The Medieval Hearts Series

by Laura Kinsale

  His eyes closed. He rolled his head to the side, mumbling in English.

  "Speak French," Allegreto said harshly. "We can’t understand you."

  "I don’t know," the youth muttered. He swallowed and groaned. "I don’t know. It hurts."

  "Here’s my dagger," Allegreto said. "Do you see it? I’ll cut you free, and you won’t hurt. As soon as you tell me where to send, I’ll cut you loose." He turned Desmond’s head, to make him see the knife before his eyes. "I give you until she counts to twenty, and then we leave you here to God and my father’s mercy."

  He nodded to Cara. She began to count, as slowly as she dared, staring at Desmond’s racked face. He turned his head from side to side, panting.

  "Eighteen," she said, and closed her eyes. Nineteen."

  "I can’t tell you," Desmond gasped. "But I can—take..."

  Allegreto slashed the knife across one set of cords. Desmond cried out as his arm fell.

  "Take?" Allegreto demanded, the dagger hovering.

  "Take...near. You—give me...the message. Wait for—answer. I swear. Help me!"

  Allegreto cut him down.

  * * *

  A band of deep gray-blue threatened rain along the tops of the hills. As the wind blew a warning of late frost from the north, the black branches tossed, showing their tiny green buds in shafts of sunlight.

  She hadn’t flown Gryngolet long. Her moult would begin soon, and in this weather any stray gust might sweep the falcon beyond a ridge and out of sight. The horses plodded along beside the river, taking snatches at new growth. Melanthe rode dreaming, her mantle close about her ears, thinking of ways she might coax her husband into bodily fellowship.

  The music at first seemed like part of the wind. She lifted her head, listening. In a lull she heard it again, or thought she did. Sometimes it seemed a melody, and sometimes only single uncertain notes. She turned in the saddle to look at Hew.

  "I hear, my lady." He scowled up at the ridge. "Desmond, my lady. I think me."

  Melanthe’s hand closed on her reins. "He’s come." An old foreboding fell over her, hearing that elvish measure on the high wind—but wavering and broken, a travesty of the song.

  Hew was still looking up over the sweep of trees to the heights. He reached for the horn slung over his shoulder.

  "Take me to him," Melanthe said.

  He paused, the horn lifted. "My lady, Lord Ruadrik said—"

  "Take me!" She turned her horse. "Or I’ll find my way alone." She urged it down the riverbank. The animal plunged in, fording the stream in knee-deep splashes. They heaved up onto the overgrown track on the other side.

  Hew came behind. Without another word he splashed out of the water and pricked his rouncy past her.

  * * *

  Ruck pulled up Hawk from his last gallop. While the destrier recovered its wind, shedding a furry winter coat along with winter fat, Ruck guided him out of the lists. He let his feet dangle out of the stirrups.

  He smiled at the May pole that stood ready in the middle of the sheep meadow, ribbons bound tight, the spring blast whistling through them as he rode Hawk in a circle around it. The weather would not smile on their celebrations, he feared; it seldom did, but hope sprang anew each year. If the sun failed them, they would move the pole and festival into the castle bailey.

  He left his ax and mace leaning outside the wooden rail of the lists, ready for him when he returned after eating, and let Hawk amble up the slope toward the road. There were already twenty lambs, leaping and running, or staring fixedly at him as if he were some pressing secret to be unraveled. Joany Tumbster stopped him at the gatehouse and demonstrated how she could vault up behind him over Hawk’s tail. The destrier bore it patiently, as lenient with girls in fluttering dags as he was intolerant of full-grown men in armor.

  They rode into the yard with Joany standing on Hawk’s rump, her hands on Ruck’s shoulders. Her brother, scraping cow dung into a barrow, yelled at her to let go and stand straight. Just as she dared to chance it, a horn sounded from far outside the walls, taken up by another at the gate.

  "Desmond’s come!" Joany slipped and snatched at Ruck’s neck, bounding free just before she strangled him.

  "No. Hold!" His command caught her halfway across the yard to the gate.

  She and the others halted, turning their young faces to him, wind-burned and innocent.

  "No one goes to him until I know that he does not bring pestilence." He reined Hawk around. "Joany, you come with me, far enough to fetch the princess back—she and Hew went downriver with the falcon. Tell her to wait in her bower until I return."

  * * *

  Until he’d heard the horn, Ruck had not known how much he dreaded it. After he dropped Joany at the crossing, he let the destrier walk across the bridge, as if by going slowly he could gain back the time that had slipped away as the ice had melted from the river.

  Hawk hoisted himself up a turn in the familiar path, his hooves sucking in mud. He went without Ruck’s guidance, knowing the way out as he knew the way in. They had climbed high on the slope, where the hawthorn buds were still tight and purple-black instead of bursting, when the sharp scent of fresh droppings jolted him from his brooding.

  He halted Hawk. The tracks were fresh, ascending instead of descending. They had come in on a side trail.

  It could only be Melanthe and Hew. Ruck scowled, unhappy that they had rushed up here to meet the boy. Desmond had not been outside before; he was young and impetuous; he might be fetching anything back—plague and more.

  Ruck slapped the horse, urging him to a swifter pace.

  Hawk heaved and blew frost, his ears flicking as they drew up to the howling rock and passed it by. The slate cliffs loomed above. Ruck kept expecting to hear Desmond’s flute, to meet them all coming down; his nerves grew more taut as Hawk climbed on alone.

  The sudden hush of the tarn was like a sound of its own. Beyond the moaning crevice, the pool was tranquil as it always was, black, still ice-skimmed in the cold shadow of the cliffs. As they entered, Hawk shied violently. Ruck grabbed for his sword as a figure rose from the bushes.

  It was Hew, without the horses or Melanthe. Ruck controlled the destrier, spurring him forward. "Where is she?" His alarm echoed off the slate, mingling with the ring of Hawk’s hooves.

  Hew sank to one knee, his head bowed. He had no blood or look of a fight on him. Ruck threw himself from the saddle and grabbed the man’s shoulders. "What happened?"

  "My lord—a message, my lord. For you, my lord."

  For an instant, sight and heart and lungs failed him. She was abducted. Blindly he grabbed for Hawk, to remount. "How long? How many of them?"

  "My lord!" There was a hot strain in Hew’s voice. "A message from my lady!"

  Ruck paused, leashing his urge to throw Hawk into a pell-mell charge down the path. As soon as he turned, Hew stood up and closed his eyes. He looked miserable and scared, squeezing the wool mitts on his hands.

  "My lord, my lady commanded me. I am to say you as if she herself spoke, my lord, and her message to you be thusly—" He wet his chapped lips. "’I leave you of my own desire. Desmond says that Al—Allegreto lives, and his father comes in this country to wed me. I love this man as my life, better than ever I loved you.’" He took a breath while Ruck stared at him. "’What was between you and me is nothing and naught,’" he recited with a nervous flick of his tongue. "’I sore repent it. Do nothing to shame me, for henceforth I desire never to beholden you again, for disgrace and disgust of such a connection.’" He opened his eyes and flung himself down on his knees. "And so did she charge me to say exactly, my lord!" he cried. "I swear to you, for never should I speak such words else!"

  "It is false!" Ruck shouted. "The horses are gone! They took her; they forced her!"

  He gripped his hands together and bent his head down. "No, only Desmond was here, my lord, and she went apart and spoke to him within the sight of my eyes, lord! And she mounted him upon my horse, and said that he would hav
e it to carry him, and bade me on pain to stay you from following her."

  "No." Ruck took a step forward. "She did not!"

  "My lord, she instructed me to say to you, if you would not abide her word"—Hew lifted wretched eyes—"to remember, my lord, that she warned you once, that always she deceived."

  TWENTY-TWO

  He had no memory of coming down from the mountain. Hawk was galloping, pounding down the road before the castle. The May pole stood in the meadow. He sent Hawk flying off the track, drawing his sword, careering down the slope with his arm outstretched.

  The sword hit, slashing through the ribbons, a violent impact in his hand. The stave vibrated wildly as he swept past. He reined Hawk on his haunches and spurred the destrier at the pole. He was yelling as he rode it down, swinging his sword overhead. The bright silks flew in the wind. The blow rang through him, opening a white gash in the wood.

  He flung the weapon from him as he passed the lists, leaning down to catch the haft of the battle ax. He swung upright in the saddle and charged the May pole howling fury in his throat.

  The blade flashed and bit deep in the wood. With a crack the pole bent drunkenly. He drove the horse around with his legs, hefting the length of the ax in both hands. He cut at the stave, spurring Hawk in ever smaller circles around the fractured pillar, swinging again and again as wood chips flew past his face, chopping until the log fell with a squealing groan.

  He raised the ax over his head and brought it down, cleaving the stump down the center with a crack like a lightning bolt. He yanked the weapon free and dismounted amid trampled ribbons, assaulting the downed spar.

  The wood splintered beneath the blade. He had no thoughts, no idea of time. He hewed until his hands went numb with the work, until he couldn’t pull the blade from its seat but stumbled forward over it when he tried.

  He fell on his knees amid mutilated silk and sundered wood. With his dagger he stabbed at a scarred length of pole beside him, the only thing in reach. He could hear nothing but his own heaving breath and the sound of the point impaling wood. Sweat trickled down into his eye, sharp salt. He wiped it with the back of his leather sleeve.

  The cold wind bit his cheeks when he looked up. All of his people stood at the edge of the lists, a cluster of color and silence except for one little girl who was weeping. Their May stave and garlands lay maimed and dismembered about him.

  He shook his head. He shifted the dagger and speared the mud beside his knee. Torn strips of blue and pink fluttered and curled around his gauntlet. He pulled free and gored again, his fist rising and falling weakly. He shook his head once more.

  "My lord." It was Will Foolet’s voice, heavy with fear and question.

  "I can’t speak of it." Ruck’s throat was hoarse. He shoved himself to his feet. "Ask Hew."

  He took up the ax and walked toward the lists, wiping his muddy knife on his thigh. The tear-stained girl came up to meet him as he passed, reaching for the hem of his surcoat. "Won’t we have a May then, m’lord, if you please?" Her large eyes fixed him. "My lady’s grace said me that I might carry her flowers to the stave—" Her mother hurried up, trying to lift her away, but she clung stubbornly to him. "And I can’t now!" she cried.

  "Beg grace, my lord!" her mother exclaimed, yanking the small fist free.

  Ruck saw a lone figure walking toward them from far away down the track. Hew. Soon enough they would all know, and stare at him, and pity him for a wretched love-sot, more fool than they could invent in their best playing at fools.

  "I’ll fell another." He turned from them, hefting the ax onto his shoulder. "I don’t desire company at it."

  * * *

  Desmond had told Melanthe nothing more, but that Allegreto’s father had come to Bowland. She hadn’t asked. He did not use his bandaged hand, and he moved like an old man, his young face unsmiling, his eyes bleak.

  He brought her to her senses. She had looked on him, the boy who had left with a merry melody that knew nothing of pain, and she had known that she must go.

  She could not let this come to Wolfscar. And it would come, if she stayed, if Gian was here. The world would come no matter the depth of the woven wood barrier. Gian would hunt her until he found her.

  As dreams and vapor vanished, as a laughing youth came home a cripple, so would such things perish if she tried to hold on to what she could not possess. She had not forgotten who she was, but she had let herself forget what it demanded.

  She had looked back once, halting the horse at a crossroad where a monk and a farmer worked to repair a harrow. Gryngolet sat on the saddlebow, asleep, her head tucked beneath one white wing. The wind blew warmer here, pushing fat low clouds and showers off the sea. The lowland was alive with the work of spring, with cleared fields and flowers, church bells and children chasing birds off the new seeds.

  Behind her the mountains rose, catching the rain against their flanks—a dark watch, a malevolence that made the eye long to turn to the new foliage and fresh red soil. She stared at the boundary. High and impenetrable it seemed, and yet preciously frail, vanishing at a glance for anyone with the key.

  Her message to Ruck had been a more powerful kind of barrier, designed to kill all trust and love. He would have followed her—she made a pit of broken faith between them to prevent him.

  Desmond didn’t halt or look back at her. His fat sluggish rouncy, taken from Hew, carried him step by step. She had seen him wrap his good hand in the mane, his mouth drawn hard against every jolt. Sometimes, when his face grew too white, she had told him they would rest, and gave him time to recover himself.

  She wondered how many fingers he had left beneath the bandage. But it was only his left hand, and he could still move his joints, if stiffly. He had not been racked for long.

  So far from Gian, she’d let herself drown in foolish visions. She had done a thing unforgivable and irreparable, disdaining the danger.

  She had loved, and let it command her.

  If she had not, Desmond would be whole. He would still be in Wolfscar, playing his mirthful flute. But she’d never thought Gian would come. She had thought Allegreto dead. She had thought she was free.

  Free! Better she had obeyed Ligurio and gone into the nunnery. Better she had flung herself from the highest tower of Monteverde. Better that she had never, never known what she knew now—a man’s faint smile and the depth of his heart and his faithfulness. She did not deserve it, she had never deserved such, she had mistaken herself for someone else. Ligurio had trained her, Gian would have her; it was beyond defying.

  Even God Himself had stayed his hand. She had not conceived; she had seen the signs denying it each month with regret—but she understood now what mercy had been given her, that she was barren.

  Fantasies and a lover she left behind. Only one thing did she do for herself, brutally cruel as she could do it, so that she might have a hope of sleeping. She made him hate her, so that he would not follow.

  * * *

  The moment that they rode within sight of the massive gatehouse and red sandstone walls that guarded the abbey, Allegreto came striding out. He did not keep to a walk—he began to run, avoiding puddles and a flock of peahens, coming to a halt before her horse. "My father," he said.

  His face held no expression, his voice no panic, and yet he radiated a fear so deep that he seemed to breathe it in and out of him.

  "Is he here?" She nodded toward the abbey.

  "In God’s name, no!" He seemed to get a little hold of himself and shook his head. He bowed to her. "No, lady. At Bowland. We came away in secret."

  "Let us go in, then. Desmond must have rest and food."

  Allegreto looked toward her drooping companion. He walked to the horse and took its reins, reaching back to grip Desmond’s good hand. "Well done," he said, "for bringing her lady’s grace. You see I didn’t follow."

  Desmond gave a hollow croak of a laugh. "Not for lack of trying."

  Allegreto turned and clucked the rouncy into a slow walk. He l
ooked back at Desmond. "How were you injured, when they ask?"

  "A mishap," Desmond said weakly. "A mill wheel."

  Allegreto nodded. "Clever enough," he said to the boy.

  Melanthe saw Desmond smile feebly. He looked at Allegreto with bleared and worshiping eyes.

  "I’ve said a lady doing penance is expected," Allegreto informed them. "A great lady traveling poorly, to atone for her pride and vainglory. A falcon brought the message to her in a dream."

  Melanthe sighed. "Ah, Allegreto—and I thought you dead." She pulled her hood about her face and lifted the bird who had delivered the unfortunate news of her pride and vainglory, pressing her horse toward the abbey gate.

  * * *

  She knelt beside Allegreto in the sanctuary, telling prayer beads with her fingers. While the monks sang compline in the candlelit church, he spoke softly to her, his voice a tight undertone to the motet and descant.

  "I don’t know what you want, my lady. I don’t know what you intended by fleeing. I’ve thought on it these three months, and still I cannot fathom your desire."

  "It’s not important," she said.

  "Yes, my lady, it is important to me. I am yours. You won’t believe me. I cannot prove it. But if I must choose between you and my father, I’ve chosen."

  She looked aside at him, keeping her head bowed. He was staring intensely at her, the smooth curve of his cheek lit by gold, his eyes outlined in shadow as if by a finely skillful hand. "You’ve chosen me?" she asked, with a soft incredulity.

  "You don’t want my father. That’s all I can make of your move. Is that true?"

  Such a blunt question. She forced her fingers to tell the beads, her mind to think. Was this Gian, trying to wrest words from her that he would use somehow? Allegreto was his father’s creature; he had ever been, born and bred to his devotion. As frightened of Gian as all the rest of them, loving his father as a wolf cub loved its parent, in cringing adoration.