TWENTY-ONE

 

 

"I don’t know 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’d 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."

"No," 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 I 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’d 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—perhaps 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. "No," 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."

"No, 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 didn’t answer, but looked away from her. She thought he must understand her, though. She took a deeper breath.

"I’ve 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’ve 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’ve 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 isn’t 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 doesn’t 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’ll 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 hadn’t 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’s a witless mouse among cats."

Only by his silence, and the slight casting down of his shoulders, did she realize that he’d 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 deserved no protection, 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’s 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 half dragged 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 open 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 lantern 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’ll 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’s been of some benefit to you, but his tender years need not bear such a grave weight longer, now that I’m here."

"The castle is at your service, my lord," Sir Thomas said. "My only aim is my lady’s welfare. I’ve 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’ve 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’m 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’m proud of you, Allegreto, you’re so brave as to be here," his father said. "You are a devoted son."

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

"But then, I neglected to send word ahead. I must give you my regret for the oversight. No doubt that’s 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 before 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.

A black figure stepped away from the wall beside the arched entrance. It was Allegreto, shaking in the frigid air. "Wait," he said, his voice a faint tremor in the quiet.

She felt sick. "Is it over?"

"No," he murmured. "No, he holds yet. It is early." A shudder ran through him. In the starlight she saw him grip his fists tightly. "I’m sorry."

She bit her lip. Then she shook her head. "It is your father."

"I didn’t know—I never thought—" Another shiver broke his words. "You must stay away from him. I never once thought he would come here!"

A soft frightened sound seemed to seep from him against his will. His shaking increased. She reached out to him, for she thought he would fall, and he caught her hand and held it hard against his face. She felt wetness there—ice, his tears and his cheeks were, as if a marble statue wept.

"Don’t!" It frightened her beyond wit to feel him shake. She pulled him close to her, against her breast to make him stop, pressing her back to the wall and holding tight to force him to be still. With a groan he brought his hands up around her shoulders and kissed her.

She said, "No," but his cold lips and cheek touched hers, drawing life, taking away what warmth she had with desperate greed.

"No!" She turned her face away. She twisted her fingers in his hair to check him and yet still hold him—hold him like a child with his face buried in her throat, her arms tight around him.

She kept him there, stroking his hair. She held him until her arm ached with the strain. The tremors passed through him to her, easing, but before they had left him, he shoved suddenly away from her and turned his back.

"Monteverde bitch," he said, but he had no venom in his voice, only anguish.

His figure cast a faint, smeared shadow on the wall beside her. She opened her palm against it, but it was only cold and darkness, an illusion. She did not have life enough in her, she thought, to give him as much as he needed, even if she gave it all.

"Come with me," he said coolly, as if he’d never trembled in her arms. "I have a scheme; I need your help." He flashed a look at her, his face stone white in the starlight. "But if you slip, Monteverde, you kill all three of us."

 

* * *

 

She could not look at Desmond. She was afraid to look; he made a sound as the heavy door opened that was pain and terror, choked off into wordless pants. There was no guard—Allegreto had told her to watch, and speak when she was told to speak. She no more asked what he had done to the guard than she looked at what they had done to Desmond.

A candle had been left burning in the larding cellar, lighting ordinary things. Allegreto’s shadow passed across smoked meats and a bushel of apples. "Now, my stubborn little ass, you’ve made acquaintance of my father," he said quietly. "You may take your choice between us."

Cara wet her lips, her eyes fixed on the open door and the stair beyond. No sound came from Desmond but the faint gasping of his breath.

"You have one hope to live," Allegreto said. "You can tell me where she is, and I’ll take you out of here before my father comes again."

"No," Desmond whispered.

"Then tell me where I can get a message to her. She must be told that my father is here. She will not expect it. None of us—expected it."

"No, you—will—tell him," Desmond said, his voice a weak grate.

"Cara."

She had to turn. She looked only at his face, his white face, his head lying against the wall. His face was whole.

"You wouldn’t listen to me," she hissed. "Listen to me now! Allegreto means to get you free. You can’t fight Gian; he’ll kill you by inches, or let you live, which will be worse. And we’ll die, too, if he finds we came here to aid you! We tried—we tried to spare you this, and you would have none of it! Well might you help yourself now, stupid boy, that Allegreto risks life and limb for you!"

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 have 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."