Inga perched silently on the baggage wain, her posture resembling a drawn purse concealing its contents. Her arms were folded across her breasts, hugging a thick, rectangular cloak to her body. Her fists were clenched, her mouth was pulled tight, and barely a word had she spoken during all the long first day of the journey towards Ulverton. Her son, Sweyn, by contrast, was riding with Mauger and talking nineteen to the dozen, his eyes bright with the joy of adventure. Rolf harboured no qualms about him settling to a new life. His mother, however, was cause for concern.
He rode up to the front of the wain where she was huddled beside the driver, her expression remote and enigmatic. Her bones were more dainty and precise than Ailith's, her beauty more exotic than Arlette's. Her coldness piqued and intrigued him. He rode closer, intending to speak to her, but a loud honking and a clattering of imprisoned wings caused his mount to shy, and he spent several precarious moments preventing himself from being thrown.
Inga had insisted upon bringing her geese to Ulverton, or at least the means to begin a new flock from the original birds. They would be her livelihood, she said. No-one could smoke gooseflesh as succulently as she did. They would provide her with an income and they would be a reminder of home.
Much of the disturbance was caused by an aggressive young gander, still in the brown plumage of adolescence. He had been hissing threats ever since being latched inside his wicker cage at the journey's outset. Rolf eyed the bird with disfavour and hoped that it would soon be consigned to the smokehouse.
Inga regarded him coldly as if she could read his thoughts. 'I chose the strongest,' she said, 'because only the strong survive.' The words held a note of challenge.
Rolf inclined his head. 'Then you must be strong too,' he said.
'And my husband was weak?'
'He was faced by men more ruthless.'
'Hah,' she said with scornful dismissal and looked away. 'He was worth ten Normans, my Beorn.'
The goose beat its wings against the wicker bars and continued to threaten Rolf and his mount. The horse sweated and pranced, thoroughly upset. 'He's worth nothing now that he's dead,' Rolf replied, stung by her contempt, and he rode off to join his men.
CHAPTER 31
AUTUMN 1075
On the day that Julitta fell in love with Benedict de Remy, she was five years old and playing a game of pretend. It was early autumn, the leaves gowning the trees in tints of tawny, amber and flame. Ulverton's razor-backed swine rooted in the moist ground beneath the canopy for a pannage of acorns and beech mast, and the villagers gathered firewood against the harsher months to come.
Julitta had slipped away from her mother and Wulfhild who had been too busy and harassed preparing a feast to notice her absence. The de Remy's were expected from London, and all had to be made ready for their arrival. Julitta hoped they would come soon. She liked Aubert; he had a face like a hoary tree trunk, with deep smile lines either side of his mouth. Aunt Felice, as she respectfully called his wife, was beautiful. She always wore lovely clothes and she smelled delicious — of roses and spice. They had a son, a big boy of nine years old, named Benedict, and sometimes he would play with her.
This particular morning, Julitta had sneaked some hazel nuts from one of the bowls laid out for the feast and had dropped them into the small draw-cord purse attached to her belt. Her father would sometimes ruffle her tangled dark auburn curls and call her a squirrel because of her delight in hoarding small objects in unexpected corners — marbles, feathers, little coloured stones. Today, Julitta had decided to be that squirrel.
The autumn gold of the trees beckoned and the nuts in her pouch were to be her food.
The tree she chose was a young oak growing beyond the castle ditch close to one of the dew ponds. The prevailing winds had caused it to lean to one side, and its tilt had been further exaggerated by the attentions of sheep and cattle using it as a scratching post. There was a branch at just the right height for the reach of Julitta's legs, and in no time at all, she had pulled herself onto it. The next branch was a little further away, but after a determined struggle and a scraped knee, she succeeded in reaching it. She sucked the graze, tasting the saltiness of damaged skin, and having reassured herself that the injury was not great, she sought for the next hand- and foothold. She was a quicksilver squirrel, whisking her way through the branches, her long red hair, a busy tail.
Light although she was, her progress dislodged amber showers of leaves. A thrush which had been roosting in the oak took wing in twittering alarm. Julitta discovered a nest which had been well used during the spring and summer. It was comfortably rounded into the shape of a bird's breast and from somewhere the former occupant had filched some bright red embroidery wool and used it for part of the lining. Julitta was captivated and gently dislodged the nest from its position in the fork of two branches. Perhaps her mother would let her keep it.
She settled herself against the rough main trunk, wriggling back and forth until she was comfortable, and then removed one of the nuts from the pouch. Her teeth were too small to pierce the glossy brown shell. She tried striking the hazel on the tree trunk, but her blows were not strong enough, and finally she just had to pretend to eat the nut. She was not really hungry anyway, having devoured bread, honey and a beakerful of buttermilk whilst sitting on her father's knee before he rode out to inspect his horses. Frequently he would take her with him, but today he had being too busy, and Julitta felt secure enough in his love to let him go without too much protest. There was always tomorrow.
A sound began to encroach on her thoughts, distant at first and barely a disturbance, but as it grew louder, Julitta's sense of wellbeing turned quickly to apprehension. She was a steadfast, confident child, afraid of very little. Her father's great grey stallion Sleipnir gave her not a moment's qualm, although one kick from a careless hoof could have killed her. She romped with the dogs in the hall, she played among men whose trade was the war sword, but for all her boldness, she was utterly terrified of Inga's flock of greylag geese. One of the birds had pecked her when she was tiny, and the memory, although not clear, had left its legacy. She was frightened of Inga too. Unlike the other village women, Inga never smiled at her or said how pretty she was, but treated Julitta in a cool, offhand manner that spoke of disapproval.
Inga was herding her geese to graze on the lush grass around the dew ponds. If she saw Julitta up the tree, she would certainly tell her off and command her to come down. The child hugged herself for comfort and peeped down through the gaps in the golden foliage at the numerous geese waddling beneath the oak, their plumage a glossy, variegated brown, their blunt orange beaks promising vicious bruises. Julitta could almost feel them on her flesh. Geese couldn't climb trees, could they? She listened to their aggressive honking as they waddled towards the water. Inga passed beneath the tree, a gnarled stick swinging loosely in her hand. A small, rough-coated terrier trotted at her heels. Now and then she encouraged the birds with a command in a guttural language that Julitta had been told was the English of the north, the place where Inga had come from. Her son Sweyn spoke like her too, but Julitta quite liked him. He lived in one of the fishing villages, where he had a share in a boat, and he was always laughing and cheerful.
Inga's dog snuffled at the base of Julitta's tree and then barked. The woman glanced round and, with irritation in her voice, called him to heel. He barked again, but only in parting as he obeyed the command.
Julitta watched Inga and the terrier walk on across the field, leaving the geese to their grazing — leaving her alone with them, perhaps until dusk. Someone was bound to come seeking her.
But then she would be in trouble for running off and her mother might make her miss the feast in punishment. The very thought of such deprivation filled her eyes with tears of self-pity. She wiped them defiantly on the sleeve of her green dress and gulped back a sob.
The remedy was to climb down from the tree by herself and run away as fast as she could. If she was lucky, the geese might not see h
er until she had put a safe distance between them and her. Terrified but resolute, the child started to descend from her perch. She scraped her knee again and added a long scratch to her shin. The distances between hand- and footholds seemed far greater than on the way up. By the time she reached the last branch, her arms were hot and aching, and as she lowered herself to the ground, she lost her grip and fell.
It was not a hard enough landing to break any bones but Julitta was shaken. The pain in the shoulder and side which had borne the brunt of her fall made her cry as she sat up. She knuckled her eyes with grimy fingers, smearing grey bark stains over her face. Her hair was tangled around her shoulders in disarray, and a ripped side seam in her dress revealed an ominous amount of undershift.
She struggled to her feet, and immediately her hiccuping sobs turned to screams of terror as Inga's huge greylag gander ran at her, beating its clipped wings, darting its long neck and hissing. She spun frantically and tried to scramble back up the tree, but fear had turned her legs and arms weak.
The goose lunged at her, its beak clacking within a fraction of her arm. Screaming, she ran round the tree. The bird chased her, honking belligerently. Julitta's shrieks became hysterical; nothing existed beyond her terror.
Then suddenly there was a boy on a sleek bay pony. He yelled at the gander, and tugging his cloak over his head, whirled it round and round to distract the bird. The enraged goose flapped to face the new intruder on his territory, thoroughly prepared to do battle. The pony gave a startled snort and bunched its haunches. Seeing that the gander was not to be intimidated by loud noise and vigorous movement alone, the boy swung his cloak a final time, casting it upwards and outwards like a fishing net. It landed squarely over the bird, engulfing it.
'Hurry, before he escapes!' he shouted at Julitta, his dark eyes flickering between her and the goose. He urged the pony over to the tree and leaning gracefully down, extended his hand to her.
She was still sobbing hysterically, but at her core, a final spark of reason responded to the boy's gesture. She grasped his hand, set her foot upon his in the stirrup, and let him pull her up before him across the pony's neck.
Tangled within the cloak, the gander hissed and honked. Its head surged free and then a flailing wing-tip. Abandoning the garment, the boy kicked hard with his heels. The pony, his head tilted at an angle by the awkward position of his extra burden, cantered valiantly away from the danger.
After several glances over his shoulder, the boy slowed his mount to a trot, then a walk, and at a safe distance, finally drew rein. 'It's all right now,' he reassured Julitta. 'He's won free, but he's not chasing us, see?'
Having been jounced over uneven ground across a pony's withers, Julitta felt thoroughly sick. She wanted the security of her mother's arms desperately. To look back and see if what he said was true, she had to relinquish her tight grip on the pony's mane and slide to the ground. Her legs refused to hold her up and she crumpled on the dusty grass. The gander had indeed chosen to abandon the fight and was waddling in high dudgeon towards the other geese grazing near the dew pond. Julitta gave a loud, mucous sniff and pressed her hand experimentally across her midriff to decide if she really was going to be sick.
'Does your mother know where you are?'
Julitta shook her head and began to cry again. 'I want her,' she sobbed miserably. 'I was only playing squirrels, but it all went wrong.'
'Sit behind me then, and I'll take you home.'
Julitta gazed up at the boy through her tears, and recognition suddenly dawned. He had thin, black brows, liquid brown eyes, and black hair, glossy as a raven's wing. Her stare took on the intensity of a religious mystic granted a vision of God. He returned the smile she gave him and held out his hand again.
She was still a little unsure of the state of her queasy stomach, but found the strength to rise and clamber up behind him, across the pony's satin-dark rump.
'Hold tight to my belt,' he said.
Julitta needed no prompting. She grasped the leather at his waist and leaned her tear-streaked cheek against the comfort of his spine. 'Ben,' she murmured, suddenly feeling very sleepy.
It was not long before they happened upon the adult company of Benedict's parents, riding towards Ulverton at a more sedate pace than their son, who had been making forays ahead and playing at reconnaissance for the past several miles.
'Blessed Virgin!' declared Felice in horror as she took in the draggled state of the little girl riding pillion behind Benedict.
By this time, Julitta had fallen soundly asleep, but although her head lolled against Benedict's tunic, her ringers remained firmly gripped in his belt, and Felice deemed it wise to let her remain thus until they reached the castle.
Ailith watched her small daughter stir her spoon slowly round and round in her bowl of frumenty. Julitta's naturally fair skin was paler than usual and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes. To her mother's concerned stare she looked like a wilting bluebell. Ailith knew that she should not have yielded to Julitta's pleading, nor to Rolf's gruff comment that it would be unjust to put the child straight to bed when she had been so looking forward to this feast. The fact was that Julitta was too exhausted by the day's ordeal to enjoy any of this celebration. She had barely eaten a morsel, and her usual vivacity was entirely quenched.
Most of the story of the incident with Inga's gander had come from Benedict. Ailith had been horrified and filled with self-reproach to hear how far Julitta had wandered; she could have fallen in the pond, or been pecked to death by that vile bird. It was so difficult to keep an eye on her all of the time. She had her father's quicksilver, curious nature, and a way of making opportune escapes. Trying to hold Julitta was like trying to trap a mote of sunlight. The minute you clenched your hand around it, the light went out.
'Deep thoughts?' Felice asked, nudging her lightly.
Ailith gave a pensive smile and shook her head. 'I was brooding upon what might have happened,' she said. 'Rolf is always complaining that I worry about her too much. I suppose it is because I lost Harold, and since bearing her, I have not conceived again.'
'It is the way I feel about Benedict,' Felice sympathised with a fond glance at her son. In contrast to Julitta, he was demolishing the food on his trencher with a healthy gusto. 'But I try not to clip his wings too much. Of course,' she added quickly, 'he is older than Julitta and a boy.'
'It would have been simpler if Julitta had been born male.' Ailith sighed. 'She would rather be out among the horses or romping in the mire than learning to spin and sew and brew and bake. I know she could do those things if she applied her mind. She does not lack the wit, just the desire.'
'It will come in time.' Felice nodded sagely. 'Besides, it is not given to all women to be paragons of domestic virtue, and it does not suit all men to have wives who are such. She will have fire and beauty enough to catch any man she wants.'
Ailith grimaced. 'That is no comfort,' she said. Just before Julitta's face drooped into her frumenty dish, Rolf caught her, and lifting her from her place, drew her into his lap. She put her thumb in her mouth and snuggled tightly against him.
'I'll take her to bed now.' Ailith held out her arms. She could not help but give Rolf an 'I told you so' look.
'I'll carry her.' Rolf returned her look with a sharp one of his own, and setting his other arm beneath Julitta's knees, rose and walked down the crowded, smoky hall to their sleeping quarters. Ailith followed him, and when he laid Julitta down on their bed, she stripped her of tunic and undergown to leave her clothed in her best linen short shift. Once more, her eyes were drawn to the scratches and livid bruises on Julitta's slender legs.
'It is not the first time that Inga's gander has attacked someone,' Ailith complained as she gently drew the covers over their daughter. 'Wulfhild was telling me that the shepherd's youngest son was badly pecked at midsummer. I know that Julitta should not have been out on her own, but those birds are a danger to anyone who walks near the dew ponds.'
Rolf
was silent for a while. 'The geese are her livelihood and her independence,' he said at length. 'She will not easily give them up.'
'Just that gander.'
'Him least of all.' Rolf grimaced. 'She brought the bird from the north as a gosling. He represents all that used to be hers.'
'And her sensibilities are reason enough to let everyone else go in fear?' Ailith curbed her anger with difficulty. Of late there had been a lack of harmony between herself and Rolf. She sensed a restlessness in him like the swallows that gathered at harvest time in preparation to fly away. It burned her to think of him with his wife and daughter when he went to Normandy, and she was frequently waspish to him despite her best intentions. He had ceased to argue with her or give her reassurances. Instead he would calmly shut her out and go about his work with the horses as if she did not exist, or spend yet more time away, visiting clients.
And then there was Inga; cold, fair-haired Inga who was as indifferent to Rolf as she was to everyone else. Ailith could sense how much it irked him, itching away beneath his skin.
'I did not say that,' he replied with laboured patience. 'Of course she must be held accountable for her flock. I will speak to her.'
'For all the good that will do,' Ailith said witheringly.
'More good than speaking to you,' Rolf retorted, and walked out of the room.
Ailith closed her eyes and bit down on her lower lip. The promise of forever was bleeding away and she did not know how to staunch it.
Rolf replenished his cup and sat down before the hearth with Aubert. The women had retired, and although the servants and retainers had laid out their pallets along the walls or rolled themselves in their cloaks to sleep, to all intents and purposes they were alone.
'Ailith was quiet tonight,' Aubert remarked.
Rolf shrugged. 'She was brooding about Julitta.' He pulled a face. 'I sometimes think that all women are the same, not a hair to choose between any of them.'
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