Captive Rose by Miriam Minger Page B

Leicester, the grasping
Norman traitor who lusted for the English throne, while Guy fought for King
Henry alongside his son, Lord Edward.
    It was an irreparable rift that had ended their close
friendship. After the royalists lost the Battle of Lewes, King Henry became a
hostage while Edward and many of his knights, Guy among them, were imprisoned
in Kenilworth Castle.
    Guy felt his palms grow sweaty and a
tightness gather in his chest from just thinking about Kenilworth's
dungeon and the tiny windowless cell where he had been held captive for over a
year. All thanks to Roger Gervais . While Guy was left
to die in prison, Roger forcibly seized his lands in both Surrey and Wales.
Twenty odd Gervais knights took up residence in Warenne Castle, and one even became his wife Christine's
lover.
    Only after Lord Edward, Guy, and several other knights
who survived their long and brutal captivity escaped from Kenilworth Castle and
joined royalist forces at Evesham to defeat Simon de
Montfort was Guy able to win back his lands. Unfortunately Roger was not killed
in the battle, but captured alive. He was banished for a time and his estate
forfeited, but under the king's generous peace he, too, eventually regained his
family land, which bordered hard upon Guy's.
    Their friendship, however, could never be restored.
Roger's traitorous betrayal ran too deep.
    If anything, their hatred had intensified over the
years. Both had lost knights and men-at-arms during numerous confrontations
until King Henry had intervened, forbidding them to make war on each other. An
uneasy truce had hung between them since then, yet the hatred had remained,
ever kindled and ready to ignite at the slightest provocation.
    "Your silence tells me one thing, my lord,"
Eve said with a tremulous voice, drawing Guy back from his grim reverie. "Roger
is dead."
    "No," Guy stated flatly. "He lives."
At her cry of joy, at the sight of tears swimming in her eyes again, he knew he
did not have the heart to tell her of her son's treachery.
    "And he is well?"
    "Yes," he replied, wishing a bolt of
lightning would strike Roger at his castle on the Welsh border even as they
spoke of him.
    "Then you must take Leila to him!" Eve cried
passionately, clutching Guy's arm. "She belongs in her true homeland, not
here. I have prayed for a way to liberate her, but my pleas went unheard until
this night. Now you have answered them. You said it yourself, Lord de Warenne . You came here to take her with you." Her
voice was filled with wonderment, and now she looked at him as if she could not
quite believe he was real and standing before her. "If you had come a
moment later, I would have missed you. I was just about to leave for Governor Mawdud's palace to intercede for your life. But you are
here—"
    "You speak of liberating your daughter," Guy
interjected, growing more confused as he noted the richness of Eve's garments
and the glittering emerald necklace at her throat, "but you are not a
slave, and neither is Leila. Yet so she led me to believe."
    Eve waved her hand impatiently. "A ruse. It was
her father's way of protecting her. He told me as much, fearing you might use
her to escape if you knew her true station."
    Guy mulled over this revelation, seeing its truth. He
might have tried such a stunt indeed. Then another thought of even greater
import came to him.
    "When I arrived in Acre, I was told the zunnar was worn by any Christian living in Arab lands . . .
a good way for us to determine friend or foe. Leila wore such a garment when
she came to the prison. Was that also a ruse?"
    "No!" Eve said heatedly, clearly affronted by
his obvious misgivings. She stepped away from him and drew herself up proudly. "Hear
me well, my lord. When William was murdered—"
    "Murdered?"
    "Yes, before my eyes. Bedouin slave traders. They
brought me and my newborn babe to this city, and I was purchased by Sinjar Al-Aziz, who later became my husband. As a marriage
gift he offered me anything I wanted, yet I