“Stop!” Fulk bawled. “You shall not profane such holy words with your incantations! You are a witch! You have already done enough!”
“What have I done, Fulk?” Alyson goaded, aware, as Fulk seemed not to be, of his men watching him, their faces carefully blank.
“You!” In four strides, the Frenchman reached her and yanked her upright by her hair, laughing as she screamed in pain and insult. “Treacherous, foul, evil! Witch!”
His hands were in her hair, dragging and tearing, and still the accusations poured from Fulk, each one blistering in its rage and hurt.
“It is thanks to you I have lost my place! It is thanks to you Guillelm told me to quit his service! It is thanks to you I have no lord! You have done this to me!”
“No!” Alyson cried, grabbing Fulk’s wrists to stop him. “You have achieved this yourself, by your own spite! Do you not understand? We could have been friends, but you always saw me as a rival.”
“Witch!” Fulk thrust her away and kicked out at her. His men murmured, anxiously shifting from one foot to the other, but none of them intervened, not even as she tottered.
Afraid to turn her back on Fulk, Alyson scissored two faltering strides and then regained her balance. Straightening, she faced him. Between the time she had last encountered Fulk and now, the man had lost weight. Already rangy, he was now gaunt. His gray hair was lank, his hooded eyes bright only when he berated her.
Despite what she had endured from him, Alyson felt a shred of pity.
“Fulk, why did you not leave with Sir Michael?” she asked softly. “I am certain he would have welcomed you into his service.”
For an instant, Fulk seemed to recognize her sympathy, but older, fiercer resentments and jealousies took hold. “You dare to offer comfort, witch,” he snarled, “when it is you who have sought to destroy me?” He pointed to the encircling men. “Were it not for these stalwart warriors for Christ, who have chosen to follow me into exile, I would be alone.”
“I am sorry,” Alyson said. Part of her ached to take Fulk in her arms, to give him the kiss of peace. The man was in such pain.
“Sorry? You shall be sorry! You shall be tried-and found wanting!”
The veins in his throat and neck bulging, Fulk yelled a series of orders in French and Alyson was seized again.
Her “trial” was brutally short, and painful. Slung between a birch sapling and an elder bush, suspended between the two trees by ropes attached to her wrists, Alyson was forced to stand, half-hanging from her arms. Her toes scarcely brushed the soil and within moments of being left in that degrading, captive position, she began to shake. Tremors as fierce as a fever ripped through her body. She was terrified for herself and even more for her child but dare not confess her preg nancy to Fulk. In his maddened state who knew what further atrocity he might conceive against a possible spawn of a devil? He had already convinced himself that she was utterly evil.
His voice ran on, relentless and hard as an avalanche of stones as he called on his loyal men to witness her depravity. Breathless from being almost crucified between the two trees, Alyson could hardly answer his hounding questions, much less interrupt his tirade.
He spoke in a mixture of languages, English and French, until she was completely bewildered. Lightheaded through lack of water or food, her throat bone-dry, her chest aching, her arms and legs burning with pins and needles, Alyson struggled to retain consciousness and make some reply. She knew she had to fight even though Fulk had said these men were loyal to him, they must not be entirely sure, or he would not be having this mockery of a trial. If she could only make them see their commander was mad …
Please, a keening voice in her head pleaded. Please, God, let Guillelm find me. But her thoughts were dark. He had not said “I love you” If he found her now and heard Fulk’s accusations, whom would he believe? Please believe me. Please believe in me.
“She is evil,” Fulk ranted, striding about the clearing, eloquent with malice. “She uses potions to bend men’s wills to her own. Lord Robert died in her care. Who is to say he was not poisoned by her? I have a witness who swears that she killed him by such foul means”
“Where is this witness?” Alyson wheezed. “Produce him.”
“So that you may bewitch him, too? I think not”
“What does he look like?” Alyson took in the deepest breath she could manage. “What is his name?”
Fulk hesitated. “Edwin, no Edmund. What does a name matter? He saw you give Lord Robert poison! You admit your maid bought a love potion and what is that, if not another kind of poison? The worst kind, for it manipulates the very hearts of men. And there is more…”
Alyson lost the rest of what Fulk was saying. When she came round again, Fulk was still accusing her.
“… As with the father, so with the son. My lord Guillelm has already lost his place in Outremer, thanks to her. How long will that female let him live?”
“The abbess allowed me to stay in her convent-“
“You lied to her! You fed her a potion and tricked her!”
“Which, Fulk?” Alyson gasped. “A lie or a potion?”
“So you admit it? You are condemned by your own admission!”
“Not so!” Alyson cried, as Fulk said more in French, words she did not understand but which had the men with him nodding and frowning. Where was the red-haired knight Eustace, who had cut her bonds? Alyson attempted to find him, to catch his eye, but she could not see him. Her sight was beginning to darken again.
She savagely bit her lower lip, straining to keep awake, and almost screamed in horror. She had blacked out, and in that brief time Fulk or his men or both had built a pyre about her. Her feet rested on logs and twigs, branches and dry grasses were stacked against her legs, rising up to her waist. Thrashing in her bounds, writhing and desperately kicking the branches away, she cried out in Latin, “Before God and all the saints I swear that I am innocent!”
“No, you are guilty!” Fulk yelled, piling kindling back around her. “You shall burn!”
“Mother of God, help me,” Alyson prayed, her whisper cracking as the dreadful nightmare of her plight overwhelmed her. Surely not even Fulk would do this? Surely his men would stop him?
Guillelm! Where are you?
“Send a thunderstorm, send rain.” Her mouth was trembling so much she could hardly form the words.
Dragon! Save me!
“If you do this, you will forever lose Guillelm’s favor!” Alyson panted, determined not to flinch as Fulk tried to set a spark to the kindling. “You are not being true to your own nature-you are a defender!”
Fulk, crouching amongst the kindling, raised his head. “You are making the fire die!”
“God is with me,” said Alyson. She tried to say more but could not; a chill of terror spiked through her head and heart and vitals, freezing her. What have I ever done to you? she wanted to say to Fulk, but she did not even know if he would hear her.
“Fulk, you must let me go” Desperate, she lied, “Fulk, you must let me go, for I have more to confess!”
That cut through to the core of his obsession. In an instant he was climbing over the rough fagots toward her, his lean, gaunt face ablaze with a lust of curiosity. “What more? What?”
“Untie me!” In a fading effort, Alyson shook her arms, lashed to the elder and birch trees that arched above her head. “If you would have me speak”-she paused to suck in another awkward breath-“you must let me breathe”
Dislike and greed warred in Fulk’s face. Greed won. A knife flashed like two lightning bolts, and Alyson’s bonds were severed. She would have sprawled on the mess of kindling and branches piled about her legs had Fulk not dragged her free.
“Tell me. Give me your confession, witch!”
He was sweating as much as she was; a rank foulness filled her lungs and made her dry-heave.
“Need drink,” she whispered. “I thirst.”
A battered leather flask was held her lips and she drank, the
sweet, good water clearing her head. As her blurring double vision cleared, she realized that another of Fulk’s men, not the red-haired knight, had given her his water. She nodded her thanks and through his visor, a pair of bright, embarrassed eyes blinked and would not meet her gaze. The knight shifted slightly and she felt herself leaning against a braced leg and flank. Without his support she would have fallen; as it was she could just keep her feet.
Fulk knocked the flask from her shaking hands. “Speak! I have waited long enough”
The man supporting Alyson suddenly shouted, lowering her hastily to the ground. Still yelling at Fulk, he stepped over her, drew his sword and pointed. “The dragon!” he screamed. “Nous sommes tous morts!”
Trapped behind the man’s legs, Alyson looked where he was pointing and understood. Sinking back on the earth, she closed her eyes, letting her weariness take her where it would.
It was Guillelm. He had come for her. She would be safe now.
It was over.
Chapter 28
Guillelm saw her fall and vented a bellow of rage. There were five scampering stick figures between him and Alyson and he wanted there to be more; more to mow down and destroy.
If they had hurt her, if they had harmed her in any way, they would know such agony before he had finished with them!
Slash them, cut them, kill them, trample them, they shall not escape, they will burn in hell and still know my anger.
The stick figures, tiny, pale, moving as jerkily as puppets, are huddled together. I can ride them down, gore them into the dirt. ButAlyson would not want that. She is a healer.
Guillelm leaped from his horse and drew his sword. Behind him, now a long way off, he heard the red-haired follower of Fulk call out, as the man had done earlier, when he had been combing these woods. Tom would deal with that; Guillelm had to reach his wife.
He advanced, brushing aside the other men’s feeble challenges like chaff. They struck at him and once he felt a sharp tear in his arm, a gash that stung and filled his head full of angry bees.
“Alyson!” Using her name as a paean, he rushed forward again, his pace quickening as he saw Fulk draw his own blade.
Beside her, Fulk spun round and tried to run into the forest. He had not gone above five paces when there came a new bellow and Sir Tom was there on horseback, barring the way, a sword in his left hand. Sir Tom advanced and Fulk retreated, making a dash for another part of the woodland.
As he passed her, Alyson caught his sword arm and clung on, praying her strength into her hands.
With a squeal of rage, Fulk tossed her off and lunged with the sword. The blade sang past Alyson’s head and struck one of the logs intended to be used for her burning. Sir Tom was yelling but Guillelm, coming at a sprint, shouted, “Mine!” and, seeing Fulk’s movement to stab with the sword again, threw back his arm.
There was a flash of light and Fulk tumbled away, a knife glancing off his shoulder. In shadow, Guillelm knelt by Alyson, unfastening his cloak. She spoke to him. “You came for me ””
“Little idiot. Of course I came for you” Guillelm shook his head. As he leaned across and his hands wrapped her gently in warmth, Alyson felt the touch of water on her face. It surprised her, his weeping.
“How? Why?” she began, but when she moved her arm which was only just beginning to return to life as the blood pulsed painfully back into her wrists and fingers-and tried to touch Guillelm’s hair, he drew back.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. He was running a hand over her head, neck, throat, arms, flanks all over her, as if to check she was whole. Even as she was, stunned with everything that had happened, Alyson felt a spiraling tingle of desire.
“No, no,” she answered hastily, catching his fingers in hers before she forgot herself completely and launched into his arms. Then she saw the red staining through his sleeve. “You are bleeding!”
“‘Tis nothing, a scratch.” Guillelm turned quickly, to hide the injury from her. “But what are these marks, upon your wrists?” Abruptly, he scanned the bundles of wood and kindling, the broken branches in the elder and birch trees. His face darkened. “That evil, treacherous bastard-
“Fulk!” he roared, still crouching over her. “I challenge you! Fight me, damn you!”
She could feel the heat of his rage and yet he clasped her gently, rocking her to and fro as if she were a babe in arms.
She had yet to tell him about their child, if a child it was. “Guillelm-“
“No, sweet, explanations as to why you are out of the convent must keep” He glanced at Sir Tom, who had dismounted and approached. “Tom”
“I know, Guido. I will take care of her for you” With a tiny grunt of discomfort, Tom sat on the ground beside Guillelm and cradled Alyson off Guillelm’s knees onto his own. When Alyson started to protest that she needed no one to “take care of her,” Tom tightened his arms about her and brought his mouth to her ear.
“This is the only time, wench, that I will ever have you anywhere near my lap without your ever-anxious husband gutting me. Now be still and let me savor the moment” He was smiling as he said it, though his eyes were strained. He gave her more water to drink, muttering “Steady,” as she tried to take a huge gulp of water to soothe her parched throat.
Tom tried to block her view of the clearing with his own large head, but Alyson tugged at his cloak.
“Must see,” she choked, for she knew Guillelm had risen and left her side.
“For sure you must,” Tom sighed and he positioned her so she was sitting half on the ground with her back resting against his broad chest.
“He is hurt!” Alyson murmured, seeing a trickle of blood falling from Guillelm’s arm onto the grass and ferns. “I must go tend him.”
Tom wound one of his legs across hers, pinning her. “Let him be. I have seen him fight with worse”
Fight? Alyson tried to warn Guillelm: that he should not do this; that he had already attacked and driven off most of Fulk’s straggling group of soldiers; that Fulk no longer mattered; that it was over. She could not find the breath to shout, and as she struggled, Guillelm spoke.
“Wherever you are, Fulk, whatever tree you are hiding behind, come out! Fight me, one against one. Whatever happens, your men may go free. Face me! Fight me!”
He began to chant something in a strange mixture of French and Arabic.
“What is he saying?” Alyson asked Tom. Tom shook his head. Exasperated, she snapped her fingers. “How did you find me? Tell me that, at least.”
Sir Tom cleared his throat, his tone amused. “Guido said you did that trick with your fingers. I did not quite believe him. You are a fiery creature, mistress Alyson.”
“How?” Alyson repeated, her eyes fixed on Guillelm as he stalked across the clearing, the evening sun throwing his tall shadow still farther. “Oh, God, he will be killed. His arm is bright with blood!”
“Someone may be killed, certainly,” Sir Tom grunted. “No, you stay still. You cannot help him now. Listen! Listen, Alyson, show that good sense that Guido praises you for so much. We found you because your man wanted to see you, because he rode over to the convent in desperate hope of seeing you”
“Truly?” Alyson hugged that knowledge to herself. “Really and truly?”
“Truly, Alyson, and if you keep interrupting me I shall never be done. So we rode to the convent, and what we found was a full hue and cry over your going missing, but Guido guessed you had taken the road back to Hardspen. `Whatever we do, whatever we plan, we are one,’ he told the abbess. `I know what she will be doing. She must have cut across coun try, and that is how we have missed each other.’ He was right, too-we had not ridden a half-mile away from the convent when his trackers spotted Eustace of Normandy in the woods off the road. He was not easy to miss, since he was sprinting toward the road, waving his arms”
“Is Eustace a tall, weather-beaten man with red curling hair?”
“How did you know that? No matter, you are right. It was Eustace, who had gon
e off with Fulk when Guido told Fulk to leave his service.” Sir Tom’s battle-scarred face colored with embarrassment. “The fellow must have had a change of heart”
“Fulk would say I had bewitched him.”
“If any are bewitched, it is Fulk himself. The man was always wild with ambition, but now he has become obsessed.”
At the edge of Alyson’s vision, she saw Sir Tom make the sign to ward off the evil eye. “What he did here, what he was about to do, was madness,” he said.
“Fulk was convinced he was right.”
“In that he has not changed,” Sir Tom replied. “He was ever one to judge harshly and narrowly. Once in Outremer-“
Alyson waved her hand to silence him. “What is Guillelm doing?” she asked.
Throughout her hasty, whispered conversation, her eyes had not left her husband. Guillelm had been walking up and down the clearing, nodding to his own men who had ridden out of the woods. Those loyal to Fulk had already fledAlyson could hear them dimly, pounding along the road-or were sitting or lying at the edge of the clearing. Some were clearly wounded, others looked as dazed as she was. She noticed them because Guillelm had noticed them and had called to his own troops to tend them. Of Fulk there was no sign.
Now Guillelm had completed four full circuits of the clearing, scanning this way and that, into the trees and undergrowth and beyond, when he picked a pebble from the earth. Still in midstride, he hurled it at an elder bush. In a snapping of twigs the bush seemed to explode; the dark purple juice and pulp of the elderberries splashed against the nearby trees like blood. As Alyson shivered, Guillelm feinted a throw at a low canopy of scrubby brambles, then jerked round and tossed another stone into a squat, dense holly tree.
“He is trying to shock Fulk into breaking cover,” Alyson said.
“Yes,” Sir Tom agreed. “But he will not do it. Fulk’s an old hand at this.”
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