The Black Lyon

day had offered her a truce—one that promised now to be shattered.
    Giles was insane, for surely no man could act as he had and have all his mind. She could see it now, see what she had so long ago overlooked. Melite had once said that Lyonene always took the runt of any litter and made it her own, be it pig, dog or, at times, people, and, as everyone laughed, she added that she usually succeeded in making the runt into a peacock.
    Giles was proof of her failure. She remembered the first time she had seen him, hiding in a corner, afraid of his own shadow, awed by his two handsome older brothers, awed by the lovely seven-year-old girl named for a lioness and adored by all. Lyonene had hardly looked at the two boys, but instantly sought out the puny, colorless Giles, his thin legs weak from lack of exercise.
    Sir John had protested when the two children, the same age but so incredibly different, had clasped hands and walked together outside into the April sunlight. Melite had stopped him, and they watched the children leave.
    Lyonene and Giles had spent much time together for the next ten years. She’d once heard Giles’s father protest that his son was no use at home anymore, and he’d stand and watch as the little girl would bully and badger the boy until Giles did what she wanted. That was what surprised Sir John the most, that she did not coax and plead as he would have thought. He himself had tried every way possible to get Giles to stay atop a horse, but he could not.
    “What do you mean you cannot ride a horse? I can!” the eight-year-old girl had bragged. “Now get on and cease whining!” She had little patience with his excuses, and before Sir John’s eyes, the boy blossomed into a healthy lad.
    Lyonene tried to focus on the present, to pull away from the memories, once so sweet but now lowered to the filth of the London streets. She could not, of course, have missed seeing some of the little things that had bothered her at the time, but she had not wanted to see them, remember them. There was the kitten that had scratched him. She shuddered and watched as one of the dogs nosed about in the rushes for the lost bones.
    More memories came to her: the lacerated flanks of a horse that had thrown Giles, the burned hand of a serf girl who had fallen into the fire when she tripped on Giles’s outstretched foot.
    She ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. But there was goodness, too, she thought, goodness that outweighed the few bad deeds. There was goodness enough that he was worth saving.
    The sound of a horse’s hoof on the stones outside made her stir herself to life. She rose slowly, like an old, tired woman, and looked toward the door. One of the Black Guard stood there; she could not remember his name.
    “My lady, you are well?” his voice was quiet and deep, and she remembered him as the quiet one who hardly spoke—Maularde.
    She nodded to him and somehow managed a sliver of a smile, but she saw he was not relieved or convinced of her peace. “I may help you?” The words struggled from her throat.
    “Aye, we need food. Where are the castlewomen?”
    She looked about her for the first time, amazed to see the solid walls, that life had gone on in the last hour. “I do not know. I will look to your food.” She started to the door with the guardsman following.
    The kitchen was away from the main dwellings to help prevent fires. The air was thick with smoke, but Lyonene did not notice, nor did she see the guardsman as he carefully scanned the deserted courtyard. She would have been interested in the way the man noted the lone serf, limping painfully, near the horses. The dark knight watched the man for a long while, thoughtfully, obviously considering some problem.
    Lyonene found one of the kitchen girls wrapped about a young boy, and her own problems came back to her vividly. She had an abstracted air as she sent the boy to help with the fire and set the girl to preparing food. Soon baskets were ready to be taken to the hungry men. Maularde had found more of the castle servants and soon a sheep was turning over on the fireplace spit.
    She helped Maularde load the wagons, and he did not protest when she climbed beside the driver as the guardsman mounted his horse. Lyonene wanted to occupy herself—anything to delay the time when she would need to make a decision as to Giles’s words.
    Over half the village was gone, and since the wall had been allowed to decay in places, she saw more