The Black Lyon Read online

  “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 corner 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. Melite 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.

  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. Melite 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.

  More 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.

  “My lady, you are well?” his voice was quiet and deep, and she remembered him as the quiet one who hardly spoke—Maularde.

  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. Maularde had found more of the castle servants and soon a sheep was turning over on the fireplace spit.

  She helped Maularde 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.

  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.

  “Giles, you cannot ask this of me. We were friends once. How can you turn against me so?”

  The young man stepped from the shadows, his blue eyes frenzied, penetrating. “It is you who have turned from me. I was naught before you made yourself into some heathen deity and decided my life for me.” He stepped close to her, and his expression changed to the one she had known for many years. “Remember you the brown mare, the one that tossed you into the water? Had I not been there…”

  “Do not remind me of those far-away days.” She turned abruptly toward the door, but Giles’s hand caught her wrist.

  “I know you too well. So now you will call a guard against me? Do not think I am fool enough to have come alone. My capture, my death, will grant you naught but riddance of me. Did you see the men near your husband? Know you which are my men, which will kill him if I am harmed?”

  “I do not believe you.”

  His eyes were feverish, burning. “You are prepared to risk my honesty? Do you know me to be a liar? Lyonene,” he murmured, touching a lock of her hair but then frowning when she drew back, “what can a jewel or two mean to such as him? You have seen his clothes are