A Knight's Vow (10 page)

“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 last 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?”