A Knight's Vow (15 page)

If you think that, wait until we have the nights together,
Guillelm thought, but then he struck his head against a boulder and went under, swallowing a good yard of river.

Strong fingers yanked his hair and tugged; he surfaced,
coughing, and with part of his skull feeling as if it had undergone an ordeal with a hot iron, but still afloat.

“I have you,” Alyson crowed. “I am swimming for us ””

“Peace, wench, and get me to the bank,” said Guillelm.
That was enough of lessons for the day.

Three weeks later and there had been no time for more
swimming, Alyson thought with regret, but with pride, too,
for she and Guillelm had not been idle. The new well at Hardspen was being dug, the stores had been checked and added
to, everywhere had been cleaned, including the stables, the
sheep had been clipped, the hay harvest gathered, the wheat
was growing well, firewood and timber laid by and folk were
seen in the great hall with their appeals for help and justice.

Though Alyson had no doubt that Fulk disapproved, Guillelm often sought her out to ask about the background to the
various complaints from the local people. “You will know
who is rumored to steal from the fish ponds and who gives
light weight to their measures,” he remarked, a comment she
hugged to herself. Guillelm’s father had never involved her in
any way in such disputes.

Her only cloud was her nights, where she had bad dreams.
She begged her nurse Gytha to say nothing of her nightmares
of blood and screams. They would pass, she thought. They
must, or Fulk’s malice with that vile parcel he had left in her
bed at Sir Tom’s would leave too great a shadow.

She was also no closer to learning about Heloise. She had promised Sir Tom that she would not ask Guillelm directly and
she had kept that vow. More oblique questions to him-Had
he known many ladies in Outremer? What fashions did the
women of the East wear? Were there any female crusaders?
had yielded only one-word answers or, in the last case, a grunt
of laughter.

But perhaps she was being foolish. On the evening of the
day they had swum in the river, Guillelm had asked her to join
him in the chapel at Hardspen.

There, with the last of the evening sunlight casting shadows on his face and hair he had knelt before her on the stone
flags so that their eyes were almost level.

“This is for you. I meant to give it you earlier.”

He had handed her a scrap of cloth. His eyes gleamed with
the same suppressed excitement that she had seen in them
when he was a youth, when he was about some quest or mischief, and she heard the tendons of his neck crack as he lowered his head to watch her fingers.

“I hope you like it,” he murmured.

Wondering what it could be, she opened the roughly tied
parcel. Inside the cloth had been a delicate web of something,
thin as the wings of a butterfly. Alyson blew on it, watching
the filmy stuff billow.

“Silk?” she asked.

Guillelm nodded. “Bartered from a trader in Jerusalem
with a stall close to the spice market”

“It is a gorgeous color. Like a fall sky at twilight.” Almost
afraid to handle the purple-blue haze, she unwrapped it fully.
“It is beautiful. So smooth and light.”

“The only thing I thought worthy of covering your hair,”
Guillelm said quickly. “It is a veil,” he added unnecessarily.

“Thank you” She touched his cheek with the silk, feeling
the rough grain of his tanned flesh through the rare fabric. “I
shall wear it at our wedding,” she continued, catching her breath as Guillelm had turned his head and kissed her hand
close to the wrist.

Thinking back, Alyson smiled. Whatever memories Guillelm had of Heloise, he had given the silk to her. And proud,
blond Heloise was in Outremer; it was she who was marrying the lord of Hardspen.

Tomorrow.

But what if she could not make him happy? What if her
sister was right and God was angry with her for not entering
convent life? What if she died in childbirth, like her mother?
What if at some fatal moment, Guillelm did something that
reminded her too closely of his father? What if he saw the
scars on her body? What if they repelled him?

The questions had driven her back to the castle chapel. She
had been on her knees here since the midday meal, telling
Guillelm that she was keeping a vigil.

“That is what a squire does, before he is knighted,” Guillelm had said. “He spends the night at prayer and fasting.
Do you think our marriage will be such a battlefield?”

His question had seemed innocent enough, a tease, but she
had sensed his disquiet and answered seriously, “I will pray for
those things a good knight prays for: faithfulness, fellowship,
generosity of spirit.” Then she had grinned. “A good defense”

“Off with you, horror,” Guillelm had said, tugging her plait
as she mounted the stairs.

She had been praying before the simple stone altar for several hours. Beyond the chapel door the daytime bustle of the
castle had given way to the scurry of the evening meal in the
great hall, then quiet. Guillelm was not drinking tonight and
neither were his men. Presumably he did not wish to appear at
his wedding thickheaded, she thought, but the lack of merrymaking made her wonder if he was having second thoughts.
Where was he tonight? With some woman? His final bedding as a free man?

Alyson tried to quell the thought, ashamed of her own jealousy. And in church, too!

There was a knock on the chapel door. Alyson rose, rubbing her numb, cold knees, as Fulk entered.

“I have brought you some mulled wine, my lady.”

The wine smelt good and looked harmless. More surprising still was Fulk himself, very fine in a gold and silver
mantle, smelling of fresh soap, and smiling.

“Thank you, sir.” Alyson could think of no legitimate
reason to refuse his apparent kindness and could only delay.
“Would you leave the wine outside the chapel for me? To
drink here does not seem quite appropriate.”

“Yet we will take communion wine in here tomorrow, my
lady.” He proffered the goblet again. “Please, for the sake of
my lord. He would not have you catch your death of cold.”

Guillelm had sent the wine? Perhaps he had, but then why
had Fulk brought it and not a page or squire? Or even one of
the maids there were plenty about the castle now, for all had
thrown off the summer sickness.

“My lord is ever kind,” Alyson responded stiffly. “As are
you, sir, for carrying it to me yourself.” She took the goblet
from him, making great play of inhaling the steaming beverage. “I love the smell of warm spices.” Which was true, although the reason she sniffed so heartily was to catch any
trace of something unwholesome in the mixture. Alyson had
not forgotten Fulk’s accusation of poison against Gytha.

Nor it seemed had Fulk. He took a step closer to her. “I
swear that it is safe.”

The very fact he did not add “my lady” convinced Alyson,
that and the flush that tided up into his gaunt face, submerging the angry red spots on his sallow cheeks beneath a rush
of shame.

I have wronged you”

His words were almost indistinct, yet his gesture was plain. Much to Alyson’s embarrassment he fell on his knees before
her, his hands reaching in supplication for the hem of her
gown. “Forgive me. For my pride, my arrogance, my malice.
I have sinned against a purely virtuous lady and now I see my
error. Forgive!”

He was clutching at her skirts, his hard blue eyes wide in
seeming distress. But why the change of heart? Had Guillelm
spoken to the man?

Almost as if he had divined her thought, Fulk prattled on.
“Please, my lord knows nothing of my trick against you at
the house of Thomas of Beresford. I beg you not to speak of it
to him.”

Sickened by his admission, Alyson yanked her gown from
his clasping fingers. “I am no telltale.”

“No, you are a mate worthy of my lord. I understand that”

Alyson sniffed the wine again and tasted it. “I think less
cinnamon next time.” She rippled her fingers at Fulk. “Rise,
sir, or you will be the one to catch your death of cold.

“Tell me,” she said, when Fulk was on his feet. “How did
you arrive at your revised conclusion?”

“You speak like a master of logic, my lady-“

“And you put pig’s guts into my bed. Answer the question.”

Fulk scowled, clearly put out by her directness. “I was not
myself that night,” he muttered. “Too much wine.”

It was the nearest, Alyson sensed, that he would come to an
explanation or apology. “Go on,” she said, sipping her wine.

Fulk stared at the altar candles. “Guillelm is happy.”

“Your lord’s joy is important to you, then? Even if it means
a different destiny from the one you wanted for him?” Waiting for Fulk’s reply, Alyson found herself looking at the altar,
with its bare white cloth and small, roughly carved, garishly
painted wooden crucifix. Gytha and Osmoda had promised
her many flowers for her wedding day but so far the chapel
was as plain as it had ever been.

“Perhaps it is the will of God,” Fulk conceded.

“Yet you told me Guillelm’s fancies did not last, so why
should you think differently of me?”

“He is marrying you. You have no family, no important
friends to force your case with him had he chosen to keep you
as his leman, instead.” Fulk shrugged-it seemed that begging her forgiveness and his earlier groveling had depleted his
small store of courtesy as he now added, “It is certainly nothing to do with honoring your own lands or title, neither of
which can be described as significant.”

“It is well for you, Fulk, that our lord is not here, or you
would suffer for that ungentle remark” Alyson’s mind turned
cold, her body clammy. Guillelm’s mistress. She had not considered that possibility, although in truth, considering what
had so nearly happened between her and Guillelm’s father,
Lord Robert, she should have done. For an instant her own
vulnerability weighed on her, then she rallied.

“What of your vow to me, to win places for yourself and
Guillelm on a further crusade to Outremer? Do you still hold
to that promise?”

“It seems I cannot”

“Do you give up that vow?” Alyson persisted. “Do you?”

“It seems I must”

“Not the most extravagant of new promises, Fulk.”

“I know I must do better.” Fulk clasped his shaggy gray
head briefly between his hands and then began to pace about
the chapel. “I cannot easily praise women”

“Not even the delicious Heloise of Outremer?”

That stopped him dead, in midstride. “You know of her?”

“Of course” Alyson waited; this was more teasing than the
most delicate of potion making. If Fulk guessed how badly
she wanted to know more of Heloise he might deny her. “She
was blond and beautiful and she injured my lord.”

“That is true-I know nothing of what passed between
them, but Heloise was the very devil.”

“To you we women are all the snares of the devil.” Alyson
did not smile at Fulk’s startled expression; it gave her no pleasure to admit this. She knew that to him there was nothing
about her of value. To him, she was simply a dark Heloise.
Heloise, who remained mysterious …

“If you get Guillelm a son it will be enough” His previous
fulsome speech had entirely deserted him. “If you have the
courage for such work”

So he had overheard her talking to Guillelm and knew the
tragic history of her mother! Yet there was no sympathy in his
look or words. To Fulk she was a vessel for a man’s seed,
nothing more. “And my people and I will be safe from you?”

A trace of white spittle appeared at the corner of Fulk’s
mouth as he whipped round to face her. “What do you think
me? You are my lord’s!”

“Perhaps worth even as much as his merlin,” Alyson agreed.

That wrung a grudging smile from Fulk. “I swear I will
make no move against you” He signed the cross in the air.

“Nor against my people?” Alyson demanded, remembering Gytha.

“Nor against your people.”

“You will serve me faithfully, as a true knight to her lady?”

He sighed. “Even that”

Should she demand an act of fealty from him? Alyson
wondered, but the idea of Fulk kneeling before her a second
time, of her hands clasping his while he swore an oath of allegiance, was abhorrent to her. He had sworn and signed the
cross; that should be sufficient.

“I would serve you now, my lady,” Fulk’s attempt at gallantry
was back and Alyson chose to take the wish for the deed.

“How so?” she asked, finishing her wine. It had indeed
been excellent she and Fulk might yet muddle along, she thought, praying that she was not being too optimistic in her
assessment. Yet she had to try, if only for Guillelm’s sake.
“What would you do for me?”

Fulk walked away. For an instant, Alyson thought he was
leaving and was uncertain if she was relieved or annoyed, but
then he crouched in the shadow of one of the chapel’s stone
pillars, plucking something from the floor. He returned to her,
holding it aloft between his hands. “I would tell you of this
diadem, which the chatelaines of Hardspen have ever worn
on festal days. My lord thought it lost, but I have sought and
found it and now I offer it to you”

He held out the diadem. “It was in one of the store rooms,
thrust into a sack in a corner. I think the previous steward of
the castle must have brought it there for some reason of his
own and then died of the fever before telling anyone where he
had put it, or why, but no matter; it is recovered”

“A prodigal diadem,” Alyson observed, but her small joke,
at which Guillelm would have laughed, earned her no smile
from Fulk.

“It is an ancient thing, my lady.” He spoke as if she had
said nothing. “My lord has spoken of it to me, with sorrow at
its disappearance. He did not mention it to you,” Fulk went
on, turning the diadem in his hands, “because he did not wish
to cause you distress.”