A Knight's Vow (11 page)

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!”

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.”

The reminder of her religious name and purpose, the sober
habit, which accentuated Matilda-Ursula’s natural pallor, throwing her handsome, somewhat sharp-featured face into even
more desolate relief, and most of all that final, cruel instruction
brought home to Alyson how distant her birth-sister had become
after only a few months’ separation. Her kindness and slow
smile were gone-or did she share these only with her sisters in
Christ? Whatever the truth, this sudden blow was like a second
bereavement: First she had lost her father and now this.

“Are you happy here?” she stammered, at a loss for conversation.

Sister Ursula inclined her head. “It is what I always
wanted” She walked through a wattle arched gate into another part of the garden, calling over her shoulder, “Come,
look at our vine walk. It provides us with welcome shade on
warm days such as these”

Alyson had little choice but to follow, passing the elderly
convent infirmarer who was weeding the beds of leeks, celery
and parsley. The scent of coriander was heavy in the still air
and she was acutely conscious of her own footfalls on the
beaten earth paths.

“You could have been a part of this,” her sister remarked as
she drew near. “You once wanted to be a great healer, a scholar-as I am.” Sister Ursula held out her right hand,
showing her thumb and forefinger, stained with the inks of
the scriptorium. “Why did you break your vow?”

“What vow?” Alyson did not understand the question.

“You swore to join the nuns. Why did you break that
promise?”

“I never-” Aware from the infirmarer’s puzzled glance
that she had raised her voice, Alyson forced herself to speak
more quietly. “As a girl, yes, I wished to be part of convent
life, but I made no formal vow.”

“You were seduced by secular pleasures.” Sister Ursula
gave her gown a look of undisguised scorn. “Pretty clothes!”

Just in time, Alyson stopped herself from saying that the
gown was once Tilda’s; that would be a most unwelcome reminder. Instead she tried reason. “It pleased our father for me
to take another path in life.”

“I agree our father was morally weak, as are all men, but
do not blame him for your own forswearing.”

“I do not,” sighed Alyson, staring at the patch of poppies
in the physic garden and trying to remain as calm as if she
had swallowed a draught of poppy juice. By her own choice
she had made it possible for Sir Henry to allow Matilda to
enter the convent in some style, but she did not say that. She
knew there were other, darker and more urgent reasons why
her elder sister had been so desperate to remain unmarried.

“Our mother died in childbirth. Have you forgotten?”

Tears stood in Alyson’s eyes at the unjust accusation. She
shook her head, but her sister was deep in the past, reliving
those terrible three days.

“She screamed so loud and she was pleading with God and
all the saints for the pain to stop. Our father was out hunting,
taking his ease as do all men, and mother was shrieking in
their chamber, with no one to help her but a few twittering old
women”

“Please, Tilda,” Alyson begged, the memory that forever
haunted the dark spaces of her mind rising up and striking her
afresh.

She had been just four years old. To know those pitiful cries
had been made by her mother, to see the pallid, sweating faces
of the helpless nurses and midwives, to be shut out of her
mother’s chamber had been truly terrifying. It must have been
worse for Matilda, the older by five years and so more aware
of what was happening. They had clung to each other, hiding
out of sight under a trestle in a corner in the great hall while in
the small, narrow room off from the hall their mother labored
and suffered. Alyson remembered Matilda weeping; she was
weeping now, tears coursing down her thin, sallow cheeks.

“It is a judgment of God upon women. The only way to
escape it is to avoid the contaminating sin of marriage and
to take the veil, as I have. As you should have done!”

“Sister-” Alyson tried to enfold the slim, sobbing figure
in her arms, but although they were a height and similar in
build, if not in looks, her sister tore herself away with the
strength of desperation.

“Do not touch me! You did not see our mother when she was
dead! I did and she was white with loss of blood! Her bed and
chamber reeked of it! Even now, I can smell it.” Distracted,
Sister Ursula thrust past Alyson and fled back to the main
church of the convent, ignoring Alyson’s calls for her to return.

Some time later, after she was forced to admit that her sister
would not emerge to bid her farewell, Alyson took her leave of
the prioress of St. Foy’s. Feeling battered and rather degraded
by Tilda-Ursula’s accusations, she responded as briefly as possible to Guillelm’s greeting, aware of Fulk’s avid interest.

Guillelm took in her sunless demeanor in a single piercing
glance and lifted her onto her horse without comment. He
asked no questions on the journey to the manor of his friend,
but spurred on his piebald so that his men had to gallop to keep with him. Alyson was grateful for his tact and glad of the
hard ride; concentrating on that blotted out some of her grief.

Soon enough-too soon for Alyson-the party had
reached the home of Thomas of Beresford. The former crusader was as Guillelm had described, with many ragged scars
blazoned upon his forehead, the tip of his nose missing and a
deep groove hacked from his jawbone, where the rest of his
curly black beard would not grow. He stumbled down the
manor steps to clap Guillelm on the shoulder and roar out a
“Well-met!” wielding a stump of a right arm and a peg leg for
his right foot, but Alyson sensed a warm and genuine welcome beneath the fierce, battle-hewn countenance. She liked
him at once, even before Guillelm drew the man across to her
horse, so that she would have the advantage of looking down
on them, two hulking, seasoned warriors with skins the color
and texture of polished beechwood.

“My betrothed, the lady Alyson of Olverton,” Guillelm
said formally, smiling at her while Alyson prayed that her face
was not filthy with the dusty ride. She put out her hand to her
lord’s stocky, barrel-chested companion.

“Thank you for allowing us to stay at your house, Sir
Thomas,” she said.

Guillelm laughed at the look of mingled awe and shyness
on his friend’s rough-hewn face. “Mother of God, Tom, make
some answer or my excellent wife-to-be will think you dumb
as well as ugly!”

“No more brute than you, my lord,” Alyson flashed at him,
an answer that had several of the nearby men-at-arms who
were still riding round the manor yard, cooling their foamspeckled horses, glance at her with some astonishment. Fulk
even scowled but not Thomas.

“Excellent indeed!” He clasped her hand in his left and
stamped his peg leg in sheer good humor. “She is a match for
you, Guido, and more! Welcome to my home, my lady!”

“Thank you, sir,” Alyson responded, wondering afresh if
Guillelm really did consider her his equal, given the difference of their lands and titles. But she had no time to consider
the question before she was swept off her mount by Guillelm and set down beside Thomas with the growled warning
from her lord dragon, “There shall be a reckoning later for
that pert answer, mistress. Now go in with Tom and try to be
good, eh?” He sent her on her way with a teasing pat and
turned to bellow instructions to his men.

Staying at the manor of Thomas of Beresford was a bittersweet occasion for Alyson. Still grieving after the painful encounter with her sister, she found the manor contained many
echoes of her old home at Olverton. It was the same kind of
house, with a great hall and solar, a small pantry and buttery,
a staircase to a series of small upper rooms and the kitchens
and bakehouse across the yard. The furnishings were those that
reminded her of her childhood: sturdy oak tables and trestles,
earthenware crocks, a few faded wall hangings. She missed the
flowers that she had spread about Olverton hall, and the scents
of her old still room, but otherwise she could have wandered
through this place blindfolded and known where she was.

In one way, however, it was strange-very strange. There
were no womenfolk, no maids, no lady of the manor, no laundresses or spinsters.