He waited, watching the water and the dark line of trees that marked the far shore of the Wyrale. The wind shifted, sending another sparkle of ripples at an angle to the first set, scenting the air about him with smoke.

He turned. She stood with her arms hugged about herself, her brows drawn together in icy disdain, black and arched, delicate as the tips of a nymph's infernal wings.

"Haps I am a witch," she said. "I tell thee true, Green Sire—I have cheated demons, and still I am alive."

He could believe she had. He thought, were he some minor devil, that he would look on her and be afraid. She discharged power; he could dream that he saw it in a radiance about her, even here, even stripped of jewels and silver trappings, if he let his imagination run away with his sense.

"Is no sin to escheaten demons," he said gruffly. "Only to yielden service to them."

"My husband taught me many things. Readings from the Greek—astrology and alchemy and such, matters of natural philosophy, but never did we call on any power but God's mercy that I know. Test me on my knowledge, if thou wilt."

"Ne haf I no command of such. Battle I know, and a sword. Naught of natural philosophy."

She lifted her chin. "I make no protection-spells."

He did not wish her to be a witch. In his heart he longed to prove her innocent. But he said stubbornly, "By logic, that is no more than evidence that ye desires nought to maken them."

She narrowed her eyes. "Then what proofs wilt thou have, if thou art so prudent? Wilt thou bind me and throw me in the river, or have me to clasp a red-hot staff?" She pointed at his sword. "Heat it in the fire, then, and test me! And then haps I will testen thee the same; Sir Ruck of No Place, for ne do I know why I took notice of thee and gave thee jewels in Avignon when thou wert but a shabby stranger to mine eyes! Haps thou worked a charm on me and stole my gems by magic craft!"

"Not I!" he uttered. "I'm no—" He stopped, his hands tightening in sudden realization.

She remembered. Embarrassed heat suffused him, thinking of the raw youth he had been, of how he had let Isabelle be taken from him—of the nameless lady of the falcon and her accusation of adulterous lust against him. "A strong memory, my lady hatz," he said grimly.

"I recall every evil deed I've done in my life," she said. "No great difficulty is it, to rememberen a good one."

"A good deed, lady? To shame me before the church? To name me adulterer in my thoughts?"

She paused. And then her lips curved upward gently, as if the recollection pleased her. "Yea...I remember that. I saved thee."

"Saved me!" With a harsh chuckle he pulled the woolens close about him. "My lady saved me of a wife and a family, so did she, and set me for to liven alone as I do." He swept a stilted bow. "May God grant you mercy for such a favor!"

"Wee loo, what a sad monkish man it is."

"I am no monk!" he exclaimed in irritation, turning his shoulder to her.

"In faith melikes to hear thee know it." Her tone had warmed. "If I caused thee aught such injury as to compel thee to liven alone, Sir Ruck—I will repair it and looken about me in my household for a suitable spouse to comfort thee."

He whirled back to face her. "Mock me nought, my lady, if it please you!"

Her brows lifted at his vehemence. "I mean no mockery. I bethought me just this morn that I would looken out a good-wife for to cherish thee."

"You have forgotten," he said shortly. "I haf me a wife, my lady."

For a clear instant her startlement was palpable. Then she gave him an accomplished smile, of the kind that court ladies excelled in. "But how is this? 1 had thought thee a single man."

It seemed impossible that she did not remember, if she recalled the rest. But her face was puzzled and attentive, a faint shadow of question in the tilt of her head.

"My wife tooken nun's vows." Ruck inhaled cold air. His breath iced around him as he let it go. "She is—a sister of Saint Cloud." A little of the wonder and agony of it always crept into him when he spoke of Isabelle, thinking of the radiant image that forever knelt and prayed in his mind.

"Is she indeed?" Her voice became vague as she knelt beside the half-burned carcass of the duck. "And is she well there?"

"Yea," he said. "Very well."

"I am pleased that she writes good word of her health," she said in an idle way as she pulled the wing of the duck between her thumb and forefinger, examining the scorched area.

"She ne writes me nought," he added stiffly, "for her mind is fixed on God."

"Iwysse, I am sure thy wife is a most holy personage," she said, inspecting the duck with immoderate concentration. "She married thee, did she not?" she murmured.

His mouth grew hard. "I send money for her support each year. The abbess would advise me if aught were ill."

"For certes. There is no doubt of it." She looked up at him with a brilliant smile. "Now say me true, Sir Ruck—dost thou suppose this duck can be saved?"

He stalked away from her, leaning down to sweep up the heron from the sand as he passed it. "I'm dry now for to dress. I'll wash this when I'm geared, and roast it, so that we may eaten ere we starve of hunger."

* * *

In the thin peasant clothes, without furs or camelot, Cara could barely move her fingers. All night she had lain on the bare ground, the cold seeping up through her. She had not been able to curl tight enough to warm herself. It seemed that she ought to have died, but it was worse to be alive in this horrible country, with this dreadful companion, in these hideous clothes, and no other choice that she could fathom. If Allegreto felt the cold as she did, he had some way to conceal it. He never shivered. She wondered if he was a demon.

The bare trees and spiky bushes reached out claws to tear her. They had yet to see a living soul, or a dead one either, only one village in deserted ruin, but the overgrown path out of it must lead somewhere, she told herself. What she would do when she arrived there, she had no notion, but the hope of food and warmth was enough to move her.

Yesterday she had wished to die, but the process seemed so endless and miserable that she had given up on it. At first light, too cold to sleep, she had heard Allegreto rise, and had stumbled to her feet and trudged behind him without a word, without even a prayer, until the suspicion that she might be following a real demon to the abyss made her recite aves with silent diligence.

He did not change shape or disappear, though he stopped and waited for her when she fell behind. She limped up to him, and he made a face at her. With renewed hate for him, she lifted her head and passed by.

He gripped her from behind. Before Cara could even scream, sure that this was the end, that he would transform to a fiend and rend her to bits, he stopped her mouth with his hand.

She felt his breath rise and fall against her back, but he made no sound. Only when the thump of her own heartbeat slowed did she hear the chinking creak of a harnessed animal.

A woman's voice muttered, then gave a sharp command. The clear sound of a blade scraping against hard soil rang through the cold morning air.

Cara exhaled relief. No bandit, then, but an ordinary peasant. She waited for Allegreto to realize it and release her, but his body grew even more tense. He gripped her harder. She felt a tremor grow in him.

They stood there, frozen, for endless moments.

Finally she lifted her hand and pulled his away. He did not object; he freed her all at once, staring through the trees.

He was dazed by terror. She could see it. Like a rabbit panting beneath a circling hawk, he was arrested in place, only the white puffs of his breath showing life.

Cara began to laugh.

She could not help herself. The frenzied hilarity echoed about her, a sound halfway to weeping, an echo as if someone else answered.

He was afraid of the plague. She almost pitied him.

"I'll go first," she said. "I don't care how I die."

She hobbled on, but he caught her again. "No. Cara—wait."

He had such urgency about him that she halted. He held her hand, wrapping it between both of his, pressing a small bag into her fingers. "You stay here. Use this."

He left her standing alone with the herbal purse. With his silent ease and muddy leggings, he moved ahead. A thicket swallowed him, as this heavy English wood ate everything a few yards away.

Cara looked down at the bag. It was one of the perfumes against pestilence that he had about him always—he must have taken it back when he'd killed their bandit guard and his mistress. She threw it down. Even the thought repelled her, made her remember stumbling over the woman's body in the dark as Allegreto had urged her with him, the sick shame of being stripped of everything she wore down to her shift; the dread of worse, but by God's mercy the bandit's drab had put a violent stop to that, boxing her man's ears and covering Cara in her own filthy rags.

The woman had treated her with an uncouth kindness, talking in this ugly English speech, stroking the silk again and again as she paraded back and forth between lamplit bushes in Cara's gown, almost pretty in her awe and pleasure in it. She must not have looked at Allegreto's black eyes, Cara thought, or she would have seen death watching her.

With a half-mad chuckle, Cara picked up the perfumed bag again. How amusing, that death was afraid of the plague. How gallant of him, to leave his charm to protect her. How courageous, to approach some poor peasant woman only trying to plow the icy clods!