A Knight's Vow by Lindsay Townsend

Author:Lindsay Townsend [Townsend, Lindsay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-06-29T04:19:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Guillelm sprinted from the chamber, shouting for his sword and armor, leaving Alyson with the shivering maid.

“What has happened?” Alyson asked, desperate to know more, but Mary could only cry against her shoulder.

“Terrible thing, my lady. Dreadful!” Mary wailed, leaning so hard against her smaller, slighter mistress that Alyson almost lost her footing. She hooked a stool with her foot and dragged it closer, encouraging Mary to sit, put her head down, take deep breaths.

“Easy, easy,” she soothed, ruffling the girl’s thin brown curls, trying to calm her while her own imagination was bursting with horrors. Mercenaries attacking a holy place: it was unthinkable, unspeakable. Unbearable, that her own sister should be there. What was England coming to, if a convent could be attacked? Was Tilda alive? Was she safe, undespoiled?

Alyson dropped to her knees, praying, the Latin words freezing on her tongue as the maid moaned and blubbered, her nose running. Rising to her feet again, Alyson tore a wide ribbon from her own hair and pressed it into Mary’s cold fingers.

“Here, Mary, blow your nose,” she said, gentle as if the maid were her daughter. “All will be well. Your lord is a great fighter; he will see the convent safe”

She swiftly bound her hair, still with its many ribbons, into a single plait. “Pray, Mary, but be not so afraid. The convent is close; it will be saved” She looked about for her cloak. “Have you people at St. Foy’s?” she asked, wondering if that was the reason Mary seemed so undone. She slipped a cloak belonging to Gytha, short on her, its narrow trimming of rabbit fur riddled with moth, over her shoulders and tied the throat strings.

Mary shook her head. She was quieting and less pale, regaining some of her native wit, too, for now she whispered, “I am sorry, mistress. I know your own dearly missed sister is there-would that she were not! But I have seen the handiwork of Flemish troops before”

“We all have these days,” replied Alyson bleakly. Forcing some kind of smile to her lips, she said gently, “Stay here tonight, if you wish. I will send Gytha and Osmoda to join you”

“But where are you going, my lady?” Mary asked, holding out the sodden ribbon, which Alyson gently refused.

“To join my husband,” she almost said, but stopped herself. “To pray,” she answered, which also was true, but was not the whole truth.

Alyson did not look to find Guillelm in the keep. Pulling Gytha’s sparse hood over her head, she sped out to the stables. All there was a riot of comings and goings in a flicker of torches: men saddling horses, checking girths and gear, pulling on armguards, squires scampering for armor, helping their knightly masters onto their mounts.

Lingering in the shadows of her lean-to, Alyson noticed the lad she had spoken with earlier that day. Sadly, he also noticed her.

“My lady!” He darted across to her. “You should not be here!”

“I have a token for my lord, for his good fortune,” Alyson lied quickly.

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