He gave her a startled look and seemed amused by her question. “If you but knew…” he began and then stopped. “Aye, you pleased me exceedingly well and I fear you have taken all my strength,” he added as he saw her eyelids flicker in weariness. She was asleep almost before he finished speaking. In spite of his satiety, his tiredness, he watched her for a moment, curled against him, looking even younger than her few years. His passion was spent, and he remembered the day. He rolled from her and slept, his dreams troubled.
In spite of the passion of the night, the morrow brought no respite from the pain between Ranulf and Lyonene. Giles’s death hung over them, as did the boy’s accusations. They crossed the ferry onto the Isle of Malvoisin, and for awhile Lyonene’s thoughts were overcome by the beauty and massive strength of the enormous castle complex. Black Hall was a stone house, furnished as she had never seen before, with the new tapestries Queen Eleanora had brought from Castile and windows covered with leaded panes of glass. She saw Ranulf’s pride in his house, which she would have shared if he had but given her some cause to feel that she was wanted, that he did not always regret his marriage to a baron’s daughter.
In her loneliness, for Ranulf was nearly always gone, she sought to busy herself in the intricate workings of the castle.
“What is this you do while I am gone?” he demanded one evening as he threw his wet tabard to Hodder. “William de Bec says you interfere with the running of my castle.”
Her eyes flashed at him.
“All of Malvoisin has been under my steward’s care for many years. He is a freeman and I would give him no cause for complaint.”
Lyonene straightened her back, meeting the anger in his black eyes. “Excuse my impertinence, my lord, I but wished to be useful. Pray tell what I am to do here each day if I cannot have a hand in ordering what is reputed to be my own home. I am not accustomed to being idle.”
His face was cold, the expression ungiving. “Mayhaps William can find some gold for you to count. You have earned that pleasure.” His eyes looked meaningfully to the bed where they shared their only moments of happiness.
Lyonene stared at him wildly, suddenly feeling dirty and despicable. She ran from the room, finding the hall blocked by Lucy’s massive form. She turned and ran to a small door that led to the tower in the back of Black Hall. The darkness inside the tower was absolute and she unseeingly made her way up the cold stairs. The room at the top was filled with light, blinding her. She touched her cheek and realized then how wet her face was.
“My child,” a man’s voice said. “Come and sit here.” A fat man, tonsured, in monk’s garb, put his arm about her shoulders. He led her to a crude wooden chair by a charcoal brazier. “Sit down and drink this.” He handed her a pewter flagon of dark wine. “I am Brother Jonathan,” he said to Lyonene’s silent form. “And you are the lovely Lady Lyonene, Lord Ranulf’s bride.”
The tears started afresh.
“Come now,” he said. “Married not a month and already such a quarrel?”
Lyonene gulped the wine, choking but needing the warmth. Brother Jonathan patted her arm. “Te
ll me of it. I am a good listener.”
“I cannot,” she managed to gasp.
He was quiet a moment and then said quietly, “I have heard that yours was a love match, that you loved one another from your first sight.”
Lyonene tried hard to remember those first two days with Ranulf. “Aye,” she whispered, staring at the fire, thinking of the time he had held the longbow for her.
“But something has happened since then? Something has caused you to lose sight of your love?”
“Aye, it has.”
Brother Jonathan smiled and wondered what slight incident could have caused the break. Probably Ranulf’s jealousy, he thought. Ever since his first wife he could not abide anyone touching what was his, be it his horse, his home, his men or, he imagined, his woman. “I have known Lord Ranulf since he was a boy and he has reason to … to be somewhat intolerant. Tell me, do you still love him? You cannot have stopped so soon, not if it were a true love.”
Lyonene blinked her blurred eyes. “I … do not know. He has changed so. When I met him he smiled and laughed with me, now he does but glower and at times he frightens me. I have tried to explain about Giles but he does not listen.”
So! Jonathan thought, it was another man, probably someone who dared to look upon Ranulf’s wife. He smiled patiently. “Lord Ranulf is not a cruel man, but he sometimes cannot reason about some things. He is a gentle man under his harshness. Did you not once see that?”
“Yes.” She began to smile and some of the memory of Ranulf came back more clearly, blocking the time after their wedding night.
“Good, then.” The monk smiled. “It is up to you.”
“Me? But how may I change him? I can do naught that pleases him.”
Jonathan blinked. That is not what he’d heard from the servants’ gossip. “You must prove to him that you love him. You must do whatever you can to prove to him that you care for him.”
“Aye,” Lyonene whispered. “I must show him.” She set the empty mug down. “I will prove to him that I am not as he thinks. Somehow I will find a way. Thank you, Brother Jonathan.”
She left the room, and the monk sat blinking for a moment before refilling his cup and taking her chair. Ah, the young, such tiny problems they had in the world. He wondered again what had caused Lyonene’s distress. Probably a spat over a new dress, or mayhaps not that serious.
Ranulf did not return to Black Hall that night, and Lyonene lay quietly in the big bed, staring upward, unseeing. She felt that it had all been her fault, that her husband hated her for something that she had done. She thought of Brother Jonathan’s words and she made a vow that someday she would prove to Ranulf that her love for him was true, that she loved no man but him.
In the morning she went to the south of the isle to see to the welfare of the serfs there. Sir Bradford, one of the youngest garrison knights, joined her for the ride back to the castle.