The Shattered Rose Page 0,32

her typical brisk manner.

"Aline."

She stopped and turned.

"Is the child a girl or boy?"

"A girl. She's called Donata." Suddenly her lips quivered. "Don't hate her, Galeran."

Then she swung on her heel and went on her way.

Was it hate to wish a creature did not exist?

Galeran continued around the screen into the main part of the hall. He found his father in a chair, feet on a stool, nursing a cup of ale. Galeran took the other chair, gesturing for a servant to bring him food and drink.

"Rather late to be breaking your fast," said his father.

"I'd been three days without proper sleep."

"Ah." Lord William rubbed his bristly chin, and his dark eyes picked over Galeran like a starving gleaner. "You're thinner."

"Did anyone expect taking Jerusalem to be easy?"

"You've been months coming home with nothing to do but eat."

"Shipboard rations."

"I hear you lingered in Constantinople and Sicily."

"Foreign food," Galeran countered, rather enjoying bandying words with his father once again.

"Bruges is a fine city, and they eat honestly there."

"I wanted to be home." Galeran took ale, bread, and cheese and gave the serving wench a smile. It was the pretty, plump one. She smiled back, but a touch of pity in the grin turned it sour.

He turned back to his father. "So, tell me how England goes these days."

His father opened his mouth to object to the change of subject, but then clearly thought better of it. "Badly. Runts wants money, money, and more money, all to waste on his unnatural Mends. And now he's sent Ranulph Flambard up here to squeeze us dry."

"Raoul said he was Bishop of Durham. Does he still run England for the king?"

"Aye, the weasel" Lord William spat into the rushes. "I tell you, it doesn't sit easily to have him at my backside. He and I have had a run in or two already. It was Flambard's clever idea, or so they say, that the king leave bishoprics vacant and pocket the rents and tithes. Wish he'd kept to it. Now he's milking Northumbria dry with double and triple taxes on laymen and churchmen alike."

"At least you can't accuse him of favoritism." Galeran bit into the warm, crunchy bread, filled with a sudden gratitude for simple pleasures.

Surrounded as he was by the comforts of home - good bread, strong ale, and cluster of fine dogs - Rufus and Flambard could wait.

His father leaned forward to poke him. "It's a bad situation and getting worse, lad. No man's safe from the king's favorites. We've done well up here, being far from their activities, but now ..."

Galeran dragged his mind back to the practical. "Will anyone oppose Rufus and Flambard?"

"There's talk."

Galeran sighed. The last thing he needed was involvement with a rebellion.

"Talk won't stir anything."

"Probably as well," said Lord William, slouching back in his chair. "If anything happens to Rufus, the country'll be thrown to the wolves again, with his two brothers snarling over the Crown. God's breath, why couldn't he get some sons?"

Galeran raised a brow. Everyone knew why Rufus had no sons, had not even married.

"It's a simple enough matter," grumbled his father into his pot, "to sire a few male brats . . ."

Which wiped away amusement.

Lord William looked up and groaned. "I'm sorry, lad. But at least . . ." Then he thought better of what he had been about to say. "What are you going to do?"

They were no longer talking politics.

Galeran lounged back in the chair and Grua put her nose on his knee. He stroked her warm head. "What do you think I should do?"

"Hell's flames! Do you want to keep her?"

"Yes, if she wants to be kept."

"If she wants . . . ?" his father spluttered. "If you keep her, she should thank you on her knees daily!"

Galeran looked at him. "Can you imagine a decade or two of such bitter gratitude?"

His father fell silent. It was not so long since Galeran's mother had died, and all the world knew she and Lord William had been devoted. Mabelle of Brome had been steady as a rock and warm as a hearthstone, the loving heart of a rambunctious family. Galeran wished she were still alive.

Mabelle might have been able to see a way through this tangle.

Lord William eyed his son. "Perhaps it would be better, then, for you to put Jehanne aside. We'll find you a steadier wife. If Jehanne goes to a convent, we might be able to hold on to Heywood. . . ."

"If I break the marriage, I assume