'The castle, you mean?' He sounded wryly amused at her doubtful tone. 'The village is too far for you to trudge every day. When I first arrived here, the old English hall was stripped and derelict, not worth renovating, so I began afresh. A castle is far more secure from attack. Don't worry, there's a perfectly liveable hall in the lower bailey; the tower is just in case of dire necessity.'
Ailith noticed that his voice was stronger today. When he had joined the baggage wain on the road after departing London, he had been scarcely able to speak. She had learned in a roundabout manner from one of the grooms that Rolf had gone to see Wulfstan and that there had been violence. Rolf himself had not spoken of the incident, and Ailith had seen no reason to seek the details. 'Do you fear attack?'
Rolf smiled and shook his head. 'Not from these people. They have accepted me with a remarkably good grace. I wear no armour to come to them — a sword at my hip, yes, it is a mark of my rank, but I have no need of further protection.'
Ailith returned his smile. 'A wolf in sheep's clothing,' she said.
Rolf laughed aloud at her sally. 'Better than a sheep in wolfs clothing,' he retorted.
The 'castle' owned a sketchy garrison consisting of two knights and eight footsoldiers, all of whom were at work on building tasks as the wain rolled across the wooden bridge built over the ditch.
'I can't afford the luxury of keeping men purely to fight,' Rolf explained as he dismounted. 'Those who are too proud to dirty their hands, work for other masters.' He moved to help Ailith from the wain, setting his hands around her waist to give himself purchase as he swung her round and down.
She felt the curious stares of the men — both Rolf's troops and the English labourers. From her eye corner she saw one soldier nudge his companion, mutter something from the side of his mouth, and laugh. She had done nought but allow Rolf to assist her from the wain and already they were speculating and coming to the wrong conclusions.
'Come,' said Rolf, 'I will introduce you.'
Ailith thought, Why bother, they already think I am your whore. Her lips narrowed. She would show them the meaning of respectable.
The men were amenable enough and prepared to be polite o her face, although she could not help but wonder what they would think and say of her behind her back. It was the Saxons who eyed her the most doubtfully. While they could come to 6erms with a Norman lord in their midst, they were perturbed hat he should bring a stranger of their own race into his household. Although the word 'traitor was not uttered, it hovered in he air as clearly as the word 'whore'.
And yet she had to take charge of these people, command their obedience and respect if she was to succeed in the duties Rolf had proposed that she carry out.
Ailith set her jaw and resolutely followed Rolf across the bailey to the long wooden hall standing close to the eastern palisade.
'They will soon grow accustomed to you,' he said over his shoulder. 'They looked at me like that for the first month or so until they realised I was no ogre come to eat their children.'
'You are not English,' Ailith answered in a subdued tone.
'Would you rather have yoked yourself to that bullying goldsmith?'
'You know I would not.'
Rolf paused on the threshold of the hall and turning, took her by the shoulders. 'I know it is hard,' he said. 'But time will make it easier, trust me.'
She removed his hands and shook her head. 'When you touch me in front of everyone, when you look into my eyes and laugh and make private jests, the people here are going to construe far more than friendship and obligation. "Ah yes," they will say. "Lord Rolf and his Saxon whore. Why should we do as she bids us?" You swore that my position in your household would be an honourable one. Well in Jesu's name, I pray you set about establishing it now before it is too late!'
His face darkened. Ailith stared him out. She had never seen him angry before, but she knew that her own anger and fear were any match for his.
'You insult me,' he said huskily.
'By showing you the truth?'
'You want to live like a nun?' he bit out. 'Then so be it. I'll have your cell prepared.'
Ailith nodded vigorously. 'With a bar on the inside of the door. And I want one of the village women to sleep with me at night, so that everyone will know that I am virtuous. Until then, I will sleep in the main hall with everyone else.'
'God's death, you're as stubborn as a mule, and you know-how to kick like one — straight in the teeth!' Rolf growled, but reluctant humour began to gleam in his eyes.
Ailith stared him out without responding to his humour. This point of principle was very important to her.
Clearing his throat, Rolf shouldered past her into the hall. 'Well then, Abbess Ailith,' he declared with a sarcastic flourish, 'let me show you around your new convent.'
Driven by a boisterous wind, sunshine and shadow chased each other recklessly across Ulverton's beach. Gulls wheeled and screamed above the limestone cliff, or foraged along the shoreline where the tide had flung up a bounty of dark seaweed. A donkey stood in the lee of a cliff and munched hay from its nosebag, while two women culled mussels from the beds exposed by the retreating sea.
Muddy sand squished between Ailith's bare toes. She had drawn her gown between her legs and looped it through her belt as the fisherwomen did, and because a full wimple would have hampered her, she had pinned her braids in a coronet and covered them with a simple triangular kerchief. Her knife cut through the threads securing a clump of mussels to a rock and she dropped them in the basket beside her. Her hands and feet were numb with cold, but nevertheless she was enjoying herself.
She had been nervous of the sea at first, but in the five months since coming to Ulverton, she had learned to appreciate its moods, both fierce and calm. Sometimes she would take her spinning and stand in the high tower of the keep with the soldiers on guard to watch the waves roll into the bay. On other occasions she would use the excuse of gathering driftwood to walk along the beach with the donkey harnessed to a small cart. Today she had decided that as it was Friday, they would observe the fish-only rule by dining on mussels. During her days in London, Felice had taught her a way of cooking them in a stock of garlic and wine, and she knew that it was one of Rolf's favourite dishes.
She already knew many of his likes and dislikes from his sojourn in London, and in truth he was easily accommodated. He enjoyed food, had a voracious appetite that showed not at all on his lean, active frame, and he liked his meals to be served in good quantity with the minimum of fuss. In that respect, he was so much like Goldwin, that despite her determination to remain aloof, Ailith found herself looking forward to the dinner hour each day, to the conversation and the pleasure of watching Rolf devour everything that she prepared.
There was a proper bakehouse now in the lower compound with a magnificent brick bread oven, the rival of any in London. The villagers, if they wished, could bring their dough to be baked, providing that they paid for the service with a portion of that dough. Ailith often supervised this particular duty herself, for it gave her an opportunity to speak to the village women and disabuse them of any notions they might have concerning herself and the Norman lord. She had also given Wulfhild free rein to gossip and make friends with the women, for Ailith knew they would believe far more of her maid at this stage than they would of her. She had ensured too, that the village wife who was paid to sleep across her bolted chamber door at night was a talkative biddy who would delight in telling everyone in Ulverton how matters were ordered up at the castle, that its English chatelaine was a woman of stout moral fibre.
This guardian of her virtue was with her now, helping her to cut mussels from the sand. Edgith was at least threescore years. According to hearsay, mostly her own, she had been a great beauty in her youth, and having lived so long, there were few folk remaining who could contradict her. Her wizened face did indeed possess regular features, although they were somewhat marred by the decayed state of her remaining, worn-out teeth. Still, her eyes w
ere bright with a zest for life. She had been married to a fisherman, but he had been lost in stormy seas some eight years ago. Four brawny sons she had borne, and they were all fishermen too.
Edgith dropped another bunch of mussels into the basket and pressed her hands to the small of her back. She unstoppered the water bottle hanging from the tie at her waist and took a drink.
'Did your husband fight in the great battle against the Normans, Mistress Ailith?' she asked curiously as she dug around in her pouch and brought out a small, flat griddle cake saved from the breaking of fast.
Ailith shook her head as the old woman offered to share, but she too stopped work for a moment. She licked her wind-dried lips and tasted salt. 'No, he was badly wounded fighting the Norse in the north. On the day of the great battle he was lying in his bed raving with fever. I had two brothers though, and their bones lie bleaching on Hastings field. They were members of King Harold's bodyguard. Lyulph was only in his nineteenth year.' Her voice started to tremble. Abandoning the muddy sand, she went to rinse her feet in a shallow channel of running water that was carving a path to the sea.
Edgith chewed carefully on her griddle cake and drank her water, her old eyes fixed shrewdly upon Ailith. 'So, if you had so much grief from the Normans, what be you doing with this one?'
Ailith turned sharply.
'Oh aye,' Edgith nodded sagely. 'I know that you are a respectable woman — and so does the village. Most of 'em are sick to the back teeth with being told that you and the lord do not bed together. But you be friends with him and you speak the Norman tongue uncommonly well for an English woman. How came this to happen when your own kin died for King Harold? Doesn't it disturb you to sit down at his table and see those two great battle axes on the long wall? Don't you ever wonder about who he killed to get them?'
Briefly, with a hint of defensive irritation, Ailith told Edgith about her friendship with Felice and Aubert, and how she had come to know Rolf. 'I do not allow myself to wonder,' she concluded. 'I do not look at those axes — to me they do not exist.'
Edgith made a non-commital sound and returned to harvesting mussels.
'Do you think I am wrong?'
'It is not for me to say, Mistress Ailith.'
'No, I want to know. Do you think I am wrong?'
Edgith straightened once more. 'They do exist,' she said. 'So does his hunger for you and yours for him. You can pretend all you want, but neither will go away just because you have buried yourself in the sand. One day you will be dug out of your hole.'
'I do not hunger for Rolf de Brize!'
'The defences you have built say that you do, that you fear him, and rightly so I think.' Before Ailith could reply, she nodded behind them. 'Visitors, mistress. Perhaps we should gather extra mussels for the table.'
Perturbed by Edgith's words, which held an alarming ring of truth, Ailith turned to see a troop of horsemen advancing along the shore towards them. She could tell that they were Normans from their manner of dress. Eight grown men she counted, and a blond-haired boy. A like number of bay and chestnut horses followed on leading reins.
One of the riders detached himself from the party and kicked his mount to a canter. The man's hauberk glittered like fish scales, the sun glanced off the sharpened tip of his spear. He drew rein before the women, pulling the horse in tight so that it danced on the spot. Ailith looked up into a square, powerful face with long dimples in the cheeks and a wide expanse of chin.
'Which way to Ulverton?' he demanded in appalling English. Another Norman rode up beside him, a younger man porridged with spots.
'Look at the udders on that, Tancred!' he enthused coarsely in French. His eyes lingered on Ailith's breasts before dropping to her exposed legs. He smacked his lips.
The older man snorted. 'God's eyes, is that all you ever think about?' There was indulgent humour in his tone. 'You haven't got time today to go swiving in the dunes. Still, I see what you mean.' He looked Ailith appreciatively up and down.
Ailith glared at the two men. 'Ulverton is that way,' she said in immaculate French and directed with her arm. 'Follow the track for half a mile and you will come to the castle. Lord Rolf, I am sure, will be fascinated to know what you think about his chatelaine.'
The square-faced man blinked rapidly, then bit his lip, stifling his amusement. The younger one blenched. Ailith turned her back on both of them and resumed picking mussels.
'I am sorry, my lady. If we had known your status, we would have been more polite,' said the first Norman.
'Is a fisherwoman not as entitled to as much courtesy as a lady of rank?' she said scathingly without bothering to look round. Beside her, Edgith glared at the two men, her knife held ready in her hand.
Without reply, the men sheepishly withdrew, and when Ailith raised her head, it was to see them riding off the beach in the direction she had indicated.
'Visitors indeed,' she muttered through her teeth to Edgith.
'I encountered your "chatelaine" down by the shoreline,' Tancred said to Rolf.
Rolf had been examining his new mares and deliberating whether to graze them on their own for a while, or introduce them immediately to Sleipnir. Now he turned and looked at his overseer.
'I thought she was nought but a fisher-wench, but she soon set me and Arnulf to rights.'
Rolf grinned. He had seen Ailith set out for the shore with Edgith and the donkey. She had been wearing an old, patched homespun gown, ancient shoes, and a plain linen kerchief over her braids. 'I can imagine that she would.'
Tancred eyed him soberly. 'Arnulf's a randy pup. He made certain crude remarks concerning her figure. I agreed with him before I realised she could understand us. I did not know that she was yours. There was no insult intended.'
Rolf resumed his inspection of the mares. 'Do not assume that because she is my housekeeper, she warms my bed too,' he said as he assessed a small, perky chestnut. 'I wish that she did, but Ailith has her own thoughts on the matter. She is a respectable widow and intends remaining so.'
Tancred looked nonplussed. 'Then she is not your mistress?' he said with an air of astonished disbelief.
Rolf shook his head regretfully. 'Not at the moment,' he said, and then suddenly grinned. 'But who knows what the future holds?'
The three weeks which Tancred and his party spent at Ulverton were the most uncomfortable of Ailith's life, and she was not sorry to see them leave before the winter storms began to make the crossing of the narrow sea too treacherous an enterprise.
In defence of that first encounter on the shore, she had made sure that in their presence she was always dressed properly and in the high Saxon style, which meant layer upon layer, so that not so much as an outline of breast could be discerned. She had fastened her belt loosely so that there was no emphasis on the trimness of her waist. Nor had she worn a kerchief again, but had replaced it with the full wimple and circlet, a brooch pinning its folds secure for good measure. And she had kept her distance, conspicuous by her absence at the high table. It had been less embarrassing for all concerned.
Now that their visitors had returned to Normandy, Ailith applied herself to the task of packing the travelling chests for the Christmas visit to London. She was greatly looking forward to seeing the city again. Although she had settled at Ulverton, she still harboured longings for the bustling markets of Chepeside with their unrivalled selection of commodities, for the smoky, smutty, greasy smell of the city's heart. She wanted to see Felice again, and most of all, in order to fill the empty hole in her heart, she had a fierce need to hold Benedict in her arms.
Her own chest was packed and contained a plain working gown, her best, wedding outfit, and a dress of plain green wool decorated with embroidery. The linens for her monthly bleeds, leg bindings, woollen socks, spare combs and jewellery pins had also been included. There was nothing else she required.
Rolf would be attending the court to make his report to the King, so he would need his best robes. Tancred had brought gifts across the na
rrow sea from Rolf's wife, including a beautiful tunic of expensive dark blue wool embroidered with thread of gold. His old court garment was of almost the same colour. Rolf wore a great deal of blue, and it suited him, but Ailith thought that a change might gladden the eye. To that end, before Tancred's arrival, she had purchased two bolts of fabric, one of rich tawny, the other a smoky green that matched Rolf's eyes, and during the last three weeks of withdrawal from open company, she had made Rolf two very fine tunics that were just as worthy of his rank as the blue.
Ailith had dared not explore the emotions behind her determination to make as good as, if not better a task of the tunics than his wife had made of the blue. Nor was she proud of herself for the way she examined the blue robe in strong light, searching for flaws. Those were acts that smacked of jealousy and how could she be jealous of that which she did not desire?
All the same, as she folded Rolf's clothing in his baggage chest, she placed the blue robe in the bottom and laid everything else on top, finishing with the two tunics she herself had stitched, together with a shirt of fine, soft linen.
'I see you are well ahead,' Rolf said from the doorway.
Ailith jumped guiltily and turned round. He was leaning against the door jamb, watching her, his arms folded. She wondered how long he had been there, and if he had seen her lingering touch when she carefully laid the tunics and shirt within the chest.
'It seems only sensible to be ready in good time. Tomorrow dawn with everyone waiting in the bailey is no occasion to be packing baggage.'
'No,' he agreed with a smile, and pushing himself upright, advanced into the room, which was, after all, his own.
'You can come out of hiding now that Tancred's gone. I have never known you to be so industrious in far-away corners,' he teased. 'He was as embarrassed as you were.' He tilted his head to one side. 'Tancred is a good friend and the best overseer a man could have. When the time comes, his son Mauger will inherit his father's place. I could not wish for better people to serve me, even as I could not wish for a better chatelaine. I expect you and Tancred to forget that first day and rub along together if circumstances demand.'
The Conquest Page 19