She drew in her breath at that. He expected temper, but instead the silence expanded between them. Darkness had fallen enough that he could see only the shape of her face, not the contours.

Her soft laugh surprised him. "Yea, so I imagine," she murmured. "Poor knight—thou must be sore dismayed to have ward of me in this desert."

He could think of no answer that would combine truth and courtesy but to say, "I am sworn to you, my lady."

"Ne cannot I conceive how that came to be, but verily—I think it better fortune than I deserve." She made a faint sound of rue. "And how do I favor thee, but to make thee go hungry in my temper? I am full sorry."

Ruck scowled. He picked up the stick she had dropped and cracked it in two. "I reck nought of it, lady."

"Tomorrow, Gryngolet takes a duck. It is thine."

"Less does my belly concern me than your safety." He held the sticks between his fists, frowning down at them. "We're far out of the way to my lady's lands, or any dwelling that I know from my faring in this country. In faith, is near forsaken since the Great Death, without souls enow to keepen the weeds back." He hesitated, and then broke the wood again over his knee and tossed the staves on the fire. "Of fortified places, there's aught but Lyerpool, if any souls be left alive there. To sayen troth, Your Highness, I fear pestilence more than any desert."

"Allegreto said me that thou art exempt from it."

"Yea, I am." He looked up at her. "Can my lady sayen the same?"

Full dark had fallen. The firelight played on the curve of her face, shadowing her lashes. "But thou wilt keepen me," she said softly. "I place my whole trust in thee."

"Best to put your faith in God's design, my lady," he replied in a rough tone.

She smiled, her skin kindled rose by the fire, her hair black shade. "Forbye, monkish man, what art thou if not part of God's design?"

He felt anything but monkish, sitting beside her, all semblance of respectable reserve between them in ruins. It seemed to him that God's design must be to make him live a lifetime of temptation, the half of it condensed into this moment, when it would be no more than a movement of his hand to touch her.

"Haply I might be part of God's scheme, too," she mused, "though I've not much odor of sanctity, I trow."

He turned his face away from the firelight, unable to disagree with that even for courtesy.

"Well, I have endowed an abbey, so let it be a secret betwix us," she said, as if he had assented aloud. "The nuns have made an eloquent record of my faith and good works. We would not wish to casten doubt on such a pleasant document."

He tried to think of his empty belly, which was her perverse doing, and failing that, of the danger that she was to his soul. He tried to hope that she would move away from him, and instead could not stop gazing at her, at any part of her that he could see while he turned his face away, even if it was only the ermine fringe of her cloak.

With the corner of his eye he saw her yawn deeply. The ermine fell from his knee as she drew her cloak close about her.

"Sore weary I am," she murmured, leaning back against the fur-covered seat he'd made for her.

"I will lay you a place to bed, Your Highness." But he did not rise, unable to shake off the witching of her nearness. He was weary himself, and hungry. And when she closed her eyes, with her chin tucked down against the folds of the cloak, he could watch her without her knowing.

"Thou mote be wondrous sleepy thyself, knight," she mumbled. "It is my turn to stay waking."

"Nay," he said quietly. "I will keep thee, lady."

A faint smile curved her lips. She let go a long, deep sigh.

* * *

Melanthe slept easy against the hard lump of the saddle as she had never slept in silk and featherbeds. She was vaguely aware of awakening sometime in the dark, with the knight arranging furs and a softer cushion for her head. She knew him by the light chink of his armor and the scent of orange and leather and metal as he tucked something soft beneath her cheek—Ruck, she thought with cloudy fondness, and felt pleased and secure.

"Grant merci," she said, but if he heard her he did not answer. For a few instants she saw him through leaden eyes, down beside her on his heels, with one knee pressed into the sand, the firelight gleaming on the curved fan of his poleyn.

Thou wilt keep me...She dreamed of his dark silhouetted figure beside her all night, and slept sound in the wilderness.

* * *

There was no start or dread in waking. The first thing she saw was Gryngolet, and the next was her knight, squatting at the river edge bare-chested, splashing water against his face. With his back to her, he shuddered in the cold like a wet dog, flinging droplets from his fingers as he whooshed a harsh breath of air between his teeth. The steam made a frosty curl against the bright river and vanished.

He held a razor to his face, and then cursed softly. Melanthe saw a scarlet welling of blood mingle with the wetness at the edge of his jaw.

She sat up. "What art thou about?"

He startled and grabbed up his tunic, pulling it over his head as he turned. The linen clung to his chest, showing damp through it, and the dark lump of some amulet he wore. Blood from the place he had nicked himself trickled down to a pale band of reddish-orange that ringed his throat, where sweat had rusted his mail and stained the linen and his skin.

"My lady—your pardon—I thought you heedless in slumber."

She squinted at the sun overhead, surprised at the height of it. "Have I slept so long!"

He turned, gathering up his surcoat and armor. "Anon I go a way off, my lady, and dress my horse."

She realized that he was offering her a discreet spell of privacy. As he turned and walked away, he wiped at the nick on his jaw and smeared bloody fingerprints on the hem of his linen shirt.

"What thou art dire in need of, Sir Ruck," Melanthe murmured into the furs, "is a neat, goodly housewife to love thee." She smiled, sinking down in her warm coverings. "I will arrange it for thee."

From the river she heard the dim conversation of ducks and geese. She pushed her nose out of the furs, welcoming the chill morning air. It made the moment real, an awakening from deep nightmare into life: this was sure fact, this cold morning, this river and woods and this muddy sand, the small smoking flame in a circle of gray and black ash, the curling rinds of oranges on a cloth spread on the ground—no servants to distrust, no Allegreto, nor slim daggers or poison, no Navona or Riata or Monteverde. Only her knight nearby to keep her from all harm.

In the warm security of it she flipped the fur back over her cold nose and closed her eyes. Her body relaxed in the soft haven. She lay slipping, half dreaming, letting the silent river take her safely again.

* * *

Ruck donned his armor, watered Hawk, checked the horse's hooves and curried his coat. He took his time, yawning, lingering until he was certain that he could not possibly shame either of them by returning while she was still in the midst of her gearing.

As he led the horse back, he made sure that they raised a noise, rattling dead reeds as they passed through. He called softly, not caring to advertise their presence too much abroad, neither to outlaws nor to the great flocks of ducks that floated and fed near shore. He was looking forward to breaking his fast.

On the sandy bank where they had made camp between the water and the coppice-alders, there was no sign of her. A spark of alarm flared in him. He dropped Hawk's lead and strode forward.

Just as he drew a breath to shout for her, he glanced down. He froze half a step from treading on where she lay, still wrapped about in furs and cushions.

He gazed at her, incredulous. She had gone back to sleep! Here in this desolate place, on a saddle, as if at any moment they might not be set upon by perils human or unhuman.

He sat down hard on a hummock. He had never in his life known man nor woman to sleep so much as the Princess Melanthe.

He put his jaw on his fists. He waited. As the shadows grew shorter, the ducks floated past and flew on, at first a few pairs, and then covies, and then whole flocks, as if at some soundless call to the distance. The noise of their wings resounded across the water, feathered thunder. The gyrfalcon roused eagerly, standing first on one foot and then the other upon the bowed stave, but its mistress did not wake.

After a long time Ruck picked up a pebble and aimed it for a point a few feet away from her head.

It hit the sand with a light plop. She didn't move.

His belly growled. He tried a slightly larger pebble, a little closer.

* * *

Melanthe dreamed it was beginning to rain. She heard the single drops and felt their airy impact on her coverings. A faint stinging drop struck her hair and she jerked awake.

She sat up, scrambling to pull her hood over her head, looking about for shelter.

On a grassy tussock a little distance from her, she saw the knight hastily lower his hand. He was full dressed and armored; he stood up, flashing her a look as guilty as a thieving boy caught up a pear tree, before he fell to one knee and lowered his face in formal respect.

There was not a cloud in the cold sky. The tanned folds of the fur overtop her were littered with tiny pebbles, as if it had rained stones.