Then John was there, divesting him of the helm. It did not come off easily, beaten and wedged as it was, but when Ruck bent over and let the squire give the steel a bang from behind, the helm loosened. Ruck could barely hear the hit; he couldn't tell if the roar in his ears was the crowd or his head. As the helm fell, the warm summer air felt like a blessed rush of coolness on his face.

At his feet the Fleming champion lay in the trampled grass. His attendants and a physician clustered around him, but he was lifeless, his helm sundered through. Ruck stood straight. He lifted his bloodied sword and turned about to the stands. The constable and earl marshal sat beneath a canopy. A cross and Bible lay on the tapestry-covered table where Ruck and the Fleming had sworn their oaths. Beside them, on a slightly higher dais, sat King Edward himself, leaning forward, his face red with excitement, his long beard flowing down over his robes like a living and gleeful statue of Moses. The well-fed Lady Alice stood behind him, unashamed to have her hand on his shoulder.

Ruck barely found enough breath to speak. "I wish to know—if I have done my duty—to my honor," he asked of the justices. His own voice sounded strange to him, muffled and remote. When the marshal answered that he had, it seemed that the man spoke from very far away.

Ruck handed his sword to John and walked forward to the king. As he knelt, the block in his ear burst, and he could hear again.

All was silence, but for his own heart and heavy breath, and the rustle of the pages of the open Bible. The crowd in the stand waited.

"Rise, bold knight," the king declared in English. "Thou hast defended thy honor before our court of chivalry with hende sword as proper." He chuckled. "A great dunt it was! A delight to see."

Ruck stood up. He lifted his eyes. The king was grinning, a little childgeared as they all said of him, but still a royal presence. He stroked his beard, his smile fading as he looked down into Ruck's face.

"But why dost thou wear those colors?" the king asked on an aggrieved note. "We ne do not like thee to changen, Ruck. Did we give thee leave to changen thy arms?"

He spoke the name without hesitation or title, as if he knew Ruck like an old friend. A faint murmur passed over the crowd. In his amazement Ruck could not find his tongue to answer,

"Why doth he wear green?" The king turned to Alice. "It should be azure ground, and the device a well huge werewolf depainted in black. Where is our herald of arms?"

While Ruck stood with his limbs and his speech beyond command, the herald came forward to wait on the king. The ladies in the stands craned over the railings, staring. People whispered and leaned near one another.

"Lord Ruadrik of Wolfscar," the king said, waving at Ruck. "Tell his arms."

The herald bowed. "Sire, the lord of Wolfscar of the County Palatine of Lancaster may bear him a blazon of bright azure, the device a werewolf of sheer sable within."

"There, we are exact in our memory!" The king looked triumphantly at Ruck. "We command our subject Lord Ruadrik of Wolfscar to divest himself of these and bearen his right device and colors."

"Sire," the herald said softly, "Lord Ruadrik died in the year of the great pestilence, and all his household with him."

"Nay." Ruck heard his own voice, still short of breath from his fight, but strong and clear. He fell on his knees before the dais. "Sire, I have sworn to conceal my name and place until I was proved worthy of it, but if God has sent to you to descry me, by what grace or method I know nought, then I avow that I am Ruadrik, son of Ruadrik of Wolfscar and my lady mother his wife Eleanor."

The audience broke into a clamor. The king looked bewildered.

"What proof hast thou of this, sir?" Lady Alice's sharp voice cut through the noise.

Ruck ignored her. She was the king's mistress. He had heard that she would have profited greatly from Dan Gian's betrothal bargains.

"Sire," he said to the king, "my sovereign and beloved lord, gladly will I obey you and resume my own arms of Wolfscar from this day forward."

The king nodded, his perplexity brightening to simple satisfaction. "We are pleased. Full oft have we been glad to see thy blazon spread in battle with our enemies. Thou mayest rise, our trusty and well-loved Ruck."

Lady Alice put her hand on his arm and whispered into his ear. He frowned and shook his head as he listened to her. "Nay, my dear lady, we are not mistaken." He patted her hand. "The herald supports us. It is the azure-and-black wolf. Lord Ruadrik himself doth admit our verity."

"Voire." Ruck stood with his smile breaking, impossible to restrain. The king had recognized him. Or mistaken him for his father, but that was no less a triumph, and an elation in itself, for he had not known it possible. "Truly, sire, it is as you say." He felt sweat trickling down his temple and had to prevent himself from wiping it away.

"Thy prize," the king said, looking about him. A man came from among the attendants, offering the king a wallet of coins. "How much?" the king whispered audibly as the attendant bowed at his knee.

The man murmured. King Edward frowned and nodded, beckoning Ruck to approach.

"One hundred mark," he declared.

Ruck stepped onto the dais and bent knee, his armor clunking loudly as it hit the wooden platform. He accepted the modest purse and rose at the king's command. Edward stood up with him.

"A dear fight! God and Saint George!" The king clouted Ruck's face between his palms and kissed him on the mouth.

Then he fumbled at the golden clasp on his robes and pressed the jeweled pin into Ruck's glove. "And here—a small love-drury, for thy service at Nottingham."

Ruck lowered his eyes, shaking his head at the mention of Nottingham and the king's love. "Sire, ne can I nought accepten this. My father it watz who climbed from the cellars with you and the others, sire, at Nottingham Castle. Ne yet watz I e'en born upon earth that day."

The king held the clasp, blinking down at it. He rubbed his thumb across the gold. "Not born, by God," he muttered. "Not born." He gave a deep sigh. "Yea, it is long ago now." He looked up, his eyes vague. "Thou wert not born?"

"Nay, sire. Watz my father who was with you, sire."

The king seemed to grow shamefast. "Ah. Thy father. Who is he?"

"Ruadrik of Wolfscar, sire. You called him Ruck, as I am called, too."

"His son!" A pleased smile grew on the king's face. "But how much thou art like him, in thy face, and thy uncouth northern tongue! Remember when we—" Then he shook his head. "But he is dead. All of them dead, Montagu and Bury—the best of men." He suddenly took Ruck's face between his hard old hands again, the clasp pressing into Ruck's cheek. "The most remembrance that I have shall be upon thee, and on thy needs. Keep this, I command thee."

He pushed the clasp into Ruck's hands and strode from the dais before Ruck could even say his thanks. Alice and the royal attendants hurried after—he might be wavering in his mind, but the king's body was in no wise impaired.

Ruck made a belated bow. He stepped down from the dais. In a maze of joy he walked toward John and the gate as noble spectators flooded down from the stands, crowding about him offering compliments and cheer. John gave him a towel to dry himself. Someone thrust a cool goblet into his hand. He glanced and saw it was Allegreto, with a triumphant grin and wink—Ruck's dark and strange savior, her envoy.

Beyond the crowd around him, beyond the knot of men still on the grass beside the Fleming champion, a chariot was drawn up beside the lists. Ruck stopped, lifting the goblet to his mouth. She was still there, beside her treacherous lover—watching him with a faint smile. He drank, washing exertion and passion down his dry throat in one great swallow, taking boldness in with the wine. He started toward her, to demand that she come to him, his wife, the wine a bitter sourness on his tongue.

Her smile widened. She touched Navona's arm and nodded toward Ruck.

The moment that she did it, the cold enveloped him. His fingers numbed, his feet and his legs. As he took a step, his knee collapsed, cold rising to his waist, poisonous cold.

The wine killed him. He felt it stop his heart. Like a murderous hand, it strangled his throat. His lungs froze; his limbs seized.

His mind failed him. He felt himself die, the ground hurling upward to meet him.

* * *

Princess Melanthe sat on the window seat that curved within the oriel recess. She leaned her elbow on a pillow, looking out an open glass, staring down into the garden. Cara stood in attendance, gazing at the painted window glass where two angels held the message "Love God and dread shame."

"My dear one," Gian said, bending before the princess, "I beg your pardon for my delay." When she only lifted her hand for a kiss without turning from the window, he left her in the sunset glare and went to pour himself wine. "But entertaining it was, you may be certain."

"What have they decided?" Princess Melanthe asked idly.

He set down the brass ewer. "For two hours did they debate over whether this green fellow had upheld his word after all. It turned on a fine point, my dear. A fine point. Did he leave the lists before he died or after? Had it been after, the case might have been different!" He put on a mock solemn face, imitating a justice. "For then no one could assert that he had been killed by the Fleming, without a mark on him. But he was still in the lists when he expired, so it could be argued that the Fleming killed him with one of those blows to the head, but the effect was belated. You'll delight in the verdict, my love."