The Conquest

Her fingers ceased to move and her body stiffened. 'When?'

'Tomorrow.'

'So soon!'

'I've to get there and find lodgings. Besides, if I'm on the road, I might as well do some buying and selling on the way.' He reached out to cup her dismayed, delicate face in his palm. 'You know that I always come back,' he said softly. 'You know that Brize-sur-Risle is my harbour and you are my anchor. I'll bring you a bolt of silk to make a gown and thread-of-gold to trim it.'

'How long will you be gone?' Her immense eyes were troubled and he felt a pang of guilty irritation. Harbours and anchors were all very well, but he longed with all his heart for the wildness of the open sea.

'I do not know, perhaps a month.' He drew her head down to his and kissed her. 'Think of the prestige for Brize. And it will mean more money for Gisele's dowry when the time comes. Perhaps we will be able to secure her a great husband.'

Arlette was silent, but he could sense her thoughts. She was proud of her status and would like nothing better than to improve it and then show off to their neighbours. Mollified, she relaxed against him.

'You should have a son to inherit,' she murmured. 'I know I do not carry well, and I am sorry that Gisele was a girl, but if we try again, mayhap we'll be more fortunate.'

Rolf smiled wryly in the dark as she parted her thighs for him. He knew what was expected. Arlette was a firm believer in the Church's view that the carnal act between husband and wife was for the sole purpose of begetting children. Pleasure was a devil's wile and to be shunned. If it was experienced, it was to be confessed, and penance done to cleanse the sin.

He serviced her as swiftly and impersonally as Orage servicing one of the brood mares, his body brought to release as much by his inner vision of new horizons as by his wife's passive flesh.

CHAPTER 5

Ailith had wished upon a shooting star at the Yuletide feast. Now another star, trailing a line of fire, had blazed in the April sky for almost a week and she knew for a certainty that her wish had been granted.

'I believe I am with child,' she confided in Felice as she pinned her cloak and prepared to go to market with her neighbour.

Felice widened her eyes. 'Ailith, I am pleased for you! How soon, tell me when!'

'Between November's end and Yule, I think.' Complexion pink and radiant, she told Felice about making her wish. 'Goldwin said that the strange star bodes us ill, but I know he is wrong,' she added, laying her hand upon her belly which was flat, revealing nothing of the new life it contained.

'Have you told him yet?'

'No, but I'm going to roast a hare tonight and ply him with our best mead – make it a proper occasion to celebrate.' Ailith spoke brightly, but anxiety lurked beneath her sparkle. Goldwin had been dour and taciturn of late. He spent far too much time at his forge. Every day he was up before dawn, working until well after dusk, squinting by candlelight to complete death-bladed axe-heads, seax's and swords. He no longer saw beauty in the world, only the killing brightness of edged steel.

'I too have had a gift from the star.' Felice leaned close to Ailith lest the accompanying maids should hear. 'Four years Aubert and I have been married. I thought I must surely be barren, but this week I have missed my second flux.'

'Truly?' Ailith's face kindled with delight and she gave Felice a hug. 'Then we'll be outgrowing our girdles together, and neither will be able to bore the other with talk of breeding and babies. Do you know what I did this morning?'

Felice shook her head.

Ailith giggled. 'I stuffed an unwoven fleece beneath my robe to see how I will look in six months' time. You should try it too!'

Felice smiled, but Ailith received the impression that it was a trifle forced.

'How long will Aubert be away?'

Felice's expression became wary and the lustre left her eyes. 'He never knows with these wine-buying forays. Sometimes he is home within two weeks, sometimes it can be as long as two months.'

Ailith pulled a face. Despite Goldwin's current sour humour, he was always there, solid and steady, his bulk warm and comforting in the bed beside her at night. 'I would hate that.'

Felice gave a little shrug. 'You become accustomed… only sometimes it is harder than others.'

'Do you miss Normandy?'

'A little. I loved our house in Rouen, and I was safe there. Here, if I open my mouth, people hear my accent and look at me with hatred because of our Duke and your King. I think that when Aubert returns, he will take me back to Normandy until peace is made.'

Ailith nodded and agreed that it was the most sensible course to take, but knew that if Felice did leave, she would miss her dreadfully. After the inauspicious beginning to their relationship, she and Felice had rapidly become good friends. And now, the fact that they were both pregnant only served to draw them closer. She did not want to see it sundered by the politics of power-hungry men.

Despite, or perhaps because of the portentous star in the sky, the market stalls of the Chepe were louder and busier than ever. Ailith purchased plump silver sardines and a cheese wrapped in cabbage leaves. She laughed with Felice at the sight of a small dog fleeing from a butcher's stall, its jaws strained by a beef rib fully half its size.

Together the women bought lengths of linen to stitch swaddling bands, and visited the apothecary's booth to pore over childbirth remedies.

'An eaglestone, that's what you need,' Felice declared, holding up an egg-shaped brown stone threaded on a ribbon while the apothecary looked on, contemplating his profit. 'It will ease the pain of travail, or so I've been told.'

Ailith eyed the stone dubiously, and wondered how. The price the apothecary had suggested was extortionate. She knew that she could walk down by the river's strand and pick up stones that looked suspiciously similar. 'Later perhaps.' She shook her head. 'There is time aplenty to think of such trinkets.'

Felice, however, was not to be dissuaded, and purchased the eaglestone for a price that horrified Ailith. Her friend went on to buy nearly every remedy that the gleeful apothecary suggested. Ailith watched the packages mount on the counter and seeing the hectic colour in Felice's cheeks, the unnatural sparkle in her dark eyes, began to feel disconcerted.

'Have you gone mad?' she demanded as they returned to the bustle of the streets. 'What do you want all those for?'

'Security,' Felice said and gave a brittle laugh. 'I can bear anything but pain.'

Before Felice looked away, Ailith saw the terror in her wide stare. 'It will be all right,' she tried to comfort, taking her friend's stiff arm. 'The pain doesn't last for ever, and you'll 'forget it the moment you have your new baby in your arms.'

'My mother died in childbirth,' Felice said woodenly, 'bearing me, her first. I am told by my family that I am very like her.'

'But not exactly the same.'

'Oh, it's all right for you!' Felice snapped, shaking her arm free. 'You're built like a barn. All you have to do is open your doors and the child will just walk out!'

Ailith recoiled as if Felice had slapped her across the face. Although she knew that Felice was striking out from the depth of her fear, it did not make the words hurt any less. She tightened her lips and quickened her pace, feeling a small, desolate spurt of gratification as Felice had to run to keep up.

'Ailith, wait, slow down. Oh curse me for a shrew, I didn't mean it!' Felice panted, clutching at Ailith's cloak. 'It's just that I'm so envious of you!'

Ailith stopped. 'Of my size, you mean? You would like to be built like a barn too?'

'I wish I had your hips,' Felice admitted, 'but it's more than that. I wish I had your honest joy, a taste for the simple pleasures.'