A Knight's Vow (2 page)

To my family and all my friends,
with love and affection.

England, Summer 1138

“Sir Guillelm has returned! The son of Lord Robert has
come back to us!”

“Thanks be to God, we are saved! The young master has
returned!”

Alyson heard the shouts from the surviving men-at-arms
and jerked her head up, all thought of prayer forgotten. “My
lord dragon,” she whispered.

Struggling to rise to her feet from the hard, cold floor of the
small, narrow chapel, she repinned her simple veil and pinched
color into her gaunt cheeks, feeling her heart begin to race. “Can
it really be true?” She had waited for him for so long, she could
scarcely believe it. Guillelm, here, in his family’s castle of Hardspen. For a moment she felt stunned with happiness.

“My lady!” The reedy voice of her seneschal, Sericus,
floated above the hubbub in the great hall of the castle, calling ahead as he tottered on gangly legs to find her, to bring
her this miraculous news.

“I am here!” Alyson called, darting from the chapel. Sericus
was lame, and to save his withered limbs she picked up the hem of her plain brown gown and hurried down the spiral staircase
of the keep. She was a small, slender girl with a mass of long
black hair, large, very dark blue eyes and delicate features
whose naturally bright, high-colored complexion had been
dulled by weariness and grief. Longing to see Guillelm, she
was reckless in her haste on the torch-lit stair, where only her
natural fleetness of foot prevented a fall.

Would he remember her? She had been fourteen years old
when he had answered the call of his kinsman, Raymond of
Poitiers, and gone with him to the Holy Land. He had been in
the exotic, dusty lands of Outremer for seven long years and
she had despaired of ever seeing him again. For the past three
years, with no news of him, there had even been the terrible
rumor that he was dead. But he was alive!

Was he greatly changed? Would she be the one who would
have to tell him that the enemy forces ranged outside the main
gate were poised to attack? That his father, the noble and intimidatingly austere Lord Robert, had been dead for ten days?
That for the past month she had been living in Hardspen as
Lord Robert’s intended betrothed?

Chilled and appalled by these thoughts, Alyson halted in
the shadows on the final step, raising a finger to her lips as
Sericus came out of the hall in search of her. Sericus, understanding her wish without the need for speech, passed by her
and limped out of sight of the travel-stained men standing
by the log-strewn fireplace in the great hall beyond them.

“Lady, where are your serving women?” he asked in an
urgent whisper.

“Gytha and Osmoda remain in my chamber; they are still
sick, as are many within this castle.” Alyson had left them
sleeping, no longer feverish but weak.

“Let me summon attendants to go in with you, a maid at
the very least.”

“You will be with me, Master Sericus, and that is enough,” Alyson replied with a smile of gratitude. “You have seen to
our guests’ comfort?” She blushed at calling the new lord of
Hardspen her guest, but Sericus merely nodded his head.

“Yes, my lady. They have ale and bread. Not fresh or fine
bread, I fear. The baker’s boy has been busy with the repairs
and the baker has been sick.”

“Then pray allow me an instant to compose myself. And sit
a moment, I beg you” Sericus had been without sleep for the
past three nights, as she had, helping her with the sick and with
the ordering of Hardspen’s human and physical defenses the
remortaring of sections of walls, the gathering of stores, the
checking of weapons-as their enemy outside the gate waited
in arrogant strength.

“My lady, you are ever gracious.” Lowering himself onto
the stone treads, the wiry, gray-bearded, gray-haired man sat
with a tiny grimace of relief.

Standing in the gloomy stairwell, Alyson took in the scene
in the great hall, the large, high-ceilinged chamber that was
the heart of the keep, where in happier times Lord Robert had
dined with his men on the tables and stools that now were
ranged to one side. Today, long after sunset, those warriors
and men still loyal to Hardspen bedded down there in their
clothes on the rush-covered floor to snatch a few hours’ sleep.
She recognized their plain, honest faces and saw that they remained exhausted, as she was herself, but that new hope
gleamed in their eyes-because of the arrival of one man.

Sir Guillelm de La Rochelle. She picked him out easily
from the small group of soldiers who drank and warmed
themselves-for although it was summer the nights were
cold by the crackling flames of the sweetsmelling apple
wood. Tall as a spear, he towered over everyone there, longbacked and long-legged, with broad shoulders and lean hips.
He was speaking quietly to one of his men, his back to her
and with the dark hood of his cloak still pulled over his head as his powerful body steamed and dripped water from the
relentless summer rain outside.

“My lord dragon,” Alyson breathed a second time, using the
nickname she had given him and which he had made his own.
She missed the sight of that mane of bright golden hair and even
more his grimly handsome face, but it was enough to know he
was alive and safe. Giddy with relief, she now heard him speak
for the first time in seven years as a castle defender asked how
he and his few retainers had passed through the enemy lines.

“It is my guess that there is sickness and fever in that camp,
as there has been here,” Guillelm replied in the deep, warm
voice that had so often gently teased her in the past. “Your
enemy has but few watchmen to stand lookout. On a gray, wet
night such as this, those few can see no farther than the rainwater streaming from their caps. We slipped past them simply
enough. After that it was an easy matter to bring my commanders safely inside Hardspen; my grandfather devised
secret ways into the castle bailey and keep, paths which my
father showed to me while I was yet a boy.”

“Your commanders, Lord?” asked his interrogator hopefully, picking up on the thread that Alyson had noticed, although she was distracted by Guillelm himself. He had turned
to face his questioner and she could look upon the face that
had haunted her dreams for so many years.

Eagerly she stared at him, feeling like a thirsty traveler
coming to a well of pure, life-giving water. His was a lean,
clean-shaven face, tanned by the blazing sun of Outremer,
with a faintly aquiline nose that as a girl she had always
longed to trace playfully with a finger. If he had changed, it
was only to grow yet more handsome, with lines of character and decision etched into every uncompromising feature.
She now caught herself wondering what it would be like to
kiss that firm, full mouth.

“Some of my commanders, I should say.” Guillelm sounded faintly amused, yet his next words plainly were intended to give
heart to the men of Hardspen. “The others are camped with the
bulk of my forces in the woods close to the eastern bailey wall.
Their presence will give your would-be besiegers something
of a surprise, come tomorrow’s dawn ””

There was laughter, no doubt as Guillelm had intended.
Taking advantage of the lighter mood, he called for more ale.
There was a scramble amongst the oak tables set against the
longest wall to retrieve the pitchers of ale that Sericus had
brought up from the winter stores.

Watching how readily the men obeyed him and recalling
her girlish hero-worship of the youthful Guillelm, Alyson
sternly reminded herself of her duty. She must keep these unseemly feelings of longing within bounds. She was to have
been Lord Robert’s betrothed, affianced in a ceremony as
sacred as marriage, and now almost a widow. How then dare
she entertain such unruly desires for Lord Robert’s son, a
wish that she might kiss him and be kissed in return, enfolded
in those strong bronzed arms?

“Let us drink to the vanquishing of all our foes!” Guillelm
said, raising his goblet. “Let us drink to a new beginning!”

Listening closely, keen to hear him, Alyson sensed a sadness beneath the stirring words, a sense confirmed when he
lifted his cup a second time and said in solemn, tightly controlled tones, “Let us drink to the most valiant of lords. To my
eternal grief and shame I did not reach here in time to see and
embrace him, as a son should a father, before he was taken by
this foul pestilence.”

He paused, a tremor of deeply felt emotion passing across
his face. Swiftly he mastered it and continued in as strong a
voice as before, “To my father, Lord Robert-may his soul
already abide in heaven!”

“Lord Robert,” came the somber response from the men.

“Robert,” Alyson whispered, tears standing in her eyes as she remembered him and even more painfully, the death of
her own father three months before at Easter. For Guillelm’s
sake, she prayed that whoever had told him of his father’s
passing had done so with kindness. Dashing her tears away
with a trembling hand, she raised her head and smiled at him,
hoping that, although he would not see her, he might sense
her sympathy.

Incredibly, as she smiled, he looked down the length of the
great hall, straight at her. His eyes, deeper-hued and richer
than the rarest of velvets, widened as he saw her, capturing
Alyson in his dark, compelling gaze.

I could lose my heart to Guillelm and consider the danger
of his breaking it well worth the risk, she thought, while an
inner voice said, You already have.

For an instant both were still, wrapped in each other’s
glances, but then an indignant shout from Sericus behind
her and the raking of greedy, clasping fingers against her
shoulder warned Alyson of another, very different kind of
danger. Breaking free of the pawing hand, ignoring her foulbreathed assailant’s grumbled, “Give me more ale and a kiss,
girl!” she whirled away from him and sped into the great hall,
furious at the laughter of the other men-at-arms, those who
had arrived that night with Guillelm.

Guillelm, she saw, however, was not laughing. She watched
his face darken as the stocky, unshaven man from the stairway still pursued her, bellowing in nasal Norman French,
“What is an English wretch like you good for, if not for serving your betters?”

“Thierry!” Guillelm shouted, his voice full of warning, and
then Alyson heard him curse violently in an unknown tongue,
possibly one of the languages of Outremer. She saw him
thrust his half-drunk goblet at his nearest companion and
stride toward her and her unwelcome follower, reaching them
in fewer than ten paces.

“Let the little maid be, Thierry,” he growled in French,
seizing the other fellow’s ever-reaching arm and bending it
back sharply. “She does not care for your rough wooing, nor
do I. Go back to the garderobe and throw yourself down into
the latrine if you can find no better manners!”

He thrust the man aside so violently that Thierry careered
into one of the oak tables, where he crouched, rubbing his arm
and clearly glad to be out of range of his lord’s displeasure.

Guillelm had no time for him. He lowered his head to Alyson,
the hood of his cloak slipping down and revealing that glorious
mane of blazing golden hair, bright as a dragon’s flame.

“He has done you no harm?” he asked softly in English, his
deep-set eyes narrowing in concern.

“No” Alyson stared up at her rescuer, more than ever conscious of her rekindled admiration for him while at the same
time guiltily aware that her habitually plain clothing had in
part caused this confusion. Had not her old nurse Gytha complained that she dressed more like a serving maid than a lady?
“No, my lord,” she said, knowing she should make some
effort to give an account of herself.

She sensed from the abrupt silence in the great hall that Guillelm’s men had now been told, in hasty whispers from the
others, who she was. She could feel Sericus hovering close by,
awaiting his instructions, poised for the slightest signal from her
to make a formal introduction to Sir Guillelm de La Rochelle
on her behalf. But what was the use? she thought bleakly.

He does not remember me!

She felt her eyes fill and averted her face. She had been
barely on the verge of womanhood when he had left for Outremer, and they had been only friends: a chaste four-month
companionship of an older youth and a young girl. Guillelm
had been indulgent with her and she had foolishly taken his
kindly dealings as a sign of hope for the future. A false
future, as it turned out, for Guillelm did not remember her. Not even after their trial together in the woods, when they
had saved each other …

But she would not remind him. Pride would be her savior
now.

She felt his fingers under her chin, their gentle touch
almost undoing her. She lifted her head, bracing herself to explain who she was and how it was that Hardspen was so lately
run down and under threat of imminent siege.

She found herself staring at a brutally handsome, smiling
face, dominated by a pair of brilliant dark brown eyes.

“You gave me a rare look of welcome from the stairs just
then, almost as if you knew me,” Guillelm said, his smile deepening as Alyson felt herself blushing. “If I might presume on
your charity, I would beg two favors”

“Yes, my lord?” Alyson prompted as he fell silent. Was he
aware of every man in the room avidly watching their exchange? Already ill at ease, she wanted to run from the great
hall and keep on running, far into the rain-swept night.

As if he guessed her thoughts, Guillelm gave her another
swift smile. “They are nothing terrible, I vow: merely a wish
for your company as I reacquaint myself with this keep” his
dark eyes gleamed in the torchlight as he added-“and your
kiss of greeting.”

The instant he spoke, Guillelm thought, What am I doing?
Only a few hours earlier he had been standing before his father’s
tomb in the tiny local church of Olverton where Lord Robert
had been buried, his head full of memories and grief. Only yesterday, when he disembarked from his ship at Bristol, had he
learned that his father was dead. With that dreadful news and
Hardspen castle under threat he had no time for idle, pleasant
gallantries, even with a serving maid as pretty as this one.