"I was cast out for who I am, not what I do. If I prey upon Riata commerce, it’s not robbery, but justice."
"Blessed Mary, all this?" She lifted a hand toward the riches that surrounded them. Her fingertips barely showed beneath the overlong sleeves of his robe. "Only of the Riata?"
"Your province is great in trade, Princess," he said.
She looked aside at him. "Did you build this castle?"
"I had the walls and towers raised. The foundations lay here in ruin before I came."
"That strange black stone, and the fine porticos, and the Moorish tiles, and the frescoes in your chambers?"
"I brought the stone from the mountains of Atlas. The porticos and chambers, and my observatory and study and—other things—aye, I caused them to be made to my desire."
"A curious exile! I don’t believe you rob only the Riata."
He looked at her with a wicked gleam. "I have certain friends. Sometimes they make me gifts, in return for—dispensation— from pillage on the seas."
"An opportune arrangement!" she said. "From your pillage, I conceive."
"How you rejoice to abuse my character!" His brows rose in a pained expression. "Can you not believe that I do my friends an honest service?"
"No doubt you serve them as honestly as you’ve served me," she snapped, with a lift of her chin.
He shrugged. "You’ll be more satisfied when we return to Monteverde."
"Monteverde." She looked away uneasily. "Depardeu, I would rather by far live banished here."
"Pah, this barren island?"
"It’s not so unpleasant. Your castle, and the clear sea." She surprised herself, to realize that she meant it.
"You’ve forgotten the sweet airs of your own home. The passes of Monteverde are protected, but the breeze still comes cool from the north. The mountains give such shelter to the lake that it’s warm in winter and refreshing in the summer. There’s no finer place in the world."
"With no doubt rainbows every eve!" she said mockingly.
"No, but I’ll order it for you if you like," he said, with a slight bow.
"Certainly—when you’re ruler there—pirate."
He leaned over her. "I think you prefer me as a pirate." She tried to avoid him, but he caught her wrists in his hands as she pushed away. "I think you’re half-brigand in your heart yourself."
"No." She could feel the dust of the confetti still on his fingers, a faint sandy grit, a scent of spice between his skin and hers. Her body ached where he had forced himself upon her. But when he touched her, leaned close to her, the pain seemed to turn and twist into an unspeakable throbbing sweetness. She stared into his beautiful dark eyes.
"Do you claim your sister made you into such a tame rabbit as she? Or did she only succeed in teaching you to fear the place that belongs to you?"
Elayne jerked, but could not free herself. "You speak as if there’s nothing to fear there."
"No more than here, or your freezing English mud pit, or anywhere that men live and die by fortune and the will of God Almighty."
"What lies! When you say you’re a murderer yourself by trade."
He let her go and stepped back. "I am."
Elayne released a breath. "And you profess I have nothing to fear?"
"There is much to fear," he said quietly. "Everywhere."
She thought suddenly of what he had said, that he dreaded to be defenseless. She lifted her eyes and met his. "Are you afraid, then?"
He tilted his head, watching her. "It’s foolish not to fear," he said, "but it is a grave error to give way to it. So I’ve learned to keep my wits in the face of any fell thing."
"And your weapons always within reach," Elayne said. "We didn’t have to live that way at Savernake."
"Not you perhaps, my lady. But someone did."
She opened her lips to make a denial, and found that she could not. There was always a guard on duty at the gates of Savernake, and through the night the familiar calls and clatter of men changing watch upon the parapets. Even there, they had seen smoke from the property of the King’s tax collector when the peasants revolted. Sir Guy had ridden out with men-at-arms to block the rebels on the road to the castle, while Cara had wept and prayed for two days and nights in succession. Even at peaceful Savernake.
"But you’re banished by law from Monteverde?" she asked with faint hope. "You may not travel there?"
He crossed his arms and leaned back, looking down at her through his heavy lashes. "I’m declared dead if I enter there, or any allied country. I cannot come into most of the Tuscan provinces, nor set foot in the lands of the Holy Roman Empire. I’m outlawed in Aragon and the kingdom of Sicily." His hair fell over his shoulder, shadowing his one-sided smile. "The Pope of Rome has excommunicated me, and the anti-pope has, too, though it must be the only matter those pious jesters have agreed upon yet."
For several moments she stared at the flawless line of his jaw, his face, his mouth—absorbing the full force of what he said. Easy to say to herself in a moment of wrath that she would live with him in wickedness, but she began to comprehend the depth of what she had fallen into.
"When they sort out who is the true pope," he said, "I’ll go and throw myself on my knees to beg for absolution. But pray don’t expect me to do it twice."
"And you mean to attempt to claim Monteverde for yourself?" she asked incredulously.
"For both of us."
"Do me no such kindness!" she exclaimed.
"Providence has done it for you. My father meant to unite our blood. Princess Melanthe denied him that prospect once, but fate bestows it now again."
"An evil fortune," she said. "Bound by rapine to a man outlawed from church and home!"
"Better for you by far than if you’d married the Riata, my beloved." He smiled at her as sweetly as a fallen angel. He reached out and touched her hair, brushing his hand tenderly over her cheek and her lips. "You have me now for your sword and shield—instead of your assassin."
* * *
They ascended by his secret tunnels, turning and climbing in the light of a common lantern. A deep sound began to grow as they mounted a set of spiraling steps, a rumble that became a howl. At the top, the dim light cast flailing shadows on the back of a tapestry, highlighting the uneasy motion of the woven folds. He shoved the hanging aside.
Beyond, the gale lashed the castle, raging through the open galleries and whistling in the shuttered windows. The lantern’s fitful light showed his bedchamber, the great arcade doors creaking and straining ominously. Elayne realized that driven rain was seeping over the thresholds.
"Mary and Joseph," he muttered, gripping her elbow. "On guard."
He pulled her into the chamber. As they ran across it, the wind rose to a yet higher scream, as if it boiled up at the very hope of reaching them through the walls. An ungodly cracking rent the air. The lantern flame vanished into utter blackness. She heard wood strike stone, the deafening thud of timbers collapsing. One of the arched doors burst open as if smashed by a battering ram. The explosion of wind threw her back, tearing her from his hold.
He shouted at her. Elayne had no time to cry out. In the dim confusion she found his arm. He gripped her elbow with an agonizing clench, dragging her with him through the roiling darkness. She heard the scream of air rushing past into hollow passages. He yanked her forward. With a deep boom, some unseen door closed behind them. The storm receded to the faint bellow of a distant beast.
Elayne drew in a gasp of air. "God defend us!" She had never experienced a tempest of such savagery, that pounded and screeched and attacked like a living thing. She crossed herself in the blackness. "God spare us."
"You’re not hurt?" His grip on her arm did not lighten.
"By mercy, no." She had a moment of vast gratitude that he had led her from the headland when he did. The force of the tempest had increased a hundredfold; she would have been carried long since into the sea if he hadn’t brought her away to shelter.
Abruptly he
plunged on, finding his way through the tunnels without a flicker of light, pulling her along behind him. She tripped over the hem of the robe, stubbing her toes and cracking her elbows until he stopped so suddenly that she collided with him.
Light poured into the tunnel as he opened a door. She heard the storm again, though not so loud, along with human voices. There was a peculiar geometry to the corridor before them: corners and ceiling that didn’t seem to meet in the expected places.
Standing in the half-light, he smiled at her. A dark smile, as if there were a mortal secret between them. He curled her hair about his fist and bent his face into it, drawing a long breath. Her lips parted on a silent whimper, a secret moan of bitter pleasure.
Abruptly he let her go and turned to face the blank stone of one wall. To her shock, he walked right into it.
It seemed to disappear as he did it; become an opening that she had not realized was there. He looked back at her. "Come."
Elayne stepped forward, almost expecting to find the stone spring up before her. For an instant, from the corner of her eye, it seemed as if a red figure leaped at her from behind. Elayne jumped ahead in startlement, but the figure disappeared as if it had never been. Then they stood in the gloom of an unlit gallery overlooking a huge stone-walled kitchen. Wind whistled in the chimneys. The smell of smoke and cookery hung thick from the activity below.
A deep-voiced dog barked, and at the same moment a young man shouted joyously, "My lord!"
The multitude of faces below turned up toward them. In the clamor everyone pushed forward. The white puppy came bounding up the stairs, leaping on Elayne’s damp robe with frantic exuberance.
Il Corvo stepped to the rail. The dark mantle he had thrown about his shoulders flared, showing a blood-red lining. Talk ceased instantly. All in his household fell to their knees. The sound of the storm rumbled beyond the heavy walls like a hidden breath that made the torches shudder. Elayne saw Margaret’s yellow head lowered deferentially among a throng of boys and girls. The great dogs roamed between the tables and cook-pots, pure white, the size of wolves.
"Rise," their master said. He spoke in the quicksilver tongue of Monteverde. "I have contrived to recover my bride, as you see."
"God is great!" the young man exclaimed. He rose, a handsome, dark-eyed Ottoman with the forceful look of a man full-grown, though he was yet beardless. He wore an infidel’s headpiece, a capped turban fancifully embossed with brightly hued patterns. "We’ve waited here as you commanded, out of the storm."
"Well done, Zafer," Il Corvo said.
The young man exhaled a visible breath. He nodded. "My lord."
"Make a place for us. Dario—see to a meal laid. Fatima, bring us claret. Zafer, Margaret, come up—I desire your attendance."
The assembly burst into motion. Behind Zafer, who mounted the stairs three at a time, Margaret hurried up to Elayne. The maid’s blue eyes brimmed with tears. She fell to her knees at Elayne’s feet, holding the damp scarlet hem to her lips. "Your Grace, I was so frightened! I never meant to displease you so, that you would depart from the castle and stay out in such a storm!"
"It was no fault of yours," Elayne said, disliking the apprehension in the young girl’s voice. She picked up the excited puppy, hefting it in both arms as she looked over her shoulder at the pirate. "It was another entirely who displeased me."
"I’ll order myself tossed from a cliff," he said cordially. "Go down now. Zafer—make ready to depart."
The pup squirmed and twisted. Elayne looked down, struggling to hold it and disengage its scrabbling paws from her deep sleeve. As she did, a flash of light burst in the smoky room—a flare that threw everything into blinding relief, a sizzle as if lightning had struck inside.
She pivoted. Through the vivid after-shapes that danced in her eyes, she saw no one behind her. The pirate and Zafer were gone.
There was a moment of full silence, and then the others went about their business without any sign of bewilderment.
Elayne blinked. She looked along the whole length of the gallery where they had been standing not moments before, up the curved ribs of stone to where the ceiling vanished in smoky darkness. The walls stood solid—or seemed to. There was no other stairway. The black stone gave back shimmers and shadows in the erratic light of the torches below.
Margaret curtsied, as quickly turned to smiling as she’d been frightened a moment before. Elayne realized how young she was; how youthful they all were. The pirate had assembled a strange court in his island exile. Not one of Il Corvo’s household seemed to have more than twenty years, and most of them were much younger. While they seemed handy enough at their kitchen tasks, as they went back to work their high spirits bordered on glee.
To move from the underground darkness into this cheerful throng required a stretch and twist of spirit that left Elayne feeling remote from her very self. She couldn’t seem to connect the easy mirth and chatter of his household with what had happened to her deep in his hidden chamber—with the person she had become there, violated and violent in return.
A troupe of boys and girls decorously bore a multitude of tablecloths into the cavernous chamber, under the distracted eye of a young man who was setting up the trestle. When he turned his back, the children began covertly pinching one another. A squeal broke out. The group hurtled past Elayne trailing a sail of damask cloth. The puppy barked, scrambling free of her arms to join the game. Its sharp teeth closed on the cloth.
"Softly!" Elayne said, reaching out to catch the damask.
They all halted, five or six wide-eyed faces turned to her, as startled as if a tree had spoken. The pup tugged and shook at the cloth.
They were just of an age with her sister’s child Maria, nine or ten years, except for one young boy who couldn’t have been more than six. But having checked them, she hardly knew what to say. It was herself who was usually the object of a scold—Maria had always been the best of children, docile and eager to please.
Elayne felt a moment of exquisite longing for her home, where Cara’s reprimands were the worst fate she’d had to fear. This brood looked as scared of Elayne’s disapproval as she had been in awe of her sister’s reproach.
"It would be a shame to injure this fair cloth," she ventured, uncoupling the puppy from its fervent assault on the rich fabric. "Come here, my little witch."
She received a series of ragged bows and courtesies. The children edged away from her, folding the damask with more care to keep it from the floor, and then hurried off with a sudden burst of giggles. The pup danced away after them and then bounded back to Elayne.
"Ach, they are rude babes, my lady, forgive them!" Margaret whispered in English. "My lord has not yet taken that company in hand."
"Margaret—where are the elder folk?" she asked.
"Oh, Dario is here—" Margaret waved toward the young man who had finally placed the carved bench to his satisfaction in front of the vast, blackened hearth. "My lord took Zafer with him. Fatima has gone to the cellar. She’ll return in a moment with refreshment for my lady."
Neither Zafer nor Dario appeared to have more than a year or two beyond Elayne’s own eighteen.
"They’re the eldest?" Elayne asked.
"Your Grace, I know not. I believe so. Will you take this place of honor? Here is Fatima with your drink."
Elayne recognized the same comely Moorish maid who had served Elayne and Countess Beatrice in their captivity. As Elayne sat down at the trestle, Fatima approached with great deference. She knelt before the table, placing two goblets. "Will you take wine, Princess?" she asked.
This maid had not once seemed to understand Elayne’s French, nor Latin, nor Italian. But Fatima spoke now in the tongue of Monteverde with more fluency than Elayne owned in it herself.
Elayne gave a short nod. Fatima beckoned a young boy to her side, one of the merry crew that had sailed about the chamber with the damask cloth in tow. He made a deep bow, serious now, rubbing his fingers quickly on his shirt before he took t
he jar. His hands were barely large enough to hold the heavy vessel as he poured an unsteady stream of rosy liquid and placed the goblet before Elayne. He stepped back with another nervous bow, kneeling down to one knee.
Elayne gave him an encouraging smile and reached for the wine.
"Hold!" Il Corvo’s voice froze her, ringing harshly in the great high chamber. Elayne let go of the goblet. He strode forward from nowhere, his hair dewed with moisture, the dark mantle flaring. "Taste it, Matteo!"
He stopped beside the table, glaring down at the kneeling boy. The child had already dropped his face to the tiled floor, quaking.
"Matteo," the pirate said in a voice of ice. "You fail me. Drink of what you poured. Discard the rest. And then I don’t wish to set eyes upon you again."
The boy raised his pallid face. Still on his knees, he crawled forward. He lifted the goblet and took a sip.
"Drink deeper," the pirate demanded.
The child took a full swallow, and then another. The entire household watched in silence. Matteo appeared as if he might retch, his mouth screwed into a tight, unhappy rose. Elayne watched with horror. It was an undisguised tasting for poison, credence without the pleasant rituals she had seen at court that made it seem only ceremonial.
For long moments everyone stared, but beyond the grimace, Matteo seemed to take no ill effect. He sat upon his knees, very still, his head bowed in disgrace.
Il Corvo turned his brutal look upon Elayne. "Never...never...take food or drink without credence."
She had forgotten. Lady Melanthe had warned her of such; this pirate himself had taken advantage of her trust to stupefy her when he pleased. He sat down, dismissing Matteo with a disdainful motion of his hand. The boy backed away on his hands and knees, in full health enough to rise and run when he reached the wall.
The pirate watched him go. He looked around at his petrified household and narrowed his eyes at the maid. "Fatima. Matteo’s life is in your hands. If you allow him to make such a mistake again, you’ll be the one to put a poison cup to his lips yourself. Replace the wine."
Fatima went to her knees. "You command me, Your Grace," she said breathlessly.