Branches whipped his sun-tanned skin, his horse broke into a sweat and he felt its muscles pull beneath his legs. There was only one thing on his mind, his Isabella. She was sick, the thought had rolled around inside his head like a backgammon die as he worked, harder than usual for the chance of an extra coin. For he knew that an extra coin could be the difference between the doctors mercy and death. And her death he could not deal with, she was the only thing that kept him there instead of moving to a bigger town were the pay may be less but the cost of living little expense. So when he found her, he red stained lips and pale, clammy skin, he knew he had to go, even if the extra pay he had prayed for had not come.
And so he rode.
The beautiful blue sky he had not taken notice of was now a dead hearted grey. The rain fell so thick it chilled him to his core as it washed away the days worth of work and sweat off his body and poured down the sides of the uneven cobble stone roads in muddy rivers.
He paid no mind to the help as he brushed past the door. When he handed him her silver cross, we he saw the answer on his fat, greedy face was no, he wasn't even sure if it was anger he felt pulse through his veins, but desperation. When he felt the other mans neck snap against the mahogany table, he was sure it was not success that crowded his mind, but regret, fallowed by a panic a thousand dogs on his heels wouldn't have ignited.
And so he rode.
Faster if possible he pushed his horse through the rain, past the town, and into the hillside. Though he clung to the saddle as if the devil himself would reach out and pull him down to hell, he knew that if Isabella were okay, god would find a way to fix his now shattered life. But as he ran to her side and saw the life drained out of her now dead eyes, as he clutched her cross, as he prayed for her, even god could not mend the pain in his heart. He didn't struggle as they took him away, for at least the ride to town in a carriage would be more pleasurable than ridding horseback.
He sat on the cold stone floor, his eyes miles away. He was not afraid when they came to take him away, for a life without her seemed unbearably cold, but when death has chilled the fingertips of those around it, the cold is something impossible to avoid.