The Black Lyon (11 page)

"It is far to your island?" she asked at last.

"Aye, it is five days' ride, but we have the use of lodgings each night." His dark eyes stared at her, hard and unreadable.

She reached for another piece of cheese, and her hand touched his and she drew in her breath at the touch. Instantly, she found herself crushed against him, his face near hers, his breath soft, warm. He needed no words to say his thoughts, for his eyes told all.

He wanted to believe her, so desperately wanted to believe in her again. The pain was there, a steel spike behind his eyes, an ancient wound, healed over and concealing the poison beneath. She saw his questioning, the silent pleas he gave her, and she answered him in the only way she knew how —by pulling his lips to hers.

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The sweet music of the birds joined in the rolling waves of desire that covered her body. The smell of grass mingled with the soft, delicious feel of Ranulf's lips as he moved them against hers, so gently at first, searching, exploring, on a quest for treasure.

His arms supported her, his strength in strong contrast to her growing weakness.

She was aware of naught but him, but some instinct made him draw back and look at her as his hand held the back of her head and his thumb caressed her temple. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes, rubbing her head against his palm—how small he made her feel!

"I would like to believe," he whispered, and when she parted her lips to speak, he closed them with one fingertip. "I will know.

Words are too easy, given too freely. I fear those little hands of yours hold much that is mine."

She did not know why the simple words caused her to experience such a violent tremor of fear, as if she had been given foreknowledge of some evil to come.

* * *

The entire village seemed to be ablaze, and the screams of the serfs and the animals caught in the raging heat tore at her, freezing her momentarily.

"Get to the donjon," Ranulf bellowed at her, his furious face towering above her.

"I can help," she screamed as she saw a child tearing across the courtyard. She started to dismount. Ranulf's steel grip on her arm stopped her. The noise roared and the horrible light shadowed his face into a creature unknown, unearthly, a black devil.

"I have no time for this. Obey me!"

She could but do as he said and turned her nervous horse to the inner bailey, the gates locked in some semblance of protection against the threatening fires.

No one was about except the lone gateman, for all the castlefolk had fled to help fight the fire. She found the stables and paused for a moment, watching the flames leaping, licking above the low stone wall as they sought more fuel, more sacrifice to their gluttony. She turned to the horse to unsaddle it and then to look for a chapel to offer her prayers for the safety of the people.

"I knew he would not allow his precious little jewel so near such destruction," a voice hissed near her.

She whirled around. "Giles! What do you here?" She looked around her nervously. The roar of the fire seemed deafening even in the stable, or mayhaps it was her own fear and panic that threatened to drown her.

"You did not think me so callous a lover that I would concede the battle so easily? Surely you knew me better."

"I do not know you at all. Why have you followed me?"

"That is easy enough to answer." His eyes raked her body as she backed to a wooden stall wall and braced herself there. There was no escape from the boy, once a childhood friend, now a glazed-eyed madman. "I was willing to admit defeat had I been beaten fairly, but how could I compete with the riches of your earl? I placed you second only to the Holy M other, yet all the while you schemed to betray me."

"Giles, you are wrong." She moved even closer to the wall, as if a door might appear by some magic. The heat increased in the stable, and a horse moved restlessly in fear.

"You do not need to be frightened of me. I do not plan to hurt you. Nay, I have learned a great deal from your ways. I have lost what I so eagerly sought." His eyes went to her breasts, outlined so clearly, heaving in her fright. "But as you sold yourself, so shall I sell what little of me is left. Do you remember this?"

He waved a piece of paper before her face, and she was puzzled.

"It is one of your letters."

"I wrote you no letters."

"Aye, that is true, but Lucy once let it be known that you often wrote stories and such. Remember your Gilbert?"

Lyonene was truly bewildered, for she remembered no Gilbert at Lorancourt. Then the seed of a memory stung her. She stared at the paper and the dirty hand that held it. "You started the fire," she whispered.

"Aye," he said and laughed. "I am glad you see how far I will go to get what I want." He stepped forward and ran a 73

caressing hand down her shoulder. "When I am wealthy, I will buy several women such as you."

"Giles..." she began.

"Cease!" He pulled his arm back, and she turned her head in anticipation of the blow. He stepped back and watched her as he caressed the paper in his hand. "I have five of these letters, and it was an easy thing to change Gilbert to Giles. Shall I read to you what a fine letter of love you have written to me?"

She shook her head, knowing now what he held. She had always been a bit of a dreamer as a child and when her indulgent father had allowed his only child to leam to read, she had studied not rhetoric or even the gospels but, instead, a small book of chivalrous stories, secretly purchased for her in London by her mother. Lyonene had read the stories again and again and begged the jongleurs for more stories. Soon she had begun to create her own stories, sometimes writing them and often setting them to music, singing them to her parents on quiet evenings. But there was a time, not long ago, when she had created a lover for herself, a young man, a knight, strong and brave, and she had written letters to this imaginary man. She knew what the letters said, knew what fate Giles held for her in that hand that had already caused so much destruction. He held the end of her thoughts of happiness with her new husband; the delicate thread that held them together could not stand another blow.

"Lyonene, you are easy to read. Does he distrust you so much?"

"You have yet to say what you want from me." Her shoulders sank wearily.

"Gold."

"I have naught but my clothes. He has given me nothing."

"Do not play the fool." He looked outside the stable and saw that the flames no longer lifted above the stone wall. He returned his attention to Lyonene. "I see your husband succeeds in taming the fire more readily than I had thought. Listen to me now. He will be tired when he returns and will sleep heavily. When you are sure he will not wake, toss me a jewel from the pouch on his belt."

"Nay! I cannot."

"This letter is the least I can use for payment if I am not obeyed. What think you of becoming a widow so soon?"

"You do not know what you say. Do you forget he is the Black Lion?"

"I see you do not forget," he sneered. "I am not as these lordly knights of the kings, as you well know. They are governed by rules that have no hold for me. How think you I came to be inside these castle walls? No one sees a serf. Think you he will notice when a serf walks past him? He will not know until he finds a blade between his ribs."

Lyonene could not speak, the terror climbing along her spine, crawling, creeping, a slimy, many-legged thing.

"Ah! I knew I guessed right. Now I must go. Do as I say and do not betray me."

He left her alone, her breath shallow, her body trembling, but trembling deep inside, as if her very bones shook. What to do, she screamed inside her throbbing head—what to do! She made her way inside the deserted donjon, trying to run but finding herself unable to do so. A dark comer showed a stool, and she sat on it, nearly falling against the cold, plastered wall.

Her first thought was, "What if ..." If she had gone away with Ranulf after the marriage, if she had not left him at all the day of the wedding, if she had not gone outside ... Useless, wasteful thoughts. She wished her mother were near her, that she'was not so alone with a husband who had fallen on her in violence one night and this day had offered her a truce—one that promised now to be shattered.

Giles was insane, for surely no man could act as he had and have all his mind. She could see it now, see what she had so long ago overlooked. M elite had once said that Lyonene always took the runt of any litter and made it her own, be it pig, dog or, at times, people, and, as everyone laughed, she added that she usually succeeded in making the runt into a peacock.

Giles was proof of her failure. She remembered the first time she had seen him, hiding in a corner, afraid of his own shadow, awed by his two handsome older brothers, awed by the lovely seven-year-old girl named for a lioness and adored by all. Lyonene had hardly looked at the two boys, but instantly sought out the puny, colorless Giles, his thin legs weak from lack of exercise.

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Sir John had protested when the two children, the same age but so incredibly different, had clasped hands and walked together outside into the April sunlight. M elite had stopped him, and they watched the children leave.

Lyonene and Giles had spent much time together for the next ten years. She'd once heard Giles's father protest that his son was no use at home anymore, and he'd stand and watch as the little girl would bully and badger the boy until Giles did what she wanted.

That was what surprised Sir John the most, that she did not coax and plead as he would have thought. He himself had tried every way possible to get Giles to stay atop a horse, but he could not.

"What do you mean you cannot ride a horse? I can!" the eight-year-old girl had bragged. "Now get on and cease whining!" She had little patience with his excuses, and before Sir John's eyes, the boy blossomed into a healthy lad.

Lyonene tried to focus on the present, to pull away from the memories, once so sweet but now lowered to the filth of the London streets. She could not, of course, have missed seeing some of the little things that had bothered her at the time, but she had not wanted to see them, remember them. There was the kitten that had scratched him. She shuddered and watched as one of the dogs nosed about in the rushes for the lost bones.

M ore memories came to her: the lacerated flanks of a horse that had thrown Giles, the burned hand of a serf girl who had fallen into the fire when she tripped on Giles's outstretched foot.

She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. But there was goodness, too, she thought, goodness that outweighed the few bad deeds. There was goodness enough that he was worth saving.

The sound of a horse's hoof on the stones outside made her stir herself to life. She rose slowly, like an old, tired woman, and looked toward the door. One of the Black Guard stood there; she could not remember his name.

"M y lady, you are well?" his voice was quiet and deep, and she remembered him as the quiet one who hardly spoke—M aularde.

She nodded to him and somehow managed a sliver of a smile, but she saw he was not relieved or convinced of her peace. "I may help you?" The words struggled from her throat.

"Aye, we need food. Where are the castlewomen?"

She looked about her for the first time, amazed to see the solid walls, that life had gone on in the last hour. "I do not know. I will look to your food." She started to the door with the guardsman following.

The kitchen was away from the main dwellings to help prevent fires. The air was thick with smoke, but Lyonene did not notice, nor did she see the guardsman as he carefully scanned the deserted courtyard. She would have been interested in the way the man noted the lone serf, limping painfully, near the horses. The dark knight watched the man for a long while, thoughtfully, obviously considering some problem.

Lyonene found one of the kitchen girls wrapped about a young boy, and her own problems came back to her vividly. She had an abstracted air as she sent the boy to help with the fire and set the girl to preparing food. Soon baskets were ready to be taken to the hungry men. M aularde had found more of the castle servants and soon a sheep was turning over on the fireplace spit.

She helped M aularde load the wagons, and he did not protest when she climbed beside the driver as the guardsman mounted his horse. Lyonene wanted to occupy herself—anything to delay the time when she would need to make a decision as to Giles's words.

Over half the village was gone, and since the wall had been allowed to decay in places, she saw more flames outside, heading toward the game forest. That was where she heard Ranulf's voice, loud, giving orders that were not meant to be delayed. Lyonene nudged the driver and he directed the horses toward the sound. •

"What do you do here?" Ranulf demanded. "Get back to the donjon."

"But what of the injured? Can I not help?" She was horrified at his appearance; only the whites of his eyes were not covered with the black filth.

"Nay, the monks have come."

She saw then the coarse brown robes, the tonsured heads, as the men quietly helped the burned people. She silently nodded at Ranulf and then looked ahead as the driver turned the horses and returned to the inner bailey.

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Ranulf paused from his exhausting labors for a moment and stared after her, not sure of his thoughts, but the urgency of the fire gave him little time for else.

Lyonene went back to the kitchen to reassure herself that all there were working. The long day's travel, the emotional upheaval began to tell on her and she limply dragged herself into the stone tower.

"You have thought on my words?" The boy seemed to appear from nowhere.