For My Lady's Heart Read Free Page B

face. He hardly knew
    if she was comely or unremarkable. He could not at that moment have
    described her features, any more than he could have looked straight at the
    sun to describe it.
    “Husband!” Isabelle’s voice shocked him. She was there; she caught his
    hand, falling on her knees beside the bench. “The bishop speaketh with me on
    the morrow, to hearen my confession, and discourse together as God’s
    servants!” Her blue eyes glowed as she clutched a pass that dangled wax
    seals. She smiled up at him joyfully. “I told him of thee, Ruck, that thou
    hast been my good and faithful protector, and he bids thee comen also before
    him—to confirm thy solemn vow of chastity in the name of Jesus and the
    Virgin Mary!”

    Isabelle insisted that he leave off his armor for the interview with the
    bishop. Her brief timidity, her snugging against Ruck for protection, had
    vanished. All night she’d sat up praying, pausing only to describe in
    endless particular the triumph of her examination by the clerks and
    officials. They had heard of her—her fame had really spread so far!—and
    wished to prove to their own satisfaction that her visions were of God. They
    had questioned her fiercely, but she’d known every proper answer, and even
    given them back some of their own by pointing out an error in their
    orthodoxy concerning the testament of Saint James.
    Ruck had listened with a deep uneasiness inside him. He could not imagine
    that those arrogant churchmen, with their bright vestments and Latin
    intonations, had been won over by his wife. Isabelle attracted a certain
    number of adherents, but they were of kindred mind to her, inclined to
    ecstasies and spiritual torments. He had not seen a single cleric here who
    gave the appearance of being any more interested in holy ecstasy than in his
    dinner.
    He’d slept fitfully, dreaming of falcons and female bodies, waking fully
    aroused. For an instant he’d groped for Isabelle and then opened his eyes
    and seen her kneeling at the window next to a sleeping tailor. Tears coursed
    silently down her cheeks. She looked so radiant and anxious, her eyes lifted
    to the dawn sky, her hands gripped together, that he felt helpless. He
    wanted this bishop to give her whatever it was that she desired—sainthood,
    if she asked for it.
    He dreaded the interview. He was afraid as he’d never been before a
    fight; he felt as if he were facing execution. As long as that vow had been
    private, between him and Isabelle, it had not seemed quite real. There was
    always the future; there were mitigating circumstances; he had not spoken
    clearly just
what
he swore to. She might change her mind. They were
    neither of them so very old yet. Women were erratic, that was known
    certainly enough. He ought to have beaten her. He ought to have put up with
    the screams and got her with a child. He ought to have told her that decent
    women stayed home and didn’t drag their husbands over the face of creation
    in pursuit of canonization. He watched her prayerful tears, his lufsom, his
    sweet Isabelle, and could have wept himself.
    In the great audience hall he was informed he must wait, that only
    Isabelle was required. A hunchbacked man held out his hand, leaning on his
    staff, and Ruck put a coin in it. He got a mute nod in return.
    All the morning he sat there, feeling naked in his leather gambeson
    without armor over it, swallowing down apprehension and despair. There was
    no way he could find out of the thing short of disavowing his own words and
    revealing himself a false witness in public, before a bishop of the church.
    Worse, he was afraid that they might trap him into it, perplex him with
    religious questions and turn him about like a spinning top, as Isabelle
    could do, until he swore whatever they wished.
    Three clerks came for him. He rose and followed them through corridors
    and up stairs, until they entered a high, square room. His blood beat in his