“All my work is my finest. What is your desire?”
Both men stared at one another, both unsmiling but understanding the other.
“I would have a belt, a very special belt. It is to be of your purest gold and your finest wire. There are to be lions—a lion and his lioness, and there are to be scenes in the manner of lions hunting together, at the kill…” Ranulf stopped, feeling embarrassment before this solemn little man.
“I understand. Now what of colors?”
“The male lion is to be enameled in the blackest of black and in the gold eye is to be a black pearl. The lioness…” Ranulf closed his eyes for a second in delicious memory. “The lioness is to be the true tawny gold of a lioness, and the eye is to be set with an emerald.” Ranulf paused, remembering Lyonene’s emerald eyes. “It is to be links, each link containing a scene, and no longer than my finger to the first joint, no wider than my thumb. Can you do such delicate work?”
“If I am paid enough gold, I can do anything.”
Ranulf stiffened. “There will be gold aplenty.”
“What size is the lady? How many links?”
Ranulf was puzzled. He held up his hands, forming a circle. “I can span her waist with my hands.”
The jeweler made some mental notes. “Ten and five lengths. Now the clasp. Of what is it to be made?”
Ranulf considered for a moment. “A black pearl and an emerald.” They talked for a few moments of price and set a date to have the completed piece. He returned to the inn satisfied. Geoffrey had spent the day in a more leisurely fashion and was now ready to leave. The two brothers prepared to leave. Geoffrey parted from his brother to return to his duties as squire to Sir Tompkin.
It took two long, grueling days to reach Malvoisin, and Ranulf again marveled at the even, gray stone walls as they towered before him. He and his men made their way through the west barbican into the outer bailey amid cheers and hallos from the many castlefolk. They dismounted as they entered the maze wall that protected the private inner bailey. His steward, chief falconer, master cook and head stableman lived with their families in the apartments in the quiet inner bailey.
The Black Guard went to their own abode while Ranulf made his way to Black Hall.
For the entire time he was at Malvoisin it rained, and although he judged many cases in the hundred court, too often the people could not venture out in the deep mud.
The rain kept him inside the stone walls of Black Hall. A few times he had joined his men, but they had their own women and were content. He was anxious, and the constant pounding of the rain made him more so
.
He sat before the fire, another cup of strong wine in his hand. The house was silent, for it was late and the servants abed. He tried to remember the two days he had spent at Lorancourt but could not grasp a clear picture. Too long he had had no reason for laughter, too many years he had been haunted by the words of a dying woman.
A flash of lightning lit the room briefly. It had been raining that night, too. She, the woman who was called his wife, had come home late, the little three-year-old Leah, her daughter, trying hard to keep pace with her mother.
He had been married to her for three years and had never once bedded her. At first he had been awed by her, green young boy that he was and she years older. She’d laughed and said Ranulf might love her when he was worthy of her, when he had become the strongest knight in all of England.
Men thought he trained now, but in those days he had rarely slept or eaten, so determined was he to please his wife. He had not protested when he knew a child was to be born, and later the little girl had been a joy to him, a balm against his evil, adulterous wife.
By the time he realized she slept with other men—many other men—he was too attached to Leah to think of sending the child’s mother away.
Ranulf stood and walked closer to the fire, his head on his hands against the stone mantel. He had not thought she hated him enough to kill the little girl he’d grown to love.
When they’d returned home on that wet night, there had been a triumphant look on Isabel’s face as she’d watched Ranulf lift the shivering child. He never left Leah’s side during the three days that the fever consumed her. It was only after her death that he had heard of his wife’s illness, that she too lay on her deathbed.
Her horrible dying words came to him. “I am glad she is dead, because I am dying also and I would take all from you that I could. I loved a man once, Leah’s father, but he was poor and my father would not have him. You were there with all your riches and all your men, and you took away the one I loved. Do you think I could ever bear your black ugliness, that any woman could? No, Ranulf de Warbrooke, no woman will ever love aught about you but your fine furs and gold cups. Go now and get a priest and never let me need to look on your devil’s blackness again.”
He crumbled the silver cup he held, jewels flying about the room, blood-red wine covering his hand. He should not have betrothed himself again! There were too many likenesses between this marriage and the other—a father eager to have an earl for a son, a girl… He sat down again.
No, there were no similarities between Isabel and Lyonene. But what of this young girl? She had seemed to feel the same for him as he for her, yet he had never felt so for another. For what he knew, she could have treated many men before him with the same eagerness, the same desire.
The storm grew worse and his temper with it. It seemed that his every memory of his betrothed pointed to some falseness, some deceit.
Hodder found his master asleep in the solar the next morn, and when he was awakened, the blackness of his mood matched his coloring. The thin valet watched his lord grow steadily worse in temper each day, eating little, drinking over much, remaining unwashed, unshaven.
The rain continued, wetting everything, seeping into crevices and dulling moods. It was with joy that Corbet greeted the sun on the day they were to leave for Lorancourt. The seven men were ready and waiting in the courtyard for their master, but he did not come.
Hugo Fitz Waren, oldest of the Black Guard, sought him out.