A Knight's Vow (19 page)

“But the man is roaring drunk-“

“Even so. Pass me my gown, Sericus”

Ignoring Sericus’s protests, Alyson dressed swiftly. On
the way to the castle, she called to a kitchen maid and asked
the girl to send a message to Gytha and Osmoda that a tub of
fresh hot water was waiting for them in the bathhouse. Why
not? She knew that her old nurse would appreciate the chance
to soak her aching joints and Osmoda would welcome the opportunity to bathe. Someone at least would reap the benefits
of Guillelm’s work and her own.

Meantime there was an armed knight rampaging around
Hardspen, convinced that all who approached him were his
adversaries. She could hear Thierry as she rushed ahead of
limping Sericus and ran up the narrow spiral staircase leading to the battlements.

“Fight, damn you!” Thierry was raging in French. “Come
at me, pigs!” He lapsed into Arabic and then into a long, incoherent bellowing, oblivious it seemed to his fellow countrymen yelling at him to stop, to put his sword down, to
recognize them as friends.

Guillelm was already on the battlements. His voice was
low, steady, comforting.

“You are safe, Thierry. You have fought and won, Thierry.
You are ever a brave and noble knight who will do no wrong. You will know me, Thierry. When I walk across to you, you
will know me as you know yourself. And you will be safe. I
promise you will be safe”

Alyson paused at the top of the stairs, allowing her eyes to
adjust to the bright sunlight after pounding up the shadowy
steps and to take in the scene. Her sudden appearance might
inflame an already difficult situation and so she would keep
out of sight, but she had to be sure Guillelm was safe. And if
the chance came where she might help him, she would.

Thierry was on the highest part of the keep, crouching in
a corner, below the arrow slits and crenellations and with two
outer battlement walls protecting his back. He was a stocky,
swarthy man whom Alyson remembered all too well from
the time he had tried to kiss her. There were splashes of beer,
vomit and wine on his leather jerkin and a huge jagged gash
in his leggings. He had black and yellow bruises on his
square chin and broad nose and strands of rushes in his
greasy dark hair. He was armed with a sword and a dagger,
brandishing both in front of him.

On his left a knot of men, including Fulk and Sir Tom, carried no weapons but had their long shields raised against him.
Alyson saw Fulk’s tense profile and his hard blue eyes blinking over the top of his shield.

“We are your friends, damn you!” he shouted in French,
leaping back a step as Thierry swung at him. The point of
Thierry’s long sword clashed against the rim of Fulk’s shield
and the two men cursed. The others flinched, including Sir
Tom, who glanced across the battlements at Guillelm.

Guillelm was standing alone, to the right of Thierry, the
place of danger where a right-handed swordsman most likely
would attack. He had no sword or shield to protect him: he
was bareheaded and barefooted, his clothes tugged on and
still untied, but when he addressed the sweating, dark-browed
man he was calm and kind, as if speaking to a child.

“Thierry, you are safe. No one here means you harm. Look at me, Thierry.” He took a step toward the scowling figure,
ducking as Thierry struck at him with a wild lunge.

“You know me” Guillelm stopped and whistled a jaunty
little tune. “Do you remember that song, Thierry? You sang
me all the verses when we were riding to Jerusalem.”

He spread his hands and turned full face to the muttering
Norman knight, careless, it seemed, of presenting an easy
target. “Your younger sister stitched you the embroidered belt
you are wearing now,” he went on, unmoving as Thierry
slashed his dagger so close to him that Alyson had to gnaw
on her lower lip to stop herself screaming a warning. He is
crazy, she thought. Guillelm will get himself killed for the
sake of a drunken, lecherous fool. But she had to trust him.
Love is trust, and if she intervened now, if she broke the fragile eye contact that had been forged between Guillelm and his
man, then anything could happen.

“I have more ale in the great hall, waiting,” Guillelm continued. “Drink with me, Thierry.”

He took another step closer. Thierry’s sword dipped as the
man’s shoulders sagged and Fulk took the moment to edge
forward, but then Thierry jerked out of his crouch and lumbered forward, his sword arm raising again.

“Infidel!” he screamed, but Guillelm merely sidestepped his
clumsy charge, caught the man firmly by his left arm as he tottered past and yanked him back, preventing Thierry from taking
a lethal plunge off the battlements into the inner courtyard.

“You know me, Thierry. Look at me” Guillelm was scarcely
out of breath, although for an instant his man had been within
two steps of the edge. Glancing at the anxious upraised faces
below them, hearing the stifled gasps, Alyson felt momentarily
sick. If Thierry had gone over he surely would have been killed.

“Come drink with me, Thierry. Infidels do not drink. You
know it is forbidden to them”

“More fools they are,” Thierry slurred, appearing almost
cross-eyed for a moment in sheer bewilderment. “I know you”

Guillelm took another step closer, his blond hair glinting
in the strong sunlight. “We are crusaders, brothers in arms”

“You owe him your fealty,” Fulk dropped in, at which Sir
Tom pulled a face behind his shield, for Fulk’s alien, nasal voice
broke the spell.

“Liar!” Thierry screamed and waded toward Guillelm,
stabbing and hacking while Guillelm dived this way and that,
weaving around Thierry’s frenzied attack and keeping out of
range of the deadly, flashing blades. He barged into Thierry,
shoulder-first, almost knocking him clean off his feet, but the
stocky Norman staggered a few paces back, his sword grating over the stone walkway, and then he regained his balance.
He grunted and shook his head, clumsily patting himself over
to check he had not been cut.

“I am unharmed, Thierry,” Guillelm said steadily. “I am
Guillelm de La Rochelle and I swear by the Mother of God
that I would never harm you”

“Mother of God?” Thierry’s lips moved slowly. “That is a
familiar oath. My lord uses it often” He peered at the tall
blond warrior standing fearlessly in front of his sword point.
“Are you he?”

Guillelm remained stock-still, hands on hips, ignoring
Fulk’s muttered, “The fellow is worse than blind drunk this
time. You are mad to approach him, my lord.” Guillelm did
not recoil as Thierry swayed toward him, the dagger in
Thierry’s left hand exactly level with his guts.

“Mother of God, please keep them safe,” Alyson prayed urgently, starting as a gnarled hand flopped against her shoulder.

“My lady,” Sericus wheezed, “you should not be here.
You-” He coughed, his whole body shuddering with the
long climb of the stairs.

“I am safe enough” Swiftly, without taking her eyes off
Guillelm, Alyson stepped around Sericus, bracing her arm
against the spiral staircase so that the poor man should not
fall. “Do not be troubled.”

“But my lord said-“

Alyson did not listen to the rest. Placing a hand on his
shoulder she motioned the seneschal to sit on the stairs with
her, her eyes never leaving her husband. If Thierry struck at
Guillelm now, would her dragon have time to save himself?
They were less than a spear’s length apart from each other,
Thierry making stabbing movements in the air, shaking his
head as Guillelm did not react.

“I am Guillelm, Thierry, and you are always safe with me “

If possible, Thierry looked more bewildered than ever.
“But I am in the dungeons of Hasim, where no one escapes”

“Except for you, Thierry.”

“No, my lord is storming the castle of the infidel … can
you hear the crash of the rams and siege engines?”

“That is long ago, Thierry. Listen, now: I can hear birdsong.”

Thierry knuckled his eyes with the fist that was clutching
his dagger. After a moment, he hissed, “You are right! A skylark, very high.”

“We are not in Outremer now, Thierry.”

“No? But my lord came down into the dungeon of Hasim
to lift me out. I had been there for three months and Guillelm
broke my fetters and carried me out in his arms like a child,
carried me out into the sunlight and the fresh free air.”

Alyson gasped, understanding now why the Norman
should be so disturbed. Of all punishments that men could inflict on each other, imprisonment in the windowless, airless
dungeons of their castles was surely the worst. She had heard
of men driven mad in such places; it was no wonder that, deep
in his cups, Thierry might remember his long confinement
and confuse past and present.

“Come with me now, Thierry,” Guillelm said, adding more
in a French dialect that Alyson did not understand.

Thierry dropped his dagger. It skidded onto the battlements
and bounced on the stones. Fulk made a grab for it, which
Thierry interpreted as a fresh threat, regripping his sword and pitching forward at Guillelm, his face twisted into a terrible
snarl of fear and anger.

“No!” Sir Tom yelled, as Guillelm twisted swiftly and
harmlessly away and Thierry blundered on, ever closer to the
four-man-high drop over the battlements into the inner courtyard. As Guillelm spun round, his hands reaching and grabbing, trying for the second time to stop his man falling,
Alyson launched herself from the dark stairway and darted at
Thierry. She had no plan, simply the wild desire to stop him.

“Thierry!”

At her high, clear voice, Thierry slewed awkwardly, his feet
scrabbling on the stones. Finally and with a roar he slipped
and sat down heavily. “A girl!” he bawled in French.

The distraction was enough for Guillelm. Seizing the
moment that Thierry’s attention was on Alyson, he wrested
the man’s sword out of his hand and pinned him to the battlements. Thierry flailed about for an instant and then lay back,
panting and repeating in French, “A girl, a girl.”

Guillelm clapped Thierry on the back and pushed him
toward the waiting Fulk and Sir Tom. “Sleep it off, man, and
think no more of it.”

He turned to Alyson as the subdued Thierry and the rest of
the men filed silently down the stairs. “Are you all right?”
he asked her.

“Perfectly,” Alyson lied. Now that her initial jubilation that
Guillelm and Thierry were both safe had passed, she felt
clammy. “Are you hurt?” She countered question with question.

“Unharmed, save for the fright you gave me when you
hurled yourself out of the stairwell!” He chuckled. “That was
a brave act, if foolish.”

“No more than your own,” Alyson began, but reaction
caught up with her and she quickly turned her head, clutching her stomach. “I feel sick.”

To her mortification she was sick, straight over the battlements. As she spat and shuddered, she felt Guillelm’s hands
on her shoulders.

“Here, little one” He uncorked a leather flask for her, holding it as she rinsed out her mouth and took a drink of the
weak ale. “It can take you like this after a fight, or danger.
Coming alive again is a shock” He patted her shoulder.
“Thank you for saving me”

Expecting a scolding, Alyson stammered, “But I did not do
so much, dragon, and if you had not been so quick, things
may have gone amiss.”

“Aye, they may.” Guillelm gave her ear a gentle tweak.
“You are running up a mighty debt to me: waspish answers,
disobedience “

“Disobedience!”

not to mention the bullying of my servants. We agreed
that Sericus is my servant, too, did we not? And yet you have
that lame old man galloping about the bailey as if he were a
warhorse. No, you are greatly in debt.” He overrode her protest.
“Nothing else will do in repayment except that you bathe me
as you promised. Or are you one who reneges on vows?”

“You will have to test me and see,” Alyson quipped. She
smiled up at her new husband, her sickness replaced by a
lightheaded joy. Her strategy was working; Guillelm was becoming less wary of her, less guarded in his replies. Surely he
must realize how much she loved him, how much she desired
him. If he so much as clicked his fingers she would cast herself into his arms right here on the battlements and smother
him with kisses; she did not care who might be watching.

The wanton thought made her blush and laugh, which was
a pity, for Guillelm had been lowering his head to her and
now he stopped.

“I see you are still affected by this morning’s misadventure,”
he said abruptly. He turned on his heel. “Forgive me, I know I must give you time. I will be down in the great hall, whenever
you wish to join me. Now I must make certain Thierry is settled.”

Listening to his rapidly descending feet Alyson snorted and
uttered an unladylike curse under her breath. Things between
them had been going so sweetly … but it was not all lost.
Guillelm had said “whenever you wish to join me ”” He desired her company and that was an excellent beginning, was
it not? She could only hope so!

Patience, Alyson counseled, determinedly telling herself
that this way she could slip into her new marital bedchamber,
change her gown and restyle her hair before she reencountered Guillelm.

Fulk, who had sent his own page to spy on Alyson, drew
the boy off to the stables and listened impassively to the lad’s
latest report. The lady, cloistered in her chamber with that
aged, crabbed nurse of hers. Womanish scents. Whispers and
laughter. The lady emerging in a new gown and with ribbons
in her hair …

Women really were the devil’s work, Fulk concluded, sending the page off to watch some more. He had sworn to the lowbred Alyson of Olverton that he would not act against her. Nor
would he, but for his lord to break a solemn vow of abstinence
after only one day would be unseemly; he would remind Guillelm of that. And I must also ensure that when he goes to his
chamber to rest, he is not disturbed by anyone, he thought, and
smiled.