TWO

 

 

Elayne sat on a bench in Lady Melanthe’s solar, her hands locked together in her lap so tightly that her fingers were white. The hard, clear sunlight poured through the tall windows, sparking a ruby in one of her rings, sending rosy rays over her skin. In the background, like a dreary dream, she heard the voice of the elderly Lady Beatrice raised in sharp contention, echoing even through stone walls, but the only thing distinct in Elayne’s mind was the declaration of scornful dismissal in Raymond’s letter.

After weeks she could remember each burning word that Cara had read aloud over their needlework at Savernake. Elayne remembered it upon waking; it was the last thought to haunt her as she fell asleep.

It did not matter that Sir Guy sent word the ecclesiastical court in Salisbury had dismissed the summons for heresy as unreasonable. It did not matter that the dead chickens were replaced and the villagers reimbursed beyond their wildest hopes. A seven-day past at Westminster, Cara read, unfolding the page of Sir Guy’s message and glancing up with significance at Elayne, the banns for Raymond de Clare’s marriage had been asked, the bride to be one Katherine Rienne, widow of a Bohemian knight.

"My lady." Elayne flinched as a man’s low voice startled her. She looked up to find the chamberlain dressed in red-and-white livery. He bowed. "Her Grace will see you in her bedchamber."

Through the high oriel window, the sky sparkled with ice crystals, blown snow swept from the rooftops of Windsor Castle by the wind that had brought a Lenten blizzard. Elayne realized that the Countess Beatrice of Ludford and her long-haired spaniel were being escorted from Lady Melanthe’s presence-room. In spite of the choleric tone of her voice, Countess Beatrice did not appear ill-pleased with the results of her interview with Lady Melanthe. Elayne curtsied as the venerable lady limped past, resplendent in her stiff wimple and heavy brocades, and received a disdainful nod and a growling yap in reply.

Elayne kept her face low. Everyone must know she had been sent up to be interviewed by her godmother in utter disgrace. It should have been an honor to be received in Her Ladyship’s privymost room—even Countess Beatrice had only been admitted as far as the presence-chamber—but no doubt it was because Lady Melanthe wished to interview her scandalous goddaughter in strictest privacy concerning her affairs with chickens and gentlemen. Elayne followed the butler through the presence-chamber, past the silk wall hangings and silver candlesticks as tall as she was, the canopied chair of audience. In the bedchamber, Lady Melanthe was just stripping off her ermine-trimmed surcoat, while her maidservant lifted the tall headpiece from her hair—a single peaked cone glittering with emeralds and silver bosses.

She turned, her loosened hair falling down over her bared shoulder in a black twist. With the steady gaze of a cat, her eyes a strange deep violet hue, she watched Elayne curtsy.

"God save and keep you, my beloved lady Godmother," Elayne said, with her face still lowered, holding her skirt spread wide over the carpeted rushes. She kept her courtesy, looking down at an indigo cross woven into the Turkish rug.

There was a moment of silence. "I fear I do not find you well, Ellie," Lady Melanthe said quietly.

Elayne bit her lip very hard against the unexpected rise of tears in her throat. She did not look up, but only shook her head. She had kept her proud countenance in the face of Cara’s censure, in front of the servants and the priest and the village. She had allowed nothing to show.

"Your hands are trembling. Mary, take that stool away and set a chair by the fire. Bring two pair of slippers, the fur-lined winter ones. I will wear my green robe. Malvoisie wine for us, well warmed and sweetened. Sit you down, Elena."

As her godmother turned away, Elayne lowered herself into the chair. She felt the tears escape, tumbling down her cheeks as she stared bleakly into the fire. Lady Melanthe removed her golden belt and pulled the green robe about her shoulders. When the maid had left the room, she sat down, brushing a glowing coal back into the hearth with the fire rod.

"When you have composed yourself, tell me why you are unwell," she said, dropping a linen towel into Elayne’s lap.

Now that the tears had begun, Elayne could not seem to find a stop to them. She took up the linen and covered her face with her hands. The wind moaned outside, sending a cascade of snow crystals against the stained glass behind her.

"Your hands are thin," Lady Melanthe said.

"It is Lent. Nothing tastes, my lady."

"Are you ill?"

"No. At least—" She lifted her face and put her hand to her throat. "No." She turned her face to the fire, hiding a new rush of tears.

She felt Lady Melanthe watching her. Elayne had not intended to speak of it, or admit her despair. But she could think of no excuse for this absurd behavior before her elegant godmother. She bit her quivering lip and held it down.

"Are you perchance in love?" Lady Melanthe asked gently.

"No!" Elayne gripped her hands together. Then the tears overcame her again, and she buried her face in the linen. "Not anymore. Not anymore."

She leaned down over her lap, rocking. Lady Melanthe said nothing. Elayne felt the sobs that had been locked in her chest for weeks overcome her; she pressed her face into the linen and cried until she had no breath left.

"My maid returns," Lady Melanthe said, in soft warning.

Elayne drew a deep gasp of air and sat up. She turned toward the fire, keeping her face down as the maid set two ornate silver goblets on the stool between Elayne and Lady Melanthe. She placed the furred slippers beside their feet and then withdrew.

"Here." Lady Melanthe held out wine to Elayne. "Drink this up directly, to fortify yourself."

Elayne tilted the goblet and took a deep gulp of the sweet heated wine. She held it between her hands, warming her frigid fingers against the embossing of dragons and knights. "It is all my fault!" she blurted. "I ruined everything. He called me a sparkling diamond, and an extraordinary woman. And then he said I was arrogant and offensive to him. And I am. I am!"

"Are you, indeed!" Lady Melanthe sipped at her malmsey, watching Elayne over the rim. "And pray, who is this paragon of courtesy?"

Elayne took a breath, and another gulp of wine as she looked up. "I beg your pardon, my lady Godmama. I thought he would— he did not seek an interview of you?"

The countess lifted her eyebrows. "Nay—none but your sister Cara and Sir Guy have entreated me regarding you of late."

Elayne blushed. She could imagine what Cara had said of her that had resulted in a summons to Lady Melanthe’s own bury hall of Merlesden at Windsor. "I am sorry, my lady! I am so sorry to be a mortification to you!"

"I am not so easily mortified, I assure you. I quite enjoyed Cara’s history of the blighted poultry. And the Bishop of Salisbury is a reasonable man. With a small token, it was no great matter to persuade him of the absurdity of a charge of heresy over a parcel of chickens."

Elayne took a sobbing breath, trying to keep her voice steady. "Grant mercy, madam, for your trouble to intervene on my behalf."

"But to this paragon again," Lady Melanthe said. "He was to seek me out in audience? I may guess his purpose, as he had pronounced you a sparkling diamond and extraordinary woman."

"His heart changed from that," Elayne said bitterly. "He said I am sinful, and a liar, and to make no presumptions nor claims upon him now." She took a deep swallow of the malmsey. Then her throat tightened with a rush of remorse. "But it was my fault! I made a love charm to bind him."

Lady Melanthe shook her head. "How depraved of you," she said lightly. "I suppose that was the source of this awkward matter of the chickens."

Elayne felt her eyes fill up with tears again. "I tried to say that I was sorry! I sent him a letter of repentance. I sent three! I could not eat, I felt so sick after I sent them each, for fear of what he would think when he read them."

Her godmother stroked one bejeweled finger across another. "And what did he reply?"

Elayne stared down into the dark hollow of her wine. "Nothing," she mumbled. "He did not answer. The banns were published for his marriage to another in church last Sunday."

She hung her head, awaiting her godmother’s censure, mortified to admit she had drawn such humiliation upon herself.

"Avoi—who is this amorous fellow?"

"He is not a great man, my lady, only a knight." She hesitated, feeling a renewed wave of shame that she had chosen a man so inconstant. "More than that, it is not meet for me to say."

Lady Melanthe sat back, resting the goblet on the wide arm of her chair. Even with her hair down and the informal mantle about her shoulders, she seemed to glitter with a dangerous grace. "Yes, I think not." She smiled. "I might not resist the temptation."

Elayne glanced up. "Ma’am?"

Her godmother made a quick riffle with her fingers. "It occurs to me to have him arrested for some petty theft and subjected to the trial by boiling water," her godmother murmured.

"I should not mind to see him boiled," Elayne said darkly.

But Lady Melanthe merely said, "Do not tell me his name, Elena. I am not to be trusted, you know."

Elayne drew a breath, not taking her eyes from the moon-shaped reflection in the surface of her wine. It was true—she had not thought of it before, but one word from Lady Melanthe would ruin Raymond forever. Elayne had revenge at her fingertips, like a tigress on a light leash.

For an instant, she allowed herself to imagine it. He had said she was arrogant and offensive to him, after all. She pictured him and his new wife reduced to penury, proud Raymond the boot-kicked messenger boy of some ill-tempered noblewoman—Lady Beatrice, by hap—skulking in kitchens and longing for the days when Elayne had been a sparkling diamond at his feet. While she herself, recognized as an extraordinary woman by far nobler men than Raymond de Clare, could hardly choose among the proposals of marriage from dukes and princes as far away as France and Italy.

"We might arrange a prince for you," Lady Melanthe said idly, startling Elayne so that she nearly tipped her wine. Her godmother looked at her with amusement, as if she knew she had read Elayne’s mind.

In the midst of a small, choked laugh at this absurdity, the tears flowed anew. Elayne covered her face again and shook her head. "I don’t want to marry a prince." She took a shuddering breath. "I want him to love me again."

"Hmm!" Lady Melanthe said. "I think it is time and past that you ventured beyond Savernake, Elena. The experience of a worldly court will do you much good." She made a dismissive gesture toward the bannered walls visible over the treetops outside, as if Windsor Castle were a cottage. "You will accompany the Countess of Ludford, who has just been beseeching me to write introductions for her pilgrimage to Rome. She goes by way of Bruxelles, and Prague. You will not wish to go to Rome yourself; it’s naught but a heap of ruins and rubbish, but you may await Lady Beatrice in Prague, at the imperial court, and then return in six or eight months with a great deal more polish than you have now. There is no place more worthy to refine your education and enlighten you in all ways. It is a brilliant city. Your Latin is yet commendable?"

Elayne blinked, taken aback. She nodded.

"We shall practice a little, between us. The Countess does not journey until Midsummer’s Eve—we have the whole of springtime to prepare you. I will see that you have an introduction to Queen Anne. She is just come of Prague, and shows an admirable degree of style and understanding for her age." Lady Melanthe made a little grimace. "Doubtless London must appear a tawdry place to her, but she seems satisfied enough with the King, may God keep him, and he is besotted of her." She paused, tapping her long fingers. "Tomorrow we will look over my wardrobe and find you some apparel fit for court."

Elayne sat silent, stunned. She could only gaze at Lady Melanthe as her godmother arranged her future with such casual dispatch. The sound of the door latch barely reached her, but when it swung open and a tall, simply dressed knight ducked through, clad in black and carrying a dark-haired boy child, she rose hastily from her chair and fell into a deep curtsy. "My lord, I greet you well!"

"Nay, rise, my lady," Lord Ruadrik said, extending a large, weapon-hardened hand to Elayne even as he easily deposited the wriggling four-year-old in Lady Melanthe’s lap. He had the north country in his speech, and an open grin. "Take this goblin, lady wife, ’ere it slays me!"

The boy slid immediately from Lady Melanthe’s lap and ran to cling to his father’s leg. He stared at Elayne. She spread her skirt and made a bow toward the child. "My esteemed lord Richard, greetings. God bless you."

The boy nodded, accepting the salutation, and then hid his face against Lord Ruadrik’s black hose.

"This is your kinswoman the Lady Elena, from our hold at Savernake," Lord Ruadrik said to the child. "It would be courteous in you to hail her warmly."

The boy peeked again at Elayne. A warm greeting did not appear to be forthcoming, but with downcast eyes, he said, "You look alike to my mama."

"And you look very like to your lord papa," Elayne said.

The boy smiled shyly. He gripped his father’s muscular leg. "You have flower-eyes, like Mama."

"God grant you mercy, kind sir. You look very strong, like to Lord Ruadrik."

"Gra’ mercy, lady," he said solemnly, and seemed to feel that this concluded the interview, for he turned, gave a fleet kiss to his mother, and ran from the chamber through the way they had come.

Lady Melanthe moved quickly, half-rising, but Lord Ruadrik shook his head. "Jane hides behind the door—that was the bargain, that he would come and meet his cousin Elayne, did I vow a line of retreat remain open the whiles."

Elayne realized with shame that she had yet even to inquire about Lady Melanthe’s daughter and son, she had been so swept up in her own wretchedness. Knowing her face must be ravaged by tears, she stood with her head bowed as she asked after the young Lady Celestine.

"She is learning to dance," Lady Melanthe said. "I doubt me we shall see her again before Lady Day. My lord, what think you of a journey to the imperial court at Prague for Elena?"

Lord Ruadrik looked sharply toward his wife. He frowned slightly. "To what purpose?"

"To enlarge her wisdom and instruct her in the wider ways of the world. Some hedge knights hereabouts seem to believe they are worthy of her attention, but I do not believe the Donna Elena di Monteverde is temperamentally suited to become wife to a rustic."

"Too much like you, I am certain," Lord Ruadrik said, nodding soberly.

"Fie," Lady Melanthe said, flicking her hand. "I adore bumpkins."

He laughed. "To my misfortune! Wella, if it is your desire that Lady Elena be trained to bring poor rustic knights to their knees, after Your Ladyship’s heartless manner, then let it be so."

Lady Melanthe smiled. She looked toward Elayne with a little flare of mischief in her languid glance. "What think you, dear one?"

Elayne pressed her lips together. "Oh, madam," she murmured. "Oh, madam!" She could not even imagine herself with the elegance and bearing, the confidence of Lady Melanthe. To inspire awe among rustics like Raymond! It was worth any price, even a journey with Countess Beatrice. She sank to her knees, taking her godmother’s hands. "God bless you, madam, you are too kind to me."

"And when you return, we shall look you out a husband who can appreciate your superiority," Lady Melanthe added serenely.

"God save the poor fellow," said Lord Ruadrik.

 

* * *

 

After a fortnight Elayne still had not become accustomed to her court headpiece. It was a double piked-horn, only modestly tall, but she felt her neck must bow under the weight of the dense embroidery and plaiting that seemed to tower above her head. Cara’s strictures on a proper pose and attitude became practical at last—last—when Elayne could not remember to hold herself perfectly erect and turn with slow grace as her sister had charged her to do, the headpiece swayed in perilous reminder.

The new queen of England, younger by several years than Elayne herself, seemed to have no such difficulties. As her splendidly dressed ladies pinched and smoothed her royal train into place, she moved with confidence under a looming creation the height and breadth of a tympan-drum, encrusted with jewels and topped by a golden crown. But such fashionable elegance earned Queen Anne no love among the chilly English noblewomen. The royal match was not a popular one.

The English complained that the girl and her retinue were too foreign, and too great a drain on the King’s purse. Feeling foreign herself at Windsor, Elayne found it easier to like her young Majesty. She admired the way Anne kept an earnest smile always on her round face, bravely ignoring the poisonous unkindness of her new court as she tried to make acquaintance of the English ladies. She seemed pleased at Elayne’s ventures to speak in her native tongue, though it was speedily plain that the parlance Elayne had learned of Libushe was more suited to a peasant than a lady. When the Queen learned that Elayne was bound for Prague, she had proposed that they make a trade of study—courtly Bohemian for English. To her wonder, Elayne found herself rapidly elevated to one of the Queen’s favorite companions, with a daily invitation to the royal presence-room.

In spite of Anne’s benevolence, Elayne could not be so charitable in her feelings toward all of the girl’s retinue. As the Queen stepped up to her throne, aided by two gentlewomen, Elayne began to wish that she did not command so much of the Bohemian tongue after all, did she have to listen one more day to the tiny lady who spoke too shrill, her voice often rising above the rest as she talked excitedly of her betrothal to such a handsome English knight. Only the trumpets announcing the King’s approach could seem to silence the Lady Katherine Rienne on the matter of her coming wedding.

The fanfare seemed tremendous to herald a mere boy. Elayne had seen King Richard before; he came often to visit his queen, running in to embrace her with all the fondness of an adolescent youth for his sister, but this day was a formal visitation. Everyone fell to their knees as he entered, a slender figure flanked on one side by his mother and on the other by his uncle, the Duke of Lancaster. He looked too slight and young to bear the burden of the ermine robe that lay across his shoulders. But he met his queen with a happy smile, and the two of them clasped hands like bosom friends, heads bent together in instant concert.

Elayne had not expected to see the Duke of Lancaster arrive with the King. Quick fear seized her, that she might see Raymond among his entourage. She bowed her knee in a deep courtesy like the rest, straining her neck to balance the headpiece. As the courtiers arranged themselves, she rose and walked backward in her turn—a skill that she had never mastered and mismanaged badly, becoming so entangled in her train that a page had to hold her elbow while she freed herself.

In a mortified flurry she found herself pushed out by the others coming after her, pressed bodily into the waiting throng in the anteroom. Just outside the Queen’s chamber, attendants from three noble households and Anne’s Bohemian retinue were packed together like gaudy sheep. The rumble of voices echoed to the heavy rafter-beams. She glanced over brightly clad heads and shoulders, looking about the crowded chamber with a growing sense of dread.

Lancaster’s men wore the red-and-blue of England quartered with France; but so also did the attendants of the King’s mother and the King himself. The room was full of like costumes. The English colors merged with the purples, silvers, and blacks of Anne’s retinue, creating a flow of bright confusion. Elayne felt hot and flustered with the press of people and alarm at the chance that Raymond might be near.

She did not believe that he was. She thought she would know instantly if he were within a league of her—her heart would know of its own accord. More and more people seemed to be pushing into the room. The air was warm and stifling. Even above the clamor she could hear Lady Katherine’s voice in a giggling complaint that she could not see her own feet.

Elayne had never been in such a close and crowded quarter. A rising unease gripped her throat, a powerful sensation that she must get herself free. She began to edge toward the entry to the great hall, holding her hand to her headdress in an attempt to avoid entangling herself with the elaborate peaks and horns of the other ladies.

It was a vain effort. She found herself caught in the netting of an Englishwoman’s steeple-crown. With forced smiles, they worked to free themselves of one another and gave stiff, upright courtesies to avoid repeating the predicament.

As she straightened, still trying to free her train from beneath someone’s slipper, she saw Raymond staring at her from not half a rod distant.

She lifted her chin, turning quickly away. It was evident from his expression that he was astonished to perceive her there. To her consternation, her passage toward the door had vanished. Her hem was still caught, no matter how she tugged. She could not move a step in the throng.

She tried to slow her breathing, feeling suffocated in the press. The need to flee Raymond and the entrapment of the crowd made her feel light-headed. She closed her eyes and then opened them wide at the touch of a hand upon her shoulder. She glanced back. He stood next to her, impossibly close.

"Elayne!" He bent to her ear. As she pulled back, his fingers closed on her arm. "Elayne, for Christ’s pity, why didn’t you tell me?"

She yanked her elbow free. "Do not speak to me," she said.

He let go, but a courtier forcing his way through the mass of people pressed her back against his chest. She arched upright, trying to shun touching him.

"You should have told me," he hissed in her ear. "I would have done all differently."

"God’s mercy, Raymond—what could I tell you?" she exclaimed between her teeth.

"Who you are," he said, his voice very low by her ear. She could feel his breath on her skin. "That you are Lancaster’s ward!"

She cast a glance back in spite of herself. "Lancaster’s ward! Don’t be foolish." She struggled to turn clear, her nose at a level with his chin. On all sides people pressed against her, shoving her inexorably against him. The din of talk made a tremendous roar in her ears. She began breathing in short gasps, trying to think beyond the growing sensation of being crushed to death. There was a strange horror welling up inside her; she was shaking, wishing desperately for clear air.

He frowned down at her, his mouth a set line. "Come." He gave the lady standing on her hem a brisk elbow in the ribs. The woman turned with a sharp curse, freeing Elayne’s skirt so suddenly that she tumbled hard against him. He began to move, his arm at her waist, using his leverage to breach an opening toward the door. Raymond was the last person she wished to converse with, but it was his strength that maneuvered them toward escape from the throng. She did not think she could endure this congested place one more moment.

They reached the entry to the anteroom. The guards allowed them out, pikes lifted and then lowered quickly to prevent access to any of the hopeful petitioners pressing forward from the great hall. Raymond guided her swiftly among them, sidestepping the King’s subjects of every class and description. He pushed her into a low doorway and up around the first curve of a spiral stairwell.

Elayne stopped there, overwhelmed with faintness and relief. She turned around, slumping her shoulder against the wall, feeling the blessed coolness of the stone under her flushed cheek. She drank in fresh air that flowed down from the tower above.

"Grant mercy," she said, taking a deep breath. Raymond’s hands were at her waist. She leaned against him, grateful for the support. "Depardeu—I was near to falling in a trance in there."

His hands tightened. She opened her eyes. He looked up at her, his features in a shadow that hid his expression. Suddenly his arms slid around her, and he pressed his face into her breasts. "Elayne," he whispered. "Oh, God forgive me, I have missed you."

She stiffened. The muffling blanket seemed to lift from her mind. She tried to push him away. "Raymond...don’t."

He released her with a faint sound. He took her hands between his palms, staring down at them. "I have been a very fool," he said hoarsely.

Her heart beat harder. In her wildest dream she had not hoped he would ever say so. But she pulled her hands away. "That is done with now."

He grimaced as if she had struck him. He looked up, his face tormented, and it was all she could command to prevent herself from leaning down and pressing her lips to his.

"Aye," he said painfully. "I did not know, Elayne. You should not have led me on so, to believe it was ever possible."

"Led you on!" she cried softly. "And what of me? Now that you have your banns and your widow for comfort!"

He scowled and looked away. "Don’t tease me for that, I beg you. What was I to do?"

"You might have stood by me," she exclaimed, "instead of disavowing me as meanly as you could!"

"Disavow you?" he said. "Nay, I never could. I never would, but my lord commanded me to abandon my suit."

"Commanded you? But your letter—you said me to make no presumptions upon you."

"Oh, that letter," he said. "I was angry. I meant it not, what a scribe wrote for me—you know that!"

"Raymond," she breathed. "Do not make a fool of me."

"Make a fool of you!" he snapped. "I’m the one befooled, Elayne! I’m the one fool enough to plunge in love with a country chit, only to be told she’s royal blood! I’m the one who couldn’t buy her hand with all the gold I could beg or borrow in my sorry lifetime. I’m the one ordered to marry a woman twice my years and shrill as a peahen, and do it before St. George’s Day!"

"What are you speaking of?" Elayne whispered. "I believe you have run mad!"

"Mad enough," he growled, "when my liege told me who you were in truth."

"Who I am?" she echoed, baffled.

"Aye, you need not deny it now. I know all. I submitted to him for permission to wed, and gave his clerk your name and dwelling, and thought no more of it but to await his blessing and then go to the Countess Melanthe. I suppose you meant it to be a good jape, to let me find out that way. And shamed I was, Elayne, to stand before my lord Lancaster and be told I was too lowborn to think of you. He was kind enough, God assoil him, but he made it plain. You are his ward, and he has higher designs for you."

"His ward! What nonsense!" she exclaimed. "My ward belongs to the countess!"

"So I thought. But the clerk read it to me himself. Lady Elena Rosafina of Monteverde, that is you, is it not?"

She nodded. "Yea, my font name it is."

"Wella, then you are upon the rolls of widows and orphans in the king’s gift, and my lord John is appointed your guardian."

"No," she said. She drew in a breath. "That cannot be so. I know nothing of this."

"It is so."

"But—Lady Melanthe—she is my godmother. I always thought..." Her voice trailed away. "Raymond!"

He shrugged. "It makes no difference. You are a princess. I’m beneath you."

"A princess! Have you lost your very reason?"

"A princess of Monteverde." His jaw grew taut. "I believe there is some prince of the Italian blood he has in mind for you."

"No," she said faintly, bewildered.

He looked up at her. "You didn’t know?" he said, his voice wistful. "Truly?"

"I don’t believe it. There is a great mistake."

He smiled weakly. "That is something, at least," he said. "I thought you had done it all to mock me."

She sank down onto the stone step. "I don’t believe it."

"Ask your godmother. She must know."

Elayne stared at him dazedly. "I don’t believe it." She put her fist to her mouth. "Raymond, this cannot happen. It is a mistake. We must do something."

He looked hard into her eyes. "I have no means to change who I am, nor you."

"Do you have to marry her?" Elayne cried.

"I have no choice!"

"I can’t stand it!" she whimpered. "I can’t bear it."

He put his hand over hers. "We can pray to God for Providence to aid us. More than that...Elayne...fare you well." He turned.

"Raymond! Wait!"

She stood up, reaching for him, but he was already descended the curve of the stair and gone.

 

* * *

 

"I did not conceal her from His Majesty," Lady Melanthe said in a calm voice. Her tone was soft, but she sat very still in a carved armchair as she faced the Duke of Lancaster across a table laid with wine and sweetmeats. "She is not King Richard’s subject by blood or birth. Therefore her wardship was never eligible to be counted among the orphans in his gift."

Lord John glanced at Elayne huddled on her stool. "She greatly resembles you, my dear countess," he said, equally languid. "It is quite astonishing."

Lady Melanthe nodded. "So I am told, my lord. Though we are relations only of the fifth degree, through my mother’s descent."

The duke smiled slightly. He was a striking man, graying at the temples, with powerful shoulders and finely molded hands. His scarlet sleeve swept the table-carpet as he gestured toward a folded document that dangled many seals. He looked toward Melanthe. "I still hold your quitclaim to Monteverde, Princess— after all these years."

"It is yours, sir, and welcome," Lady Melanthe said.

"Mine?" He raised his brows. "But I have no income from it, nor sovereignty in your Italian princedom." He gave an amused snort. "Alas, I cannot even get a loan from the celebrated treasury."

"I did what I could to aid you," the countess said. "I regret that it was of no advantage to my lord’s grace."

"Ergo," the duke said, "it might be reasoned that you yet owe me."

"For what debt, my lord?" Melanthe asked instantly. She did not move, and yet Elayne thought her godmother grew taut as an unseen bowstring.

"Melanthe..." He said her name softly, like a mild reproof.

The countess smiled. "Come, do not deny me, Your Grace," she said lightly. "I’m old and vain enough to wish to hear that you regret me still!"

"Not so very aged, madam." He grinned, a sudden boyishness on his hard features. "I vow you could make a lovesick calf of me again, were we both free."

Elayne realized with amazement that they seemed to be speaking of some past connection between them. She felt a twinge of disapproval on behalf of Lord Ruadrik.

"We might have done much together, my lady," the duke said, his smile fading. "I have regretted it, from time to time."

"Nay, sir. You are made King of Castile and Leon by your Duchess Constanza, may God bless and keep her. What could I have ever brought you to match that?"

"Ha. Now you mock me," he said. "I have no more dominion in Spain than in your Monteverde. But you and I—and our lands united here..." He shrugged, then narrowed his eyes. "You do owe me a certain debt, my lady, for your love-match with my green knight."

"I do not see it," she said. "You dismissed Lord Ruadrik from your service into mine. None could foretell that God willed I would be wedded to him by and by."

He made a sound of discontent. "I dismissed him, aye. And nothing did go well for us after that cursed tourney at Bordeaux. By hap I should call him back to our service, and make some use of him to recover our losses in France."

Lady Melanthe said nothing. The duke looked at her long.

"Would that please you, my lady—to have your husband lead some archers into Aquitaine?"

"Lord Ruadrik is at the behest of His Majesty," she said, her eyes meeting his steadily.

"Do not forget it. You may argue that this girl is not our loyal subject, but do not fail to remember that you now are."

"Certainly," she said, unruffled.

He sat back, drumming his fist upon the table. He turned his look suddenly upon Elayne. "Have you a sweet, child." He pushed the platter of sugared nuts and tarts in her direction. She glanced toward Melanthe, who nodded. Elayne took a handful of lozenges and looked dumbly down at them.

"I don’t think they have been poisoned," the duke said dryly.

She ate several, forcing them down against the anxiety in her throat.

Lancaster took up a parchment, narrowing his eyes and holding it out at arm’s length to read it. "You aver, then, that the King has no claim to her guardianship," he said.

"We do," Lady Melanthe said. "I am her guardian, appointed by my late husband the Prince Ligurio of Monteverde, God assoil him."

"Alas, His Majesty does not concur. He asserts that she has been given succor and safe harbor in England these many years since forsaking Monteverde, and therefore claims her as his rightful subject. By his good judgment, His Majesty has been pleased to affix responsibility for her lands and person upon myself until such time as she may be legally wed."

Elayne bit her lip, but her godmother did not flinch. "His Majesty may be interested to discover that Lady Elena has no lands nor income but what I intend to bestow upon her at my chosen hour," Melanthe said. "Will he persevere in his opinion when he learns of this?"

"He will," Lancaster said. He bowed his head toward Elayne. "He has a great affection and concern for the last princess of Monteverde, now that her location has been revealed to him."

"How much did you pay him?" Melanthe asked frostily.

He folded the parchment and smoothed the seals. "His Majesty would not entrust the young lady’s welfare to me for less than three thousand crowns. Of course her merit renders it but a trifling sum. Arrangements for her marriage and return to her rightful throne have been well in hand since Shrovetide." He smiled and nodded at Elayne. "We will do favorably by you, child, I promise."

 

* * *

 

From Lady Melanthe’s solar, Elayne watched the maidens of Windsor returning with their armloads of sweet blossoms and sheaves of greenery. For every May Day morning that she could recall, Elayne had woken before dawn and roused her little niece Maria. They had put on their new kirtles of linen and their summer gowns, and joined Sir Guy and Cara and the whole of the castle folk at Savernake, all decked in their fairest garments, to go into the meadows and green woods at sunrise to gather flowers.

This May Day, like all the others, she heard the birds singing. The scent of fresh-cut garlands wafted into the open window. The sky was misty with low clouds that already began to disperse, promising a sunny day for the celebrations of the May.

She had never felt so bitter.

"I cannot keep it in my head," she said, releasing the edges of the scroll. The family tree of the House of Monteverde rolled closed with a crackling rustle.

Her godmother looked up from her writing. "You must," she said simply.

They would be standing before the church door this morning, Raymond de Clare and Katherine Rienne. Before the bells rang midday, before the May pole was raised, before the crowning of the mock-king and the bonfires in the streets, they would be married.

Elayne stood up. She gazed out the window.

"Do you wish to join the May?" Lady Melanthe asked. "Take a few hours, then, and make merry."

"Thank you, my lady," she said. "I don’t wish to make merry."

She felt her godmother’s observant gaze upon her. She had not told Lady Melanthe that today was the day. She had not once mentioned Raymond’s name, though she thought perchance her godmother had guessed it.

"It is true that you would do better to put your mind to what you must learn. The time grows short," Melanthe said.

"I will learn it," Elayne said. "It is only a lot of Italian names."

"Elena," Lady Melanthe said softly, "your life there will depend upon what you know and understand."

Elayne did not like the squeeze of alarm in her breast. She lifted her chin. "I’m not afraid of those people. Cara is the one afraid. I’m not."

Her sister—her half sister, it was now revealed—had traveled up to Windsor and begged; gone down on her knees and wept before Lady Melanthe, pleading that Elayne be saved from a return to Monteverde.

Monteverde...Elayne had a faint memory of red-tiled roofs, of narrow alleys, of tall towers and mountains and misted water. Though she recalled so little of it, in the very silence that had surrounded her birthplace and Cara’s, she had understood something of the peril. She had never been so timid about life, so apprehensive of every shadow as her sister who had lived far longer there, but she was not utterly blithe. She did not want to go to Monteverde.

But Lady Melanthe had given her sister a look of the coldest ice and said there was nothing she could do. And Cara had cried and whimpered and sworn to kill herself before she would let Elayne go, but in the end she only sobbed and embraced her tightly. Then abruptly turned away, as if Elayne were dead already.

"Fear will not serve you," Lady Melanthe said. "Sharp wit and knowledge will serve you. God in his judgment provided that no child of Ligurio’s and mine would survive. Your own father would have been the successor to Monteverde if he had lived. Remember that you have worth in yourself—in your blood. You are their only heir."

Elayne turned sharply from the window. "Why did Cara never tell me of my father?" she demanded. "I thought we had the same father."

Lady Melanthe sighed. She put down her pen. "In truth we had hoped that you could grow up here in quiet and safety, and be spared a return to Italy. Though in hap that was wrong, to keep you from your birthright. We had our reasons. Both of us. The Riata...Elena, you should know that they searched for you. For some years they searched. We set about the rumor that you had died of a fever, and finally they ceased looking."

Cara had never told Elayne that she was born of their mother’s second husband, or who he was, or that she had even had a second husband. No one had made mention of what Lancaster’s clerks had discovered in their customary investigation into Elayne’s lineage on behalf of Raymond’s suit. She was directly descended from the ruling house of Monteverde. From the Lombard kings. She was the granddaughter of Prince Ligurio himself, by his wife before Lady Melanthe. If Elayne had been a boy, she would have been his certain heir. She was the last unmarried princess of the Monteverde blood.

Her head throbbed with the tangled history that her godmother tried to impart. Her own father had been murdered before she was born, a brutal loss of Monteverde’s only male successor. There was the family called Riata, usurpers who had grasped their chance at Prince Ligurio’s death to defeat their mortal rivals in the house of Navona and seize power in Monteverde. There was a quitclaim to the princedom that Lady Melanthe had long ago given up, and somehow it was devolved to the Duke of Lancaster. He had a claim, Elayne had a claim, the Riata had only the volatile sway of their own raw power—and the treasury of Monteverde was unthinkably rich, overflowing with silver from underground mines, with levies from trade with eastern potentates and oriental kings.

"Why were they looking for me?" she asked bleakly. "If the Riata rule now—why look for me?"

"Because a Monteverde should rule," Lady Melanthe said. "You should rule, and the people know it."

"I don’t want to."

"That is little matter." She made a small grimace. "We are pawns of our own heritage, Elena. The Riata hold their place because there was no one remaining of the true blood. Because they were ruthless enough to make certain of it."

"But now I am to marry one of them. This Franco Pietro." Elayne felt she was ensnared in a trance, illusory and menacing, with no means to wake and escape it. Her dark angel, having carried her through the little dangers and trials of Savernake, seemed to have deserted her now when she most needed him. "I don’t understand how the Duke could arrange for it. Why? If they want no one of Monteverde blood to remain alive!"

"Nay, they prefer you alive, my beloved. Alive and safely wed into the Riata. Navona is finished. You and the quitclaim that Lancaster holds are the only things that threaten them now. Once you are the bride of Franco Pietro, you give them—and their descendants—the final right to the throne they took by force."

"But why does the Duke of Lancaster care?" she cried. "What is it to him?"

Lady Melanthe smiled and shook her head. "It is gold to him, Elena. Gold and advantage. I have read the betrothal contracts—he has succeeded in trading his quitclaim and your dower for a right to tax the mines of Monteverde. Upon your marriage, he is in alliance with one of the richest states in the whole of Italy; he gains influence in Aragon and Portugal that he hopes will aid him to conquer Castile—as long as you favor him. And that is what I want you to remember—you have value. You can be more than a pawn. You do not have to dance to any tune they play for you."

"How? I don’t know how."

"Learn. You have a fine intellect, that I know—do not shrink from it now. Listen to what I tell you. Watch for those who claim to wield power, and discover who wields it in truth."

She pressed her lips together. "I suppose I will try."

Lady Melanthe rose. The rings on her fingers glittered. "You must do more than try. Let nothing escape your notice. You must beware of poison; you must distinguish between mere flattery and enemies who smile and compliment you as they plan your ruin. There are a hundred dangers!" She closed her eyes. "God forgive us, I see now that to keep you sheltered here was a grave mistake. There is no time to teach you all that you must know, Elena. Things will not always happen as you expect. Be ready for anything—be clever, be bold if you must, and act on the edge of a moment. Opportunities will come. Use your wits, and your nerve."

"Oh!" Elayne turned away, frightened. "Do everything that Cara has told me all my life I must not do!"

Her godmother’s cold laughter echoed in the chamber. "In very deed, Cara is not a fair teacher for you now. She was a fawn among wolves in Monteverde. But you—I have some hope."

"Yea, I am different, am I not?" she said resentfully. "An extraordinary woman! I only wish I were extraordinary enough to run away."

She thought Lady Melanthe would chide her for saying such a thing. Instead her godmother only said, "I did not want this for you, Elena. But it has come."

Elayne stared out the window. She listened as the church bells began to toll for midday, then broke into a clanging peal of celebration. She bit her lip and looked up at the carved stone at the top of the window, blinking hard.

"Be warned." Lady Melanthe spoke quietly, standing at her shoulder. "Never say the truth of what is in your heart. Trust no one, Elena. Trust no one."