A Knight's Vow by Lindsay Townsend Read Free Book Online Page A

another, closer reason why she had dressed
simply, but that was more personal and painful. How could she
possibly tell Guillelm, who had just lost his father, that Lord
Robert had burnt her better gowns? That he had envied her
youth and learning? Guillelm must never know such things, she
vowed, determined to preserve his memory of his father.
    “You know I have little interest in clothes,” she said, which
was half a lie and half the truth. Guillelm, however, was not
convinced.
    “But why so drab?” he continued gently. He studied her a
moment, a slight stiffening coming over his long, lean body
as a look of wariness replaced his earlier concern. “Was it my
father’s wish?”
    “I-” Remembering Lord Robert’s angry and soon-ignited
jealousy, Alyson looked down at the hay-strewn stable floor, conscious of the shifting horses and grooms around them.
She prayed her face had given nothing away, but Guillelm had
always been quick at reading her moods.

    “So you dressed to please him,” he said, all previous gentleness stripped from his voice. “Then there will indeed be
little change for you, my lady. You dressed to please your old
lord and now you will dress to please your new lord.”
    She had to try to make him understand, and without telling
him too much that would dishonor his father’s memory in his
eyes, Alyson thought, as Guillelm unfolded his arms, his face
as unyielding as stone. “Please, you must understand-” she
began desperately, but he would not listen.
    “I must discipline the knight who mistook you,” he said
harshly, “though I think it hard on him, for he fell victim to a
woman’s wiles. And I doubt if he will wear your favor too
quickly after this, my lady.”
    With a mocking bow he turned and strode back into the
yard, leaving Alyson with the image of his contemptuous
smile and, far worse, with the dreadful fear that she had made
a terrible mistake in hoping that one day he might ever come
to love her as a husband should his wife.
    Returning to deal with his own man, Guillelm clamped
down hard on the feelings of jealousy that his latest encounter
with Alyson had provoked. Bitterly aware of the mutterings
and pointings, the scandalized faces of her people in the
bailey, he crossed to his knights, warning himself to keep his
anger in check.
    Only that morning, just after dawn, he had walked into
the enemy camp, alone and unheralded, in his long cloak and
the jazerant that an Arab armorer had ornamented with his
own personal symbol: a dragon rampant, breathing a coil of
fire. By the time Etienne the Bold knew that he was there, he was in the mercenary’s tent, crouching by the man’s rough
pallet of straw, his knifepoint at his enemy’s throat.

    “The Lady of Hardspen is to be my lady and I will suffer
no insult, no slight to her,” he told Etienne. “You will leave
now or fight me, man to man, in single combat”
    “But how did you come here?” Etienne stammered, his
lean, weather-beaten face breaking into a sweat as he realized
that none of his men were about to rescue him.
    Guillelm smiled. “Straight through your lines, even as I
am. Several of your guards will have thick heads until sunset
today; I had to knock them out to prevent them raising a general alarm.”
    “You are mad!” Etienne the Fleming gasped, his neck reddening where the point of Guillelm’s hunting knife rested.
“Alone in an enemy camp”
    “I can move silently enough,” Guillelm answered, “and
when no one conceives of a thing being possible, it is relatively easy to accomplish. Men see what they want to see, and
none of your knights wanted to see me”
    “It is mad!” Etienne repeated. “Reckless!”
    Guillelm grinned at the charge, remembering Sir Henry’s
bitter words and taking a certain satisfaction in proving
Alyson’s father wrong. “Reckless perhaps, but my head is still
firmly on my shoulders, as you see,” he observed. “This way
is