"Some I read on the cards," he said. "Some seem to be—given to me. But look now, the last card. That represents your future. Turn it up."
Hesitantly she lifted the card, holding it so that she alone could see its face. It was exquisitely painted like all the rest, but here the artist had traded the bright colors and landscapes for a darker hue. On a background of midnight blue, the winged figure glowed: an angel arrayed in robes of sable black and silver, resplendent against a sky of infinite stars. Elayne felt her breath fail her.
It was her own dark angel. Beautiful and powerful, radiant with mystery, a perfect rendering upon the artist’s card. And as she lifted her eyes, she saw the same face alive before her, watching her, in the person of a nameless pirate.
She sprang up, sweeping the card away and knocking over her chair. "It is a trick! It’s some artifice with the cards!" She stood breathing quickly, angrily. "He can’t be you."
The Raven never took his eyes from her face. He tilted his head a little, as if he too were doubtful. "Do you remember me, Lady Elena?"
"No—remember you? Have we met?" She shook her head helplessly. "I don’t understand this! It’s not—I don’t mean—not in life! Remember you from where?"
He smiled. "It’s merely a card, as you say. I only wonder why it disturbs you so."
"It is not merely a card, as you well know!" she cried. "It is you! And he can’t be you. I don’t know how you’ve discovered this, or made it come about, but he is not you."
He lifted his eyebrows. "You confuse me greatly, Lady Elena, I concede. The card is me, and I’m not him? Who is ’he’?"
She set her jaw and reached to pick up the card, slapping it face-up on the table. "I’m quite sure this is some prank you play with your victims, as it must be known to you that this card is a perfect rendering of your person."
His mouth quirked, as if he were subduing a smile. "I confess, you’re correct in that point."
She hesitated, taken aback by this easy admission.
"It’s a little game. I delight in games. It’s a pursuit of mine to observe the human character. Your response has been the most interesting of all so far. Tell me, who is this ’he’ that I cannot be?"
"No one," she said, truthfully enough. "It’s naught but a resemblance to a...a statue I used to gaze on during mass."
"Of a saint?"
"Um, an angel," she said.
"Ah, that would account for it," he said placidly. "I’ve oft been told I resemble an angel."
Elayne blinked at him. He did not appear like any angel she had ever seen, except her own.
"I expect it’s my cherubic expression," he said, and gave her a smile so wicked that her throat shrank.
"You are very frightening," Elayne breathed.
"I mean to be," he said. He riffled through the cards and spread them in a fan upon the table. "And yet...you do know me."
"No." She shook her head, twice. "I don’t know you."
"I’m in no mood to harm your lovely face, Elena," he said. "None at all." His lip curled slightly. "It’s your good fortune that you remind me more of Melanthe than of your sister."
Elayne felt herself frozen. She answered nothing.
"Ah, the house of Monteverde. Do they either of them suppose that I would forget those night-flower eyes? Your half-sister’s are only brown, but you have that infernal Monteverde tint of blue and purple in yours. Foolish of Melanthe, to be so careless. But better for you in the end, as I don’t hold the timid Madame Cara’s visage very dear."
If he had only spoken names, or even of faces, she might not have believed he could be speaking true. But when he called her sister timid, Elayne knew that he must have some close and vivid knowledge of her. "You’ve met my sister?" she asked faintly.
He made a short nod. "Yes," he said, "and hated her as she despised me."
Elayne stared at him. She could not even imagine her fainthearted sister in the same room with this man, far less that they knew one another enough to have hatred between them.
He turned his full gaze on her again. "Either you dissemble well, or your education in your family heritage has been sadly neglected, Princess Elena Rosafina di Monteverde. I am of Navona, and you have no greater enemies on earth."
She stiffened in her chair. "No," she whispered. "That’s all gone now. Lady Melanthe told me!"
"Oh, did she!" He laughed. "And how did she convince you of this fantasy?"
"She only said—there were once three families, Monteverde, Riata, and Navona—but I need not study deeply on Navona, for they are finished."
"Finished! And that is all? I’m stung."
"I’m sorry," Elayne said, ducking her head. "But in truth she made no mention of a pirate."
"Pirate!" he exclaimed languidly. "What a low opinion you’ve formed of me, my lady, on such small acquaintance." He picked up the angel card and glanced at it. "Finished," he said, tossing it down. His beautiful face became a devil’s mask as he narrowed his eyes. "Indeed."
"Perhaps she only meant—that we aren’t enemies anymore. I have no hate for you myself."
His dark eyebrows lifted. He looked at her as if she must be lying, and he would kill her for it. Elayne tried to hold his gaze.
"How should I?" she asked earnestly. "I don’t know who you are."
Somewhere very far away, at the outermost edge of hearing, a trumpet called three notes. It called again, and was gone, dreamlike in the silence.
After a moment he lifted the angel card again between two fingers, turning it to examine the shadowy figure. A faint curve appeared at the corner of his mouth. "Alas, it may be I’ll keep you with me longer than you find convenient. Should you object?"
Elayne looked away uneasily. "I don’t comprehend you."
"Oh, you will, my lady Elena," he said. He pushed himself to his feet, standing over her. He did not touch her, and yet as he looked down, his eyes seemed to move over her face with the depth of a caress. He laughed suddenly. "Franco Pietro, eh? What a tragedy that would be! Wait here until I return."
Elayne rose in alarm. "Wait here? Alone?"
But he had already gone, the stairs barely whispering an echo of his footsteps.
* * *
Elayne was giddy from lack of sleep. At first she sat rigid in the chair, looking at the cards spread across the table. She did not dare let herself drowse. But as time passed, she blinked in the eerie light of the blue spheres, her head swaying. She woke with a jolt from a half-dream of the crocodile swimming down toward her from the ceiling.
She took several deep breaths, shaking her head vigorously. To keep herself waking, she stood up and wandered about the library, staring at snakeskins and strange devices, contrivances of metal and glass, furnaces of stone with chimneys protruding from all sides.
"Take care," the Raven said behind her. "Not everything here is benign."
Elayne snatched her hand away from a sealed jar she’d been about to tap—it seemed to contain a live toad. The animal stared at her phlegmatically, perhaps alive, perhaps stuffed; not divulging any secrets.
He stood at the base of the stairs, his dark cloak hanging back over one shoulder. She had not heard him descend, or any sound of his return.
"So inquisitive!" He shook his head.
She turned back to the table, made heedless by the weary spinning in her brain. "You asked me to await you," she said. "What am I to do?"
He lifted his eyebrows. "Sit quietly?"
"I’ve never excelled at sitting quietly. My sister has often said so."
"Ah, your sister," he said. Nothing more than that, but Elayne felt as if somehow another presence had entered the room.
He gazed at her steadily, with such a dark reserve that she felt blood rise in her cheeks. "Well, I will sit down," she said. She pulled out the chair and sat again, folding her hands in her lap.
"The picture of feminine obedience," he said. "Did you learn that of your sister?"
"Yes," she said, pursing her lips.
"Good. I wouldn’t like to think you’d wasted much of your life in that coy pose."
"Alack, you are difficult to please!" she said, goaded into boldness.
He startled her once more with his sudden flash of a smile. "Why, I only wish for you to please yourself—you’re by far the more interesting that way."
"Hmmm," Elayne said, taking a deep breath to try to clear her brain. "How do you come and go in such silence?
"I’ll teach you, sweeting."
"Teach me?" she replied carefully, taken aback by the endearment.
He came near and brushed his hand over her cheek and hair, lightly, without touching it. "I shall teach you all manner of things," he said.
Elayne held herself stiff, but a thought of Raymond flitted through her mind—he seemed a simple knight indeed in comparison to this pirate. Elayne did not doubt for a moment that the Raven could teach her all manner of things—the kinds of things she had never been allowed to learn under Cara’s strictures. Her spirit rose fiercely at the thought, bounding like a hawk from the glove. She could not keep her eyes from him as he laid a leather satchel onto the table, untying the straps and drawing out the contents—scrolls and two small strongboxes—with slow care.
He sat down across from her again, unrolling a parchment and bending over it as if she were no longer there.
She had thought Raymond handsome. But the Raven was something beyond handsome. Beyond gallant manners and teasing glances. He was like the old, old stories, like the unknown man who waited on a darkened hill, the mist around him, hand outstretched...
In the stories, if a woman went to him...she did not return.
But she wanted to go...
She wanted...
Elayne shook herself awake again, tapping her fingers against her lap, opening her eyes over and over as they tried to fall shut. She knew she must have some occupation or fall asleep. "What are these?" she asked, pointing to the things from the satchel.
"Trifles. A few messages. Pirate business," he said dryly.
Elayne gazed about the room, desperate for some spur to keep her awake. "May I open that box?" she asked.
He looked up at her. "You have not changed an atom, you know," he said.
"What do you mean?" she asked, stiffening.
"You’ve always been so. A mobile spirit. Curious and inquiring."
"What do you know of me?"
"I read your cards," he said, dismissing her question. "Let me open the box, then, Pandora—to be safe."
He drew one of the boxes toward him, took a knife as slender as a reed from his belt, and unpicked the ornate lock with the skill of a seasoned thief. The lid sprang open suddenly, making her jump.
"No demons," he said, glancing over the top at her. "Some pretty things." He pushed the box across the table toward her. "You may have them if you like."
She touched the box gingerly, peering inside. It was filled with a jumble of golden brooches and buckles. Jewels winked and sparkled in the lamplight, tiny rainbows caught in the black depths of the box. "Benedicite!" she breathed, suddenly waking. She drew forth a breast pin shimmering with the red fire of rubies. "You don’t mean to give me this!"
"I’m sure it will become you," he said, without looking up. "If it will only keep you still for a quarter hour, I shall be delighted." He reached for a flagon of wine from a sideboard, pouring into a pair of silver goblets.
She took a deep sip from the offered cup, trying to rouse herself. She toyed with the sparkling breast pin. The twisting, teasing smoke of memory rose and twirled like a spent candle’s smolder in her mind, that sense that she had seen something, or said something before, without remembering when or where.
She was losing the battle with sleep. Her eyes drooped. She drank more of the tart wine, in an effort to keep herself vigilant, but toads and soaring falcons drifted and spun in her brain. Things won’t always happen as you expect, Lady Melanthe said, as outlandish notions and stratagems formed in a reverie, dreams of escape and nightmares of wandering. He had discovered who Elayne was. He was her enemy; he might try to ransom her to Monteverde, to Franco Pietro. But he said he would teach her and called her tender names. It seemed that Lady Beatrice was railing at her for her incompetence. Use your wits, girl! Use your wits!
Elayne came upright with a little jerk of her head. "Where is Lady Beatrice?" she mumbled.
"Asleep," the Raven said, and Elayne realized where she was again.
She blinked at him and rubbed her hand across her eyes. He sat back in his chair, stretching out his leg, watching her.
Opportunities will come, Lady Melanthe had said. Use your nerve.
"Sir," she said, struggling through her lethargy. "You’re a pirate."
He shrugged. "Perhaps I am, if you insist."
"Hence—people pay you ransom to go free."
His black eyes glittered. "They do. Unless I cast them off a cliff."
Her brain felt as unsteady as a ship’s deck, tilting and spinning with exhaustion. It seemed madness, that he said such things.
"Do you think I’m a murderer?" he asked.
"I don’t know what you are," she said impulsively. "I don’t know!"
"But you’re sure that I’m dangerous."
She frowned at him. It was impossible to decipher whether he was in jest or in truth. She squeezed her palms together. "My lord, I have a proposal for you."
He waited, steepling his hands and looking at her over the tips of his fingers.
"Sir—could I pay you to keep me here?"
For a long moment he said nothing. Then he tilted back his head and began to laugh.
"It’s not so absurd!" she said thickly. "I have nothing of my own, I confess, but you could write to the Duke of Lancaster—he’s been appointed my guardian by—by—" Her weary brain could hardly find the name. "King Richard. Of England." She took a deep breath to clear her brain. "And I believe that you’d find him eager to pay a goodly sum for my release. You could have all of that, but keep me here instead."
"Now, there is an admirable design!" he said. "I believe you have a pirate’s heart. But what if the duke refuses to pay?"
"Then—" She hesitated. "I believe—you seemed to know of Franco Pietro of the Riata..."
"Indeed! I should write to Franco Pietro, and say the duke did not see fit to ransom you, so will he kindly defray a proper sum to obtain his contracted bride?"
"But don’t send me to him, after you receive it," she prompted.
"Of course not! Why not write to both of them at once? I could ransom you twofold and still sell you to the Saracens. An excellent plan."
"No, I mean for you to keep me here."
"And what am I going to do with you here?" He tilted his head. "You would be awkwardly in the way when Lancaster and the Riata send their fleets to obliterate me."
"I doubt they would send fleets. Fleets? Not over me."
He nodded. "Avaunt, let us take that chance, then. No doubt I’ll sink them if they come. But still I don’t know what to do with you, if you can’t be sold," he said mildly. He filled her drinking cup again. "Do you wish to become my concubine?"
"No!" she said with a furious blush. Heat rose up through her body, awakening her. She avoided his eyes. "I don’t mean that at all!"
"There’s no choice, then. I’d have to toss you from the cliffs."
She set her jaw and took a quick swallow of the wine. "Never mind. I don’t speak in jest, though you laugh. You said you might keep me here longer than I like, but in truth, you can’t delay me long enough for my taste."
He traced the letters on one of the scrolls. "You don’t wish to marry the Riata?"
She drew a deep breath and took another generous swallow of the wine. "No. I abhor the idea."
"We’re in wondrous accord, then, my lady." He looked up at her as he ran his fingertip over the parchment. "I had no intention of allowing it to happen."
There was nothing visible to betray it, but Elayne felt as if some faint lightnin
g rushed between them, like a storm far off.
The Raven stood, his tunic gleaming in the blue light. The water-dragon seemed to sway slowly overhead.
"Navona is not finished," he said in a voice that caressed the words. "Not yet while I breathe." He leaned on the table, his black cloak flowing down over his hands. Nothing he had discovered among his pirate treasures had elicited a look like the one he gave her now. "You may have your desire to linger with me, my lady Elena, but I need no payment from the duke. I demand another ransom, sweeting. I require you for my wife."
FOUR
Lady Melanthe had warned her of poison. Beware what you eat, the countess had said. Take heed of what you drink.
Elayne lay very still as the headache gripped her, looking through her eyelashes at the room, trying to remember how she had come there. There was a scent of flowers, a soft breeze that lifted the bright silken bed-hangings of saffron and blue and red ochre. From the coolness of the air, she thought it must be morning. Slowly she realized that she was naked underneath the sheet, her hair spread loose across the pillows.
She held her hand to her temple and closed her eyes. When she opened them, a blurry gleam of gold caught light through her lashes. She lifted her hand, staring at the ring on her third finger.
On the broad band, letters were engraved. Gardi li mo, she read.
Guard it well.
She frowned. Through the ache in her head, she found a memory of the pirate, standing over the table in his library.
A young maid started up from somewhere in the room, hurrying to the side of the huge bed. "Good morrow, Your Grace!" she said in English. She made a deep bow down onto her knee, her head disappearing below the level of the bed for an instant. "Your Magnificence slept well, I pray?"
Elayne let her head fall back onto the pillows, trying to still the spinning in her brain. "I don’t know how my magnificence slept," she grumbled, her eyes closed, "but my forehead is like to split in two."
"My lord said it might happen so," the maid said kindly. "He sent a remedy for such, in the juice of grapes. Will Your Grace take it now?"