For My Lady's Heart (39 page)

“Pilgrims,” Ruck said, but it was an unusually large party, and even
conducted by an armed guard. The carts were full of larder and wool. “They
go out with the abbey’s trade.”

Desmond was gazing at the soldiers, his eyes alight. “Will they have to
tighten?”

Ruck took stock of the large guard. They were mounted all, and well
turned out, holding patient watch while their charges refreshed
themselves—the kind of escort he wanted for Melanthe. But they wore the
abbey’s livery, and he had no notion to ask for aid there. “They will
accounten themseluen well, if they do.” He turned away. “Dame Fortune likes
thee, Desmond—e’ery maid in the country will be here for such sight.”

Even as he spoke, three girls hurried out of the inn and began rooting
for something in a baggage cart. One of them cast a glance at Ruck and
Desmond and instantly pulled her veil over her face, huddling into hisses
and giggles with her companions. All three turned and stared.

Desmond turned bright red. He was common enough in his green and yellow
dags in Wolfscar, but here his vestment shouted amid the common grays and
browns. Ruck could see him shrinking. Little Abbot chose that moment to lift
his head and send forth another raucous bray.

Desmond turned from red to white. He looked as if his stomach warmed.

“Were I thee,” Ruck said under his breath, “I would show them that I had
a right to my minstrel’s gear.”

But the youth seemed daunted into impotence. Ruck dismounted. He took
hold of Abbot’s halter.

“Is this the king of lovers whom I met this morn? Hie, tumble thee hence
to the tavern door,” he said, “three springs off thy hands, if thou canst.”

Desmond threw his leg over Abbot’s back and hit the ground. He bounded
off his feet onto his hands, flipping backward, a green-and-yellow wheel
across the grass, five handsprings and a midair tumble at the finish before
he came up flushed, sent a glare at Ruck, and stalked into the tavern
without even glancing at the girls.

They were openmouthed with astonishment. A few of the guards shouted and
clapped. Ruck raised his hand to them and gave the maids a light courtesy.
He tied his beasts, then carried Desmond’s gittern into the tavern.

Desmond had fallen in love. It was his misfortune that his choice was the
comely redheaded maid who served the shoemaker’s wife and traveled with the
rest of the pilgrims in the abbey’s party. Ruck, sipping ale in a corner
well removed from the white-robed clerks traveling with their abbot’s goods,
foresaw lengthy pining over doomed love as the harvest of this day.

It was hopeless to try to direct the youth’s attention to the nut-brown
daughters of the village. They were shy; Desmond was shy; it had taken the
city maid’s coaxing smile to cajole him into performing, and then she had
chosen a love song and added her clear untrained voice to his—and Ruck saw
himself fifteen years past, beguiled past all wit.

“Come, ye will wenden with us?” the shoemaker was saying to him as
Desmond sat down on the bench beside his love, having just proven he could
stand upon his hands to the count of fifty. “Your boy’s good—ne do I doubt
me you can play the better, my man, and it’s a weary mile to York.”

“York?” Desmond said between pants, before Ruck could deny that they
wished to travel. “How far is it, sir?”

Ruck gave him a quelling look. Desmond hid his face in an ale tankard
while the redhead smiled benignly at him.

“Ah, ten days, or twelve, peraventure. Little enow on the way, in troth,
naught but Lonsdale and Bowland, and Ripon—but such lone places welcomen
minstrel folk, for ‘tis little oft they’re seen.”

Ruck turned to him in new interest. “Ye came that way?”

“Yea, and will return by it, for with this guard we have no fear of
reivers, God be thanked.”

“How fare the roads?” he asked, but missed the shoemaker’s answer, for
Desmond had suddenly choked on his ale and begun twitching his head in a
strange manner.

He was looking fixedly at Ruck. After a moment he stood up, bowing
frantically. “My lor—sir! Sir, mote I speaken you, sir!”

Ruck thought he must be ill, he seemed so agitated. He pushed back the
bench and followed the boy hastily outside.

“My lord!” Desmond turned just beyond the door and dragged Ruck behind
the horses. “My lord! Bowland!” He had no appearance of sickness. He was
bouncing on his heels, his face radiant. “Bowland! Is my lady’s hold, is
nought?” he demanded.

“Yea, I know it.”

“My lord, I can go! I can go with them anon!”

Ruck released a heavy breath. He shook his head. “Nay, Desmond, I want
Bassinger—”

“My lord! Only consider! The Scots raid, and Uncle Bass ne ha’nought seen
the road for years! Haps is all changed, if e’er he knew it! These folk haf
just come o’er from York— they’ll nought be lost nor stray out of the way.”

Ruck started to refuse again, but Desmond went down on his knee.

“My lord, I beg you! When will another armed company be that way? Will ye
senden Uncle Bass and me alone?”

The pleading made no impression on Ruck, but the thought of Bassinger and
Desmond traveling alone across the barren reiver country was enough to
arrest him. When he looked about the green, he saw that the guard had been
divided and an evening watch posted. The men off duty did not idle in the
tavern, but went about business with their horses and armor, efficient and
experienced in their moves.

Desmond was gazing up at him in the late evening light, full of desperate
hope and excitement. Ruck leaned against the wall and frowned, calculating.
There was the chance that Desmond in his lovesotted state would not stop at
Bowland, but trail behind the object of his heart all the way to York. Ruck
suspected, though, that this redheaded maid would grow bored with a rustic
swain long before York, and probably before they reached Bowland. She had
the look of experience on her—a lesson that might not be a bad one for a boy
who had seen nothing of the world.

But it was just that greenness that made him loath to send Desmond. If it
had been any older man of his hold, he would not have hesitated. The
advantages were obvious, and just as Desmond stated. It would not be soon
that a stout armed party would wend from here direct toward Bowland.

“My lord,” Desmond said, “if you think I’m too young— ‘tis said you ne
had no more than five and ten when you first went out! And I am older.”

Ruck nodded, barely hearing him. In his heart he was glad that Melanthe
was not here now, for he could hardly have demanded that she stay in
Wolfscar with such a favorable company to conduct her.

It was that thought that decided him. He was delaying; if he did not send
to Bowland now, he would go back and find another reason to delay; Bassinger
would protest his rheum, the planting would need management, the weather
would be untoward—he could find a thousand reasons, and they were all
shirking and tarrying to avoid what must be done.

He took Desmond by the shoulder and hauled him behind the granary. “If I
say thee yea, Desmond,” he hissed through his teeth, “and thou fails by some
idle chance, or for this maid or another—I shall profane thy name with my
last breath, does thou comprehend me?”

Desmond’s face lost a little of its zeal. He stood soberly and nodded.

“Ne art nought to letten two things pass thy lips, to no creature man nor
woman. Thou art nought to sayen whence thou came, ne the name of Wolfscar.
Nor aught of my marriage to my lady. Swear to it.”

“Nay, my lord. I swear by my father’s soul, my lord, ne will I speak of
Wolfscar nor whence I come, nor aught of my lord and my lady’s marriage.”

Ruck pulled the top buttons of his cote open and searched beneath his
shirt. “Now listen, and learn thy message. Her lady’s grace is safe and free
from harm or restraint. Ere Whitsunday, a guard and company with all things
suitable to her estate is to comen to the city of Lancaster and await her
there. This is her free wish and command, as attested by her chattel here
sent.” He held out the leather bag that he wore. “Lay this about thy neck,
and guard it. Will prove thee from the princess. Say me the message.”

Desmond repeated it instantly by heart, well-trained in minstrel’s
learning. Ruck gave him the whole contents of his wallet, silver enough to
tide him there and back, and saw the leather bag stowed safely about the
boy’s neck.

He felt a terrible misgiving as Desmond tucked his green scarf back into
place. “Stray nought out from the party,” he said. “Keep thee with the
shoemaker if there be fighting. Ne do nought think thou canst aid in any
combat.”

“Nay, my lord.”

“When thou returns, signal from the tarn. Ne do nought come farther. I
will meeten thee.”

“Yea, my lord.”

“Desmond, this red-haired maid—”

Desmond lifted his eyes, so innocent of all love’s dangers that Ruck only
sighed and shook his shoulder.

“Ne do nought fail me,” he said. “Do nought fail.”

“Nill I, my lord!” Desmond said fiercely. “Ne for no maid nor any other
thing!”

Ruck stood back. “Then fare thee well, as God please.”

Desmond went down on his knee, crossing himself. “God ha‘ mercy, my
lord!” He leapt up and ran, leaving Ruck in the deepening shadow behind the
barn.

Ruck took the mare and left Little Abbot tied. As he rode out, the ass
called after with a mournful braying. The echo of it rang in his ears long
after he could no longer hear the sound. Ruck made a cross and prayed to God
that he had not done a dearly foolish thing.

“I know not why you ask me,” Cara said. “I’ve no help to give you.”

Allegreto stood with his back to the trefoiled window. He never paced.
She wished that he would, or do anything but be so still and yet seem as if
he would spring.

“You did not like what I did before,” he said. “So I ask you.”

Cara sat straight in the chair he had given her, staring at a tapestry of
the conversion of Saint Eustace. It was a finely detailed piece, full of
greens and blues, the white stag with the miraculous cross between its
antlers gazing fixedly at the hunter.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said.

“Ficino,” he whispered. “Ficino is what I mean.”

The stag, she thought, was a brave creature, to stand trapped on a ledge
that way, even for a miracle.

“He was dead before the fire,” Allegreto said, “if that is what upset
you.”

She closed her eyes. “Don’t speak of it.”

Weeks had passed, all of Lent and Easter, and more, and still she could
smell the smoke and see him standing in red upon the dais. He wore white and
blue today; he had not worn red since, which was the only reason she could
look on him.

He turned suddenly, facing away out the window. “This messenger from
her—I know it’s a ruse! I have to do something. Christ, I can’t bide till
Whitsuntide—and then find that it’s some wile to bait me!” He put his hands
over his face. “God’s mercy, where
is
she?”

Cara looked down. Lint flecked her gown from the wool she’d been spinning
when he summoned her. She picked at a bit, rolling it around and around
between her fingers. “The messenger will not say.”

“Nay,” he snapped, turning sharply toward her. “Not for love, in any
case.”

“It may be he doesn’t know.”

“He knows. She’s with the green man—she sent the falcon’s varvels, the
ones she gave to him. She’s using the knight somehow, but for God’s rood 1
can’t make out her intention.” His voice held a cold strain. “And my
father—I’ve not sent him word all this time. I don’t dare, not even to pray
him to protect your sister. Cara, this messenger—” He stopped, as if he had
spoken what he did not wish to say.

“What of the messenger?” she cried, rising suddenly from the chair. “You
want to torture him, don’t you? And you ask me if I have a better means,
when you know I’ve no notion what to do!”

“I thought—haps if you spoke to him. I frightened him. He’s but a boy,
and innocent as a virgin.”

Cara laughed. “You’re more fool than I think you, if you believe I can
succeed where you’ve failed.”

“Or your friend Guy might do it,” Allegreto said, ignoring her denial.
“He’s back from searching again, empty-handed.”

She lifted her eyes, feeling her heart contract. But Allegreto showed no
sign of malice. There was nothing in his gaze when he looked at her but the
faint longing that she had come to recognize. He had never touched her since
that day before he’d killed Ficino. He did not press her. She would have
thought it had been imagination, that one touch, if she did not see it in
his face every time now that he was near her.

“If you would only aid me, Cara,” he said in a strangely helpless tone.
“I’m trying.”

For no reason she could say, her eyes began to blur with tears. “I don’t
understand you.”

He walked the wall from the window to the tapestry. “Nay,” he said
distantly. “I know it.”

He stood before the woven stag. The woven hunter stared at him in wonder.

“You can’t do anything,” he said bleakly.

He was so beautiful. She had never seen a living man or a work of art so
beautiful and terrible. She swallowed tears. “Allegreto, I will try, if you
wish it.”

“Nay, it is hopeless,” he said. “You’d only blunder, and Guy the same.”
He smiled at her, wooden as a carved angel in a church. “A hopeless pair,
the two of you.”

She did try. She took food to the messenger in the room where he was
kept, careful that she did not do anything to let him escape. He was very
frightened, as Allegreto had said. He would not even eat, but sat hunched on
the stool, a youth with a long nose and long musician’s fingers. Allegreto
had even left him his instrument, but Cara doubted that he played. The
turret room was frigid.

A boy, Allegreto had called him, and yet she thought them of an age. But
he could never be as old as Allegreto, not if he lived a hundred years.

“Do you speak French?” she asked.

He did not answer, but looked away from her. She thought he must
understand her, though. She took a deeper breath.

“I have come to explain to you,” she said. “You must tell Allegreto what
he asks.”

His look flicked toward her, and then back. A stubbornness came into his
jaw.

“He only wishes to find my mistress and see that she is safe.”

“She is safe,” the youth said.

“How can we be certain? Why can’t we go to her, or she come to us?”

“I have said all I can say!” He stood up, prowling the cold turret and
chafing his hands. “Persecute me as you will!”

Cara rose from beside the tray that he scorned. “You don’t know what
danger you’re in,” she said sharply. “You don’t know what persecution
means.”

“What, hot pincers? The wheel? Go ahead. I have sworn my word. I will not
speak.”

She shook her head in amazement. “Are you so blithe?”

“I’ll die before I speak!” he said wildly.

“This is not courage, I think, but mere ignorance!” Cara’s angry breath
made a keen flash of frost in the air. “Do you know why you’re sound now?
Because of me. Because he does not want to displease me, you foolish boy!
How long do you think that can last?”

He drew himself straight and gave her a sneering look. “Tell your lover
to try me as he will.”

“Oh!” She whirled, banging her knuckles upon the door to be released. “I
shall tell him to serve you as a fool should be served!”

The guard let her out, locking the door behind. She ran down the
spiraling stairs, her hand on the cold plaster curve of the wall to support
her. At the first landing Allegreto stepped out to meet her.

She had not told him she would go to the boy, but of course he knew. His
dark eyes questioned her.

“I learned nothing,” she said, “but that he is a witless mouse among
cats.”

Only by his silence, and the slight casting down of his shoulders, did
she realize that he had truly hoped she might succeed. But in the next
moment he was the sculpted angel, living stone. “Then you must visit him
again tomorrow. And tell him that your lover’s patience wanes.”

For more than a week they played the farce. Cara feared every day that
she would come to the turret room and the young messenger would be gone,
forfeited to Allegreto’s ruthless practice. She did not have to feign the
growing urgency of her pleas to the youth; Allegreto would not, could not
keep this forbearance long.

She saw the struggle in him. Even the seneschal had begun to mutter of
stronger measures. Sir Thomas did not approve of involving a lady in such
matters as imprisoned messengers, and shrugged and glared and said, “So
there,” each day when Cara reported her failure. “Her lady’s grace is held
to ransom, mark me,” he said. “We’ll have a payment demand yet if we don’t
deliver her.”

Allegreto sat at the heavy council table, staring as if he looked far
beyond the seneschal’s white head. He seemed to grow farther away as each
day passed, reclusive and distracted. Only in the moments when Cara came
from the tower room, before he heard that she had learned no more, were his
eyes alive and quick, asking for fulfillment.

She knew that her efforts were no use, as he must know it. But instead of
bringing the game to its foregone end, he withdrew into a strange languor.
He had no counsel for Sir Thomas, no insults for Cara, nothing but those
instants of living hope once a day.

She was coming to hate Desmond. As she grew more vehement, he grew more
cocksure, as if he took pot-courage from her visits. Well he might, she
thought, hearing dire warnings from a female, threats that must seem more
impotent by the day.

“You must do something more,” she said, after another fruitless session
in the turret.

Allegreto gave her a level look. “Must I?” he asked softly.

She thought of Desmond, so proud of his boy’s stupid courage, trying to
protect someone who in all chance deserved no protection, worst of all if it
was her fiendish mistress and her wicked schemes. She thought of Ficino, who
at least had known the way of things. And Allegreto, standing in crimson on
the dais, the color of blood and fire.

Somehow, after that night, he had given over his soul to her, as if she
could protect it for him. He waited for her decision.

“You must talk to him again,” she said.

He smiled. He laid his head back in the chair and laughed.

“Cara,” he said. “Ah, Cara.”

He said it as if he were in despair. He cast a look about the room, a
prisoner’s search for some weakness or crack in the walls. Then he pushed
back the chair and sprang like a cornered cat from a pit, leaving Cara and
Sir Thomas alone.

* * *

She was lying awake when he came in the dark. She had heard the single
clarion that heralded some late arrival, and sat up hastily. Allegreto’s
outline against the low candle confirmed her in fear and wild relief. “She
has come?” she whispered.

He put his hand over her mouth, moving with utter silence, pulling her
urgently up from her bed. Some of the other ladies stirred, but he pushed
her from the chamber before their sleepy mumbles gained sense. Cold air
welled up the stair; he held her and went before her at once, half dragging
her with him down the black descent. She could hear the voices of men in the
bailey—louder at the arrowslits where the night air poured in.

He brought her to the landing, hauling her with a fierce grip toward the
unshuttered window. His breath was harsh, coming fast and uneven next to her
ear, as if he could not get enough. He pushed her into the embrasure, his
hands on her shoulders.

Cara leaned over, looking down at the torch-lit scene with the night wind
blowing in her face. She blinked, trying to see, trying to recognize the
voices in French and Italian. One soft command to a porter drifted up to the
tower window—someone turned a lanthorn and lit a man standing quietly beside
his horse.

She covered her mouth.

The castle, the world, seemed to turn over. Allegreto clung to her, his
face buried in her shoulder.

“Gian,”
she said, and made the cross in terror. “Blessed Mary,
have pity on us!”

“What he will do to me,” he whispered. “Oh, God— Cara—what he will do to
me.”

She did not know how Allegreto possessed himself. Gian Navona said
nothing, watching each of them in turn: his bastard son and Sir Thomas and
Cara—and Desmond, shackled to a bench in the council chamber, where only a
single candle burned on the table, lighting them all and leaving Gian in
shadow.

Allegreto had explanations. What they were, Cara didn’t hear. She could
hear nothing but her own pulse. At some moment her name came through it, and
she felt herself observed.

“Lift up your face, Donna Cara,” said that quiet voice from the shadow.
“You preserved your mistress from these poisoned shellfish?”

She could not command her tongue. Allegreto gave her a look, one of his
old looks, full of amused disdain. “Not by her wit, as you may see. She
thought they smelt badly.”

Gian chuckled. “But it’s a good girl,” he murmured. “A miss be as well as
a mile, so they say.”

Allegreto made a snort. His father’s gaze turned toward him momentarily,
and then to Desmond.

“Sir Thomas,” Gian said, without taking his eyes from the youth, “your
patience is praiseworthy. You will not wonder at my concern in these matters
when I tell you that the princess and I are to be wed. Perhaps my son has
not mentioned it?”

The seneschal cleared his throat. “He acquainted me, my lord, with your
interest and solicitude for my lady, and has stood here as your chief man
and hers, to give aid in this fearful matter.”

“I hope he has been of some benefit to you, but his tender years need not
bear such a grave weight longer, now that I am here.”

“The castle be at your service, my lord,” Sir Thomas said. “My only aim
is my lady’s welfare. I have not called in the king’s aid, because—”

“Quite right,” Gian interrupted him. “To broadcast news of this
misfortune too hastily would have been the worst possible mistake. You have
done well, Sir Thomas, as Donna Cara has done well, each to his own
talents.” As he spoke, he had never ceased watching Desmond. “I am a little
dissatisfied to find that Donna Cara has turned her domestic arts,
invaluable though they might be, to matters my son might have been thought
to manage better.”

Allegreto sat calmly, lazily, gazing back toward the dark end of the
chamber at his father. He still had the faint lift of disdain to his lips,
his lashes lowered in sleepy watchfulness.

“I am proud of thee, Allegreto, thou art so brave as to be here,” his
father said. “Thou art a devoted son.”

“My lord,” Allegreto said, acknowledging the compliment with a nod.

“But then, I neglected to send word ahead. I must give thee my regret for
the oversight. No doubt that is the reason for this unfortunate reception.”

Allegreto said nothing. He did not move.

“Take this”—Gian indicated Desmond—“somewhere that I may deal with it, as
you have not.”

Desmond’s face was white. He wet his lips as Allegreto rose and loosed
the fetters from the bench. The boy had the fear in him; he understood her
warnings now, when it was too late.

“Donna Cara,” Gian said, “you must take care that the chambers are well
prepared for your mistress. I think she will be among us ere long now.”

Cara kept a vigil in the chapel, for she could no more sleep than she
could flee. She prayed for the souls of her parents and for her sister. She
prayed for Desmond. The priest looked at her curiously when he rang the
little bell for hours. She left then, unwilling to draw attention, pulling
her headscarf close to her as she pushed open the door. The bailey lay
silent and still under the cold stars before dawn.