Down on one of the lower tables, Thierry made a ribald comment and several knights grinned. Thierry and the others would expect to witness the bedding of bride and groom, but Guillelm had already spoken to Tom. He and Alyson would climb the stairs to the bedchamber alone, and Tom would guard their backs. Once, he might have asked Fulk to do the same service, but he knew that Fulk and Alyson were still cool with one another. Again, he was saddened but not surprised.
‘That is a battle face for your wedding night! Do you think your bride be so hard to conquer?’ Thierry bawled, at which Guillelm clenched his fist so hard that he bent the handle of his eating dagger, brooding on Lord Robert, and Alyson‘s diadem, and the night to come.
The diadem hurt her head, it was so heavy. How had Guillelm’s mother be able to wear it, thought Alyson, wondering if she was somehow lacking. She longed to take it off; that and her shoes which were new and pinched her toes.
She stretched a smile at Thierry’s comment, tired of the expectant faces. It was her wedding day and all she wished to do was find a quiet corner to sleep. The blazing joy she had expected had come earlier, in snatches: when Guillelm said his vows to her; when he placed the wedding band on her finger; when he kissed her, saying softly against her hair, ‘You are mine now.’
You are mine now. Flexing her aching toes inside her shiny new shoes, she glanced at Guillelm beside her, close enough for her to brush his leg under the table, if she was so bold, or to feed him, but so far in other ways! She sensed a gulf between them, widening with each hour and the lengthening shadows of evening. What Thierry called his battle face was also his unreadable face, taut and blank as new parchment. He would not look at her directly, but all through this long feast she had felt his eyes on her. Such scrutiny was scarcely the behaviour of a loving groom.
You think too much, Alyson scolded herself, but dread churned in her belly. She snatched at her cup and drank the sweet wine, wondering if she should have more.
Guillelm had noticed. He leaned towards her, coming close but careful that their shoulders did not touch. ‘I trust you do not drink so readily in order to numb yourself for the rest of tonight.’
Shock, hurt and indignation warred in Alyson. She had never expected such a comment from him, would not have thought him capable of such crassness. There was no teasing in his eyes or voice, merely chill accusation. We are going wrong again, she thought in despair, while she forced herself to utter a sprightly, ’Indeed not!’ tapping her foot with his to make good her words.
He withdrew as if she was a monster, jerking back on his chair and lurching to his feet.
‘Dragon —’ she whispered, but Guillelm was addressing the company.
‘My excellent lady and I will now say goodnight, my friends. Enjoy the rest of the feast! You have earned it.’
It was a brief, terse speech, and as if he recognized this, Guillelm began to applaud his own men and the servers. When they in turn began to clap their hands, he scooped her straight off her chair into his arms and raced for the stairs. There were good-natured shouts, snatching hands, high-pitched laughter from the few women present, as it was realized where he was heading. Breathless from Guillelm’s speed and the force of her abduction, Alyson heard a general clatter and scrape of stools as some of the younger men left the tables and tried to follow. She could see little, pressed tight against Guillelm’s mantle, but Sir Tom was calling, ‘Easy there! Let them go!’ and she caught a glimpse of Tom’s scarred, kind face, creased with concern, as she was carried from the great hall. There were flashes of torch-light and shadow, shouts, ever more distant, a dizzying twist from Guillelm as he turned from one stair onto a second, one she knew led to Lord Robert’s former chamber.
Despite her best intentions, her courage began to falter. She had known they would come here, so why was she not more prepared? What had happened here between Guillelm’s father and herself—that was the past. It had no place between her and Guillelm.
She was able to suppress a shudder, but her teeth chattered.
‘Here we are,’ Guillelm said unnecessarily, setting his shoulder to the door and pushing.
‘Ah!’ The exclamation was out before Alyson could stop it.
‘You like it?’
‘This is wondrous, dragon!’
‘Mother of God, you are right. They have done well for me.’
‘Who?’ Alyson recollected and understood. ‘Sericus and your question about furniture! It was for here.’
‘Clever creature.’ He tickled her under the arms before he let her down, play which delighted Alyson. With renewed hope she started round the chamber, touching everything.
She ran her fingers over the great carved bed, pressed her hands into the soft mattress, peeping at him swiftly through shy half-lowered eyes. She raised and lowered the lid of a chest, blushing as she saw it contained his clothes. She kicked off her shoes and walked onto the sheepskin rug. ’That feels good,’ she said with a sigh.
He stared at her delicately arched feet because they were pretty and because he did not want to look at the diadem again. Her words—’The flowers are beautiful —’ snapped his head up, and for the first time he noticed the great sprays of lavender, hyssop, marigold, poppy and sweet violet wound about the canopy of the bed and draped on the window sill. Their scent perfumed the whole room and that, more than anything, finally put the malign influence of Lord Robert out of his head. The chamber was exorcised: it would never be his father’s again.
‘I must give the maids some gift on the morrow,’ he said with a smile.
Alyson nodded. For her the room was superficially changed, the dark aged dresser and sagging bed gone, the flags made warm and human with rugs, but shadows remained. She was glad of the flowers. She was glad, but also wary of Guillelm. Wondering which of them would make the next move, and too shy to approach the great bed with its crisp linen sheets, she knelt on the sheepskin to spare her aching feet. ‘Thank you,’ she said, bowing her head as a sign of respect.
‘No!’ the cry broke from Guillelm. ‘You never kneel to me! I am not —’
He broke off, but Alyson knew what he was about to say. I am not my father.
‘Guillelm, it is all right.’ She looked up at his tall strong form and heard herself say, ‘I trust you. How could I not? You saved my life.’
‘Then why do you wear that?’
Alyson followed his pointing finger and lifted her hand, touching the golden diadem on her head. ’What is wrong?’ she asked. ’I was told this was an heirloom; that you would be pleased if I wore it.’ Alyson debated and then told the truth. ‘Fulk gave it to me.’
Fulk. His own man had done this. Guillelm could scarcely believe it, but Alyson was still talking, apologizing.
‘I am sorry if I have done anything amiss, dragon. Many at Hardspen told my nurse the story of the diadem: how it brings good fortune.’
‘So people believe, but they do not know the whole.’
Guillelm strode to the bed and sat down, sinking into the soft mattress and wishing for an instant that it was quicksand and that he could bury his duplicitous seneschal up to his neck in it. Fulk’s cunning appalled him, but Alyson deserved better: better from Fulk and far better from him.
‘Come, we are bound in love. Come sit here and I will explain.’ He patted the bed.
He still looked fierce but no longer with her. Alyson dragged the diadem off her head, ready to throw it into the furthest corner. Why had she even tried to trust Fulk?
Bound in love. Guillelm had used those words. Feeling as if a great light shone within her, Alyson scrambled over to the bed, missing her footing once. It did not matter. Guillelm took her hand and they sat side by side, very companionable.
He put an arm about her shoulder. ’Comfortable?’ he asked softly.
She nodded, and then, seeing his eyes darken, said quickly, ’You do not need to tell me if it gives you pain.’
‘No, it is best you know.’
Guillelm took a deep breath.
Years later the memory was raw: he hated to pick at it.
‘As I am sure you have been told, the diadem was my mother’s. It was part of her dowry and had been in her family for generations.’
He smiled. ’I remember her wearing it during our Christmas feasts. Her hair was brown, then, not so fine or black as yours, but the gold looked well against it. In her best gown and jewels, my mother was as noble as any queen.
‘She died when I was twelve. I was living in the north then, as squire to the husband of my sister Juliana. I was too late to see her before she died: there were no farewells between us.’
Alyson nodded, tears standing in her wide eyes, and Guillelm knew she was thinking of his loss, and of the death of her own mother. He hated to hurt her so, but he knew he had to speak on.
‘A month after my mother was buried, my father had me return to Hardspen.’ He felt his mouth twist downwards: even the thought was bitter and in his mouth the words seemed to taste like vinegar. ‘Lord Robert claimed he could not live without me, that he was lost, missing his wife and his heir. So I was returned for his need, like an extra blanket, only to discover that another lady had taken my mother’s place.’
He could tell he had shocked Alyson. Her very stillness gave her away.
‘You are surprised—so was I! The first evening I served on at my father’s table, as squire, as I had done at Juliana’s, I found myself handing wine to a woman sitting in my mother’s place, dressed in my mother’s gown and with my mother’s diadem upon her blonde head.
‘She was a merchant’s daughter, I discovered. Her name was Margery. She was a plump, cheerful girl, closer to my age than my father’s, and trusting as a puppy. Lord Robert doted on her. I did not. I considered her presence, so soon and so openly after my mother’s death, an insult to her memory.
‘Lord Robert and I quarrelled. I kept my temper—which was a hard thing to do!—until I could get him alone and then I laid into him.’
It gave Guillelm no pleasure to admit this, nor to recall the sweating fear in his father’s face when he had swung him against the staircase wall. Even at twelve he had been a strapping lad and anger had given him more strength. Climbing out of the great hall with his father he had not been able to wait until they reached Lord Robert’s chamber before he spoke out. He had pinned Lord Robert on those stairs and raged against him.
‘I threatened to throw him off the battlements. Lord Robert pleaded and blustered: much was said between us on both sides that should never be said. I stormed out and rode all night and when I returned Margery was gone. The diadem was gone, too: Lord Robert told me that it had been put away with the rest of my mother’s things. Certainly I had no wish to see it. I did not ask what he had done with it. We never spoke of it again.’
Guillelm lifted the diadem from Alyson’s lap. ’None of the servants knew the whole story. I told Fulk many years ago, when I was laid up with fever and talking all kinds of nonsense. He swore then that he would not mention it.’
‘He did not,’ Alyson said. ’Not really.’
They sat a moment in quiet, Alyson considering what he had told her. Guillelm’s distance from his father, the way he often called him Lord Robert, was now explained. But to lose his mother at twelve! That was terrible, just on the edge of manhood, when youths tended to revere their mothers.
‘How did she die?’ she asked softly.
‘In childbirth. Twins. Two girls. They died the following day.’ Guillelm turned stricken eyes on her. ‘I am so sorry, Alyson.’
For him to blame himself was almost too much. She was torn between boxing his ears for being so foolish and gathering him to her. She compromised by stretching up and placing a gentle kiss on his forehead.
‘It is not your fault,’ she said.
Yes, thought Guillelm, it was, for being envious of his father and suspicious of Alyson and for trusting the fellowship of old crusaders too much. He had known Fulk disliked Alyson—why had he not seen how deep that dislike ran? Between Fulk’s animosity and his own jealousy he had almost spoiled their wedding night.
‘I am sorry,’ he said again, kissing her forehead in return.
‘Are we echoes?’ she asked, but she was smiling, warm and pliant as he drew her onto his lap.
I care for her so much, he thought. She deserved so much. He longed to protect her, pamper her, make her laugh, share his past, present and future with her. A child with her warm, clever eyes. A daughter with her hair, her wild kindness and courage… ‘She would be a little heart-breaker,’ he murmured. He was torn between the desire to kneel at her feet and pour out to Alyson how much he cared for her and an earthier need.
‘I am truly sorry about Fulk,’ he said.
Guillelm looked startled as he spoke, as if he had been about to say something utterly different and was overtaken by surprise at his own words. His face had been so tender before, so ardent, that Alyson had almost framed the answer, ‘And I love you,’ but now his statement fell on her like a dash of cold water. She who had only just learned to swim floundered.
‘Is there wine?’ she asked brightly, wondering if she should climb off his knee and look for some. In some households, she knew that weddings ended in a very public bedding, and much as she was grateful to Guillelm for sparing her that ordeal, she was not quite sure how to behave. She remembered from the few female friends she had—before Lord Robert had forbidden her to meet them—that brides were often put to bed by a gaggle of maids and womenfolk and the grooms brought to them. Guillelm had said no to that, too, overriding Gytha’s mild protest that that her lady would need her hair loosening and brushing by saying, ‘I will do it,’ in a way that brooked no argument. At the time, Alyson had been flattered and excited, now, truly alone with Guillelm for the whole night and for many nights to come, she was almost uneasy.
Heloise. Her blonde rival. A devil, according to Fulk. A beauty so lethal that she must not even be spoken of, according to Sir Tom. More and more she regretted her promise to Sir Tom that she would not question Guillelm directly: such matters were better out in the open between them. Instead she had brooded on Heloise until the woman was almost super-natural in her mind; an adversary and a memory she could never defeat.
I am not blonde. I am not tall or elegant or beautiful. Was Guillelm comparing me to Heloise? Was he disappointed? Was that why he had not wanted a public bedding?
He has not seen me yet, not really, she thought, and renewed panic stampeded in her mind. Her reason told her that Guillelm cared for her, that he had married her, that he spoke of her with the pride of possession: you are mine now. But was it only possession? Perhaps with men it was.
A tiny shake of her hand returned Alyson to herself.
‘There is a flagon and cups on top of the flat chest,’ Guillelm said indulgently, ’As I told you several moments ago, before you sank into that serious-looking reverie of yours. What on earth were you thinking? No, wait —’ he added, as she tried to push herself off his knees. ‘With your distracted state, I think I should pour the wine.’
With maddening ease and with her still sunk in his lap he rose from the bed, retrieved flagon and cups and settled back against the headboard in a single flowing movement.
‘Drink,’ he said, holding a brimming vessel to her lips.
She did so to please him, although malmsey was a wine she disliked. Its cloying sweetness stung in her nose, reminding her too much of her own recent past.
Fearful of looking into Guillelm’s eyes lest he see her old fears and believe himself responsible for them, she turned her head, seeking something more to praise.
Then she saw it. The charm meant for her, for her protection, tucked under her pillow. A charm midwives would give women in child-birth, to keep them safe. Gytha must have left it.
She must truly fear I will be like my mother and Guillelm’s mother and die in childbirth. Leaning away from Guillelm’s sheltering arm, ignoring his, ‘What?’ Alyson drew the charm out of its hiding place.
It was a tiny purse, richly embroidered, containing a small jasper, the stone that gave protection to pregnant women.
‘A pretty device,’ Guillelm remarked, looking over her shoulder.
‘Yes,’ murmured Alyson, glad he understood no more. The charm was kindly given but what was the use? Her own mother had possessed a necklace of jasper and yet she had died.
She shuddered, unable to deny or suppress the memories that now assailed her with their terrible renewing freshness: her mother’s terrified screams, her sister’s crying. The blood. Tilda had accused her of not knowing about the blood, but she had. She had seen her mother’s birthing sheets. She shivered a second time.
Guillelm sensed her withdrawal and a great sorrow welled in him. Even with the wine, even with him trying to be gentle, patient, it was no use. Heloise had been right: he was cursed in his relations with women. Alyson was like all the rest, afraid of him, revolted by his size.
Swiftly, before his baser instincts overwhelmed him and he did something he would regret for the rest of his days, Guillelm gently put his new bride from him, laying her down on the bed.
‘I will leave you. Get into bed, Alyson. I will come later.’
‘When, my lord?’
Her huge eyes tore at him.
‘Later!’ He stormed from the chamber, and Alyson heard his dreadful vow, wrested from him in darkest despair, when he dreaded even to look at her lest he see the disgust in her face, ‘We may share the same bed, but we shall never lie together in love, madam, so put all such horror from you now. I will come back later. Later —’
His voice echoed on the stairs and then he was gone.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 12