The youth glanced at him coolly. "Where?"
"My lady's castle by the forest of Savernake, so they said me."
Allegreto's eyes narrowed. He nodded. Then a shiver passed through him, and he leaned his shoulders back against the wall, crossing his arms. "God's blood, I wish they'd be done with him, so that we might leave."
"You'll return with the others?"
"Navona is mine, green man. So I will take it. And Monteverde and the Riata with it."
The names were no more than names to Ruck, castles or kin or cities, he knew not. But it might have been Gian Navona himself standing in the half-light. Ruck only said, "Beware your friend Morello, then."
"Morello!" Allegreto shrugged, with a faint sneer.
"The rest of them will follow you if you're swift to move," Ruck said. "Choose a captain tonight and divide their stations where they can't whisper among themselves."
The dark eyes flicked to him. Allegreto wet his lips and nodded.
"Make them carry pikes," Ruck murmured. "It'll slow them from freeing their sword hands."
Allegreto raised his brows. His mouth curled in a slight smile. "I didn't know you were so sly, green man."
"I think me you're too sly. It will take more than guile and poison to rule, my fine pup. Before they can love you, they must know you beyond a shadow and a comely face."
The priest's bell began to toll. Something happened to the mocking curve of Allegreto's lips. He stared at the dim-lit door to the hall, his mouth trembling.
Ruck turned, watching as the gray friars carried the coffin from the hall, eight of them, bent down by the weight of it. Allegreto took a step back into the stairwell, looking down on his father's bier.
The priest walked behind, swinging his censer. Allegreto came down as if to follow, then held back with his hand on the corner of the stair. He stood looking out the door at the end of the passage. Cool air flowed in, ruffling his dark hair.
He slanted a glance over his shoulder to Ruck, as if he had some question that had not been answered. But he did not speak.
"Beware Morello," Ruck said, "and put on dry clothes."
"Morello will be dead before we reach Calais." Allegreto let go of the wall and strode toward the door.
"Dry clothes," Ruck said after him.
The youth paused, turning. "Are you my mother, green man?"
"Life hangs on the small things, whelp. Why die of a fever ague and make it easy for Morello?"
Allegreto stood in the doorway, the breeze blowing in past him. He gave a brief nod, then turned into the darkness, following his father.
No tears greeted Ruck when he went to Melanthe's chamber. She stood waiting in her linen smock, her hair loose, a phantom in the light of a single candle, as dry-eyed as the white falcon that stood motionless on its block.
"Don't tarry away from me," she said angrily. "Where have you been?"
"Below, my lady. They've carried the coffin out."
"Without doubt, that couldn't come too soon." She held herself straight and distant, without advancing to him. Ruck closed the door and stood with his back to it. She was ever difficult in such a mood; he recognized it, but didn't know the remedy.
"Say me what happened in truth," she demanded. "Who killed him?"
"No man. Donna Cara was with him on the wharf at your brewery place. She bolted away, and he caught her sleeve. The cloth parted. She heard the splash." Ruck gave a slight shrug. "And we returned to find him drowned."
Melanthe stared at him. Then she laughed and closed her eyes. "It is too witless."
"Too witless it was that you chained me to a wall, my lady," he said tautly, "but God or the Fiend has him now, and it's too late for my vengeance."
She lifted her lashes. "Would you have tortured him, green sire?" she asked in a scoffing tone. "Torn him limb by limb in pieces? Only for me?"
"Melanthe," he said, "don't be this way tonight."
"What way?'' she demanded, turning from him. She went to the bed and flung back the sheets, sitting down on the edge of it, her bare feet on the board.
"His."
She pressed her toes downward, her feet curving until they showed white. Her eyes seemed too large and dark to be human. She was like an elven, elegant and sheer, as if light would pass through her.
"How would you have me, then?" she asked. "Disporting? Meek? A worthy goodwife, or a whore? I can be any—or all, if you like."
"Readily I'd have you in a sweeter temper, my lady."
She threw herself backward onto the bed, lying among the sheets. "That's all? How simple." She made a web of her hands and flung them wide. "There. I am sweet. I am honey. Come and taste me."
Ruck unbuttoned his surcoat and dropped it with his belt and sword over a chest. At the harsh clatter of the gold links, she sat up again.
"Faithly, a man of swift reply," she said mockingly.
Ruck continued to divest himself. When he was naked he went to the bed and took her down with him on it. He couldn't speak to her, or he would shout. He opened his mouth over hers, kissing deep. She arched her body up beneath him, her hands greedily about his loins to pull him into her.
Delicious lust possessed him, compounding with his anger. He used her without indulgence, taking no time but for himself. Still she inhaled and dug her nails into him and spread her legs to twine them about his. She pulled frantically at him, her hands gripped in his hair so hard that it hurt.
The pain brought him back from blind hunger, caught him sharply from his own passion. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her face a mask of ferocity, as if she fought with him instead of straining to him.
He slowed, gentling his moves, but she would not have it. She made a bitter cry, forcing their union as hard as her strength could force it. Even though he stilled, she clung to him and strove to reach her pleasure.
Ruck let her use him, his own wrath sliding away. He brushed his lips over her hair as she shuddered and seized in his arms, her skin dewed with moisture.
She fell back, panting, her fingers digging into his shoulders. The blunt pain eased as she slowly released him. Her palms explored, sweeping up and down his arms, touching his hair and his face.
She never opened her eyes as her labored breathing slackened. She skimmed her hands down his body, then spread her arms out wide on the bedsheets. All her limbs softened.
He bent his forehead to the base of her throat, resting there, drunk on the scent and mystery of her. He felt her twitch, drowsing. As he lay atop her, in her, still full and hard, the last of waking tension drifted from her limbs. Her breath became a steady feather at his ear.
He began to move again, finding his own pleasure deep in her body. But though he came to the height of his lust and discharge with a heavy tremor and a sound of ecstasy, she didn't wake. His lost and bespelled princess, beyond his reach even as he possessed her.
In the early morning, in a manor house empty of all but a few servants, he left her sleeping hard and deep. He bathed and shaved in the kitchen and walked outside.
Fog lay on the river surface, shading to mist and clear air. He stood looking down through it toward the shore, where trampled grass and the black clods of burned-out torches were all that remained of the departed barks.
He hadn't expected this morning, this moment. He had never since the day she left Wolfscar believed in his heart that he would have her to wife again. Even before, it had never seemed perfectly real, but a thing of fantasy with no tie to the earth. They hadn't spoken of the future, because they'd both known that in truth there was to be none.