her elder sister had been so desperate to remain unmarried.
“Our mother died in childbirth. Have you forgotten?”
Tears stood in Alyson’s eyes at the unjust accusation. She
shook her head, but her sister was deep in the past, reliving
those terrible three days.
“She screamed so loud and she was pleading with God and
all the saints for the pain to stop. Our father was out hunting,
taking his ease as do all men, and mother was shrieking in
their chamber, with no one to help her but a few twittering old
women”
“Please, Tilda,” Alyson begged, the memory that forever
haunted the dark spaces of her mind rising up and striking her
afresh.
She had been just four years old. To know those pitiful cries
had been made by her mother, to see the pallid, sweating faces
of the helpless nurses and midwives, to be shut out of her
mother’s chamber had been truly terrifying. It must have been
worse for Matilda, the older by five years and so more aware
of what was happening. They had clung to each other, hiding
out of sight under a trestle in a corner in the great hall while in
the small, narrow room off from the hall their mother labored
and suffered. Alyson remembered Matilda weeping; she was
weeping now, tears coursing down her thin, sallow cheeks.
“It is a judgment of God upon women. The only way to
escape it is to avoid the contaminating sin of marriage and
to take the veil, as I have. As you should have done!”
“Sister-” Alyson tried to enfold the slim, sobbing figure
in her arms, but although they were a height and similar in
build, if not in looks, her sister tore herself away with the
strength of desperation.
“Do not touch me! You did not see our mother when she was
dead! I did and she was white with loss of blood! Her bed and
chamber reeked of it! Even now, I can smell it.” Distracted,
Sister Ursula thrust past Alyson and fled back to the main
church of the convent, ignoring Alyson’s calls for her to return.
Some time later, after she was forced to admit that her sister
would not emerge to bid her farewell, Alyson took her leave of
the prioress of St. Foy’s. Feeling battered and rather degraded
by Tilda-Ursula’s accusations, she responded as briefly as possible to Guillelm’s greeting, aware of Fulk’s avid interest.
Guillelm took in her sunless demeanor in a single piercing
glance and lifted her onto her horse without comment. He
asked no questions on the journey to the manor of his friend,
but spurred on his piebald so that his men had to gallop to keep with him. Alyson was grateful for his tact and glad of the
hard ride; concentrating on that blotted out some of her grief.
Soon enough-too soon for Alyson-the party had
reached the home of Thomas of Beresford. The former crusader was as Guillelm had described, with many ragged scars
blazoned upon his forehead, the tip of his nose missing and a
deep groove hacked from his jawbone, where the rest of his
curly black beard would not grow. He stumbled down the
manor steps to clap Guillelm on the shoulder and roar out a
“Well-met!” wielding a stump of a right arm and a peg leg for
his right foot, but Alyson sensed a warm and genuine welcome beneath the fierce, battle-hewn countenance. She liked
him at once, even before Guillelm drew the man across to her
horse, so that she would have the advantage of looking down
on them, two hulking, seasoned warriors with skins the color
and texture of polished beechwood.
“My betrothed, the lady Alyson of Olverton,” Guillelm
said formally, smiling at her while Alyson prayed that her face
was not filthy with the dusty ride. She put out her hand to her
lord’s stocky, barrel-chested companion.
“Thank you for allowing us to stay at your house, Sir
Thomas,” she said.
Guillelm laughed at the look of mingled awe and shyness
on his friend’s rough-hewn face. “Mother of God, Tom, make
some answer or my excellent wife-to-be will think you dumb
as
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