On his left a knot of men, including Fulk and Sir Tom, carried no weapons but had their long shields raised against him. Alyson saw Fulk’s tense profile and his hard blue eyes, blinking over the top of his shield.
‘We are your friends, damn you!’ he shouted in French, leaping back a step as Thierry swung at him. The point of Thierry’s long sword clashed against the rim of Fulk’s shield and the two men cursed. The others flinched, including Sir Tom, who glanced across the battlements at Guillelm.
Guillelm was standing alone, to the right of Thierry, the place of danger where a right-handed swordsman would most likely attack. He had no sword or shield to protect him: he was bare-headed and bare-footed, his clothes tugged on and still untied, but when he addressed the sweating, dark-browed man he was calm and kind, as if speaking to a child.
‘Thierry, you are safe. No one here means you harm. Look at me, Thierry.’ He took a step towards the scowling figure, ducking as Thierry struck at him with a wild lunge.
‘You know me.’ Guillelm stopped and whistled a jaunty little tune. ‘Do you remember that song, Thierry? You sang me all the verses when we were riding to Jerusalem.’
He spread his hands and turned full face to the muttering Norman knight, careless, it seemed, of presenting an easy target. ‘Your younger sister stitched you the embroidered belt you are wearing now,’ he went on, unmoving as Thierry slashed his dagger so close to him that Alyson had to gnaw on her lower lip to stop herself screaming a warning. He is crazy, she thought. Guillelm will get himself killed for the sake of a drunken lecherous fool. But she had to trust him. Love is trust, and if she intervened now, if she broke the fragile eye-contact that had been forged between Guillelm and his man, then anything could happen.
‘I have more ale in the great hall, waiting,’ Guillelm continued. ‘Drink with me, Thierry.’
He took another step closer. Thierry’s sword dipped as the man’s shoulders sagged and Fulk took the moment to edge forward but then Thierry jerked out of his crouch and lumbered forward, his sword arm raising again.
‘Infidel!’ he screamed, but Guillelm merely sidestepped his clumsy charge, caught the man firmly by his left arm as he tottered past and yanked him back, preventing Thierry from taking a lethal plunge off the battlements into the inner courtyard.
‘You know me, Thierry. Look at me.’ Guillelm was scarcely out of breath, although for an instant his man had been within two steps of the edge. Glancing at the anxious upraised faces below them, hearing the stifled gasps, Alyson felt momentarily sick: if Thierry had gone over he would surely have been killed.
‘Come drink with me, Thierry. Infidels do not drink. You know it is forbidden to them.’
‘More fools they are,’ Thierry slurred, appearing almost cross-eyed for a moment in sheer bewilderment. ’I know you.’
Guillelm took another step closer, his blond hair glinting in the strong sunlight. ‘We are crusaders, brothers in arms.’
‘You owe him your fealty,’ Fulk dropped in, at which Sir Tom pulled a face behind his shield, for Fulk’s alien, nasal voice broke the spell.
‘Liar!’ Thierry screamed and waded towards Guillelm, stabbing and hacking while Guillelm dived this way and that, weaving around Thierry’s frenzied attack and keeping out of range of the deadly flashing blades. He barged into Thierry, shoulder-first, almost knocking him clean off his feet, but the stocky Norman staggered a few paces back, his sword grating over the stone walkway, and then he regained his balance. He grunted and shook his head, clumsily patting himself over to check he had not been cut.
‘I am unharmed, Thierry,’ Guillelm said steadily. ’I am Guillelm de la Rochelle and I swear by the Mother of God that I would never harm you.’
‘Mother of God?’ Thierry’s lips moved slowly. ’That is a familiar oath. My lord uses it often.’ He peered at the tall blond warrior standing fearlessly in front of his sword-point. ‘Are you he?’
Guillelm remained stock-still, hands on hips, ignoring Fulk‘s muttered, ‘The fellow is worse than blind drunk this time. You are mad to approach him, my lord.’ He did not recoil as Thierry swayed towards him, the dagger in Thierry’s left hand exactly level with his guts.
‘Mother of God, please keep them safe,’ Alyson prayed urgently, starting as a gnarled hand flopped against her shoulder.
‘My lady,’ Sericus wheezed, ’You should not be here. You —’ He coughed, his whole body shuddering with the long climb of the stairs.
‘I am safe enough.’ Swiftly, without taking her eyes off Guillelm, Alyson stepped around Sericus, bracing her arm against the spiral staircase so that the poor man should not fall. ’Do not be troubled.’
‘But my lord said —’
Alyson did not listen to the rest. Placing a hand on his shoulder she motioned the seneschal to sit on the stairs with her, her eyes never leaving her husband. If Thierry struck at Guillelm now, would her dragon have time to save himself? They were less than a spear’s length apart from each other, Thierry making stabbing movements in the air, shaking his head as Guillelm did not react.
‘I am Guillelm, Thierry, and you are always safe with me.’
If possible, Thierry looked more bewildered than ever. ‘But I am in the dungeons of Hasim, where no one escapes.’
‘Except for you, Thierry.’
‘No, my lord is storming the castle of the infidel… can you hear the crash of the rams and siege engines?’
‘That is long ago, Thierry. Listen, now: I can hear birdsong.’
Thierry knuckled his eyes with the fist that was clutching his dagger. After a moment, he hissed, ’You are right! A sky-lark, very high.’
‘We are not in Outremer now, Thierry.’
‘No? But my lord came down into the dungeon of Hasim to lift me out. I had been there for three months and Guillelm broke my fetters and carried me out in his arms like a child, carried me out into the sunlight and the fresh free air.’
Alyson gasped, understanding now why the Norman should be so disturbed. Of all punishments that men could inflict on each other, imprisonment in the windowless, airless dungeons of their castles was surely the worse. She had heard of men driven mad in such places: it was no wonder that, deep in his cups, Thierry might remember his long confinement and confuse past and present.
‘Come with me now, Thierry,’ Guillelm said, adding more in a French dialect that Alyson did not understand.
Thierry dropped his dagger. It skidded onto the battlements and bounced on the stones. Fulk made a grab for it, which Thierry interpreted as a fresh threat, regripping his sword and pitching forward at Guillelm, his face twisted into a terrible snarl of fear and anger.
‘No!’ Sir Tom yelled, as Guillelm twisted swiftly and harmlessly away and Thierry blundered on, ever closer to the four-man high drop over the battlements into the inner courtyard. As Guillelm spun round, his hands reaching and grabbing, trying for the second time to stop his man falling, Alyson launched herself from the dark stairway and darted at Thierry. She had no plan, simply the wild desire to stop him.
‘Thierry!’
At her high, clear voice, Thierry slewed awkwardly, his feet scrabbling on the stones. Finally and with a roar he slipped and sat down heavily. ’A girl!’ he bawled in French.
The distraction was enough for Guillelm. Seizing the moment that Thierry’s attention was on Alyson, he wrested the man’s sword out of his hand and pinned him to the battlements. Thierry flailed about for an instant and then lay back, panting and repeating in French, ’A girl, a girl.’
Guillelm clapped Thierry on the back and pushed him towards the waiting Fulk and Sir Tom. ‘Sleep it off, man, and think no more of it.’
He turned to Alyson as the subdued Thierry and the rest of the men filed silently down the stairs. ’Are you all right?’ he asked her.
‘Perfectly,’ Alyson lied. Now that her initial jubilation that Guillelm and Thierry were both safe had passed, she felt clammy. ‘Are you hurt?’ She countered question with question
.
‘Unharmed, save for the fright you gave me when you hurled yourself out of the stairwell!’ He chuckled. ‘That was a brave act, if foolish.’
‘No more than your own,’ Alyson began, but reaction caught up with her and she quickly turned her head, clutching her stomach.‘ I feel sick.’
To her mortification she was sick, straight over the battlements. As she spat and shuddered, she felt Guillelm’s hands on her shoulders.
‘Here, little one.’ He uncorked a leather flask for her, holding it as she rinsed out her mouth and took a drink of the weak ale. ’It can take you like this after a fight, or danger. Coming alive again is a shock.’ He patted her shoulder. ’Thank you for saving me.’
Expecting a scolding, Alyson stammered, ’But I did not do so much, dragon, and if you had not been so quick, things may have gone amiss.’
‘Aye, they may.’ Guillelm gave her ear a gentle tweak. ’You are running up a mighty debt to me: waspish answers, disobedience —’
‘Disobedience!’
‘— not to mention the bullying of my servants. We agreed that Sericus is my servant, too, did we not? And yet you have that lame old man galloping about the bailey as if he was a war horse. No, you are greatly in debt.’ He overrode her protest. ‘Nothing else will do in repayment except that you bathe me as you promised. Or are you one who reneges on vows?’
‘You will have to test me, and see,’ Alyson quipped. She smiled up at her new husband, her sickness replaced by a light-headed joy. Her strategy was working, Guillelm was becoming less wary of her, less guarded in his replies. Surely he must realize how much she loved him, how much she desired him? If he so much as clicked his fingers she would cast herself into his arms right here on the battlements and smother him with kisses; she did not care who might be watching.
The wanton thought made her blush and laugh, which was a pity, for Guillelm had been lowering his head to her and now he stopped.
‘I see you are still affected by this morning’s misadventure,’ he said abruptly. He turned on his heel. ’Forgive me, I know I must give you time. I will be down in the great hall, whenever you wish to join me. Now I must make certain Thierry is settled.’
Listening to his rapidly descending feet Alyson snorted and uttered an un-ladylike curse under her breath. Things between them had been going so sweetly… but it was not all loss. Guillelm had said ’whenever you wish to join me.’ He desired her company and that was an excellent beginning. Was it not? She could only hope so!
Patience, Alyson counselled, determinedly telling herself that this way she could slip into her new marital bedchamber and change her gown, restyle her hair, before she re-encountered Guillelm.
Fulk, who had set his own page to spy on Alyson, drew the boy off to the stables and listened impassively to the lad’s latest report. The lady, cloistered in her chamber with that aged, crabbed nurse of hers. Womanish scents. Whispers and laughter. The lady emerging in a new gown and with ribbons in her hair….
Women really were the devil’s work, Fulk concluded, sending the page off to watch some more. He had sworn to the low-bred Alyson of Olverton that he would not act against her. Nor would he, but for his lord to break a solemn vow of abstinence after only one day would be unseemly: he would remind Guillelm of that. And I must also ensure that when he goes to his chamber to rest, he is not disturbed, by anyone, he thought, and smiled.
Chapter 13
The baker of Hardspen was recovered of his fever and hard at work. Guillelm had heard no complaints of him, but now another local baker, accused of selling short-weight loaves, had been brought to the castle from the nearby village of Setton Minor. The four men—and one woman—who had dragged the fellow into Hardspen and pitched him onto the rushes in the great hall had been vocal in demanding justice. Guillelm, fresh from disarming Thierry and wanting to spend more time with the former crusader to make certain all was calm and well with him, was forced to listen to the villagers’ disgruntled complaints.
Sitting on the dais, keeping a wary eye on Thierry, who was crouched by the central, ash-covered fire-place playing dice with a worried-looking Tom, Guillelm gripped the arms of his carver chair and tried to follow a rambling tale of bad flour, mouldy loaves sold as best and bread not fit even to be used as trenchers. The woman, whom Guillelm was surprised did not bake her own bread, was the most vocal of the five, but her quick patter and the baker’s rasping answers seemed to make no sense. Some matter of pies and rats and a brown bread that crumbled into… was the word dust? Guillelm wondered. It did not help him that their local dialect was so thick as to be almost incomprehensible. After seven years abroad away from these habits of speech, he had a struggle to understand more than two words in ten.
Listening, Guillelm felt a renewed surge of irritation against Fulk. His seneschal might have dealt with this, had Fulk’s command on English been better. But Fulk had retreated to the stables and then to the tilting ground, claiming he could not understand ’these mewling peasants’ and Sericus was off tending the merlin—a task Guillelm had expected Fulk to undertake, whenever he himself could not.
The woman had asked him a question. As Guillelm resigned himself to ask her to repeat it and risk enduring the whole rigmarole again, Gytha and then Alyson walked into the hall.
Habituated by war to watching movement even at the edge of his vision, Guillelm realized that Gytha was offering Thierry a vessel; doubtless one of her mistress’ potions. A calming draught, perhaps. It was a good thought, and for the first time in the great hall that day he smiled, allowing himself the pleasure of gazing upon Alyson herself.
He could do so at length, for she had brought four pages with her, each lad carrying cups and jugs of ale. As they proceeded to serve everyone in the hall, including the villagers, Alyson approached the dais, bearing a silver chalice. A maid, scurrying a few steps behind her, clutched a large pottery jug. The maid would not look at him directly and her pinched, pox-scared face had that blank look of fright that Guillelm was only too familiar with from the women who had crossed his path in Outremer, but Alyson met his eyes.
‘I have brought you a tisane, my lord.’ Her clear, low voice broke into his reverie. ’For your refreshment.’ Beside the dais, she lifted the chalice towards his reaching arms, raising her head and adding swiftly and softly, ’I beg mercy for the baker, Stephen Crok. He is losing his wits before his old age and cannot help what he does. The widow Isabella who accuses him most sharply has a younger son who would be a baker.’
‘Would the widow want her son to be taken on as Crok’s apprentice?’ Guillelm murmured, masking their conversation by making a play of sampling the tisane. The elderflower cosseted his nose with too cloying a scent, and he prayed that he hid his dislike of the draught. Alyson deserved better.
Shame at his cowardly behaviour last night tore into him again, but he forced himself to attend to her rapid, whispered answer.
‘Stephen Crok’s wife has been bedridden these last two years but she knows how to bake bread. Isabella would be glad for her son to learn from such a teacher, but she cannot pay any ’prentice fees.’ Alyson bit her lower lip. ’I would do so for her, if it please you.’
‘I will pay,’ Guillelm said flatly. ’But what can I offer to the others?’
‘A week of dining in your hall—my lord?’
Guillelm nodded. ’So be it. Will you translate for me?’ he added, rising to his feet.
‘With pleasure!’ Her eyes sparkled and her joy pierced him. So simple a mercy to give her so much delight. What had her life been like, with his father? Guillelm wondered again.
He was still wondering as he dispensed justice—if Alyson’s suggestion could be called such. It seemed so, especially as his new wife smoothly switched to the local dialect and repeated what he said. The manner of the widow Isabella changed in moments from thin-lipped scowls to effusive thanks, the men with her licked their lips and held out their cups to the pages for more ale and the baker tugged on Alyson’s gow
n.
‘Can I go home now?’ he asked, his slow, heart-wrenchingly simple request comprehensible even to Guillelm, who answered, ’You may.’
He swallowed the elderflower draught and came down from the dais as the villagers prepared to leave, sorry for the tisane but glad that Alyson had been with him. She knew many people here, and more importantly, understood them: their needs and irritations and hurts. Even in this she was a healer.
‘My thanks for your potion for Thierry,’ he said quietly, ‘And for the rest.’ His smile deepened: it was so easy to smile at her. ‘You have the sense of King Solomon. I would not have thought a woman —’
‘Capable?’ Alyson finished archly. ‘You do me too much honour.’
He had been about to say something quite different, but her mettlesome answer demanded a more physical response. He reached for her but she nimbly stepped back.
‘The chalice, my lord?’ She pointed past him to the high table. ‘I would return it to our chamber.’
At the word ‘our’, a faint rose stained her cheeks and Guillelm was snarled anew—like a fly caught in fresh resin, he thought, aggrieved. But although he was ever-wary of her possible rejection and she in turn clearly careful of him, he was more than glad of her presence.
‘A moment, wife.’ He said that to make Alyson blush more deeply and to his mischievous delight she did. ’I am for the tilting ground soon and will I have your company?’
Alyson‘s face was now as scarlet as the embroidered hems on her sleeves, but she answered readily, ‘If it please you.’ Her eyes glittered. ‘Then when you take a tumble, I shall be there to tend your hurts.’
‘Provoking weasel,’ he said affectionately, adding as she made to move off, ’Is the way you wear your hair the English style? I am out of touch with such fashions.’
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 14