“Alice?” Lyonene stretched in the cold air, the heavy wool blankets inadequate for the damp cold of the drafty donjon. “You are well this morn?” She looked at the heavy woman bending over the fire, slowly coaxing it to life.
Alice turned and grinned at Lyonene, nodding her head.
“Your mother’s cough is better?”
Alice pantomimed someone drinking from a cup and then pointed at Lyonene.
“Ah, then the herbs I recommended helped her. I am glad. It is too cold to be ill.” Lyonene tried to sit up and instantly Alice was there to help her. “It is enormous, is it not?” She smiled as she rubbed her extended stomach. “Ranulf would be…”
Alice gripped the slim shoulders, frowned and shook her head vigorously.
“Nay, I know I should not. The memories are too painful even yet. Do you think there is a chance the boy gave my belt to someone? When Sir Morell caught him, he no longer had it.”
Alice turned away.
“I know what you would say. It has been so long and there is no word. Lady Margaret says Ranulf does not answer her demands. Think you he will not pay the ransom? I have ever been a trial to him.”
Alice turned to her with a hard expression, eyes narrowed in threat.
Lyonene gave a weak laugh. “I will not begin anew. You have heard too much already. What shall we do this day? Don ourselves in cloth of gold and ride our stallions across the hills of Ireland?”
Alice smiled at her and then went to a plain wooden chest set in the corner of the room. With reverence, she opened it and lifted the leather pouch which contained the precious book.
Lyonene smiled. “It is a good day for reading. Tell me, are my guards well? They have not forgotten me?”
Alice shivered as she cast a fearful look toward the heavy oak door.
“Alice, they could not be so horrible as you seem to think. I have been here for four months and they do but sit and watch.”
Alice merely looked at her. They had discussed the four guards before and nothing had been solved. She helped her mistress from the narrow bed, the heavy pregnancy making the younger woman awkward and clumsy. Alice loosely fastened the woolen garments about her mistress and then combed her long hair neatly into place.
“Think you I should cut it? Brent told me some of the women at court seemed to think it too long. I have told you about Brent, have I not?” At Alice’s indulgent smile, Lyonene caught the big, work-hardened hand and held it to her cheek. “Of course, I have told you all there is to tell about me. You must be greatly bored with my stories.”
Alice stroked her mistress’s cheek in answer.
“Lady Margaret thinks you simple-minded. She would not like to know she is far from the truth. I do not think she would have you as my guard ’twere she to know your cleverness. Now, come and sit by me and I will read to you a while and then I will teach you more of your letters. A while longer and you will read this book yourself. Did I tell you Ranulf owns six books?” She stopped and laughed. “Do not look at me so. You are a fierce critic. I will tell you no more of my Ranulf this hour, but beware of the next, for I may remember a thing I have not told you. I doubt it, but I may.”
They both turned as the heavy door creaked open and Lady Margaret appeared. “Well, you do not seem to be the mistreated prisoner.” She sat down on a stool before the fire. “We have had no word.” She looked ominously at Lyonene. “I understood this husband of yours loved you overmuch, yet he does not seem anxious to have you returned. My messenger returned yester eve and says the Earl of Malvoisin makes merry at court with the ladies there. This does not seem to be the bereaved husband who misses and longs for his wife.” She watched Lyonene. “Have you no answer to this riddle?”
Lyonene looked away. “Nay, I have not,” she answered quietly. “It was not I who said he loved me, but Amicia. I am a baron’s daughter and mayhaps… Ranulf”—the name caused her to blink back tears—“has found another.”
“Bah!” Margaret rose to walk to the large window, the shutters poorly latched, the cool early morning air whistling under them. “Whatever he feels for you, I would not expect this. You are by law his wife and he must know the babe is near full-term now. If not you, then his child. Morell will return to England soon to see for himself why no ransom is being prepared. I should have guessed Amicia to be such a liar. Your precious husband’s steward has said he hopes you never return.” She laughed at the expression on Lyonene’s face. “You thought yourself well loved by everyone. You are a vain creature. Has no one said so to you before?”
“Aye, they have,” Lyonene whispered.
“I am pleased that there is at least a whisper of truth somewhere in this old castle. Your guards grow restless. They wish to meet this husband of yours, for they have ever heard of his strength. What think you of seeing him pitted against the four of them? Morell thinks he could take them. Ah, I see you are not so sure. If I did not chance losing the ransom, I would stage such a show, for the man angers me at his insolence in not answering my messages.” She looked away to the fire.
“If I am worthless to you, will you not let me go? I must cost you much in food and soon there will be the babe to care for.”
“Aye, you are worthless to me, but there must be some value in you. It is true you have cost me much and you will need to repay these monies. After you rid yourself of the babe, mayhaps I can find your body to be a means to repay my generosity. Sir Morell might, I think, pay much for the use of it.” She laughed again. “I will wait only a while longer. Your husband might think differently when you deliver his child alive.” She left the room.
Lyonene was unaware of the tears that ran down her cheeks and only gradually felt Alice’s rather violent shaking of her. “Why do you do this?” she asked as she looked into the maid’s stormy face. “You are angry with me. What have I done?”
Alice pointed toward the closed door, then frowned at her mistress, vigorously shaking her head. They had been together for four months and in that time they had developed their own communication.
“You wish to tell me I am a fool,” Lyonene stated flatly.
Alice released her and stood above her, hands on wide hips, a disdainful look on her face as she glared down her nose.
“I believe everyone. First Amicia’s lies about Ranulf and now Lady Margaret’s false stories. But what of William de Bec? Why would Ranulf’s steward hate me?”
Alice threw up her hands in disgust.
Lyonene laughed. “I know what you say. It is hard for me to not believe them. Their lies are so logical.”
Alice dropped to her knees before her mistress, taking the little hands in her own, her eyes imploring. She tapped her head with one fingertip.
“Aye, I should think for myself. I am sure Ranulf … cares for me. He must, but there was so little time. He hated me for so long and it is not easy to believe he changed. Do not shake your head at me. I believe I know my own husband. Ha!” She frowned at Alice’s gestures. “I am sure I am smarter than my unborn babe. Why then has Ranulf gone to court? King Edward will not give him money for my ransom. The king wishes Ranulf to marry a Castilian princess.”
She watched Alice. “You are right. Mayhaps Lady Margaret lies and Ranulf is not at court.” She smiled at Alice’s sigh of exasperation. “I am a countess, you know. At home there are servants who treat me with respect.”
Alice put her head on Lyonene’s knee and the young woman stroked the coarse hair. “Whatever I say,” she whispered, “you are more than maid to me. Had it not been for you, for your long hours, days even, of listening to my endless stories I might have thrown myself from yon window. Would you like to hear more of the Round Table?”
At Alice’s nod, she began, for she knew the woman loved to hear of the pageantry, the games, the food, the clothes, the powerful knights who wrestled and jousted with one another. There was not one second of the three-day tourney that Lyonene had not related to Alice, but they both loved to hear it again and both knew it kept Lyonene from thinking too realistically of the stone walls enclosing her or hearing the lies that surrounded her.
Late in the afternoon, Lyonene slept and Alice went about her duties outside the castle. When she awoke, she lay still and thought of the time since she had been taken captive. Mostly her days were spent with Alice in the tower room. Ireland was warmer than England, but still the stones created their own dreary and oppressive atmosphere. She had never even been outside the castle walls since she had first entered them, and this lack of sun and exercise did not help her mood.
Only lately, since the child had grown big in her stomach, had she dared leave the cramped little room, for Sir Morell always lurked near her, touching her hair, her shoulder, smiling in a way that left little doubt of his thoughts. She recalled with a shudder a conversation with him when she had first come to the castle.
“Why? Why do you do this?” she had asked.
He had sneered insolently at her. “Is not the great wealth I will receive from your husband enough?” His eyes raked her soft form. “Is not the person of the lovely Lady Lyonene enough?”
She had raised her head and met his eyes steadily. “No, it is not. I have been a fool to not believe in my husband, but you I do not think are a fool. There is more behind this than gold.”
He smiled slightly and looked into his empty chalice. “Such knowledge from one so young! Shall I tell you a story?”
She had not answered and he had continued.
“You did not know your husband as a young man. He has changed greatly since he has known you. I came to him as a squire, as one of several young men, soon after his wife’s death.” He did not notice Lyonene’s pained look. “Young Lord Ranulf! So strong, so ungiving, so black!”
He refilled his cup. “It is a simple story really. I was a young man, eager to please, anxious to do the bidding of a lord no older than myself. It is strange how we hate the people who take and then discard our first innocence. I served him for four years, four years of life I gave to that man and then I was not chosen for his guard. Nay, he said all his men must have his devil’s blackness. So, for a bit of fair hair I was used and then tossed aside like so much rubbish.”
He threw his cup violently toward the fire, hitting a glancing blow on the shoulder of one of the hounds, which leaped, yelping, and ran away.
Lyonene sat quietly behind the shield of her four guards. “Could there have been another reason? Mayhaps he chose his men because he saw something in their character which he liked.”
Morell stood and stared at her, unaware of the guards’ hands moving to their weapons. “I gave him everything! I was not sunk to the character I am now.”
She met his stare, feeling inside her that Ranulf had seen then the man Morell could have been. Her husband was not so vain as to turn aside a good knight for so little a flaw as the color of his hair. “Is a man today what he was not yesterday?”
Morell’s face had turned red and he had taken a step toward her, and then he felt the heavy hand of a guard on his shoulder. He had shaken it off, his eyes still on Lyonene’s. “He will pay for what he has done,” he said hoarsely, “and neither will I forget your words.” He turned and angrily strode from the hall.
Lyonene shook her head as if to clear away the ugly thoughts and looked down at her enormous stomach.
Alice ran firm hands over the mound each day to check the progress of the growing child. Lyonene was sure her skin would split, so tautly was it pulled, but Alice reassured her it would not and that the babe was already turned correctly for its birth. Lyonene was growing anxious to deliver the child and rid herself of the heavy burden. She closed her eyes and thought of the moment of joy when she’d hold a black-haired, black-eyed babe in her arms.
Alice touched her on the shoulder and she jumped.
“I did not hear you come in. Aye, I would like to go to the Great Hall. I get some pleasure in seeing Morell’s disgust at my waddling. If I were not so tired of carrying my own stomach about, I would wish I could remain so for a long while. Think you he would tire of me if I remained so for several years?” She rubbed her stomach happily. “What think you of twins? Ranulf once said… Nay, I will not cry again.” She laughed at Alice’s quelling look.
“Well, I see our countess deigns to visit with us—two days together. We are indeed honored,” Amicia said, greeting her. The Frankish woman smiled as Sir Morell looked away. “Morell, does she not look fit? I am sure she carries at least two children in that great belly of hers.”
Morell gave Amicia a quick look of contempt and left the hall, and the woman smiled triumphantly.
Alice led her mistress to a stool by the fire. Lyonene smoothed her skirts as she looked about the hall. Lady Margaret knelt on the floor, the rushes swept back to make a place for her to roll dice with two of her men. Her laugh rang out across the hall. Occasionally, she ran her hand over the thigh of one of the men, and Lyonene looked away. Amicia was making her way to the gambling group. Some serfs—two men followed by another—carried firewood into the hall. The man behind was large, and something about him made her stare. Alice touched her shoulder and frowned; it was not seemly that Lyonene should stare at the serfs, especially not at men.
Lyonene looked away, but when she saw Alice return to her sewing, she could not help another quick glance. There was something about the man… Alice again caught her attention, and the maid left to fetch more thread. The four guards that were always near watched the people in the corner at their dice game.
The three serfs came to the fireplace before her. She looked away, fascinated by the weave of her woolen gown. She lectured herself for her stupidity. She had seen hundreds of serfs in her life and not one of them had interested her in even the slightest way, yet now she found she wanted to see this man’s face. His hand took a poker and moved the logs in the fireplace. The action caught her eye, and as she stared at the dark hand covered in short, dark hairs, it stopped moving. She knew he stared at her, that all she had to do was lift her eyes and meet the owner of that familiar hand.
She looked up slowly, very, very slowly, fearful of what she would or would not see.
Ranulf’s eyes met hers in an expressionless stare, the black irises pinpointed as they looked at the emerald-green gaze. His eyes swept the length of her, quickly, and then seemed to dismiss her altered form as he returned to her face.
She could but look at him in wonder that he should be standing before her, obviously unarmed. Should he be recognized, he would have little chance of defending himself against a man armed with a morgenstern. Yet underlying her fears was sheer joy that he should risk so much for her, that he had sought her out, that he did not lounge at court and forget her. She struggled to give him a word, a sign of her love, to tell him all her heart felt for him, to warn him of the danger he faced for her.
“They have set me to chopping wood,” he said, his quiet voice conveying all the disgust he felt, the degradation of such a lowly task. Then he was gone; almost before she could blink, she sat alone again, his words hanging in the air.
She sat quietly for a few moments staring into the fire. She felt the laughter rising in her, rumbling and preparing for a sweet release. She struggled for control and the repressed laughter changed to tears, a mixture of joy and misery.
Four whole months she had not seen him and all the things that had occurred in those four months! She had been taken captive and held for ransom; not least, her body had greatly enlarged since she had last seen her husband. Now, as she sat amidst four fierce and horrible warriors, he calmly walked into the hall before everyone and what did he say to the wife he seeks? “They have set me to chopping wood.” No words of endearment, no sweet words for her health or even for his child that swelled her belly before her, but only an indignant utterance that she would cause him to stoop so low to rescue her.
She buried her face in her hands, unable to still the emotions that shook her slight shoulders. He had come! Whatever he said, whatever he did was well, because he had come for her.
Alice touched her shoulder, a question creasing her brow.
Lyonene looked around quickly, but knew Ranulf was gone. “Is it time for dinner yet, Alice? I vow I am famished.” She smiled brightly up at her maid.
Alice grinned her approval at her mistress’s hunger; too often she did not eat enough. But Alice also saw something else—a gaiety, a light in the green eyes—that had heretofore been missing.
Lyonene’s feeling of anticipation buoyed her through the evening meal, yet more and more clearly was she aware of the danger that awaited her husband. She shivered as she thought of the audacity of him striding into the hall, so near people who could easily recognize him.
“You are cold?” Lady Margaret asked her and at Lyonene’s negative answer, she continued. “I hope it is not the child. I am not prepared to be midwife yet.”
“Nay, the child does not come. I am tired only from carrying the load. I will go to my room now.” She rose and Alice followed.
In her chamber again, Lyonene gave way to her fears as she sat dejectedly before the fire. Alice was concerned for her and Lyonene unsuccessfully tried to allay the woman’s fears. Lyonene did not tell Alice of Ranulf’s appearance in the castle; Ranulf’s life was too precious to entrust to anyone, even someone she knew to be her friend.
She went to bed earlier than usual, hoping that sleep would wash away some of her fears. Alice left her to go to her mother’s cottage in the village, something Lyonene insisted on. It took her a long time to go to sleep.
The first thing she was aware of was a hand over her mouth, cutting off her breath. She thrashed about wildly, clawing at the hand.
“Be still, my Lioness. Do not take all the skin from my hand. Do you not still remember me?”
She recovered some of her senses and looked into Ranulf’s eyes, soft and gentle, and so near her own. He moved his hand away.
“So you know me. It has been so long I thought mayhaps…” He stopped talking when he saw she began to cry. Quickly he pulled back the covers and lay beside her, gathering her in his arms.
She cried violently for a while, the deep sobs tearing at her body, then gradually beginning to lighten.
“I take it you are glad to see me again?” His light words did not match his ragged voice or the catch in his throat. He ran his hand down her body, her shoulder, her arm and came to rest on the hard, enormous mound of her stomach, caressing, feeling the gentle movements of the babe. It was a quiet moment between them, a sharing of what they had created.
He grunted, his hand still but possessive on her belly. “You are grown so fat I hardly knew you.”
“I am … not fat.” She sniffed, controlling her tears. “It is only the babe who sticks out. The rest of me is the same,” she said in her defense.
“Nay, you have not seen yourself from behind. You walk like a duck, swaying forward and back, from side to side. Even your feet turn out. Have they perchance turned orange?”
“Ranulf! You are horrible! You should say I am beautiful when I carry your babe, not tell me of my ugliness.”
He lifted her face to his. “Aye, you are beautiful.” He kissed her sweetly on her mouth, then on her damp eyelids. He saw that her tears began anew. “But you are still as a duck, a most beautiful duck, but a duck nonetheless.”
She smiled, her tears ceasing and she snuggled again on his shoulder. “What think you of the duck you have made of me?” She covered his hand with her own and the child’s sharp kick was felt by them both.
“Does the child move?”
“Aye.” She felt him straighten in pride.
“He is strong then.”
“I am sure he shall be born with a lance in one hand and a sword in another,” she answered sarcastically.
“I would hope he’d have more consideration for his mother. You have not changed. You are as insolent as ever.”
“Then you do remember me? You have not forgotten?”
“Forgotten? I could no more forget you than I could forget … to carry my right leg with me.”
“Ah, so now I am compared to your leg. You are a most unromantic knight.”
“You dare to call me unromantic! Look you at what I wear! I dress as a serf. This horrible wool has worn me raw as no chain mail ever could. I have even chopped wood so that I may be near you. And you say me to be unromantic. I have gone through hell to be here.”
“Ranulf, my sweet. I am sorry to have caused you so much misery. It is all my fault.”
“Here, do not cry again. The wetness makes the wool scratch worse and the smell blinds me. You will get no argument from me. It is all your fault and I demand to know why you left me. You constantly tell me I am ignorant, but never have I come near to equaling this stupid act of yours.”
“I have not told you you are ignorant,” she said.
“Do not evade me. Tell me why you left me.”
“Ranulf, this is not the time. You must leave before those men find you are here. Alice tells me often of their treachery.”
“Bah!” He waved his hand. “They are little more than an exercise before dinner. How can Alice tell you aught of them when she is a mute?”
“You know overmuch of me. Why do you not kiss me some more?”
“Nay.” He pushed her back down to his shoulder. “I will not fight my son for you. One of us at a time will be in you.”
“Ranulf!” She gasped at his crudity and then giggled.
“Now tell me why you left me.”
“You are most persistent. I worry that my skin will never return to the way it was, that it will always be stretched and loose.”
“It will always be filled with my daughters, Lyonene!”
She understood his command. “I thought you would marry Amicia. She said…”
“I know of this. Hodder has told me. I want to know why you believed the woman and why you did not trust me.”
“I trusted you, but men always take other women.”
“Do they? You know this for fact? And if they do, do they always marry them and forsake their wives?”
“Nay, but Amicia said King Edward…”
“Edward is my king, but he does not rule my life. He cannot force me to do what I would not.”
“But what of Gilbert de Clare? He has left his wife to take a daughter of King Edward.”
“You met Gilbert at court. You would compare him to me? He is a greedy man and Edward has been warned about him often. You will see problems with the man soon. He does not wish to please his king as much as equal him. Now what other puny reasons do you give for leaving me?”
“I do not know. They seemed so logical, Amicia’s words. I saw letters from you. She had the ribbon. I saw you kiss her.”
“Nay, you did not! You saw the woman wrap her ugly body about me. I had to restrain myself from tossing her to the ground.”
“Ranulf, I have not seen you for a long while. Why must we speak of this unpleasantness? I have come to my senses. I know Amicia’s words were false. I heard her tell Sir Morell how they plotted it all.”
“We have all night, for I do not plan to take you from here until dawn and I wish to know what caused you to believe the woman’s words. Had you more faith in me you would have seen a hundred letters and would not have believed them.”
“It is as you say, but there were some things that I knew were certainly true.”
“Name them.”
Lyonene was silent for a moment, wishing Ranulf would not force her to speak of her doubts. “Amicia said that when she first looked at you… I know,” she cried desperately, “I know her feelings. It was the same with me. Ranulf! You laugh at me! I tell you my innermost thoughts and you dare to laugh at me!”
He caught her hand as she swung to strike him. “You will not injure my babe by your headstrong movements. So, Amicia told you she could not resist me after even the first look at me.”
“I do not understand it now, either. I vow I am a fool to want such as you. You are a vile creature.”
He kissed her forehead. “You are a liar and I shall see your sins confessed when we are home. Lyonene, now, here in this dark place, I will tell you something, but I say it once and once only. Hereafter I will deny it was ever said.”
She moved her head back on his arm to look at him. Ranulf’s honor was so strong that for him to say he might ever even consider a lie made her look at him in astonishment.
He ignored her. “There are times when I boast to you of my beauty, but it is only because you look at me so. I will tell you that you fair drool at the sight of me. Do not protest, for I know I look at you in a like manner. But what you see in me is not seen by other women. They think me too dark or ungraceful in my form.”
“What you say is not true! What of the women at court? I had to fight them from you.”
“Think you they would be so interested in me if I were not so rich? It is Dacre who is the ideal of beauty.”
“Dacre! Why, he is as the underbelly of a fish. His eyes and hair have no color, and he is so thin he casts little shadow, even.”
“You seem to have spent overlong studying him.”
She ignored him and ran the back of her fingers along the unshaved whiskers on his cheek. “And when he has three days’ growth of a beard, from a distance he looks to be a girl; you can tell no difference. Know you that in certain lights your beard shows almost blue?”
He kissed her fingers and smiled at her. “It is good to know you feel so, but it does not change what I try to say to you. I wish, by this confession, to prevent what happened from occurring twice. Although you made a fool of yourself over me on the first day I saw you, other women do not.”
“You lie again! I have never made a fool of myself over you.”
“True, you have ever been calm near me, except mayhaps when you lusted after me when you bathed me, or threw yourself into my arms when I but showed you the longbow, or when…”
“I acted no differently than I had with a hundred men. There! I have repaid you. Nay, I do lie, so do not glare at me more. And what of you? Do you marry all the women you meet after one day?”
Ranulf pulled her back to his shoulder. “I see I accomplished little. You are stubborn and will not heed my words. But listen well and remember this: You need never fear another woman languishing about for me after a few brief meetings.”
“Then you say she could after a few longer meetings?” Ranulf shrugged. “It has been known to happen. I am a most skillful lover.”
“You are…”
He kissed her and stopped her words.
“I will not argue with you. Try only to remember my words when another woman, cleverer than you, seeks my gold.”
“I cannot remember that I am to believe anyone thinks you ugly. Know you that your eyes have flecks of gold in them?” She felt him laugh against her.
“I concede. I am the most handsome of men and shall never deny it again.”
“Ranulf,” she began timidly. “If you say you are not as I see you, am I also different from the way you see me? You have said you think me beautiful.”
Ranulf laughed again. “Alas, it is not so. I fear I heard of your beauty for three years before I ventured to Lorancourt. I vow I was no little curious about this girl who caused grown men to speak in whispered tones.”
“This is true?”
“Aye, but I will not say more or repeat it. You are too vain now, although I do not see how you can be when you are so fat you near push me from the bed.”
“It is you who has made me fat. If you were slim and not such a great hulk of a man, I am sure I would not be burdened with a child half the size of that great horse of yours. So do not complain to me of discomfort, for it is my skin which is near to bursting with him.”
Ranulf hugged her to him. “If I did not love you so well, you would be a bother to me with your sharp tongue.” He felt her body stiffen against him. Puzzled, he asked, “What have I said that causes this?”
“You said that you loved me,” she whispered.
“Certainly. I have said it often enough. Why should it cause you to pull away from me?”
“You have never said it.”
He pulled her chin up. “Do you cry again? I understand this not at all. There has never been a day when I have not told you I love you.”
“Nay, you have never done so. Amicia knew you had not and when I saw one of your letters that said you loved her…”
“Do not forget that I did not write those letters. But what you say cannot be true. If I have not said the words, then my actions have told you. Each time I make love to you I tell you I love you.”
Lyonene sniffed. “But you have made love to many women. Did you love them also?”
“Nay, I did not, but it is different with you.” He stopped, for he realized she could not know how he was different with her. “Have I not been kind?”
She worked to control the tears. “You are kind to all women.”
“Mon Dieu! You will drive me mad. There! I have just told you I love you.”
“You curse me and that is to be taken as a declaration of love? Forgive me if I do not see your logic.”
“I have no logic near you. What other woman causes me to lose my temper or makes me laugh? What other woman do I chase across the water or do I dress as a serf to rescue?”
“Your wife? Isabel whom you loved so well, that drove you near mad with grief when she died?”
Ranulf was stunned for a moment and could not speak.
“I know how you loved her. It is in your eyes when I mention her or the child. I think I cannot replace her in your heart.”
“Do not continue,” he said, his voice cold. “You misread me sorely if you think I bore that woman any love. I will tell you what I have told no other person and then you may judge for yourself what caused my grief.”
He told the story of a young boy and a faithless wife without feeling, as if it belonged to another. The room was quiet and Lyonene could imagine the feelings that had been stored so long, the emotions that had changed a happy boy into the brooding man who had earned the name of Black Lion.
They lay together quietly when he had finished.
“That is why you raged so on our wedding night,” Lyonene said quietly.
“I have never raged. I am ever good and kind.”
“You were such a brute I would have left you had I not said vows to you.”
“You said you hated me, but I did not believe you.”
“Aye, you believed all, all Giles said. I am sometimes glad for that Welsh arrow, although the scar it left is most ugly.”
“I love you, Lioness. I do not know how you could have doubted me. I love you more than myself or my yet to be son or… Tighe.”
Lyonene shook with laughter. “Now I know your words are true.”
“I shall keep a list of your insults and repay you properly when this great belly of yours does not prevent me from getting within a cloth-yard of you.”
“I shall look forward eagerly to your instruction.” Her eyes sparkled in the dim light and she moved her leg over his thigh. He was too aware of her skin under his hands, the way her hair caressed her cheek.
“You are a cruel woman. Now be still. There is only a short while before dawn and I must tell you our plan to remove you from this place.” His hand was on her stomach, and a sharp kick from the baby made him frown. “It has been long since the Round Table. Is not the babe due soon? Will you be able to travel?”
“It is a full half-month before he will be born, I am sure.”
“That is soon. Mayhaps we should wait until after his birth. Your Alice will see to you.”
“And then Lady Margaret may decide to move me elsewhere, or other mishaps. I would not like to take a newborn babe into the cold air. Now he is warm and protected inside me. Alice says he lolls about upside down in a nest of liquid.”
“We will go then, on the morrow. I wait for my men to come now.”
“How did you find me?”
“It was not easy. We had to keep our secrecy, so it was spread about that I was at court, that I did not care about my lowly wife and would not pay the ransom. I am glad you did not hear that story or I am sure you would have believed it.”
“Nay, I would not,” she lied.
He gave her a suspicious look for her too-fierce disavowal. “Dacre’s cousins and your father’s have sent spies everywhere. No one thought to look here. This woman, this Lady Margaret, is known only for her lechery for young men. It was not thought she would dare to encourage my wrath.”
Lyonene felt fear, as she always did when Ranulf became the knight who was feared by so many men.
“But what caused you to look here?”
“Sainneville saw your lion belt.”
“But the boy that I gave it to—they found him and hung him.”
“And rightly so. He sold it and gave no thought to helping you. He made a mistake in selling it to one of my men. From there it was not so hard to find you. A few mugs of poor ale and these guards boasted of the lady they held, of the four guards ordered to kill her should any attempt be made to rescue her.”
“How did you get in this room?” she asked, suddenly surprised that she had not asked it before.
Ranulf inclined his head to the shuttered window. “I but threw a rope around a crenel and lowered myself.”
“But what of the guards atop the tower?”
Ranulf gave a half-smile. “Did you not know the Lady Margaret has hired four new knights for her crumbling castle? They are strong, virile men, a little too dark for her taste, but she overlooks that flaw.”
“Your guard!”
“Aye.” He chuckled. “Gilbert says the woman is most inventive in bed.”
She ignored him. “You have been here long then. Why have you not posed as her knight and not as a serf?”
“The woman is somewhat clever. She allows no one near you but those four men and two of her knights. We were not sure it was you she held captive, so one of us had to get inside the hall. My men are not so brave as to wear these stuffs.” He plucked at the harsh wool. “Or to chop wood.”
“I think I shall be forgiven all, but not that you had to lift an ax outside battle.”
His look affirmed her opinion. “Now I must go, for it grows light soon and I do not wish to be seen so plainly against a stone wall. I came but to warn you and to tell you to make ready. There is no way to bar the door without someone outside hearing us. My men will come soon and then we will attack. Have clothes ready and whatever else you need.”
“But, Ranulf,” she cried, clinging to him. “What will you do? How will you take me from this place and not risk your life?”
“Do not do this. I have risked much already. Two of my men will come to your room before light and you must obey them in all they say. Do not do aught that is foolish. Do you heed my words?”
She could but nod.
“They will protect you while the rest of us see to your four guards. Now do not cry more.” He rose and held out his arms to her and they clung together, his hands running over her nude back.
“You are even bigger than I had thought. I can hardly reach around you.”
“I fear my sweet days of being carried about are at an end.” He grinned at her and lifted her in his arms. She was embarrassed by her distorted form and sought to cover herself. He brushed her hands away. “Nay. You are a silly girl. It is my child who stretches you so. If you can carry him, I can at least look upon him.” He smiled into her eyes. “You are beautiful fat and beautiful thin. I think I would love you had you three heads.” He kissed her mouth but drew away when she began to return his kiss with ardor.
“I must go.” He lowered her to the bed and put the covers about her. “You must miss Malvoisin much,” he said, sneering at the crude covers.
“I miss the master more. Ranulf,” she murmured, her arms holding his face close, “I love you.”
He kissed her cheek and then stood up, tall, powerful above her. “I have known it always, of course, but it is good to hear.”
She smiled, knowing that his words hid his true feelings. It seemed that he was gone instantly, and she saw only a foot as he pulled himself up on the rope.