"Come, Gian—we're alone. You needn't exert yourself to love-talk now."

He rubbed his thumb over the rim, looking down at it. "It's no exertion," he said softly.

She realized that he wished to play at love-amour. She thought of his perfumed kiss, and a terrible loathing of the course she must take came over her. He was no Ligurio, to leave her in peace in her bedchamber, but the man who had made sure by murder that she took no lovers. He had waited for her—without a legitimate heir, for his own enigmatic reasons, for a logic she had never plumbed, nor ever would.

"It would be exertion for me," she said. "I am too weary now to trade compliments."

His eyes lifted. He smiled and drank. "Then I'll waste none upon you, without my fair share in return. Tell me of your dread adventure, if you cannot praise my manly beauty."

"Nay, I should not like to disappoint you, if it is compliments you desire," she said. "Shall I say that your own son could not flatter that elegant garment better?"

He did not move, but the pleasure seemed to flow through him, from a slight twitch of his spiked slipper to a deeper expansion of his chest when he inhaled. "Do not say it, my dear lady, if it would tire you too much."

"I am weary in truth, Gian." She nibbled idly at a cake. "I really don't wish to hold a long conversation."

He rose abruptly, walking to the oratory, her father's little chapel where light from a narrow window of stained glass dyed the altar and rood. He was handsome enough, in his own way—older than Melanthe by near a score of years and yet lithe as a youth—an Allegreto with the sureness of age and power on him. Gluttonous indulgence was not his vice; he lived austere as a monk but for the fashions in clothing that he liked to set. For their interview he had abandoned the staid floor-length robes in favor of the single color of Navona: white hose and a short white houppelande. Often he embellished the milky ground with gold alone, but now he was embroidered in spring flowers, his voluminous sleeves longer than his hem. It showed the lean legs of an ascetic—and his masculinity—very well.

"Concede me just a little description of your ordeal, my love." He smiled. "Your escort comes from an abbey, they tell me. Have you been safe all along in a religious house, then, while our Allegreto tore his hair?"

"Why, yes—has he not recounted to you?"

"He seems to have become shy." Gian leaned against the carved arcade of the oratory. "Gone to earth somewhere, like your English foxes."

She did not know whether to bless Allegreto for his forethought, or fear that Gian had indeed questioned him and now wished to compare their stories. "He has a great fear of your displeasure," she said, a description so patently inferior to the actuality that she found herself returning Gian's smile with a wry curl of her own mouth.

"Still, a son should not hide from his father's just wrath. Or the world would become a wicked place indeed, don't you think?"

She gave him a surprised look. "Wrath? But what has he done?"

"Failed me, my dearest lady. Failed me entirely, when he allowed this calamity to befall you. And acted beyond himself in another small matter, not worth mentioning. If you should come across his burrow, you would not be amiss to tell my little fox that delaying the chase only puts the hunter out of temper."

"If you mean that he failed in my protection—surely you did not expect him to take on a pack of murdering bandits?"

"Ah, we come now to the bandits." He examined a painted and gilded angel's face carved at the base of the arch. "Was it a large body of outlaws?"

She shrugged. "I think it must have been. I was woken out of a sound sleep to flee."

"You're very easy about it, my lady! Were you not dismayed?"

She made a sound of impatience. "Indeed no, I was so delighted that I stayed to offer them wine and cakes! Truly, I am not eager to live the experience again only for your entertainment."

He bowed. "I must ask your pardon. But these outlaws should be brought to justice."

"That has been taken care of, you may believe."

He raised his brows. Melanthe looked back at him coolly, daring him to put her to an inquisition, or hint that she did not rule here in her own lands.

"Alas, I arrive too late to rescue you, and now I cannot even take your revenge. A paltry fellow!" He drained his wine. "Hardly the equal of this mysterious green captain of yours, I fear."

She leaned back in her chair and gave him a dry smile. "Verily, not half as holy."

"Holy? I was told he is a knight of some strength and repute."

"Certainly he is. I retain only the best for my protection."

"But where is he now, this paragon?"

Melanthe turned her palms up. "I know not. I believe a great hand comes down from heaven and lifts him up to sit among the clouds. Haps he prays and parleys with angels, which is as well, for his conversation is too pure to be borne on earth, I assure you."

"Even when he shares a bed with you, as I'm told?"

"A bed!" She stared, and then laughed. "Ah, yes—a bed. At that delightful manor house, you mean. But how come you to hear of that farce? Most notably holy when he shared a bed with me." She grimaced. "My ears rang with his prayers."

He observed her a moment and then chuckled. "My poor sweet, you have had a hard time of it, haven't you?"

"Worse than you know! I fell from the rump of his repellent horse and broke my cannal-bone. Three months have I sojourned in the most contemptible little priory, among nuns! The prioress could barely speak French and did naught but pray for me. She and my knight got along excellently."

He laughed aloud. "But I must meet him, this knight. And the prioress, too. Such intercessions might save me a little time in Purgatory."

"Gian, do not flatter yourself. Prayers are wasted on you, as they are on me. I told her so, but she was relentless. God is weary of hearing my name, I quite assure you."

He strolled back to her chair, standing near. "Surely, though, some gift or reward should be—"

She turned an angry eye on him. "Do not forget that I am mistress here. I do not require your advice or your assistance in it."

"Of course not, sweet. But I think—hearing of your trials and adventures—that I do not like you riding about the country on the rump of some nameless knight's horse. Or falling off of it. Or sharing a chamber with him, however holy he might be. You have had your way, and paid respects to Ligurio and your king, and seen to your estates." His hand skimmed her cheek. "I think, my dear love, that it is time and past for our betrothal."

She stared at the colored window in the oratory. "Yes, Gian." She kept her breathing slow and even. "It is time."

His finger pulled back the silken scarf, tracing her jaw and the telling pulse at her throat.

"If he touched you in desire, fair child," he murmured, "he is dead."

Melanthe rose, moving away from him. She locked her hands and stretched her arms out before her. "If the man ever felt desire, I warrant it would kill him. Now indulge me, Gian, I want to rest. My shoulder pains me." She smiled at him. "And do leave poor Allegreto alone if you love me, my lord. I want to dance with him at our wedding."

TWENTY-THREE

They hunted with ladies' hawks, summer birds, a blithe company passing through the meadows with laughter and elegant disport. Melanthe wore a garland that Gian had presented her. The sparrowhawk she carried felt no heavier than one of the blossoms from the spray, tiny and fierce, pouncing upon thrushes and woodcock and returning with them to the glove, a delicate court lady with savage yellow eyes.

Melanthe rode beside Gian, tame as the sparrowhawk returned to hand. Their time at Windsor drew near to a close. He had completed the contracts and assignments; the king's license was sealed at the price of only two of her five castles, the quitclaim to Monteverde purchased back from Edward for a proper princely ransom. They hawked today; in three days the betrothal feast began, a week more of such pleasures; of gifts and minstrelsy—then Italy, and their wedding. Gian was not eager to wait.

He chafed at their separate residences, but Melanthe had held adamant on that point and his proper behavior beforehand. He laughed and cajoled her, but knew her better than to believe she would give anything away for nothing. That was what he thought and said of her, not knowing that she would give everything away for nothing. For the nunnery, as the only place she could avoid fornicating with him.

When she lay awake at night, as she did every night now, she laughed silently until she wept at the mockery of it all. The place she had walked through wilderness and fire to avoid, the abominable nunnery. She did not dare attempt to evade him in England again. Once they were back in Italy, she could fly to the abbey that she and Ligurio had endowed. She had Allegreto's promise that he would help her. And vows upon vows, lies upon lies, until she forgot who she was, if she had ever known.

Amongst the betrothal gifts there were already three mirrors, carved ivory and sandalwood and ebony, all buried as deep in her chests as she could bury them, so that she would not chance to look into the glass and see no one there.

"It's a great shame that your gyr is still in mew, my lady," the young Earl of Pembroke said, while the others complimented a fine flight for Gian's hawk on a blackbird. "What a day she might have given us!"