The torches behind him lit his mount's breath and his own in transparent gusts of frost. He wore no armor now, only a light helmet over a bandage that shone white across his forehead. The bridge thudded with the sound of hooves and boots.
He never looked directly at her. With a perfunctory bow he made a motion to the men to surround her horse. Placing half of the company before them, and half behind, he wheeled his mount next to hers, swept his sword from its sheath, and shouted the order to march.
She rode beneath the archway beside him. Inside the city walls, the streets were full of men. They stared and shouted and ran beside the company. Melanthe kept her eyes straight ahead and up. Her palfrey felt very small next to the destrier, and the score of men a thin wall against violence. In some of the side streets other knights sat their mounts, swords unsheathed, staring malevolently as her escort passed. Limp bodies lay in doorways—drunk or dead, she could not tell. The high bulk of the keep itself was a welcome sight, until she saw the crowd milling and pressing below it. As her escort came into view a cheer went up, confounded with outrage and spiced by drink.
The Green Sire shouted an order. The men ahead halted. He lifted his sword over his head, and the men-at-arms spun their sharpened pikes, forcing the nearest of the crowd to give room. The pikes stopped with their points at chest-level, a bristle of protection.
The castle gates opened slowly amid noise and disordered motion. He yelled another order, and the men-at-arms began to move, stabbing into the crowd ahead of them. In the light of the torches her cavalcade pushed through the mob, encapsuled by pikesmen. The throng in the street could not seem to decide if they wished to cheer or resist, swarming back and forth in ill-tempered confusion, fighting one another, staggering back from the pikes, waving their own weapons in wild and abortive threats to their neighbors.
Her palfrey danced along beside the war-horse, taking hopping, frightened steps, half rearing as a man fell between the pikes and sprawled in front of her. Melanthe gave the horse a quick spur, and it sprang off its haunches, coming down on the other side of the prone figure. The palfrey kicked out as it landed, but Melanthe did not turn to see if the blow struck. Allegreto's horse crowded behind her; the gate was overhead at last—and they were through, passing into the inner courtyard. The gates boomed closed behind them, shutting out a rising roar.
Her knight dismounted and came to her, offering his knee and arm. Melanthe took his hand for support. Hers was shaking past her ability to control it. As her feet touched the ground, she said, "Thou tarried long in coming. I'm nigh frozen through."
She did not wish him to think that she shivered from fear. Nor did she thank him. She felt too grateful; she felt as if she would have liked to stand very close to him, he seemed so sure and sound, like the enclosing walls of the keep, a circle of sanctuary in the disorder. For that she gave him a sweeping glance of disdain and started to turn away.
"My lady," he said, "his lordship the duke sends greeting and message, and desires to know that your hunting was well."
Melanthe looked back at him: "Well enough," she said. "Two ducks. I will dispatch them to the kitchens. There is a message?"
"Yea, my lady." He looked at her with an expression as opaque as a falcon's steady cold stare. "I am to escort you hence without delay. We leave at dawn, upon the tide."
"Ah." She smiled at him, because he expected her to be shocked. "We are cast out? Crude—but what does an Englishman know of subtlety? Indeed, this is excellent news. Thou shalt make all preparations for our departure to England and attend my chamber at two hours before daybreak."
His face was grim. He bent his head in silent assent.
"The duke has denied you, then?" she asked lightly. Melanthe held out her hands in the flicker of torches. "Green Sire, swear troth to me now as liege, and I will love thee better."
His mouth grew harder, as if she offended him. "My lady, I was sworn to your service long since. Your man I am, now and forever." He held her eyes steadily. "As for love—I need no more of such love as my lady's grace has shown me."
Melanthe raised her chin and shifted her look past him. Allegreto stood there, watching with a smirk.
She bestowed a brilliant smile upon her courtier and lowered her hands. "Allegreto. Come, my dear—" She shivered again, turning, pulling her cloak up to her chin. "I want my sheets well warmed tonight."
* * *
The boats rode the current and the outgoing tide downriver, their oars shipped and silent. As the banks of the Garonne slipped away, ever wider, a cold sun rose behind Ruck's little fleet, sucking the wind up the estuary off the sea. It was not to his taste, but he'd reckoned it his duty to sail aboard Princess Melanthe's vessel himself.
He had worked with her steward all night to organize their departure. When he had seen the painted whirlicote Princess Melanthe was to inhabit on the land journey, he'd found that he had to use the duke's patent to commandeer an extra ship only to convey the leather-covered, four-wheeled house and the five horses necessary to draw it.
Ruck had full believed that he would spend hours waiting on his liege lady's convenience, as she did not seem the sort to bestir herself to undue exertion, but Princess Melanthe's attendants outshone even the men-at-arms in their packing and loading efficiency. There was no scurrying back to fetch a lost comb or another pillow. Not one lady slipped away to linger in farewell with some brokenhearted lover. Ruck suspected that they feared their mistress too well to delay her.
The duke had come to see them off as he'd promised, making a great false show of giving the kiss of peace and offering cordial farewells. Ruck had found himself the object of more courtesy from his liege in the cold dawn of his departure than he had received in the whole sum of his years in service to Lancaster. The audience was small, only a few beggars and merchants, and a soldier or two woken from sleeping on the docks, but by noontide the story would have spread throughout the city to gentles and commoners alike: the Green Sire had left Aquitaine in Princess Melanthe's service, alive and without duress. No threat to Lancaster's command, no martyr to his pride—no spark to set rebellion alight.
The Green Sire was nothing to Lancaster, or to anyone else now.
Ruck drew in a slow breath and let it go. He had lost his prince and liege. He had loved a lady who did not exist—but she had seemed so real, he had spent so long devoted to her, that he felt as if death had claimed a piece of his heart.
He sat on deck atop the single high cabin in the stern, very aware of the princess below him. He wondered if she suffered from the seasickness, and had not sufficient imagination to picture such a thing.
Pierre huddled in the tip of the stern, snoring gently. The wind blew in Ruck's face. His men lined the deck, sitting in the protection of the gunwales. He reached over and plucked his flute from Pierre's capacious apron. The squire opened one eye, and then snugged into his cloak again.
In the early light Ruck began to play a sweet, mournful song of the Crusades, of a lover left behind to grief and worry. It seemed to him fit for the gray rise of dawn, slow and yearning, with the sway of the water and the glint of dull light on the helmets and crossbows. Fit for his mood: leaving nowhere, going nowhere.
Below him the curtain over the cabin door flicked. Ruck's note faltered for a bare instant, and then he lowered his eyes and went on playing. It was only her lapdog Allegreto, who climbed the short stairs with a crimson cloak wrapped tight around him. To Ruck's concealed surprise, the youth sat down on the deck at his feet, facing away from him into the wind.
"That is a love song, is it not?" the young courtier asked.
Ruck ignored him, enclosing himself in the melody.
Allegreto sat quietly for a few moments, and then sighed. He looked around at Ruck. "Hast thou ever been in love, Englishman?"
He asked it wearily, as if he were a century old. Ruck made no answer beyond his tune.
Allegreto smiled—an expression that was undeniably charming in spite of his blackened eye. He p
ushed the windblown dark hair from his forehead. "Of course. Thou hast as many years as my lady, and she knows more of love than Venus herself." He leaned back against the gunwale. "Thou knowest she has magic to keep herself always the same. Perhaps she's a thousand years old. Upon hap, if thou wouldst see her in a mirror, she would be no more than a skull, with black holes for eyes and nose."
Ruck lifted his brows skeptically, without losing the cadence of his notes.
Allegreto laughed. "Ah, thou art too astute for me. Thou dost not believe it." With an abrupt intensity he leaned nearer. "Thou wouldst not take her from me?"
Ruck's music wavered for a beat.
Allegreto closed his eyes tightly. "Thou hast—such as I cannot give her," he said in a lowered voice. "I am not so young as I appear."
It took Ruck's mind a long moment to construct that into meaning. He lowered the flute.
Allegreto pulled the red cloak up to his mouth and turned his head away. Ruck stared at the smooth wind-pinkened cheek.
"When I was ten and five," Allegreto said, muffled, as if in answer to a question. "She preferred me thus." He pulled the cloak closer and then glared over his shoulder. "But still I love her!" he exclaimed fiercely. "I can still love!"
Ruck gazed at him. He could think of nothing more to do than nod in the face of such awful devotion. Allegreto held his eyes for a long moment, and then put his head down in his arms. Amid his shock Ruck felt ashamed of himself. Whatever sacrifices he'd made in the name of his false lady, they had been honorable, and his own choice. He was a whole man. He wet his lips and picked up the flute again, taking refuge in the music.
He had played only a few notes when two sharp thumps came from the deck beneath their feet. Allegreto looked up.
"Oh." He turned to Ruck and smiled sweetly. "I forgot. I was to order thee to cease that dirge and play something more amusing."
FIVE
The old King of England was a haggard and drunken shadow of the tall warrior Melanthe remembered. Edward's regal progresses and tournaments lay as gemstones amid her childhood, all luster and polished steel and dazzling majesty: her father's red and gold glistening among the other colors, sparks flying from his helmet at a hard strike; her mother's fingers tightening for an instant over Melanthe's hand.
King Edward drank a long swallow of wine and handed the cup aside hastily, gesturing his servant behind his chair when Melanthe entered his royal bedchamber. The king's gray hair lay loose over the broad shoulders that once had borne armor, his mustaches flowing down into his long beard. He had the reddened nose and cheeks of too much drink, but he kept a regal posture in his chair.
A day in London had been ample time for Melanthe to discover that he was in utter thrall to his mistress, a fine female of a stamp that Melanthe understood full well. No one attended the king without consent of the feared and hated Lady Alice—and Melanthe was no exception. Alice Perrers sailed into the chamber on her heels.
"I bring you someone you will like, my dear," Lady Alice said, plucking the goblet from the servant's hand. She leaned over the king's chair and kissed his forehead as she poured him more wine. He smiled dreamily at the ample bosom hovering so near his face. "Here is Lady Melanthe, the daughter of Lord Richard of Bowland, God give his soul rest. She bears gifts for you, and letters from Bordeaux. The duke writes."
"John?" The king's eyes brightened. He held out both his hands. His fingers shook.
Melanthe made a deep courtesy. She rose, giving Lady Alice a significant look before she moved forward to make her offerings.
The mistress had fattened her unofficial power so far that it was said she even sat upon the benches and threatened the justices. But Melanthe could play that game. She had lavished compliments and gifts upon this overripe and overblown person, along with hints that their interests were quite compatible. Lady Alice would not wish any powerful man, most particularly someone like John of Lancaster, to marry Melanthe and combine their great estates into a domain that would challenge the king's.
No more did Melanthe care to marry such a man, she had assured Lady Alice. She had no ambitions beyond her father's inheritance. Her greatest desire was to pay her levies to the king so that he might be enriched, and thus more generous yet in bestowing suitable presents upon his favorites. In her excess of goodwill Melanthe herself would make a generous present to the king's intimates the moment a private audience might be arranged.
Of course, if a private audience was impossible, if Lady Alice did not trust her new friend, then in Melanthe's crushing disappointment and hurt, she feared that she must return in disgrace to Aquitaine, where his lord's grace the duke had been most flattering in his attentions.
Lady Alice gave Melanthe a narrow smile as she straightened from bending over the king. With much petting and many careless endearments, she withdrew. He retained her hand in a lamentably fatuous manner, but when she finally departed, leaving only the chamberlain—Alice's man—and the servant, Edward seemed to forget her, leaning forward in his eagerness for his son's letter.
Melanthe made another courtesy and gave him Lancaster's missive. She could have recited it to him, having made herself free with the wax seal before they had left Bordeaux. She watched the king frown over his eldest son's poor health, and quicken at the news that the prince would return home to recover. She saw Edward's mouth purse at the report of the empty treasury in Aquitaine, and the uneasy temper of the Gascon nobles.
The tournament went unmentioned in the letter, as did the Green Sire and Lancaster's shoulder and the duke's soured courting of Melanthe. Lancaster merely recommended her to his father's favor as the daughter of a loyal and beloved subject, suggesting that she be confirmed in her inheritance with all due haste—a forbearance that spared everyone, including himself, considerable embarrassment. Melanthe was greatly in charity with the duke at present.
"Richard of Bowland, God assoil him!" Edward exclaimed with pleasure in his voice. He bade Melanthe rise and gave her a wine-balmed embrace. "Child! And our John has sent you to us! Tell us of him; in truth, how does he?" He held out the paper with a sad sigh. "This speaks naught a word of himself."
"My very dear and mighty lord, your son was in great good humor when I took leave of him, may God defend," she said.
He nodded, pleased, and then seemed to lose the course of his thought as he stared off into a corner. After a long moment, he tilted his head toward her as if he were a child with a secret. "The prince is our pride," he whispered, "but John is our heart."
Melanthe murmured, "The duke has much the look of his dear mother the queen, God give her soul rest." Melanthe had no idea if this were so, having only the haziest recollection of Queen Phillipa as a plump and smiling personage, but she added, "He has her eyes, my lord. A very fine figure of a man. Your majesty may well love him with a full heart."
Edward's lips trembled. "Verily. Verily." He gave a deep sniff. "You are a good and lovely child. What can we do for you?"
Melanthe bowed, placing a lavishly bound volume upon his bed. "My lord would honor me, would you accept this small gift. It is a work upon falconry, written by a master from the north country."
At Edward's impatient gesture, the king's servant passed the book to him. He turned the leaves, nodding in delight. "A most worthy subject for a treatise. Excellent. Excellent. We are pleased."
Melanthe drew him into a little discussion of hunting birds. After a quarter hour they were great friends. He was well known to have a passion for falconing and hawking.
"And this, sire," she said, when she felt the moment right, "I would convey into your own hand, if you will consent."
She held out a sealed parchment. King Edward accepted the paper, fumbling it open. "What is this, my dear?"
"It is my claim to my husband's estate, quitted into your name, my beloved lord. I am a weak woman; I have not the power to assert it myself, but it is a most valuable right. My husband was the Prince of Monteverde. He had no male heirs to survive him, and I myself have a
claim through my mother's blood. All of it I cede to my mighty and esteemed lord, to do with as your majesty might will."
Melanthe was aware of the chamberlain's subtle stir at this news. He stood close to the king, bowing. "May I read the document to you, sire?"
The chamberlain's greedy hand was already upon the quitclaim, but Edward's fingers closed. He held to the document. "Monteverde?" His vague old eyes seemed to sharpen. "We are in debt to Monteverde for a certain sum."
"My lord, I did not know of such a thing," Melanthe lied, dropping into a deep courtesy. Edward was in debt by an impossible amount to the bank of Monteverde, as he was and had always been in debt to the Italian money merchants. "Then I may have even greater hope that my humble gift is of value to my king."
Alice's man made another attempt, not so subtle, to divest Edward of the quitclaim, but the king held it tightly; "You have not asserted your right?" He frowned. "Nay, but—our mind betrays us. Bowland—have you not a brother to act for you? Lionel's friend..." He paused, his voice trailing off into an old man's quiver.
Melanthe could see him remember. He had peddled his second son Lionel to the Viscontis of Milan, in a payment for England's debts—but the most lavish wedding of the age, with gifts of armor and horses and hounds in gemmed collars, cloaks of ermine and pearls, a banquet of thirty courses all gilded with gold leaf and a dowry so huge it had taken two years to barter, had not bought a long and happy life for Lionel. He had died six months later in Italy of an unnamed fever.
And with him Richard, of his closest inner circle, Richard her brother, who had been only five when Melanthe had left England and a stranger of twenty-one when he came to Italy to die. The gossips had said that he had been slain mistakenly, by sharing poisoned drink with Lionel. The gossips had said that Richard had meant to kill his own prince and accidentally killed himself as well. The gossips had said that Melanthe had murdered her brother for his inheritance, uncaring that the prince died with him. The gossips said anything. She watched the king with her heart beating hard.