“Lyonene, what is the meaning of this? No, do not tell me, for I am sure it is Ranulf’s doing. Is he so unbearable to live with?”
Lyonene could only shake her head, for a great lump was forming in her throat and she could not speak. Maude appeared from nowhere and took Lyonene away to the little donkey. She was too distraught to notice that Geoffrey rode to his brother.
“Ranulf,” Geoffrey implored his stone-faced brother, “what has caused you to treat her so? Why is she dressed as a serf and made to ride a donkey?” He waited for an answer but none came. “I cannot understand your treatment of her. She is beautiful and desirable; how can you shun her?” Still no answer was given him and he sighed in exasperation. “I go now to Sir Tompkin. We are off to Cornwall this day. Remember, Ranulf, she is your wife.”
“It is she who forgets.”
Geoffrey frowned up at Ranulf. “Do you hint that she had a hand in what happened this morn? That she perhaps desires the attention of other men?”
Ranulf shrugged in answer.
“If I were not your brother and loved not life so well, I would challenge you for that. Any lady who is falsely accused and forced to act as a serf deserves a champion.”
“You are so sure she is falsely accused? What proof have you of her innocence?”
Geoffrey smiled. “Because I know you. You care for your possessions and on that island of yours you would know when she sneezed or no. And that Black Guard would kill any man who came near to Lady Lyonene. I am correct, am I not? You have always known of her whereabouts, even to each minute.”
“Aye. Until we left for Wales. She was clever in hiding.”
“Hiding! Then you are indeed fortunate to have a wife who loves you so that she will dress as a serf to follow her beloved. Tell me, would any of your court ladies so love their husbands? I worry overmuch. Lyonene will have her way, and if that way includes a glowering, angry, accusing…” He laughed at Ranulf’s black look. “There is no understanding women. I cannot fathom her choice of such a husband. I would give much to be chosen by such as she.” Geoffrey frowned at the fierceness of the look given him by Ranulf. “I go now. Mayhaps I can leave Cornwall and return to Malvoisin later this year. Go in peace, my brother.”
Lyonene was unaware of Geoffrey’s going; in truth, she was aware of little around her. Her own thoughts raged with one another.
She did not even hear the thundering hoofs of Tighe as Ranulf rode toward the little donkey. She only felt herself being lifted into the air, coming to rest, sidesaddle, on the Frisian’s back, held firmly in Ranulf’s arms. She knew he was angry but she did not care. At least for the moment he held her close. They rode to the head of the line of people. Ranulf roughly tore the russet cloak from Lyonene, flinging it to the ground. Then he thrust his hands in her hair, pulling her head back, her face toward him. In spite of the pain he knew he caused her, she smiled up at him, her eyes shining.
“Hear me now, wife, and hear me well. You are mine and I do not share you.”
Her eyes held his. “I have never been other, my Lion.”
He stared at her for a moment and then looked away. She leaned back against him, and they traveled in silence.
“And now tell me what I am to do with you.” Ranulf’s voice was harsh as he stared at her, the silk walls of his tent surrounding them. “Did you think I rode to Wales for pleasure? Tell me, have you always had your way, so that a man who goes to war must have the added burden of a woman to succor?”
“War? There is no war,” she replied hotly.
He glared at her. “You think I lie? The Welshman Rhys has decided he would be king. He rides north of here. King Edward sent me a message to find the man and stop his rebellion. Did you think I left my isle to travel to this cold country so that I might enjoy the scenery? Do you not think I have enough to care for in my men, but now I am also saddled with a noblewoman.”
“Nay, I did not think—”
“That is it! You did not think. Now you have had your fun, you have dressed as a serf and deceived me. But tell me, mistress, what purpose did you have in mind in all this? If my memory still serves me, we last spoke of your returning to your parents.”
She deserved all of this, she knew. She had not thought when she had taken the disguise. How many times had her mother punished her for just such waywardness?
“Speak up, woman! I know you have a tongue.”
She lifted her chin and was glad anger was replacing her guilt feelings. “I did not want to … to leave. I wanted to…”
“Go on, I am listening.”
She stood and touched the silk, glad to have removed the rough wool mantle. She whirled to face him, eyes alight and hair in wild disarray. “You are my husband and I love you.” She waited breathlessly for his answer.
His black eyes did not soften. “You have an odd way of showing your love. You rob me, you—”
“Cease!” She put her hands over her ears. “I know it all. Have I not lived it, every horrible moment of it? Have I not been caught day after day between threats and rage? We had two days of love and we married because of that love. Is there no way I can bring about a return of love? Is there no way I can prove myself?”
He watched her and then moved closer to her, his hand touching her cheek gently. “I do not know,” he said quietly.
The sound of iron striking iron brought Ranulf’s head up.
“What is it?” Lyonene gasped.
Corbet burst into the tent, his eyes only briefly flickering over Lyonene. “Rhys attacks,” he said bluntly.
“Guard her!” Ranulf commanded as he grabbed his shield and went outside the tent into the ever-increasing noise of a full-fledged battle.
“This way,” Corbet said as he slit the serge of the tent at the back, and she followed him, her eyes constantly looking over her shoulder.
The sunlight was bright outside, and already the smell of blood was strong, mixed with dust and the horrible noise of men’s screams, their dying gasps, the thundering of the horses’ hoofs.
She saw Ranulf immediately, in the midst of the battle, on foot, having had no time to straddle his horse. She saw the glint of the sword as he swung with a two-handed grip at a man riding at him hard. Her breath stopped and the blood seemed to leave her body.
Corbet roughly jerked her arm as he pulled her forward. She stumbled and fell to her knees, grasping at a tree trunk to steady herself. The guardsman again pulled her, but she could not take her eyes from her husband or stop the deafening roar of the battle that surrounded her. Ranulf was covered in blood now, yet still he fought.
An arrow whistled into the tree, inches from her hand, and she stared at it incredulously. Vaguely she was aware that Corbet fought a man behind her, and still she stared at the arrow. Her fear began to make her tremble.
A movement in the tree above her caught her eye and she saw a man hidden in the leaves pulling back on a crossbow and aiming an arrow at Ranulf. She screamed, but no one heard her.
“No,” she whispered, “no.” She began to run, straight into the thick of the battle, toward Ranulf. She ran toward him and he stared at her in disbelief, his face smeared with sweat and blood.
She reached him at the same second as the arrow. Her arms went about him and her right shoulder covered his heart. The arrow slashed through her skin and muscle as it made its way to Ranulf’s mail-covered chest. The steel tip pierced the iron armor, the hacketon, the linen and Ranulf’s flesh, but Lyonene’s body had slowed it and it went no further. She looked up at him as their bodies were held together by the thin piece of wood.
“Lion, I…” she whispered and then fainted.
Ranulf held her so she would not fall, and then he put his head back and gave his battle cry.
Sainneville did not at first see the little form so hideously attached to his master.
“Break it off, man! Do not stand there,” Ranulf said, his voice harsh and shaking.
Hugo appeared, gave one look at his lady and turned away to guard his lord’s back. Sainneville broke the feathered end of the arrow off, trying not to look at Lyonene’s lifeless face.
“Can you get it out of the iron? It binds us together.”
“Aye, my lord.” Sainneville lifted trembling fingers.
“Fitz Waren!” Ranulf commanded. “Come and do this. Quickly! She begins to rouse. I do not wish her to feel more pain.”
Hugo deftly put his fingers between Lyonene’s shoulder and Ranulf’s chest. The arrow was embedded deeply and intertwined with the mail links. To twist the arrow out without also twisting the shaft, was very difficult.
“Here, my lord,” Hugo said at last. “Let me have the girl and I will pull her off the thing. Hold the arrow and do not let it move.”
Ranulf did as his man bid, and Hugo carefully pulled Lyonene away. Ranulf jerked the steel point from his chest and angrily tossed it to the ground. Then he picked Lyonene up in his arms, her blood flowing on him.
“Ranulf,” she whispered. “It hurts. My shoulder hurts. You are well? The arrow did not harm you?”
He did not answer her but strode quickly to his tent.
“What is wrong? She has fainted?” Maude asked, then gasped at the blood that covered both Ranulf and Lyonene. “I will care for her,” she said as Ranulf carefully put his wife on the bed.
“Nay!” Ranulf said. “Go. I need no help. Bring me water and clean linen and then leave us.”
Maude went out of the tent quickly, and Ranulf gave his whole attention to Lyonene. Her eyes were open but she didn’t seem to see. He took an estoc from its sheath and slit her clothes away, tenderly covering her with the velvet bedclothes. When Maude brought the water he washed and bound the wound. Only then did he sit quietly and look at her.
“My lord?” Hugo stood at the doorway. “She is well?”
Ranulf turned to him, his eyes bright, his face and body still covered with the dirt and stench of battle. “She is well for a child who protects her husband with her own frail body. The Welshman who shot the arrow—”
“He is dead. Maularde saw to him. The battle is ended and won.” He looked at the pale woman on the bed. “We will pray for her this night.”
Ranulf nodded and the man left. Night came, and he stayed by her bed, on his knees, his prayers constant. He neither saw nor heard Maude set candles throughout the tent.
“Ranulf.”
His head came up at Lyonene’s whisper. He stroked her forehead, noticing for the first time the excessive warmth there. “Be still, love, do not speak.”
“You still wear your armor,” she whispered as she touched the iron links on his wrist.
“Aye. It does not matter.”
“You are not angry with me?”
“Aye, I am angry with you, but I will wait until you are well to scold you.”
“I did not mean to disobey. I saw the man and knew he meant to shoot you. I screamed, but you did not hear me.”
“So you used your own body as a shield,” he said flatly.
She moved so that her left hand touched the spot over his heart where the mail was torn and covered with dried blood. “Had I not done so you would have died.”
“Yes, my love. You have saved my life. For what reason I do not know.”
“Because I love you, my Lion, because I have loved you from the first moment I saw you, because I shall always love you.”
By morning, Lyonene’s fever raged. Ranulf often had to hold her to keep her from tossing about the narrow cot.
“My lord, you will eat,” Hugo commanded his master, after two days of food hardly touched. “You do not help the girl any by your fast.”
Absently, the earl ate, never taking his eyes from his wife.
Ranulf had hours, long, painful hours to think about the girl who lay before him, her face red and hot with fever. How many times had she told him she loved him? And how often had he jeered at her for her avowals of love? He knew she was a woman of much pride, yet she had swallowed that pride to follow him after he had struck her and said he wished to cast her aside.
He dipped the cloth in warm water and wiped her forehead, touching her mouth gently. He remembered vividly the blood on her lips when he had struck her, and his stomach tightened in disgust and remorse.
She did not move, but lay there perfectly still, deathlike. He lifted the small hot hand to his lips. She had asked what she had to do to prove her love.
He had loved her once. No, he thought as he rubbed her hand against his cheek, he had loved her at once, from the first moment he had seen her, when she had stared up at him with sparkling green eyes. Why had he forgotten those first few days?
He remembered Giles and his first wife, Isabel, and it suddenly seemed so clear to him. Giles had been mad. He had willed his own death, using Ranulf as a means, and Ranulf had believed the boy over his wife’s words. Yet he had only to look and he would have seen the unnatural light in the boy’s eyes. Had not Lyonene seen pain in his eyes when they first met, the same pain as he was sure she had seen in Giles’s eyes?
He began to realize how much he had wronged her, and the pain and fever she bore now set more heavily upon him. She was no more like Isabel than he was like Geoffrey, and he had been wrong to compare them. Never had Isabel given him any avowal of love. She had given nothing but hate.
“She is the same?”
Ranulf had not heard Hugo enter the tent. “Aye, she is the same.”
“The men pray for her. They have already come to love her and admire her courage.”
Ranulf turned a black face to his man. “And what good does their love do her now that she lies so near death? Why did they not ‘love’ her in the thick of battle, when she must protect her husband with her own frail body? Why did not someone stop her from coming on this journey? Why—?”
He broke off as Hugo put a hand on his lord’s shoulder, and Ranulf buried his face in his hands, giving way to the tears long buried in his breast.
“Water.”
Ranulf sat still, his eyes half-closed, and did not hear the faint whisper. For five days he had not left the tent and he had eaten nothing in the last three. Now he was weak, his grief having worn him away.
“Water,” Lyonene repeated.
Ranulf jumped and stared with disbelief at his wife’s open eyes. It was seconds before he recovered himself enough to take her in his arms and lift a cool mug of water to her lips.
“I do not remember. Why am I here?”
He held her close to him, feeling his heart pounding. She would be well! “Hush now, love, do not speak. You took an arrow meant for me.” He blinked back tears and worked hard to keep from crushing her to him.
“You are unhurt?” she whispered.
Suddenly, he felt joyous because he’d have a lifetime to love her, to make her forget his anger and hostility. He pulled back and smiled at her. “Unhurt! I am more than unhurt! You have saved my life and I owe all to you. And you, my sweet Lioness, will be well. And now you will eat.”
She managed to smile at him. “And if I do not?”
He lifted one eyebrow at her. “I had not thought on it, but knowing your constant disobedience, I shall probably have to force you to eat.”
She put her hand on his. “I wish…” she said quietly. “Aye? What is it you wish?”
“This morn is different. It is as if we were at Lorancourt and you were the man I met and there were no more hate between us.”
“I would also that the hate was gone,” he said quietly. No other words he could have said would have meant more to her.
What followed were, for Lyonene, blissful days of learning to know her husband, of laughter, of surcease from the fear she had grown to feel.
“My lord!” Corbet shouted. “A messenger is come from King Edward to cry a tourney.”
“A tourney?” Lyonene said from her seat on the mossy bank. “It is safe? What of this man Rhys? If he wishes to take the king’s place, is it safe to be so near?”
“Rhys and his three sons were killed in the battle. His men will cause no more harm with no leader.” He stared down at her. “You would care to see the court and a tournament?”
“Oh yes, Ranulf, oh yes, I would much like to go.”
He knelt and put a hand on her shoulder. “Then we shall.” He turned to Corbet. “Tell the messenger that the Black Lion and his Black Guard challenge all.”
Corbet grinned. “We have done so, my lord.”
Ranulf’s face hardened, but before he could speak, Lyonene laughed. “It is good your men know their lord so well, is it not?”
He stared for a moment and then relaxed. “Aye, that it is. Go now and ready yourselves. We leave on the morrow.”
When they were alone, he turned to Lyonene. “You are well enough to travel? The wound does not plague you overmuch?”
“Nay, it does not.” She held up her hand for his and pulled him to sit down beside her. “Tell me about the court and the king and the queen and the other earls and—”
“You go too fast. Be still and I will tell you all I can about a round table.”
“A round table? As in King Arthur’s tales?”
“Aye, the name is the same but it describes three days of games, jousting and eating. Think you can survive the excitement?” His eyes twinkled.
She knew he teased. “Tell me of the queen, is she a great beauty?”
Ranulf laughed and began to talk of a life so familiar to him, so new and awesome to his wife.