A Knight's Vow Read online

  The great hall and the men gathered in it fell away to her, there was only Guillelm and the strong yet tender embrace of his mouth. She knew that she would probably regret it, but it was a wish come true. Sighing, Alyson swayed against him, closing her eyes as the voluptuousness of his kiss overcame all thought of her duty.

  Guillelm, no more aware of the raucous catcalls of his men than Alyson was, made himself break from their embrace. After Heloise he had a horror of forcing himself on any girl he had not had a woman for some time but now this slender black-haired maid was storming his defenses. Her lips were so generous and sweet, and the way her hands brushed shyly against his chest and shoulder as if she were learning him was so fearless that he did not want to let her go. He caught her back and swung her into his arms, conscious of a terrifying instinct to bear this woman away somewhere private and alone and have his way with her. He reached the staircase without knowing it, the questions and comments from the men and soldiers in the hall bouncing off him like rainwater.

  She laid her head in the crook of his arm, her eyes still closed, as if this was a dream for her. “Dragon,” she whispered. “My golden dragon”

  And then he knew her. By her nickname for him and her total fearlessness and, when she opened her eyes, almost as if she had sensed his recognition, by her solemn dark blue eyes. Eyes he had seen fixed on a patch of herbs in her father’s kitchen garden, or on the stained glass windows in church, or on his own hands and arms as she soothed his various cuts and bruises from the practice field with her potions. He remembered her as a studious child, quiet and serious, passionate about healing and wishing to tend all living things, yet with a smile brighter than gold. He remembered a day in the forest, when she had saved his life.

  She was here with him again, in Hardspen, and in that moment of realization, Guillelm forgot all other grief and concern in a burst of possessive pride and joy.

  He kissed her again-he could not help himself. She was the best part of his past and to see her now, safe and adult and even more lovely, made him want to laugh out loud in mingled astonishment and delight.

  “Alyson,” he said, remembering as he named her how he had loved to make her laugh. “How excellent is this! Alyson!”

  She had been so still when concentrating on her herbs and healing and yet so quick and nimble when they had run off together, racing each other to the meadows and woods. As a tall, gangly lad of nineteen he had hoped to make his fortune, earn renown throughout Christendom and then return to her father’s manor at Olverton Minor to marry her. But in the end that had been a hopeless quest. Alyson’s father, Sir Henry, had seen to that.

  The memory of his meeting with Sir Henry blazed through Guillelm. Even after seven and a half years it was a bitter thing that left him sickened inside. All his years in the Holy Land he had fought to put the memory behind him. He had thought he had succeeded, until tonight.

  “I will never give my daughter to you, Guillelm de La Rochelle,” Sir Henry had told him. “She is a thoughtful, clever girl who, before she knew you, spoke of a sincere desire to enter the church as a nun. Until she knew you, Guillelm, Alyson’s steadfast goal was to be a second Hildegard of Bermersheim: a scholar and sacred mystic, a healer. You have almost driven that noble aim from her head, with your endless talk of quests and chivalry. My reeve tells me that you are much in her company, and often without the presence of her nurse. Alyson is on the brink of womanhood. These outings between you must stop-yes, I know they have been so far innocent but I have my child’s reputation to consider, and my own.

  “Not only that, but I have seen you on the practice field you are entirely too rash and wild. You will leave my sweet Alyson a widow within six months and your reckless head rotting on a pike. You cannot have her, and must never ask again.”

  Soon after that painful and disastrous encounter, Guillelm had announced his intention to go with Raymond of Poitiers to Outremer.

  “Alyson of Olverton.” Guillelm now gave the grown-up Alyson her title, at once entranced and saddened that she should be here. She was glad to see him-but how long would that last? How long would her innocent fearlessness of him last? He could not bear to think of her turning from him with fear in those dark blue eyes, the same blank-eyed fear he had seen in women’s faces while on campaign in Outremer.

  Slowly, with regret and no lessening of his own desire for her, he left the small landing and, crouching slightly to avoid the low roof-space, he carried her up the narrow spiral staircase to the chapel, where a small candle was burning. He set her down carefully on the stone floor and, so that his fingers would not linger too long on her, or give in to the violent temptation to touch her again, he put his hands behind his back.

  “Alyson” He swallowed the urgent questions that he wanted to ask-was she well, had she ever thought of him while he had been away in Outremer, was she still unmarried?-and asked just two things, both equally pressing.

  “Alyson, how is it that you are here? And why is there an army pitched outside this castle?”

  Chapter 2

  Alyson saw the delight in Guillelm’s eyes fade and almost cried aloud at its passing. When he had recognized her on the stairs, he gave her then such a look-of glory, she thought, recalling how his whole face, rather grave in repose, had lightened and how his smile had driven all signs of grief from him. She had been carried off by him, amazed by his easy strength, pressed tight against his chest and torso, so close that she could feel his tough leather tunic under his woolen cloak. He smelled of rain, damp wool and his own sharp scent, and she had been torn between a desire to touch him and a wish to rest her aching head on him and sleep within the broad circle of his arms.

  But that was not to be. Guillelm, grim-faced again and looming above her with his fists thrust behind his back, had asked questions that needed prompt and ready answers, no matter how painful it would be for her to explain, especially about her near-betrothal to Lord Robert. Putting that hard and tangled matter aside for the moment, she spoke first of the hostile forces ranged against Hardspen.

  “The soldiers and mercenaries camped outside the gate appeared seven days ago, as soon as it became known that your father had died,” she said, staring down at the chapel floor so that she did not have to watch the growing disappointment and likely horror in Guillelm’s face when she told him what she had done to delay an attack from these troops. “They are the liege men of Sir Walter of Enford and the Flemish mercenary Etienne the Bold, who has joined Sir Walter on this … enterprise,” she finished bitterly.

  “I see little evidence of boldness in preparing to lay siege to the holding of a lord who has just died,” Guillelm remarked in clear distaste, adding, “I could not see their standards in the rain and darkness tonight, although I think I know something of this Walter of Enford. A local man, is he not? I recall a fat and swarthy roundfaced creature who could not manage his sword or his horses”

  “Yes, that is Walter. He is a neighbor to your estate,” Alyson confirmed, with a small smile at Guillelm’s accurate description, “and lately grown very ambitious. He is still not warlike, but the man he has hired, Etienne-” A gust of wind blowing through the keep made the chapel candles flicker and Alyson shivered. “He has raided farms and manor houses hereabouts. There are many homeless peasants sheltering in the castle bailey because of the burning and pillaging of the Fleming and his troops”

  “Then he must be stopped,” Guillelm said at once. “And I will stop him.” Clearly marking her distress, he took her hand in his again, looking startled at his own action but saying smoothly enough, “But this is not a fit subject for a house of God. Shall we move on?”

  “Where do you wish to go?” Alyson asked, blushing as she wondered if she should have called Guillelm “lord,” even though he now knew she was no serving maid.

  If Guillelm noticed any lack of courtesy he said nothing of it. “I have already spoken to the watchmen and the men manning the battlements tonight. I have other duties to fulfill, other pe
ople I must see before this night has ended ” His voice tightened and he broke off. “Where are the womenfolk of this castle? Aside from yourself, of course. Are they all in the kitchen?”

  Alyson looked up at him and smiled. “At this hour I should think they and the children will all be asleep in the store room downstairs-it is warm and dry there, and is one of the safest places in this keep. As you know,” she added hastily.

  He gave her fingers a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Then lead me on very quietly past the store room. I have no wish to alarm them or disturb their rest. I am still hungry, so a visit to the kitchen will do very well.”

  He always had been famished, Alyson thought fondly, before her wits caught up with the rest of what he was saying. “There has been no real cooking for the last few days,” she said hastily. “All food has been moved within the keep-there will be nothing for you to eat”

  “But we can talk freely there and I know I will find something in the cooks’ house” Guillelm grinned, driving two attractive and unlikely dimples into his tanned, lean face. “I always did in the past”

  Apprehensive about their talking freely, Alyson went ahead of him down the stairs, across the back of the great hall to the huge oak door that led out of the keep into the bailey.

  Before she could draw the bolt, Guillelm did it. “I can manage for myself.” Pulling his cloak from his shoulders, he swept it around her and said gruffly, “It is still raining.”

  “Thank you” Ridiculously pleased at wearing something of his, even though it trailed past her feet, Alyson hurried down the outer staircase.

  As they passed the rough tents huddling close to the keep and sheltering bailey walls, their feet slopping in the mud and puddles, she heard Guillelm mutter another string of oaths in the language of Outremer.

  “I am sorry for this,” she began in a low, shamed voice that was almost lost in the sweeping, chilly drizzle.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” Guillelm answered, stepping over a soggy, broken sack of beans spilled across their path. “Though in truth,” he added, looking round the dark, empty and eerily quiet bailey, where there were no fires, nor indeed any signs of life within the tents, “I thought that I had left such sights as these behind me in the Holy Land. Is this the silence of hunger?”

  “Of sickness and weariness. Some brought the sickness with them or, I am sorry to say, caught it here,” Alyson answered, relieved that he understood. Peering into the rain, she pointed past a cart, left stranded in the bailey with a shattered axle. “The kitchen is over there, the low timber building.”

  “That is new since I was here last,” Guillelm remarked, offering his hand to Alyson to steady her as she deftly skirted a wide puddle of water. “How long have these poor folk been here?” he asked, as Alyson tried to ignore the disturbing prickle of delight the touch of his fingers gave her, like a spark to kindling.

  “A few for over a month” Her people mostly, who had come with her when Lord Robert had bluntly told Alyson that she was no longer safe in her father’s manor at Olverton Minor and that her stubborn refusal to leave and join him at Hardspen was putting others at risk. “Most arrived in the last ten days”

  “After my father died, the Fleming increased his raiding on those who were left with no protection,” Guillelm said grimly.

  “Yes” She heard the sudden squeal of a rat and gathered the folds of Guillelm’s cloak closer to herself, touching the eating knife tucked through her belt. In the past few days the rats had grown more daring but so far, through shouts and stamping, and even in one case, in the stables, brandishing her knife, she had kept them at bay.

  Guillelm reached the kitchen several paces ahead of her and he shouldered open the door, which had swollen with the water. There was no one inside-the young kitchen lads and scullions who usually curled up snug in the ashes were in the store room by Alyson’s express order. If an assault came on the castle, the kitchen would be particularly vulnerable to fire and any left inside easily trapped and burned alive.

  While she busied herself finding a horn lantern and lighting it she was conscious of Guillelm close behind her, prowling around the tables, shelves, cooking pots, spits and cauldrons. Dreading but expecting more questions, she still was unprepared for what he did say.

  “Sir Henry has gone, too, has he not? That is why you are here. My father would not have left you out in an undefended manor, no more than I would have done. What happened?” His voice was very gentle. “When did he die?”

  “Just after Easter.” It was easier to admit this without looking at Guillelm. “Not from this sickness and fever that came at the beginning of summer. He was felled from his horse in a hunting accident and never woke from it.”

  Abruptly she was back with her father in his small bedchamber behind the comfortable great hall of their manor house, mopping his clammy face, washing his torn hands, speaking soothingly to him while her heart pounded in terror and hopelessness. Memories of that brought more memories-the last few hours of her intended betrothed, Lord Robert, who in his fever had talked to her as if she was his first wife, Guillelm’s mother. Guillelm must never know, she thought, while she knew that this strange, precious time together, in quiet before the dawning of a new day and a likely attack from Etienne the Bold, would soon be at an end. You must tell him you were about to be betrothed to his father, her conscience goaded, while her heart clamored, Not yet.

  “I am truly sorry for your loss.”

  Alyson whirled about, the horn lantern clutched protectively in front of her. “You startled me!” He had come up very close behind her, his feet silent on the stone flags. “I am sorry for your loss, also,” she said quickly, meaning the words no less because she gabbled them.

  “I know. I could see that from the moment I saw you again, on the stairs.” His face, as beautiful to Alyson in the beams of the lantern as the carving of the stone angels in their local church, was earnest. “You always did feel for others”

  For an instant he seemed on the verge of saying more, then he gave a bark of laughter. “Steady!” He caught the lamp as it dipped in her hands, the glowing light bouncing over the sooty beams and rafters. “Mother of God, you are not safe with that. You wield it like a weapon” He lifted the lantern from her trembling fingers and placed it on the nearest table.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, watching her closely under thick blond eyebrows. His deep brown eyes seemed to darken even more. “Is it perhaps the sickness that has laid the rest of this place low?”

  Before Alyson could move or speak, he tucked his cloak closer about her. “Do you wish me to-?”

  “No!” Alyson burst out, afraid that he might offer to carry her again. She did not deserve his concern, and she was so tired it would be so very easy to fall asleep in his arms. Their every touch and embrace made it that much harder for her to tell him what she must, for it suggested a growing closeness that would be destroyed soon enough. Let me keep my pride and not embarrass Guillelm with my unwanted feelings for him, she thought.

  “No one in this castle has been taken ill with the sweating fever for the past three days; the worst of that is over,” she said, trying to sound lively and confident. Her face, tense with grief and weariness and now trying to mask her response to the tall, handsome man standing less than a hand-stretch away from her, ached as she forced a brittle smile. “With the help of the blessed Virgin we have come through,” she said.

  The worst of the sickness might be past, thought Guillelm, but Alyson looked close to the breaking point. He wanted to lift all care from her but knew her stubborn pride of old. He was also profoundly aware of how greatly they had both changed. When he had left for the Holy Land he was a boy and she no more than a girl. Now he was a man and she was very much a woman. Their relationship had changed forever. A few moments earlier he had been about to mention their day in the forest, where she had first teasingly called him “dragon,” a title he had since taken as a battle name for himself and a rallying cry for
his men. He longed to thank her again for saving his life, but he had decided against it in case such old history embarrassed her.

  Yet he liked the grown-up Alyson very much. Perhaps at last the time had come when he could woo her properly when he had dealt with the Fleming and his over-ambitious neighbor, and when Alyson’s grief at her father’s untimely death had faded a little. Perhaps with Alyson and her fearlessness he would prove the terrible predictions by Heloise and his elder sister wrong.

  For now, to spare her more pain, he asked nothing else about the death of his father. Privately he was relieved that Lord Robert had granted Alyson and her people sanctuary: He knew from bitter personal experience that his father was not usually so charitable. There had normally been a price to be paid for help from the master of Hardspen.

  Sending up a sad, regretful prayer for his father, with whom he had never been truly close, Guillelm considered more basic matters. Battles and men-at-arms were things he understood and he turned to them almost with relish as problems he could overcome. Were it not for the danger to others he could almost look forward to the morning.

  “My father held this castle and lands as a vassal of King Henry. When the old king died, did he swear fealty to Henry’s daughter, the Empress Maud?”

  “He did-as did many others who are now foresworn, forsaking the empress for King Stephen, simply because Maud is a woman.”

  Hearing her indignant speech, Guillelm applauded her loyalty but not her sense. “England is a hard realm to rule. It needs a man,” he said.

  Really, he was her father all over again, thought Alyson, exasperated for the first time with the adult Guillelm. She had expected him to have shown more vision. “So Stephen demonstrates his kingship by stirring up civil war throughout the country?” she demanded scornfully. “Setting neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend-those for Stephen against those for Maud? Do you know King Stephen is even now besieging Castle Carey, less than thirty leagues from here?”