Guillelm stopped, scooped up a handful of dried grass and struck the edge of his sword with something Alyson could not see. Sparks flew and the grass caught fire, smoke and bright orange flames rolling from Guillelm’s outstretched hand into the sky.
“Meet my challenge or burn!” he roared. “Mother of God, I will burn all these woods from here to Hardspen, but you shall not escape me!”
“He would, too,” said Sir Tom, half-admiring, halfremonstrating. “That is my wild, mad dragon “
“Mine, too,” said Alyson, coughing as the smoke coiled into her lungs. “I can sit and watch no more.”
In a spurt of her old familiar speed, she evaded Sir Tom and, before he could prevent it, pushed herself to her feet.
“Fulk, fight me!” she cried. “If I am a witch, as you say, you need have no qualms in warring with a woman. I challenge you!”
“No!” Guillelm shouted, skidding round to her, flinging his flaming torch aside. “Never!”
As one of his men scrambled out of the woods to stamp out the torch, Guillelm was running to her. At the sight of his stark, set face, Sir Tom backed away, but Alyson held her ground. She was almost too weary to move. Summoning the last of her fading energy, she called out, “Are you a coward, Fulk? Or afraid that you are wrong?”
Fulk stepped out from the cover of two rowans, growing so close to each other their branches interweaved. He walked around a patch of dog’s mercury and nettles, his sword and helm blackened with smeared mud, a long dark cloak wrapped around his armor and trailing over the grass. His face was, if possible, even more gaunt.
“I am not wrong,” he said.
At the sound of his voice the muted speech of Guillelm’s men as they scoured the woods was cut off sharply, like a musician placing his hand upon the harp strings to kill the sound. Faces appeared at the edges of the clearing as the men came to listen.
This was the moment, Alyson knew. She touched the cross the abbess had given her. “I swear that I am innocent. I did not flee the convent. I chose to leave it.”
“Why?” Fulk demanded.
Alyson knew she should not hesitate, but she hated the idea of telling her very personal news to everyone in this clearing. “That is between my husband and myself.”
Fulk could not contain his dislike. “We all heard the vow your husband took at Hardspen, madam, on your wedding night. Shall I remind you of it? `We may share the same bed, but we shall never lie together in love.”’
“Stop-” Tears pooled into Alyson’s eyes as she remembered. “Why say such things now?”
“Because he knows he is a dead man,” muttered Sir Tom somewhere behind her.
“He would make himself a dead man,” said Guillelm, coming beside Alyson and putting himself between her and Fulk. “But I am not sure that he is worthy of being killed.”
Fulk backed up several paces, his face panic-stricken as Guillelm cast his sword onto the ground and opened his arms. “See me, Fulk. I am wounded and unarmed. We would be a match. Come at me, not my wife. For Alyson is my true wife, to have and to hold until the end of my life, and I put my faith in her.”
Alyson gasped at his use of the words of the marriage ceremony, at the reminder of the sacred promises they had made to each other. She understood them as never before, and in speaking them, Guillelm was showing her that he felt the same.
“For Alyson I would face any ordeal,” he said, “any trial. I know she is innocent, although in truth I would defend her even if she were guilty, she is so excellent to me. I love her. Do you hear, Fulk? I love her!”
Fulk gave a low cry and moved away, but no one was watching him. All eyes were on Guillelm as he turned, emotion brimming in his face, his forehead, cheeks and chin red with feeling, sweat darkening the blond hair plastered to his temples. He was as weary as she was, Alyson realized, as worn down with worry. Almost of its own will, her hand rose and she touched his ear where a branch had scraped across it, drawing a speckle of blood. She wiped the blood away.
“Your arm,” she whispered. It was still bleeding, though less than before.
“It is of no matter,” he said softly. “Nothing matters but that we understand each other.”
He took her hand and kissed her fingers one by one. “I love you,” he said. “Can you not see this? I have always loved you”
For the second time he opened his arms and Alyson fell into them.
Sometime after, when Guillelm left her a moment to fetch his horse, Alyson remembered the others, and Fulk.
“Gone,” Sir Tom said bluntly, when she asked. “Ran off the instant Guido said he loved you. The fellow can run back to Outremer for all I care. We are well rid of him.”
“Yes,” said Alyson, though she was thinking of Guillelm again and those marvelous words, “I have always loved you.”
It was her deepest wish come true.
Chapter 29
They returned to the convent. This time, Alyson slept in the guest house, with Guillelm beside her. There were things to discuss: the return of Eva to her woodland cottage, and Gytha to Hardspen, but first Alyson told him her own news.
Sitting side by side on their bed, he heard her out gravely, in silence. “You are sure of this?” he said at last.
Alyson sensed him watching her as she fed their small brazier fire with twigs. “As sure as I can be,” she answered. Was he pleased? she wondered, a little of her earlier jubilation and confidence draining away. “You did say that you would not annul our marriage because I could be with child,” she went on, her voice becoming higher and faster. “You were right, Guillelm .”
“Mother of God, girl, I said that to Fulk! I spoke the only language he would understand, but if you think I meant it, you have less wit than our merlin.” He wrapped his arms about her, tossed the rest of her twigs onto the fire and kissed her deeply. “I would never give you up. Unless you wished it, and even then-” He kissed her again. “No, I do not think I could do it. You will have to put up with me forever, sweetheart”
“And you me!” Alyson said quickly, kicking teasingly against him to feel his hard, masculine strength. To her surprise he released her at once, his face contrite.
“I have hurt you?” he asked. “The baby?”
“We are fine.” Alyson took his large hand and placed it on her stomach. “We shall be well. All will be well, Guillelm. I know it.”
“You do?” His features buckled in relief. “Oh, that is excellent!”
He swept her against himself, kissing her over and over, telling her how much he loved her. Suddenly, he stopped again. “You are sure?”
Alyson nodded. She was sure. Her sister’s dark predictions and her own tragic family history had no more power over her. She did not know why or how, but she knew she would be safe.
Now, taking this knowledge as a gift, she sought to reassure Guillelm further. “The abbess says I will have a safe pregnancy. So does Eva the wisewoman.”
He believed her, although the abbess and Eva had said no such thing. But then, Alyson thought, snuggling down in the wide bed with its wolfskin furs and soft pillows, a wife did not have to tell her husband the truth all the time.
Epilogue
It was spring, season of new lambs, as it had been in her dream. Guillelm was with her, as in the dream, much to Gytha’s red-cheeked chagrin.
“It is wrong, my lady! A man at a birthing! It is not seemly!”
“Peace,” Alyson gasped, clutching her husband’s hand more tightly as another pain crested within her. He knelt by her bed, mopping her hair, giving her weak ale whenever she thirsted and above all, holding her hand. He had come to the main bedchamber the moments her pains had begun, sensing what was happening even before the wisewoman Eva had been summoned.
Eva now packed more rushes under Alyson’s hips, remarking, “In the village, the menfolk often stay. Someone must tend the other children and the fire and keep the animals away. The other wives help when they can, but that is not always possible. I think it a good
thing the husband sees how brave his woman is, bringing his children into the world.”
“So does this husband,” growled Guillelm, saying to Alyson. “You are doing well, sweetheart. I am so proud of you”
“Push, Alyson,” Eva broke in. “Push hard”
Sweat stood on Alyson’s forehead as she obeyed. For an instant she felt to be splitting in half and then, dimly, she heard a cry and Eva’s glad shout, “An heir for Hardspen! My lord, here is your son!”
“Let me-” Alyson craned forward to see, her arms outstretched, just as another fierce pain flattened her back onto the bed.
“Alyson!” Guillelm hugged her, hiding his face. “Breathe, little one. Excellent! Keep on ””
He spoke calmly but she felt the strong tremor through his body as he watched her struggle. She was glad he was there but sorry, too; grateful for his support but sorry he should be cast in so helpless a position. He was the one who usually did the fighting!
She tried to smile, to reassure him, but then sneezed instead, a sudden spasm that sent a whiplash of swift, slithering pain through her body.
“My lady, there is another child!” Eva exclaimed, and within an instant a second high, wailing cry filled the chamber.
“Alyson, we have a daughter,” Guillelm said, kissing her cheek. “Twins! Boy and girl and both healthy! See them, they are beautiful …”
Through blurring vision, Alyson saw Guillelm, his bronzed, scarred hands cradling two tiny bundles.
“An easy birth, especially for twins,” Eva was saying. “The lady has been blessed.”
“Such, tiny, perfect fingernails,” Guillelm marveled and Alyson smiled, sinking into a delicious, pain-free slumber.
As sleep took her, she heard Guillelm say softly, “I love you, Alyson.”
I love you, my lord dragon, she thought in return, resting safe and secure in his arms, with their babies, their children, between them.
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