The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

Benedict shrugged and said nothing. They walked on in uncomfortable silence until they came to the wharves and the ships riding at anchor. He showed her his transport galley, theConstantine. It was one of the larger ships in dock, with two decks, and the forward hull doors. 'We load the hones in there for the journey, and then seal them in with pitch,' he explained. 'It means there is more room, and more animals can be loaded at a given time. Once we're underway, we get down to them by hatches and ladders from the top deck.' He went into a detailed explanation of the techniques involved, drawing away from the rip-tide words Gisele is dead. And Julitta followed his lead, nodding sensibly, asking questions whose replies she was not later to recall.

  Then Benedict suddenly paused in mid-explanation and shaded his eyes against the sun as a figure emerged from the depths of the vessel and came walking down the gangplank on bandy legs. His tunic was tattered at cuff and hem; he wore a battered felt pilgrim hat on his head, and his face was browner than the oak boards of the vessel's deck. His lower jaw was working busily, folding into his upper as he chewed some black concoction from one side of his mouth to the other. Julitta recognised him from her walk the previous day, and after a momentary recoil, held her ground.

  Beside her, Benedict had relaxed, and there was even a smile on his lips.

  The old man reached them and leered at Julitta through his horrible, milky eyes.

  'Hah!' he said to Benedict in a harsh voice. 'Been doing some trading on the sly, have you?' He looked Julitta up and down as if assessing the points of a horse. 'Something to keep you warm on the journey to Rouen, eh?'

  Benedict went red beneath his tan. 'Sancho, I want you to meet Julitta. Do you remember, I spoke of her to you when I told you about my home?'

  Sancho appraised Julitta more thoroughly, chewing with great vigour on his liquorice root. 'Rare,' he approved, nodding his head. The leer narrowed. He spat out of the side of his mouth. 'Where's the husband?'

  'Being fetched.' Benedict turned to Julitta, sensing her barely contained anger at being thus treated. 'Julitta, this is Sancho, the best stud overseer in all of Castile — for all that he looks like a brigand and he hasn't any manners,' he added pointedly.

  'Waste of time,' Sancho growled. 'Say what you mean and be done with it.'

  Julitta exchanged glances with Benedict. He saw irritation in her eyes, and a sparkle of amusement. 'What have you told him about me?'

  'Everything that I should know,' Sancho interjected. 'And as private as the confessional. I may be a mannerless oaf, but I know when to stitch my lips.'

  Which meant that he knew everything. This time it was Julitta who blushed.

  Sancho cocked his head to one side. 'So how come you to be in Bordeaux, my lady?'

  'My husband is here to buy warhorses at the market for Robert of Normandy, and he desired to bring me with him on this occasion.'

  'Ah,' said Sancho. 'Keeping his treasure chest where he can see it.' His eyes glimmered like moonstones, and he grinned wolfishly at Benedict. 'Trouble is, he left it unlocked, didn't he?'

  Benedict pulled a warning face at the old man. 'I thought you knew when to stitch your lips,' he said.

  'I do,' Sancho retorted. 'Most of the time.'

  Sancho insisted on accompanying Benedict and Julitta to the lodging house. He would be a chaperone, he said. Nothing unseemly could possibly happen with him in attendance. Benedict was not certain that he agreed. Sancho's tongue was a razor, and as a matter of bad habit he used it to cut. But at least Julitta would arrive home under the escort of two men instead of just himself. He decided that Mauger would judge the little overseer's presence the lesser of the two evils.

  Mauger was already at Madame Clothilde's, his face like thunder, his fist clamped around a goblet of wine which he was just draining as Benedict walked in. The groom stood a little to one side, a fresh red graze on his cheek, his eyes afraid.

  The presence of others held Mauger's temper in check, although every muscle was corded and tense. 'I told you to stay,' he said to Julitta, his voice hoarse with the effort of control.

  'I was right about Benedict,' she defied him, her chin raised, her body quivering, 'but you chose not to listen.'

  'He looks remarkably hale and hearty to me,' Mauger said coldly.

  'Late spring he wasn't,' Sancho said, and removing his battered felt hat, sat down on a bench near the window embrasure.

  Mauger eyed him with disfavour. 'Who are you?'

  'I'm head overseer of the stud belonging to Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, although that will mean nothing to a barbarian such as you.' Sancho spat his wad of chewed liquorice root onto the floor.

  Disgust flared Mauger's nostrils. 'You call me a barbarian?' His gaze swept over the haphazard assembly of rags before him.

  'He knows more than either of us,' Benedict defended swiftly, 'and probably more than Rolf, since he's been alive that much longer.'

  'I don't believe you,' Mauger said through compressed lips.

  'Believe what you want, it's the truth.'

  Madame Clothilde appeared then, bearing more wine and two large baskets of bread and fresh fruit. She too looked at Sancho as if she considered him a barbarian whom she would rather not entertain beneath her roof.

  She deposited the food and departed to her cooking pot, wiping her hands on her apron and muttering.

  Mauger replenished his wine cup and took another long drink. 'Where is Gisele?' he asked.

  Benedict hesitated. When he spoke, his voice was devoid of expression. 'She lies in a small chapel on the pilgrim road to Compostella.' His hand shook slightly as he took a drink of his own wine. It was still difficult to talk about. He could feel the weight of Mauger's stare, studying his reactions, judging them. 'We were attacked by Basque brigands in the mountains and she was killed – an arrow through the heart. All of our pilgrim group were slaughtered except me. I…' He broke off with a shuddering breath. It was impossible to continue.

  Mauger cleared his throat. His gaze slid away from Benedict, and he tilted his cup to his mouth. 'I am sorry,' he said gruffly.

  The sound of Benedict's ragged breathing was loud in the silence. Julitta chewed her lip. Her eyes flickered once to her husband, and then, with sudden decision, she went to Benedict and put her arms around him. 'I am sorry too,' she said. 'She was my sister; she deserved better of life, and of death.'

  Benedict made a strangled sound and put his face in his hands. His body was wracked by dry sobs as behind his eyes he saw again the look on Gisele's face as the arrow pierced her heart and brought her down like a doe. Mauger looked on, his expression appalled and embarrassed. Julitta said nothing, just held Benedict, trying to convey sympathy and grief by touch. She could understand why he had shied from the subject on the wharf.

  'It is good that he weeps,' said Sancho, the least perturbed of anyone in the room. 'It cleans the wound of poison, makes it easier to heal. I have been concerned about him.'

  Julitta raised her eyes to Sancho's. Behind the prickly facade lay compassion and care. 'What happened to him?' she asked.

  Briefly Sancho told her the entire story as he had heard it from Faisal, not once glancing at Mauger, as if he felt the other man should not be present.

  'I would have gladly died too,' Benedict muttered through the bars of his fingers.

  'Not gladly, son,' Sancho reproached. 'If you had truly desired to yield up your soul to God, you would not have fought so hard to live when Faisal was tending you. It is the self-pity in you speaking, not the man.'

  Benedict raised his head and stared at Sancho with narrowed eyes. Sancho returned the look, unperturbed. Benedict wiped his eyes on the heel of his hand and pushing himself out of Julitta's embrace, rose and walked to the window embrasure to stare out on Clothilde's sun-filled vegetable garden.

  'So what are you doing in Bordeaux?' Mauger demanded, an edge of resentment and suspicion in his voice.

  Benedict's left shoulder rose and fell. 'Returning to Brize with my burden of tidings and a cargo of Spani
sh horses.' His tone was weary now, uncaring. 'I hear that you are seeking a war stallion for Duke Robert.'

  Mauger drank off his wine and refilled his cup. 'What of it?'

  Julitta glanced at her husband. It occurred to her that with Gisele dead, Benedict was no longer the automatic heir to Brize-sur-Risle, that Mauger was the one with the better claim through herself. She wondered if Mauger had realised it too.

  Benedict shrugged again and did not look round. 'Nothing,' he said dully. 'Congratulations.'

  'Lord Robert specifically requested that I be sent,' Mauger added defensively.

  'I am sure you are capable of selecting the kind of horse the Duke requires.'

  'I am,' Mauger said tightly. 'And I have. So don't you go parading your own fancy Spanish wares beneath his nose when we return.'

  'Christ, Mauger, do you think I care at the moment?' Benedict demanded in a voice that still cracked with the raw emotion of grief. 'I don't give a split rivet for your petty schemes!' He made an abrupt throwing gesture with his clenched fist. 'I think we have nothing more to say to each other that will not end in a fight.' He strode from the room without looking at its other occupants, not even Julitta.

  Mauger drank down the wine. 'Don't look at me,' he growled. 'It's not my fault.'

  Julitta gave him a disgusted glare. 'I know that you would prefer him to have died,' she said, and rising to her feet, followed Benedict out.

  Sancho stepped into the breach as Mauger made to stride in pursuit of his wife. 'Stay,' he commanded, his cracked voice suddenly imperative. 'You will only goad him into a corner, or he will goad you, and there will be bloodshed. Let the woman handle him.'

  Mauger glowered, but Sancho glowered back far more effectively, and held his ground. 'You say you are capable of selecting bloodstock for your Duke? Come then, tell me what you know, and see if your talent matches up to mine.' He gestured to the bench that Julitta had vacated. 'Sit, cease drinking and eat some of that bread to soak up all the wine you've consumed. I don't suffer fools gladly.'

  'Why should I listen to you?'

  'Because mine is the voice of reason.' The little overseer drew a fresh liquorice twig from his pouch, poked it in the side of his mouth where two teeth still opposed each other in the gum, and started to chew.

  Mauger continued to scowl, but he made no attempt to thrust Sancho out of the way, and in a moment, he sat down and reached to the bread basket. 'I've been in this trade since the cradle. I don't need lessons from you.'

  Sancho sat down beside him and stretched out his legs, easing their stiffness. 'I too was taught from the cradle and this year I will see out seventy winters. And still I find much to learn. A man who says he knows everything, knows nothing.'

  Once out of the house, Julitta hitched her skirts to her shins and ran to catch up with Benedict who was striding out as if the devil were at his heels.

  'Wait!' she gasped out. 'Ben, please wait!' 'Leave me alone!' he snarled raggedly over his shoulder. Julitta redoubled her efforts to reach him, and catching him by the arm, swung him round to face her. 'I won't impose on you beyond a moment,' she panted, 'but there is something that you must see. I know that you don't want my company or Mauger's — we're only salt in your wound, but…' Her voice trembled and she broke off.

  His eyes had been opaque, a little mad, but now they cleared and he focused on her, breathing hard. 'I should have known that I could not run from you,' he said and squared his shoulders. 'What is it you want of me?'

  What I cannot have, she thought. 'I want to give you something. Come.' She tugged at his sleeve, drawing him back toward the house and the stable shed beyond the courtyard. 'Here.' She drew him into the first stall.

  He stared at the two horses, the grey gelding and the small chestnut mare. The grey swung his intelligent head and absorbed the scent and sight of the man. A sound, somewhere between a nicker and a grunt, rippled from the gelding's nostrils, and he tugged at his halter, eager to reach Benedict. The mare, too, pricked up her ears and whickered softly.

  'Cylu?' Benedict whispered. He went to the grey and laid his hand against the glossy, muscular neck. Cylu nudged him lovingly with his nose. Benedict inspected the horse, turning disbelief into reality as he felt the solidity of bone and muscle, the satin hide, the warm, sweet breath. 'Where did you find them?' His attention flickered briefly to the mare, to Julitta, then back to grey gelding. A part of him was restored, and although it was only a small part, by its very presence it assumed great importance. A straw upon which to cling, a foundation on which to rebuild.

  We bought them from a coper here in Bordeaux,' Julitta said, watching him with a mingling of love and pain. 'He said that he obtained them from a Basque trader.'

  Benedict laughed harshly. 'A Basque cut-throat more likely. I wonder how many other pilgrims' horses have been sold that way?' He pressed his palm against Cylu's warm, dappled neck. 'I saw her die,' he muttered. 'Mercifully it was quick, she knew nothing beyond the first moment, but her eyes were on me as she fell. There was nothing I could do… nothing.' His voice quivered and his fingers tightened in Cylu's mane. If they had not, he would have turned round and engulfed Julitta in his grief and anger, and he knew that he dared not. A step too far on the crumbling edge of a precipice. Behind him, she was silent, as if she too sensed the danger of the moment. Then he heard the straw rustle. When he dared to look round, he discovered that he was alone.

  He took time to compose himself, washed his hands and face in the water pail and went outside. She was sitting on a bench in the shade of the stable wall, her skirts tucked beneath her. He went to her and sat down, keeping a body's distance between them.

  'I am sorry,' he said wryly.

  'You needed a moment to be alone – and so did I.' She looked at him, and then down at her hands.

  Benedict watched her toy with her gold wedding ring. 'Was Mauger so jealous of you that he had to bring you all the way to Bordeaux?'

  'In a way. Robert of Normandy decided that I was the perfect dish to refresh his jaded palate. He wanted Mauger out of the way, so sent him down here to buy an Iberian warhorse. Mauger saw straight through his ploy and made me accompany him – not that I was unwilling. Robert of Normandy is no safe harbour for a runaway wife, and besides, I enjoy the freedom of travelling. Of course,' she added to the gold ring, 'instead of Robert of Normandy, Mauger now has you to contend with.'

  Benedict sighed. 'You and he, I thought you had found contentment?' he said, remembering that time he had walked in on them making love on the solar floor.

  'Resignation,' she murmured and darted him a glance. 'I have tried to adapt to Mauger's ways, he tries to compromise, but the road is strewn with thorns.'

  Benedict thought about Sancho, about the tale the old man had told him of his youthful elopement. 'It was hard for her,' he had said. 'We never really had any peace.' He leaned his head against the stable wall and looked at her. 'When I have spoken to your father and delivered the horses, I am returning to Castile.'

  'For always?' Dismay widened her eyes and she caught her full underlip in her teeth, a mannerism that had always maddened and enchanted him.

  'For the next few years at least. Sancho will more than welcome me. If I return to England, it will only be to face the persecution of William Rufus. I know between him, Robert of Normandy, and Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, which lord I would rather serve.'

  'But what of my father?' Julitta protested with indignation. 'I can understand that you feel no loyalty to Rufus and Robert, neither of them are worth a spit in the wind, but surely you owe my father more than that?'

  Benedict met her gaze which was fierce-blue with anger. 'I owe your father more than I can ever repay, most of it in regrets and apologies,' he said bleakly. 'I will do my best to make reparations in Spanish horse stock and silver. You do not need to tell me that it is not enough.'

  She said nothing, just continued to stare at him, and he plunged on, further justifying his decision in the face of her silence. 'You are no
w your father's heir, and through you, Mauger. You may say that I am cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I could not bear to take orders from him at Brize and Ulverton. I have made friends in Castile and the beginnings of a new life. The threads of my old one are too tangled and broken to be mended.'

  Julitta reddened, and compressing her lips looked the other way for a moment.

  'Julitta?' He leaned toward her.

  She shook her head and swallowed valiantly. 'You are right,' she said. 'A life in Castile will suit you, and my father too, since he will have a source of fine-bred Iberian horses at the flick of his finger. He can always find another overseer for Ulverton. It is just that I…' She broke off and angrily wiped her eyes. 'It is foolish.' Her voice quivered. 'I have loved you since I was five years old. You would think I would know better by now.' She sprang to her feet before he could close the gap between them. 'No, let me be,' she warned. 'I am overjoyed to know you are alive, let that be enough.'

  Benedict rose too, not knowing what he was going to do or say, only aware that they could not part like this. There had to be a better balance. 'Julitta, listen,' he pleaded, but whatever he would have said went unspoken as two grooms entered Clothilde's courtyard, leading a plunging black stallion, its eyes white-rimmed and its upper lip wrinkled back to show vicious yellow teeth. Its mane and tail in contrast to its coat, were a bright silver.

  Open-mouthed, Benedict stared. 'Christ on the Cross,' he said softly. 'Don't tell me that Mauger's gone and bought that brute.'

  'What do you mean?' Julitta demanded sharply, a note of fear in her voice.

  'Sancho and I saw that black earlier. He'd just kicked one of his handlers in the thigh and nigh on cracked the bone. Fine colour, fine looks, but I doubt that any man will come close enough to mount him, let alone stay in the saddle. He's not just wild, he's savage.'

  Julitta shook her head. 'Mauger would never buy an animal like that. You know how cautious he is.'

  'Cautious or not, it's been brought here, and it's certainly neither for me, nor Sancho.' He started forward to help the grooms, but Mauger and Sancho emerged from the house, and Benedict halted.