The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  CHAPTER 16

  In the hour before dawn, Rolf ceased tossing and turning on his pallet by the fire and conceding that sleep was impossible, rose to start his day. Tomorrow, he promised himself, he would find a woman to keep his blankets warm. That always helped.

  Apart from his grooms and retainers, he was alone. Aubert had elected to spend the night at St Aethelburga's guest house with his wife and the new baby. Rolf grimaced. Small wonder that the armourer's maid had rebuffed Aubert's tidings of Felice's safe delivery yester morn.

  Rolf broke his fast on a heel of bread dipped in a bowl of thick gruel, his mind dwelling on the memory of Ailith's face and the way she had said 'My brothers, my baby, my husband. What more is there to take?' The image was too powerful and disturbing to dismiss and unsettled him into restless motion.

  Collecting a horn lantern from the storeroom, he went to the stables and the makeshift shelters that had been hastily erected to house the extra horses. Sleipnir was dozing, a rug thrown over his back, but when he saw Rolf, he nickered a greeting and rapidly perked up. The man fussed the horse for a while, scratching the whiskery jaw, rubbing the questing muzzle before setting to work with the grooming tools. As Rolf worked, a memory came to him and made nothing of the years between himself as a ten-year-old boy, and the man of seven and twenty working on the thick silver hide of an Iberian warhorse.

  It was autumn at Brize-sur-Risle, a day of dripping mist, the leaves drooping on the trees in tints of burnt orange, ochre, and weld-yellow, spider webs festooning the bramble bushes in clear, sprang-work designs. The surface of the great river was veiled in curling tendrils of its own breath, and every sound was muffled to grey distance.

  It was the day they brought his father home across his horse.

  Rolf could remember his mother growing ever more agitated as she waited for her husband to return from hunting a stray mare and foal in the forests on the south side of their estate. She had alternated between railing at her husband for being the greatest fool on God's earth, and praying aloud, that he would be safely restored to her. When he was not home by a drizzling, smoky dusk, she had flung on her cloak, and auburn hair uncovered, torch held high, had climbed to the wall walk as if her eyes could pierce the murk and guide him home.

  One of the search parties had brought him in.

  His horse had shied and thrown him against a tree. That he was not dead was due entirely to luck and the hardness of his skull. As it was, he was out of his wits for a full three days. Rolf had never forgotten the sound of his mother's high-pitched wail as her lord was brought to her across his saddle, had never forgotten the swoop of dread in his own gut. He should never have left the Saxon woman alone last night.

  With a hiss of irritation, he finished grooming Sleipnir and went outside. Tiny flakes of snow starred the wind, and the ground underfoot was brittle and white. He shivered and slapped his arms. His cloak was still next door at the armourer's house. Blood-smeared it might be, but it was also double-lined and trimmed with coney fur. Self-interest said that he should fetch it before he froze to death. Besides, it was an expensive garment. Conscience said that he should make sure that the widow was all right.

  By the light of a rush dip in the storeroom, he found the older maid mixing batter to make griddle cakes. She let out a scream when she saw Rolf, then clapped her hand to her mouth and stared at him wide-eyed.

  He told her in halting English that he had come for his cloak, and with a nod, she wiped her hands on her apron and hurried to fetch it.

  'Where is your mistress?' he asked when she handed him the garment.

  The woman pointed outside. 'The privy,' she said.

  Rolf had walked past the privy and knew that Ailith was not there. The withy screen surrounding the hole in the ground only came a little above waist height, and he would have seen her. Explaining this to the maid, however, was beyond him. He thanked her and left. His fingers discovered a damp patch on the cloak. In the strengthening light he saw that the blood had been cleaned away – or most of it. A stubborn trace still remained. He swept the garment around his shoulders and took the fastening pin from his pouch.

  Of their own will, his feet took him not back down the garth past the destroyed vegetable garden, but towards the forge where only two days ago he had shared ale with the dead man and watched him work his magic to make a living thing out of an inanimate piece of metal. As he drew closer, he saw a light glimmering through a gap in the hide window covering, and heard a voice whimpering softly in grief.

  It was her, he knew it was, and his scalp prickled at the emotions the sound raised in him. He halted in mid-step, deliberating whether to advance or retreat. My brothers, my baby, my husband. The words came back to him as they had done all through a sleepless night.

  He pushed the workshop door open and stepped quietly inside. The air still bore a residue of heat from the forge, though the fire had died on the same day as its owner. She was leaning against the bench. Her right hand held an unfinished scramaseax blade at a cutting angle to the wrist of her left, and in contrast to yesterday's composure, her face was tear-wrecked and wild. She had looked up at the sound of his entry, and now, her eyes upon him and her breath shuddering, she forced the knife into her flesh.

  'No!' Rolf roared and strode across the room. She tried to run from him, but he was too fast and caught her against the heavy brick side of the forge. She was tall for a woman, and strong. He was surprised by her strength as he tried to disarm her. Thigh braced against thigh they struggled, both of them becoming smeared with the blood that was trickling down Ailith's wrist. At last Rolf succeeded in taking a grip on the knife himself, and with a wrench and a twist, tore it from her hand and flung it across the room.

  'Let me be!' Ailith screeched. 'Leave me alone, I want to die and be with Goldwin and my baby!' She struck at him furiously. Rolf seized her wrists to make her stop, and at the same time he squeezed her left hard to control the bleeding.

  'If you kill yourself, you will go to hell and never see them again!' he said brutally. 'The priests won't bury you in hallowed ground either. You would probably fetch up in the town ditch!'

  For a moment longer she struggled, and then the fight went out of her and she slumped against him as if she were boneless. The sound of her noisy weeping filled the forge.

  'I have nothing to live for,' she sobbed into his cloak.

  Rolf was completely at a loss to know what he should do. Arlette had never behaved like this. His only experience was of careful, dutiful composure. Perhaps his wife cried in private, but if so, she had never shown him. And of other women, Rolf knew only their welcoming arms and parted thighs. 'Of course you do,' he said awkwardly, and wished that her maids would come to investigate, or the priest, or even Aubert, damn him.

  'Name it,' she challenged.

  Rolf trawled his mind but caught nothing. So that when she died she would be reunited with her loved ones was a goal too distant and sanctimonious. The Normans held London, her own menfolk were all dead. To tell her that she would find a new husband and bear other children might earn him nothing but a kick in the shins and renewed hysterics. And then, another idea surfaced, one that was so obvious that he had almost overlooked it. He grasped it joyously in both hands.

  'Your husband and child are dead, I am sorry for that.' He spoke the words quickly, without any great degree of sincerity because they were only an approach and he wanted to get to the core of the matter. 'But there is another child, a newborn infant, in great need of your help. Two nights ago, Aubert de Remy's wife bore a son. She was too badly mauled by the birth to be able to suckle him herself and Aubert has been searching for a wet nurse ever since.'

  She sniffed loudly. 'Why should a Norman child be a reason for me to live?' she challenged in a watery voice.

  'Because if you do not, he will die.'

  'I do not believe that.'

  'Already two women with babies of their own who could have fed Aubert's son have refused — or found excuse
s not to come to the convent. They are English, you see, and as you so rightly say, he is a Norman child.'

  'My husband called Aubert de Remy nithing,' Ailith said. Her voice still quavered, but it was steadier now, and Rolf felt safe enough to release her.

  'But you did not, and as I understand it, you and his wife were good friends.'

  She said nothing. His hands were red and his cloak looked as if it had been dragged through a butcher's shambles. Blood trickled slowly down her wrist now he had released his pressure. He retrieved the scramaseax blade from the dusty floor of the forge and placed it gently on the bench.

  'He has been christened Benedict, and I am told that he has dark eyes and hair and a squall on him fit to blow the thatch off a roof,' Rolf added, his voice soft and persuasive. It was like coaxing a mare to accept a foal not her own. If he had mentally to drape Felice's child in the dead baby's skin he would do so.

  She turned away to face the cold forge, but he saw her right hand go to her injured wrist and press down hard on the line of the cut. Even before she spoke, he knew that his battle was won.

  'I cannot go looking like this.'

  'Then change your gown and make yourself decent.'

  'But Goldwin… and my son…' Her voice faltered and her eyes started to fill again. 'I have to see them properly buried. How will I do that?'

  'Leave that to me. I will make all the necessary arrangements with your priest.' He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. Tread softly, he told himself. Imagine that she is one of your mares. 'Then he can come to St Aethelburga's and tell you all that you need to know.' He went slowly to the forge door and held it open.

  'The child is two days old,' he said. 'Fortunately he is strong, but the weather is so cold.'

  She followed him to the door. 'Benedict, you said?'

  'For Aubert's father, although fortunately for his future, the babe resembles his mother's side.'

  She lifted her smudged, suffering eyes to his. Although heavy with tears, they were quite lucid now. 'Do not expect my gratitude for this,' she said shakily.

  'It is Aubert's gratitude I expect,' he answered, his tone wry.

  The nun opened the door and ushered Ailith into a spartan, clean room, its walls whitened with lime daub and given light through an aperture at shoulder height. The only furniture consisted of a crude wooden coffer and a bed. Aubert was sitting on its coverlet of woven wool and was holding his wife's hand, watching her as she slept. When he heard the door open, he turned round.

  'Ailith!' His weary features lit with pleasure, but in the next moment sobered as he rose and hastened towards her. 'What are you doing here? Has Goldwin relented?'

  'Goldwin is dead.' Ailith felt each word like the slash of a knife. Why couldn't Rolf de Brize have minded his own business instead of forcing her to remain and endure this hell? 'He died at the coronation of your precious Norman Duke.'

  'Ah, Ailith, no!'

  'Do not touch me!' She took a rapid back-step. 'My husband called you nithing, and if it were not for your wife and the child… and the intervention of Rolf de Brize,' she added with a grimace, 'I would not be here now.'

  'Rolf?' Aubert looked more baffled than ever. He rumpled his hand through his unkempt grey curls and rubbed his eyes.

  'He says that you have a son in need of a wet nurse?'

  'Indeed so. He will die unless we can find a woman to suckle him. Do you know of one?' Aubert looked at her hopefully.

  'Yes, I know of one.' Advancing to the bed, Ailith stared down at Felice. The glossy black hair had been neatly braided and arranged, but it only emphasised her pallor.

  'She almost bled to death,' Aubert said. 'Even now the nuns are not sure if she will live. Certainly she is unable to feed the baby.'

  Ailith could scarcely remember the pangs of her own labour. It was the aftermath that had caused her own mortal wounds. 'I too might have bled to death,' she murmured, touching her bandaged left wrist.

  As if aware of Ailith's brooding scrutiny, Felice stirred and licked her lips. Her eyelids fluttered open and then her hand groped for Ailith's.

  'I'm so glad you have come,' she whispered. 'I have a son too… born on the eve of the feast of our Lord. Aubert will show him to you. The nuns have put him in a separate room because his crying disturbs me… I am not strong enough to feed him. We have to find a wet nurse.'

  Ailith squeezed Felice's narrow fingers. A deluge of words were held back by the sight of Felice's weakness. Ailith could see that even the effort of speech had exhausted her. The new mother's eyelids were drooping and her grip was limp. 'That is why I am here,' Ailith said softly. 'Later, when you are better, I will tell you.'

  Felice nodded. 'Tired,' she mumbled and her head lolled on the bolster. 'So tired.'

  Ailith gently withdrew her hand and turned to Aubert. 'Take me to the child.'

  He led her to a room at the other side of the courtyard. It was warmed by two charcoal braziers and an elderly nun was keeping watch over a cradle containing a swaddled baby while she spun wool. He was asleep, but as Ailith went to the cradle, his small face puckered and he began to grizzle.

  'We cannot keep him silent, the poor little scrap,' said the nun. 'He's that hungry, and at this time of year, there is scarcely even cow's milk to be obtained. We managed to buy a jug yesterday, 'but he just sicked most of it up.'

  The grizzle became a wail and the wail a full-fledged bawl of indignation. Pain stabbed Ailith's vitals. He was so like Harold, and yet so unlike, a reality instead of a grey little shadow. Her breasts tightened and tingled. Bending over the cradle, she lifted the baby out and sat down on a low stool near the brazier. When she removed her cloak, took the neck pin out of her overgown, and began unlacing the drawstring on her shift, Aubert's eyes widened in startled comprehension.

  'Yes,' she said in a voice that was low, but intense with emotion. 'I lost my son too. He was weak from the moment of his birth, and even before that inside my womb, I think. No, do not speak. There is nothing you can say that will be of comfort, and if you offer me your pity, I will hate you.'

  Aubert compressed his lips, and after a single look, schooled his shocked expression to neutrality.

  Ailith ignored him. The baby demanded her attention. He was dusky-red in the face with frustration and the room echoed to the sound of his screams. The drawstring unlaced, she pulled down her shift and offered the infant her exposed breast. Furiously, Felice's son rooted back and forth, seeking so frantically that several times he missed her nipple altogether. Finally, with some adroit manoeuvring by Ailith, he discovered what he desired. A blissful silence descended, punctuated only by the sucking noises of the baby. Feeling the powerful tug of the small jaws, and the warm weight of him in her arms, Ailith realised how feeble Harold had truly been. Her eyes brimmed, but her tears, although of sorrow, were tears of healing too.

  Benedict emptied one breast, belched happily, and demanded to be given the other side too. Rolf was right, he did look like his mother, Ailith thought as she shrugged up one shoulder of her chemise and pulled down the other. His hair was black and he had Felice's feathery eyebrows. His eyes were going to be brown too.

  'He is more handsome than you,' she jested to Aubert who had been watching the baby feed with a mixture of relief and apprehension.

  'That is not difficult,' Aubert answered with a pained smile. 'Ailith, I know you do not want me to say anything, but I am forever in your debt.'

  She shook her head. 'I do not want to talk of debts. It is too complicated to decide what is owed and what is owing.'

  The door opened and Rolf strode in. Immediately the size of the room seemed to diminish. 'Has she…" he started to say, then his eyes fell on Ailith and the greedily sucking child. 'Yes she has,' he finished for himself with a satisfied nod.

  Ailith felt uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny. The only man to have seen her naked breasts before today was Goldwin. With Aubert it had not seemed so awkward because all his attention had been on watching his s
on take sustenance. The look in Rolf de Brize's eyes was rather more predatory, and lingered a little too long before he raised it to her face. His colour heightened as he saw the contemptuous awareness in her expression.

  'He has taken to it well,' he said.

  Ailith nodded stiffly in response. For the moment, because of what had happened at the forge, because of his gaze just now, she could not bring herself to speak to the Norman. He half-turned so that the swollen globe of her breast was no longer in his direct line of vision, and began talking to Aubert.

  The baby finished feeding and drowsed in sated, milky pleasure. Ailith gently prised him from her nipple and covered herself, but the act did little to diminish her feeling of vulnerability.

  CHAPTER 17

  It was a raw day at January's end when Rolf rode into Ulverton at the head of his troop, and was tendered submission by a group of sullen, resentful villagers. Their lord had died fighting the Normans on Hastings field, and with him had perished a third of the young men from the seventy-strong community. Others had returned injured and heartsick. They had no mind to accept a Norman lord, but were forced by their circumstances to do so.

  Rolf discovered that the hall had been abandoned after the great battle, and that it had been stripped to a shell. Not so much as a cooking pot or trestle table remained. The English lord had been a widower, with no children to grieve his passing. All that greeted Rolf was the musty smell of a place several months dead. The floor rushes were dank and mouldy, and near the hearth where the lord's seat should have proclaimed its owner's status, there were bits of bone and fruit stones from feasts long gone. On the wall, outlined in white against the grey of old limewash, was the space where a battle axe had hung until recently. Rolf imagined his own weapon sitting there, and snorted at the irony of placing an English war axe amidst such squalor.