The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  Benedict tried to shake him off, and go after Julitta and her father, but the monk's grip was tenacious. 'You young fool,' he growled. 'Can you not see that if you pursue this matter now, blood will be spilled? Will you add that to your conscience too?'

  Benedict heard the monk as if from a distance, but nevertheless the urgent tone reached him, and he subsided within Father Jerome's brisk grasp. 'It wasn't her fault,' he repeated. 'How do I make him understand?'

  'Tomorrow, when tempers have cooled, there will be an opportunity to have your say, although if I were you, I would keep my mouth closed. You have others to think of besides yourself and the girl.'

  Benedict eyed the monk. The man's grip was still tight on his arm, and the face was severe, but he had detected the faintest note of sympathy in the voice. 'She is not a harlot,' he said.

  'But she has given her body, and she is no longer a virgin,' answered Father Jerome. 'And what is more, the giving was on the eve of a pagan feast. It does not matter who is to blame. In the end, the consequences come to roost where they will, and God sees and knows all.'

  Benedict said nothing. They entered the stone coldness of the church, standing amidst but aloof from the May Day celebrations, the hall of God, so different from the vast, starlit hall of the Goddess. He had worshipped at the altar of one; now he came to do penance at the altar of the other, and his heart was a stone within him.

  Dragged by her father, Julitta stumbled over the rutted road towards the castle.

  'If you have no shame, at least I would have credited you with more sense!' he said between panting breaths as he drew her onwards with the pace of rage. 'You're not some simple village girl to mate where she chooses on a whim!'

  'It wasn't a whim!'

  'Don't answer me back. I've never taken a whip to your hide, but one more push will break me, Julitta. If it wasn't a whim, do I dare to think that you have been plotting this for some time?'

  'Since I was five years old!' she answered, and cried out as she twisted her ankle on a stone and fell at her father's feet, her wrist still locked in his grasp. Her breath sobbed through her clenched teeth. 'Since I was five and you went and betrothed him to Gisele!' She began to cry harder, and blamed it on her sore ankle.

  Rolf released her wrist. Hands on his hips, he looked down at her. He was filled with anger, and guilt, sympathy and exasperation. How did he deal with her? The sight of her body writhing in pleasure beneath Benedict's still tortured his mind's eye. He saw more than just the ruination of two lives. For how long had it been under his nose, and he too blind to see? You don't take the whims of five-year-olds seriously; nor of adolescent daughters unless they make it impossible for you not to.

  He reached down and helped her to stand. She limped gingerly on the damaged ankle, and made small, sobbing sounds. Rolf resisted the urge to comfort her.

  'Your sister and her mother must never hear of this,' he said grimly, as they began a slow progress towards the keep. 'For the sake of everyone you have ignored in your lust, you will hold your peace, and so will Benedict.'

  'But… but what about the people who saw us?'

  'They were drunken villagers. They were mistaken. Father Jerome will confirm this if he desires my patronage.'

  They walked in tension-filled silence for a while, Julitta limping and sniffing on tears, Rolf's face set like granite facing a storm. 'I thought to give you time,' he said as they approached the huge wooden gateway. 'I see I have given you too much. You tell me that you will gladly pay the price — those are just words. Do you think you can stay under the same roof as Gisele after this? Even if she lives in ignorance, you will not. And what if you have conceived a child this night? Are you ready to face the world with your brother-in-law's baby in your arms and say that you will pay the price?'

  Julitta shivered. 'I do not regret lying with him,' she said. 'Whatever you throw at me, you will not make me change my mind. Done is done, and yes, I will pay what is due.' Her jaw was set defiantly, but the wobble of her chin gave her away. She was very frightened.

  'You have no choice.' Rolf's jaw was set too. 'As you say, done is done.'

  Benedict awoke to the glimmer of a milky dawn. He was lying on the floor before the altar of the village church where he had knelt to pray last night, before finally succumbing to exhaustion of body and spirit.

  His tongue was cloven to the roof of his mouth and his stomach churned like a dyer's vat. He blinked and wondered with momentary bewilderment what he was doing here. Then it all came flooding back and he put his face in his hands and groaned.

  The sound that had awoken him from stiff sleep was that of a horse being ridden up to the church door and the chink of harness as the animal was tethered to the bridle ring in the wall. Now, the heavy, iron-barred door creaked open. Rising to his feet, Benedict watched Rolf pace down the nave towards him. His father-in-law's expression was bleak, but the fury of the previous evening was stonily controlled.

  Rolf halted when he was several yards away, and the two men stared at each other.

  'I won't waste my breath by telling you what a fool you are, or how angry I am,' Rolf said. 'There would be no point, and we need to deal in practical terms this morning, not lose our heads. Agreed?'

  'Yes, sir.' Benedict felt queasy. He longed to sit down, but knew that he must face Rolf in order to hold his ground. Already he was at a disadvantage. 'If I could undo last night, I would.'

  'That is not what Julitta says,' Rolf said with a grimace. 'I could whip her skinless and still she would not repent. Christ, I don't know, perhaps neither of you ever had a chance.' He looked at Benedict from eyes that were bloodshot and pouched with weariness, for he had not slept, having used that time instead for pondering the solution. 'How long has this been going on beneath my nose?'

  Benedict swallowed. 'It hasn't, sir. Last night was the first time.'

  'No fire without kindling,' Rolf growled. 'You did not just join up to mate like two animals in the wild.'

  'No, sir. I…" Benedict closed his eyes. A nauseous headache beat behind his lids with a similar tempo to the drum beats of the night before. 'I married Gisele in good faith. There was nothing between myself and Julitta then, I swear it. Nor would there be now if…' He broke off and swore beneath his breath. 'I tried to keep my distance, but last night… it was too much.'

  'Too much indeed,' Rolf said and dug his fingers through his hair. 'Best I think if you leave for a while. I have decided that you can take over my work, search out new clients and good bloodstock, visit the established ones. You need more experience on that side of the trade, and I'm becoming too old to spend so much time on the road. In other words, I am sending you out of temptation's way and giving the dust time to settle. You will leave this morning as soon as you have collected what you need.'

  It was a practical solution and Benedict felt a pang of relief, closely followed by one of regret and misgiving. 'What about Julitta?'

  Rolf's lips tightened. 'She is my daughter,' he said. 'I will deal with her fairly. That is all you need to know.'

  'But I…'

  'Perhaps you ought to consider your other responsibility, your wife,' Rolf added, his eyes hard.

  'Does she know?' Benedict swallowed, feeling utterly wretched. If only Julitta had been his wife in the first place.

  'Not the entire truth, although you will come out of it with a whiter fleece than ever you deserve. She thinks that you took part in the revels with one of the village women, and then, overcome with remorse, you spent the remainder of the night in the church, praying for forgiveness.'

  'And I suppose she is prepared to forgive me too?' Benedict said angrily.

  'I suggest you make your peace.'

  Benedict snorted. Making peace with Gisele was like wading neck-deep in carded wool. The best peace he could make was a peck on the cheek, a mumbled apology, and a rapid departure. The shocking notion came to him that perhaps he could elope with Julitta. There were lands beyond Normandy and England, and he had a ski
ll at his fingertips. His soul would be damned, but he would find ways to redeem it through the years. The anger left his face, and a spark kindled in his eyes.

  'I'll make my peace,' he agreed. 'I had better speak to Julitta too.'

  'You can't,' Rolf said, and there was no triumph in his eyes, only a great weariness. 'She is not at Brize. I sent her elsewhere, this morning, before I came to you. Knowing you, and knowing my own past, I judged it for the best. As far as Arlette and Gisele are concerned, Julitta was indiscreet last night, but they do not know how far. Nor shall they from me. Let them believe that she went no further than drunken fondling.'

  'You are building on lies.' The gleam in Benedict's eyes had turned to anger once more, and mixed with it, chagrin, that his intentions should have been less obvious to himself than they had been to Rolf.

  Rolf sighed heavily, and genuflecting, knelt before the altar. 'Only because I can find no firm foundations for the future in outright truth,' he said.

  CHAPTER 48

  Julitta was accustomed to either riding or walking everywhere she went, and found Arlette's litter both claustrophobic and uncomfortable. Every rut in the road threatened to jolt her bones out of their sockets despite the padding of tapestry-worked cushions stuffed with duck down. The excuse of making her travel by litter was that her twisted ankle would not benefit from being stressed by a stirrup, but she knew that the real reason had more to do with keeping her out of sight and under control.

  Where she was bound, she did not know, her father had not told her. Nor had she asked questions, still being in too much of a daze. Sorry and not sorry. Stubborn and frightened. Ready to brazen it out and ready to yield. And between all these conflicting directions, she found herself paralysed. Within the litter, she curled up on the cushions, her ears filled with the creak of the wooden wheels and the plod, plod of the horse's hooves as they drew her further and further away from Brize-sur-Risle, and from Benedict.

  Nursing the devil of a headache, Mauger avoided breaking his fast in the hall, and went on a slow round of inspection. There were few people about, for it was not much after dawn, and most adults were only just stirring from the surfeits and abuses of wearing the green'. His own recollections were hazy, but at least he had remained sober enough to find his way to bed.

  Some folk still snored where drink and dancing and lust had felled them.

  Mauger was busy examining a mare and her new chestnut foal when he saw Benedict de Remy emerge from a stall and lead a fully saddled Cylu towards the mounting block. Two laden pack ponies were tethered nearby, and a groom appeared with another saddled horse and two chestnut yearlings.

  'Early business?' Mauger enquired.

  Benedict glanced his way. His fine dark-eyes were red-rimmed for want of sleep, and his olive skin had a greyish tinge. The natural curve of his mouth had been banished to a tight line, and it tightened further in response to Mauger's query, forbidding a reply.

  'I thought Lord Rolf was going to take those chestnuts himself?'

  'He changed his mind.' Benedict stepped from the mounting block to Cylu's dappled back, and gathered up the reins.

  Mauger tried to remember what Benedict had been doing last night, who he had been with, but that part of his recollection was not good. He had been too interested in his own pursuits then. 'Why'd he do that?'

  Benedict's fist tightened on the reins, his knuckles showing a glimmer of white, and Cylu pranced, opening his mouth against the bite of the bit curb. 'Why don't you ask him?' Benedict snapped, and dug in his heels, making the grey clatter away from the mounting block with a grunt of indignant surprise.

  Hands on hips, Mauger watched Benedict leave the keep, and then, with a superior shake of his head, returned to his duties. He had not been working much above ten minutes when Rolf joined him, and dismissed the grooms with a flick of his wrist.

  'Are you sober?' Rolf demanded.

  'Yes, my lord.' Mauger managed to keep from sounding indignant. Had the question been asked a few hours ago, he would not have been able to answer so positively. Still, it was a strange thing for Rolf to ask.

  'Good, you need your wits about you for what I'm about to say.' Rolf drew Mauger away to a wooden bench leaning against the gable end of the stable wall and bade him be seated. Feeling uneasy, Mauger did so. Rolf was not just going to question him about some mundane matter concerned with the horses.

  His overlord drew a deep breath. 'Some months ago, you came to me and offered for Julitta. At the time I refused, but… matters have changed. If you still want her, she is yours.'

  Mauger's eyes widened upon Rolf and the breath left his body as if he had been physically punched. He did not quite believe what he had heard. 'You are offering me Julitta?' he said in a strangled voice. 'To wife?' His eyes narrowed. 'Why?'

  'Because you are the best I can do for her.' Rolf met Mauger's astonishment for a moment, then looked away. 'She is wilful and strong, Mauger, fond of her own way, and taking it without thought for the consequences — like me, some people would accuse, and say that it is only my sin coming home to roost.' He scooped back his silvering curls and gave a harsh laugh. 'I am not making sense, I know.'

  Mauger thought, a chill running down his spine, that Rolf was making perfect sense. 'Has Mistress Julitta taken her own way into disgrace of some sort?' he prompted, as certain as any man could be that he already knew the reply.

  'That would about sheath the sword,' Rolf said heavily. 'Last night, May Eve. She drank more than she should, and, well… enough to say that she is no longer a virgin. It was a regrettable accident. For all her wild ways, I know that she is not indiscriminately promiscuous.'

  Mauger was not surprised. He had only to remember her romping in the snow with Arnaut the squire, to know that the potential had been there. And a life in a Southwark bathhouse would hardly have stiffened her moral fibre. He felt a flicker of irritation. If Rolf had not rejected his offer three months ago, this would never have happened. Now Rolf was the one making the offer, and of damaged goods. He imagined the dark red hair spread upon his pillow, Julitta's naked body at his side in the marriage bed. Julitta's naked body beneath someone else last night.

  'So the man with whom she lay was known to her? She did not go with anyone at random?'

  'He was known, and he regrets it too. It will not happen again, I swear it.'

  Mauger dug at a soft spot on the wood with his thumbnail. He thought of Benedict saying Why don't you ask him? and he knew the identity of Julitta's lover without having to ask. And that, too, came as no surprise. He had seen the way she looked at Benedict.

  'You said that you could give her a safe and steadfast home where she would be her own mistress,' Rolf added when Mauger continued to dig at the wood without answering. 'You can see how difficult it will be to keep her under the same roof as my wife and daughter. They grate upon each other as it is. Life will be made impossible for Julitta now. I have no alternative but to find her a husband, or put her in a nunnery. I know that there are many families I could approach with a view to negotiating a marriage – a good dowry will usually overcome the gravest misgivings, but you offered for her before, and I am giving you the opportunity to have her before I seek elsewhere.'

  'How large a dowry?' Mauger asked.

  Rolf named a sum that caused Mauger's steady nerves to lurch. It was guilt money, he thought, a sweetening of the sour. It made Rolf's suggestion impossible to refuse, and yet, he hesitated. He had taken his life in his hands three months ago to offer for Julitta, but now the stakes had changed. How much for a virgin's honour? 'What if she is with child? You would not expect me to raise it as my heir?'

  'If she is with child, then Father Jerome will admit it to the Cluniac order for a career in the church.'

  'So Father Jerome knows?'

  'He was present when Julitta was discovered. He needs the patronage of Brize-sur-Risle for his new convent, and he's not the stuff of which holy martyrs are made. Expedience first, religious considerations se
cond. If you take up my offer, he is willing to wed you to Julitta this very day, before he returns to Bee'

  Mauger did not like thinking on his feet. He preferred to go away somewhere quiet and mull things over to himself until he was sure that he had made the right decision. But he could see from the glint in Rolf's eyes, the twitch of his fingers, that the answer was required now. Julitta, he could have Julitta. His blood thumped in his head like the tabors had thumped out the dancing rhythms last night around the Maypole. Julitta and a dowry that outstripped his imagination. Another man's leavings. Payment for sweeping embarrassing debris out of sight.

  'Supposing she will not agree to the marriage?' he asked. 'You cannot force her.'

  'Oh, she will agree,' Rolf said, the grim line returning to his mouth. 'And I won't have to force her. The alternatives are the convent or a life confined to Arlette's rule in the bower. Faced with those, I doubt she will baulk.'

  Mauger nodded. He supposed that it was a compliment that he would be preferred above Church and father's wife, but it sailed dangerously close to an insult. He chewed his underlip, his grey eyes narrow with thought. Powdery green fragments from the bench darkened his thumbnail. Once Julitta was his, he could mould her, bring her around to his way of thinking and behaving. Rolf was not strict enough with her, half the reason for her waywardness. With a household of her own to run and a husband to keep her in order, she would not have time to play the hoyden. And perhaps, in time, as her personality matured and steadied, she would come to love him, and thank him.

  'Then I agree to your offer,' he said slowly to Rolf. 'I have no family to consult on the matter, only myself to speak for.' He stood up and dusted his hands down his tunic. 'I'd best change my garments, if I'm to stand before witnesses.'

  Rolf let out a deep sigh, although it was difficult for Mauger to tell if it was of relief or resignation. The older man slapped him on the shoulder. 'Tancred was always a good friend to me, as well as my vassal and overseer,' he said. 'And you have served me unstintingly. I welcome the opportunity to call you son.'