stones casting tiny sprays of light that played over steel, coalescing green
and white as the rings came to rest.
On a level with him, she looked up from her task into his eyes. She could
not have said what she saw therehatred or misery or bewildermentbut it was
surely not love that stared back at her from under his begrimed black
lashes.
From the persistent tickle of recollection, memory sprang sudden and full
blown into her mind.
Once, long ago, for a whim, she had pulled a thorn from this lions paw.
She remembered him, she remembered when and where, an image stirred more by
his height and bearing and the baffled agony in his face than by his
features. Just so he had submitted, disarmed of all defense, as they took
away his wife and money from him.
He repaid her today, then, for that emerald on his helm. Whatever
precarious place he had striven to gain in Lancasters heart, with his
fighting skills and command of men and vow to find glory, was vanished now.
He knelt before her like a man dazed.
Apology sprang to her lips, regret for his maimed honor, his lost prince.
It hovered on her tongue.
Thou art a fool, she murmured instead, to think a man can serve two
masters. She lifted a varvel and let it fall against his armor, smiling. A
splendid fool. Come into my service to stay, be it thy desire.
He stared at her. A sound like a sob escaped him, a deeper breath, harsh
through his teeth.
Melanthe rose. She extended her hand, touching his shoulder to make a
gesture for the crowd. Rise.
His squire brought the destrier forward. Melanthe took the silver lead.
They smelled of sweat and dust and hot steel, the knight and his mount,
perfumed with blood and combat. When he had mounted, she looked up at him.
If thou art vassal unto me, she said, I shall love and value thee as
Lancaster never could. And with that snare set, she turned before he
answered, leaving his hunchbacked squire to lead him from the lists.
Away, away! Melanthe held Gryngolet on her wrist, urging the flustered
falconers of Ombriere to haste. I will away!
She turned her palfrey in the castles empty courtyard, watched only by
her own retinue and a few dumbstruck servants. Outside the walls the sound
of the tournament was a distant rise and fall of temper, the tensions
between soldiers and squires and townsmen flaring. Melanthe cared nothing
for thatit was the dukes difficulty if he could not control his peopleshe
only wanted escape from the tumult, releasing her own tensions in a flying
gallop over the countryside with Gryngolet aloft before her.
Allegreto stood sullenly under the arched entrance to the hall, waiting
for a horse, one of his eyes turning black from his morning in the town
stocks. He had not had a difficult time of it; no taunting of a foreign
stranger could equal the excitement of a tournament, but he glared at
Melanthe all the same.
Her greyhound strained against its leash as Melanthe felt her heart
strain for the open country. She had seen herons and ducks by the river;
yesterday Lancaster had given her his leave to take what she couldand if he
regretted it now, she was beyond having to care. The falconers, two
underlings left behind to mind the mews, finally secured their drum and
swung up double onto a thin poorly horse, carrying a trussed chicken in a
bag in case the hunt should have no success.
Melanthe reined her palfrey toward the gate. Across the bridge and
through the barbicanand she could turn away from tournaments and courts and
crowds and pretend she was alone with the open sky. Alone, as Gryngolet
flew, but for the escort of hunters and falconers that chased the birds
wild courses.
Melanthe, too, was followed. Allegreto and Cara and a Riata rode behind
her; Lancaster and Gian Navona and the ghost of Ligurio hounded her; and
another hunted her now the image of a man in green
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