A Knight's Vow by Lindsay Townsend Page B

sir-” Alyson knew she was blushing and fumbled
with her riding gloves. She was stopped by her companion.
    I am glad you are real, my lady.”
    “Please, call me Alyson.”
    “Then you must call me Tom, as Guillelm does”
     
    “Sir Tom,” Alyson faltered.
    “Sir Tom will do very well.” He peered at her in the dim
light of the chamber and nodded. “The good thing is that you
are so different from the other one”
    Alyson felt the scrape of a sudden chill across the back of
her neck. “What other?” she whispered.
    “Never mind, it is years past and best forgotten” Sir Tom
squeezed her arm, his eyes very kind behind their mesh of
angry scars. “Now we should return to the hall, or Guillelm
or his miserable shadow Fulk will have something to say.”
    They walked downstairs, Alyson beset with a new fear.
Who was the other one? What woman had Guillelm known
in Outremer that she should cast so long a shadow? “Who
was she?” she demanded.
    “Her name was Heloise.”
    “What was she like?”
    “Proud and blond-but I will say no more, so do not ask”
    “Then I will ask Guillelm.”
    “No!” Sir Tom stopped her on the stairs. “Swear to me now
you will say nothing to him! He was so mauled by her, it
would do him no good even to remember!” His earnestness
was painful. “Promise me, Alyson. This is no idle thing I ask.
I beg you to believe me when I say it would do great harm”
    “But surely for him to speak would bring relief?”
    “So women ever think. It is not the same for men. Guillelm
needs to forget. Promise me, please.” A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, running past his ruined nose.
    In the teeth of his distress Alyson felt the worst kind of
gossip. “I promise,” she answered swiftly. “I will not ask him
direct. If he wishes to tell me .. ” She spread her hands.
    “He will not!” Sir Tom spoke in heartfelt accents that
pained and alarmed her.
    I must know more, she thought. Somehow I must find out.
Or I will have no peace.

    Although it would be painful, she knew whom she could
ask and get some answers-perhaps not all true, but certainly
full. Guillelm’s miserable shadow and her own nemesis, Fulk.
    Guillelm watched Alyson enter the great hall on Tom’s arm
and cursed again his lack of foresight in providing her with
no maids. He should have remembered the masculine nature
of his friend’s household; as it was, Alyson was the only
female present. Even the wolfhounds slinking round the great
unlit fireplace were male.
    He was jealous, Guillelm realized and was ashamed of the
emotion, for Alyson gave him no cause. In this situation, a
single woman in a melee of menfolk, Heloise would have reveled in the attention, would have ensured that all eyes were on
her. Quiet and grave, concentrating on what was being told
her, Alyson strolled about with Tom, utterly unaware of the
stir she made.
    The stares of his men irked Guillelm. He wanted Alyson all
to himself, wanted her alone. He strode across, deliberately
heavy-footed so all would know he was coming.
    “I will take her now, Tom,” he said, closing fast.
    “Aye, no doubt you will.” The former crusader stepped
back without breaking off from feasting a pair of very busy
eyes on Alyson. He wore a look on his mangled face that
could only be described as foolish. The man is besotted,
thought Guillelm, jealous afresh.
    He turned on his men. “Have you no tasks to be doing?” he
barked at the astonished company. “Must I order everything?”
He snatched at Alyson’s hand, almost dragging her away from
Tom. “Come, mistress, I would have a word.”
    He walked her behind the screens separating the great hall
from the pantry and buttery, where a glower at a dice-throwing page had the boy scurrying off. Checking there was no one lingering in the buttery or pantry, he threaded his thumbs
into his belt, taking pleasure just in looking at her. He had his
second betrothal gift ready; he had