For My Lady's Heart by Laura Kinsale

The knight was on a level with her, the eye slits in his visor dark with the daunting inhumanity that was the life and power of his kind. The destrier's heavy breath seemed to belong to both of them. He held the reins with gloves of green worked in silver—on his shield the only emblem was a hooded hawk, silver on green. All over the horse's caparisons embroidered dragonflies mingled with flowers and birds: silver and green entirely.

  Melanthe's hand relaxed slightly on the dagger as she realized that this was not immediate attack. She felt the sudden exposure of standing alone, but it was too late to sit down and hide her reaction. Everyone stared, and after their first startlement, no one appeared dismayed. At the edge of her vision, she could see the duke grinning.

  "My lady," Lancaster said into the utter stillness. "Your unicorn comes."

  "Mary," Melanthe said. "So it does."

  "My liege lady." The knight's voice sounded hollow and harsh from within the helmet. He made a bow in the saddle. The horse danced. "My dread lord."

  "Trusty and well-beloved knight." The duke acknowledged him with a lazy nod. "My lady, we call him the Green Sire who rides your unicorn. I fear he will not grace us with his true name."

  "Liege lord of my life," the knight said, "I have made a vow."

  "Yes, I remember. Not until you're proved worthy, was it? At least remove your helm. It alarms the ladies, as you can see." He made a slight gesture toward Melanthe.

  The green knight hesitated. Then he seized his helmet and pulled it off his head. The feathers fluttered as he held it under his arm. Melanthe glanced at the emerald that adorned the crest, and looked into his face.

  But he kept his eyes well cast down, focused on some spot below the table at Lancaster's feet, showing mostly a head of black hair cut short and unruly. He was clean-shaven, with a strong jaw and strong features, sun- and battle-hardened in a way that was different from the men she was accustomed to—in the way of campaign and chevauchée, open-air knight errantry instead of close-handed duellum with wits and dagger. Melanthe had an abiding respect for any type of violence; this type had the benefit of a certain novelty. One could appreciate the theory of chivalrous knighthood...one could smile at the idea of a man who would not give his name until he was proven worthy.

  Since she felt the urge to smile, she followed the primary rule of her existence and did not do it. Had she followed that principle a moment ago, stifling instinct, she would not now be standing in this foolish and conspicuous way, showing herself the only one who had been so affected by the sensational entrance.

  "You desire a unicorn, and I give it to you," Lancaster said in high good humor. "The beast is yours to command, Princess."

  The knight lifted his head slightly. His face was immobile. A faint tickle of significance stirred in Melanthe's mind, a fleeting thought she could not catch. He was indeed a fine man, tall on his horse, strong of limb, his face that combination of beauty and roughness that provoked the ladies to sighs and the more elegant courtiers to spiteful remarks about vulgarity. The range of expression in the company behind him was of vast interest to Melanthe—and not least intriguing the green knight's own taut countenance. He had a look of extremity on him, some emotion far more intense than mere playacting at marvels before a lady.

  "What will you ask, my lady?" Lancaster inquired. "Will you send them to hunt dragons?"

  The knight glanced at Melanthe for an instant, then away, as if the contact startled. His destrier shifted restlessly beneath him, its enameled hooves thumping on the braided rush. The bells jangled. With an abrupt move he yanked one glove from his hand and threw it down before the company. "A challenge!" he shouted. He turned about in the saddle, scanning the hall, rising in his stirrups. "For the honor of my lady, tomorrow I take all who come!"

  Lancaster went stiff beside her. He stood up. "No," he snapped. "It's not your place to defend Her Highness!"

  The knight ignored his liege. "Is this the court of the Black Prince and Lancaster?" he shouted furiously. "Who will fight me for the honor of my lady?"

  His voice echoed in the stunned silence of the hall. They stared at him as if he'd lost his senses. But comprehension burst upon Melanthe. This was the source of Allegreto's mirthful satisfaction—he had created a chance for her.

  "Cease your nonsense!" Lancaster growled in a low voice. "It does you no credit, sir!"

  The green knight had dropped his veneer of submissive respect. His gaze hit Melanthe and skewed away again. He dismounted and went down on his knee before her in a chinking clash of mail. "My lady!" Over the edge of the table she could see that he held his bare hand against his heart, the plumed helmet thrust under his arm. "I beg you—give me something of your own, that I might carry the precious prize tomorrow and defend against all comers."

  "You shall not do so!" the duke declared, his voice rising. "I carry Her Highness's favor, impudent rogue!"

  Melanthe seized her moment. She slanted him a cool look. "Think you so, my lord?" she asked softly.

  Lancaster glanced at her, his face growing red. "I—" His jaw went taut. "I am at your service, if you will honor me," he said stiffly.

  Melanthe smiled at him. She caught Gryngolet's jesses and pulled the soft white calf's leather loose from about the falcon's legs, slipping her dagger inside to cut the bells and jesses free. Gryngolet's varvels—two silver rings jeweled with emeralds and diamonds and engraved with Melanthe's name—swung suspended from the ends. She slipped the bells from Milan onto the jesses, tying them so that they made a falcon's music, one note striking high and one low, in the rich harmony that belonged to nothing else in heaven or earth.

  Lancaster was watching her. She looked at him for a long, significant moment, then turned back to the knight who still knelt below her.

  "Green Sire," she declared, "the most precious prize I possess on earth, I give you for a keepsake, to defend me for my honor on the morrow."

  She tossed the jesses with their gems and bells onto the rush before him.

  "I challenge for it!" Lancaster exclaimed instantly.

  "And I, on my lord's behalf!" A man stood up beyond him on the dais.

  "And I!" They were seconded by two more, and then four, knights standing in the hall to shout their dares until the hammer-beams rang.

  "Enough!" Lancaster lifted his arm. "It shall be arranged who will fight." He glared down at the green knight. "Rise, then, insolent fellow."

  The knight came to his feet, his eyes downcast again. God only knew how Allegreto had threatened or enticed him to do this thing. The knight stood waiting with a stony stare at his lord's feet, the light on his green armor sculpting broad curves at his shoulders, chasing silver arcs across his arm-plates. Lancaster could barely keep the fury from his face.

  "A most marvelous unicorn," she said with amusement. "My lord's grace is kind, to put him at my service."

  Lancaster seemed to find some control of his emotion. He bowed to her, producing a smile that didn't quite cover the grim set of his jaw. "I'd have counted it worth my life to serve you myself, my lady. But now I count it an honor to win your better regard by trial tomorrow, against this man I had thought under true oath to me."

  The green knight looked up, his expression a fascinating play of yearning and pride, of checked temper. "My beloved lord, I wish with my whole heart to please you, but my lady commands me."

  "You take too much credit upon yourself, knave!"

  The knight glanced to Melanthe; his eyes as green as his armor, human now instead of hidden by steel and darkness. In his intense gaze there was an open dismay of his own defiance before his prince—he looked to her hoping for reprieve, asking her for release from what he had done.

  She held him, denying it. Her answer was unrelenting silence.

  The knight bowed his head. She could see the taut muscle in his bared neck. "Does my lord bid me serve his pleasure before my lady's?" he asked in a low voice.

  It was a futile attempt, hardly more than a strained whisper. Without an appeal from Melanth
e herself, Lancaster would not withdraw—could not, not now, when he had agreed to fight.

  "I don't know where you come by this notion that Her Highness stoops to command such as you!" Lancaster snapped.

  "From me, perhaps," Melanthe murmured.

  The duke gave her a sullen small bow. "Then your wish is mine," he said curtly. "And my command, of course. This man shall ride for you on the morrow, my lady, against myself and all who challenge for your favor."

  The green knight lifted chagrined eyes to Melanthe. Holding Gryngolet on her wrist, ignoring Lancaster, she gave her new champion a small smile and dropped a mocking bow of courtesy. "I look forward to such spectacle. Go now and refresh yourself, Green Sire. Attend me in chamber when dinner is done."

  "May God reward you, lady," he murmured mechanically, and stood. With an easy move that belied the weight of his armor, he remounted, reining the horse around and spurring it to a gallop. He parted the men-at-arms at the door, vanishing out of the hall with an echo of hooves and bells.

  * * *

  Of course she didn't remember him.

  Ruck tore the loaf of white bread and shed more crumbs onto his bare chest, causing mute Pierre to gesture and dust him urgently, but there was no time to sit down for a meal as his hunch-backed squire wished. His lady—his liege lady, the cherished queen of his heart—commanded him immediately after the dinner; and by the time he'd stabled Hawk, secured his mount's armor and his own, harried Pierre, and sufficiently bullied and bribed the fourth chamberlain for a bath in the midst of a banquet, he could hear the higher note of the trumpets that signified the lord's retirement from the hall.

  A light-headed sickness hung in his throat. The dry bread seemed to choke him. It was almost too fantastical to believe that it was her; that she was here. He had never expected it. He hardly knew how to fathom the fact, or what he had just done for her.

  Christ—Lancaster's face—but Ruck could not bear to think of it.

  "Hurry!" He knocked Pierre's hand aside as the squire tried to wipe the shaving soap from him. The barber had been impossible to obtain at such a time. "My hose." He grabbed the towel, cleaned his jaw himself, and finished off the bread before Pierre had the green hose ready for him.

  He didn't think she remembered him. He couldn't settle it in his mind. By her young courtier in the yellow-and-blue motley, she'd sent him a command to challenge for her. She had looked upon him in the hall with that cool authority...as if she knew his vow to her service—as if she expected it. He had a wild thought that she had known all there was to know of him since that day he'd first seen her, that his every move for thirteen years had somehow been open to her. Those eyes of hers, 'fore God!

  She was here. And in faith, it felt more like a blow to his belly than a boon.

  His breath frosted in the cold as he bit into an apple. Holding the fruit between his teeth, he pulled the green hose over his linen. A few gentlemen began to wander out of the great hall to relieve themselves, passing the open door of the buttery where the servants had grudgingly hauled the bathtub for Ruck.

  "La la! See, Christine," said a feminine voice. "He's not green all over!"

  Ruck looked up from belting his hose to find a pair of ladies leaning in the door. He didn't know either of them. He dropped the apple from his mouth and caught it in one hand. As he bowed, he grabbed his mantle from Pierre's hands and tossed it around his bare shoulders. "A common man only, madam."

  The dark-haired one giggled. The other, the one who'd spoken, was blonde and comely and she knew it; she moved upon him with a flow of brilliant parti-color robes. "Your body belies it, sir. You're uncommonly strong and pleasing." Smiling, she traced him with her forefinger from the base of his throat down to his chest. "And uncommon brave, to proclaim such a challenge."

  He lightly clasped her hand and lifted it away from him. "For the honor of Her Highness," he said evenly.

  Her smile deepened. "Such wild courage," she murmured, lifting her mouth. "We've heard much of your ferocity in battle. Stay and tell us more."

  He looked down at her offered lips, the soft smiling curve. "You tempt me to dally, but I can't." He held up the apple, brushed her cheek with the rosy smooth skin, and pressed the fruit into her fingers, setting her away from him. "Accept this, and I'll know I've shared a sweet with a gracious lady."

  A shadow of pique crossed her features. But she stepped back, taking a bite with a crunch of white teeth. "The Princess Melanthe," she said airily. "You know her?"

  "I know her," he said.

  "Ah. Then you know to accept no apples of love from that one. She poisoned her own husband."

  Ruck stiffened. "Madam—it would be better for you to keep truth on your tongue."

  "Oh, I speak true enough." She licked a drop of juice from the apple. "Ask it of anyone. She was put to trial for the deed."

  He scowled at her for a moment, and then held out his hand to Pierre for his tunic. His squire caught the mantle as Ruck shrugged it off and pulled the green wool over his head. A few more gentlewomen hovered outside.

  "She's a sorceress," his blonde temptress said, and looked to the others. "Is she not?"

  "That gyrfalcon," another offered. "The bird is her familiar. She never flies it in the light of day."

  "She bewitched the magistrate to release her—"

  "She took her own brother for a lover—"

  "Yes, and murdered him with that very dagger at her waist; while he was a guest in her husband's house."

  "And now on her way to gorge on his birthright! But no Christian knight will escort her there, for fear of his soul."

  "No," Ruck objected, "she's a princess."

  "A witch! Sir Jean will tell you!" Feminine hands urged a knight forward from where he'd been lingering at the edge of the group, trying to woo one of the gentlewomen.

  Pierre helped Ruck into his surcoat, smoothing down the cloth-of-silver. Ruck stood facing the other man, his jaw rigid. "Have a care," he said. "The chatter of the women is nothing. On behalf of my sworn lady, sir, I'll not take your words so lightly."

  "You've sworn to her?" the blonde asked, stepping back.

  "Yes. I am her man."

  "For the tourney," the other knight said. "My lord the duke will abide no more." He gave Ruck a shrewd grin. "It was a bold stroke you took. He's angry now, but he'll value you to show him at his finest on the morrow."

  "I am her man," Ruck repeated.

  Sir Jean looked at him. "You don't mean to be serious in this?"

  Ruck stared back, eyes level, showing nothing. "I am sworn to her. I am honored with her gift. I fight for the Princess Melanthe."

  The spectators began to depart, withdrawing with sidelong glances and murmurs among them. Ruck threw his mantle round his shoulders and stabbed the pin of his silver brooch through the cloth. When he looked up, he and Pierre were alone in the buttery.

  The mute squire elevated his eyebrows expressively. He dug in his apron and held out a leather-bagged amulet.

  "She is not a witch," Ruck snapped.

  Pierre crossed himself and mimicked a priest blessing the charm.

  "Curse you! She is my lady!"

  Pierre ducked and genuflected. With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head, he tucked his saint's tooth away.

  TWO

  "Tell me," Melanthe said lightly in Italian. "I can see you're full of your own shrewdness."

  Allegreto Navona rested against the curve of the spiraling stairwell, his arms crossed, grinning down at her from two steps above. The last thin light fell between them from an arrowslit. "The green man is invincible, my lady," he whispered, leaning as near as he dared while she had Gryngolet on her fist. "Your fine Duke of Lancaster will have his tail feathers plucked tomorrow."

  "Will he? After they have sent half their knighthood against my poor—champion?" She made a short laugh. "So I suppose I must title him."

  "You miscalculate your knight, lady. They have another name for him here. They call him after some
barbarian tale from the north—Berserka, or some such." He gave an elegant shudder. "I'm told it is the north-name of a savage in bear-coats. A warrior who would as soon kill as breathe."

  "Berserker," Melanthe said, gazing at Allegreto thoughtfully. "You have busy ears, to know so much of him. Where did you find this great warrior?"

  "Why, in the stable, my lady, braiding his green destrier's green mane with silver, in preparation to fight in the tourney tomorrow. A most pure and courteous knight, well-liked by common men-at-arms. He keeps to himself and the footsoldiers and the chapel, and has no traffic with ladies. But when they ordered him to play your unicorn because of his color...I thought to take him aside, Your Highness, and tell him of your wishes."

  "My wishes." She lifted her eyebrows.

  "You wished to bestow your tournament favor on him, lady." Allegreto smiled angelically. "Didn't you? But he'd have none of it, I fear—until I walked with him past the hall. I caused him to look upon you, lady...and sweet Mary, I only wish you might have seen his face."

  "What was in his face?" she asked sharply.

  Allegreto leaned his head back against the curving wall. "Indifference. And then—" He paused. "But what does my lady care of his thoughts? He's only an English barbarian."

  She stroked Gryngolet's breast. The gyrfalcon's talons relaxed and tightened on the gauntlet. Allegreto didn't change his lazy stance, but he moved a half-step upward.

  "Indifference, my lady," he said more respectfully, "until he had a fair sight of you. And then he became just such a witless lover as we needed to dissuade your duke, though he veiled it well."

  "You made him no promises," she said coldly.

  "Lady, the sight of you is promise enough for a man," Allegreto murmured. "I made none, but I cannot vouch for what blissful hopes he might have in his own mind."

  She regarded him for a long moment. He was young and beautiful, dark as a demon and as sweetly formed as the Devil could make him. Gryngolet roused her feathers, pure ruthless white. He glanced at the gyrfalcon for the barest instant. Allegreto dreaded nothing on earth but three things: the falcon, the plague, and his father. Gryngolet was Melanthe's one true shield against him, for she had no mastery of the plague—and none over Gian Navona, for a certainty.