A Knight's Vow (32 page)

In the morning, learning that Guillelm had come to the
solar but had been turned away by the other woman, who told
him roundly that their lady was soundly sleeping, Alyson felt
a little easier. He had intended to spend the night, not with the
Templars, but with her.

“He wanted to carry you back to the main bedchamber,”
Gytha went on, pausing as she teased out a knot in Alyson’s
hair with her comb, “but I told him you had given strict instructions not to be disturbed by anyone”

Alyson sat up straighter on her couch, her head suddenly,
appallingly clear. “You had no right. He will think-“

She broke off, aware of the maids listening and of Eva,
deftly lifting her pack onto her shoulders, giving her a cool,
careful look.

“Thank you, my lady, for allowing me to stay the night,”
the wisewoman said as the silence stretched on. “It is good
for me to come away from my man and the little ones. He appreciates me more on my return”

She bid the other women farewell, leaving the door to the
solar open to admit the fresh morning air. Crossing the
threshold, she turned back. “There is a festival in the village
of Setton Minor this day. I know this because my man comes
from there and he has prevailed upon me to join him in their
merrymaking.” She smiled, softening the plain contours of
her face, then continued, “The people there have heard of
your rescue of the cottar’s child. You and your lord would be
welcomed and greatly honored. Will you come?”

Alyson’s first instinct was to say yes, but would Guillelm
agree? As she hesitated, Eva added gently, “I hope you will,
my lady. It is a time when all may forget their cares and the
busiest of men and women may remember each other.”

And their vows, Alyson thought, and she smiled. “We will
come,” she said.

Perhaps I have done a very foolish thing, but I cannot help
it, Alyson told herself. Part of her wanted to dance and clap
her hands, seize the first clean gown she could find and rush
to Guillelm. It was a wonderful chance for them to be alone together for an entire day. No Hardspen. No Templars. No
Fulk. She and Guillelm could be like any other young couple
at a festival. The freedom of that idea made her giddy.

The clever, careful potion-maker in her urged caution. Patience and persuasion were the keys. If Guillelm thought that he
was being ordered to attend this event, he could easily refuse.

Leaving Gytha and the other maids to air and tidy the solar,
Alyson slipped into the empty main bedchamber, where she
dressed with particular care. A pale blue gown, to complement her eyes and coloring. Her hair bound tidily but not too
severely into a single plait, and her head covered by the beautiful silk veil her husband had given her. The whistle he had
made for her hung from her belt. A gold necklace and a silver
coronet. Her most comfortable shoes, because she intended
that she and Guillelm would walk to Setton Minor. If they
rode, Caliph and Jezebel could prove too alluring to thieves,
and Guillelm might be tempted to bring the merlin on a
saddle perch. She was determined that all of his attention
would be on her.

Guillelm woke, clearheaded, in the great hall. It was still
very early. No others were stirring, not even the servants or
the nuns in the chapel. When would that little community be
moving on? he wondered. He knew the prioress was awaiting
word from her own superiors, but he was surprised at the tardiness of her order. As Sister Ursula had pointed out, the nuns
were in a castle full of fighting men.

It was a mistake to think of Alyson’s sister, and what else
she had said. All thoughts inevitably led to Alyson. He had
missed her so much last night. Every moment, as he sat
amongst his own men and the Templars, speaking of Outremer and the endless bloodshed spilt in the name of God,
had driven home how alien that world had become to him. He no longer lusted for glory, or fellowship in arms. He was sickened and, yes, bored by the talk of killing. He longed for
Alyson’s quirky, mettlesome conversation. Her missed her
laughter, her smile, the way her eyes darkened to a more brilliant blue when she was interested in something. He missed
the smell of her hair, the touch of her hand on his, the feel of
her flawless skin. He missed everything about her. He was
mad to be separated from her.

Leaving the soldiers and squires rolled into their cloaks,
the Knights Templar snoring to a man, Guillelm rose and
strode from the hall.

He wanted to return to the solar at once and carry Alyson
off with him, but he forced himself to wash first and comb his
hair. Returning to the main bedchamber for a fresh undershirt, he met Alyson coming the other way.

The sight of her robbed him of words. Without any conscious choice, he opened his arms and she ran into them.
They clung to each other.

“I never want to be in a nunnery,” Alyson was saying, and
Guillelm answered, “I know. I understand that now. I do ””

She drew back a little to look at him. “Truly, dragon?”

“Truly, my most excellent girl.”

He kissed her: lips, eyes, nose, throat, ears. The taste of her
was sweeter and more heady to him than mead and she kept
pressing her lithe form tight against his, whispering his name
over and over.

A crowing cock somewhere in the bailey alerted Guillelm
to the passage of time. “We cannot keep meeting in the castle
corridors,” he murmured, nibbling her ear.

“I know a place.”

“Only say, sweet, and we shall go to it.”

She stood on tiptoe and whispered a name into his ear, and
so it was agreed between them.

On the way to Setton Minor they talked. Alyson began it,
saying again that she had no wish to enter a nunnery, that it
had been a childhood desire, long outgrown. For his part,
Guillelm apologized for threatening Sericus.

“I was wrong to speak of punishing the old man. I spoke
out of anger and concern”

“Concern?” Alyson was onto the word in an instant.

Guillelm scowled. Reminding himself yet again that the
small, dark woman strolling hand-in-hand with him across
the downs was not in any way like Heloise, it still took a leap
of faith to admit this next. “I was desperate with worry for
you. I wanted to blame someone”

“But Sericus takes my orders, not the other way round”

“I know. I am not proud of how I behaved. Nothing will
happen to him, I promise.”

“Thank you”

“No! You should not thank me. I was wrong, altogether
wrong” Guillelm felt a drop of water on his face and for an
appalled moment thought his shame was breaking through
into tears, but a glimpse of the darkening sky in the northeast
warned of an approaching storm.

Alyson tugged at his hand. “We can seek shelter ahead, if
we hurry.” She pointed to a small wayside barn, its thatched
roof a bright yellow against the flower-studded green of the
downland. It was the only cover for more than a bowshot’s
length in any direction.

Another splash hit his face and Alyson pulled at him again.
“Run!”

They skidded along the gently undulating track, each
stumbling in their haste. Passing a spring welling forth from an outcrop of flint and chalk and a shrine with two ancient
wooden crosses, each garlanded with flowers, they reached the
barn just as the rain began in earnest. Another few steps and
Guillelm shouldered open the barn door, to be met by a mound
of new hay, a scattered collection of rakes and, straight in the
doorway, a wooden plough riddled with woodworm.

Alyson sneezed at the dust and Guillelm quickly pulled off
his cloak, draping it over the plough. They sat down on the
threshold, leaning against the plough, facing the rain.

“This may last a long time,” Alyson remarked, glancing at
the sullen gray clouds.

Guillelm, yearning to embrace the subtle lines of her profile,
the sweet contours of her shape, could only answer, “It may.”

“Will you host another joust at Hardspen?”

The question was his chance and he grabbed it. “Alyson, at
the joust, the favor I gave you-did it please you?”

“Very much” Alyson lifted her hands off her lap to show
the dagger tucked into her belt. “Did my tokens please you,
dragon?”

Guillelm nodded, now hearing Tom’s warning being bellowed in his mind. He had to say this. “You would have been
asked for more favors and not only from me, except-“

He broke off as she turned her head to look at him. Her eyes
widened slightly, then narrowed. “Sir Tom would not take a
favor from me,” she remarked. “Was his refusal anything to do
with you?”

Conscious of a building sneeze and a general tightening in his
chest, Guillelm nodded. “I was jealous.” Wretched, aware of how
pathetic his actions had been, he rubbed fiercely at his itching
nose. “I told every man who entered the lists that if they received
so much as a smile from you, they would have to fight me.”

“What?”

I warned every knight that if they wore your favor I would challenge them-ow!” He flinched as Alysonjabbed her foot
against his leg.

“You deserve no less,” she said, her words as rapid as the
bouncing rain. “I sat for hours with no champion, while that
simpering Petronilla loaded rings and ribbons on dozens! It
was the same at our Court of Love! Her looks were praised to
the heavens! And now you tell me it was because all these men
were cowards and dared pay no suit to me because of you?”

Abruptly, she started to laugh, snapping her fingers at him.
“Your face, Guillelm! If I but had a mirror here … So you
were a very jealous guardian of my honor, were you? I vow, it
is a better explanation for me than that my looks were somehow amiss, not fashionable, but had you so little trust of me?”

Her moods were like quicksilver, but he saw the real
danger of her last reproof. “Never! I have always trusted you,
sweet. You-but not myself.”

“Ah. The dragon temper.” Alyson glanced at him sidelong,
her face disconcertingly unreadable. “I suppose if you could
not rein it in, you were wise to warn the others, but next
time”-she tapped his knee with her knuckles-“you shall
bear my granting favors, and with a good grace. I am no ninny,
to toy with a man’s affections, neither yours nor another’s. All
I give tokens to shall be as brothers, and they will know it.”

“Yes, wife,” Guillelm answered, tightening the hand she
could not see into a fist as he imagined the clamor round
Alyson. The very idea gnawed him like a canker. “You are
very just”

Above them thunder rolled and Alyson laughed afresh, her
eyes as brilliant as the flash of lightning forking over the
downs. “We do not have to hold these tourneys so very often”
She took his hand in hers and kissed the long scar close to his
thumb. “Be at peace. I am”

She snuggled against him, as sinuous and unconsciously
appealing as a kitten. Aware of a different heat pounding through his veins, Guillelm waited. He sensed she had more
to say.

“I love watching the rain.” Alyson held a hand out into the
downpour.

“You always did.”

They were still and quiet, Guillelm content to inhale the
smell of her hair and feel her, warm and soft against him. For
how long they were like this, in half-dream, half-dozing state,
he had no idea.

When he stirred again to full wakefulness, Guillelm realized that the rain was still falling. It was almost dark outside,
a late afternoon turned into an early twilight by the weather.

“We have lost more than half a day,” he said wonderingly.

“I know. You were sleeping so well, I did not like to disturb
you.”

“Really?” Astonished that he had slept at all, Guillelm
thought he would say nothing more of consequence but suddenly found new, dangerous words dropping from his mouth
like broken teeth.

I know how my father treated you”

Beside him, he felt Alyson stiffen.

I am sorry,” he said. “I will never forgive him.”

“To forgive is a hard thing,” Alyson agreed. “But you must
not blame yourself.”

“We were never close but, even so, I feel responsible for
his misdeeds. Afraid, too. I am his blood. Perhaps as I age, I
will grow more like him.”

“Never fear that!” Alyson shook her head. “You are nothing like Lord Robert. Not in any way.”

“But sometimes you seem to freeze when I approach. I
feared then that you were thinking of him, comparing us, reminding yourself that I was his son-‘

“Never! As I told you, dragon, if I go still, it is with rapture,
not fear.” She would not hurt him by confessing to the odd memory-flash of Lord Robert’s cruelty when they themselves
were close. Such unwanted remembrances had nothing to do
with Guillelm and herself, and she was determined they would
throw no more shadows.

“Pray God you are right.” Guillelm gently touched her head.
“How could he strike you? Beat you? He could not have loved
you-no man who loves a woman would ever seek to hurt her.”

“There are other ways of hurt” Alyson knelt up so that their
eyes were level. “I can bear it no longer,” she said simply. “I
have to know. Who is Heloise? What did she do to you?”

Guillelm sighed. “Before I tell you of Heloise, I must explain about my older sister.”

He took her hand in his, comforted and reassured when she
gave his fingers a gentle squeeze. Heartened by the gesture
and by her steady blue eyes, he took a deep breath.

“Juliana is trapped in a loveless marriage. I did not recognize it as such, when I served her and my brother-in-law briefly
as squire, but even at twelve I thought Juliana cold to her husband, unnecessarily reserved. Once I found her crying in her
solar. She told me then that all men are brutes those were her
exact words: `Knights or peasants, men are brutes, slaves to
their base passions. Soon enough, you will grow up and be like
all the rest: the charming, fresh-faced younger brother who
runs to bring me my book or cushion will be as sullen and
determined of his rights as Oliver.’ Oliver is her husband, a
dour, laconic fellow who never praises when he can carp. I
did not understand then what Juliana meant about rights, but I
learned. I learned especially in Outremer, where some poor
women have to sell themselves to put bread in their children’s
bellies. They know too much about the rights of men!