Cara bowed her head. "Yes, my lady."
"I spoke to you once of love."
"Yes, my lady."
Melanthe pulled the window closed. She could see the reflection of candles in the glass, and a wavering darkness that was herself. "What did I say of it?" she whispered. "I have forgotten what I said."
"My lady, you said to me that great love is ruinous, my lady."
"And so it is." She put her hands over her hot cheeks again, watching the obscure movement in the glass. "So it is."
"My lady—if it would please you—if Guy might find a place in your retinue when we return—"
"God's death, do you care no more for your betrothed than to lead him into the viper's nest?" Melanthe turned angrily on the girl's brown-eyed innocence. "And what of Allegreto? Is he to sing a gleeful carol at your wedding?"
"My lady, it was Allegreto who proposed it"—Cara made a courtesy—"that Guy find a place with you, so that I might go home."
Melanthe gazed at her. She could not see in the soft face anything but a tame doe's stupid trust. "Do not press Allegreto too far." She rose, flinging the pillow aside. "No, if you must have this Englishman, then you'll both remain here. And count your blessings."
Cara bowed. She went to Melanthe's bed and began to turn down the sheets. The manor bells tolled matins.
"I'll go to the chapel," Melanthe said. "In faith, I cannot sleep!"
She would have preferred to go to the garden, or the mews, but Gian had spies on her in the household, and she did not dare arouse any curiosity. As well accustom herself to altar and roodscreen—it would be the whole scope of her life soon enough.
She thought perhaps she would surprise everyone and be a fiercely austere nun. The ladies who retired as religious and still kept high estate had always seemed pathetic to her—acting out a play without stage or spectators. No, she would give everything to the church, and fast, and have visions. And they would all be of a man who had loved her once.
He hated her now. She had done all she could to drive him to it. She had a conversation in her head with him about it, to explain to him. She had poisoned him, yes, but it was to spare him. She imprisoned him, but it was to keep him safe until she and Gian were gone. If she denied him as her husband, broke her vow and murdered his heart, it was so that she did not have to live knowing that he did not.
She could not kill Gian instead, she told him. She had thought on it long and deep. She knew of wives who had slain their husbands—one had been flayed alive, but the others had only paid fines. But it was no easy task, not with Gian, who had eluded the best of killers, and if she failed once, there would be no magistrate to sentence her, for she would not live so long. Allegreto would not aid her in it, nay, but oppose her.
And if she succeeded—she would be theirs. She would belong to the Devil wholly.
She told these things to Ruck. But it was not a conversation. He never answered. In her mind he stared at her with unyielding silence. He would not understand. Could not. Her deliberate dishonor was beyond his comprehension, as the black depth of Allegreto's love was beyond Cara's.
They knew themselves—she and Allegreto. They knew how close the Devil had them. She could almost pity Allegreto, who still held to his own mysterious honor by a thin thread. If he had wished to rid himself of Guy as a rival, he would have done it, and yet this subtle suggestion of his that Cara and her lover return to Italy boded of darker intentions, or else foolish hopes. He was not so old, Allegreto, that he might not have hopes, but Melanthe would not allow Cara to drive him beyond endurance. She and Guy must stay in England, far away from him.
In return for such a kind favor from Melanthe, Allegreto would make certain that Ruck hated her. He would say all the things that Melanthe did not have the strength to say herself, kill pride and hope and future. And Ruck would go home to live in his enchanted valley, where Melanthe had never been meant to go.
They were old allies, she and Allegreto, strange friends and familiar enemies.
"This is your last lesson, green man. Have you learned it?"
"Ruadrik."
"Ruadrik, then." Allegreto made a courteous bow. "Lord Ruadrik of Wolfscar."
His voice echoed in the old brewery, calling from all sides, whispering back from the high slits of light made in the shape of holy crosses. Ruck had shouted until his voice was nearly gone, but if anyone passed outside those windows, they did not come into his prison.
She had done this. Allegreto made no secret of it. Ruck was to be kept here until she was gone from England, and if he followed her, he would die by some means just as unclean and secret as her sleeping poison, but lethal this time.
His last lesson. If he did not appear to have learned it, then he did not leave this place.
Allegreto sat on the far edge of the huge round well, his legs dangling in it. He pilled one of Ruck's oranges and tossed the rind. Ruck heard it strike the water with a faint plop. A queer imprisonment, this, with food befitting a banquet table—or a princess—fruit and almonds, fresh cheese and white bread. The brewery was ancient, but his bonds were new and strong, the anchor sunk deep into the wall.
Ruck cursed his own witlessness. To suppose that she ever meant him well, to trust Allegreto for one instant—old Sir Harold had never been so mad and simple as Ruck when he had thought he'd won.
He remembered her face in that brief moment of his victory. Smiling at him. In the death-dreams, it was that expectant smile that had tortured him worse than demons.
Allegreto sucked the juice from a segment of orange and spit the seed away. "She told me why she let you live," he said. "She said you prayed too much, and would haunt her to tedium if she killed you."
"Tell her I'll haunt her into Hell itself if she marries Navona."
"Then prepare your howls and shrieks, for that's what she's going to do, green man."
"Ruadrik."
"Ruadrik. Late of Wolfscar."
With a light move Allegreto stood up, pitching the last of his fruit into the well. He came around to Ruck's side to draw water. The splash echoed, a memory of dreams, scraping and sloshing as Allegreto hauled the bucket up by hand and set it within Ruck's reach.
The youth sprang up the stairs three at a time. At the door he paused. "I leave you to ponder—will I return, or will I not? Her mind is much occupied with her wedding. She might forget you entirely, green man."
"Ruadrik," Ruck said.
"Did I tell you this was a walled park, my lord Ruadrik? Nothing but deer for two miles in all directions. And the river. I think you should shout, and hope they hear you on the river. Enlarge your skill at haunting." He gave Ruck a charming smile. "Verily, a place like this needs a ghost."
The door boomed shut behind him. Thin crosses of light angled down, illuminating the stone floor, vanishing into the enormous well.
Cara kept herself in the background while Gian visited them. She was hopeless at concealing things. She could never have contended so coolly as her mistress did with him, insisting that they set forth at once for Italy against his new determination that they marry here in England.
"These fools make a martyr of the fellow," Gian said. "There are a thousand candles for him after just a week—next we'll have a miracle, and his fingerbones sold in the market square."
"All the more reason to depart." Princess Melanthe gestured at a platter. "Look, there's a fresh salmon, the best of the year, they say. I could almost be pleased that it's a fish day."