Julitta nodded her thanks, wary of using her voice. The urge to retch was still strong. Behind her eyes, there was a hot, swollen ache, as if the sea had poured in there too, and was now seeking to flood out.
Benedict handed her a fresh blanket, disappeared into the gloom among the horses, and returned with a pile of garments. 'Here. Are you strong enough to put them on?'
Again she nodded.
Benedict hesitated, stooped to stroke her cold cheek, and went to the hatch ladder.
Julitta listened to his footsteps recede on deck and realised that he had not changed his own wet tunic, probably because he had given his only dry clothes to her. She clutched them for a moment, buried her face in their familiar smell and fought the scalding tide behind her lids. Her spirit struggled against the wave of self-pity and exhaustion engulfing her. She wiped the heel of her hand across her eyes, and set about exchanging her saturated garments for Benedict's dry ones. It seemed to take forever to remove her gown and shift, her clammy hose and loin cloth. Chills shuddered through her body, and her fingers were clumsy. Trying to attach Benedict's hose to the dry loin cloth seemed impossible, and by the time she finally succeeded, she was sobbing with frustration and fury at her own impotence. Once started, she could not stop, and the more she tried to hold back, the harder she cried. She lay on her stomach in the pile of straw, her face buried in her arms, and wept herself dry. From there, she drifted into an exhausted doze, her limbs twitching and jerking in the aftermath of hard, physical effort. But although her body was exhausted, her mind would not rest. A vision of Mauger's drowned, bloated face swam across her mind. And then she saw him astride the black stallion, swimming through the depths beneath the Constantine, seeking a way in through the pitched-caulked hull doors.
Her entire body jerked with the shock of the vision and her eyes flew open, a scream stifled behind her lips.
She heard voices and the clump of footsteps on the hatchway stairs, and sat up. Her heart thumped against her ribs in rapid strokes and her cheeks were damp, not only from her hair. Even in sleep she had been weeping.
By the hazy light of the single lantern, she saw Benedict and a sailor carrying Mauger between them. His blond head sagged, his mouth lolled open.
'Mauger… Oh Jesu, is he dead?' Julitta was unable to move, could only watch with widening eyes as they brought him over to her.
'No,' Benedict said, his voice constricted by the effort of setting Mauger carefully down on the hay, 'but he's barely breathing, and this gash on his head is still bleeding.'
Julitta stared at her husband, at the shallow rise and fall of his chest, the blue tinge to his flesh, the red trickle from the deep gash in his forehead. She reached out her hand and took hold of one of his. The fingers were as cold as effigy-marble.
Benedict studied her for a moment with brooding eyes. 'I'll go and fetch Sampson,' he said. 'He's one of the crew members, but he once trained for the church. It is the nearest Mauger will get to a priest.'
Julitta silently nodded, and did not look up as he turned and left.
Mauger was shriven by Sampson, who, despite having given up the church more than ten years ago, was still comfortingly familiar with its rituals. Certainly Mauger did not seem to notice the difference as he weakly made confession and was absolved of sin.
For the rest of the day, watched over by an exhausted Julitta, Mauger drifted in and out of consciousness, but never regained coherence. His grey eyes were opaque and unfocused, his breathing rapid and shallow. Just before midnight, in the presence of herself and Benedict, it stopped altogether.
Julitta composed Mauger's hands upon his breast and drew the blanket up to his chin. His eyes were closed and he looked as if he fallen from utter weariness into sound sleep. She bowed her head, unable to weep, for she had wept herself dry before he was found.
'He tried to be good to me in his way,' she said. 'Only I never wanted to wed him; never gave him a chance.'
'It isn't your fault,' Benedict said sharply, alarmed at her response even while he understood it.
'But it is. He was always trying to prove himself to me. I made him lose his judgement. He would never have bought that horse of his own accord.'
Benedict looked at her with pain in his eyes. He well understood her attitude. After Gisele's death, he had felt the scourge of guilt, still did on occasion if he had the time to brood. 'Grief heals,' he said, laying his hand upon hers. 'Guilt destroys.'
'Playing the priest again?' she bit out, and flashed him a glance full of anger. But there was misery there too, and need.
'No, just a man who lost the wife he had wronged before he could make atonement,' he said.
She flinched as his pain pierced hers. 'I'm sorry,' she said in a small voice with a break at its edge. 'I didn't think.'
'Ah, Julitta.' He folded her in his arms, and she accepted the embrace, her body stiff and hesitant. 'I don't want to lose you too. All our lives we have been coming together and breaking apart.' He swallowed, then raised one of his hands to touch her gaunt, hollow face. 'I want you, Julitta, not your guilt, not mine, just the two of us, and a new start. No,' he added, as she opened her mouth to speak. 'Now is not the time. We still have Mauger to honour and lay to rest, and there is grieving to be done. Let the time turn under heaven. Just think on what I have said.' Gently he released her, and went up on deck to fetch such things as would be needed for the washing and laying out of a corpse.
Dry-eyed, Julitta gazed upon the body of her husband and wished that she could weep.
CHAPTER 60
BRIZE-SUR-RISLE, SPRING 1088
Julitta knelt at the feet of the statue of the Magdalene Mary in Brize's convent. The flagged floor was cold beneath her knees, and the breath of her prayers broke from her lips in puffs of white vapour. This was Arlette's domain. Even in death, her father's wife dominated the place. Not content with the small chapel dedicated to her beyond the high altar, her presence pervaded the rest of the church. The wood and ivory statue of the Magdalene was clad in a green robe, a neat white wimple framing a vacant, half-smiling face, its complexion made luminous by the glow of the sanctuary lamp.
A thick wax candle burned on a spike. Beside it, in a specially cut niche, a pyramid of votive tapers flickered, each one a prayer for the souls of Arlette de Brize, her daughter Gisele, and now for Mauger of Fauville. Julitta crossed herself, rose from her knees, and lit another taper to add to those already burning. Since her return, she had made it her daily ritual to visit the church and pray for the soul of her dead husband.
Coming to terms with his death had been difficult, because it had meant coming to terms with herself and the guilt which Benedict had warned against. She could well recall the bitterness and rage of her childhood on discovering that the world did not revolve around herself alone, and that a hitherto unknown half-sister had laid claim to all that Julitta held dear — her standing in the world, her father's love, Benedict. She had hated Gisele even without knowing her. There had been a dark triumph in lying with Benedict, in taking him from her sister. A fleeting victory, paid for a hundred times over by her marriage to Mauger — and Mauger had done much of the paying.
Outside, a February dusk was gathering strength, the light a pale grey-blue. With a sigh, Julitta adjusted her cloak and walked towards the open doorway. Before she could reach it, she heard the snort of a horse and the ring of hoof on stone. Freya whinnied and was answered by a low, stallion nicker. Julitta's heart began to thump. But it was her father who stepped inside the church and made the sign of the Cross on his breast, and she was aware of a pang of disappointment.