you thought that it might be a shock, you just showing up at your gate?"
Galeran looked sideways. "Oh, is that it? You want me to stop at Brome and send a polite message to warn Jehanne to air the mattress?"
"It might be a - "
"No."
Raoul shrugged with a rattle of mail. "So be it, but if your wife falls into a dead faint at your feet, don't blame me."
"Jehanne never faints."
"The Lady Jehanne has probably never had a husband turn up from nowhere before. You should have written from Bruges."
"What point, when a letter would travel no faster than I?"
"When did you last write? Will she have any idea to expect you?"
"Before Jerusalem." And Galeran kicked the dun up to speed before his startled friend could ask more questions.
He'd written regularly on the way out, sending letters from Rome, Cyprus, and Antioch. After the horrors of Jerusalem, however, he'd not been able to write anything to anyone. He'd concentrated blindly on getting home.
Without Raoul's help he might not have made it, and in order to keep going he had blocked out all thought except his goal.
Heywood, Jehanne, and his son.
It hadn't occurred to him until now that for Jehanne there would have been a silence of over a year. In a way, he'd expected her to know where he was and what he was doing without being told.
But Jehanne wouldn't faint. She hadn't fainted when told she had to marry him. She hadn't fainted when they'd been attacked by brigands and one of her attendants had died before her eyes. Those were probably the two most shocking events in her life.
Then he remembered the boar.
But she hadn't fainted then, either.
They'd been in the woods making love. Yes, making love - for in those early days it had seemed to him that each joyous coupling had added love to the world.
Jehanne had liked to make love in the open. She found me idea of someone interrupting them exciting rather than embarrassing. A boar, however, was rather more than either of them had counted on, and it came upon them at a miserable time.
Jehanne was on top and Galeran was close to release. Then she was gone, and when Galeran gathered together the scraps of his shattered mind, he found her straddled over him, his heavy sword in her small hands. "Hell's flames, Galeran. Get your brain out of your cock and kill the beast! Or do I have to do it myself?"
There'd been many a time when he'd wished he'd said "Go ahead" and watched her have to beg.
She wouldn't have begged, though.
Jehanne never begged.
She'd have tried. She might even have succeeded. Jehanne was tall for a woman, which had not best pleased him as a youth. Though slender, she was strong. Of course, she wouldn't have been able to kill a boar with a swords - that was a difficult feat for a skillful man - but she would have tried.
Perhaps the boar knew it. Unusually for that animal, it had backed away and fled, perhaps dismayed by the tall, white-skinned, pale-haired woman snarling at it, sword in hand.
Galeran had dissolved into laughter, and the next he knew, Jehanne was back, driving him into another, more wonderful dissolution.
A form of dissolution he longed to experience once again.
No. Not just once . . .
He urged his mount to greater speed, wondering if their marriage would be as if he had never left.
Or better?
He knew he'd changed while away. He'd been twenty-two when he'd taken the cross, and had generally led a pleasant life. Now, at twenty-five, he was leaner, harder, and callused on body and soul. He'd seen marvels to strengthen his faith, and horrors to sour it.
Jehanne must have changed too.
Perhaps she would have plumped up after having a child. He'd always admired her slender elegance, but bigger breasts and a cozy armful might be good too.
Jehanne in any form would be good.
Raoul was right; he should have sent warning from Bruges. He should stop and send warning today.
He wouldn't, though.
With an anticipatory grin, Galeran realized he wanted to surprise her. He wanted to catch his cool wife in her working clothes, skirt kirtled up, her fine hair escaping its braids as it always did. He wanted her to look up and gape with shock, then flush with joy.
Jehanne didn't like to be caught unawares, so every now and then he liked to do it. Like when he gave her the rose . . .