Kisses she knew, and courtiers' games of dalliance, but nothing of a man's member beyond the cramp and discomfort of her husband's bodily company, so long past and fleeting that it seemed to have no share of this. A spring of delicious sensation arose from this touching, ungentle though it was, a delight in fleshly vices. She let it take her, became his common wench and leman in truth, as light as these brazen country maids whose loves made no difference to the world beyond their beds.

He was wanton drunk; she knew it, but she made no warning or protest when he sought her lips and kissed her, searching inward with his tongue, wine-flavored and reckless in his trespass. She took his tongue into her mouth and pressed her lap to his in pleasure, welcoming the hunger in him.

His open hands slid across her hips and up to her waist. Her hair was loose. She had left off her heavy azure gown after her bath, to be brushed and cleaned, changing it for a lent one of scarlet that was made for close measure and immodest display.

He ran his hands up and down her sides, from her hips to her breasts. "I haf seen this," he said, his mouth close to hers. "Your white skin." There was a doted awe in his voice. "Your body all bare, below thy mantle."

She smiled, tilting her head back. "Suis-je belle?"

"Ye are beauteous," he said, closing his fingers on her hair. "By Christ, ye are beauteous."

From overhead issued a feminine giggle, smothered but distinct. His hands leapt away from Melanthe; he jerked upright, searching the shadowed chamber with appalled bewilderment.

Melanthe put her fist under his jaw and made him look upward. Faint light from the hidden holes illuminated odd shadows, picking out detail in the dusk.

She didn't know if he would recognize what he saw, but just as she was about to lean forward and whisper to him, the strange glimmer vanished as the spy pressed to the peek again, blocking it. Sir Ruck went stiff, turning his shoulder to the wall and staring up.

"Hanged be they," he breathed, his lip curling.

She put her hand over his mouth, leaning close to his ear. "They ne cannot see us here beneath it. Only hear."

Immediately he looked over her head, about the room, not too much in his wine to reason that there would be another peek to cover the blind position. Melanthe knew where it was, but she had already pulled the bed curtain a little way, as if by chance, just blocking the line of sight to where they stood.

His lashes lowered in wine-maze. He gazed down at her, then lifted his eyebrows and blinked, like a man struggling to wake from a walking dream.

She brushed back a rough black curl that had fallen over his ear, brazen wench that she was. "I will serven as thy chamberlain, beau sir, to prepare thee for bed. Come."

* * *

If not for the wine in his head, Ruck thought, he would have found a more reasonable means of dealing with the spyholes. He wanted to. He thought of covering them, but she distracted him, doing out the candles, leaving only the firelight that sprang in crimson arcs over the folds of her gown. It was cut low across her shoulders and back, the gown; he watched the curve of her breasts as she leaned to take up a mantle that had been warming by the chimney, her black hair falling in a cascade across her shoulder—and then remembered again that he was thinking of some cheat for the spying.

Darkness would do it, but there was the fire. He might bank that, take up his place on guard by the door; she was like a living flame in crimson.

He could not keep his mind fixed, not with her beckoning him near the fire. He went, light of weight in his body and brain, soft wool brushing his skin. He sat on the stool and let her pull the robes off over his head. His linen lay drying before the hearth after washing—beneath the robes he wore only slippers and socks for his feet. She had seen him in his bath, his body and the scars of fighting that he carried, but it embarrassed him anew and painfully now to be exposed, his scars and his lust together, unworthy of her.

She laid the warmed mantle over his shoulders. He dragged it around to cover him as she knelt and drew the socks from his feet, massaging them like a fond wife. Her hands moved up his calf, and then his thigh. He felt helpless, in utter wonder of what she might do next. Certes he had taken too much wine. He could not think in straight lines.

"Right seldom do I drink so deep," he muttered.

"Avoi, I hope thou art not unabled." She touched him beneath the mantle, caressing her hand boldly over his yard. He clapped his fingers on her wrist, sucking in his breath.

"In good order, so I see!" she said laughingly, rubbing her palm against his rigid part in spite of his resistance.

"My lady—" he said.

She stood on her knees on the rush mat, putting her free arm about his neck. "Thou hast named me common wench all the day—so now I am becomen one." Leaning close to his ear, she whispered, "These spies, they moten see loveplay, forsooth? That I am no more than thy leman?"

They must see it? He thought there was some flaw in that reasoning, and arrant iniquity, but her seeking touch seduced him from the last of his wit. She was not tender; her handling was without art to the point of hurting him, but it was her hand upon him, and her body leaning close, and he could achieve no more than to pull each breath into his chest with a harsh sound.

"Ye are shameless," he said with effort. "Ah...Mary and Jesus."

She hid her face in his shoulder, but she did not stop her unchaste behavior. Then she twisted her wrist free of his hold and took his hand against her, strangely innocent in the way she held it over her womb, stilling her whole body, waiting.

The power of his will broke. He stood, lifting her up in his arms. His limbs acted without his reason—he carried her to the bed. The mantle fell from his shoulders, cold air on his skin as he lay down with her.

Then he let her go and sat up, yanking the bedcurtains closed, shutting out the spyholes, enclosing and muffling the bed in heavily quilted winter hangings.

He stayed sitting up in the bed. He would wait until the fire died and the light was gone, he thought desperately, and then he would take his sword and lie by the door. He would pray. He tried to pray now, his arms gripped about his knees, his forehead down upon them, but his brains spun with drink and passion.

He would think of other things. Important things—where they must go now, whether the falcon had been discovered, how far beyond Lyerpool the plague had spread, if it had spread at all. Her leg rested against his hip. He felt her sit up beside him, running her fingertip down the leather cord about his neck, brushing her mouth against his ear, and then he could not think at all.

"I will go," he whispered. "Lady, I am drunk; do nought kiss me."

"Thou like me not?" she murmured.

"Ye slays me, my lady." He turned his face from her. "Ye slays my reason. I am in wine. I will dishonor you."

She rested her forehead on his bare shoulder and ran her fingertips down his back. "I wish it," she said, so low that he could hardly hear.

"Nay," he said. "I will nought."

Her hand curled around his arm. She rocked him, her face still pressed to his skin, like a child entreating.

"Ah, lady. I love you too well."

Her fingers slipped away. She was silent, still leaning her forehead against him.

"Who would know?" she asked, muffled. "Once. Only once. For this one night."

He drew a deep breath, speaking low. "My sweet lady, ye hatz a demon of hell in you, that takes hold of your tongue sometimes and tempts me beyond what I can bear."

"'Tis no demon. It is me." Her hand crept up and twined with his. "I have been so much alone. You do not know." She squeezed his fingers. "I did not know, until I found thee."

"My luflych, my precious lady, I have me a wife."

She was still for a long moment. Then she said, "Is that why thou wilt deny me? For thy wife?"

"For my wife. And for the dishonor to you."

"Dost thou love her still?"

He gave a bitter chuckle. "Ten and three years has it been. I ne cannought e'en see her face in my head. But she is my wife, before God and man, for we were rightly wed."

"I thought her a nun."

"Yea," he said.

She lifted her head. In the blackness of the heavy curtains, he could see nothing, only feel her.

"But ne'er have I adultered, or profaned my vows." He paused, gripping his hand tight in hers. "Nought with my body."

She stroked his hair, and his back. "Ah, what have they done to thee, these priests?" she whispered sadly. "Hast thou lived in this thought, that thou art wed and yet bound to be chaste, since that day I saw thee last?"

"In troth," he said, "I have lived in thought of you." He pulled from her and lay back on the bed, staring into darkness. "Awake and asleep, I have thought of you. Else I were dead of despair a hundred times, I think me, if I had nought you in my mind to bind me to virtue." He shook his head. "I am no monkish man, I tell you, lady."

She gave a bewildered soft laugh. "Ne do I understand thee not. I bind thee to purity? Thou jape me."

"I swore to you, my lady, in Avignon. When you sent the stones. Then I thought—but I was in a frenzy; I recall it little, but that I swore my life to you. I sold the lesser emerald for arms and a horse, and took me to fighten tournies for the prizes, and then to my liege prince, when I had some money and good means to show myseluen. I made your falcon my device and took your gemstone for my color. And when my body tempted me, I thought of you and Isabelle my wife, I thought how you both were pure and good and blameless, better than me, and I mote live with honor for your sake, because I was her husband and your man."