The rest of their company came behind, faces shocking in their strange familiarity in this surrounding—Allegreto, the gentlewomen—and Desmond in the scarlet livery, wearing gloves in high summer and sitting a delicate palfrey with bored arrogance.

"There he is!" John suddenly leaned close to Ruck. "Your friend, my lord, who gave warning of the sword."

Ruck looked at Desmond, so unfamiliar and familiar in his finery.

"Rides he the fourth," John said under the rising sound of halloes and grumbles, "the first in the white surcoats. Young and comely."

"Nay—" As the company halted, Ruck's gaze shifted from scarlet Desmond to the first rider in the milk-white livery of the Italian. It was Allegreto. "Nought in white?"

But at that moment Allegreto's lazy glance passed along the crowd. He looked directly at Ruck. His dark eyes took note, expressionless. With a deliberate move he pulled his light sword from its sheath and examined the blade.

Ruck found the area around himself opening. Someone pressed him forward from behind. The Flemish knight had dismounted; the space between them was suddenly empty—a confrontation, and the voices around rose in shouts of "Saint George! Saint George!"

The champion was a tall man, younger than Ruck by years. He skimmed the cheering English with a smile of delight and made a bow that held just the right touch of mockery, as if they were hailing him. It brought the shouts to a peak.

Ruck stood alone but for John. The Fleming examined him and then made a courteous nod. Ruck acknowledged it. He looked past the knight to where Melanthe sat her black palfrey. Though every eye in the courtyard was fixed on him and the man he would fight, she dismounted as if neither of them existed.

Her path lay away from Ruck. Her Italian lover took her arm, showing only a slight hesitation in his walk as he led her toward the great double tower entrance of the royal lodgings. The Flemish knight saluted Ruck and turned to follow.

Ruck had been prepared for their first encounter by the ford, armored in hate and determination. He had wanted witnesses. This time he wanted witness as he would have wanted staring eyes on him while a lion tore his heart from his chest.

She denied him. To his face, to the church, before the court. And Desmond—who did not look at Ruck, who did not pause or speak—Desmond saw it, and that was worst of all.

* * *

"The madman haunts me," Melanthe murmured, before Gian could mention it.

He smiled, patting her arm. "Put him from your mind."

She paused in the echoing gate passage, lowering her voice below the sound of talk and movement, speaking Italian. "Avoi, Gian, I pray you not to have him killed before this cursed duel! Or after, if you please, for they'll never let you leave this misbegot country then!"

"You upset yourself for no cause, sweet." His eyes went briefly to Allegreto. "Put your faith in me, and say no more."

"Gian! You do not understand the English! If he dies by any way but in this combat, you'll not go unscathed. Let the lawyers pay him off. Or the—"

"I have told you not to speak of him." His fingers closed cruelly on her arm. He made her walk slowly on.

"I only—"

"My dear princess, if you add another word, I shall be forced to think you plead for his life because you love the poor devil."

She bore his painful grip without wincing. "My dear Gian," she said, "if you do not heed me, I shall be forced to think you are a great fool."

"Shall you?" He slanted a look down at her. "But in truth, Melanthe—I do not think I am."

TWENTY-FOUR

Inside the tent the sound of the spectators was a steady mutter embroidered by music, the king's favorite airs. John knelt at Ruck's feet, fastening on spurs. His green plate was polished and restored, the dents beaten smooth and the silver bosses renewed.

Ruck wore her colors, but he went to the fight not knowing her. She was the argent and green of Monteverde, or the red and gold of Bowland. She was his murderess, or she was trying to save him. She kept Wolfscar a secret to preserve it, or to discount him as a nameless adventurer. She had sent Allegreto with the warnings, or her lapdog betrayed her.

He did not know if she wished for Ruck to win and free her, or if she hoped that he would die and free her. He did not know.

But he shook his head to clear away fantasy. He knew. If she wanted him, all she had to do was speak what was true.

The flap of the tent flashed open, and Allegreto stepped inside, dragging the silk full closed. "I've only a moment," he said quietly. "My father must not smell me here. The Fleming has been told that you cannot withstand blows to the head. 'Ware your bascinet."

John instantly snatched up the helm. It glowed with the new burnish as he turned it over in his hands. Nothing showed on the surface. He lifted the aventail to examine the staples and then smoothed his hand over the outside curve.

With a sudden exclamation he seized his dagger, slashed through the padded lining, and scored the inner surface. "God's death." He held out the blade. "Look at this, my lord."

Dark bluish shavings lay curled on the shining surface. Ruck knocked them into his palm. "Lead."

John clouted the helm with the hilt of his sword. It cut a dent in steel too soft to withstand even a one-hand blow. He tore the leather out and explored the interior with his fingertips. "There." He pointed inside. "You can feel the place, my lord."

The patch had been made with masterly skill, sheathed on the outside by a thin skin of finer metal. The flaw was invisible, but rubbing his fingers over the inner and outer surfaces at once, Ruck could detect the faint difference in the finish at the edges of the place, and the slight hollow in the thickness.

It was too late to fit another bascinet. "I'll have to use the great helm and a mail coif," he said.

"My lord!" John stood up. "This is too much. Lay it before the marshal!"

"Nay," Ruck said softly. He looked to Allegreto. The youth tilted his head, a smile on his mouth that never reached his black eyes. "Why dost thou aid me?"

Allegreto put his fingers around the tent pole. He examined the ruby ring he wore. "You were kind to me once." He shrugged, with a short laugh. "I remember it."

"Who tries to kill me?"

"If you will make mischief—many people."

"Thy mistress?" Ruck's voice was strained.

Allegreto lifted his brows. "Show a little wit, green man."

Ruck felt a tightness leave his muscles that he had not known was there. "Then it's she who sent thee."

"Must someone send me?" Allegreto made a smirk. "I come for love of you, Green Sire. How else?" He swung about the pole and paused. "Be wary," he murmured, and vanished outside.

* * *

The sound shivered Ruck's head: pain first, a bright arc through his brain, and then his ears aching in the peal of metal. Each time he took a stroke, the clang stopped in his ear, building pressure, until the roar of the crowd and even the blows grew distant. He could only hear himself panting, sucking hot air through the pierced breaths in the helm; he could only see black and his opponent through the eyeslits and feel the violent swacks when he could not parry them.

In spite of the padding his great helm shifted whenever a blow caught it, obscuring his vision for an instant. The Fleming didn't take advantage; he flailed over and over at Ruck's head and only shifted a few times to any other assault. The strong onslaught left the man's body undefended on the side opposite his shield, but he rained blows so swiftly that Ruck was too occupied with deflecting them to attack.

If the helm had not blinded him, Ruck would already have cut under this crude beating and had the man on the ground. But he dared not leave his head unprotected long enough to strike, for fear the helm would be knocked askew too far to seat again and screen his sight entirely.

He defended with shield and sword, watching the Fleming's arm strokes. He squinted through the slit, blinking back the sting of sweat. Stepping backward, he let the champion have control of the rhythm, retreating slowly from the blows. Through the dint and clang, the dim shouts of the spectators rose to passion as he gave way.

The Fleming heard them, too: he renewed the vigor of his onset, faster and harder. Ruck parried in his attacker's cadence, falling back. Inside his brain, with the ringing clash, he sang a song of war that Bassinger had taught him, the swords tolling each note. The Fleming pealed the steady motet; Ruck answered in even time.

Then he took up the hocket—a hitch in the rhythm, counterpoint as he dropped the parry and swung his blade in attack.

Brilliant pain flashed in his ear, a tumble of light as the inevitable strike came. His sword bit, silence to him amid the belling in his head, but he felt the jolt and pause in his arm, swung through and past it, blind entirely. The Fleming missed his motet note, but Ruck sent the hocket back in treble, up and up, a half breath off the beat, a full double-handed swing overhead and down.

He killed the man. He could not see it, but he knew it: an instant of impact as his sword cleaved steel—and the collapse, a perception, and a dull chime of metal falling to the ground.

He stood in sweltering darkness, gasping with exertion, the skewed slash of eyeslit a white radiance above his line of sight, the cheek padding pressed painfully against his nose. It gave him a horrible moment of helplessness, his ears ringing and his eyes blind, without defense.