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

quicker and quieter, Etienne. Join one of King Stephen’s or
Empress Maud’s war-bands; either will give you welcome
and richer booty than you will get hereabouts.”
    “The pickings have been scanty, certainly,” Etienne muttered in French. “Not what I was promised.”
    Giving the mercenary another moment to reflect on that
self-interested thought, Guillelm returned to his main point.
“You can give Walter the same message: he leaves or fights.
My men are fresh and seasoned from the Crusades. I suggest
you both leave.”

    Recalling Etienne’s widening eyes as the Fleming imagined
the likely outcome of such a contest, his stammered word of
honor as a knight that he would stop the siege and leave the district, Guillelm permitted himself a grim smile. He had gauged
the courage of the two men correctly. After he had stunned the
Fleming with a deft blow and walked slowly through the stirring camp in the same easy way as he had come, he watched
Etienne and Walter turn tail and leave without further struggle.
    Men he could always deal with, he thought. Perhaps that was
how he should treat Alyson, as a kind of youth. He snorted,
knowing the idea was impossible; she was too feminine. Yet
brave. He had seen the end of her clash with Fulk-she had
stood up to an armored knight and flung back just, round answers to Fulk’s arrogance and all for the sake of a stray lamb.
    In those moments, he had been so proud of her, and so furious at Fulk. If the man had actually hit her, he would be spitting teeth or worse by now, Guillelm thought, his hands
tightening into fists. As he had closed with Fulk and Alyson
in the yard, he had found his sword hand going straight to his
belt, and if he had been armed, things might have gone very
badly for Fulk. Yet Fulk was a man whom he trusted with his
life, whom he had fought beside in the Holy Land, who had
been his own second-in-command for six of his seven years in
Outremer. Fulk would be his seneschal here, a reward for true
service, and he could not have the man humiliated because of
one sorry misunderstanding. That was why he had taken Fulk’s
part in the bailey and remonstrated Alyson on her dress, an act
he now regretted, for Alyson was right: Were she only a cottar’s
child, Fulk should not have treated her as he did.
    He had been wrong himself, Guillelm admitted. She had
not started the incident but, after his relief that she was unharmed, he was unfairly angry with Alyson also, and scolded
her without cause. “She has bewitched me,” he growled under
his breath.

    Yet he was not wrong to have offered her marriage. Her
kiss had stirred him as the embrace of no other woman had
ever done, even the voluptuous Heloise. The thought of her
even smiling at another man acted like poison in a wound; he
had to possess her or he would have no peace. And the people
here loved her. He had been unjust when he called the Lady
of Hardspen idle-Alyson was none such, and her servants
repaid her with loyalty. Everywhere he went in the castle he
had heard the same words, “The little mistress helped with
that; she is a good, true lady.” He had seen her own weariness
for himself, when he looked in on her sleeping in her chamber just after her maids had risen. She had not stirred when
he placed his cloak over her, except to sigh and curl the fingers of one hand about the collar.
    When he thought of those same narrow, workworn hands
touching him, he marveled at the idea. She was still unafraid
of him, fighting him even in the stable, where for a dreadful
moment she had seemed confounded, genuinely terrified,
before she rallied, tossing words at him as if they were spears.
He had been torn between amusement, a guilty shame at the justice of her complaints, and irritation at being so wrong-footed
by a girl of one-and-twenty. Perhaps with her he would prove
Juliana and Heloise wrong; perhaps he might even be able to
woo her, as he had thought of doing ever