"Nay, my lord. I swear by my father's soul, my lord, ne will I speak of Wolfscar nor whence I come, nor aught of my lord and my lady's marriage."

Ruck pulled the top buttons of his cote open and searched beneath his shirt. "Now listen, and learn thy message. Her lady's grace is safe and free from harm or restraint. Ere Whitsunday, a guard and company with all things suitable to her estate is to comen to the city of Lancaster and await her there. This is her free wish and command, as attested by her chattel here sent." He held out the leather bag that he wore. "Lay this about thy neck, and guard it. Will prove thee from the princess. Say me the message."

Desmond repeated it instantly by heart, well-trained in minstrel's learning. Ruck gave him the whole contents of his wallet, silver enough to tide him there and back, and saw the leather bag stowed safely about the boy's neck.

He felt a terrible misgiving as Desmond tucked his green scarf back into place. "Stray nought out from the party," he said. "Keep thee with the shoemaker if there be fighting. Ne do nought think thou canst aid in any combat."

"Nay, my lord."

"When thou returns, signal from the tarn. Ne do nought come farther. I will meeten thee."

"Yea, my lord."

"Desmond, this red-haired maid—"

Desmond lifted his eyes, so innocent of all love's dangers that Ruck only sighed and shook his shoulder.

"Ne do nought fail me," he said. "Do nought fail."

"Nill I, my lord!" Desmond said fiercely. "Ne for no maid nor any other thing!"

Ruck stood back. "Then fare thee well, as God please."

Desmond went down on his knee, crossing himself. "God ha' mercy, my lord!" He leapt up and ran, leaving Ruck in the deepening shadow behind the barn.

Ruck took the mare and left Little Abbot tied. As he rode out, the ass called after with a mournful braying. The echo of it rang in his ears long after he could no longer hear the sound. Ruck made a cross and prayed to God that he had not done a dearly foolish thing.

TWENTY-ONE

"I know not why you ask me," Cara said. "I've no help to give you."

Allegreto stood with his back to the trefoiled window. He never paced. She wished that he would, or do anything but be so still and yet seem as if he would spring.

"You did not like what I did before," he said. "So I ask you."

Cara sat straight in the chair he had given her, staring at a tapestry of the conversion of Saint Eustace. It was a finely detailed piece, full of greens and blues, the white stag with the miraculous cross between its antlers gazing fixedly at the hunter.

"I don't know what you mean," she said.

"Ficino," he whispered. "Ficino is what I mean."

The stag, she thought, was a brave creature, to stand trapped on a ledge that way, even for a miracle.

"He was dead before the fire," Allegreto said, "if that is what upset you."

She closed her eyes. "Don't speak of it."

Weeks had passed, all of Lent and Easter, and more, and still she could smell the smoke and see him standing in red upon the dais. He wore white and blue today; he had not worn red since, which was the only reason she could look on him.

He turned suddenly, facing away out the window. "This messenger from her—I know it's a ruse! I have to do something. Christ, I can't bide till Whitsuntide—and then find that it's some wile to bait me!" He put his hands over his face. "God's mercy, where is she?"

Cara looked down. Lint flecked her gown from the wool she'd been spinning when he summoned her. She picked at a bit, rolling it around and around between her fingers. "The messenger will not say."

"Nay," he snapped, turning sharply toward her. "Not for love, in any case."

"It may be he doesn't know."

"He knows. She's with the green man—she sent the falcon's varvels, the ones she gave to him. She's using the knight somehow, but for God's rood I can't make out her intention." His voice held a cold strain. "And my father—I've not sent him word all this time. I don't dare, not even to pray him to protect your sister. Cara, this messenger—" He stopped, as if he had spoken what he did not wish to say.

"What of the messenger?" she cried, rising suddenly from the chair. "You want to torture him, don't you? And you ask me if I have a better means, when you know I've no notion what to do!"

"I thought—haps if you spoke to him. I frightened him. He's but a boy, and innocent as a virgin."

Cara laughed. "You're more fool than I think you, if you believe I can succeed where you've failed."

"Or your friend Guy might do it," Allegreto said, ignoring her denial. "He's back from searching again, empty-handed."

She lifted her eyes, feeling her heart contract. But Allegreto showed no sign of malice. There was nothing in his gaze when he looked at her but the faint longing that she had come to recognize. He had never touched her since that day before he'd killed Ficino. He did not press her. She would have thought it had been imagination, that one touch, if she did not see it in his face every time now that he was near her.

"If you would only aid me, Cara," he said in a strangely helpless tone. "I'm trying."

For no reason she could say, her eyes began to blur with tears. "I don't understand you."

He walked the wall from the window to the tapestry. "Nay," he said distantly. "I know it."

He stood before the woven stag. The woven hunter stared at him in wonder.

"You can't do anything," he said bleakly.

He was so beautiful. She had never seen a living man or a work of art so beautiful and terrible. She swallowed tears. "Allegreto, I will try, if you wish it."

"Nay, it is hopeless," he said. "You'd only blunder, and Guy the same." He smiled at her, wooden as a carved angel in a church. "A hopeless pair, the two of you."

* * *

She did try. She took food to the messenger in the room where he was kept, careful that she did not do anything to let him escape. He was very frightened, as Allegreto had said. He would not even eat, but sat hunched on the stool, a youth with a long nose and long musician's fingers. Allegreto had even left him his instrument, but Cara doubted that he played. The turret room was frigid.

A boy, Allegreto had called him, and yet she thought them of an age. But he could never be as old as Allegreto, not if he lived a hundred years.

"Do you speak French?" she asked.

He did not answer, but looked away from her. She thought he must understand her, though. She took a deeper breath.

"I have come to explain to you," she said. "You must tell Allegreto what he asks."

His look flicked toward her, and then back. A stubbornness came into his jaw.

"He only wishes to find my mistress and see that she is safe."

"She is safe," the youth said.

"How can we be certain? Why can't we go to her, or she come to us?"

"I have said all I can say!" He stood up, prowling the cold turret and chafing his hands. "Persecute me as you will!"

Cara rose from beside the tray that he scorned. "You don't know what danger you're in," she said sharply. "You don't know what persecution means."

"What, hot pincers? The wheel? Go ahead. I have sworn my word. I will not speak."

She shook her head in amazement. "Are you so blithe?"

"I'll die before I speak!" he said wildly.

"This is not courage, I think, but mere ignorance!" Cara's angry breath made a keen flash of frost in the air. "Do you know why you're sound now? Because of me. Because he does not want to displease me, you foolish boy! How long do you think that can last?"

He drew himself straight and gave her a sneering look. "Tell your lover to try me as he will."

"Oh!" She whirled, banging her knuckles upon the door to be released. "I shall tell him to serve you as a fool should be served!"

The guard let her out, locking the door behind. She ran down the spiraling stairs, her hand on the cold plaster curve of the wall to support her. At the first landing Allegreto stepped out to meet her.

She had not told him she would go to the boy, but of course he knew. His dark eyes questioned her.

"I learned nothing," she said, "but that he is a witless mouse among cats."

Only by his silence, and the slight casting down of his shoulders, did she realize that he had truly hoped she might succeed. But in the next moment he was the sculpted angel, living stone. "Then you must visit him again tomorrow. And tell him that your lover's patience wanes."

* * *

For more than a week they played the farce. Cara feared every day that she would come to the turret room and the young messenger would be gone, forfeited to Allegreto's ruthless practice. She did not have to feign the growing urgency of her pleas to the youth; Allegreto would not, could not keep this forbearance long.

She saw the struggle in him. Even the seneschal had begun to mutter of stronger measures. Sir Thomas did not approve of involving a lady in such matters as imprisoned messengers, and shrugged and glared and said, "So there," each day when Cara reported her failure. "Her lady's grace is held to ransom, mark me," he said. "We'll have a payment demand yet if we don't deliver her."

Allegreto sat at the heavy council table, staring as if he looked far beyond the seneschal's white head. He seemed to grow farther away as each day passed, reclusive and distracted. Only in the moments when Cara came from the tower room, before he heard that she had learned no more, were his eyes alive and quick, asking for fulfillment.