Chapter 6
Galeran realized that the steward was standing by patiently. This wasn't what he'd wanted to talk to Matthew about anyway.
It was hard to even speak the words, though. "And what of my son, Matthew? What do you know of how he died?"
The man cleared his throat and looked away.
"As to that, my lord, it was a great mystery.
A fine lad making his first steps..." The steward coughed, perhaps to hide a genuine lump in his throat.
"There wasn't even any screaming, if you know what I mean.
Lady Jehanne walked into the hall with the child in her arms and just said, 'He won't wake.
' Quite a few of us were in the hall, and we didn't know what to make of it at first, her being so calm.
Then she looked down at the little one again and said, 'I think he's dead,' in that same ordinary voice.
But then she said it louder. And then she started shaking. ..."
The man cleared his throat again. "Her women gathered and took the babe, but he was already cold. There was nothing to be done."
Galeran had his eyes closed and a pain in his chest that was likely to choke him. That simple telling revealed to him the depth of Jehanne's anguish.
And he had been so far away.
He had not even known.
If there was sense in the universe, he should have known.
He sent his mind hunting back. Gallot had died while Galeran had been on the way home, perhaps while he had been allowing the bath attendants of Constantinople to pamper his weary body.
He remembered being restless then. He'd arranged to return home in the party of the Duke of Normandy, but the duke traveled slowly, so slowly.
He remembered still having nightmares about Jerusalem, but try as he might, he could not remember any other shadow. He'd had no flash of awareness that thousands of miles away he had suffered a terrible loss.
His voice was husky when he said, "Did anyone decide what caused the death?"
"No one could, my lord." Hesitantly, Matthew added, "Of course, there were whispers of evil spells and such. You know the way folks are. And after that one outburst she... Lady Jehanne... became so calm. Just carried on as if nothing had happened."
"It was always her way, you know that, Matthew."
"Aye, my lord, but when a woman's lost her only child, it looks funny. And when there's been news that she's lost her husband too, it looks even worse...."
Galeran looked out over his land, fading to invisibility as darkness settled, but scattered with the fires of his father's army. Desperately, he wished he'd known his son, that he'd been here when all this had happened.
But if he'd been here, it might never have happened.
Could a woman's love—obsession—with a man cause her to connive at the murder of her child?
He turned his mind from torment to puzzles. "So, Gregory died and Lowick came here. That would be—what?—about two months after I left."
"Aye, lord."
"About the time Lady Jehanne found herself with child..."
He caught his breath.
Whose child?
All those years of toying and no babe, then miraculously, a babe. And later, another babe without great difficulty. Had Jehanne gone to Lowick as soon as she'd left Galeran in London? Or had she, even, been with child when she urged him to take the Cross?
No, he gathered his flailing mind. Gallot had been born almost an exact nine-month after that last night.
Hadn't he?
"Gallot's birthday was St. Stephen's Day, yes?" That was what Jehanne had told him in her letter.
"Yes, my lord, and a day we all remember. A right happy one."
Thank God for that. He could check later to see if Jehanne had come straight back to Heywood. She'd been with Lord William, her uncle Hubert, and ten men-at-arms, however, and accompanied by three women. It would have been a remarkable feat to arrange an assignation in that company.
"Sir Raymond was always a competent knight," Galeran said. "I assume he ran the castle affairs well."
"Aye, lord." But it was said grudgingly.
"Why the scowl?"
"He was a proud man and acted as if it were all his."
"Had he reason to?"
Matthew knew what Galeran was asking, and shook his head. "I don't think so, my lord."
A fragment of good news. "So, the next thing that happened was word of my supposed death."
"Aye, lord. A monk it was who'd heard news from Rome of deaths against the infidels, and counted you one of them. It was a night for tears, my lord." The man cleared his throat and looked away.
It was nice, Galeran supposed, to be mourned. "And within days Gallot was dead."
"Aye, lord."
Galeran was beginning to feel uneasy about the questions he was asking and the interpretation that could be put on them. He trusted Matthew, however. He was an honest, shrewd man who could hold his tongue.
"How did my wife react to the news of my death?"
The older man took his time in replying.
"You know the Lady Jehanne, Lord. She's never done what anyone expected.
The news hit her, that's for certain. She asked the monk a great many questions and was clearly upset.
But then she regained her spirits and said she'd not believe it unless she had proof.
After that she seemed to put the matter out of her mind, apart from the fact that she prayed more than usual.
I remember Sir Raymond talking to her, trying to make her accept the news, but she shrugged it off.
Turned quite sharpish with him, in fact.
He did persuade her to go to your father about it, but I don't know what happened there.
She came back as if nothing were amiss, so we all took her lead.
None of us wanted to think you dead, my lord. "
"Thank you."
"But after that," added Matthew, "Sir Raymond grew bolder. I think he truly thought the place was his for the taking."
"And then Gallot died."
"Aye, Lord. And the lady changed."
"So I would hope."
Galeran wanted to ask whether Jehanne had truly taken Lowick as her lover, but of course she had.
He wanted to ask whether she had truly taken him to her bed within days of the news of her husband's possible death, and the certain death of her son. But she had done that too, or she could not have born a babe a nine-month later.
Why?
Why?
Why?
It was, he discovered, not something he could talk about yet, not even with Matthew. So he asked another question. "Matthew, tell me honestly, what do you think caused my son's death?"
"The honest truth, my lord, is that I don't know. I'm no believer in spells and wizardry, but something like that is the only explanation."
"Such things do not exist."
"Miracles do, my lord."
"Perhaps."
"Then why not works of the devil?"
Galeran sighed. "An excellent question."
"One thing I do know, Lord."
"What?"
"It would have been better if Lady Jehanne had taken to her bed with grief alone instead of with Sir Raymond."
Galeran didn't want to know more, but the man continued doggedly. "The very day the babe was buried, she slept the night with Lord Raymond, and all knew it."
Galeran turned away, blocking talk he could not yet bear. "Where is Gallot buried?"
"In the churchyard, near the wall, lord. There's a stone."
Galeran waved the man away and stayed on the battlements for a while, his mind wandering aimlessly in random patterns over his shattered life. It did no good, however, and so he went and prayed by the stone that marked the brief life of his child.
Someone had planted a rosebush there, but it was young and feeble yet. However it, unlike his son, would grow.
Galeran spent an hour in the darkening garden seeking the spirit that was his flesh and blood but finding nothing.
He forced himself to leave the small grave and to return to the solar.
He'd prayed and thought through most of the last night, and when he'd slept he had been cramped in the open air.
It would be foolishness to do it again when he needed strength and wits to cope with all his problems.
All the same, he was reluctant to face the chamber he'd shared with Jehanne. He wasn't sure he could sleep there with the memories of past pleasures for company, but he couldn't face the talk he'd cause by sleeping anywhere else.
Jehanne and her closest ladies would be sleeping in the smaller room with the babe. He could summon her....
No. On top of all the other reasons, exhaustion had swamped lust.
He stripped off his clothes and settled into the bed.
He almost leaped out again. The feel of the mattress and sheets, the smell of fresh air and herbs, all carried him straight back to this bed before he left.
With a groan he rolled over and buried his head in his arms. He'd convinced himself that it was God's will he take the cross, that it was God's will that he leave England, home, and wife. But if this situation was God's will, then the deity had a very nasty sense of humor.
* * *
Galeran woke rested, but heavy with too much sleep. The angle of light on his closed eyelids and the noises rising from the bailey all told him it was late in the morning and he should be up. He was in no hurry to open his eyes and stir, though. To rise was to face myriad problems.
He didn't want to go back to sleep either, for his dreams—though scarce remembered—had not been pleasant.
He'd been back in Jerusalem at one point, with Jehanne by his side.
There'd been a child crying, but always too far away to be reached, too far away to be saved from German knights and a river of blood.
Even the thought of those dreams was unbearable, so he opened his eyes...
... to see Jehanne sitting cross-legged on his bed, watching him.
She wore just a delicate silk kirtle and her hair hung long and loose around her, some wisps stirred gently by the summer breeze.
His heart began to pound as his body tightened and swelled. "Have you bewitched your guards?"
"I convinced them I was as secure in here as in the next room. A guard is outside the door."
"They might have given thought to my neck."