"Saint Cloud?" he repeated stupidly. He lifted his eyes to find the bishop regarding him with an inquisitive look.
"Do you understand French?" the prelate asked.
"Yea, my lord," Ruck said.
The bishop nodded in approval. "'The wife hath not the power of her own body, but the husband; likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife,'" he intoned. "As Saint Paul sayeth to the Corinthians. She must receive your consent to do this. Is it your will, my son, that your wife take these vows to be chaste?"
They were asking his permission. He could say no. He turned his head, and Isabelle was standing wringing her hands, weeping as she had in the dawn, pleading with him silently.
Isabelle. Luflych.
He imagined denying her, holding her by force—imagined saying yes and losing her forever.
She made a deep moan in her throat, as if she were dying, and held out her hands to him in supplication.
He turned his face away from her. He bent his head. "Yea, my lord," he said harshly to the slippers and the golden hem.
The bishop leaned forward. Ruck clasped his hands and put them in the holy man's cool grasp, sealing his consent. Now he had no wife. No true wife. He didn't know if he was married or not.
"You may rise, my son," the bishop said.
Ruck stood. He started to bow and move back, but the prelate raised his hand.
"Sire Ruadrik—do you believe this woman's visions are given to her by God?" he asked mildly.
"Yea, my lord." Ruck knew well enough to answer that in a firm voice. Any other reply, he felt, could be twisted to mean that they were Hell-inspired.
"You follow her in her preachings on that account?"
"She is my wife," Ruck said, and then felt a flush of embarrassment rise in his face. "She was. My lord—I—could not let her go so far alone."
"You did not require her to stay modestly at home?"
He stood in shame, unable to admit that he'd found it impossible to command his own wife. "Her visions enjoin her," he said desperately. "She is God's own servant."
His words died away into a profound silence. He felt they were laughing at him, to offer that as an excuse.
"And you have given a solemn vow of chastity to her some five weeks past, on the road from Reims?"
Ruck gazed helplessly at the bishop.
"In obedience to this woman's visions," the bishop repeated insistently, "you lived chaste in your marriage?"
Ruck lowered his face. "Yea," he mumbled, staring at the bright floor tiles. "My lord."
"Oh, I think not," said a light female voice. "He is not chaste. Indeed, he is an adulterer."
Ruck stiffened at this astonishing accusation. "Nay, I am not—" His fierce denial died on his tongue as he turned to find the lady with the falcon standing not a rod behind him.
She strolled forward, sliding a glance at him over her shoulder while she dropped a token reverence toward the bishop. Her eyes were light, not quite perfect blue, but saturated with the lilac tinge of her dress and lined by black lashes. She seemed ageless, as young as Isabelle and as old as iniquity. The emeralds on the falcon's hood glittered.
Ruck felt his face aflame. "I have not adultered!" he said hoarsely.
"Is not the thought as sinful as the deed, Father?" she asked, addressing the bishop but looking at Ruck, her voice clear enough for her words to resonate from the walls.
"That is true, my lady. But if you have no earthly evidence, it is a matter of absolution between a man and his confessor."
"Of course." She smiled that serene and indifferent smile, lifting her skirts, withdrawing. "I fear that I presumed too far. I wished only to spare Your Holiness the mockery of hearing a solemn vow of chastity made by such a man. He stared at me full bold yesterday in the Hall of Great Audience, causing me much uneasiness of mind."
A low sound of protest escaped Ruck's throat. But he could not deny it. He had stared. He had committed adultery in his heart. He had desired her with an inordinate desire, a mortal passion—her eyes met his as she retired gracefully to one side—he read absolute knowledge there; she laid him bare, and she knew that he knew it.
"I am grieved to hear that you have had any cause for annoyance in the house of God, my lady," the prelate said, not sounding particularly disturbed. "Modesty in manner and dress, daughter, will temper the boldness of ungodly men toward you. But your point is well-taken with regard to the vow. Sire Ruadrik—can you swear to your purity both in thought and in deed?"
Ruck thought God Himself must be subjecting him to this mortification, holding him to a standard of truth beyond the strength of human flesh. Why else should all these great people take up their time with him? He was nobody, nothing to them.
He could not bring himself to answer, not here in front of everyone. In front of her. She might be the agent of God's truth, but he thought no woman had ever appeared more as if she'd been sent by the Arch-Fiend to enthrall a man.
The silence lengthened, condemning him. He looked at her, and at Isabelle's open tear-streaked face. His wife stared back at him.
Ruck closed his eyes. He shook his head no.
"Sire Ruadrik," the archbishop said heavily, "with this admission of impurity, and other considerations, the vow given to your wife must be considered invalid."
As the interpreter translated, Isabelle broke into a great wail.
"Silence!" the archbishop thundered, and even Isabelle drew in her breath in shock at the suddenness of it. In the pause he said, "You must be heard by your confessor, Sire Ruadrik. I leave your penance to him. For the other matter—" He glanced at Isabelle, who had crawled forward and lay tugging at his hem. "In the usual course, one spouse is prevented from taking such a vow of chastity, if the other does not consent to it and vow also the same. Consent alone is not sufficient, as without the consolation of a solemn commitment to live celibate and close to God, the temptations of the flesh may prove too great." He looked at Ruck. "Lacking this true commitment, you will see the wisdom in such requirement, Sire Ruadrik."
Ruck could barely hold the man's eyes. He nodded slightly, burning all over.
The archbishop lifted his hand. "Nevertheless, this woman appears to me to be a special case. With the proper provisions, I am willing to allow that she may be attached to the convent and live in obedience to the rules of the house without her husband's concurrent vow. After I have examined her further in the articles of the faith and found her response to be satisfactory, and the provision for her support has been received, she may be admitted to the order."
When Isabelle heard the translation of this, she kissed the archbishop's hem and showed clear signs of working herself into an ecstasy. The archbishop made a gesture of dismissal. Ruck found himself escorted toward the door.
He wrenched his arm from the clerk's hold and turned back, but people had crowded in. From the corridor all he saw was the lady of the falcon, lifting her hand to her ear with a look of pained sufferance as Isabelle's voice rose to a shriek. The door closed. A clerk accosted him, informing him that an endowment of thirty-seven gold florins had been promised on behalf of Isabelle and would be accepted at once.
Thirty-seven gold florins was all the money that Ruck had, the last of the ransom from the two French knights he'd captured at Poitiers. The clerk took it, counting carefully, biting each coin before he dropped it into the holy purse.
Ruck walked to the hostel as if in a dream. His steps took him first to the stable, to make certain at least of his horse and his sword when everything else seemed a daze.
"Already gone," the hosteler said.