A Knight's Vow (21 page)

“I understand completely,” Alyson replied, briefly envying
Thierry his lord’s concern before good sense took hold of her again. There was a difference between being attentive to Guillelm and becoming his very shadow. Besides, if she left for
the castle first, he might wonder where she had gone, and
surely a little doubt on his part was good?

Quitting the tilting ground, aware of Fulk watching her
leave, Alyson could only hope so.

As Alyson was passing the bathhouse, encouraging a lagging page to keep up, Sericus stopped her.

“My lady.” He drew her apart from the pages, his wrinkled,
gray-bearded face warped with concern. “Grave news”

Alyson braced herself. Was Tilda safe and well at St. Foy’s?
Had Thierry gone berserk again? Or did the news concern
King Stephen or the Empress Maud? Had the warring forces
come closer to Hardspen?

“Yes, Sericus?” she asked, when her gray-headed seneschal
did not speak.

“Edwin the shepherd has seen a wolf at the edge of the
common land and forest. He is sure,” Sericus continued,
guessing Alyson’s first question. “He knows there have been
no wolves in these parts for many years, but he saw a pack
when he was a boy. He swears to me there is no mistake.” Sericus hopped nervously from one foot to the other, favoring his
less withered leg. “Already he is short a dozen lambs.”

Alyson sighed. “I am sorry for that” She was, too, and there
was no easy answer. Edwin was keen-sighted but had no skill
with bow and arrow and less with a sling and slingshot.

“He has no shepherd lad or lass with him to guard his
lambs?” she asked.

“I fear not and now the wolf grows bold, my lady. Only
yesterday, Edwin saw it carry off a lamb in bright daylight.
Also, he says that a widow from Setton Minor was terrorized
the day after the feast-day of Saint Mary Magdalene-by a
`huge black beast, like a dog but with more teeth,’ as she took
flowers to a wayside shrine of St. Foy.”

And was the widow also paying a visit to Eva the wisewoman
in the woods there? Alyson thought, but she said nothing.

Sericus crossed himself and continued. “The woman was
on the road when the beast came at her; she managed to toss
a stone at it and drive it into the thickets, but she was badly
shaken”

“So it may be only a matter of days before it attacks someone: a child gathering berries, an old woman seeking firewood.” Alyson frowned, imagining the damage a hungry wolf
could inflict on such innocents.

“I shall speak to my lord,” she told Sericus, with more assurance than she felt. Guillelm was kind and mindful of his
people, but whom could he spare to go on a wolf hunt? Perhaps that was how she should ask present it as a challenge
and “good sport” to tempt Guillelm and his men into tracking the beast.

“I will speak to him when I may,” she promised, squeezing
Sericus’s shoulder in brief reassurance as she continued on
her way to the castle keep.

For the rest of the afternoon, Alyson was kept busy with
questions from her maids concerning the flax and wool spinning and also the anxious head cook, who seemed convinced
that with Guillelm and his men having lived in Outremer, they
would expect an Eastern feast every day. She spent an hour in the lean-to where she made her potions, checking the drying
and steeping herbs, then time in the shade of the bathhouse
with the oldest laundress, who had a complaint that “some vile,
low knaves” had smeared fire-ash onto the bed linen she was
drying on bushes by the river. As a piece of malicious mischief,
Alyson thought it grotesque, and she listened most sympathetically to the woman’s tirade, promising to speak to her lord
about it and offering her the copper bangle from her own wrist
in recompense of the laundress’s wasted labor. She would have
liked to have given the laundress money, but she had no coins.
Lord Robert had taken the few silver pennies she owned.

With these matters and other tasks, Alyson realized with a
start that it was close to sunset. Expecting to find Guillelm in
the stables, tending to Caliph, she was surprised he was not
there. Jezebel, her own horse, whickered happily to see her
and she could not resist giving the mare some attention,
brushing her coat and combing out the tangles in her mane.
The stable lad protested when he found her working, but not
too much. She was the well-loved lady of Hardspen and,
moreover, he knew that she would willingly tend his hurts if
a horse kicked or bit him.

Backing away from the stables, Alyson thought too late of
her gown. Berating her own folly, she looked herself over, relieved that the dress was still clean and wholesome. Not so
her hands-they needed a soak.

Within the keep, she climbed the stairs swiftly straight to
her chamber, longing to see Guillelm again as she passed
the entrance of the great hall but not sneaking a peep in case
she was spotted. True, her dragon had seen her with potionstained fingers when she was child, but she doubted if the
mysterious Heloise had ever appeared to him thus. Perhaps
she should add even more ribbons to her hair, or would that
merely make her husband laugh?

“I could try it and see,” she said aloud, stepping off the stair onto the narrow stone landing outside the main bedchamber
hers now, and Guillelm’s, if he should ever rest in it again.
Would he do so tonight? Where had he slept on their wedding night? Had he slept?

The panic had been with her all day, the dread unacknowledged but horribly present. She had tried to keep occupied,
but that and all the foolish beauty aids and girlish plans had
been no more than ploys to stop her dwelling on the question,
What would happen between them tonight? Would he come?

Her fragile confidence faltered, crashing completely as
she saw the figure standing outside the chamber, “guarding”
the door.

Checking that the door was indeed closed, Fulk stepped
toward her.

“My lord is resting and would not be disturbed,” he said.

“But he will come to supper soon,” Alyson observed.

“I am to be in his place at the high table this evening, by
his own order. Sericus too,” Fulk added negligently.

This was against custom but Alyson did not want to ask for
explanations from Fulk.

“We have fought hard today,” he went on.

Alyson saw the sheen of sweat on the man’s glib, triumphant
face and answered with unusual spite, “For you it was hard. For
my husband it is no more effort than blowing away the web of
a spider. I have news for Guillelm.” She thought of the complaint of the laundress but put that aside to speak of the greater
threat-something that could not wait. “There is a wolf at
large, terrorizing the country close to Hardspen. It needs to be
found and stopped, before a child is killed.”

“I will tell him.”

“You are not my messenger, and I will enter my own bedchamber.”

“No!” Fulk raised his hands, blocking her way. “Do you not understand your own language?” he demanded. “My lord
is exhausted”

“Speak a little louder, Fulk. I do not think Guillelm heard
that. If he did, I do not think he would be pleased.”

His blue eyes widened, then narrowed, a sign of anger she
was coming to recognize only too well. “To fight even in practice is a furious labor, something a female never understands.”

Alyson smiled, conscious at this moment only of her dislike
for Fulk. He must be an excellent warrior. Nothing else would
have compelled Guillelm to favor such a man with any kind of
preferment, but she would have him away from the door.

“When you have undergone the trials of childbirth, Sir
Fulk, then you may speak of labor to me,” she remarked
sweetly.

“What would you know of that? The women of your family
bleed, not breed, each miscarriage proof of your sins, or drop
only daughters. You doubtless will be as useless and barren.”

Nasty and clever his voice was now no more than a whisper.

“You would not say such things to me in the hearing of our
lord,” Alyson said, struggling to keep the memory of her
mother’s death at bay, terrified at the thought that perhaps the
women of her family were somehow cursed, steeped in sin.
“You would not dare”

He snorted. “I would not need to! Guillelm will learn soon
enough. That is, if he ever breaks his vow and troubles to bed
you”

Such affront was more than Alyson could bear. “You are
without honor!” she blazed out, turning so Fulk would not see
her cry. She stalked away. Reaching the stairs and out of sight
of the landing, she ran.

“Wait!” Guillelm called out urgently, but she was already
gone, vanishing into the long evening shadows. He seized Fulk, slamming the man against the wall. “What are you
doing here? Why did you not let her pass?”

“I was about to, my lord! I swear.”

Fulk lapsed into French, a bead of sweat trickling down his
nose as he made excuses that Guillelm was too angry to hear.
Struggling with a locked chest in the chamber that he could
find no key to and could not open without force, he had not realized that Alyson was outside until he heard her raised voice.

Abruptly, he released Fulk, thrust him off. “I have no time for
you,” he said, cutting through the man’s declarations that he had
caused the lady no offense. “We shall speak later.” Guillelm
made the promise a warning as he followed his fleeing wife.

Alyson retired to her former room, where her nurse Gytha
took one look at her and silently guided the gawking Osmoda
and the sharp-eyed maids out of the chamber. Alyson knew
she had taken their sleeping place for the night but could
hardly feel sorry for them-she was pitying herself. She threw
herself onto the nearest bed and wept, pummeling the mattress
with her fists, imagining the yielding pallet as Fulk’s smirking
face. Why should women have always to give way to men?
How could she reach Guillelm and tell him of the wolf?

But then, why should she try? “I will catch the wolf
myself,” she said, and cried again.

Presently, she wiped her face and sought to compose herself.
If Guillelm truly was weary, then she should go to supper in the
great hall. If the lord of Hardspen could not show himself to his
people, then the lady must. Yet it hurt her that Guillelm had not
sent her a message to say he would not be dining in the hall,
that he should tell Fulk and Sericus ahead of her. Or was he
perhaps planning some surprise for her within their chamber?
A sweet thought, but was that merely her own desperate hope?

She heard a muffled cough outside and guessed that Gytha would be hovering by the door. She should at least tell her
nurse to find a sleeping place, she thought, ashamed of her
own self-seeking concerns as she unthreaded some of the ribbons from her plaits. To appear before Guillelm’s men in the
great hall with such silly trinkets in her hair seemed foolish.

There was a soft knock on the door. “Come in, Gytha,” she
called out, but it was Guillelm who entered.

“I did not know you were outside our chamber,” he was
saying, stopping as he saw what she was doing. He grimaced.
“Forgive me, I did not realize you were retiring.”
“

When he started to back away, Alyson understood. He
thought she was sleeping here, in her old room, without him!

“No, dragon,” she said quickly. “I was about to go to the great
hall”

I looked for you there first. I wish us to dine in private this
evening, within our room. I know it is not the custom in England, but for one night, where would be the harm?”

He smiled but seemed ill at ease.

“What was Fulk saying to you just now?”

That I was a barren, useless female on whom you would
never get an heir. Alyson bit back the answer, clinging to the
marvelous idea that Guillelm wanted them to eat in private.
Slowly, she drew out one of her ribbons, hoping Guillelm’s
fascination with her hair would distract him. “Is Gytha outside?” she asked in turn.

“No. Shall I summon her? Do you wish her to attend you?”

“No!” She had asked because she did not relish the idea of
her nurse overhearing anything. “You could attend me-only
if you have the time,” she added.

Was her question a test, or mockery, as it would have been
with Heloise? The last time he had been in a woman’s bedchamber it had ended in disaster. Scorning his own cowardice, Guillelm saw the ribbon in her hand tremble. She was shaking,
ever so slightly. Nervous of him, or of her own perceived boldness? Pity warred with desire in him but he was guarded. He
wanted neither to force his attentions on her, nor to make a mistake. The thought of last night scalded him with humiliation.
He had no desire to repeat that experience.

“Fulk and Sericus are sitting in our places in the hall
tonight,” he explained.

“Fulk and Sericus?” She gave him a teasing look, her face
full of mischief but no fear. “Think that they will be peaceful
together? And who will be the lord and who the lady?”

Guillelm laughed, his fancy caught by that droll idea.
“They will need to sort that between them, but ‘tis only for
one night. So there is no need for us to stir from our chamber.
Or indeed from here, if you wish.” When Alyson did not seem
panic-stricken at the prospect, his hopes revived further.
“What say you?”

“That pleases me,” she said quietly. “I would be pleased to
stay here with you, Guillelm.”

“Excellent!” He need only put his head out of the door and
shout for a page, summon servers, and their supper would be
brought to them. It had been his plan: an intimate meal between
them, at ease within their own chamber, but now he found his
breath stuck in his throat. He did not want to speak to anyone
else, or move even a finger-width farther apart from her.

“Mother of God, you are beautiful.”

She wound the ribbon around his wrist and, using it, gently
pulled him closer. “I have made a vow, too” She blew softly
across his bare forearm, warmly stirring each and every hair,
the contact-that-was-not-contact making him shudder.