But abruptly, he was in it—future and present, anchored by his own battle to prove their vows and her public words of acceptance in the hall.
Amid birdsong and wet flowers, he walked aimlessly toward the empty stables. He heard someone behind him and turned, half expecting Melanthe, but it was not.
It was Desmond. He wore his court clothes, her fine scarlet livery, limp with the mist.
"My lord," he said, and went to his knee. "My lord!" His face crumpled into tears. "Will you let me go home?"
Ruck reached for him, and the boy came into his embrace, holding on as if to life.
"My lord," Desmond sobbed against his cote, "never did I break my word! I didn't I say anything of Wolfscar, nor that you wed my lady, even when they racked me! But Allegreto told me not to go to you at Windsor, that I must not, for my life and yours. And I saw you die, my lord—I—"
He lost his voice in weeping. Ruck crossed his arms over Desmond's neck, rocking him fiercely.
"My lord, can I go home? Oh, my lord, I made blunder and wrongs and failed you, but I beg you."
"Desmond." Ruck put his face down in the boy's shoulder. "I'll take you home if I bear you on my back in penance. God forgive me, that I sent you out alone."
Carrying wine and waster bread from the pantry, Ruck mounted the stairs to her chamber. A thin mist of daylight fell from the open door above, painting a faint golden stripe in a curve down the stone wall.
He'd expected to find her still asleep, but instead she was up, kneeling in her linen beside an open chest. Her head was bent over something in her hand.
He saw that it was a mirror, fine and rare, made of glass instead of polished steel. She held her loose hair on her shoulder, looking at the ivory carving on the back. As he came into the room, she held up the glass, reflecting his image onto him.
"What do you see, monk-man?"
"Myself, my lady. Will you breakfast?"
She rose as Ruck laid the napkin over a chest and set the food and tankards on it. He shut the door.
"Here." She held out the mirror to him, turning casually toward the window seat, as if he were one of her maids meant to place the thing away.
He stood holding the glass. She did it by design, he knew, to bedevil him, and it succeeded. He felt the difference in their stations sharply; he thought that if he let it pass now, her small disdain, he would have to live like a servant evermore.
"My lady wife," he said, pouring wine and handing it to her along with the mirror, "I don't require this glass for looking."
"Have you no vanity?" She laid it facedown in her lap. "But I forget—your choice of sin is lust."
He poured for himself. "If I must choose," he said, "yes."
"But truly, you're a handsome man. You might be vain with some justice. Look." She held up the glass again.
"Is something amiss with my face, lady, that you bid me stare in this mirror so much?"
She gazed at him, still holding it. Then she smiled slightly, bringing the glass up so that her face was half-hidden behind it, like a shamefast girl. "No. Nothing amiss, best-loved."
The mirrored surface gleamed and flashed at him, her eyes above it unreadable. But she pierced him through when she smiled.
"I saw Desmond below," he said.
The mirth vanished from her. She lowered the mirror and stretched out her bare feet on the window seat.
"I'm taking him to Wolfscar as soon as I can," Ruck said.
"No, you don't leave me. I'll send a courier to deliver him, if he must go."
"I'll take him, my lady." Ruck drained his wine.
"No."
"Do you poison me and chain me to prevent it?"
She sat up. "Does that anger you? By God's rood, you'd be dead if I hadn't!"
"God's mercy that I'm alive, for it's none of your doing, Melanthe! What demon was in your head, that you didn't say me true of that hell-hound Navona, so that I could serve you?"
She turned her head, looking out the window with a lift of her shoulder. "I could not."
"I well know that truth is like bitter wine on your lips, but your falsehood is beyond forgiveness for this."
"I could not!"
"Melanthe! You took me for your husband, and yet could not tell me?"
"He would slay you."
Ruck made a furious turn. "And so that he might not, you left me, and went to him to be his wife?"
"He would slay you."
"His wife!"
She gathered her knees up against her. "Foolish simpleton! You know nothing of it. He would slay you."
"Yes, and so I'd choose to be slain than to see you in his bed, but I think me that I'd not die so tame!"
"I did not bed him, nor would have. I was for a nunnery instead, so you may be easy on that point."
Ruck shook his head in disbelief. "Your brain is full of butterflies! A nunnery, by God, when you had only to say me of your need. It's my place to protect and defend you, Melanthe; it's my honor."
She sprang to her bare feet. "Yes, your honor! And where is honor when the poison finds your lips? I've told you why I did it. I'd do it once again, and lie and cheat and steal the same, so be it, to save you."
Carefully he set his clay tankard on a chest. "Then I have no place with you, by your own word." He lifted his sword belt, girding it. "I take Desmond to Wolfscar, and thence to my duty to Lancaster."
"Lancaster! You're not his, but mine. He will not abide you."
"For the ill way things go in Aquitaine, he must need seasoned men. A lord will forgive much to a captain of experience."
"No!" she said sharply. "You shall not go away from me!"
"In this, my lady, you don't command me."
"You're my husband. I will have you at my side."
He buckled the belt. "Lady, it's a lapdog you'd have at your side. I'll buy one for you at the marketplace."
"Ruck!" Her frantic voice made him pause at the door. She stood with the mirror clutched to her breast.
He waited. For an instant she seemed to cast for words, her lips parted, her eyes darting over the room, but then on an indrawn breath she pressed her lips together and stared at him royally.
"No, you do not go away to France, sir. I so command!'
"My lady, I've been your liege man. Now you've made me your husband, and named me so to the world. It is I, lady, could command you if I willed, and no man would say me nay."
Her brows lifted. "Shall it be war between us then, monk-man, for who commands? Beware you my force in that battle."
He put his hand on the door, to yank it open, and then dropped the hasp. He turned on her. "I don't doubt that I should beware! Well do I know the depth of your guile—I had plenty of time to ponder in your prison!" He shook his head with a harsh laugh. "I'm no match for you, faithly. You could skulk and slink to Lancaster, and poison me in his ear, so that I might not go to France. You could take Wolfscar from me if it pleased you, so that I have nothing of my own. I don't doubt you could command me, and hem me, and keep me by your side. You value your falcon better, for you set her free and trust her to return to you, though it be every time a peril. You might mew her in the dark for evermore, to keep her. But I see your face when she flies, and your joy and wonder when she comes." He shook his head again. "No, lady, there's no war between us. What use a war with a dead man? For I can't live mewed up at your pleasure, nor ever love you again as I do now, in free heart and devotion."
She pressed her palms over the mirror, holding it to her mouth. Then she turned to the window. "Gryngolet comes to the meat upon the lure—not for love."
Her shoulders and arms were pulled tightly inward as she held the mirror against her. Her smoke-black hair cascaded down her back. The colored window light turned bright white at her smock, drawing a fine outline of her body within.