
Ruck released her hand. Instantly Melanthe lifted it, calling Gryngolet urgently to her fist as he spurred the horse. There were men already running toward the gatehouse, Henry yelling frenzied commands, a sudden tumult, shouts of "Princess!" and "To ransom!"
Gryngolet came, landing just as the destrier lunged into motion. Melanthe grappled for the tangled leash; in the sudden thrust forward the gyrfalcon near fell backward, beating her wings, but her talons gripped and Melanthe swung her arm back to absorb the force.
A pair of men almost reached the gate too soon, but a blond youth in skin-toned hose collided with them, such a bumble that it was as if he'd intended it, sending them all sprawling to the ground only a foot from the horse's massive hooves. Hawk swept past them.
His hooves hit the bridge like the sound of boulders rolling, a pounding rumble and then the wind as he lengthened his stride to a gallop beyond the walls.
* * *
Sir Ruck guided the stallion out from among the trees into an abandoned charcoal burners' clearing. They had made haste some distance down the road from the manor of Torbec and finally slowed to a walk, allowing Melanthe a few moments to untangle the leash and jesses she'd been gripping and arrange herself and Gryngolet to more secure positions. When he'd turned the horse off the road, circling back through the forest, Melanthe had realized for the first time that they had been fleeing in the same direction they had first come to Torbec.
They had traveled without speaking. Melanthe did not know whether they passed near again to Torbec; the woods were thick and crossed by many paths. He had reined the horse sometimes left and sometimes right, halting now and then to shade his eyes and look up through the bare branches at the winter sun. His mantle was missing, dropped in the yard in the wrangling over Gryngolet, and the light gleamed on his shoulder harness, showing scratches and the arcs of cleaning scours in the green-tinged plate.
In the deserted clearing they dismounted. Gryngolet was flustered and hungry, and Melanthe felt likewise. Sir Ruck reached for the bag of foodstuffs. "Sit you, my lady, if you will, and take refreshment."
He nodded toward a thronelike seat that had been cut out of a tree stump. Melanthe perched Gryngolet there on the tall back of it, tying the leash to a heavy shoot that had sprouted from the old roots. He brought the bag and handed her a piece of rolled fustian.
"I did steal something of Henry after all," he said. "Two cockerels fresh fr
om a hen's nest, for the bird."
Melanthe accepted the packet, drawing a deep breath. "Almost were we without need of food for her."
He shrugged. "With a choice betwixt the two of you to bringen out of there—" He hesitated. "In faith, I reckon that a wife warms me more pleasantly than a falcon, my lady."
Immediately he turned away, as if he shied from his brash speaking. He squatted down and held the food bag open, scowling into it.
Melanthe felt the touch of shyness, too. She laid one of the cockerels across her glove and offered it to Gryngolet, then sat down on the edge of the tree stump, taking refuge in a pragmatic tone. "We could have ransomed her back, if that little mar-hawk of a lord could have retained her long enough." She made herself look at him, though his head was still bent over the food. "Sir Ruadrik, I have been in consideration of our nuptial contract."
His hand arrested in his laying out of bread and cheese. Then he went on with the task, saying nothing. He rose and bent knee before her, offering food on a white cloth. Melanthe took it on her lap.
"There are many matters to be studied," she said. "My dower and thy courtesy, and—how best to reconcile the king that we have married without his license."
"My lady wife." He stood up. "I ne haf thought on naught else all this morn. If ye wish it—" He stared past her at the ground, his face grim and empty of emotion. "There was no witness on earth to our vows. Nill I nought hold you fast to your words, do you think on them today, that they were said in haste or to your harm. It is a poor cheap for thee, such a marriage. All the advantage be mine, though I seek it nought. I ask nothing of thy wealth; I will have none of it, and yet still I know that the king may in his anger strippen thee of what is rightfully thine. Therefore, I will release thee from any duty or avowel to me, if thou wish it so." He raised his eyes to meet hers, his jaw firm-set. "As for myseluen—if be so much as high treason that I haf married thee, then I will die for it, but ne'er will I forswear it."
"How then could I do less for thee?" she asked softly.
He turned away to the horse, removing its bit so it could graze. With his back to her he said, "God save us both."
"Amen," she said. "Have a little faith in my wits, too. I have me more than the king."
He remained gazing at the horse and then looked over his shoulder with a slight smile. "My lady, look what you come to—" He shook his head, opening his arms to take in the clearing. "A stump for a chair and me for a husband. There be peahens with greater wits than yours."
"A poor comment on the king," she said.
He turned, with a serious look. "When I haf my lady safe, I will go and supplicate of him at any price, that thou moste nought be disseized of thy possessions and title on account of me."
"Nay, leave the king to me." She frowned thoughtfully at the black mound of a decaying charcoal kiln. "I think His Majesty may be appeased, if the thing is laid before him deftly. And even should he not, or someone else make trouble—well, I have searched on the matter in my heart." She took a deep breath. "I have said that my estates are of no great concern to me. I will sweepen the hearth myself if I mote."
He laughed aloud, a sound that rang in the little clearing—the first time Melanthe had ever heard his uncontained amusement.
She turned in indignation. "Thinkest thee I would not?"
He was grinning at her. "I think me thou wouldst maffle the business right royally, madam,"
"Pah." She flicked her fingers and ate a bit of cheese. "How difficult can it be?"
He came to her and took her face between his bare hands. "Ye ne were born to sweepen a hearth. I'm nought so poor that my wife mote be a chare woman, but n'would I haf thy property reduced one shilling by cause of me."
"Think again on it. The favor of kings be not meanly bought. For such a crime as this, gifts and presents moten be spent to appease him." She lifted her brows. "Lest thou wouldst rather forswear this marriage thyself, so that I may keep all."
His gaze traced her face. "I have said that I will nought, for my life."
Melanthe dropped her gaze. "Speak not of such cost; I dislike it." She reached up and pulled him down toward her. "Enough of heavy words. Sit by me, beau knight, and let me feed thee milk and honey with my own fingers."
He sank down cross-legged beside the stump, leaning his shoulder on it. "Hard cheese and havercake, it looks to me."
"Ah, but I have said a great spell and turned it to honeycomb." She passed him down a lump of cheese and broken bread.
With his thumb he splintered a bite from the dry edge of the cheese and ate it. "Nay, hard and sour as e'er." He turned, stretching out a leg, his back against the tree. "This is poor witchcraft, wench." He laid his head against her hip. "I've seen better at the market fair."
"Dost thou know why I love thee?" she asked.
"In faith, I cannought believe that you do, far the less why."
She curled her forefinger in his hair and tugged. "By hap one day I shall tell thee."
He was silent. She felt him turn his head, and looked down. He was gazing toward the edge of the clearing.
"I hear a hound," he said.
He rolled to his knees and held still, listening. Melanthe heard it then, too, a far-off bell.
"That lymer." He threw himself to his feet. "Christus."
* * *
They did not stop for dusk or night, only a short rest and feeding for the horse, with oaten bread and the tough cheese for themselves, and water from a stream where they rode down the middle until it was too dark to be safe. At first Melanthe had not believed that experienced hunting hounds could be coaxed to track them—they were not deer, or even coney, but she remembered the lymer and the gallant's game with a lady's scarf—that chestnut-haired carpet knight it had been, the one she'd cut, and Melanthe could well believe he would be glad to turn his sport with the hound to account against her.
Sir Ruck's mantle, dropped in the yard, must have the scent of herself and him and the horse all thick upon it. The whole pack would follow the lymer's lead. And even had she not believed it, the persistent music of the hounds, distant, sometimes lost, but coming always from the trail behind, would have convinced her.
Ruck had hours since turned Hawk west to the sunset, away from the course to her castle, away from Torbec and the hounds. The coast would lie before them, she knew not how far, but she did not question him. Indeed, by nightfall she was too weary of holding to him and supporting Gryngolet and listening for the hounds to think beyond fear and aching muscle. It was a thing of peculiar horror, to be hunted so. She clutched tight when they came to a stretch of road and galloped, and then strained her ears to hear over the heavy breath of the horse when he let Hawk drop to a walk and turn into the woods again. She feared coming to the sea, being trapped between water and hounds. She feared that the destrier was slowed, that its strength could not hold against its double burden. Ruck halted for another rest and without a word untied the baggage behind her pillion.
They abandoned it, food and all. They mounted again with only Gryngolet and what they wore—his armor and her gown and cloak, and the hawking bag strapped over Melanthe's shoulder. The big horse went on into the darkening night with its flanks moist and smelling of sweat.
She lost all track of time, jerking awake and dozing, so that it all became a ghastly dream, in which the voices of the hounds got confused with the wind, and she thought she heard them howling so close that she gave a start and a low cry—and felt herself in a black roaring confusion, until her mazed mind recognized that they had come out of the trees onto a shore swept by a dry tempest, the waves like a great slow heartbeat, showing long pale lines in the blackness.
She held Gryngolet in her lap, hiding her face behind his shoulders to escape the stinging wind. She could no longer hear the hounds; she could hear nothing but the gale and the sea. The horse rocked beneath her, a steady surge, and she fell asleep again—drifting, sleeping, riding into an endless baying nightmare.
* * *
He had found it. The steady creak and groan of a shuttered window made Hawk prick his ears. The night was moonless, but the sand and clouds reflected back on one another, showing the vague outlines of pale things and black massive shadows,
He dismounted, and the princess wrenched upright, mumbling, "I hear them."
"Nay, we've left the hounds behind," he said, though he knew that he might be wrong. He believed that the sand and wind would scour their scent, but he wasn't certain. "Hold here." He pushed the reins into her free hand.
She took them. Ruck hoped that at least she would not fall off if she went to sleep again. Hawk stood with his head down, his tail sweeping up against his haunches, as if he did not care to take another step. Ruck left them there and slogged through the sand toward the salterns, taking care to squint ahead and avoid the pools and trenches of the saltworks as he made his way to the single hut.
FIFTEEN
Things seemed to Melanthe to happen in disconnected scenes, the hounds and the wind and the shore in the freezing darkness, and then a strange figure, shagged and silent, barely seen, a woodwose, a wildman of the desert, mad rocking and water and a sturdy boat—and colder, colder, wet spray that made her huddle into her cloak—she did not have Gryngolet, but somehow she remembered that all was right; Ruck said so, when she asked—then the first light of dawn, the world a sickening sway of wind and wave.
Sea loathing and lassitude and cold kept her immobile, hunched in the tiny cover for the endless voyage, while the woodwose shouted incomprehensible orders at Ruck and they worked together against the wind and spray, sailing and hauling upon the ropes, manning oars to point the vessel over waves that seemed too tall for it, carrying her she knew not where, nor hardly cared. Hawk stood with his head encased in armor, his legs braced and his nose lowered to the deck.