‘Such country fashions?’ she suggested, clearly taking his question as a criticism, where none was intended, where he had only wanted to keep her by him. ‘It is my own style, but no matter: I will change it to suit your wishes. You need only instruct me, though I beg not here, in the hall, with your men hard by.’
‘Alyson —’
‘I know I am only a simple creature to you, my lord. Nothing like the grand ladies of the court. I will do as you command.’
Exasperated, Guillelm told the truth. ‘You need change nothing, little idiot! Shall I tell you of these grand ladies? The women of my uncle’s court in Poitiers had bad teeth from too many sweets and hair as brittle as straw from spreading their sparse locks in the strongest sunlight to bleach them.’
Instantly, he regretted this ungallantly, but it was too late. Alyson closed her sagging mouth with an audible snap. ‘Women torture themselves to change their looks to gold because men ever prefer them so.’
‘Not this man,’ Guillelm said steadily.
She shot him a strange, bright glance but said nothing. Did she know anything of Heloise of Outremer? The notion she did grazed his heart but his feelings did not matter now—Alyson was turning from him, motioning some silent instruction to Gytha and her other maids.
‘Alyson?’
She looked at him, her face stricken.
‘Mother of God.’ He could not leave her thus. ‘I am sorry. I spoke badly. Let me make amends.’ Desperate for something to bridge the sudden yawning gap between them, he said quickly, ’Wear my favour at the tilting ground. Please?’
Solemn as when she had been a child, she nodded and he breathed afresh. ‘Will you walk with me to the ground?’ he asked.
She fell into step with him. Strolling together, down the stone stairways and out past the stables, he studied her again. Alyson was a lesson he never grew tired of, and his. If only he might make her truly his.
Her gown was new to him, he thought, or perhaps he was seeing it clearly for the first time. It was that green-blue colour favoured by many ladies and marvellously snug about her bosom, waist and hips. Her long sleeves were trimmed in scarlet and, as she pointed to a dove strutting by the stables, muttering, ’The dove-cote here needs some repair, my lord,’ he was distracted from her highly practical observation by a glimpse of her wrist, smooth and burnished and white as a pearl. Quickly, to try to stop the inevitable stirring below his belt, he followed her pointing finger to the dove. Its feathers were as milky as the flesh on her wrist. Did she know how the scarlet embroidering set off her hands? Her gliding, high-arched feet, too, for now he caught a flash of her trim ankles as she lifted the scarlet hem of her gown to negotiate past a pile of trodden sheep dung.
‘Do you think, my lord?’ she was asking, ’That the Emperor of Germany is really a woman?’ and he said hazily, ‘Yes,’ starting as she laughed.
‘You have not been paying attention, Guillelm, and now I have proved it!’
‘Attention, eh? Then I must give you some.’ Inspired by her teasing, he went further. Ignoring her choked-off giggles, he flung her over his shoulder, and twirled them both about. ’Is this enough attention for you?’
‘Let me down!’ She hammered her palms against his back but he felt the blows as if they were the lightest of embraces, overwhelmed already by the scent of her, the taut, firm bow of her body on his. Her long braids swung against his calves, a piquant series of strikes that made him want her even more.
Enough! Do you want her terrified again? You have seen women raped in Outremer—will you be no better? Are you a Viking that seizes what he pleases? Slowly, reluctantly, he lowered her to the ground.
‘More of that and no doubt I should undo some streamer from your hair and be nagged all the way to the gallops,’ he said gruffly. ‘We should get on; ‘tis past noon already.’
She snapped her fingers at him. ‘I am no scold, dragon, as well you know, but I will race you—now we are fairly matched since you are clearly exhausted by your lifting.’
Giving him no time to answer, she sped ahead, her dark plaits flying out behind her. He let her go, amazed at her fleetness, then started after her, aware he was chasing and happy to chase, for Alyson did not mind if she was caught.
Strangely enough, they had a tranquil afternoon at the tilting ground—which was odd, Alyson thought, because Guillelm and the other knights there were in training for war. Content merely to be close to him, she watched him on Caliph, galloping at targets, practicing with spear, sword and shield and working himself, his men and their horses into great steaming sweats.
Halfway through the afternoon, Alyson sent a messenger to the castle to have the bath-house readied again, and instructed pages to bring ale to the men. Ducking under a tourney target, she walked across the churned up ground, waving to Sir Tom and stroking one of his panting hounds, avoiding Fulk, whose bay stallion had already bitten another horse, to hand Guillelm a drink.
‘My thanks, sweet.’ He took it with a tiny brush of his callused thumb against her palm, a gentle touch that told more of his gratitude than any number of words. He wore one of her hair ribbons pinned to his shoulder, a bright blue favour. She in turn had asked for and been given one of Guillelm’s small brooches as a favour. She flicked it with a finger.
‘The dragon on this brooch looks to have indigestion,’ she remarked, which earned her a guffaw from Guillelm. He leaned down from Caliph, hooking his free hand under her belt and lifting her off her feet again—any excuse to carry her was good enough, it seemed, and that was fine to Alyson.
‘It is a pretty brooch, all the same,’ she said, balancing on his stirrup and giving the rather portly gold dragon design a cleaning rub with one of her ribbons.
‘How many ribbons are there in your hair?’ Guillelm muttered.
Alyson smiled. She had spent more than an hour arranging her coiffure: it was gratifying to behold her husband’s faintly stunned look whenever he saw it; that and the many quicksilver glances he sent her. In truth, she had no idea if what she had done was fashionable, but she had tried to tread a narrow path between modesty and instinct.
While it was a bitter truth that all in Hardspen doubtless knew of the wretched wedding night between Guillelm and herself, she saw no reason to proclaim the tale. Modesty and self-protection—protection for Guillelm, too, against possible sly jibes— had prompted her to place her silk veil on the crown of her head, as befitted a married woman. Instinct though had suggested she fold the veil into no more than a small square, held by a narrow copper coronet.
Below this delicate, narrow head-rail she had divided her hair into four plaits, each spiralled about with ribbons. Lord Robert, Guillelm’s scarce-lamented father and her former ’protector’, had taken her hair ornaments from her along with her jewels: she had made more by sacrificing two scarves and cutting them into ribbons.
Quickly, Guillelm brushed his lips against one of her plaits and then, almost as if that contact would be too much for her, swung her gently to the ground. ’I must continue,’ he said. ’I would see Thierry soon, make certain he is still sure of where he is, and who he is with.’
‘I understand completely,’ Alyson replied, briefly envying Thierry his lord’s concern before good sense took hold of her again. There was a difference between being attentive to Guillelm and becoming his very shadow. Besides, if she left for the castle first, he might wonder where she had gone and surely a little doubt on his part was good?
Quitting the tilting ground, aware of Fulk watching her leave, Alyson could only hope so.
Chapter 14
As Alyson was passing the bath-house, encouraging a lagging page to keep up, Sericus stopped her.
‘My lady.’ He drew her apart from the pages, his wrinkled, grey-bearded face warped with concern. ‘Grave news.’
Alyson braced herself. Was Tilda safe and well at St Foy’s? Had Thierry gone berserk again? Or did the news concern King Stephen or the Empress Maud? Had the warring forces come closer t
o Hardspen?
‘Yes, Sericus?’ she asked, when her grey-headed seneschal did not speak.
‘Edwin the shepherd has seen a wolf at the edge of the common land and forest. He is sure,’ Sericus continued, guessing Alyson’s first question. ‘He knows there have been no wolves in these parts for many years, but he saw a pack when he was a boy. He swears to me there is no mistake.’ Sericus hopped nervously from one foot to the other, favouring his less withered leg. ‘Already he is short a dozen lambs.’
Alyson sighed. ’I am sorry for that.’ She was, too, and there was no easy answer. Edwin was keen-sighted, but had no skill with bow and arrow and less with a sling and sling-shot.
‘He has no shepherd lad or lass with him to guard his lambs?’ she asked.
‘I fear not—and now the wolf grows bold, my lady. Only yesterday, Edwin saw it carry off a lamb in bright daylight. Also, he says that a widow from Setton Minor was terrorized the day after the feast-day of Saint Mary Magdalene by a “huge black beast, like a dog but with more teeth” as she took flowers to a wayside shrine of St Foy.’
And was the widow also paying a visit to Eva the wise-woman in the woods there? Alyson thought, but she said nothing.
Sericus crossed himself and continued. ‘The woman was on the road when the beast came at her: she managed to toss a stone at it and drive it into the thickets, but she was badly shaken.’
‘So it may be only a matter of days before it attacks someone: a child gathering berries, an old woman seeking firewood.’ Alyson frowned, imagining the damage a hungry wolf could inflict on such innocents.
‘I shall speak to my lord,’ she told Sericus, with more assurance than she felt. Guillelm was kind and mindful of his people, but whom could he spare to go on a wolf-hunt? Perhaps that was how she should ask—present it as a challenge and ‘good sport’ to tempt Guillelm and his men into tracking the beast.
‘I will speak to him when I may,’ she promised, squeezing Sericus’ shoulder in brief reassurance as she continued on her way to the castle keep.
For the rest of the afternoon, Alyson was kept busy with questions from her maids concerning the flax and wool spinning and also the anxious head cook, who seemed convinced that with Guillelm and his men having lived in Outremer, they would expect an eastern feast every day. She spent an hour in the lean-to where she made her potions, checking the drying and steeping herbs, then time in the shade of the bath-house with the oldest laundress, who had a complaint that ‘some vile, low knaves’ had smeared fire-ash onto the bed linen she was drying on bushes by the river. As a piece of malicious mischief, Alyson thought it grotesque, and she listened most sympathetically to the woman’s tirade, promising to speak to her lord about it and offering her the copper bangle from her own wrist in recompense of the laundress’ wasted labour. She would have liked to have given the laundress money, but she had no coins: Lord Robert had taken the few silver pennies she owned.
With these matters and other tasks, Alyson realized with a start that it was close to sunset. Expecting to find Guillelm in the stables, tending to Caliph, she was surprised he was not there. Jezebel, her own horse, whickered happily to see her and she could not resist giving the mare some attention, brushing her coat and combing out the tangles in her mane. The stable lad protested when he found her working, but not too much: she was the well-loved lady of Hardspen and moreover, he knew that she would willingly tend his hurts if a horse kicked or bit him.
Backing away from the stables, Alyson thought too late of her gown. Berating her own folly, she looked herself over, relieved that the dress was still clean and wholesome. Not so her hands—they needed a soak.
Within the keep, she climbed the stairs swiftly straight to her chamber, longing to see Guillelm again as she passed the entrance of the great hall but not sneaking a peep in case she was spotted. True, her dragon had seen her with potion-stained fingers when she was child, but she doubted if the mystery Heloise had ever appeared to him thus. Perhaps she should add even more ribbons to her hair, or would that merely make her husband laugh?
‘I could try it and see,’ she said aloud, stepping off the stair onto the narrow stone landing outside the main bedchamber—hers now, and Guillelm’s, if he should ever rest in it again. Would he do so tonight? Where had he slept on their wedding night? Had he slept?
The panic had been with her all day, the dread unacknowledged but horribly present. She had tried to keep occupied, but that and all the foolish beauty aids and girlish plans had been no more than ploys to stop her dwelling on the question—What would happen between them tonight? Would he come?
Her fragile confidence faltered, crashing completely as she saw the figure standing outside the chamber, ‘guarding’ the door.
Checking that the door was indeed closed, Fulk stepped towards her.
‘My lord is resting and would not be disturbed,’ he said.
‘But he will come to supper soon,’ Alyson observed.
‘I am to be in his place at the high table this evening, by his own order. Sericus too,’ Fulk added negligently.
This was against custom but Alyson did not want to ask for explanations from Fulk.
‘We have fought hard today,’ he went on.
Alyson saw the sheen of sweat on the man’s glib, triumphant face and answered with unusual spite, ‘For you it was hard. For my husband it is no more effort than blowing away the web of a spider. I have news for Guillelm.’ She thought of the complaint of the laundress but put that aside to speak of the greater threat: something that could not wait. ‘There is a wolf at large, terrorizing the country close to Hardspen. It needs to be found and stopped, before a child is killed.’
‘I will tell him.’
‘You are not my messenger, and I will enter my own bedchamber.’
‘No!’ Fulk raised his hands, blocking her way. ’Do you not understand your own language?’ he demanded. ’My lord is exhausted.’
‘Speak a little louder, Fulk. I do not think Guillelm heard that. If he did, I do not think he would be pleased.’
His blue eyes widened then narrowed, a sign of anger she was coming to recognize only too well. ‘To fight even in practice is a furious labour, something a female never understands.’
Alyson smiled, conscious at this moment only of her dislike for Fulk. He must be an excellent warrior: nothing else would have compelled Guillelm to favour such a man with any kind of preferment, but she would have him away from the door.
‘When you have undergone the trials of childbirth, Sir Fulk, then you may speak of labour to me,’ she remarked sweetly.
‘What would you know of that? The women of your family bleed, not breed, each miscarriage proof of your sins, or drop only daughters. You doubtless will be as useless and barren.’
Nasty and clever—his voice was now no more than a whisper.
‘You would not say such things to me in the hearing of our lord,’ Alyson said, struggling to keep the memory of her mother’s death at bay, terrified at the thought that perhaps the women of her family were somehow cursed, steeped in sin. ’You would not dare.’
He snorted. ’I would not need to! Guillelm will learn soon enough. That is, if he ever breaks his vow and troubles to bed you.’
Such affront was more than Alyson could bear. ’You are without honour!’ she blazed out, turning so Fulk would not see her cry. She stalked away. Reaching the stairs and out of sight of the landing, she ran.
’Wait!’ Guillelm called out urgently, but she was already gone, vanishing into the long evening shadows. He seized Fulk, slamming the man against the wall. ’What are you doing here? Why did you not let her pass?’
‘I was about to, my lord! I swear.’
Fulk lapsed into French, a bead of sweat trickling down his nose as he made excuses that Guillelm was too angry to hear. Struggling with a locked chest in the chamber that he could find no key to and could not open without force, he had not realized that Alyson was outside until he heard her raised voice.
Alyson retired to her former room, where her nurse Gytha took one look at her and silently guided the gawping Osmoda and the sharp-eyed maids out of the chamber. Alyson knew she had taken their sleeping place for the night, but could hardly feel sorry for them—she was pitying herself. She threw herself onto the nearest bed and wept, pummelling the mattress with her fists, imagining the yielding pallet as Fulk’s smirking face. Why should women have always to give way to men? How could she reach Guillelm and tell him of the wolf?
But then, why should she try? ’I will catch the wolf myself,’ she said, and cried again.
Presently, she wiped her face and sought to compose herself. If Guillelm truly was weary, then she should go to supper in the great hall: if the lord of Hardspen could not show himself to his people then the lady must. Yet it hurt her that Guillelm had not sent her a message to say he would not be dining in hall, that he should tell Fulk and Sericus ahead of her. Or was he perhaps planning some surprise for her within their chamber? A sweet thought, but was that merely her own desperate hope?
She heard a muffled cough outside and guessed that Gytha would be hovering by the door. She should at least tell her nurse to find a sleeping- place, she thought, ashamed of her own self-seeking concerns as she unthreaded some of the ribbons from her plaits. To appear before Guillelm’s men in the great hall with such silly trinkets in her hair seemed foolish.
There was a soft knock on the door. ‘Come in, Gytha,’ she called out, but it was Guillelm who entered.
‘I did not know you were outside our chamber,’ he was saying, stopping as he saw what she was doing. He grimaced. ‘Forgive me, I did not realize you were retiring.’
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 15