Page 117 of Bold Angel
Ral’s arm snaked out across the table, scattering platters of leftover food, empty wine goblets, and overturned drinking horns. He reached for one of the latter, held it upright and extended it to Richard. “See it filled for me.”
Richard hesitated a moment, then motioned toward the page half-dozing in a corner. “Bring the wineskin. Lord Ral would have more.”
Leo scurried forward, filled the horn, thenbacked away. Ral downed the contents and held out the horn for more, which Leo reluctantly poured.
“He is ever like this since Lady Caryn is gone,” Leo whispered to Richard.
“Aye,” he agreed with a grimace. “Soon he will sleep as soundly as the others and I will have some of the men see him up to his bed.”
“I do not believe what they say of Lady Caryn. I do not believe she would ever betray her husband.”
Neither did Richard nor Ambra nor at least a half-dozen others, yet Caryn herself had said it was so. Richard turned away from the pitiful sight Lord Ral made, his dark head lying once more among the litter on the table. Standing in the shadows a few feet away, Marta watched him and worriedly shook her head.
For six full days he had been drinking, his movements jerky and out of control, his voice slurred, his commands barely coherent.
The pain was too great, Richard knew, the hurt too deep, too raw for him to bear. Richard understood that pain as no one else in the castle. If the woman had been Ambra, if she had turned to another, if she had betrayed him—he was not certain that he could go on.
“I will see he gets upstairs.” That from Odo, who looked as grim-faced and worried as he and the others. Along with Girart and several of the men, they lifted the huge man who was their lord and carried him up the steep stone stairs.
It was no small task that was fast becoming a nightly chore.
Richard watched the men until they disappeared down the passage, then wearily set out for his chamber. He would find succor in his young wife’s welcoming arms. Lord Ral would find only an empty bed and a hellish night of bitter memories.
Richard wondered if Caryn’s nights passed anywhere near the same.
***
For the first few days they left her alone. To meditate, they said, to pray for God’s forgiveness. She had spent the time in bitter isolation, unwilling to leave her cell, sick inside and unable to swallow a mouthful of the dismal convent food.
Then early one morning, her tortured sleep was ended by the sound of someone entering her cell. Fatigued from her fitful rest, Caryn slowly opened her eyes, her heart beating dully.
At the foot of her pallet, she recognized the outline of a girl in a tunic the same brown woolen as her own and knew in an instant that the girl was her sister. Caryn sat up rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
“Hello, Gweneth,” she said softly. Even in the darkness, she could see her sister smile. The black-haired girl knelt beside her and Caryn took her hand. “You should not be up so early.” But there was no censure in her voice.
She had avoided her sister on purpose, been unable to look into those guileless blue eyes for fear of what her sister would see in her own.
Gweneth did not understand that Caryn was her sister, yet there was a sense of recognition, a glow of warmth for someone she knew as a friend. Though she had not spoken since the day of her accident, she felt great empathy for the people around her, sharing their joy, their pain, their happiness, or their sorrow. Gweneth seemed to blossom with goodness, so much so there wasn’t room for anything else.
In the shadows above them, sunlight crested the high barred window in the small narrow room, slanting down, warming the lumpy pallet Caryn sat on.
“The sun comes up,” she said needlessly, for already Gweneth tugged her hand, urging her up from the floor. Pulling on her woolen tunic, she followed her sister’s lead, letting Gweneth guide her down the hall and outthe door. The lovely girl led her to the garden where she had planted a patch of marigolds. Gweneth pointed to the sun and then to the beautiful yellow flowers.
“Aye, they are like tiny suns,” Caryn said. Plucking one, she slid the stem behind Gweneth’s ear. In back of them a familiar voice called out her name and Caryn turned to see her friend, Sister Beatrice, smiling and waving in their direction. Caryn and Gweneth waved, too. Lifting her skirts up out of the way, her sister raced back toward their friend at the door of the convent, but Caryn did not follow.
Instead she glanced down at the patch of bright yellow flowers. She was glad the marigolds brought sunshine and joy to her sister. For herself, the sun had gone out of her life the instant that she had lost Ral. From that moment on, though the warm yellow rays continued to beat down, her insides felt cold and she seemed to exist in darkness.
She wondered if ever the sun would warm her again.
***
“I tell you something is wrong!” Odo paced in front of the desk in the solar while Ral poured over the Braxston ledgers.
“What? What could be wrong? ’Tis not as though she has denied it.”
“It matters not what she has or has not said. I still say something is not as it seems.”
“Leave off, Odo. I tire of this foolishness. You make me wish to forget we are friends.” Ral had finally roused himself from his week-long drunken stupor. It had helped him dodge the pain for a time, but unless he climbed into the wine flagon, he could not avoid it forever.
