She smiled, tilting her head on one side in that endearing way that always made his stomach flutter and his heart race. ‘Will one bag of gold be sufficient?’ she teased.
‘It had better be, wench.’
Walking steadily so as not to over-tire her, Guillelm wandered about the bailey with Alyson. The traders had indeed come, and more of them than he had hoped: lithe, brightly-clad folk with marvellous goods and news. Barter for local wool, leather and beer for flint, cooking pots and salt was in full swing. Children darted amongst the crowds of cottars and villagers, hawking beads and linen ribbons.
Arm in arm, like any other young couple, Guillelm and Alyson strolled about. Clutching the bag of gold made her fingers ache after a while and so Guillelm took it back, joking that now he had the purse-strings again. Alyson meanwhile took a lively interest in everything, pausing to admire the goods spread over the grass. She stood for a time watching the sun on new cups and basins; so long that Guillelm was taken from her side by some matter of land rights.
Alyson walked on, shaking her head at a woman who offered her armloads of furs. She passed Sericus, head down in the thick of haggling for pepper, then quickened her step, drawn by a mass of people round one trader.
Even at the rear of the crowd she could see over most heads if she stood on tip-toe. The trader, recognizing the small, dark beauty as the lady of the castle, pointed with a slim hand. 'Lady, if you will, I shall show you gems worthy of your breeding. For you, there is nothing more fitting than garnets.' He spread a necklace like a magic mist over his fingers, and showed a brooch in the palm of his hand.
Alyson moved in slowly through the crowd. Though she had longed to find a book-stall—where perhaps she would discover a manuscript that would please her sister—Guillelm would have this brooch: the dark fire of the gemstones matched his eyes.
The necklace of red stones was given to her to touch, the trader holding a pair of looped earrings beside her hair. Too late, as he placed the jewellery on her open palm, Alyson jerked back her hand. The garnets dropped on the ground between them.
'Forgive me, I cannot take them,' she said, dry-mouthed. She was too ashamed to admit that although she was lady of Hardspen, she had no means to reward the trader.
Alyson swung round and moved back into the crowd, almost trampling Edwin the shepherd in her haste. She begged his pardon and would have gone, but the man called her back.
'I owe you for helping me,' he said, dark eyes sharp, and with no further words to her, Edwin began bargaining. He got both brooch and necklace for a lamb, shrugging off Alyson's thanks. 'Give them to the lady,' he told the trader, and turned his back on the affair.
Warily, the trader dropped the pieces into her hands. The crowd applauded, and Alyson felt a change amongst those watching. She looked up into Guillelm's face and smiled, and he held out his hand to her.
‘I have something to show you that will match those jewels,’ he said. ’In that large tent close to where the juggler is performing.’ His eyes crinkled in private amusement. ‘Come.’
The striped tent was owned by a clothier and his wife and, clearly against Alyson’s arrival, they had set out several gowns on their long polished trestle table for her to consider.
‘Take any or all,’ Guillelm instructed in a low voice. ‘Do not worry about payment.’
Alyson ran a finger over the fur collar of a winter gown. ‘These are my size,’ she murmured, and looked closely at her husband, paring his fingernails with a knife. ‘I have missed my perse-coloured gown, these last few days,’ she remarked.
He shrugged. ‘After your… skirmish with the archer, that dress was nothing but rags. I took it away.’
‘To give to these good people as a template?’ Alyson asked softly. She tugged on Guillelm’s sleeve, made him duck his head as she hissed into his ear, ‘Have you had these poor folk labouring with their needles all night?’
‘Hardly!’ Guillelm answered at once. ’They have been here two days and, if you must know, I gave them your gown when they arrived.’ He bent his lips to her ear. ’If the clothier’s wife looks a trifle red about the eyes, it may be because last night she and her man were drinking in the great hall till the early hours. You heard nothing of that feast because you were already snoring when I carried you to our chamber.’
‘You cannot silence me by embarrassment, my lord.’
‘No, but I can make you blush,’ said Guillelm, releasing her with a gentle tweak of her sleeve. ’What do you think of the scarlet dress? Or that one in white and gold? Or the green and yellow?’
Alyson had never bought clothes before—nor did she now, she thought wryly, for Guillelm insisted on paying for a whole trunk-load of gowns, undershifts, veils, ribbons and cloaks. When she laughingly protested at the cost, Guillelm countered, ’How can you grant me favours at the forthcoming jousts and wrestling matches, if you have no fresh combs? How can you meet your friend Petronilla, or Lady Edith, if you have no new gowns? How is your shoulder?’ he added slyly.
She burst out laughing. ’You ask me how I am, after such bounty? A joust here? Dragon, you give me so much.’ In truth, the idea of a joust alarmed her, though she knew it to be a true manly sport, but to know that Guillelm had taken the trouble to find her oldest friends, to invite them here to Hardspen, when Lord Robert had driven Edith’s messengers away—
Suddenly she was weeping into her hands, overwhelmed. ’Forgive me,’ she managed to whisper from her closing throat and then she was conscious of being bundled, gently but firmly, out of the tent. Although the day was warm, Guillelm swept his cloak around both of them, shielding her from curious faces.
‘Now what is it, sweet?’ he asked, scooping a tendril of hair away from her eyes.
‘Nothing! But to see my friends again, after so many seasons… and a joust here…. Men die in such things.’ Alyson gulped, aware she was making little sense. She wanted to beg him to take care, but was afraid he might be offended, think her interfering. She took another deep breath and tried again. ‘My shoulder is healing well, thank you, my lord.’
‘So, we are full of the eastern courtesies I told you of, are we? I think I prefer a more English informality.’ Guillelm wrapped the ends of his cloak more tightly about her narrow shoulders, pulling her closer. ‘Like this.’
‘People will see!’ Alyson exclaimed, at once scandalized and delighted.
‘Indeed,’ Guillelm said gruffly, ashamed as he misinterpreted her moment of freezing delight as fear. Their meeting, which had begun so excellently, seemed to be going from bad to worse. ‘Please forgive my action. It was foolish.’
Although he was a head taller than her and broader, Alyson felt herself relax. Lord Robert would never have admitted anything he did or said was foolish. She touched his arm, brushing a rose petal, fallen from their roof garden, off his shoulder. Against the backdrop of the keep, his starkly handsome face and bright hair lent him an unworldly air, like a fallen angel.
‘There is nothing to forgive,’ she said softly.
He bowed his head towards her and they stood together in quiet, Alyson aware of his light, slow breathing, Guillelm lost in the moment entirely. Out of the shadows, from an unseen booth, drifted the mellow, haunting sound of a rebec: someone playing a lament. People strolling about the bailey paused to listen, their figures as insubstantial to Alyson’s dazzled senses as the smoke from a distant fire.
‘Are you real?’ Guillelm murmured. ‘Is this a dream?’ The sound of the rebec wound about them as he lifted her hand and kissed her palm, her fingertips. He ran his thumb lightly down her arm. ’You are so pretty.’
‘No —’
‘Yes, you are.’ He drew her back into his arms. Alyson leaned against his shoulder. When she threaded her arm around him, he sighed.
‘Do you know the tune being played?’ he asked. ‘It sounds very old, very beautiful.’
‘Sorry, no.’
‘Do not be, sweet. There is no need to know.’ He rocked her lightly,
in time to the slow rise and fall of the music. ’Only remember.’
His eyes held hers. ’Alyson?’
She smiled, knowing why he had stopped, why he was so suddenly tense. It really was her move. All is well,’ she said, and she took his face gently between her hands and kissed him on his mouth.
Guillelm spent the rest of the day in a happy fog, though he could have strangled the page who interrupted his deepening embrace with Alyson to say that the first of the knights had arrived. It was no one he knew: a younger son of one of the local land-owners, keen to better his fortune through keeping the horse and weapons of those knights he vanquished. There would be many younger sons arriving, Guillelm thought, and knights weary of fighting for King Stephen or the Empress and looking for easier spoils. He had warned his men to look out for any trouble-makers—he wanted no battles to erupt at Hardspen between the factions of Stephen or Matilda .
Soon after he had greeted the gangling young knight who had ridden in on an old chestnut horse, a wagon of womenfolk arrived, escorted by stripling archers and a dozen sturdy, experienced retainers. Alyson, who had stood patiently beside him while the acne-scarred knight had nervously recited the names of his kindred and promised his obedience to the lord and lady of Hardspen, gasped and drew back.
‘Petronilla,’ she moaned, as if in despair, rather than gladness. ’How very elegant she is!’
Guillelm saw a pale, moon-faced woman with sparse blonde hair leaning from the front of the wagon, waving. To him, her white features and dress were as insipid as milk, but Alyson was flicking hopelessly at her own gown as if it was spattered with dust.
‘I have no time to change,’ she was saying.
Guillelm turned his laughter into a cough and shook his head. ’I will bring your Petronilla and her ladies to your paradise—after you have changed.’
Alyson laced herself swiftly into her new scarlet gown—she knew red was Guillelm’s favourite colour—and ran up the long spirals to the roof garden. She had scarcely recovered her breath when Guillelm appeared, escorting Petronilla.
‘My dear creature, how brown you are!’ Petronilla exclaimed, the instant Guillelm disappeared downstairs. ‘You are almost as dark-skinned as your lord, who is as tanned as one of my father’s peasants.’
Two light kisses landed somewhere in mid-air close to Alyson’s ears as Petronilla swept about the garden, leaving a trail of snapped-off flower heads where the long sleeves of her gown had caught against the sides of the tubs and a sweet, rather sickly scent of violets. Gaping at her friend, whom she had not seen for two years, Alyson realized she had forgotten how talkative Petronilla was.
‘Not that Lord Guillelm is anything like a peasant,’ Petronilla went on, dropping her pet squirrel onto Alyson’s couch and frowning at the simple wooden cups that had been left on the low table. ‘I suppose that his blond looks are quite handsome, if you like the brooding sort. It is a shame he is so big: no large man is ever graceful and his bones will pain him and grow crooked before he is much older.’
‘Not if I can help it, Pet,’ Alyson answered mildly.
‘Do not call me that name! So childish.’ Petronilla stepped back from the battlements with a shudder. ’I told my women to be careful with that, and now it is quite spoilt,’ she remarked coolly, referring to some calamity Alyson had not seen. ’Edith would say he is almost a fashionable knight, your Guillelm: his colour is right but not his size—much too lumbering! Edith sends her apologies, by the by. She cannot come because of a stomach chill.’
‘I am sorry for that,’ Alyson replied, her mood sinking further. She had forgotten how Edith’s easy-going charm had smoothed relations between them all: without Edith she was finding Petronilla a trial. ’How are you, Petronilla?’
‘I have a mark on my hand that I hope you will take a look at.’
‘Of course.’
‘And the skin around my elbows looks dry.’
‘I have a salve that may help you there. Shall we go down to my potions room?’
Petronilla beamed. ‘You can meet my maids, too, and see my wagon. Father had it made for me specially, with extra cushions: you know how easily I bruise! More than Edith, although she is a red-head. No dashing bachelor will look at her now she is three-and-twenty; she will have to settle for a widower, or a man like your Guillelm.’
‘Then Edith will consider herself fortunate,’ Alyson replied, considering this brittle-tongued, wispy woman and recalling the chattering, golden child she had been, beloved and protected by everyone. Petronilla had always been so glad to try her salves, too.
That interest between them at least remained, Alyson thought, leading the way as Petronilla seized the leather lead of her squirrel and dragged the squirming creature off the bed. ’How are your parents?’ Alyson asked above the squirrel’s squeals of fear and indignation.
‘Father is looking for a good marriage for me. He has been approached by several knights, but none have really caught my eye and he knows that. Mother says that with my beauty and wealth I can take my time. We heard about the attack on St Foy’s, by the by. Someone told me that your sister is staying here. Are you not afraid that your bear of a husband will alarm her? She was always mistrustful of men.’
‘My sister is a deeply religious person. She spends her day in the chapel, in prayer and contemplation,’ Alyson answered doggedly, depressed that Petronilla had learned about Sister Ursula so quickly. ‘The nuns are devastated about the loss of their home. Guillelm tells me that the Prioress is shocked beyond measure that their convent should have been attacked. She and the nuns rarely venture from the chapel.’
‘Even so, Matilda is your sister —’
‘With her sisters-in-Christ in such a wretched state, Tilda cannot leave them.’ Alyson took a deep breath. ‘Forgive me, Petronilla, my sister is of course Sister Ursula now. She has a different name and a different life.’
Alyson felt Petronilla’s hand drop onto her injured shoulder and bit her lip hard to stop herself from crying out. She turned on the narrow staircase, trying not to flinch or show her distaste as she stared straight into the young woman’s delicate face and hard narrow eyes, glinting with curiosity.
‘Do you not miss her?’
Alyson nodded, hoping that would be enough. She heard Petronilla take in another breath and braced herself for more painful questions.
‘I see you have not grown as much as a finger-width, by the by,’ Petronilla exulted, touching the crown of her head as if in comparison, her fingers idly checking that her jewelled fillet was perfectly arranged on her yellow curls. ’You are quite as small as a cottar’s child.’
‘I know I do not match the fashionable forms of beauty, any more than does my lord,’ Alyson replied, in what she prayed was a good-humoured way. She turned and resumed her downward climb, quickening her pace so that she and Petronilla would soon be joining others.
‘Perhaps you could cover your hair,’ Petronilla trilled happily, trip tripping on the steps behind Alyson, her breath hot on Alyson’s aching shoulder. ‘And never wear a drop-waisted gown or belt: that would draw attention to your short legs. Hush!’ This said to the squirrel, scrabbling on the leash by her feet.
‘What do you call the creature?’ Alyson asked.
‘Mother said it had a name: she gave it me as a contrast to my colouring. Perhaps you should have a pet.’
‘I do not know if my lord would allow that,’ Alyson replied in mock-seriousness, breathing a sigh of relief as she stepped out of the keep and Petronilla was surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting.
Alyson found supper in the great hall that evening a trial, after a long afternoon spent with Petronilla and her maids happily burrowing through her stores of potions and salves, trying what they fancied at will. It was the first time she had dined in public since her injury and she had hoped to be seated by Guillelm, but he, Fulk and Sir Tom were absent, still at the tourney ground seeing to last-minute preparations for the jousting that would begin on the morrow.
Sitting in Guillelm’s place, Alyson knew she should be the gracious hostess. There were a score or more of young knights and their squires, all strangers to Hardspen, who had arrived throughout the day, lured by the promises of winning renown and rich prizes. Seated among Guillelm’s veterans, the new men nervously picked at their trenchers or were drinking deeply, with a grinning bravado.
Aware of Petronilla on her left, scarcely touching her meat, Alyson was increasingly mortified as the meal progressed. Hardspen had no resident minstrels, for Lord Robert had disliked music and neither she nor Guillelm had yet had the time to appoint any players. They were ’entertained’ by several traveling musicians, who had arrived for the jousts and who, despite Alyson’s and Sericus’ best efforts, frequently beat their drums or blew their whistles in opposition to each other.
‘At least there are no jugglers,’ Petronilla remarked, when Alyson felt compelled to apologize.
‘We could hold a court of love,’ Alyson suggested, blushing deeply as she spoke. ’My lord told me that in southern France and also in Outremer, the ladies of the courts there encourage the young knights to speak of ideal love, to make music and compose poetry in honour of their chosen beloved.’
‘What else did he say?’ Petronilla asked, sitting up and becoming more animated than she had been for the last hour.
‘I forget,’ Alyson answered. She would not admit to Petronilla that only yesterday evening, dozing in the great bedchamber after her bath, Guillelm had sent her a single white rose by way of a smirking Gytha and the carefully-written note: To my bright-eyed wife, whom I miss and who misses nothing.
‘What do you think?’ Alyson went on, rousing herself from her pleasant reverie. ‘If I instruct the servants to move back the trestles, arrange the benches around the fire-space. I think your maids would be interested,’ Alyson added, seeing one of Petronilla’s ladies-in-waiting valiantly trying to stifle a yawn.
Love and Chivalry: Four Medieval Historical Romances Page 19