A Knight's Vow Read online

  “My lord is ever kind,” Alyson responded stiffly. “As are you, sir, for carrying it to me yourself.” She took the goblet from him, making great play of inhaling the steaming beverage. “I love the smell of warm spices.” Which was true, although the reason she sniffed so heartily was to catch any trace of something unwholesome in the mixture. Alyson had not forgotten Fulk’s accusation of poison against Gytha.

  Nor it seemed had Fulk. He took a step closer to her. “I swear that it is safe.”

  The very fact he did not add “my lady” convinced Alyson, that and the flush that tided up into his gaunt face, submerging the angry red spots on his sallow cheeks beneath a rush of shame.

  I have wronged you”

  His words were almost indistinct, yet his gesture was plain. Much to Alyson’s embarrassment he fell on his knees before her, his hands reaching in supplication for the hem of her gown. “Forgive me. For my pride, my arrogance, my malice. I have sinned against a purely virtuous lady and now I see my error. Forgive!”

  He was clutching at her skirts, his hard blue eyes wide in seeming distress. But why the change of heart? Had Guillelm spoken to the man?

  Almost as if he had divined her thought, Fulk prattled on. “Please, my lord knows nothing of my trick against you at the house of Thomas of Beresford. I beg you not to speak of it to him.”

  Sickened by his admission, Alyson yanked her gown from his clasping fingers. “I am no telltale.”

  “No, you are a mate worthy of my lord. I understand that”

  Alyson sniffed the wine again and tasted it. “I think less cinnamon next time.” She rippled her fingers at Fulk. “Rise, sir, or you will be the one to catch your death of cold.

  “Tell me,” she said, when Fulk was on his feet. “How did you arrive at your revised conclusion?”

  “You speak like a master of logic, my lady-“

  “And you put pig’s guts into my bed. Answer the question.”

  Fulk scowled, clearly put out by her directness. “I was not myself that night,” he muttered. “Too much wine.”

  It was the nearest, Alyson sensed, that he would come to an explanation or apology. “Go on,” she said, sipping her wine.

  Fulk stared at the altar candles. “Guillelm is happy.”

  “Your lord’s joy is important to you, then? Even if it means a different destiny from the one you wanted for him?” Waiting for Fulk’s reply, Alyson found herself looking at the altar, with its bare white cloth and small, roughly carved, garishly painted wooden crucifix. Gytha and Osmoda had promised her many flowers for her wedding day but so far the chapel was as plain as it had ever been.

  “Perhaps it is the will of God,” Fulk conceded.

  “Yet you told me Guillelm’s fancies did not last, so why should you think differently of me?”

  “He is marrying you. You have no family, no important friends to force your case with him had he chosen to keep you as his leman, instead.” Fulk shrugged-it seemed that begging her forgiveness and his earlier groveling had depleted his small store of courtesy as he now added, “It is certainly nothing to do with honoring your own lands or title, neither of which can be described as significant.”

  “It is well for you, Fulk, that our lord is not here, or you would suffer for that ungentle remark” Alyson’s mind turned cold, her body clammy. Guillelm’s mistress. She had not considered that possibility, although in truth, considering what had so nearly happened between her and Guillelm’s father, Lord Robert, she should have done. For an instant her own vulnerability weighed on her, then she rallied.

  “What of your vow to me, to win places for yourself and Guillelm on a further crusade to Outremer? Do you still hold to that promise?”

  “It seems I cannot”

  “Do you give up that vow?” Alyson persisted. “Do you?”

  “It seems I must”

  “Not the most extravagant of new promises, Fulk.”

  “I know I must do better.” Fulk clasped his shaggy gray head briefly between his hands and then began to pace about the chapel. “I cannot easily praise women”

  “Not even the delicious Heloise of Outremer?”

  That stopped him dead, in midstride. “You know of her?”

  “Of course” Alyson waited; this was more teasing than the most delicate of potion making. If Fulk guessed how badly she wanted to know more of Heloise he might deny her. “She was blond and beautiful and she injured my lord.”

  “That is true-I know nothing of what passed between them, but Heloise was the very devil.”

  “To you we women are all the snares of the devil.” Alyson did not smile at Fulk’s startled expression; it gave her no pleasure to admit this. She knew that to him there was nothing about her of value. To him, she was simply a dark Heloise. Heloise, who remained mysterious …

  “If you get Guillelm a son it will be enough” His previous fulsome speech had entirely deserted him. “If you have the courage for such work”

  So he had overheard her talking to Guillelm and knew the tragic history of her mother! Yet there was no sympathy in his look or words. To Fulk she was a vessel for a man’s seed, nothing more. “And my people and I will be safe from you?”

  A trace of white spittle appeared at the corner of Fulk’s mouth as he whipped round to face her. “What do you think me? You are my lord’s!”

  “Perhaps worth even as much as his merlin,” Alyson agreed.

  That wrung a grudging smile from Fulk. “I swear I will make no move against you” He signed the cross in the air.

  “Nor against my people?” Alyson demanded, remembering Gytha.

  “Nor against your people.”

  “You will serve me faithfully, as a true knight to her lady?”

  He sighed. “Even that”

  Should she demand an act of fealty from him? Alyson wondered, but the idea of Fulk kneeling before her a second time, of her hands clasping his while he swore an oath of allegiance, was abhorrent to her. He had sworn and signed the cross; that should be sufficient.

  “I would serve you now, my lady,” Fulk’s attempt at gallantry was back and Alyson chose to take the wish for the deed.

  “How so?” she asked, finishing her wine. It had indeed been excellent she and Fulk might yet muddle along, she thought, praying that she was not being too optimistic in her assessment. Yet she had to try, if only for Guillelm’s sake. “What would you do for me?”

  Fulk walked away. For an instant, Alyson thought he was leaving and was uncertain if she was relieved or annoyed, but then he crouched in the shadow of one of the chapel’s stone pillars, plucking something from the floor. He returned to her, holding it aloft between his hands. “I would tell you of this diadem, which the chatelaines of Hardspen have ever worn on festal days. My lord thought it lost, but I have sought and found it and now I offer it to you”

  He held out the diadem. “It was in one of the store rooms, thrust into a sack in a corner. I think the previous steward of the castle must have brought it there for some reason of his own and then died of the fever before telling anyone where he had put it, or why, but no matter; it is recovered”

  “A prodigal diadem,” Alyson observed, but her small joke, at which Guillelm would have laughed, earned her no smile from Fulk.

  “It is an ancient thing, my lady.” He spoke as if she had said nothing. “My lord has spoken of it to me, with sorrow at its disappearance. He did not mention it to you,” Fulk went on, turning the diadem in his hands, “because he did not wish to cause you distress.”

  Alyson waited and after a pause, during which the unearthly shriek of a nightjar filtered through the only window in the chapel-a simple three-lancet affair but with rare colored glass he picked up his tale.

  “There is a story attached to this jewel. It is said that if the lady of the castle does not wear it on her wedding day, the marriage will be barren.”

  “Guillelm told you this?”

  “On the first night we returned to Hardspen, my lady.”
Fulk inclined his gray head, his fierce blue eyes narrowed into slits as he considered the diadem. “He looked for it himself after he had made his suit to you, and when he did not find it he sought to laugh off the story, saying it was naught but superstition. But I could tell he was disquieted.” Fulk flung her a cool, assessing glance. “When Guillelm was in his cups, the night before we rode to St. Foy’s-“

  “The evening of our betrothal,” Alyson dropped in coolly.

  “-he spoke of it a second time. He said it was an evil loss. I do not think he would have spoken so had he not been made unguarded with drink, but it is certain that it has preyed upon his mind, do you not agree?”

  “Perhaps. Is there more to the legend?” Alyson thought it sounded bald and a thread of suspicion wound about her mind. She was little reassured when Fulk shrugged.

  “Something of two crossed lovers-a womanish fancy. I forget”

  Reluctantly, Alyson put her empty goblet on the stone flags and held out her hands. “May I?”

  Fulk gave her the diadem and stood back a pace with legs apart and arms folded-a curious stance for a pious man in a holy place. She would certainly not take just Fulk’s word on this. She would ask Gytha to question the old servants of Hardspen, see if this “legend” was more than a product of Fulk’s devious head. Yet if that were so, for what purpose?

  The diadem could not be poisoned; he had handled it too freely. It was a plain, heavy device in gold, very much like her betrothal ring. The gold was as yellow as the yolk of an egg. There were no markings on it yet she guessed that Fulk was correct. It seemed old, an heirloom.

  “Thank you, Fulk,” she said.

  He bowed, recovered the goblet and took his leave without asking if she would wear it on the morrow. Alyson waited until she was certain he was gone on the dim stairway, then slipped out of the chapel to find Gytha.

  Later that evening, in the modest chamber that after tonight would no longer be hers, her nurse was reassuring. The diadem was indeed a family heirloom, from the maternal line. Guillelm’s mother had worn it at her wedding. It was claimed by all the old retainers of the castle that any Hardspen bride who wore it would have a supremely fortunate marriage and bring forth many living sons.

  Her lord dragon, with his great size and strength, surely was the equivalent of many sons, Alyson thought, and she smiled. “And the story of the lovers?” she asked.

  Gytha patted the bed that she and Alyson were sharing for the last time, encouraging her former charge to snuggle down beneath the sheets to listen.

  Somewhere in a story of a young Norman prince and a Saxon lady, who had met on pilgrimage to Rome and then been parted by fate, with the lady kidnapped by a wicked uncle and the prince searching for her, undergoing travails through marshes and being guided to his true love by miraculous speaking birds, Alyson fell asleep. She stirred once, when Gytha reached the climax of her tale, saying that although the lady had been bewitched into the likeness of an old hag by her uncle, the prince recognized her by the golden diadem and kissed her, breaking the spell.

  “So they were wed, my bird, and very merry. The lady wore a gown of cloth of gold and a veil of gold and shoes of …”

  Alyson slept again and heard no more.

  Chapter 10

  For what felt to be the thousandth time, Guillelm stared at his bride. Where had she found it? He had thought it well hidden, but here she was in her best gown and her silk veil and that. Someone must have gone looking for it. Was it in innocence that she wore the diadem, or did she know? Had she heard some whisper? Yet if she had heard and she knew the full history of his mother’s jewel, how could she appear before him, wearing it? Sporting it, even? How dare she?

  It was always a favorite of his father’s, Guillelm remembered. Did she wear it for him, in memory of him? Did she miss Lord Robert? Did she wish she was marrying the father instead of the son?

  Round and round, like a child’s spinning top, the thoughts tormented Guillelm through his marriage vows. He watched Alyson at their wedding feast, haunted by the fact that she ate little and said less. Nerves or more?

  Soon they would be together, once her maids had finished preparing the main bedchamber. Guillelm had never used it, preferring to sleep with his men in the great hall, below the great long sword and round gold-embossed shield of his famous Viking ancestor, Thorkill of Orkney. To him, the main bedchamber still felt like his father’s, rather than his.

  Tom said something and Guillelm answered, thinking that although his friend had made a special effort to attend their marriage, his own sister had not, sending instead a modest gift of bedding and the excuse, delivered by the shamefaced messenger, that she could not come because of “women’s troubles”-whatever those were. None of Juliana’s family had attended, either, which saddened but did not surprise Guillelm. He and his elder sibling had never been close.

  Down on one of the lower tables, Thierry made a ribald comment and several knights grinned. Thierry and the others would expect to witness the bedding of bride and groom, but Guillelm had already spoken to Tom. He and Alyson would climb the stairs to the bedchamber alone, and Tom would guard their backs. Once, he might have asked Fulk to do the same service, but he knew that Fulk and Alyson were still cool with each other. Again, he was saddened but not surprised.

  “That is a battle face for your wedding night! Do you think your bride be so hard to conquer?” Thierry bawled, at which Guillelm clenched his fist so hard that he bent the handle of his eating dagger, brooding on Lord Robert, and Alyson’s diadem, and the night to come.

  The diadem hurt her head, it was so heavy. How had Guillelm’s mother been able to wear it? thought Alyson, wondering if she was somehow lacking. She longed to take it off-that and her shoes, which were new and pinched her toes.

  She stretched a smile at Thierry’s comment, tired of the expectant faces. It was her wedding day and all she wished to do was find a quiet corner to sleep. The blazing joy she had expected had come earlier, in snatches: when Guillelm said his vows to her; when he placed the wedding band on her finger; when he kissed her, saying softly against her hair, “You are mine now.”

  You are mine now Flexing her aching toes inside her shiny new shoes, she glanced at Guillelm beside her, close enough for her to brush his leg under the table, if she was so bold, or to feed him, but so far in other ways! She sensed a gulf between them, widening with each hour and the lengthening shadows of evening. What Thierry called his battle face was also his unreadable face, taut and blank as new parchment. He would not look at her directly, but all through this long feast she had felt his eyes on her. Such scrutiny was scarcely the behavior of a loving groom.

  You think too much, Alyson scolded herself, but dread churned in her belly. She snatched at her cup and drank the sweet wine, wondering if she should have more.

  Guillelm had noticed. He leaned toward her, coming close but careful that their shoulders did not touch. “I trust you do not drink so readily in order to numb yourself for the rest of tonight.”

  Shock, hurt and indignation warred in Alyson. She had never expected such a comment from him, would not have thought him capable of such crassness. There was no teasing in his eyes or voice, merely chill accusation. We are going wrong again, she thought in despair, while she forced herself to utter a sprightly, “Indeed not!” tapping his foot with hers to make good her words.

  He withdrew as if she was a monster, jerking back on his chair and lurching to his feet.

  “Dragon-” she whispered, but Guillelm was addressing the company.

  “My excellent lady and I will now say goodnight, my friends. Enjoy the rest of the feast! You have earned it.”

  It was a brief, terse speech, and as if he recognized this, Guillelm began to applaud his own men and the servers. When they in turn began to clap their hands, he scooped her straight off her chair into his arms and raced for the stairs. There were good-natured shouts, snatching hands, highpitched laughter from the few women present, as it was realiz
ed where he was heading. Breathless from Guillelm’s speed and the force of her abduction, Alyson heard a general clatter and scrape of stools as some of the younger men left the tables and tried to follow. She could see little, pressed tight against Guillelm’s mantle, but Sir Tom was calling, “Easy there! Let them go!” and she caught a glimpse of Tom’s scarred, kind face, creased with concern, as she was carried from the great hall. There were flashes of torchlight and shadow, shouts, ever more distant, a dizzying twist from Guillelm as he turned from one stair onto a second, one she knew led to Lord Robert’s former chamber.

  Despite her best intentions, her courage began to falter. She had known they would come here, so why was she not more prepared? What had happened here between Guillelm’s father and herself-that was the past. It had no place between her and Guillelm.

  She was able to suppress a shudder, but her teeth chattered.

  “Here we are,” Guillelm said unnecessarily, setting his shoulder to the door and pushing.

  ` Ah!” The exclamation was out before Alyson could stop it.

  “You like it?”

  “This is wondrous, dragon!”

  “Mother of God, you are right. They have done well for me”

  “Who?” Alyson recollected and understood. “Sericus and your question about furniture! It was for here”

  “Clever creature” He tickled her under the arms before he let her down, play that delighted Alyson. With renewed hope she started round the chamber, touching everything.

  She ran her fingers over the great carved bed, pressed her hands into the soft mattress, peeping at him swiftly through shy, half-lowered eyes. She raised and lowered the lid of a chest, blushing as she saw it contained his clothes. She kicked off her shoes and walked onto the sheepskin rug. “That feels good,” she said with a sigh.

  He stared at her delicately arched feet because they were pretty and because he did not want to look at the diadem again. Her words “The flowers are beautiful” snapped his head up, and for the first time he noticed the great sprays of lavender, hyssop, marigold, poppy and sweet violet wound about the canopy of the bed and draped on the window sill. Their scent perfumed the whole room and that, more than anything, finally put the malign influence of Lord Robert out of his head. The chamber was exorcised; it would never be his father’s again.