"A beard will suit you ill," she said caustically.
He gave her an odd look. He touched his jaw, drawing his fingers down it as if he already felt the coarsening.
"Navona peacock! Of course you wouldn't wish to cover up your beauty!"
His dark eyes searched hers for a moment. Then he smiled, sweetness tinged with some strange melancholy of his own. "No," he said slowly, "perhaps I would not. Come, feeble Monteverde, I see you've made your feet. Walk with me, and if I please, I may discover you something to eat." He grinned, a flash in the shadow. "Even if I have to kill another outlaw for you, and his lady, too, for to take it."
* * *
Ruck had brought only delicacies for food, oranges and nuts and spiced sugar, having presumed that there would be refuge and keep at the priory. He had intended the luxuries as gifts for the house—instead they were all that was to be had for supper. The twilight was coming on too deep to hunt, and his stomach was hollow with complaint.
He was unrelentingly formal in his manners with the princess, trying to regain the proper distance between them, but she seemed to have taken a capricious dislike to ceremony. In the sunset that lit the river gold and turned the coppice along the shoreline to black lace, she would not sit as a gentle lady and be served. After seeing her falcon established upon a bow perch made of a green alder branch, its ends thrust into the ground, she persisted in collecting deadwood for the fire and winter grass for the horse.
"My lady soils her gloves," he said in disapproval as she dumped handfuls of greenery at Hawk's nose. "I bid Your Highness sit down, if it please you."
The destrier lipped up her offering eagerly and lifted his head, pushing at her shoulder. She stumbled a step under the hard nudge and dusted the clinging stems from her gloves. "The horse must eat."
"He's fettered. A little distance he can wander, to find the same fodder you bring him, lady, and more."
Hawk had already dropped his head and begun nosing and cropping at the tender winter shoots around a sandy hummock. She looked at the horse and said, "Oh," as if such a novel notion had never occurred to her.
"Your Highness must eat, also," he said. "If you would be pleased to sit down, so I may attend you."
He opened his hand toward where he'd made a seat from his saddle and some furs and carefully positioned it upwind of the smoking fire. It was the third time he had made the suggestion, but he managed, with some effort, to keep his voice mild.
She smiled, with the golden light on her face. "I don't wish for your attendance, worthy knight, but for pleasure I'll beg you to bear me company at table."
He bowed stiffly. "It's beneath your honor, to sup with your servant. Do sit you down, if it please."
"I will sit me down if you will," she said.
He held fast to form. "I think it not seemly, my lady."
Her lips tightened stubbornly. She stooped and began tugging at grass, gathering more into her hands. Sand clung to the damp hem of her cloak and skirt. Green stained her white gloves. She carried the fodder to Hawk, and then picked up a stick from the kindle pile. She tossed that on the fire and chose another, struggling to break a branch that was too thick for her to snap.
"Verily—I will sit!" Ruck crossed his legs and dropped down onto the ground. This newest vagary of hers, this acting as if she were no greater than he, vexed and baffled him. Instead of feminine tears and terror, peril seemed to make her foolish in her mind.
When she dropped the stick and sat beside him, he regretted his capitulation, for she ignored the saddle and took up a place much too close, so close that her folded knee almost touched his. Her cloak did, a bedraggled ermine corner lying in a casual sweep over his armored leg.
"My lady, I made a fitter seat for you," he protested.
"The sand is soft enough." She picked up the knife. "Come, we'll counsel together. I pray you, what best for us to do?"
"Hunt dragons, of course," he muttered. "Why shouldn't we, if Your Highness will gather fodder and sit upon the ground like a bondman's wife?"
She held out to him a segment of orange. "Yes, we'll hunt firedrakes—why not?"
"Because I'm not doted in my head, even if you are." He bit into the orange unthinking, and then realized that she was not yet served. He lowered it hastily, appalled at himself and aggrieved at her for luring him into it by taking no notice of his misdemeanor at all. She peeled the rind and offered the whole fruit to him as if she fully expected him to eat before her.
He refused to do it, but sat sternly with the food in his hands, waiting.
"Tell me, are you at my service, knight?" she asked.
"By right I am yours, lady," he said swiftly, "in high and in low."
She smiled. "This is low."
"What is your will?"
"That you'll eat till you're full and leave me the rest, because I don't wish you to wax faint from hunger in this wild place. I don't doubt you'd swoon just as a dragon fell upon us, which would be inconvenient, as I'm no master of a sword."
He turned the orange in his hand. "I grant my lady that she's no swordsman"—he laid it back upon the cloth—"but I deem it no more convenient that my lady be brought low of a fainting-fit herself, and I have to carry her."
"For one vowed at my bidding"—she snatched up the fruit—"you're as obstinate as a wooden ox!"
Her white teeth sank into the orange. She ate it all. While he watched, she finished the second orange and peeled the third, ate one segment of it and threw the rest over her shoulder, where it plopped into the muddy shallows of the river. Then she nibbled at the almonds until she had consumed them. She tasted the sugar, made a face, and ground the remainder into the sand.
Ruck looked down at the bare cloth. She had eaten or destroyed everything.
"If you would have a pampered princess, then you'll have one, knight. I am mistress of that craft."
Ruck said nothing. He stared grimly into the darkening woods that lined the shore.
"If you'd have a companion of sensible wits," she said, "then save this overweening indulgence for the court. It's yours to choose."
He looked over his shoulder into the twilight shadows where she'd thrown the last orange. "My lady, I say you true, I haven't seen any such thing as common wit in you yet."
She drew in her breath at that. He expected temper, but instead the silence expanded between them. Darkness had fallen enough that he could see only the shape of her face, not the contours.
Her soft laugh surprised him. "Yes, so I imagine," she murmured. "Poor knight—you must be sorely dismayed to have ward of me in this desert."
He could think of no answer that would combine truth and courtesy but to say, "I'm sworn to you, my lady."
"I can't conceive how that came to be, but truly—I think it better fortune than I deserve." She made a faint sound of rue. "And how do I favor you, but to make you go hungry in my temper? I'm sorry."
Ruck scowled. He picked up the stick she had dropped and cracked it in two. "It's nothing, lady."
"Tomorrow, Gryngolet takes a duck. It is yours."
"Less does my belly concern me than your safety." He held the sticks between his fists, frowning down at them. "We're far out of the way to my lady's lands, or any dwelling that I know from my faring in this country. In faith, it's near forsaken since the Great Death, without souls enough to keep the weeds back." He hesitated, and then broke the wood again over his knee and tossed the staves on the fire. "Of fortified places, there's none but Liverpool, if any souls are left alive there. To say true, Your Highness, I fear pestilence more than any wilderness."
"Allegreto told me that you're exempt from it."
"I am." He looked up at her. "Can my lady say the same?"
Full dark had fallen. The firelight played on the curve of her face, shadowing her lashes. "But you will keep me," she said softly. "I place my whole trust in you."
"Best to put your faith in God's design, my lady," he replied in a rough tone.
She smiled, her
skin kindled rose by the fire, her hair black shade. "Monkish man, what are you if not part of God's design?"
He felt anything but monkish, sitting beside her, all semblance of respectable reserve between them in ruins. It seemed to him that God's design must be to make him live a lifetime of temptation, the half of it condensed into this moment, when it would be no more than a movement of his hand to touch her.
"Perhaps I might be part of God's scheme, too," she mused, "though I've not much odor of sanctity, I know."
He turned his face away from the firelight, unable to disagree with that even for courtesy.
"Well, I've endowed an abbey, so let it be a secret between us," she said, as if he had assented aloud. "The nuns have made an eloquent record of my faith and good works. We wouldn't wish to cast doubt on such a pleasant document."
He tried to think of his empty belly, which was her perverse doing, and failing that, of the danger that she was to his soul. He tried to hope that she would move away from him, and instead could not stop gazing at her, at any part of her that he could see while he turned his face away, even if it was only the ermine fringe of her cloak.
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'll 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.
"You must be wondrous sleepy yourself, knight," she mumbled. "It's my turn to stay waking."
"No," he said quietly. "I will keep you, 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.
"Thank you," 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 metal of his armor.
You will 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 are you 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. "Now I'll go a way off, my lady, and groom 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 you're dire in need of, Sir Ruck," Melanthe murmured into the furs, "is a neat, goodly housewife to love you." She smiled, sinking down in her warm coverings. "I'll arrange it for you."
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 dressing.
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 inhuman.
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 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. "You think 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 raised 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 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.