Queer reticence possessed her at such thoughts, and she could not even look at him in secret. Her mind distrusted; her heart could hardly bear to acknowledge the thought that Allegreto would not return, that Cara was gone—she was at last free of it all.

She put her face in her hands suddenly. For a long time she stared at the black inside of her cold palms, feeling the winter wind chapping her skin, breathing short hot breaths of agitation.

She did not dare to plan beyond the instant, leaving decision in the hands of her knight. She heard him come to his feet, chinking armor and spurs, and still she did not lower her hands, unable to admit light to her eyes.

"Your Highness," he said quietly. "I mote sleepen now, so that I can keep the watch tonight."

She drew her palms down and looked up at him. He stood a few feet away holding the ewer, wary observation in his face. Melanthe had another lunatic urge to laugh at the way they prowled and met and recoiled from each other. Instead she nodded, lowering her eyes.

Without a word he knelt again before her and offered the ewer. When she had ceremoniously dipped the tips of her fingers, he cleared the cloth of her half-eaten meal. She stuffed her cold hands into her furs and watched him bed down in full armor beside his sword and helm. He turned his back to her, pillowing his head on a pack saddle.

She envied him his easy sleep. She felt as if she had never had enough.

* * *

Ruck ate her discarded orange by moonlight and the sound of wolves. A few hundred yards away he could just see the spark of the three fires that he kept going in their original camp, returning at intervals to add fuel and stand a brief watch. His men would reappear tonight, he felt, those who could. The fires were to reassure them—and give the impression of a well-manned camp to any others.

He would have moved farther from the flames, beacon and decoy that they were, but the wolves hunted close. He'd made Princess Melanthe's bed here in the dark. Cold, perhaps, but more likely to be overlooked if something human took him. The wolves would find her no matter where she hid.

He sucked the fruit, allowing the rich bitter juice to run on his tongue. He'd had oranges in Aquitaine a few times, at feasts and Christmas—but to eat one every day as she did was something utterly beyond his experience. And the penidia: he'd never tasted white sugar but once, a score and more Christmases gone, a child at the high board with his father and mother.

He held the fragile stick to his nose, smelling his own fingers, smoke and orange, and on the sugar a very faint scent of flowers. He closed his eyes and touched his tongue to it. It was a thousand times sweeter than the fruit, flooding his mouth with potent flavor, erotic as sin and springtime.

He lowered it and looked away from the fires, into the darkness. She was there, close to him, though he could see nothing but blackness.

He lifted his hands again. He did not eat the sugar stick, but sat with it cupped to his mouth, watching the dark and the fires, breathing the scent of a world beyond his reach.

EIGHT

An instant of sleep, it seemed, and the urgent voice was at Melanthe's ear, whispering out of the dark.

"Your Highness, we moten get us gone." He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. "Lady, wake ye, all haste!"

His urgency drove through the waves of sleep. She rolled toward him, allowing frigid air to hit her face. In the moonlight he was leaning down over her, very close, his breath frosting about her face. She could hear voices somewhere in the night.

"We are marked," he murmured harshly, grasping her arm amid the furs, pulling her upright. "Come!"

She was sitting, but he did not even give her time to rise. He thrust his arms beneath the furs, lifting her all in a bundle. Melanthe gave a small cry of surprise. His arms tightened as he made a hiss to silence her. The featherbed slipped away, but he did not stop. He carried her to the horse—and Melanthe wakened fully to the sense of things now. She took hold of the saddle and dragged the furs about her shoulders, struggling into position atop the lumpy bags as he pushed her up. He mounted before her. She fumbled to take hold of his sword belt beneath his mantle, grabbing it just in time to save herself as he spurred the destrier hard, clapping his hand over hers as the horse leapt forward.

They rode through the dark as if the Wild Hunt were at their heels. Melanthe saw nothing, her face pressed into his cloak as the freezing wind whipped her, clinging for her life with the reckless pace. He'd loaded the stallion with this in his mind, for though she bumped and swayed, the bags formed a slight hollow that let her keep her seat. But there was no margin for modesty or coyness in the full-tilt sprint—she locked both her hands in his belt and felt his glove gripped tight over them, stiff leather and freezing metal pressing her arms into the hard plates at his belly.

Her chin and face jolted against his shoulder armor, padded only by his mantle. The furs slipped, but she loosened her hold with one hand long enough to grab them back, depending on to his grasp to anchor her. The horse twisted and turned in the darkness on some frenzied path of its own, but the knight rode as if he had the mind of the beast itself, holding her with him when the strength of her own fingers began to fail.

A sudden falter threw her forward onto his back. The stallion stumbled and came almost to a halt, the marsh sucking at its hooves. With a shaft of horror Melanthe felt its haunches begin to sink beneath her—before she could find the voice to cry out, the knight let go of her and raised both arms. She felt his body drive; he gave a great shout, and the horse reared, leaping and floundering forward. Melanthe grappled to keep her hold, cutting her fingers, pinching them painfully against the sharp-edged metal belt as he bent at the waist and impelled the destrier forward into another rearing leap.

With a jolt and a heave, the horse scrambled free. Melanthe gave a faint mew, holding on as the animal broke again into a gallop. The knight's hand closed on hers, locking her fingers into his glove, crushing her fingers between his. She hid her face against his back, concentrating on the pain, welcoming it as the only thing that assured her she would not fall.

After an eternity of this mad race, she felt the stallion's endurance wane. She could hear its laboring breath and feel the slowing pace. She cracked her eyes open and saw the barest hint of dawn light. It almost vanished as they plunged into the gloom of tall trees, but when she turned her head to look behind she could see silhouettes of trunks against gray mist.

The horse shied, a great leap sideways that nearly hurled her loose from her clinging perch. The knight grabbed her, holding her arm so tight that she gave a desperate squeak. He dragged her upright, settling the horse to a walk.

It came to an abrupt halt. He swore quietly on Saint Mary.

Melanthe was panting as hard as the horse. She could not seem to command her fingers. They were frozen to his belt and armor; she could not spread them open, she could only droop against his back, staring mindlessly at the barely perceptible dawn.

A bird called amid the barren branches, and suddenly motion returned to her fingers. "Gryngolet!" she gasped, shoving herself awkwardly away.

"I cut the falcon free," he said softly. "Be still."

He was looking ahead of them. Melanthe realized that the horse's ears were pricked—she closed her hands again on his belt, but he brushed them aside and dismounted, dropping the destrier's reins over its head to trail on the ground.

"Move nought," he murmured, and drew his sword. She watched him duck off the faint track into a thicket of branches, each step a gentle chink.

Then, in the growing light, she saw it. Between the winter-bare twigs, a spot of bright yellow and blue.

Allegreto.

Her heart began to pound as if it would explode. She held her bloody hands around her stomach, huddling in the furs.

She heard the knight's quiet steps move about beyond the tangle of branches. Allegreto was utterly motionless—hiding—she could not see him, only that splash of color through the thicket and the mist. She had a horrible fear for her knight walking into murderous ambush.

"Do not kill him!" she cried fiercely in French. "Or I shall see thee flayed alive."

The footsteps paused.

"It is too late, madam," the knight said in a cold voice. "He is dead."

Melanthe froze in place. She stared at the patch of yellow and blue.

Then she slid from the horse, pushing back branches, shoving them away as they whipped in her eyes and stung her cheeks. But the knight met her, stepping solidly before her, turning her with a rough push.

"Ye ne wants to see it," he said in English.

She turned back, trying to pass. "I mote see him!"

"Nay, madam." He held her firmly. "Wolves."

Her panting breath frosted between them as she stared up into his eyes. He shifted his gaze, tilting his head toward something beside her.

She followed his look. On a low branch, brushing her skirt, hung a tangle of black hair dirtied with blood and fallen leaves.

"Your maid," he said quietly. "Her gown is there, too." Melanthe turned her head aside and down. Nausea swept over her. She tore herself from the knight's grasp and floundered through the brush. Leaning against the stallion's steaming flank, she bent over, shuddering. But the tangle of hair had clung to her skirt—she shook it frantically, panting in great hysterical gulps. Still it clung. The cold air seemed to draw slimy fingers over her flushed cheeks, as if the bloody hairs touched her face. She shrieked, flapping the azure wool, shaking harder and harder, but the black tangle adhered to her. She turned, as if she could run from it, and collided with the knight.