For My Lady's Heart (41 page)

“Oh, God pity thee,” she whispered. “Allegreto.”

“She is not for me. I know that. There is an Englishman.” He took a long
breath and spoke coldly. “I believe he will wed her. But if your lady’s
grace accuses her to my father—” He shrugged, and his elegant murdering
hands twisted together.

She might have thought he was lying. He was player enough, verily, for
any part.

He squeezed his eyes closed, lifting his face to the high arches. “I am
yours. I’ll act only for you. I will do whatever you ask to prove myself.
Only—I cannot leave her there, and I cannot go back without you, my lady.”

Three monks in procession came from the chancel down the nave toward
them, singing, their faces underlit by the candles they carried. Melanthe
watched them turn and leave the church by a side door.

“Listen to me, my lady. Your white falcon was there— when my father
punished his enemy and forewarned me.”

She looked toward him. “What?”

“My father fed it,” he said. “He said that he had trained it to know me.”

“That is impossible.”

“The falcon hates me, my lady.”

“Your father has never touched Gryngolet.”

“He told me that if I betrayed him with you, that the falcon—” He looked
at her imploringly. “My lady,
he fed
it.”

He did not say more; he let her understand the monstrous thing he meant.
Through her horror Melanthe bared her teeth. “If he had a gyrfalcon, it was
not Gryngolet!”

“I will carry her.” Allegreto gazed at Melanthe with a straight and
terrified intensity. “To prove my fidelity—that I do not lie to you.”

She suddenly realized that the church was silent, the prayers completed,
the sanctuary dimmer. What candlelight was left hardened the sweet curves
and comeliness of his face, erased the last hint of childhood, revealed the
untenable compass of his fear.

He should have tried to appeal to Melanthe’s welfare if he wished to
entrap her. Her desires, her ambitions. But he had admitted that he did not
know them.

He asked her what he could do, as clumsy and open as Cara in her folly.

It did not seem a great thing, this offer to carry a falcon, for a
manslayer, a lovely boy with the soul of a demon. If he was lying, and she
trusted him—then she walked open-eyed and helpless into Gian’s clasp.

Three things Allegreto dreaded. Plague and his father, and Gryngolet. He
knelt in the church and offered to defy two of them. For lying.

Or for love.

“Thou needst not carry her,” Melanthe said. “I trust thee.”

His lips parted; that was the only sign he gave of elation or relief.

“If thou art mine,” she said, “then attend close to me now. Thy father
did not have Gryngolet, nor ever has. I flew her at Saronno, all that week
that I supposed thee in Milan. She was not in Monteverde for him to use in
such vice. It was another bird obtained to daunt thee, we must assume—and
contemptible abuse of a noble beast.”

His jaw twitched. She deliberately disdained his father’s horror as a
mere offense against a falcon’s dignity, to shrink it to a thing that he
could manage.

“Gryngolet has hated thee because I have not been over fond of thee, I
think.” She shrugged. “Or haps she dislikes thy perfume. Change it.”

He closed his dark eyes. He drew a deep breath into his chest, the sound
of it uneven.

Melanthe stood up, the beads sliding through her fingers. She turned and
left the church, pausing after she had made her obeisance. “Allegreto,” she
said quietly as he rose beside her from his knee, “if we fear him to a
frenzy, we are done.”

He nodded. “Yea, my lady. I know it well, my lady.”

* * *

She had not seen Bowland for eighteen years. Against spring
thunderclouds, the towers did not seem as monstrous huge as she remembered,
and yet they were formidable, the length of the wall running a half-mile
along the cliff edge to the old donjon at the summit. Its massive height
stared with slitted eyes to the north, defying Scots and rebels as it had
for a hundred years and more.

Strength and shield—her haven—and Gian held it of her. She had not sent
word. She arrived at the head of a guard provided by the abbot when she had
revealed herself to him. Their approach had been sighted five miles back, of
that she could be sure, for Bowland overlooked all the country around, with
signal towers to extend the view. He would know by now a party came.

And he had surmised who it was. A half-mile from the gatehouse, a pair of
riders sped out to them, bringing breathless welcome, and a few moments
later an escort of twenty lances showing signs of hasty organization trotted
to meet them, wheeling to form proud flanks.

A few drops of rain spattered her shoulders, but she did not raise her
hood. She rode over the bridge and into the immense shadow of the barbican
with her face lifted and her head bare but for a golden net.

Woodsmoke and cheering shouts greeted her as her rouncy jogged into the
open yard. The lower bailey swarmed with people and animals, as if every
member of the hold had dropped his task to come. They wished to see her, she
knew, their mistress returned.

Among the English she recognized no one, but that was beyond reason to
expect. All her old servants, her parents’ men, they would all be changed
beyond knowing. But a babble of Italian and French equaled or outpaced the
native tongue, and there were ones she saw of Gian’s knaves whom she knew
better than she cared to, and her own familiar retinue awaiting—her
palfreyour to take her horse, and her chaplain, and yes . .. Cara, smiling,
with a trapped rabbit’s fright in her eyes.

Melanthe ignored her. As she dismounted, Gian came striding from the
donjon.

He was grinning, his arms open. His houpelande of crimson flared behind
him, guards of gold embroidery skimming the ground, and his spiked harlots
impaling the air elegantly with each step.

He went low to his knee, lifting the hem of her gown. “God be thanked for
His might. God be thanked.” He made the cross and touched his lips to the
cloth.

“Your Grace,” she said. “Give you greeting.”

He sought her hands as he rose, kissing her eagerly on cheeks and mouth.
“Princess, you know not what I have endured.”

He tasted of perfumed oil, his beard dressed neat, blackened by dyes of
cypre and indigo. She offered her hand.

“I was the one lost in desert,” she said lightly. “Ask what I’ve endured.
Depardeu, I have not heard a word but in English these three months.”

“Torture indeed!” He took her arm and led her up the stairs into the
donjon. “You shall tell me all, when your ladies have done with you.
Come—oh, come, my sweet.” His fingers tightened on her suddenly. He halted,
gathering her hands in his and kissing them.

“Gian,” she said softly.

He straightened. “Christ, I am undone, to treat you so.” He released her.
“Go to your women. Call me when you will.”

With a swift turn he walked away from her. At the screen he passed
Allegreto, who bowed down with his forehead to the very floor tile. Gian did
not glance at him. He crossed the hall and disappeared into a stair.

It was not until she was in her bath, with the silk sheets hung about and
Cara setting a tray of malvoisie wine on the trestle, that the full scope of
Melanthe’s defeat came upon her. She had held herself insensible to what she
did; refused to think backward instead of forward, to move in weakness
rather than strength.

But she had lost, and lost beyond all her worst imagining.

Gian held her. And Bowland that was to have been her security, her refuge
where every servant was safe and known and no alien countenance could be
concealed. She had thrown away the quitclaim to draw him off, she had rid
herself of Allegreto and Cara only to have them back, she had played bishop
and queen and king—and lost. Bowland. Her safety, her freedom. And more—but
she could not think of him; she would break if she thought of him, and Gian
would see.

Cara washed her hair. Melanthe could feel the maid’s unsteady fingers—she
wanted to scream at the girl to summon her nerve, for one weak link was
enough to kill them all. Instead she took the washcloth and wiped soap
across her mouth, preferring the flavor of it to Gian’s taste.

“I hear thou art repentant,” she said coldly. “What proof canst thou give
me of it?”

“Oh, my lady!” Cara whispered. She bent her head, her wet hands clenched
together. “I’ll do anything!”

Melanthe gazed at her. “Hardly reassuring. What of thy sister?”

The girl shook her head. “My lady, what am I to do? I would give my life
for her if it would make her safe, but it would not. Allegreto has said—that
he has tricked the Riata for a little time—I know not how, but I was to
account to them by Ficino, and within the day of when he came here, before
he tried to seek me out, he ... he must have caught a candle in his clothes,
my lady, and . .. there was a fire. It was a terrible accident, my lady. All
said so.”

Melanthe hid the jolt of discovery about Ficino in a brief laugh. “Thou
hast found thyself a useful friend in Allegreto, it would seem.”

The maid kept her eyes lowered. She did not answer.

“Thou wilt go between us. He must stay near his father and away from me,”
Melanthe said. “He has told me I may trust thee, which is why I do, and the
only reason, since thou givest me none other. But remember that Gian is
here, and at thy least indiscretion I will give thee to him, and even
Allegreto could not save thee then.”

“Yea, my lady. I could not forget it, my lady.”

She received Gian in the chamber that had belonged to her father, with
its paintings of jousts and melees all along the plastered walls, a newer
wainscoting below them that she did not remember and a line of diverse
shields hung above. Again it seemed not so vast as it ought, the colors
duller, the curtained bed smaller and the red and blue ceiling beams not so
high as she recalled. But her father’s chair still stood near the chimney,
with a cushion in it that was shabby and almost worn through, an imperfect
embroidery of the Bowland arms that Melanthe recognized at once.

Every year since her marriage she had made him a new cushion, and sent
it. This one had been the first. Some others lay about the chamber, early
efforts, when she had been so sick for home that she had spent hours at the
task. In latter years she had chosen elaborate designs and caused the best
craftsmen in the city to execute them in expensive materials, but she did
not see any of those richer pillows in the room.

She was glad they were not here. The thin cushion worn through in her
father’s chair was better comfort and courage. She did not rise from it as
Gian entered, but only indicated a lesser chair drawn up near.

He bowed to her. Melanthe went through the ritual of ordering spices and
drink. While a servant waited at the door for any further charge, they
exchanged greetings of exquisite courtesy. Gian sat down.

“My lady’s father left his holding in good order, may God assoil him,” he
said in French. “I’ve seen naught but signs of the most excellent management
here since he passed to his reward.”

Gian was a master. Word of that compliment would soon spread throughout
the bailey.

Melanthe smiled. “I think you are a little amazed, sir. Haps you thought
we lived as savages here in the north.”

“My dear, none such as you could have sprung from savages, or from any
but the most noble blood.”

“I told you that my English estate was well worth my journey. This hold
is but a fraction; I have numerous manors to the west and south, and five
good castles, garrisoned all. I’ve made homage for them to the king, but
there’s much work yet to be done—I must meet my vassals and tour my
holdings. I’ll be truthful with you, my lord, and hope that you did not come
sallying north in the expectation that I would return immediately.”

He was silent, looking at her in an unfathomable way. She tilted her head
and put a question in her glance. She had worn a high-necked gown and
dressed her hair in a wimple of purple silk, so that the pulse in her throat
would not show.

“I would have thought you well occupied at home,” she added, defying
caution to make a swift attack.

He grinned, lifting his eyebrows. “And well you should, my lady. After
such a kindness as you did me with your quitclaim.”

He appeared quite at ease, even amused. But of course that could hide
anything. She shrugged. “A mischief, verily—but not too great, I hope. I
regret I had not time to warn you, but I was pressed upon too closely, and
then of course—this fearful adventure I have experienced—”

She left it there, without supplying details that might entangle her.

“We must thank God that you’re safe,” he said. “These other matters are
trifling. The Duke of Lancaster has graced us with a company of men and
lawyers in Monteverde, to press the claim you gave his father. My son tells
me you have met the duke?”

There was the heart. His real concern, in a casual question tagged to the
end of his words. Armies might move and lawyers argue over the paper claim
she had given away, but the real threat she still carried in herself and her
marriage. Lancaster was ambitious and powerful, with the throne of England
behind him; if already he sent a force to assert her quitclaim, how much
more aggressive might he be with the princess of Monteverde as his wife?

“Indeed yes,” she said, “I stopped at Bordeaux until the new year. A
gracious and hospitable man, truly. His brother the prince is sore ill, I
fear, and so the duke takes all the burden of Aquitaine upon his own
shoulders. I’m surprised he had the resource to pursue any business in
Monteverde.”

The refreshment arrived, saving her from saying more. Gian watched as the
English steward tasted the wine and spiced cakes, and then his own man did
the same. When the drink was poured, Gian dismissed both servants with a
flick of his hand. It was the first usurpation of authority he had taken—not
having been so tactless as to lodge himself in the lord’s chambers or issue
orders to her attendants. Melanthe made no remark on it, but she did look
deliberately at his hand and up at his face.