Cara washed her hair. Melanthe could feel the maid's unsteady fingers—she wanted to scream at the girl to summon her nerve, for one weak link was enough to kill them all. Instead she took the washcloth and wiped soap across her mouth, preferring the flavor of it to Gian's taste.
"I hear that you're repentant," she said coldly. "What proof can you give me of it?"
"Oh, my lady!" Cara whispered. She bent her head, her wet hands clenched together. "I'll do anything!"
Melanthe gazed at her. "Hardly reassuring. What of your sister?"
The girl shook her head. "My lady, what am I to do? I'd give my life for her if it would make her safe, but it would not. Allegreto has said—that he has tricked the Riata for a little time—I don't know how, but I was to account to them by Ficino, and within the day of when he came here, before he tried to seek me out, he...he must have caught a candle in his clothes, my lady, and...there was a fire. It was a terrible accident, my lady. All said so."
Melanthe hid the jolt of discovery about Ficino in a brief laugh. "You've found yourself a useful friend in Allegreto, it would seem."
The maid kept her eyes lowered. She did not answer.
"You'll go between us. He must stay near his father and away from me," Melanthe said. "He's told me I may trust you, which is why I do, and the only reason, since you give me none other. But remember that Gian is here, and at your least indiscretion I'll give you to him, and even Allegreto could not save you then."
"Yes, my lady. I could not forget it, my lady."
* * *
She received Gian in the chamber that had belonged to her father, with its paintings of jousts and melees all along the plastered walls, a newer wainscoting below them that she didn't remember and a line of diverse shields hung above. Again it seemed not so vast as it ought, the colors duller, the curtained bed smaller and the red and blue ceiling beams not so high as she recalled. But her father's chair still stood near the chimney, with a cushion in it that was shabby and almost worn through, an imperfect embroidery of the Bowland arms that Melanthe recognized at once.
Every year since her marriage she had made him a new cushion, and sent it. This one had been the first. Some others lay about the chamber, early efforts, when she had been so sick for home that she had spent hours at the task. In latter years she'd chosen elaborate designs and caused the best craftsmen in the city to execute them in expensive materials, but she saw none of those richer pillows in the room.
She was glad. The thin cushion worn through in her father's chair was better comfort and courage. She did not rise from it as Gian entered, but only indicated a lesser chair drawn up near.
He bowed to her. Melanthe went through the ritual of ordering spices and drink. While a servant waited at the door for any further charge, they exchanged greetings of exquisite courtesy. Gian sat down.
"My lady's father left his holding in good order, may God absolve him," he said in French. "I've seen nothing but signs of the most excellent management here since he passed to his reward."
Gian was a master. Word of that compliment would soon spread throughout the bailey.
Melanthe smiled. "I think you're a little surprised, sir. Perhaps you thought we lived as savages here in the north."
"My dear, none such as you could have sprung from savages, or from any but the most noble blood."
"I told you that my English estate was well worth my journey. This hold is but a fraction; I have numerous manors to the west and south, and five good castles, garrisoned all. I've made homage for them to the king, but there's much work yet to be done—I must meet my vassals and tour my holdings. I'll be truthful with you, my lord, and hope that you didn't come sallying north in the expectation that I would return immediately."
He was silent, looking at her in an unfathomable way. She tilted her head and put a question in her glance. She'd worn a high-necked gown and dressed her hair in a wimple of purple silk, so that the pulse in her throat would not show.
"I'd have thought you well occupied at home," she added, defying caution to make a swift attack.
He grinned, lifting his eyebrows. "And well you should, my lady. After such a kindness as you did me with your quitclaim."
He appeared quite at ease, even amused. But of course that could hide anything. She shrugged. "A mischief, I'll admit—but not too great, I hope. I regret I hadn't time to warn you, but I was pressed upon too closely, and then of course—this fearful adventure I've experienced—"
She left it there, without supplying details that might entangle her.
"We must thank God that you're safe," he said. "These other matters are trifling. The Duke of Lancaster has graced us with a company of men and lawyers in Monteverde, to press the claim you gave his father. My son tells me you've met the duke?"
There was the heart. His real concern, in a casual question tagged to the end of his words. Armies might move and lawyers argue over the paper claim she had given away, but the real threat she still carried in herself and her marriage. Lancaster was ambitious and powerful, with the throne of England behind him; if already he sent a force to assert her quitclaim, how much more aggressive might he be with the princess of Monteverde as his wife?
"Indeed yes," she said, "I stopped at Bordeaux until the new year. A gracious and hospitable man, truly. His brother the prince is sore ill, I fear, and so the duke takes all the burden of Aquitaine upon his own shoulders. I'm surprised he had the resource to pursue any business in Monteverde."
The refreshment arrived, saving her from saying more. When the drink was poured, Gian dismissed both servants with a flick of his hand. It was the first usurpation of authority he had taken—not having been so tactless as to lodge himself in the lord's chambers or issue orders to her attendants. Melanthe made no remark on it, but she did look deliberately at his hand and up at his face.
He smiled. "Forgive me. I'm an impudent fellow—but how shall I not be anxious to have you to myself?" The door hasp clanked shut like the bolt on a prison. For a long moment he sat with his wine cup in his hands, gazing at her. "My life has been a joyless desert without you."
"Come, Gian—we're alone. You needn't exert yourself to love-talk now."
He rubbed his thumb over the rim, looking down at it. "It's no exertion," he said softly.
She realized that he wished to play at love-amour. She thought of his perfumed kiss, and a terrible loathing of the course she must take came over her. He was no Ligurio, to leave her in peace in her bedchamber, but the man who had made sure by murder that she took no lovers. He had waited for her—without a legitimate heir, for his own enigmatic reasons, for a logic she had never plumbed, nor ever would.
"It would be exertion for me," she said. "I'm too weary now to trade compliments."
His eyes lifted. He smiled and drank. "Then I'll waste none upon you, without my fair share in return. Tell me of your dread adventure, if you cannot praise my manly beauty."
"No, I shouldn't like to disappoint you, if it's compliments you desire," she said. "Shall I say that your own son could not flatter that elegant garment better?"
He didn't move, but the pleasure seemed to flow through him, from a slight twitch of his spiked slipper to a deeper expansion of his chest when he inhaled. "Don't say it, my dear lady, if it would tire you too much."
"I am weary in truth, Gian." She nibbled idly at a cake. "I really don't wish to hold a long conversation."
He rose abruptly, walking to her father's little chapel where light from a narrow window of stained glass dyed the altar and rood. He was handsome enough, in his own way—older than Melanthe by near a score of years and yet lithe as a youth—an Allegreto with the sureness of age and power on him. Gluttonous indulgence was not his vice; he lived austere as a monk but for the fashions in clothing that he liked to set. For their interview he'd abandoned the staid floor-length robes in favor of the single color of Navona: white hose and a short white houppelande. It showed the lean legs of an ascetic—and his masculinity—very wel
l.
"Concede me just a little description of your ordeal, my love." He smiled. "Your escort comes from an abbey, they tell me. Have you been safe all along in a religious house, then, while our Allegreto tore his hair?"
"Why, yes—has he not recounted to you?"
"He seems to have become shy." Gian leaned against the carved arcade of the oratory. "Gone to earth somewhere, like your English foxes."
She didn't know whether to bless Allegreto for his forethought, or fear that Gian had indeed questioned him and now wished to compare their stories. "He has a great fear of your displeasure," she said, a description so patently inferior to the actuality that she found herself returning Gian's smile with a wry curl of her own mouth.
"Still, a son shouldn't hide from his father's just wrath. Or the world would become a wicked place indeed, don't you think?"
She gave him a surprised look. "Wrath? But what has he done?"
"Failed me, my dearest lady. Failed me entirely, when he allowed this calamity to befall you. And acted beyond himself in another small matter, not worth mentioning. If you should come across his burrow, you wouldn't be amiss to tell my little fox that delaying the chase only puts the hunter out of temper."
"If you mean that he failed in my protection—surely you didn't expect him to take on a pack of murdering bandits?"
"Ah, we come now to the bandits." He examined a painted and gilded angel's face carved at the base of the arch. "Was it a large body of outlaws?"
She shrugged. "I think it must have been. I was woken out of a sound sleep to flee."
"You're very easy about it, my lady! Weren't you dismayed?"
She made a sound of impatience. "Indeed no, I was so delighted that I stayed to offer them wine and cakes! Truly, I'm not eager to relive the experience only for your entertainment."
He bowed. "I must ask your pardon. But these outlaws should be brought to justice."
"That has been taken care of, you may believe."
He raised his brows. Melanthe looked back at him coolly, daring him to put her to an inquisition, or hint that she did not rule here in her own lands.
"Alas, I arrive too late to rescue you, and now I can't even take your revenge. A paltry fellow!" He drained his wine. "Hardly the equal of this mysterious green captain of yours, I fear."
She leaned back in her chair and gave him a dry smile. "Truly, not half as holy."
"Holy? I was told he's a knight of some strength and repute."
"Certainly he is. I retain only the best for my protection."
"But where is he now, this paragon?"
Melanthe turned her palms up. "I don't know. I believe a great hand comes down from heaven and lifts him up to sit among the clouds. Perhaps he prays and parleys with angels, which is as well, for his conversation is too pure to be borne on earth, I assure you."
"Even when he shares a bed with you, as I'm told?"
"A bed!" She stared, and then laughed. "Ah, yes—a bed. At that delightful manor house, you mean. But how came you to hear of that farce? Most notably holy when he shared a bed with me." She grimaced. "My ears rang with his prayers."
He observed her a moment and then chuckled. "My poor sweet, you've had a hard time of it, haven't you?"
"Worse than you know! I fell from the rump of his repellent horse and broke my collar-bone. Three months I've sojourned in the most contemptible little priory, among nuns! The prioress could barely speak French and did nothing but pray for me. She and my knight got along excellently."
He laughed aloud. "But I must meet him, this knight. And the prioress, too. Such intercessions might save me a little time in Purgatory."
"Gian, don't flatter yourself. Prayers are wasted on you, as they are on me. I told her so, but she was relentless. God is weary of hearing my name, I quite assure you."
He strolled back to her chair, standing near. "Surely, though, some gift or reward should be—"
She turned an angry eye on him. "Do not forget that I'm mistress here. I do not require your advice or assistance in it."
"Of course not, sweet. But I think—hearing of your trials and adventures—that I don't like you riding about the country on the rump of some nameless knight's horse. Or falling off of it. Or sharing a chamber with him, however holy he might be. You've had your way, and paid respects to Ligurio and your king, and seen to your estates." His hand skimmed her cheek. "I think, my dear love, that it is time and past for our betrothal."
She stared at the colored window in the oratory. "Yes, Gian." She kept her breathing slow and even. "It is time."
His finger pulled back the silken scarf, tracing her jaw and the telling pulse at her throat.
"If he touched you in desire, fair child," he murmured, "he is dead."
Melanthe rose, moving away from him. She locked her hands and stretched her arms out before her. "If the man ever felt desire, I warrant it would kill him. Now indulge me, Gian, I want to rest. My shoulder pains me." She smiled at him. "And do leave poor Allegreto alone if you love me, my lord. I want to dance with him at our wedding."
TWENTY-THREE
They hunted with ladies' hawks, summer birds, a blithe company passing through the meadows with laughter and elegant disport. Melanthe wore a garland that Gian had presented her. The sparrowhawk she carried felt no heavier than one of the blossoms from the spray, tiny and fierce, pouncing upon thrushes and woodcock and returning with them to the glove, a delicate court lady with savage yellow eyes.
Melanthe rode beside Gian, tame as the sparrowhawk returned to hand. Their time at Windsor drew near to a close. He had completed the contracts and assignments; the king's license was sealed at the price of only two of her five castles, the quitclaim to Monteverde purchased back from Edward for a proper princely ransom. In three days the betrothal feast began, a week more of such pleasures; of gifts and minstrelsy—then Italy, and their wedding. Gian was not eager to wait.
He chafed at their separate residences, but Melanthe had held adamant on that point and his proper behavior beforehand. He laughed and cajoled her, but knew her better than to believe she would give anything away for nothing. That was what he thought and said of her, not knowing that she would give everything away for nothing. For the nunnery, as the only place she could avoid fornicating with him.
When she lay awake at night, as she did every night now, she laughed silently until she wept at the mockery of it all. The place she'd walked through wilderness and fire to avoid, the abominable nunnery. She did not dare attempt to evade him in England again. Once they were back in Italy, she could fly to the abbey that she and Ligurio had endowed. She had Allegreto's promise that he would help her. And vows upon vows, lies upon lies, until she forgot who she was, if she had ever known.
Amongst the betrothal gifts there were already three mirrors, carved ivory and sandalwood and ebony, all buried as deep in her chests as she could bury them, so that she would not chance to look into the glass and see no one there.
"It's a great shame that your gyr is still in mew, my lady," the young Earl of Pembroke said, while the others complimented a fine flight for Gian's hawk on a blackbird. "What a day she might have given us!"
"It's a lighter weight to carry, this!" Melanthe held up her little bird. "And only think how fat Gryngolet will be, come autumn."
Laughter rippled over the company. The spaniels put up a bevy of quails, and two ladies cast off. Turning away from the late afternoon sun, they allowed the horses to ramble toward Windsor and the castle, its highest banners just barely visible over the far trees.
The shade of a narrow lane spread the party out, with Melanthe and Gian paired at the head as if by design. "You look a mere maiden in your blossoms," he said to her, smiling. "Flowers become you."
"Do they?" she asked lightly. "No, I think you suppose to flatter me, sir, so that when I ask for diamonds you can satisfy me with daisies."
She expected some smooth wit in response to hers, but instead he tilted his head. "Never do you consent to a t
ribute to your beauty, my lady. Is it the compliments or the giver?"
"Neither, but myself. A maiden, Gian? Daisies? I fear I'm too shrewd to believe such pleasant fancies."
"I think you should believe them, my lady, for they are true."
She slanted a look at him. The leaf dapple passed over his white velvet shoulders and hat. "Why, Gian. Can this be love?"
He returned her look steadily, speaking barely above his breath. "Is it possible that you don't know it?"
She felt a flush rise in her throat. He did not take the easy tone of gallantry.
"Why, then of course the betrothal must be off," she said. "Love will not do, if we're to be wed. People will think us a pair of burghers!"
"Ah. But this is a puzzle. If love is not acceptable in marriage, does it follow you have no love for me now, since we're betrothed?"
"You must go to the Greeks for logic," she said.
"And to a lady for love. Do you not love me, my dear one?"
She pricked her horse to a trot. "Inquire of Cupid, my lord, for the answer to that!" she called gaily over her shoulder.
She straightened about in the saddle. The shaded lane curved, descending to a ford. Sunlight glistened on water through the trees—glinted on something more. She dragged her horse to a jerking halt.
On the far side of the stream a pale destrier waited, caparisoned all in green, the rider armored, his sword drawn, emerald and silver like a dream in the glowing yellow light of afternoon.
The black eyeslits watched her silently. Gian came up behind her. She heard the others, the thud of hooves and the sudden stifle of easy talk.
The knight shoved his faceplate up. Melanthe felt Gian beside her, felt a helpless frenzy.
"My lady wife." Ruck's hard voice rang across the stream that divided them. "I would have allowed you to live separate and alone. I would not have embarrassed you, if you'd only wished to deny me because of pride and place. But you are my wife, Melanthe—and before God, I will not let you lie with another man, nor live together with him in dishonor of us both."