A Knight's Vow Read online

  “So this is your secret place.” With that disconcertingly silent tread of his, Guillelm had approached without her realizing. He was dressed in a plain mantle and leggings, very different from the dark red robe with golden thread round the neck and sleeves that he had worn at the feast last night. The change made him look younger, easier to talk to.

  “Careful!” she warned, automatically stepping sideways to protect her glassware.

  “You did that last night, using yourself as a shield.”

  “Yes” Suddenly they were straying into more difficult territory; she did not know quite how to go on, or what to say about Fulk.

  “My seneschal was wrong. He understands his error. He will not do anything like that again.”

  Seeing him stare down at his bunched fists, Alyson could not suppress a shiver.

  “How is Gytha?” Guillelm asked gently.

  “I left her sleeping. Osmoda will be with her today.”

  “Excellent” Guillelm grinned, crouching so that he did not loom in the doorway. “Never fear, Alyson. This is your domain,” he reassured her, meaning more in his answer than the simple lean-to. “How many mixtures do you have here?” he went on, inhaling deeply. “I can smell spices.”

  “That will be my cinnamon, no doubt, and pepper.” Alyson tried to count on her fingers the number of tisanes and potions she had made, but gave up, shrugging. “I do not know. Not as many as I had in my father’s house at Olverton.” Her mouth dipped as she remembered her loss afresh.

  Guillelm nodded. “Sir Henry was a good man”

  “I miss him.”

  “As is right, and natural.”

  They were silent, joined together in mutual grief for their dead fathers, although from Guillelm’s frown it seemed his recollections were more troubling than sorrowful. After a moment, he raised his left hand, pointing to where a patch of early morning sun flared against the thatch. “I think it will be another hot day and I wondered-“

  He stopped as a scullion boy, in a ragged loincloth and with a sooty face split by a huge yawn, tottered past the lean-to, his bare feet stirring up seams of mud and dust and hoards of small, buzzing flies. When the child was out of earshot, Guillelm resumed, a little faster than before.

  “I thought perhaps we could leave the setting right of Hardspen for a day or so-or at least leave it to Seri cus-and go out? You will not have left the castle grounds for weeks, and you mentioned your sister Matilda. I am sure her convent would welcome us as guests, at least for a brief space, and especially if we go bearing offerings.”

  He sprang to his feet. “I thought we might set off presently; our attendants can catch us up. The way to St. Foy’s is safe, well out of the reach of any forces claiming allegiance to King Stephen or Empress Maud, and we do not have to hurry. What say you?”

  She and Guillelm would be alone. Alyson hugged the idea to herself and nodded, afraid her voice would be too breathy to answer.

  “Excellent!” he said again-it seemed a favorite saying and he turned to the stables, adding, “I will saddle some horses” A quizzical, teasing light stole into his eyes. “You can still ride, I take it?”

  “Of course!”

  Guillelm was laughing as he stalked lightly away, supple as a tawny cat, the rising sun gilding his hair to an even brighter gold.

  He had found her a tall black palfrey to ride, handing Alyson the reins and cupping his hands to invite her to mount.

  Alyson stayed a moment, a smile lurking about her mouth. “This is not one of Fulk’s?” she asked, taking in the height of the glossy, wide-eyed beast with its silver and gold horse trappings.

  “Jezebel is mine and now yours” Clearly impatient to be off, Guillelm plucked her from the ground and set her on the saddle, giving Alyson no time to recover from the heady rush of being in his arms, however briefly, before he demanded, “Do you question everything?”

  “Always. Have you forgotten?” she teased back. “I hope Jezebel does not refer to the temper of my horse,” she went on, guiding the palfrey gently with her knees to see how responsive she was.

  “Only when she is in season-which she is not”

  “What is your horse called?” Alyson asked as Guillelm took Jezebel’s bridle and the reins of his own big white-andgray piebald to walk them to the main gate.

  “Caliph” Guillelm rubbed a finger at the side of his long nose-a sign Alyson had come to recognize as a form of embarrassment. “He is from part Arab stock, and I named him before I understood what the title meant. `Caliph’ is a form of great respect to the Muslims.”

  “And you do not wish to slight a worthy enemy?”

  He laughed. “How well you know me, wench!”

  Alyson felt a glow of satisfaction as they passed the guards on the gate, glancing again at her betrothal ring and daring to hope that all would be more than well between them.

  She had filled out a little more in the past few days, lost that grayness under her eyes and in her face. In her new blue gown and with her hair streaming out behind her as they cantered over the downs, Alyson was more vivid than the fresh summer green of the trees, so bright to his eye after the muted, dusty colors of Outremer. She was more delicate than the scattered cowslips, speedwell and orchids that bordered the chalk track they were racing along, giving the horses their heads. She rode superbly-but then, what did Alyson not do superbly?

  And she is mine. Guillelm wanted to utter a war cry from sheer bravado, utter pride and joy. At the castle gate, one of his guards had asked if he was hunting today and he was, though not with hawk or dogs. His present quarry needed more subtlety and patience. Patience above all, Guillelm reminded himself, thinking once more of Heloise of Outremer and her dreadful warning.

  Desperate to avoid that fate with Alyson, he had planned this day as he might a military campaign and only prayed that his preparations would be to her liking. He knew the arts of war but less those of peace. How did an English lord entertain his lady?

  He had taken food from the kitchen for them but now, as he spied a stand of oak trees where they might shelter from the midday heat and relax, he was unsure. As a girl, Alyson had enjoyed romping and eating out of doors but as a woman perhaps she would consider those things too unmannerly, even coarse.

  “I thought we might stop here, allow the horses to graze” Fool! It must be obvious that is only an excuse, he thought, scanning the sparse grass under the trees. “If that is acceptable?” he went on, compounding his error by actually asking permission.

  Alyson nodded and reined in. Swiftly dismounting, perhaps so that she did not have to endure his touch, she knelt by one of the oaks. As he wondered what she was doing, Guillelm watched her take a worn knife from her belt and begin sawing at the bracket fungus growing at the base of the trunk.

  “This may be useful for my healing,” she explained, lifting the fungus onto a clean scrap of cloth she had produced from somewhere about her person.

  “Healing is surely in God’s hands,” Guillelm began, recalling old childhood tales of poisoned toadstools, but Alyson wrinkled her nose.

  “It may be, but Christ gave us wit and nimble fingers to aid ourselves,” she said.

  He knelt beside her and took her knife, plunging it into the grass.

  “That is a very round reply, mistress.” Would she be teased by him, Guillelm wondered. Dare he tease?

  The matter was resolved when Alyson thrust her tongue out at him.

  What was she doing? Guillelm was no longer nineteen. Because they had stopped beneath the dappled shade of an oak tree, had knelt close to a small, gurgling stream that she could hear but not see, it did not mean that he remembered what she had never forgotten. She had allowed the memory of that afternoon, by another oak wood, on another sultry summer’s day, near to another clear, swift-flowing brook, to govern her actions.

  Appalled at her folly, Alyson tried to rise to her feet but was snared in a pair of arms that pinioned her own hands helplessly by her sides.

  “The l
ast time we were this way together, you saved my life.”

  “No, no,” Alyson demurred, pleased and at the same time alarmed that he did remember. She tried to squirm free of her captor.

  “None of that” Still clasping her-so strongly that she felt bound by fetters of lowered his head. “I mind it well, brighteyes.”

  “Dragon-“

  “You called me dragon then, too, when I was ready to confront the royal foresters, and you dragged me under cover. Into brambles, I do believe.” He was smiling, but then he added seriously, “Had those woodsmen caught us, straying into part of the king’s forest, there would have been no mercy for me”

  Alyson nodded, thinking how Guillelm had found a dead deer and had dressed it for meat, recalling how stubborn he had been to keep the deer, although by law all such game was reserved for the king. He was even ready to fight the foresters, whom with her quick hearing she heard riding across the stream before she and Guillelm were seen.

  “You flung yourself on me and brought me to my knees. I remember your words: “You cannot fight five armed with bows and swords and you with only a hunting knife, even if you are as brave as a dragon” Your good sense saved me. And at the time I was astonished that such a slip of a girl could take me down so easily.” Guillelm brushed her cheek with his, whispering, “Your quick wits made me think, reminded me of what really mattered. Your own safety.”

  Alyson blushed, aware, as she had not been at fourteen, of the truth of Guillelm’s statement. Then, her only thought had been to save him from the harsh laws of the forest and the king’s justice; she had not considered her own position, or vulnerability, a girl at the dubious mercy of six men, all strangers to her and she to them. “I was naive,” she said.

  “We both were”

  “You really saved me,” Alyson went on, but Guillelm shook his head.

  “We saved each other,” he said. “Did I ever thank you?”

  “Of course”

  “Did I kiss you?”

  Alyson’s heart felt to leap almost out of her ribs. Breathless, all eyes, she waited as his mouth touched hers. She sighed, leaning into the kiss and he gave a mighty groan, gathering her closer, his hands releasing hers to cup her face.

  Dazed with the sweet pulse of pleasure coursing through her as their kiss intensified, Alyson did what she had dreamed of doing for years and playfully traced a finger down the length of Guillelm’s nose. Then, as he started slightly with surprise and drew back a little, she teased her thumb over his upper lip.

  “Little witch.” In his mouth, the words were an endearment. He nibbled her finger and softly drew her hand away, claiming her lips a second time with his own.

  Tingling with sensation, Alyson wondered if she was experiencing anything akin to what the great mystic Hildegarde of Bermersheim had once described as being like `a feather on the breath of God” There was something almost unearthly to their embrace; the very air about her and Guillelm seem to crackle. When they broke apart to look at each other, the sun seemed brighter, the scent of the bruised grass beneath their knees fresher, the luster in Guillelm’s eyes deeper. His whole face glowed, the fine bristles trembling on his upper lip.

  “You are …” He swept a hand along her arm, raised her hand and kissed the knuckle above her betrothal ring. “I wanted to do this seven years ago”

  “And for so long I feared you dead” In a chilling flurry of remembered horror, Alyson pressed herself against Guillelm, hearing his heart but wanting still more, to be closer, flesh against flesh. “Dead!”

  She shuddered and he rocked her, crooning a snatch of song. “Remember this little tune?” he asked.

  “`My Lady’s White Rose” It was on everyone’s lips that summer” At fourteen Alyson had not known the name of the song. “You would whistle it sometimes, to tease me”

  “Do you still snap your fingers when you are angry?”

  “You will have to wait to find out,” Alyson replied.

  “If you do, then as your betrothed I may devise some suitable punishment for you”

  “You can try,” Alyson answered lightly, hoping her face gave no hint of her darker thoughts and Lord Robert’s `punishments.’

  Guillelm glanced at her keenly and she shifted slightly, disturbed by memories and by more direct physical discomfort as the dull ache in her knees finally registered.

  “Ach! My legs have gone to sleep!” Guillelm scowled, then laughed as Alyson said quickly, “Stamp your feet and rub your calves. That will bring them back to life.”

  “What else do you suggest, physic?” Rising, he lifted her with him, dangling her from his arms.

  “Food,” Alyson answered determinedly. “For you will have brought some victuals for our journey, I think. Now, are you going to set me down?”

  Guillelm grinned and did so.

  Out of his pannier came a meal that threatened to rival their betrothal feast. As the cold meats and bread, flagons of wine and nuts, cheeses and rare raisins were spread by Guillelm before Alyson-using his cloak as a table between the spreading roots of their oak tree (it was theirs now because they had kissed beneath it)-she found herself snapping her fingers in sheer delight and wonder.

  “Amazing!” she cried. “So much! You are a worker of wonders”

  “Every dragon is,” Guillelm replied, a little smug but glad his plans had met with her approval. He thought of the final gift he had for her, tucked into his shirt, but then decided it would be better after they had eaten. He drummed his fingers on the earth. “The banquet is ready. Come”

  They sat with their backs resting against the oak tree, close enough so that Guillelm could feel Alyson’s long sleeve brush against his arm whenever she stirred: a delicate, tormenting pleasure. She sampled everything, praising especially the wine and the freshness of the soft cheese, and seemingly happy to have nuts cracked for her and to be fed raisins by him. She offered him a slice of pork off her knife, giggling as he pretended to gobble it, and was altogether easy with him.

  Of course she is, nagged the devil of conscience and dread that whispered in his mind in a strange mingling of Heloise and Fulk. Alyson treats you as an older brother.

  Brother and sister do not kiss as we have done, Guillelm told himself, but some of the sparkle of the day diminished for him and, turning their talk away from the spice markets of Outremer, he began to speak of a more practical concern, the digging of a new well at Hardspen.

  “That would be a good thing.” Alyson went along with his abrupt change of subject without any pause. “Last summer, my father gave the villagers of Olverton Minor a new well.”

  “Oh, yes, a village.” Preoccupied with this new goal, Guil lelm spoke dismissively. “The castle well would need to supply hundreds, not merely a few cottars and passing tinkers.”

  “What do you mean?” Alyson asked, sitting up straighter and hugging her knees.

  “The needs of Hardspen are not like those of your father’s holdings,” Guillelm began reasonably, “a single unfortified manor and some modest lands-“

  He was astonished when Alyson bridled.

  “Are you saying that my family are little more than serfs? We may not be rich or powerful but we are loyal and we look after our own!”

  “That is your family motto, is it not? To look after our own?” Guillelm said quickly, but Alyson would not be placated.

  “Answer me ”” She whirled to her feet, casting a half-finished daisy chain to one side. “What am Ito you?”

  Everything, Guillelm thought, but now behind them came the pounding of hooves and creak of carts and Fulk, bawling in a voice designed to carry even over the field of battle, “Well met, my lord! We have finally caught up with you!”

  Chapter 6

  St. Foy’s was a closed order, but the prioress allowed Matilda and Alyson to meet in the small infirmary garden. Guillelm and the other men were kept out of the convent and were kicking their heels somewhere beyond the high walls, but Guillelm had told Alyson not to hurry her visit.


  “Stay until after sunset and compline if you wish,” he told her. “I have our sleeping arrangements already in hand” Ignoring her blush, he went on, “A friend of mine has a manor no more than a mile from here. Your sister is welcome, too, if the prioress allows it.”

  “Who is your friend?” Alyson had asked, wondering if he had been at her betrothal feast, and if so, why he had not traveled back with her and Guillelm.

  “Thomas of Beresford. He fought with me in the Holy Land, losing a hand and a foot, and is much scarred besides. He does not like to travel, or to subject himself to the pity of strangers, but former comrades from Outremer are always welcome in his house” Guillelm must have guessed something of her disquiet, for he had grinned and added, “Steady, there, brighteyes. Tom knows we are coming.”

  “The prioress will not allow me to undertake such a secu lar outing, especially in the company of men-at-arms,” Matilda said.

  “But they are former crusaders,” she protested.

  Matilda smoothed away an imagined crease on her dark sleeve. “You must be content with what we have here,” she said. “It is the will of God”

  ” Tilda ” Alyson tried the childhood nickname, but her sister said quickly, “I am Sister Ursula. That is my true title and you must call me by no other. Nor should we indulge in any worldly gossip. Indeed, after today, it is my wish that we should not meet again, unless there is urgent need.”