Shadowheart

by Laura Kinsale

  Ruck obeyed, approving the idea. He shoved the spike of the cone-shaped block firmly into the sand.

  Princess Melanthe established the falcon, crooning as she removed the hood. "Beware of your favorite," she murmured. "’Beware Allegreto."

  The gyrfalcon stretched her wings wide, milky white, her bells tinkling. The bright, dark eyes focused briefly on Ruck and then beyond, fixing on the distance.

  "It’s a noble bird," he said, in spite of himself.

  "Thank you." She seemed more composed now, not so shaken as she had been but a moment before. "I had her gift of a Northman." She glanced at Ruck. "He was nearly as tall as you, but fair."

  Her slanting look at him seemed to hold some message. This tall, fair Northman had been another of her lovers, he reckoned. He felt irritated and rough. To give her a gift of such value had not occurred to him.

  "He died in bed by a bodkin knife," she said, as if it were a piece of light gossip. "I believe his soul went into Gryngolet."

  Ruck crossed himself in reflex at the blasphemy, but he did not rebuke it.

  "If Allegreto comes, Gryngolet will know," she added enigmatically.

  "Well for it." Not only her witch’s familiar, the falcon, but a jealous lover, too. He grabbed the handle of the chest inside her tent and hauled it out. "I can turn hand then, and ready us to go when we will."

  Ruck went about his work moodily, with half an eye to the horizon. He rolled her furs and piled them on the chest outside, then kicked each of the tent pegs loose in turn. As the bright pavilion fell in on itself, he pulled off his gloves with his teeth and stuffed them under his arm, grimacing at the taste of metal and sand. He squatted and began to untie the ropes.

  He looked up to see Princess Melanthe huddled at the other side of the cloth, engaged on the same task.

  "Fie, madam," he said in astonishment, "I shall do the labor."

  She was having little success with the tight knot. He stood up and caught the rope, pulling the stake from her hands.

  "Your Highness, it’s not seemly," he said, vexed. He caught her elbow and drew her up. With a little force he guided her away from the tent, releasing her immediately.

  "I don’t this waiting," she said, holding her fingers clasped tight together. "When may we go?"

  "If they don’t return by morn, then we depart." He spread her furs on the log, searched inside her chest, found a book, and handed it to her. "One night is enough to spend alone in the Wyrale."

  He bent knee briefly before her, then stood up and went back to work. From the corner of his eye, he could see her sitting upon the furs. The shivers caught up with her sometimes, making the open book shake.

  "We wait for nothing," she said suddenly. "If they’ve lost their fear of plague, then they fear their punishment too well to come back."

  He rose from binding the tent. "They fear, right enough. But in the cold light of morning a man reflects that he has both wife and child, and doesn’t care to live outlawed from God and home." The corner of his mouth lifted as he stood straight, setting his hand at his waist. "Wherefore, my lady, he bethinks him of a story, of how the others fled, but he alone among them was a brave man, and ran after, to bring them back. But he lost his way in the darkness, and only now comes to us again as fast he may find us."

  The reluctant shadow of a smile crossed her features. "The duke did say you’re a master of men."

  He gave a slight shrug. "It’s what I’d do, were I one of them."

  "No," she said. "Green Sire, you would not—for you didn’t run away to begin with." She laid the volume aside. "But it’s a gift you have, to read the hearts of lesser men."

  He did not trust her compliments. "They’re soldiers," he said. "More like to me than to my lady’s grace."

  She turned her eyes to him, her eyes the color of purple dusk, and gazed at him as if she were only just seeing him for the first time. She had looked at him so once before, as she had prepared to lead him into tournament, a glance that wished to see through to his heart. She had asked him his name then—as if she cared what it might be.

  "Perhaps so." She gave another peculiar laugh. "Perhaps not. I have me some talents in common with base liars and cowards—more than I think you have."

  Her fingers plucked at one another, her jeweled rings glistening. She looked away, staring out past him at the distant trees beyond the marshland. The wind blew more strands of her dark hair from under the furred hood. She brushed them back without elegance.

  Ruck realized he was watching her, standing still, as if he didn’t know what else to do with himself.

  "I am always lying, green man," she said, without taking her eyes from the distance. "Always. Remember that I told you."

  He turned and slung a bag of bedding onto Hawk’s rump. He went on packing, hot in his heart and his loins, half-frozen by the cold wind on his rough fingers.

  * * *

  The knight had no more to say; he merely finished his work and sat on the ground, leaning against the pile of baggage he’d made, facing away from her and Gryngolet to look out on the northern horizon. His destrier stood loaded as if they might leave at any moment.

  Melanthe pretended to ignore him, as he appeared to ignore her. The circumstance was too singular; she suspected he’d no more been so utterly alone with a lady than she had been with any man.

  In the long hours of waiting a peculiar curiosity possessed her. She wondered at his age, if he had children, brothers, a favorite dish. She didn’t ask. She never asked such things, but found them out by secret ways if she felt the need. They were powerful holds, the small details, the life and loves of a man—things to exploit and manipulate. She didn’t wish to use him that way; she only wished to know.

  But she took care to deny such an alien impulse, and let him keep court with her as stately as if they were in the palaces of kings. Already she’d said more than she should—why she had warned him of her lying, she could not fathom. She had simply said it, hearing herself with wonder as she did.

  At noontide he knelt, rifling among the bags. Wordlessly he brought her an orange, a soft herb cheese, and wine, along with five almonds and a twisted stick of violet sugar. He laid them on a cloth on the ground, proffering a napkin and an ewer of rose water drawn from a silver cask. Melanthe dipped her fingers in the frigid water and dried them hastily. On his knees he cut a tiny bite from each food, tasting it himself before he offered it to her.

  She accepted this solemn ritual. It was a strange moment, a regal distance between them—and yet he knew what she customarily ate for a midday meal as well as if he’d shared it with her himself a hundred times before. When he came in his ceremonial tasting to the sugar penidia, he paused, looking down at the delicate and costly sweet.

  "I think it not seemly that I spend a portion of this on myself, Your Highness," he said.

  "Spend it all on yourself, knight," she said. "It’s yours to savor. And it pleases me to give the orange to you, also."

  He glanced up at her. She saw for a bare instant the stark blaze of his desire, the quick touch of his green eyes on every part of her face, on her lips and cheeks and brow—almost palpable, vivid as the powerful beat of a falcon, light as the brush of hunter’s wings.

  He looked down again.

  "Thank you, my lady," he said briefly, and withdrew with a bow, taking up his place again by the baggage.

  As if a little distance released him from court manners, he sat propped up in a relaxed fashion, his legs bent to accommodate roweled spurs, his armor plates shining dully in the hazy sun. His helmet rested on the ground within easy reach. Roughly cut black locks spilled over the folds of the chain mail hood at his nape. When he tilted back his head and drained a mug of ale, she had a great impulse to reach her hand out and caress his windblown hair.

  Queer reticence possessed her at such thoughts, and she couldn’t even look at him in secret. Her mind distrusted; her heart could hardly bear to acknowledge the thought that Allegreto would not return, that
Cara was gone—she was at last free of it all.

  She did not dare to plan beyond the instant, leaving decision in the hands of her knight. She heard him come to his feet, chinking armor and spurs.

  "Your Highness," he said quietly. "I must sleep now, so that I can keep the watch tonight."

  She looked up at him. He stood a few feet away holding the ewer, wary observation in his face. Melanthe had another lunatic urge to laugh at the way they prowled and met and recoiled from each other. Instead she nodded, lowering her eyes.

  Without a word he knelt again before her and offered the ewer. When she had ceremoniously dipped the tips of her fingers, he cleared the cloth of her half-eaten meal. She stuffed her cold hands into her furs and watched him bed down in full armor beside his sword and helm. He turned his back to her, pillowing his head on a pack saddle.

  She envied him his easy sleep. She felt as if she had never had enough.

  * * *

  Ruck ate her discarded orange by moonlight and the sound of wolves. A few hundred yards away he could just see the spark of the three fires that he kept going in their original camp, returning at intervals to add fuel and stand a brief watch. His men would reappear tonight, he felt, those who could. The fires were to reassure them—and give the impression of a well-manned camp to any others.

  He would have moved farther from the flames, beacon and decoy that they were, but the wolves hunted close. He’d made Princess Melanthe’s bed here in the dark. Cold, perhaps, but more likely to be overlooked if something human took him. The wolves would find her no matter where she hid.

  He sucked the fruit, allowing the rich bitter juice to run on his tongue. He’d had oranges in Aquitaine a few times, at feasts and Christmas—but to eat one every day as she did was something utterly beyond his experience. And the penidia: he’d never tasted white sugar but once, a score and more Christmases gone, a child at the high board with his father and mother.

  He held the fragile stick to his nose, smelling his own fingers, smoke and orange, and on the sugar a very faint scent of flowers. He closed his eyes and touched his tongue to it. It was a thousand times sweeter than the fruit, flooding his mouth with potent flavor, erotic as sin and springtime.

  He lowered it and looked away from the fires, into the darkness. She was there, close to him, though he could see nothing but blackness.

  He lifted his hands again. He did not eat the sugar stick, but sat with it cupped to his mouth, watching the dark and the fires, breathing the scent of a world beyond his reach.

  EIGHT

  An instant of sleep, it seemed, and the urgent voice was at Melanthe’s ear, whispering out of the dark.

  "Your Highness, we must go." He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Lady, wake you, all haste!"

  His urgency drove through the waves of sleep. She rolled toward him, allowing frigid air to hit her face. In the moonlight he was leaning down over her, very close, his breath frosting about her face. She could hear voices somewhere in the night.

  "We’re marked," he murmured harshly, grasping her arm amid the furs, pulling her upright. "Come!" He didn’t even give her time to rise. He thrust his arms beneath the furs, lifting her all in a bundle. Melanthe gave a small cry of surprise. His arms tightened as he made a hiss to silence her.

  He carried her to the horse—and Melanthe wakened fully to the sense of things now. She took hold of the saddle and dragged the furs about her shoulders, struggling into position atop the lumpy bags as he pushed her up. He mounted in front of her. She fumbled to take hold of his sword belt beneath his mantle, grabbing it just in time to save herself as he spurred the destrier hard, clapping his hand over hers as the horse leapt forward.

  They rode through the dark as if the Wild Hunt were at their heels. Melanthe saw nothing, her face pressed into his cloak as the freezing wind whipped her, clinging for her life with the reckless pace. He’d loaded the stallion with this in his mind, for though she bumped and swayed, the bags formed a slight hollow that let her keep her seat. She locked both her hands in his belt and felt his glove gripped tight over them, stiff leather and freezing metal pressing her arms into the hard plates at his belly.

  Her chin jolted against his shoulder armor, padded only by his mantle. The horse twisted and turned in the darkness on some frenzied path of its own, but the knight rode as if he had the mind of the beast itself, holding her with him when the strength of her own fingers began to fail.

  A sudden falter threw her forward onto his back. The stallion stumbled and came almost to a halt, the marsh sucking at its hooves. With a shaft of horror Melanthe felt its haunches begin to sink beneath her—before she could find the voice to cry out, the knight let go of her and raised both arms. She felt his body drive; he gave a great shout, and the horse reared, leaping and floundering forward. Melanthe grappled to keep her hold, cutting her fingers, pinching them painfully against the sharp-edged metal belt as he impelled the destrier forward into another rearing leap.

  With a jolt and a heave, the horse scrambled free. Melanthe gave a faint mew, holding on as the animal broke again into a gallop. The knight’s hand closed on hers, locking her fingers into his glove, crushing her fingers between his. She hid her face against his back, concentrating on the pain, welcoming it as the only thing that assured her she would not fall.

  After an eternity of this mad race, she felt the stallion’s endurance wane. She could hear its laboring breath and feel the slowing pace. She cracked her eyes open and saw the barest hint of dawn light. They plunged into the gloom of tall trees, the silhouettes of their trunks black against gray mist.

  The horse shied, a great leap sideways that nearly hurled her loose from her clinging perch. The knight grabbed her, holding her arm so tight that she gave a desperate squeak. He dragged her upright, settling the horse to a walk.

  It came to an abrupt halt. He swore quietly on Saint Mary.

  Melanthe was panting as hard as the horse. She couldn’t seem to command her fingers. They were frozen to his belt and armor; she could not spread them open, she could only droop against his back, staring mindlessly at the barely perceptible dawn.

  A bird called amid the barren branches, and suddenly motion returned to her fingers. "Gryngolet!" she gasped, shoving herself awkwardly away.

  "I cut the falcon free," he said softly. "Be still."

  He was looking ahead of them. Melanthe realized that the horse’s ears were pricked—she closed her hands again on his belt, but he brushed them aside and dismounted, dropping the destrier’s reins over its head to trail on the ground.

  "Don’t move," he murmured, and drew his sword. She watched him duck off the faint track into a thicket of branches, each step a gentle chink.

  Then, in the growing light, she saw it. Between the winter-bare twigs, a spot of bright yellow and blue.

  Allegreto.

  Her heart began to pound as if it would explode. She held her bloody hands around her stomach, huddling in the furs.

  She heard the knight’s quiet steps move about beyond the tangle of branches. Allegreto was utterly motionless—hiding—she couldn’t see him, only that splash of color through the thicket and the mist. She had a horrible fear for her knight walking into murderous ambush.

  "Don’t kill him!" she cried fiercely in French. "Or I’ll see you flayed alive."

  The footsteps paused.

  "It’s too late, madam," the knight said in a cold voice. "He’s dead."

  Melanthe froze in place. She stared at the patch of yellow and blue.

  Then she slid from the horse, pushing back branches, shoving them away as they whipped in her eyes and stung her cheeks. But the knight met her, stepping solidly before her, turning her with a rough push.

  "You don’t want to see it," he said in English.

  She turned back, trying to pass. "I must see him!"

  "No, madam." He held her firmly. "Wolves."

  Her panting breath frosted between them as she stared up into his eyes. He shifted his gaze, t
ilting his head toward something beside her.

  She followed his look. On a low branch, brushing her skirt, hung a tangle of black hair dirtied with blood and fallen leaves.

  "Your maid," he said quietly. "Her gown is there, too." Melanthe turned her head aside. Nausea swept over her. She tore herself from the knight’s grasp and floundered through the brush. Leaning against the stallion’s steaming flank, she bent over, shuddering. But the tangle of hair had clung to her skirt—she shook it frantically, panting in great hysterical gulps. Still it clung. The cold air seemed to draw slimy fingers over her flushed cheeks, as if the bloody hairs touched her face. She shrieked, flapping the azure wool, shaking harder and harder, but the black tangle adhered to her. She turned, as if she could run from it, and collided with the knight.

  "Off!" she cried, her voice peaking shrilly. "Get it off me!" She held out her skirt, her hands trembling. When he hesitated, she screamed at him, "There! There! Do you see it?"

  He reached down and plucked the black mass from her skirt, then took a step back, casting it away. Melanthe didn’t look to see where it went.

  "Is there more?" She lifted her dress toward him with a frenzied move. "I feel it!"

  The knight pulled off his gloves and put his hand on her shoulder. He bent a little and with his other hand smoothed over her skirts. He turned her, running his bare palm briskly over all of the woolen folds, her sides, her back and hips. "No, my lady. No more."

  She retched, falling to her knees, holding her hands over her stomach.

  "Oh, God," she moaned, and began to laugh. "Allegreto!"

  The crazed hilarity echoed in the barren wood. Ruck stood over her, looking down at the vulnerable white nape of her neck beneath the bedraggled netting that barely contained her hair. He retrieved the furs she’d dropped. Kneeling, he wrapped them about her and lifted her onto Hawk as he’d done before. She made no resistance, reaching for him even as he mounted. She slid her arms around him, clinging hard, still laughing and sobbing dry half sobs.