Chapter Twenty-One #5
“You fostered with de Royans?” Christopher said, unable to keep the awe out of his voice.
Lance didn’t reply right away. He simply averted his gaze from the de Lohr brothers, watching Addax comfort Essien and wishing that he’d had a brother he could turn to like that.
In fact, the sight of two sets of brothers standing before him did something to him.
The very thing he’d kept buried deep inside him, the very thing that had made him who, and what, he was, was starting to come forth, erupting like a volcano.
The hurt.
The anguish.
The lack of belonging.
“Aye,” he finally said. “I fostered with de Royans. I know that the two of you used to serve him. He was your teacher, your counselor. He mentored many of the great knights of your generation. I know of your relationship with him. The entire time I was at Bowes Castle, I heard of nothing else.”
Christopher and David looked at each other, puzzled. “I do not understand,” David said, his focus shifting back to Lance. “What do you mean that you heard of nothing else but my brother and me?”
Lance sighed sharply. “I was brought to Bowes Castle by my mother when I was very young,” he said.
“I am told that I was barely more than an infant, for I do not remember. My mother was a serving wench in a local tavern and my father was an elite knight. Unfortunately, my mother was married to another man at the time I was conceived, and this man would not accept me as his son, so I was given to Sir Juston’s wife, Lady Emera.
She is the one who raised me until de Royans took over my education.
She’s the only mother I remember, but she was not my real mother. ”
Christopher crouched down a few feet away. “Was your father one of de Royans’ knights?” he asked. “Is that how you ended up at Bowes?”
Lance nodded. “Aye,” he said, finally looking at Christopher. “You can ask de Royans if you do not believe me. He has seen eighty summers by now, but he is still alive the last I heard.”
Christopher shrugged. “I will not ask him anything,” he said. “But I am quite puzzled by this entire conversation. We did not come to discuss your past, but Eckington’s death and your role in it. Let us return to that subject, please.”
Lance didn’t want to hear that. Beaten and bruised, he struggled to his feet, though for him, it was an act of rage.
His entire body was quivering with anger, with disappointment, and he didn’t care that Christopher wanted to discuss something else.
He had something to say to Christopher and David and he was damn well going to say it. He’d waited a lifetime to say it.
He might never have another chance with the two of them, together.
“I will return to the subject after I say what I need to say,” he said, glaring at Christopher and David.
“Aye, I fostered with Juston de Royans because of my father, a de Royans knight. Because I was his bastard, I could not secure a decent enough position once I came of age. Even with de Royans’ connections, positions were difficult to come by because I did not bear my father’s name.
Therefore, I have spent my life as a bachelor knight, mostly.
I was a mercenary for a while, but the money was better on the tournament circuit.
I have been riding the circuit regularly for the past ten years, in England and in France, but a chance meeting with Harald de Efford in London saw me swear fealty to him.
I did it because he was a de Lohr ally, a neighbor.
I did it because Eckington is situated near Lioncross Abbey. ”
Christopher frowned. “What good would that do?” he said. “I do not know you.”
“But I know you,” Lance said, his eyes beginning to well up. “You are my uncle, my lord. You see, my mother’s name was Edie, and she was a serving wench at The Lion and the Lamb, a tavern north of Bowes Castle. My father’s name is David de Lohr. I am the result of their brief liaison.”
One could have heard a pin drop in that cold, stale cell.
Christopher stood up, making a conscious effort to close his gaping mouth, as he looked at his brother.
David, however, wasn’t showing as much restraint—the man looked as if he’d been struck on the side of the head with a club.
His eyes were wide, his jaw slack, and he ended up grasping the side of the cell to keep his balance.
Even Addax and Essien, back by the cell door, were looking at Lance in shock.
That, most definitely, wasn’t something they had expected to hear.
No one had.
Least of all David.
After several seconds of genuine shock, David came away from the cell wall and moved in front of his brother, so that he was looking at Lance head-on. Even though the man’s face was bruised from the beating he’d received, the features were nonetheless clear.
David stared at him, drinking it all in.
“You… you are Edie’s son?” he said, his voice full of astonishment.
Lance nodded. “And yours.”
That had David shaking his head in disbelief. He didn’t say anything right away. He simply stood there with his head wagging back and forth. When he finally spoke, it was in an anguished hiss.
“I do not mean to insult you, but how do you know?” he said. “Your mother… I was not the only man she was friendly with, I’m ashamed to say.”
Lance shrugged. “I do not remember her, so your words have no meaning to me,” he said.
“My birth name is Nathan Smith, as Edie’s husband was a smithy, but he knew I was not his son.
He is a dark-haired, dark-eyed man, and as you can see, I am not.
Edie gave me over to de Royans for safekeeping because her husband threatened to kill me.
It was de Royans who changed my name to Lance le Kerque.
But Nathan was a son of King David from the Bible, and that is why I bore that name at birth. Because you, David, were my father.”
David was swimming in a sea of denial, paddling frantically, but the truth was that he was starting to drown in the face of irrefutable evidence.
“Edie was blonde,” he said. “You are blond and I am blond, but that is not unusual coloring. It could be that you take after your mother and she simply lied that I was your father.”
“David,” Christopher said in a low voice. “Stop. He looks like you. He looks a good deal like Daniel. Surely you can see that.”
David could, but he wasn’t going down without a fight. Denial was turning to anger. “Very well,” he said. “Let’s say you are a de Lohr. What do you hope to gain by telling me? Do you wish to be another son of mine, entitled to an inheritance or money?”
Lance could hear the suspicion in his voice.
“Nay,” he said with a sigh. “I can see that this is not welcome news, but it is of no matter. I was hoping to find a family, a place where I belong, but I can see that is too much to ask. Mayhap you can simply give me my freedom from this cell and I will leave you in peace.”
Watching the scene, Christopher wasn’t hard pressed to admit that he was heartbroken by it all.
David was wallowing in shock, and Lance wasn’t going to press him.
A man, by his own admission, who had never had anyone or anything that belonged to him.
No family, no name. He’d told David with the hope of finding that family, but David wasn’t ready to give it. At least, not at the moment.
Perhaps they had to let it all sink in first.
Lance was a de Lohr.
“Lance, you have your freedom,” Christopher said. “You are free to leave the vault, but please do not leave Lioncross. Not yet. This is a complex situation that cannot be solved in a day. You must give us time to come to terms with it.”
Lance simply nodded. He was so disappointed that he was sick with it.
Yet another rejection. He didn’t know what he had expected, but he had hoped for a different outcome.
On unsteady feet, he walked past Christopher, past David, and came to the cell entry where Addax and Essien were standing.
With eyes that were dull with pain, he looked at the two brothers.
“I will take you to the man you seek,” he said. “You may ask him your questions, for I do not know more than what I have already told you.”
With that, he headed over to the stairs, taking them slowly with his beaten body. After what Addax and Essien had just heard, they didn’t push the man. Essien couldn’t even manage to still feel irritated with him. Clearly, Lance had been harboring his own secrets, a heavier burden than most.
They followed Lance up the stairs and into the sunshine beyond.