The overly gaudy, exquisitely tooled, and finely gilded doors were pulled open to the roar of trumpets announcing his arrival. Brash as ever, the man in the black mantle with the large silver broach just over his thick shoulder boldly strode into the Queen's court. "Count Tomas of Aquee!" shouted the portly and balding herald, emphasizing the name with a hefty thump of his bronze tipped staff upon the ancient marble of the great hall. The old portly man had to lumber indignantly to place himself in front of the young man with the curling black locks and devilishly green eyes, to lead the Count and his entourage towards the raised dais at the far end of the expanse of marble for formal introduction to her majesty.
Aquee, moved like an alpha wolf entering the den. His every stride spoke of hidden power beneath his cloak and tight black leggings. The heels of his boots, more fit for the field than for marble floors clicked irrepressibly upon the marble in the silence of the hall. He refused to allow himself to smile, keeping his face as cold and solid as the stone of the hall. With a wave of his exposed fist that clenched his black leather gloves, he drove a scurrying servant and his tray of wine from his path, as surely as if he had struck the man fully on the jaw. As if nothing could stand in his way. Beneath the folds of his cloak, his left fingers played with his metallic gift for the Queen.
He could feel the prickly burn of a hundred eyes upon him as he strode on, nearly running down the chubby herald in his impatience. He could feel their envy, perhaps even their fear? The corner of his lip curled briefly at this thought. The stuffiness of the room, its air thick with hardly pumping blue blood, at some level appalled him, and at another fed his vanity like brimstone to fiery pit, in everlasting symbiosis. 'Yes, Tomas, at long last you have arrived,' he thought bemused to himself, nearly treading on the herald's brown robe trim.
One of the pairs of eyes that watched Aquee crossing the hall came from a pair of old brown eyes. "Your, Grace?" Jezzina's young voice hissed in a whisper. The duke's hand had stopped its delightful, unseen ascent beneath the table and her skirts the moment the announcement of this stranger was made. As the black clad man crossed the floor, like a lion across his own savannah, the duke had just locked his eyes upon him and made no other move. She had never experienced this before, never in all her two years at court had Arnulf of Guisson allowed a simple introduction to halt his relentless attacks upon her willing flesh.
This new black man was worth looking at, Jezzina had to admit. Young, and by the look of his shoulders and the rippling of his thighs in his hose, he had to fit as an ox. There was the hint of violence and danger about him as he boldly strode towards the throne, as if he was at the head of invincible, conquering army. Though his small entourage consisted of but three men, one looking no better than a blind beggar, and but two young women that followed with their eyes downcast to the floor.
"Shh!" his grace Arnulf, Duke of Guisson hissed silently. Jerking his hand from the inside of Jezzina's thigh cruelly, her bunched up skirts rustled almost loudly in the still hall as they fell back into a rumpled modesty. Jezzina turned her face away from Arnulf, her sweet young cheeks flooding to a rosy pink, knowing she should never have opened her mouth. A lump of fear began t creep into her throat.
