Three monks in procession came from the chancel down the nave toward them, singing, their faces underlit by the candles they carried. Melanthe watched them turn and leave the church by a side door,
"Listen to me, my lady. Your white falcon was there—when my father punished his enemy and forewarned me."
She looked toward him. "What?"
"My father fed it," he said. "He said that he had trained it to know me."
"That is impossible."
"The falcon hates me, my lady."
"Your father has never touched Gryngolet."
"He told me that if I betrayed him with you, that the falcon—" He looked at her imploringly. "My lady, he fed it."
He did not say more; he let her understand the monstrous thing he meant. Through her horror Melanthe bared her teeth. "If he had a gyrfalcon, it was not Gryngolet!"
"I will carry her." Allegreto gazed at Melanthe with a straight and terrified intensity. "To prove my fidelity—that I do not lie to you."
She suddenly realized that the church was silent, the prayers completed, the sanctuary dimmer. What candlelight was left hardened the sweet curves and comeliness of his face, erased the last hint of childhood, revealed the untenable compass of his fear.
He should have tried to appeal to Melanthe's welfare if he wished to entrap her. Her desires, her ambitions. But he had admitted that he did not know them.
He asked her what he could do, as clumsy and open as Cara in her folly.
It did not seem a great thing, this offer to carry a falcon, for a manslayer, a lovely boy with the soul of a demon. If he was lying, and she trusted him—then she walked open-eyed and helpless into Gian's clasp.
Three things Allegreto dreaded. Plague and his father, and Gryngolet. He knelt in the church and offered to defy two of them. For lying.
Or for love.
"You need not carry her," Melanthe said. "I trust you."
His lips parted; that was the only sign he gave of elation or relief.
"If you're mine," she said, "then attend close to me now. Your father did not have Gryngolet, nor ever has. I flew her at Saronno, all that week that I supposed you in Milan. She wasn't in Monteverde for him to use in such vice. It was another bird obtained to daunt you, we must assume—and contemptible abuse of a noble beast."
His jaw twitched. She deliberately disdained his father's horror as a mere offense against a falcon's dignity, to shrink it to a thing that he could manage.
"Gryngolet has hated you because I haven't been over fond of you, I think." She shrugged. "Or perhaps she dislikes your perfume. Change it."
He closed his dark eyes. He drew a deep breath into his chest, the sound of it uneven.
Melanthe stood up, the beads sliding through her fingers. She turned and left the church, pausing after she had made her obeisance. "Allegreto," she said quietly as he rose beside her from his knee, "if we fear him to a frenzy, we are done."
He nodded. "Yes, my lady. I know it well, my lady."
She had not seen Bowland for eighteen years. Against spring thunderclouds, the towers did not seem as monstrous huge as she remembered, and yet they were formidable, the length of the wall running a half-mile along the cliff edge to the old donjon at the summit. Its massive height stared with slitted eyes to the north, defying Scots and rebels as it had for a hundred years and more.
Strength and shield—her haven—and Gian held it of her. She had not sent word. She arrived at the head of a guard provided by the abbot when she'd revealed herself to him. Their approach had been sighted five miles back, of that she could be sure, for Bowland overlooked all the country around, with signal towers to extend the view. He would know by now a party came.
And he had surmised who it was. A half-mile from the gatehouse, a pair of riders sped out to them, bringing breathless welcome, and a few moments later an escort of twenty lances showing signs of hasty organization trotted to meet them, wheeling to form proud flanks.
A few drops of rain spattered her shoulders, but she did not raise her hood. She rode over the bridge and into the immense shadow of the barbican with her face lifted and her head bare but for a golden net.
Woodsmoke and cheering shouts greeted her as her rouncy jogged into the open yard. The lower bailey swarmed with people and animals, as if every member of the hold had dropped his task to come. They wished to see her, she knew, their mistress returned.
Among the English she recognized no one, but that was beyond reason to expect. All her old servants, her parents' men, they would all be changed beyond knowing. But a babble of Italian and French equaled or outpaced the native tongue, and she saw some of Gian's knaves whom she knew better than she cared to, and her own familiar retinue awaiting—and yes...Cara, smiling, with a trapped rabbit's fright in her eyes.
Melanthe ignored her. As she dismounted, Gian came striding from the donjon.
He was grinning, his arms open. His houppelande of crimson flared behind him, guards of gold embroidery skimming the ground, and his spiked shoes impaling the air elegantly with each step.
He went low to his knee, lifting the hem of her gown. "God be thanked for His might. God be thanked." He made the cross and touched his lips to the cloth.
"Your Grace," she said. "Give you greeting."
He sought her hands as he rose, kissing her eagerly on cheeks and mouth. "Princess, you don't know what I've endured."
He tasted of perfumed oil, his beard dressed neat, blackened by dyes of cypre and indigo. She offered her hand.
"I was the one lost in desert," she said lightly. "Ask what I've endured. I've not heard a word but in English these three months."
"Torture indeed!" He took her arm and led her up the stairs into the donjon. "You'll tell me all, when your ladies have done with you. Come—oh, come, my sweet." His fingers tightened on her suddenly. He halted, gathering her hands in his and kissing them.
"Gian," she said softly.
He straightened. "Christ, I'm undone, to treat you so." He released her. "Go to your women. Call me when you will."
With a swift turn he walked away from her. At the screen he passed Allegreto, who bowed down with his forehead to the very floor tile. Gian did not glance at him. He crossed the hall and disappeared into a stair.
It was not until she was in her bath, with the silk sheets hung about and Cara setting a tray of malvoisie wine on the trestle, that the full scope of Melanthe's defeat came upon her. She had held herself insensible to what she did; refused to think backward instead of forward, to move in weakness rather than strength.
But she had lost, and lost beyond all her worst imagining.
Gian held her. And Bowland that was to have been her security, her refuge where every servant was safe and known and no alien countenance could be concealed. She had thrown away the quitclaim to draw him off, she had rid herself of Allegreto and Cara only to have them back, she had played bishop and queen and king—and lost. Bowland. Her safety, her freedom. And more—but she could not think of him; she would break if she thought of him, and Gian would see.
Cara washed her hair. Melanthe could feel the maid's unsteady fingers—she wanted to scream at the girl to summon her nerve, for one weak link was enough to kill them all. Instead she took the washcloth and wiped soap across her mouth, preferring the flavor of it to Gian's taste.
"I hear that you're repentant," she said coldly. "What proof can you give me of it?"
"Oh, my lady!" Cara whispered. She bent her head, her wet hands clenched together. "I'll do anything!"
Melanthe gazed at her. "Hardly reassuring. What of your sister?"
The girl shook her head. "My lady, what am I to do? I'd give my life for her if it would make her safe, but it would not. Allegreto has said—that he has tricked the Riata for a little time—I don't know how, but I was to account to them by Ficino, and within the day of when he came here, before he tried to seek me out, he...he must have caught a candle in his clothes, my lady, and...there was a fire. It was a terrible accident, my lady. All said so."