'How old is your own child, your daughter?' she asked curiously as he led the grey towards his stall.
'Almost three years old.'
'And you have no others?'
'Arlette does not bear children easily. She miscarried again just before I left for England.'
'I am sorry.'
Benedict was clamouring to pat the horse. Rolf took him from Ailith's arms and held him close to the stallion's head so that the baby could touch the dark grey muzzle. 'She was making a good recovery,' he said, 'but she was not well enough to journey across the narrow sea with the other Norman ladies to watch the crowning of the Duchess Matilda.' It was a blessing in disguise, he thought, but said nothing aloud to Ailith.
'She must be very disappointed.'
'A little.' He shrugged uncomfortably, for he did not wish to talk about his wife.
They were both startled by the sound of a deep voice raised in demand. 'Ailith? Ailith, where are you, sweetheart?'
Rolf stiffened at the possessiveness in the tone. Beside him, Ailith stiffened too, and he saw the colour drain from her face.
'Who seeks you?' he asked.
'Wulfstan the Goldsmith. He's a friend of Aubert's,' she murmured in a low voice which would not carry beyond the bounds of the stable.
'But not of yours?'
She looked at him with the eyes of a hunted animal and shrank into the shadows.
'Ailith, my love?' The voice came closer.
Benedict squealed loudly and Ailith made a small sound of despair, half-gasp, half-sob. Then she swallowed, and taking Benedict from Rolf, stepped from the stables into the warm spring daylight. 'I'm here, Wulfstan. What do you want of me?'
Rolf heard the defensive note in her voice and an edge of fear, but there was more to it than that. She had spoken to him in both those tones in the past, but never had he heard that third strand of loathing trembling there too.
'Pour us a cup of wine, my girl, and I'll tell you. Are Felice and Aubert not here?'
'No, they've gone to visit a client together, but they'll be here soon if you want to see them.'
'I suppose I do in time, but it's really you I've come to see, chicken.'
Rolf grimaced. Sweetheart? Love? Chicken? The goldsmith spoke as if he wished to devour, and Ailith was indeed behaving like a hen about to be necked for the pot. He followed her out into the yard and saw a blond bear of a man towering over her, his stance intimidating because he stood so close. The visitor's attention diverted from Ailith as Rolf strode into the yard, and immediately, the grey eyes narrowed and the lips tightened within the full, gold beard. Rolf could almost see the man's thoughts. Felice and Aubert absent and Ailith lurking in the stables with another man. Rolf smiled pleasantly. He had no intention of disabusing the visitor.
Looking anxious, Ailith said, 'Wulfstan, I want you to meet Rolf de Brize, a household guest. Rolf, this is Wulfstan, a business friend of Aubert's.'
Rolf extended his hand. The goldsmith grasped it and forced a smile onto his face. His beard bristled, revealing his tension and hostility. 'Are you in London for long?' he asked with a show of teeth which could hardly be termed a smile.
Rolf glanced at Ailith. 'For the coronation of the Duchess Matilda, and to conduct a little business before I return to my lands. Benedict is my Godson, I like to visit him when I can.'
Wulfstan continued to smile, but he did not relax. 'A fine little chap,' he said, chucking Benedict under the chin with a meaty forefinger. 'I hope when the time comes, my own sons are as robust and good-natured.' He looked indulgently at Ailith, as if they shared a secret. She bit her lip and Rolf saw her jaw clench. He wondered if the goldsmith had intentionally arrived when Felice and Aubert were absent.
The men followed Ailith inside the house and in silence she served them with wine and honey griddle cakes. Rolf took Benedict onto his knee and gave him one of the cakes to chew. Wulfstan waited until Ailith went to check and season a pan of frumenty that was simmering on the hearth bricks.
'I have been courting Ailith since the Yule feast,' he said, leaning close to Rolf and lowering his voice so that his words would not carry. 'It has been hard; she still grieves unnaturally for her dead husband and child, but I think I am beginning to wear her down. She is foolish to reject my suit. I have two fine houses, one in the city attached to my business, and one near the Fleet river with a little land. I can afford to dress her in silk and gold. She can have whatever she desires. Felice and Aubert believe that the match cannot be bettered and have given me their blessing to seek her hand in marriage.'
Benedict generously offered Rolf a well-sucked piece of griddle cake. He persuaded his Godson to eat it himself and wondered what he should say to the goldsmith. The man's face was open and pleasant, but there were several contradictions that made Rolf uneasy. Having learned to read the impassive features of William FitzOsbern during their dealings in Normandy, other men were seldom a mystery to him. He concluded that Wulfstan had been born with the advantage of amiable, generous features just as some men were born looking mean even if they were not. Wulfstan used his physical bulk and his wealth to intimidate people and he was accustomed to getting his own way. Rolf only had to look at the manner in which the man's hands made constant little grasping motions to know that.
'Why Ailith?' he asked in a voice of mild curiosity, although inwardly he was filled with alarm. 'Surely there are other women more suitable?'
'There are other women, yes,' Wulfstan answered, recoiling with a grimace as Benedict tried to share with him the mangled remnants of his griddle cake. 'But Ailith is my preference. She is good and broad in the beam. Aubert de Remy's son has thrived on her wet nursing. I need a competent woman, one whom I can breed upon and who will be a buxom armful in bed. My first wife was a whining bag of bones.'
'But Ailith's first-born child was weak and died soon after he was born.' Rolf eyed Ailith up and down. Competent and buxom. Yes, both applied to her, but he did not see why her attributes should be wasted on a complacent boor like Wulfstan.
'Bad seed, nothing to do with the soil in which it was planted,' Wulfstan snorted. 'She wants a real man in her bed.' His fingers flexed and grasped again.
Rolf watched Ailith remove the frumenty from the hearth and cover it with a lid. No wonder she shrank from Wulfstan's attentions.
'I thought it best that you knew my intentions,' Wulfstan continued as Rolf said nothing, his eyes thoughtfully upon Ailith. 'I hope that come the next Yuletide, we will be man and wife. The child will not require a wet nurse by then. Indeed, look at him, he scarcely needs one now.'
Rolf brushed the smears and crumbs of Benedict's meal from his tunic. 'You think she will have you?'
'In the end she will have no choice,' Wulfstan said. 'I will make sure of that.' A sly look entered his eyes, serving to increase Rolf's alarm. Ailith rejoined them to take Benedict from Rolf's arms and Wulfstan's expression cleared. He bestowed a benign smile on Ailith.
'I have an interesting surprise for you, sweetheart,' he announced, and patted the trestle bench beside him, indicating that she should be seated.
By a supreme effort of will, Rolf succeeded in maintaining a neutral facade. Wulfstan sounded like a man in a brothel about to whip his cock out in front of a whore. Ailith looked dubious. She seated herself sideways so that she was facing away from Wulfstan, and busied herself with Benedict.
'You are going to attend the coronation of the King's Duchess in Westminster itself. With me. Wear your best gown and I will give you some gold to go with it.' He leaned towards her and squeezed her knee.
Ailith shook her head. 'I thank you for your generous offer, for thinking of me, but I cannot go, it is impossible.'
'Oh, come now, of course you can!' Wulfstan laughed, but the note was brutal, containing little of humour. 'I have discussed it with Felice and Aubert and they think it an excellent idea.'
Ailith's face was ashen. She swallowed several times. 'Felice and Aubert are not my keepers.'
&
nbsp; 'They only have your good at heart, as I do,' Wulfstan said self-righteously. 'You need jolting from the rut you are wearing ever deeper for yourself'
'You do not understand.' She shook her head, biting her lip in distress. 'Goldwin died at William's crowning, and as you must well know, my best gown is my wedding gown. It would seem like a betrayal.'
'Nonsense, it would seem like bravery!' He shook the knee that he was squeezing. 'You don't have to answer now. Tomorrow will do, when you have had an opportunity to think it over. You'll see that I'm right. If you do not want to wear your wedding gown, then I will buy you another.'
Despite his instinctive dislike of the man, Rolf could not help but admire the goldsmith's powers of persuasion. He was relentless, refusing to take no for an answer. Rolf could see that when the time came, Wulfstan would take Ailith to wife simply because she would accept him in order to have some peace. I will wear her down, he had said. Wear her out, more likely. Rolf did nothing to defend her from Wulfstan's assault, but his mind was very busy, nor did it cease working on the problem when Felice and Aubert returned, rather their presence and their response to Wulfstan gave him additional food for thought.
CHAPTER 20
Matilda, Duchess of Normandy and now Queen of England, was a diminutive, slender woman. Her head, even bound by a crown, did not reach her husband's crimson-clad shoulder as she paced beside him, but for all that, those who watched her could feel the strength of her personality.
Standing beside Wulfstan in the crowded abbey, Ailith forgot her misery and apprehension as she watched the new queen walk past on the arm of her adoring husband. Rolf had told her a little about Matilda — how in the days when William had sued for her hand in marriage, she had refused him, saying that she would not mate with a bastard, and how William had dragged her from her chamber and thrashed her with a riding crop in front of her father's court. They had married, their passion had changed direction, and still powerfully dominated their marriage. She had borne him nine children, the youngest still an infant in the cradle, but her figure was as slim as a honed blade and well suited to the tightly laced, deep-red gown that glowed beneath her cloak as she walked. Watching her, Ailith wondered dubiously how much of Rolf's tale was embroidery for the sake of a better story. Certainly if Goldwin had come wooing like that, her father would have thrown him out on his ear.
In procession before and behind the royal couple came the archbishops and high prelates of the Church, followed by the powerful secular lords, most of them Norman with a scattering of ill-at-ease English among their number. The lesser barons followed. Rolf was easy to find, his auburn hair marking him out. He was wearing a knee-length tunic of the darkest blue wool, the colour in itself a display of his rank since it was so expensive to produce. The undertunic was of a lighter blue, and both were banded with scarlet braid. Around his neck an ornate silver cross glinted. So did a pagan hammer of Thor and a coloured stone on a leather cord. He wore bracelets today, in honour of the great occasion.
His eyes met hers briefly as he filed out of the abbey, and she managed a wan half-smile, wishing that she could file out with him. Instead she had to wait out the turn of her common rank beneath Wulfstan's devouring stare. She was still not sure what she was doing here in the goldsmith's company, only that it had been easier to yield to the pressure rather than continue the instinctive refusal.
'You do not have to go, of course you can stay here,' Felice had said, taking her gently on one side. 'I know it might cause you distress. But if you keep burying your head beneath the covers, how will you ever manage to rise and face the day? I believe it will do you good, even if you do cry.'
Badgered, bullied and coaxed, Ailith had found herself dressed in her rose and blue wedding outfit. Wulfstan had tried to give her a gold cross and a large round brooch to wear on her mantle, but she had refused him with dignity, choosing instead to wear her own jewellery — the glass beads that Goldwin had given her on the occasion of their betrothal, and bracelets of twisted silver and bronze wire.
Ailith was glad that they had persuaded her to come. It was indeed a long time since she had had any horizon but the de Remy household. To awake to the world was to face the pain of colours and sounds that seemed too bright and sharp, but were only caused by the fact that she had in truth been burying her head beneath the covers.
She had seen enough now. What she needed was to go home and sit in silence to digest it all; but Wulfstan had other plans. In honour of the coronation, he had thrown open his new house on the Fleet, to friends, relatives and fellow craftsmen, and declared a day of feasting. He had also insisted that Ailith attend. She knew that for her own wellbeing she should dig in her heels and refuse, but she was too tired to put up a stubborn resistance. Besides, she did not want to dampen the occasion which Felice was so obviously enjoying.
She capitulated and set herself to endure, the true Ailith retreating to a far corner of her mind and yielding control to the smiling, compliant Ailith whom Wulfstan and the others wanted her to be.
'Is Ailith all right?' Felice nudged Wulfstan as the goldsmith sought a fresh cup of mead from the pitchers set on trestles against the wall. 'Her eyes look glazed. You shouldn't give her any more to drink. She's not used to it.'
Wulfstan shrugged his powerful shoulders. "Tis a day to celebrate, and she has been in the doldrums for far too long. Besides, look at the smile on her face. She's enjoying herself!'
Felice frowned, not so sure. She felt a little guilty. They had all pushed Ailith to attend this feast when perhaps she was not yet ready. Earlier, at Queen Matilda's coronation, her friend's face had been animated, and there had been interest in her eyes as she absorbed her surroundings. Now Ailith's expression was fixed and distant. The smile was not really a smile at all.
Wulfstan was a good customer of Aubert's. He enjoyed wine and bought copious quantities of it to impress his friends and curry favour with the Normans. He had also given Aubert several valuable contacts within the merchant and craft fraternities. From a social and business viewpoint, a marriage between Ailith and Wulfstan was ideal.
Felice gnawed her lip. They owed Ailith far more than they would ever owe Wulfstan. Perhaps they ought to take Ailith home and cease pushing her to accept Wulfstan's suit. Before she could act on the thought, however, one of Aubert's friends claimed her attention. He was accompanied by his wife, newly arrived from Normandy. The couple were from the same quarter of Rouen as Felice and the woman had a store of recent gossip. Felice gladly set the conscience-troubling dilemma of Ailith to one side, promising herself that she would deal with it later.
Ailith sat on a sun-warmed wooden bench in the small, but pleasant orchard garden. There were dense beds of herbs and tender green salat crops, there were strawberries still tight and green, and raspberries beginning to show a tinge of pink upon a trellis against the wattle fence of the dividing boundary. Blinking, disoriented, Ailith stared around. The sound of conversation and loud laughter assaulted her from the house. She saw a harassed serving maid hastening out to the well in the yard to fill her wooden bucket.
'Here we are, sweetheart, a cup of fresh mead to set you up. Are you feeling better now?' Wulfstan sat down beside her on the bench, too close for comfort as always, and pressed a small, beautifully turned wooden beaker into her hand. 'Drink up, my girl.'
She took a sip of the sweet, golden liquid and felt faintly nauseated. 'Your garden is well tended,' she managed to say. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth, almost as if she was drunk. 'I like gardening. Rolf's warhorse ran amok through my winter cabbages once, and I took a besom to the beast.' She was aware that she was speaking far too quickly, and that Wulfstan was sitting almost on top of her, the calculating grey eyes bright with lust. Her throat closed; she struggled to swallow.
'Ailith,' he said tenderly, 'don't be afraid. I won't hurt you, I swear.' His lips crushed down on hers, forcing them open, and one powerful hand grasped the back of her neck, holding her still. His beard scraped her fac
e and his mouth was wet with saliva as if he were about to enjoy a meal. Ailith tried to pull away. His tongue stabbed and probed indecently. She raised her hands to strike him, to push him away, but he was swifter, grabbing them and forcing them down. This meant, however, that he had to release her head, and she was able to break the kiss and scream for help at the top of her lungs.
'Wait!' Wulfstan panted, his face congested. 'Ailith, wait! I want you to marry me!'
She wrestled with his greater strength, trying to free herself, half-weeping with the futile effort and the shock. 'I would not marry you even if you were the last man alive, you lecher!' she sobbed. 'Let me go!'
Lust and wine-anger thickened Wulfstan's voice. 'You will have no choice in the end, you know that. I could ruin your reputation if I so choose, as easily as doing this!' Releasing one of her hands, he yanked her wimple from her head, baring her braids. Ailith screamed again. Hot pain streaked through her neck and panic through her body. No respectable woman ever went forth in public with her hair uncovered. To have her head covering snatched off was tantamount to accusing her of being a whore.
'I have been patient with you beyond my usual scope,' Wulfstan said, breathing heavily. His gaze lingered upon the heavy golden lustre of her plaits before he returned the wimple. 'That was just a warning. I will have your reply by the end of the week.' His voice softened and he stroked her cheek. 'It is for the best, my Ailith, you'll see. I drive a hard bargain, but I can be generous too.'
Ailith drew a shuddering breath. Odious pig! He was so full of self-conceit that doubtless he truly believed he was being generous and patient. She started to tell him that she would rather be a whore than wife to such as he, but he stopped her, one hand across her mouth, the other wagging an index finger back and forth.
'Say nothing that you will later regret,' he warned, and raising his glance, let her go. 'Here's Felice, looking for you, I suspect.'
Shakily, Ailith draped the wimple over her braids and arranged the loose end across her shoulder. She saw Felice eyeing her and Wulfstan as if trying to decide whether she had interrupted at the right or wrong moment.
The Conquest Page 17