The Black Lyon (Montgomery/Taggert 1)

“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 d

ipped 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?