The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  'Want Mama,' she whined, and tottered over to Arlette. Shrugging, Rolf dug a stone out of the ground and threw it at the water. It vanished with a plop, leaving only the ripples radiating downstream. Arlette directed a squire to pour him wine from the stone bottle that had been cooling in the shallows.

  'Perhaps I could go with you to England,' she suggested tentatively as she settled Gisele on her own knee.

  'No!' Rolf snarled, surprising himself as much as his wife with the vehemence of his denial. He realised, as her great, grey eyes rested on him in shock, that he did not want her bringing her dainty ways, her mouse-like attention to detail, to the robust simplicity of Ulverton. England belonged to his spirit and he did not want his wife interfering, no matter how good her intentions. 'No,' he modified his tone. 'It would be too dangerous.'

  'But other Norman women are there,' she objected. 'What about Felice de Remy?'

  'Felice de Remy almost died in England,' Rolf said impatiently. 'Even when I sailed, she had not recovered her full strength. And not every Saxon is as good-hearted as the one who saved her life and that of her child. It is no place for you, Arlette.'

  'But I want to be with you. How will I bear sons for Brize-sur-Risle if you are never here?'

  'I am here now,' he said. 'Every night for a month I have sown my seed in your furrow. It is not for want of my attention that you have begun your flux.'

  Her pretty mouth drooped and she lowered her eyes. 'I know, Rolf. I wish I conceived more easily. If only we could…'

  'I need you to govern Brize in my absence,' he forestalled her plea. 'It is unwise for us both to be away. What if there was a storm in the narrow sea and we both drowned, or our ship was attacked by Dublin pirates? What would become of Brize-sur-Risle then?'

  'I'm sorry, Rolf, I didn't think.'

  He rose jerkily to his feet and walked along the river bank a little way. What he had said was true, but it was an excuse to keep her away from England. He did not want her finely manicured fingers meddling in that particular pie. He felt a twinge of conscience. Perhaps he would take her to William's court. The Duke was currently accepting the adulation of his populace at Fecamp with a bevy of English hostages in his train and a treasure house of English booty — artefacts of gold and silver, heavily crusted embroideries, books and church ornaments. Arlette would like that. She would be able to wear her new gown of green silk damask and the gold Saxon round brooch he had brought her from Ulverton. In fact, he would quite enjoy parading her before his fellow Normans. Not having borne many children, her figure was supple and slender, well suited to the new fashion for closer-fitting garments. Other men would admire her demure prettiness and feel envious of the man who possessed its obedience.

  Arlette and Gisele returned to the keep, and Rolf joined his villagers in their May Eve celebrations. A huge bonfire had been kindled on a low slope above the village and the people capered around it, their blood warm with cider and the vigorous surge of springtime currents. A man and a woman, each with a tabor, beat out an ancient, insistent rhythm while alternate circles of women and men performed the sacred dance, and all of them wore at least one item of green to symbolise the clothing of the earth in new life.

  The light faded from the sky, leaving a teal luminescence. Older women carried querulous, sleepy children home to bed. The unmarried, the unattached and the drunk remained to dance in the Beltane ring, honouring a religion far more ancient than the one that the poor, isolated priest was trying to uphold.

  Rolf accepted a cup of rough, golden cider from a grinning villager, and watched Father Hoel depart in the direction of the keep, there no doubt to commiserate with Arlette about the blasphemous collection of pagans who made up his flock.

  Rolf joined the dancers, linking his arms with his overseer and Brize's blacksmith. They faced the fire, circling, stepping to the beat of the tabor. Then they faced the women and circled in the opposite direction. Three times the move was repeated before the men separated and the women were passed through in a handfasting figure of eight to become the inner ring. The links were reforged and the dance continued.

  Rolf's eye fell upon one of the village women. Her tossing corn-blonde hair was bound back from her brow by a crown of white hawthorn, the symbol of the fertility goddess. Her face was flushed with exertion and her breasts and hips jiggled suggestively as she twisted and turned in the motion of the dance. Hand over hand, Rolf passed her from inside ring to outer. The side of her breast, heavy and soft, brushed against his arm; the musky scents of hawthorn blossom and sweat filled his nostrils. His loins began to burn.

  In and out, weaving the darkness with a living thread. The drums and the cider banished all thought and left only touch. A dark-haired girl, slender as a weasel, swept her hand across Rolf's groin in a feather-light touch that left his manhood as huge and hard as the maypole at the foot of the slope. Her eyes glistened; she drew a thick tress of hair across his face and arched her spine, offering him the thrust of her small, pert breasts.

  Rolf swung her round into the arms of one of the village men and sought the blonde woman instead. She seemed momentarily surprised to be chosen, but when his hands settled on her hips and he pulled her out of the dance, she went willingly into the shadows with him.

  Her breasts were large and soft from the suckling of several children, there was a gentle roll of fat on her belly and her hips were wide and meaty. But Rolf saw none of this. His only care was that she spread herself willingly to accept him. All sensation was concentrated in his swollen shaft and aching cods. He grasped her ample buttocks and plunged in hard. Her thighs gripped him; she struck her heels on the ground and circled her hips to meet his thrusts. Blonde hair tossed in Rolf's face. He felt the surge of power rising inexorably within him. He tried to slow his thrusts and prolong the pleasure, but the woman urged him on, kneading his back with her hands, pumping her hips in a relentless, slick rhythm, and making small, inarticulate cries.

  It was too much. Rolf jammed into her, his spine arching. 'Ailith!' he sobbed through his teeth as his seed pulsed from his body into the woman beneath him.

  He roused to the flickering light of the bonfire behind his eyes, to the shouts and laughter of the people who still danced, the whispered moans of those who had succumbed to the lure of wearing the green' in the form of grass stains on their clothing. Slowly he withdrew himself from the woman and tucked himself back inside his braies. .

  'What was that word you shouted, my lord?' His partner tugged her bunched-up skirts back down over her legs and sat up beside him. Her fingers combed through her coarse blonde hair and she straightened the hawthorn crown on top of her head. 'Was it a charm?'

  Rolf shook his head. He had not intended to cry out at all, but the intensity of his climax, the fair hair, the body arched beneath him in passion, had roused a powerful spectre from his imagination and clothed it with life. 'A charm,' he repeated and smiled with irony. 'I suppose you could call it that. An English one.' He tugged a strand of her hair and grinned. 'Riding always gives me a thirst. Go and fetch a jug of cider, there's a good lass.'

  She wove unsteadily away to do his bidding. Rolf reclined on the grass, pillowed his head on his hands, and looked at the stars.

  The worse for drink, old Ragnild tottered out of the shadows and regarded Rolf with gleaming, weasel eyes. 'You will get what you desire, Rolf de Brize.' She nodded as if listening to an invisible presence. 'But not without a reckoning. Break your faith, and the axe will break you.'

  He jerked to a sitting position, intending to ask her what she meant, but his companion returned with a brimming jug of cider and plumped herself down beside him. Ragnild rummaged in the pouch at her waist and brought out a scrap of linen which had been twisted and tied to hold herbs. 'A pinch is all you need,' she cackled, dropping it in Rolf's lap so that it landed over the area of his genitals. 'Keep you firm as a quarterstaff all night if you've a mind to pleasure.' With a lascivious roll of her hips and a wink, she moved on towards the bonfire.<
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  Rolf swore and hurled the scrap of linen after her, but later, in the aftermath of a second, more leisurely mating, he retrieved it from the grass and stowed it in his pouch. His head spinning with the force of the cider and the Beltane scents of crushed grass, sweat and sex, he wondered what Ragnild had meant about the axe and breaking faith.

  CHAPTER 19

  DECEMBER 1067

  'It is time you ceased mourning and thought about finding another husband,' Felice told Ailith. The two women were sitting around the winter hearth peeling withies to make rush dips. It was past Yuletide and the days would gradually begin to lengthen, but there were still a three full months between now and the warmth and light of spring. 'I know that you miss Goldwin, but it is more than a year since he died. A man and household of your own would make you miss him less. And in the fullness of time you would have children too.'

  'I do not want another husband.' Ailith made a conscious effort to keep her voice firm and steady. 'I am not ready yet. And Benedict still needs a wet nurse.' She glanced at the black-haired infant playing on a fleece rug near their feet. He was sturdy and strong, on the verge of taking his first steps. Morning and evening he still suckled at her breasts, and for comfort when he was tired, but more and more, urged by Felice, he was relying on other foods for sustenance, on bread smeared with marrowjelly, on wheat porridge, buttermilk and whey.

  'But by the summertime he will not.' Felice added her stripped rush to the pile at her side and frowned at Ailith. "You are welcome to live here as long as you choose, you know that. I am only thinking that it will be difficult for you. If you had a home of your own again, it would give you a new sense of purpose.'

  Feelings of hostility and panic rushed through Ailith as she heard these words. Felice was making it obvious that once Benedict had dispensed of the need for a wet nurse, she intended taking full responsibility for him, and that there would be little room for Ailith.

  'Perhaps I could find somewhere down by the wharves and take in washing for the sailors,' Ailith suggested cuttingly.

  'Don't be so foolish!' Felice snapped. 'I said that you were welcome here — for the rest of your life if need be.'

  'If you have to support me you mean!'

  'Ailith, I do not wish to quarrel.' Felice's voice took on a conciliatory note. 'I just want you to think about the future. Look at us now. Will it get any better?'

  Ailith blinked. She could not see to peel the rush in her hand for a sudden film of moisture. 'No,' she shook her head. 'No, it won't.'

  'Oh don't cry, you will make me cry too!' Felice's own eyes filled with tears. She gave Ailith a warm, pleading hug. Ailith accepted it passively and wiped her eyes on her under-tunic sleeve. Benedict came to join in, clawing himself to a standing position at Ailith's knee, demanding to be taken on her lap. She lifted him in her arms and nuzzled his hair, drinking in his warm, heartbreaking infant smell. How could she give this up? And yet she knew it was inevitable. The child came first, she could not put her own needs before his. She had once heard a priest recite a story from the Bible about a great king called Solomon who had been asked to judge between two women as to who was the mother of a disputed infant. He had commanded that the child be cut in two and each claimant be given a half. One woman had relinquished her right so that the child might live, and she had been deemed the true mother. Ailith knew that she could not let Benedict be torn in two. She had to let him go.

  Felice allowed her to cuddle Benedict and with a sigh, returned to stripping the withies. 'Aubert is bringing a guest home to eat. I thought when we have finished this, we could prepare the food.'

  Ailith nodded dully. 'As you wish,' she said.

  Felice pursed her lips, then added nonchalantly, 'It's Wulfstan the Goldsmith – do you remember, he was here last month?'

  Ailith started to say that no, she did not remember; Aubert and Felice were always entertaining guests of one kind or another, but then an image did come to her – a tall, blond bear of a man with twinkling grey eyes and hands that he could not keep to himself. 'Yes, I know him. He palmed my rump when I took his cloak.' She had quickly disabused him of the notion that she was a serving wench with whom he could take liberties.

  'That is just his way,' Felice dismissed with a wave. 'He's a superb goldsmith, the best in the city, and he's so rich. Aubert says that Wulfstan is having a grand house built near the Fleet river and that he owns a half-share in a merchant galley too.'

  'Being rich does not give him the right to grope and fondle at will,' Ailith said tartly.

  Felice sighed again, and expression pensive, let the subject lie.

  That evening, to her displeasure, Ailith found herself seated next to the goldsmith and forced to share her dish with him as was the custom. The scented oil he had used on his beard and hair cloyed her nostrils. His tunic was crusted with gold embroidery and the belt encircling his ebullient waist was elaborately tooled with gold leaf. Rings cluttered his broad ringers. She noted that his nails were trimmed and clean. He had obviously taken great care with his appearance, and to his own taste, no doubt thought himself magnificent. Ailith thought that he looked as if he had just staggered out of the dragon's cave in one of the tales of Beowulf, laden with the monster's hoard. She smiled to herself at the whimsy, but then, feeling Wulfstan's thigh insistently brushing against hers, she thought with a chill of fear that perhaps Wulfstan himself was the dragon.

  He expertly carved the small roast fowl that they were sharing, and laid the choicest breast slices on her trencher; he plied her with Aubert's best wine and kept up an amusing flow of conversation. There were deep laughter lines surrounding his grey eyes, but the eyes themselves were assessing and shrewd and never relaxed for a moment.

  "Tis good to eat such fine food in good company,' Wulfstan rumbled in his gruff, bear's voice. 'Since my wife died, my own household's been mighty dolorous.'

  A lump began to constrict Ailith's throat and after a few bites of the chicken, she was unable to eat any more. She sipped the wine and glared at Felice and Aubert. How dare they try and pair her off. She had not the slightest interest in Wulfstan; indeed, she found his attentions distasteful.

  'You must visit more often,' Felice said sweetly, adroitly avoiding Ailith's despairing, furious stare.

  'That is most kind of you, mistress,' the goldsmith acknowledged. His hand slipped beneath the table and squeezed Ailith's knee.

  She could feel the hot spread of his fingers through her garments and jerked her leg away, hard-pressed not to stab him with her eating knife. Wulfstan smiled at her, hunching and releasing his shoulders as if he found the entire situation a game which he intended to win.

  'I will not sit at table with that odious man again!' she hissed furiously to Felice when Wulfstan finally went on his way, promising that he would visit again soon. 'He seemed to think I was a part of the feast the way he prodded and poked at me!'

  'He's lonely,' Felice excused. 'He needs the comfort of touch. His wife died last autumn of a bloody flux from her womb and he has been a long time in mourning for such a vigorous man.'

  'So it is excusable for him to paw me?' Ailith asked with an ominous air of calm.

  'You should not take so much offence. He likes you. He's good-humoured, wealthy, and one of Aubert's best customers.' Felice gave an impatient cluck. 'Life moves on, Ailith, you must not let yourself become enslaved by the dead.'

  'It is better than being enslaved by the living,' Ailith retorted waspishly and stalked off to her pallet in the corner of the hall, pulling the wool curtain across, thereby curtailing all further conversation.

  'Horse,' commanded Benedict, bouncing up and down in Ailith's embrace and opening and closing his small, fat hands. 'Want horse.'

  Leaning down from the saddle, Rolf swept the child up in his arms and sat him on Sleipnir's back. Benedict laughed and grasped handfuls of the wiry silver mane. Sleipnir flickered his ears, but otherwise stood as docile as an ass. Rolf touched him lightly with his heel and rode hi
m round in a slow circle.

  It was May once more, a year since the festival at Brize-sur-Risle. This time Beltane had found him at Ulverton where the celebrations had been very similar, although the symbol of a hobby horse had featured prominently in the English rites. The fact that Rolf intended breeding horses at Ulverton had impressed the villagers considerably; indeed, they had seen it as an omen of good fortune. Rolf had joined them at the dancing, but had stopped short of taking one of their women in the grass. Although the people cautiously approved of him, he knew that he was still considered an outsider and a usurper of the rightful lord.

  That had been at the beginning of the month. Now, at the end, he had travelled to London to attend the crowning of William's wife Matilda at Westminster, and as always, had billeted himself upon Aubert and Felice.

  Ailith was much slimmer than the day of their first encounter, and he was not sure that it suited her. Her face was gaunt, and the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and between mouth and nostril were not of laughter as they should have been in a young woman. Surely she was not still pining for her husband and child?

  'More!' cried Benedict as Rolf drew rein before Ailith. She was anxiously biting her lip, but doing her best not to speak out.

  'He loves it!' Rolf chuckled.

  'And the Lord alone knows what his mother will say if she sees you!' Ailith answered, but a smile curved her lips. 'Sometimes I think that the only word she knows is "don't".' Then she shook her head. 'I'm sorry, I'm being a shrew. It is only because she cares for him so much, and the midwives told her that she would never be able to bear another child.'

  He took the baby on another circuit of the small yard and then, returning him to Ailith, dismounted.