The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  'Your mother loved the sea,' he mused. 'At the slightest excuse she would take herself down to the shore in the summertime and go wading barefoot in the shallows. And in winter she would put on her cloak and watch the waves come pounding in for hours on end. She had never seen the coast until I brought her to Ulverton. I can still see her collecting driftwood with the other women, and you running between them, your hair like a banner in the wind.' His voice shook and he sucked an unsteady breath through his teeth.

  Julitta bit her lip, fresh tears scalding her eyes. 'Yes, I do remember,' she whispered. 'And you came down and spoke to my mother, then you took me on your shoulders, and I could see so far that I thought the world was mine.'

  'It still is if you want it.' Her father turned round and held out his hand once more, but this time he did not advance and touch. 'Princess?'

  The word leaped at her and she was smothered by all its promise and heartache. His hand was quivering, perhaps just with the stress of position, but she thought not. There was a tension in his face that spoke of control on the verge of cracking. Her own composure broke beneath his gesture, his stare, and the memories he had invoked. Rising from the bed she ran to him. His arms closed about her, one hand convulsively grasping and smoothing her hair. 'Julitta!' he said hoarsely, almost weeping. 'Oh Christ, Julitta!'

  Julitta pressed her cheek against the rough linen of his tunic. Hard, harder, forcing belief into her soul. She would go with him to Ulverton and piece together the shattered dream.

  When they had both recovered somewhat from the emotional hammerblows, Julitta detached herself from her father's arms and going to a corner of the room, lifted the edge of a half-folded cloak, and withdrew a Danish war axe.

  'My mother always kept this by her. She said that it was hers by right of blood. I remember it hanging on the wall at Ulverton, and falling down on the day that we left. I know that it once belonged to my uncle Lyulph and that he died on Hastings field. It was made by Mama's husband, the armourer.' Julitta gave a little shiver. 'I wish she hadn't kept it.'

  'The luck of Ulverton.' Rolf took it from her, hefting its once familiar weight. Or perhaps its misfortune, cleaving in twain the lives of all who touched it. Christened with blood. 'I wish it too,' he said with a grimace, and stretched out his free hand. 'Come with me.'

  Julitta took it, feeling the security of the warm grip, the tensile fingers. Her own hand was damp with cold sweat. 'Where are we going?' she asked as he led her down the outer stairs and across the yard toward the wharves.

  'To the river to make an offering.'

  'What sort of offering?'

  'In times gone by, when a warrior died, his weapons often went to the grave with him, or were flung into the nearest river or lake as an offering to the Gods. That is what my grandfather used to tell me, and he had it from his own grandfather who was a pagan.'

  Julitta was aware of people stopping work as she and her father went by. From the corner of her eye, she saw Benedict and Mauger standing together, their mouths open. The wharf-side was bustling with labourers and sailors as a Rouen wine galley was disembowelled of her cargo. The rumble of wooden tuns over the stones was deafening. Vinegary fumes from an accidentally broached cask assaulted the air.

  Tugging Julitta in his wake, Rolf strode out onto a wooden jetty which currently had nothing but shallow boats moored to its sides. The smell of wine was replaced by the smell of the river as it slapped against the posts, grey and green, frilled with white foam. Gulls wheeled over their heads, and a single, black-winged bird that might have been a raven.

  'Stand back,' Rolf said to Julitta, and when she was clear to his satisfaction, he began to whirl the axe around his body in double circles, faster and faster until the weapon was a gleaming blur. Then on a final surge he released it, crying out, and the axe sailed upwards and outwards in magnificence, the head flashing over and over in the sunlight as though it were on fire, before plummeting into the choppy water of the Thames to be quenched forever.

  'It is neither good luck nor misfortune now,' Rolf panted, staring down at the opaque green wavelets lapping the posts of the jetty, and then at his daughter. 'It is nothing.'

  Later, Julitta and Rolf visited Ailith's grave, the place a scar of fresh, raw earth in the cemetery. Rolf stared at it, still unable to believe that she was truly dead. He had not seen her, therefore it could not be. Even though he had disposed of the axe and its ability to strike, the wounds it had left were deep beyond healing.

  Julitta knelt at the graveside and laid a fresh bunch of irises on the soil. Rolf swallowed, watching her. She had her mother's width of brow and generous mouth. There was also a touch of Ailith's stubborn jaw and more than enough of her mannerisms to give Rolf constant twinges of pain whenever he looked at Julitta. The past was an open grave from which the dead stretched out to touch him no matter how he tried to lay the ghosts. Ailith, his beautiful, betrayed Ailith.

  'Come,' he said abruptly as Julitta rose from her knees and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. 'Leave her to sleep. We have a road to travel.'

  CHAPTER 42

  'So you are Julitta?' said Arlette de Brize. It was more than a plain statement. The woman's grey eyes examined the travel-dusty girl without warmth. 'Be welcome.'

  A groom led away the docile chestnut gelding on which Julitta had made the journey from London. She shook out her creased gown and briefly met Lady Arlette's cool stare, doubting that she was welcome at all. Her father's hand firmly grasped and squeezed her shoulder, imparting the reassurance that she badly needed.

  Julitta flickered a brief glance around the bailey. It was all so strange, and yet so familiar. She was tired from a journey that had been as much emotional as physical, and was far from over. She did not remember her father's wife from their chance encounter eight years ago, and the woman was nothing as she had imagined. Arlette de Brize was composed, attractive, and immaculately groomed, the sort of person who could walk along a muddy track without so much as smirching her dainty shoes. Julitta was aware that her own appearance, although much improved since London by new clothes, fell far short of the older woman's approval. But then, she thought mutinously, she had no need of that. She raised her head, and unconsciously tightened her jaw.

  Arlette turned to the demure young woman standing at her side. 'Gisele, greet your sister,' she commanded.

  The girl hesitated, then stepped forward with obvious reluctance. 'Be welcome,' she said in a monotone and kissed the air beside Julitta's cheek.

  Julitta inhaled the astringent scent of lavender. This was Gisele, Benedict's betrothed. She was filled with the hazy memory of herself in a rage of infantile disbelief that her father should have destroyed her dreams and betrothed him elsewhere — to her own sister.

  'Benedict told us all about you,' Gisele said sweetly, displaying that she possessed claws, no matter how dainty the paws that sheathed them, 'that he rescued you from a bathhouse.'

  Red heat flooded Julitta's face.

  'Actually it was from a grouchy Thames boatman,' Benedict interrupted easily from his place among the escorting soldiers and grooms. 'They think they own the world.'

  Julitta gave him a grateful look, Gisele a narrow one.

  'Come.' Arlette took Julitta by the arm as if she were taking the lead of a recalcitrant puppy. 'Let us go within. You will want to wash away the dust of travel and rest before we eat in the hall. Gisele, see to everyone's comfort and then join us.'

  'Yes, Mama.' Gisele's voice was a dutiful chime, sweet and slightly high-pitched. Julitta imagined that given the chance it could be shrill and whiny. She longed to remove her arm from beneath Arlette's and gave an experimental tug. The slim white fingers tightened and the grey eyes silently warned her to do no such thing. Julitta yielded, but if anything, the spark of defiance kindled by Arlette's reception, was only fanned to a flame.

  'I can see that Felice de Remy has done her best for you, but you need taking in hand,' said Arlette. They had retired to the privacy of t
he chamber above the hall. It was divided by a wattle and daub partition into two rooms, one being the main bedchamber, the other Arlette's working domain. The orderliness of her character was reflected in the precise arrangement of every item of furniture. The upright loom was placed just so to gain light from the window aperture. A dark oak bench leaned against the wall, its positioning exactly central. Julitta wondered if Arlette had used a measuring stick. Everything was neat, dust-free and firmly put in its place. More to be admired than used, Julitta thought.

  Arlette walked round Julitta, examining her as if she were a doubtful piece of ware that she had been duped into buying by a travelling pedlar. Her fingers plucked at the sage-green linen of Julitta's over-dress which had been completed in a rush on the night before she set out from London. Some of the stitches, mostly her own, were over-large, and Arlette clucked her tongue over these.

  'Sewing and weaving, baking and brewing,' she declared like a devotional plainchant. 'I do not suppose that your mother had much opportunity to teach you any of those. Well, you'll soon learn. You have your father's looks, so I suppose you must have his quick wits too. If you are to be of any profit to Brize when your marriage is arranged, it is my duty to make a silk purse from a sow's ear… and it is your duty to learn.'

  Julitta's eyes flew wide at the words profit, marriage and duty. She knew it was the lot with which most women were burdened, but she had lived outside its conventions for most of her life and was filled with horror at the thought of conforming. 'My father did not bring me to Ulverton to be groomed for sale like one of his mares,' she said with a toss of her head.

  Gisele looked primly horrified at Julitta's rebellion. Arlette's stare was cold. 'Your father at least acknowledges his duty,' she said icily. 'He could have left you in the gutter. Think about that, my girl, before you open your mouth to be ungrateful. I'll not have you shaming the proud name of Brize-sur-Risle.'

  Julitta blinked hard, fighting tears. She would not cry in front of her half-sister and her father's wife. At the moment she hated both of them, and she knew without a doubt that they hated her. 'What makes you think I would rather not live in the gutter?' she said hotly.

  Arlette's thin eyebrows rose to meet her wimple. Her face wore an expression of fastidious distaste. 'Certainly your manners smack of such habitation,' she replied, and terminated the exchange by returning to practical details. 'You will sleep in here with Gisele and the maids. You did not bring many belongings from London, but what you possess, you may store in that coffer.' She indicated an oak chest standing next to a neatly arranged stack of mattresses. 'Tomorrow we shall see how much you know and what you can do.'

  Julitta opened her mouth to rebel again, but thought the better of it. Whatever she said would only fetch a rebuke. She had to use guile. Arlette and Gisele had already formed their opinions as to her character and worth, but there were others she could win to her cause, chief among them her father. So instead, she composed her expression meekly and lowered her eyes as if she had been cowed into submission.

  Watching over Julitta as she put her few belongings in the coffer, Arlette uttered a horrified squawk when she saw the size of the honed dagger that the girl laid across the top of her spare gown and short shift.

  'Surely that is not your eating knife?'

  Obviously it was not, for Julitta's small, bone-handled meat-blade was hanging in the leather scabbard at her belt. 'It was my mother's,' she said.

  'Your mother wore a murderous thing like that?' Arlette's voice remained horror-struck.

  'Sometimes.' A devil in her prompted Julitta to lay her hand to the hilt of polished antler and slowly draw the blade forth from its sheath. 'She always kept it sharp. See, I have her whetstone too.' In her other hand she held up a stone suspended from a small belt cord. 'I know how to hone the edge,' she said confidently and ran her thumb along the blade, 'but it doesn't need it just now.' She gave Arlette a feline smile.

  'Put that thing away!' Arlette said hoarsely, one hand at her throat as if she expected to be assaulted. 'It is no fit possession for a girl of your breeding to own. I shall speak to your father about this!'

  Julitta shrugged. 'He knows I have it. He saw it in London and he let me keep it. It was made by Mama's husband. He was a master armourer in the days before King William.' She sheathed the dagger and replaced it in the coffer. 'We got rid of the battle axe though.'

  Arlette's eyes almost popped out of her head and she did not ask to have the last statement explained. 'Your father is frequently too soft for his own good,' she snapped. 'Keep that thing from my sight. I hate to see weapons in my bower.' A small shudder of genuine aversion ran through her.

  Julitta wrapped her shift around the weapon. There were chinks in the armour if you knew where to probe. With satisfaction, she knew that, if necessary, she could give as good as she got.

  Being the implicit believer in duty that she was, Arlette had prepared a feast to welcome Julitta into the household. Sitting on the high dais, surrounded by embroidered napery, glazed earthenware vessels, an elaborate aquamanile and matching silver salt dish, it was difficult for Julitta not to feel intimidated. At the bathhouse she had eaten off a plain trencher of wood or stale bread, and the food had been simple — pottage more often than not, or a split loaf served with butter and curd cheese. At the de Remys' she had grown accustomed to dining in a little more style, with a cloth on the trestle for the main meal, and a wider choice of dishes, but this was overwhelming.

  She looked at a platter of roasted songbirds that had been placed close to her right hand. They were something she had never liked. Their tiny size always filled her with feelings of grief for their death. She could not bear the feel of their frail bones in her fingers. To her left a shoal of trout adorned a flat wooden dish, overlapped one upon the other, their skins brown-silver in the candlelight, their boiled eyes milky-white.

  'Are you not hungry?' her father asked with concern.

  Julitta shook her head. Her stomach was empty, but the fare set before her had killed her appetite, as had the formality. She would far rather have sat among the servants in the main body of the hall and shared their soup and stewed meat.

  Rolf eyed her thoughtfully. 'It is too much, isn't it?' he murmured quietly, so that Arlette's sharp ears should not hear.

  'My mother never gave me food like this,' Julitta said. She knew that she was being petulant and ungrateful, but it had come to her as she sat down to the feast, that in the old days her mother would have sat in Lady Arlette's place. Although Julitta's memory of those times was hazy, she did know that the meal would have been edible and the atmosphere warm and informal.

  'Oh, but she did,' Rolf said with a wry smile, 'but never presented in quite the same way. This is how we would eat at court. You are done a great honour. You like fish, don't you?' He deftly removed one of the trout from the serving platter, set it down on a spare trencher, and with a few practised motions of his eating knife, removed the head and filleted the body, turning it over to expose the moist pink flesh. Then he transferred it to her trencher. 'I can promise you it tastes good.'

  Julitta hesitated, then flaked a piece of trout off the skin and put it in her mouth. He was right, the fish was indeed succulent and delicately flavoured. As she chewed, her stomach came to life, leaping and craving.

  'I would not have thought it of you to be squeamish,' Rolf said curiously.

  Julitta shrugged. 'It is easier to eat things if they do not look as if they might still be alive.'

  Rolf almost choked on his laughter and had to take a swift gulp of his wine.

  Julitta ate the fish and glanced through her lashes at her father, waiting her moment until he had recovered and was ready to give her his attention again. 'May I ask you a boon?'

  'Ask me anything you want.'

  Julitta flickered a brief glance at Arlette who sat on Rolf's other side daintily nibbling one of the songbirds. She could almost see the woman's ears extending like trumpets to listen. 'Can I ride
out with you tomorrow to see the horses?'

  His eyes gleamed with pleasure. 'Of course! It would give me great delight to have you keep me company.'

  'Only Lady Arlette says that I have to begin to learn how to become a lady for the profit of my future marriage. I did not know if I would be allowed out of the bower.'

  Rolf's mouth compressed. He glanced at his wife, whose face had paled as Julitta spoke out. 'No-one will confine you to the bower.'

  'She is twisting my words,' Arlette said angrily.

  'I'm not, you did say it!' Julitta protested, her voice rising so that other people stopped eating and looked towards the family gathering with curiosity.

  'Most certainly your behaviour is a disgrace at the moment. You deserve no favours.'

  'Peace, both of you,' Rolf commanded in a tone that caused the witnesses to look elsewhere and pretend attention to their food. 'I will not have this bickering. Julitta, I do not expect you to air your grievances before all and sundry. You are no longer a small child to throw tantrums if your will is gainsaid… or perhaps you are?'

  Heat scorched into Julitta's face. She shook her head and looked down at her trencher.

  Rolf turned to his wife. 'There is time enough for her to learn from you what she does not know. Tomorrow she will ride out with me and Benedict to see the breeding stock.'

  Arlette's lips became a narrow line. 'As you wish, my lord,' she said quietly, a wealth of unspoken resentment in her response. 'Do I have your permission to retire?'

  He gestured brusque assent. Arlette rose. So did Gisele, lending moral support to her mother.

  Julitta was alarmed. 'I don't have to go too, do I?'

  Rolf sighed. 'Better if you remain here for a while to let the dust settle,' he said wryly. Julitta smiled with relief. T wasn't lying,' she declared as Gisele and Arlette left the hall. 'She truly did say those things.'

  Rolf poured more wine into his cup. 'She has your welfare at heart, you should not take against her so. She is right that you have things to learn.'