Read Online A Knight's Vow by Lindsay Townsend - Free Book Online Page B

walk in your father’s fields?”
    Blushing slightly, she nodded and unerringly placed her
hand in his, proving that she did remember. Side by side,
Guillelm careful to keep pace with her and not drag her along
in the wake of his natural long strides, they strolled through
the bailey, very companionable.
    It was going to be all right, Alyson told herself. She had not
made a mistake in agreeing to marry Guillelm. With the optimism of one-and-twenty, she felt proud and happy walking
beside him, hand in hand. It was as if the years they had spent
apart had never been. Her people smiled at her; his men
nodded to her, a wary respect showing in their weathered
faces. It was going to be all right.
    Her joyous mood lasted until she and Guillelm had passed
through the bailey gate and they were out on the rolling grasslands with a few bleating sheep and a swineherd driving a herd of pigs into the nearby woodland. As she crested a steep
rise, slightly out of breath with the warmth of the climb and
simply because she was so pleased to be with Guillelm, she
felt the ground shift beneath her, felt the heavy, relentless
drumming of hooves. A divot of loose earth and grass reared
up at her as a dark-helmed rider on a big bay stallion thundered by, racing over the cropped turf as if charging for the
gates of Jerusalem itself.

    “Hey, Fulk!” bawled Guillelm, and the rider turned and
galloped back, even as her own man Sericus seemed to grow
out of a patch of oxeye daisies and long grass, where he
clearly had been taking his ease.
    “My lord-lady-” the withered old man stammered, furiously rubbing his rheumy eyes. “I did not hope to see you here”
    “Peace, Master Sericus,” Guillelm answered, above the
plunging hooves. “I believe you were going to have an answer
for me about furniture?” And leaving Alyson to puzzle over
that cryptic remark he drew the aged seneschal to one side,
both of them walking over the downs-more slowly than she
and Guillelm had done because of Sericus’s lame leg-and
talking softly with their heads close together.
    Which meant it was she who had to greet the hapless Fulk
when the man finally reined in, stopping less than an armlength away from her.
    “You ride well, sir,” she remarked, as he slowly lowered
himself from his charger, clearly wincing through his helm as
his feet touched the ground.
    “My thanks, Lady.” With the same careful movements, as
if his every joint pained him, he began to rub down the massive sweating warhorse with the saddle cloth. “My lord Guillelm also rides and fights well, as you would know if we were
still in Outremer.”
    If Fulk wished to begin afresh or make peace with her he was
going about it in a strange way, Alyson thought, glancing to ensure that Guillelm was out of hearing. Fulk had not removed
his helm, nor made her any kind of courtesy. Since he had mentioned war, she decided on shock tactics.

    “Do you resent me, Fulk?”
    Her use of his name and the direct question made him
swing round, but to Alyson’s surprise he was laughing.
“Hardly, my lady.” Now he did take off his helmet, revealing
the same cold blue eyes and narrow mouth she had encountered earlier, a shock of gray hair and a narrow, thin face that
might have been pleasing were it not for its sneering expression or the band of small red pustules running across his nose
and cheeks.
    Seeing the skin disease, Alyson instantly ran through potions
in her mind that might help, but Fulk was not interested in anything of hers, as his next words made insultingly obvious.
    “Why should I resent you, a mere distraction and the leavings of another man? My lord has taken such fancies before,
but they never last. Once he thinks he has won you from his
father’s memory, it will be over.”
    “Guillelm has asked me to marry him,” Alyson said, determined that Fulk would not make her angry a second time.
    The man shrugged, scowling as his chain mail rasped and