Excerpt of Shadow Heart by Laura Kinsale

Elayne kept her face low. Everyone must know she had been sent up to be interviewed by her godmother in utter disgrace. It should have been an honor to be received in her ladyship's privymost room, but no doubt it was because Lady Melanthe wished to interview her scandalous god- daughter in strictest privacy concerning her affairs with chickens and gentlemen. Elayne followed the butler through the presence-chamber, past the silk wall hangings and silver candlesticks as tall as she was, the canopied chair of audience. In the bedchamber, Lady Melanthe was just stripping off her ermine-trimmed surcoat, while her maidservant lifted the tall headpiece from her hair--a single peaked cone glittering with emeralds and silver bosses.

She turned, her loosened hair falling down over her bared shoulder in a black twist. With the steady gaze of a cat, her eyes a strange deep violet hue, she watched Elayne curtsy.

"God save and keep you, my beloved lady Godmother," Elayne said, with her face still lowered, holding her skirt spread wide over the carpeted rushes. She kept her curtsy, looking down at an indigo cross woven into the Turkish rug.

There was a moment of silence. "I fear I do not find you well, Ellie," Lady Melanthe said quietly.

Elayne bit her lip very hard against the unexpected rise of tears in her throat. She did not look up, but only shook her head. She had kept her proud countenance in the face of Cara's censure, in front of the servants and the priest and the village. She had allowed nothing to show.

"Your hands are trembling. Mary, take that stool away and set a chair by the fire. Bring two pair of slippers, the fur-lined winter ones. I will wear my green robe. Malvoisie wine for us, well warmed and sweetened. Sit you down, Elena."

As her godmother turned away, Elayne lowered herself into the chair. She felt the tears escape, tumbling down her cheeks as she stared bleakly into the fire. Lady Melanthe removed her golden belt and pulled the green robe about her shoulders. When the maid had left the room, she sat down, brushing a glowing coal back into the hearth with the fire rod.

"When you have composed yourself, tell me why you are unwell," she said, dropping a linen towel into Elayne's lap.

Now that the tears had begun, Elayne could not seem to find a stop to them. She took up the linen and covered her face with her hands. The wind moaned outside, sending a cascade of snow crystals against the stained glass behind her.

"Your hands are thin," Lady Melanthe said.

"It is Lent. Nothing tastes, my lady."

"Are you ill?"

"No. At least--" She lifted her face and put her hand to her throat. "No." She turned her face to the fire, hiding a new rush of tears.

She felt Lady Melanthe watching her. Elayne had not intended to speak of it, or admit her despair. But she could think of no excuse for this absurd behavior before her elegant godmother. She bit her quivering lip and held it down.

"Are you perchance in love?" Lady Melanthe asked gently.

"No!" Elayne gripped her hands together. Then the tears overcame her again, and she buried her face in the linen. "Not anymore. Not anymore."

She leaned down over her lap, rocking. Lady Melanthe said nothing. Elayne felt the sobs that had been locked in her chest for weeks overcome her; she pressed her face into the linen and cried until she had no breath left.

"My maid returns," Lady Melanthe said, in soft warning. Elayne drew a deep gasp of air and sat up. She turned toward the fire, keeping her face down as the maid set two ornate silver goblets on the stool between Elayne and Lady Melanthe. She placed the furred slippers beside their feet and then withdrew.

"Here." Lady Melanthe held out wine to Elayne. "Drink this up directly, to fortify yourself."

Elayne tilted the goblet and took a deep gulp of the sweet heated wine. She held it between her hands, warming her frigid fingers against the embossing of dragons and knights. "It is all my fault!" she blurted. "I ruined everything. He called me a sparkling diamond, and an extraordinary woman. And then he said I was arrogant and offensive to him. And I am. I am!"

"Are you indeed!" Lady Melanthe sipped at her malmsey, watching Elayne over the rim. "And pray, who is this paragon of courtesy?"

Elayne took a breath, and another gulp of wine as she looked up. "I beg your pardon, my lady Godmama. I thought he would--he did not seek an interview of you?"

The countess lifted her eyebrows. "Nay--none but your sister Cara and Sir Guy have entreated me regarding you of late."

Elayne blushed. She could imagine what Cara had said of her that had resulted in a summons to Lady Melanthe's own bury hall of Merlesden at Windsor. "I am sorry, my lady! I am so sorry to be a mortification to you!"

"I am not so easily mortified, I assure you. I quite enjoyed Cara's history of the blighted poultry."

Elayne took a sobbing breath, trying to keep her voice steady. "Grant mercy, madam, for your trouble to intervene on my behalf."

"But to this paragon again," Lady Melanthe said. "He was to seek me out in audience? I may guess his purpose, as he had pronounced you a sparkling diamond and extraordinary woman."

"His heart changed from that," Elayne said bitterly. "He said I am sinful, and a liar, and to make no presumptions nor claims upon him now." She took a deep swallow of the malmsey. Then her throat tightened with a rush of remorse. "But it was my fault! I made a love charm to bind him."

Lady Melanthe shook her head. "How depraved of you," she said lightly. "I suppose that was the source of this awkward matter of the chickens."

Elayne felt her eyes fill up with tears again. "I tried to say that I was sorry! I sent him a letter of repentance. I sent three! I could not eat, I felt so sick after I sent them each, for fear of what he would think when he read them."

Her godmother stroked one bejeweled finger across another. "And what did he reply?"

Elayne stared down into the dark hollow of her wine. "Nothing," she mumbled. "He did not answer. The banns were published for his marriage to another in church last Sunday."

She hung her head, awaiting her godmother's censure, mortified to admit she had drawn such humiliation upon herself.

"Avoi--who is this amorous fellow?"

"He is not a great man, my lady, only a knight." She hesitated, feeling a renewed wave of shame that she had chosen a man so inconstant. "More than that, it is not meet for me to say."

Lady Melanthe sat back, resting the goblet on the wide arm of her chair. Even with her hair down and the informal mantle about her shoulders, she seemed to glitter with a dangerous grace. "Yes, I think not." She smiled. "I might not resist the temptation."

Elayne glanced up. "Ma'am?"

Her godmother made a quick riffle with her fingers. "It occurs to me to have him arrested for some petty theft and subjected to the trial by boiling water," her godmother murmured.

"I should not mind to see him boiled," Elayne said darkly.

But Lady Melanthe merely said, "Do not tell me his name, Elena. I am not to be trusted, you know."

Elayne drew a breath, not taking her eyes from the moon- shaped reflection in the surface of her wine. It was true-- she had not thought of it before, but one word from Lady Melanthe would ruin Raymond forever. Elayne had revenge at her fingertips, like a tigress on a light leash.

For an instant, she allowed herself to imagine it. He had said she was arrogant and offensive to him, after all. She pictured him and his new wife reduced to penury, proud Raymond the boot-kicked messenger boy of some ill-tempered noblewoman--Lady Beatrice, by hap--skulking in kitchens and longing for the days when Elayne had been a sparkling diamond at his feet. While she herself, recognized as a extraordinary woman by far nobler men than Raymond de Clare, could hardly choose among the proposals of marriage from dukes and princes as far away as France and Italy.

"We might arrange a prince for you," Lady Melanthe said idly, startling Elayne so that she nearly tipped her wine. Her godmother looked at her with amusement, as if she knew she had read Elayne's mind.

In the midst of a small, choked laugh at this absurdity, the tears flowed anew. Elayne covered her face again and shook her head. "I don't want to marry a prince." She took a shuddering breath. "I want him to love me again."

"Hmm!" Lady Melanthe said. "I think it is time and past that you ventured beyond Savernake, Elena. The experience of a worldly court will do you much good." She made a dismissive gesture toward the bannered walls visible over the treetops outside, as if Windsor Castle were a cottage. "You will accompany the Countess of Ludford, who has just been beseeching me to write introductions for her pilgrimage to Rome. She goes by way of Bruxelles, and Prague. You will not wish to go to Rome yourself; it is naught but a heap of ruins and rubbish, but you may await Lady Beatrice in Prague, at the Imperial court, and then return in six or eight months with a great deal more polish than you have now. There is no place more worthy to refine your education and enlighten you in all ways. It is a brilliant city. Your Latin is yet commendable?"

Elayne blinked, taken aback. She nodded.

"We shall practice a little, between us. The Countess does not journey until Midsummer's Eve--we have the whole of springtime to prepare you." She paused, tapping her long fingers. "Tomorrow we will look over my wardrobe and find you some apparel fit for court."

Elayne sat silent, stunned. She could only gaze at Lady Melanthe as her godmother arranged her future with such casual dispatch. The sound of the door latch barely reached her, but when it swung open and a tall, simply dressed knight ducked through, clad in black and carrying a golden-haired boy child, she rose hastily from her chair and fell into a deep curtsy. "My lord, I greet you well!"

"Nay, rise, my lady," Lord Ruadrik said, extending a large, weapon-hardened hand to Elayne even as he easily deposited the wriggling four-year-old in Lady Melanthe's lap. He had the north country in his speech, and an open grin. "Take this goblin, lady wife, 'ere it slays me!"

The boy slid immediately from Lady Melanthe's lap and ran to cling to his father's leg. He stared at Elayne. She spread her skirt and made a bow toward the child. "My esteemed lord Richard, greetings. God bless you."

The boy nodded, accepting the salutation, and then hid his face against Lord Ruadrik's black hose.

"This is your kinswoman the Lady Elena, from our hold at Savernake," Lord Ruadrik said to the child. "It would be courteous in you to hail her warmly."

The boy peeked again at Elayne. A warm greeting did not appear to be forthcoming, but with downcast eyes, he said, "You look alike to my mama."

"And you look very like to your lord papa," Elayne said.

The boy smiled shyly. He gripped his father's muscular leg. "You have flower-eyes, like Mama."

"God grant you mercy, kind sir. You look very strong, like to Lord Ruadrik."

"Gra'mercy, lady," he said solemnly, and seemed to feel that this concluded the interview, for he turned, gave a fleet kiss to his mother, and ran from the chamber through the way they had come.

Lady Melanthe moved quickly, half-rising, but Lord Ruadrik shook his head. "Jane hides behind the door--that was the bargain, that he would come and meet his cousin Elena, did I vow a line of retreat remain open the whiles."

Elayne realized with shame that she had yet even to inquire about Lady Melanthe's daughter and son, she had been so swept up in her own wretchedness. Knowing her face must be ravaged by tears, she stood with her head bowed as she asked after the young Lady Celestine.

"She is learning to dance," Lady Melanthe said. "I doubt me we shall see her again before Lady Day. My lord, what think you of a journey to the Imperial court at Prague for Elena?"

Lord Ruadrik looked sharply toward his wife. He frowned slightly. "To what purpose?"

"To enlarge her wisdom and instruct her in the wider ways of the world. Some hedge knights hereabouts seem to believe they are worthy of her attention, but I do not believe the Lady Elena di Monteverde is temperamentally suited to become wife to a rustic."

"Too much like you, I am certain," Lord Ruadrik said, nodding soberly.

"Fie," Lady Melanthe said, flicking her hand. "I adore bumpkins."

He laughed. "To my misfortune! Wella, if it is your desire that Lady Elena be trained to bring poor rustic knights to their knees, after your ladyship's heartless manner, then let it be so."

Lady Melanthe smiled. She looked toward Elayne with a little flare of mischief in her languid glance. "What think you, dear one?"

Elayne pressed her lips together. "Oh, madam," she murmured. "Oh, madam!" She could not even imagine herself with the elegance and bearing, the confidence of Lady Melanthe. To inspire awe among rustics like Raymond! It was worth any price, even a journey with Countess Beatrice. She sank to her knees, taking her godmother's hands. "God bless you, madam, you are too kind to me."

"And when you return, we shall look you out a husband who can appreciate your superiority," Lady Melanthe added serenely.

"God save the poor fellow," said Lord Ruadrik.