It came now to forbidding the banns. He wouldn't have to stand up in church and object; his clerk already worked to present his case, and at least until it had been investigated, the betrothal could be carried no further. Ruck chafed at these bishops and clerks, but it was a rite that had to be observed. He expected no success; she would deny him to the bishop as she had denied Ruck to his face, and so it was his word against hers. He had but one way to prove himself, with a sword.
He dismounted, starting to take a ladle of water from a page who ran up to offer it—and then hesitated. He let the water pour onto the ground and called another waterboy from outside the lists.
"Wary bastard!" A knight halted beside him, some foreigner with an accent of the south. He said in a loud voice, "These stinking rogues must watch their backs."
Ruck ignored him, squatting down to cup his hands and drink from the bucket.
"Miserable wretch, how much money do you think to get for renouncing your foul tale? Tell me, and I'll take the message to Dan Gian, to save you the toil."
Ruck stood up. "If you've come from Navona," he said, calm and clear, "then advise him to save his silver to hire the man who dies in his place." Ruck wiped his face with a towel. "Since he's too much a woman to fight himself."
"He's injured, wretch."
Ruck smiled up at the knight. "I'd be pleased to wait, but I think his ankle won't be so brave as to knit soon."
The foreigner looked about at the crowd that gathered and deliberately spit on him. "Fight me. Now."
Ruck wiped himself with the towel and threw it down. "With the greatest delight, you son of a mongrel bitch." He turned to Hawk and tightened his girth. Immediately the spectators split, pages and squires pressing up to serve him with helm and a steel sword instead of the wooden wasters for practice. A blunt-fingered squire who held out the helmet dropped it an inch from Ruck's hand.
As they both bent to retrieve it, the squire hissed, "Your friend says beware the sword."
Ruck looked up at him. He was a stranger, backing away with a quick bow. A quick scan of the spectators lined along lists revealed no Desmond, nor any other friend.
They were sympathetic to him, though, cheering him vigorously as he mounted. He turned the sword he'd been given, running his glove along the edge. Light flashed up and down it. He could see no flaw, but he wasn't fool enough to chance it. He called for another—and as he handed down the first blade, he saw it: a ghost across the metal, the faintest flaw of color.
"Who gave me this?" he shouted in English. He held it overhead, reining his horse in a circle, spurring toward the quintain. "Who gives me a cheating sword?" With a violent sweep he brought it flat against the stout practice post.
The blade broke, the sundered half flying through the air to land with a skidding puff of dust.
"Witness this, that I was goaded into combat by no will of my own, and given that to fight with." He glared around at the staring faces. "I'm in health and whole today—if I die before I prove my truth against Navona's slander, then I pray you, for your honor, to search into the cause." He threw away the broken hilt and turned his mount toward the gate. "I don't fight with a foul nothing."
They jeered; he supposed it was at him, until he reached the rail and they started to duck under it and run into the lists. His challenger didn't make it to the gate, surrounded by an angry swarm. They pulled him from his horse, tearing his helmet and weapon away the better to beat him.
Ruck watched for a moment, with a habitual urge to stop the disorder. He wasn't certain that the man had been behind the flawed sword. But there were boys taking hold of Hawk's bridle, excited squires and pages escorting him out the gate. He remembered that foreign voice and deliberate spit, and turned his back.
He realized that the bull-shouldered squire who had given him the warning was walking beside him, hand on his stirrup.
When he dismounted, the man took his shield and helmet with a seasoned efficiency.
"Who do you serve?" Ruck asked in English.
He made a smart bow. "My lord died at Pentecost, may Lord Jesus grant him grace. I be without place since."
Ruck frowned. "Who spoke to you as my friend?"
"I don't know, sir, but I'll try out the creature and find him, if you like." He looked at Ruck with a sober expression that didn't quite disguise the glint of hope. "John Marking is my name. My late sire's lady will write a letter to attest me, should it fall out that you be in need of a humble squire, God save you."
"Then let her write," Ruck said, and handed John his gloves.
"Sit there." The archbishop waved him to a bench, holding the papers, all in Latin, and spreading them out on the table before him. "This isn't a cause in which I'd intervene," the prelate said, "but that since I came here I've heard of nothing but the marvelous case of this unknown knight, who would have it that he's married to the Countess of Bowland—who would have it that he's not."
Ruck said nothing. His clerk spoken for him, but now the prelate wished to interview him alone. He sat straight, looking at the archbishop's peaked and embellished mitre. The churchman sorted through papers.
"You press your cause ardently, with nothing to make proof," he murmured, reading. "But of course, I'm told that the widow is an heiress of great fortune."
"Your grace," Ruck said, "I do not want her fortune, nor will have it."
The prelate ran his finger across a line. "I see that you have so testified, that you quit all right in her estate. And yet such a marriage can't be a disadvantage to you, for you have no property or place that you name. Sir who? Of where? What county?"
"Honorable father—I'm under solemn vow, that I will not undertake my right name before the world until I prove worthy. But I've written it, and lies it sealed there." He nodded toward the parchments on the table. "The Duke of Lancaster is my liege lord. Six gentlemen and knights of good character vouch upon me, that I'm no felon nor outlaw, but a true Christian man ready to keep the peace."
The archbishop made an irritated flick of his hand. "The Lord would be better pleased if young knights were not so hasty to swear such extravagant and profitless vows. But you must keep to your sworn word. Still—this want of conformity and open truth seems sufficient to arouse suspicion that you make your claim with worldly and wicked motive."
"My lord, I make claim because the Princess Melanthe is my wife, before God, and no other man may marry her while I live."
The archbishop tapped on the papers. Strong light shafted across the table from a lancet window, making a long shadow from his finger. "You testify that the Princess Melanthe took you to husband by your right name and knows your place."
"Yes, my lord. She lay at my hold, from February to May."
The churchman frowned at him thoughtfully. "Tell me, in your own words, what passed."
Ruck had told the story often now; he related everything from his dismissal by Lancaster to the bed at Torbec. The archbishop didn't break in to question him as the others had. He simply listened, shifting the papers on occasion. At the end he said, "My son, I fear that you've been wiled by a wicked and lewd woman. If those at Torbec could have testified to witness of the vows, the case might be different. I don't say that you've lied, but you have no proof."
"If I do not lie, then she is my wife," Ruck said. "She cannot marry another."
"I've seen her. I spoke to her right plainly, and put her in remembrance that her soul is at stake in this matter. She denies the words, and that you had company of each other, with great vehemence."