The Shattered Rose Page 0,5

his face.

"My Lord Galeran!"

"It's Lord Galeran."

"It's the lord of Heywood."

The words whispered about him strangely.

Shocked.

Disbelieving.

Horrified.

Then his father pushed through the crowd, still massive and ruddy-faced, but grayer than Galeran remembered. "Galeran! Is it you? Christ be praised! We thought you dead."

A groom had run to hold Galeran's bridle. His father almost dragged him from the horse into a rib-crushing, back-pounding hug. "Welcome home! Welcome home! We thought you dead! Praise be to God. Praise be to God!"

Galeran tore from the embrace. "Who holds my castle?"

Silence fell.

Joy drained from Lord William's heavy features. "You'd best come in the tent, lad."

Galeran realized then that he was surrounded by brothers and uncles, and that none of them was truly meeting his eyes.

Jehanne.

She was dead.

The conviction grew in him like a sickness, dizzying him, making him want to vomit. He let himself be steered into the tent, aware of his family cramming in behind, but with eyes only for his father. "Jehanne?"

Lord William poured wine into a goblet and held it out. "Drink."

Galeran almost dashed it from his hand. "Where is she? "

His father placed the goblet on a small table between them. "In the castle."

Galeran almost collapsed with relief. A prisoner only. Thank God, thank God "Who holds her?"

There was something like a snort from his uncle Thomas. "That's a good question."

Galeran stared around, alerted by tone more than words. It was only when his younger brother, Gilbert, stepped back, hands raised, that he realized he still had his sword in his hand. He lowered it slowly and just as slowly sheathed it. "What is going on?"

"I'm sorry," said his father. "It's not good. Your wife has installed Raymond of Lowick as master of Heywood. Since she refused to send him away, we've come to insist on it."

Just then the tent flap was swept back and another big man entered - Galeran's oldest brother, Will. His whole bloody family was here.

"Little brother! You're a sight for my eyes, though this is a hell of a situation to come home to."

Since he couldn't avoid the fierce hug, Galeran endured it. It gave him time to think anyway, to have things settle about him.

Jehanne and Raymond of Lowick.

No. He couldn't believe it. Certainly Lowick had been her father's squire, and she'd fancied herself in love with the handsome young knight he'd become, but that had been years ago. . . .

When he was free of Will's hug, he turned to his father. "I thought Lowick married in Nottinghamshire."

"His wife died childless and he ended up with little of her property. Around that time your seneschal took a fever and died. Next I knew, your wife had taken him on here."

The air was like gall, but Galeran had to keep breathing. "That is her right.

I left her with control of Heywood. Lowick was always a sound knight."

Lord William's jaw worked side to side as it always did when he didn't want to say something. The silence stretched until blunt Will revealed the truth. "Just over a month ago, your wife bore Mm a child."

Lord William picked up the goblet and pressed it into Galeran's hands.

"Drink."

Galeran drained the cup in a haze of disbelief. Had he fallen from his horse and lost his wits? Was he, God forbid, still lying raving by the walls of Jerusalem?

"We heard you were dead." Lord William's voice seemed far away. "Near a year ago word came that you'd fallen in the taking of Jerusalem. It wasn't much to go on, and none of us took it as a settled thing, but it did set off a fine debate about Jehanne's future. Who would hold Heywood. Who would have guardianship of the babe. . . ."

Another silence fell, and Galeran stared at the solid tent pole. One thing at a time. Don't think about Jehanne with another man. Don't think about her squandering her hard-won fertility to produce a "bastard.

"By what right does she refuse you admittance?"

"By no right," growled his father. "She just knows - -they both know - that it will go hard with them when I'm in there."

One thing at a time.

Galeran placed the goblet back on the table. "It will go with them as I say."

He turned and walked out of the tent, aware of his father and brothers following, of the eyes of all the camp on him. He didn't even try to look at Raoul.

All his rapturous praise of Jehanne was ashes, and yet...

And yet.

She'd thought him dead. There was a grain of comfort in