The haze vanished. Ruck grabbed him by the throat, sending his broom flying. "I paid thee, by God!" He threw the man against the wall. "Where are they?"
"The priest!" The hosteler scooted hastily out of reach. "The priest came to collect them, gentle sire! Your good wife—" He stumbled to his feet, ducking. "Is not she to go for a nun? He had a bishop's seal! An offering to the church—on her behalf, he said—he told me you had willed it so. A bishop's seal, my lord. I'd not have let them go for less, on my life!"
Ruck felt like a man hit by a pole-ax, still on his feet, but reeling.
"They took my horse?" he asked numbly.
"My lord's arms, too." From a safe distance the hosteler made a sympathetic grunt. "They would fain have me climb upstairs after your mail and helm. Bloodsuckers, the lot of them."
Isabelle had made him leave his armor. She had made a great ado of it.
Thirty-seven gold florins. Exactly what she had known was in his purse. And his horse. His sword. His armor.
He locked his hands over his head and tilted his face to the sky. A howl burst from him, a long bellow that reverberated from the stones like a beast's dumb roar. Impotent tears and fury blurred his vision. He leaned back against the wall and slid down it, sitting in the dirt with his head in his arms.
"Ye might sue for to have the horse back, if it were a mistake, gentle sire," the hosteler offered kindly.
Ruck gave a miserable laugh from the hollow of his arms. "How long would that take?"
"Ah. Who could know? Twain year, mayhap."
"Yea—and cost the price of a dozen horse," he muttered.
"True enough," the hosteler agreed morbidly.
Ruck sat curled, staring into the darkness of his arms, his back against the stone wall. He heard the hosteler go away, heard people talking and passing. Grief and rage spun him. He couldn't move; he had nowhere to go, no wife, no money. Nothing. He couldn't seem to get his mind around the full dimension of it.
A smart prod at his shoulder pushed him half off his balance. He looked up, with no notion of what time had passed, except that the shadows lay longer and deeper on the street.
The prod came again and Ruck grabbed at the staff with an angry oath. Before him stood the hunchbacked mute he'd gifted with a denier—and his first thought was that he wished he had the money back again.
The beggar held out a little pouch. Ruck scowled. The hunchback wriggled the pouch and offered it closer. He waited, staring at Ruck expectantly as he accepted it.
The bag contained a folded paper and a small coin. The beggar was still waiting. Ruck held onto the coin for a moment, but futile pride overcame him and he tossed it to the beggar with no good grace. The man grinned and saluted, shuffling away.
Ruck watched his dinner and bed disappear up the narrow street. He unfolded the paper—and jerked, catching at the green glitter that fell from inside.
I charge thee, get thee far hence ere nyt falleth. Fayle not in this.
He gazed at the English words, and the two emeralds in his palm. One was small, no bigger than the lens of a dragonfly. The other was of a size to buy full armor and mount, and pay a squire for a year. A size to adorn a falcon's arrogant crest.
He held the emeralds, watched them wink and catch the light.
He knew what he ought to do. A good man, a virtuous man, would stand up and stride to the palace and throw them in her face. A godly man would not let himself be bound to such a one as she.
He'd given up his wife to God.
And his horse, and his armor, and his money.
Ruck closed his hand on the jewels she sent and swore himself to the Arch-Fiend's daughter.
A year turns full turn and yields never like;
The first to the finish conform full seldom.
Forbye, this Yule over, and the year after,
And each season separately ensued after other:
And thus yields the year in yesterdays many,
And winter wendes again.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
ONE
"Year's gifts!"
The cry rose with squeals and laughter as the ladies of Bordeaux craned, reaching for the prizes held tauntingly overhead by their gay tormentors. Veils came askew, belts failed and sent misericordes flying in the tussle—in a rush of varicolored silks and furs each gentleman went down in willing defeat, yielding his New Year's keepsake for the price of a kiss.
The first Great Pestilence was twenty and two years gone, the Second Scourge ten Christmases past—but though the French harried Aquitaine's borders and yet another outbreak of the dread black swellings had killed Lancaster's white duchess herself just last year, such dire thoughts were blown to oblivion when the trumpets gave forth a great shout, sounding the arrival of pastries to the hall, fantastic shapes of ships and castles and a stag that bled claret wine when the gilt arrow was plucked from its side.
A mischievous lady was the first to toss an eggshell full of sweet-water at her lord—the carved rafters resounded with glee, and in a moment every man was wiping perfumed drops from his lashes, grinning, demanding another kiss for his misfortune. Some hungry lordling broke the crust of a huge pie and a dozen frogs leapt free, thumping onto the table amid skips and feminine screams. From another pie came a rush of feathered bodies, birds that flew to the light and put out the candles as the company filled the gloom with shrill enjoyment.
The Duke of Lancaster himself sat with languid elegance at the high table of Ombriere, watching critically as kettledrums and the wild high notes of warbling flutes heralded the first course. At the duke's right hand, his most high and honored guest, the Princess Melanthe di Monteverde, overlooked the dim noisy hall with cold indifference. Her white falcon, equally impassive, gripped its carved and painted block with talons dipped in silver. The bannered trumpets sounded once more. All the candles and torches glowed again in magical unison, illuminating the hall and dais as the liveried servants held the lights aloft.
Lancaster smiled, leaning very near Princess Melanthe. "My lady's highness likes not mirth and marvels?"
She gave him a cool glance. "Marvels?" she murmured in a bored tone. "I expect naught less than a unicorn before the sweetmeats."
Lancaster grinned, allowing his shoulder to touch hers as he reached to refill the wine cup they shared. 'Too commonplace. Nay, give us a more difficult task, Princess."
Melanthe hid her annoyance. Lancaster was courting her. He would not be snubbed and he would not be forestalled. He took her coldness as challenge; her reluctance as mere dalliance.
"Then, sir—I will have it green," she said smoothly, and to her vexation he laughed aloud.
"Green it shall be." He signaled to an attendant and leaned back to speak in the servant's ear, then gave Melanthe a sidelong smile. "Before sweetmeats, my lady, a green unicorn."
The heavy red-and-blue cloth of his sleeve brushed her arm as he lifted the cup toward her lips, but the bishop on his other side sought him. In his distraction Melanthe took her opportunity to capture the goblet from his hand. She could already see the assembly's reaction to his attentions. Swift as metheglin could intoxicate a man, another horrified report began to spread among the tables below.
It would be a subdued mumble, Melanthe knew, passed over a shared sliver of meat or a finger full of sweet jelly, whispered under laughter with the true discretion of fear. Lancaster was thirty, handsome and vigorous in the full strength of manhood. While his oldest brother the Black Prince lay swollen and confined to his bed with dropsy, it was Lancaster who kept court as Lieutenant of Aquitaine, but who could blame a younger son of the King of England—most surely one of such energy and pride as Lancaster—if his ambitions were for greater things than service to his brother? Everyone knew he would take another highborn heiress after losing his good Duchess Blanche, and no one expected him to dally long about it. But Mary, Mother of God, even for the gain it would bring him, did he truly contemplate the Princess Melanthe?