Julitta considered him with pursed lips. 'I'm glad you refused, but it has made trouble for you?'
He shrugged and smiled ruefully. 'No more than usual. Rufus will forget, and his pretty boy will fall from favour. They never last for long. Rufus treats them like meals to be eaten — chews them up and throws away the bones.'
Julitta turned to stroke the mare's face and strong, arched neck. 'You once told me that Rufus wanted to make a meal of you.'
'He still does, but I have no intention of lying down across his table. Let his bons amis and the churchmen wrestle for his soul. I am well out of the broil and on my way to God's grace in Compostella.' He gathered Cylu's reins and set his foot in the stirrup before the temptation to say that yes, he would enter the hall, became too great.
'I did not think that you really cared about God's grace,' she said, watching him narrowly.
'No, but Gisele does, and who is to say that she is not right?'
Julitta shrugged. There was a brief, awkward silence.
'Besides,' Benedict continued, 'my own concern is with Spanish horses. I'm going to buy some good breeding stock for your father – Iberian stallions and mares. We need an influx of new blood.'
Julitta nodded and folded her arms as if protecting herself. The spontaneity had died. She was a polite hostess bidding farewell to a sometime visitor. Her eyes looked at him and through him.
'Wish me good fortune,' Benedict said, and turned Cylu towards the gates. Suddenly he was desperate to be gone, as if the air of Fauville's courtyard was unbreathable. He clicked his tongue and drove in his heels, and Cylu sprang into a startled canter that took man and horse swiftly away from Julitta and the mare.
'A safe journey, and a safe return!' she called after him, but he was already beyond hearing, the pounding of hooves and the snort of Cylu's breath wasting the words torn from her. She gathered up her skirts to run after him, but as he reached Fauville's gates, Mauger came riding in on his stocky chestnut work horse, and the moment was lost. She dared say nothing in front of her husband.
Mauger eyed Benedict and then cut his gaze to Julitta standing poised in the ward.
Benedict reined back to let Mauger pass. 'It's only a fleeting visit,' he said to the other man's scowl. 'I brought a leaving gift for Julitta. If you've any sense, you'll accept it with goodwill.'
'You're a fine one to talk of sense!' Mauger growled. 'Every time you show your face a storm brews. You were leaving, were you not?' He gestured over his shoulder at the open gateway.
Benedict quelled the urge to make a snide reply, and without a word, rode out of Fauville. Mauger continued on into the bailey and dismounted.
'What did he want?' he demanded brusquely.
'To say farewell before he leaves for Compostella,' she answered evenly while she tried to judge his mood. The scowl on his face meant nothing, it was a habitual expression – a great pity, since it marred the handsomeness he would otherwise have possessed.
'He said that he had brought you a gift.'
'Yes.' Julitta indicated the mare. 'I do not suppose you recognise her?'
'Should I?' Mauger handed his own mount to a groom and came to look at Freya. He ran his hands down her legs, picked up her hooves and studied the undersides, measured her proportions with an experienced eye. Grudging admiration flickered upon his face. 'Should I?' he repeated, for Julitta had not answered.
Watching him carefully she said, 'Do you remember that day when I begged you to buy that mare and foal and you refused?'
'No, I don't, I…' he said, and then stopped as he did indeed remember. 'And this, I suppose, is the foal,' he said after a moment.
Julitta nodded silently.
'I don't like him giving you gifts, and sneaking around Fauville when I am not by.'
'One gift, and one visit?' Julitta was stung to reply. 'He did not even stay for refreshment. Ask in the hall if you do not believe me.'
His eyes narrowed. 'Perhaps I will,' he said, and then, folding his arms, added, 'You know by law that what is yours belongs to me.'
'You will not take her away!' Horrified and angry, Julitta rounded on him.
Mauger rubbed the knuckle of his forefinger beneath his nose. 'That is for me to decide, not you to command,' he said stiffly.
'She is mine.' Julitta threw caution to the wind. The leash of duty could only accept so much strain before it snapped. 'If Benedict can see it, why can't you? Are you less than him, or perhaps you are afraid, is that it?'
Mauger's complexion darkened angrily. 'Mind your tongue, or I'll have you clapped in a scold's bridle!' he snarled. 'Benedict de Remy is a weak fool, a nithing. I count him beneath my contempt. I fear no man.'
'Then prove he is nothing to you, let me keep the horse.' Julitta raised her chin a notch and challenged him with her eyes and her posture.
'And is he nothing to you?' Mauger took a step towards her, his breathing swift. She saw the brightness of lust in his eyes, of doubt and the need to believe.
'He is nothing to me,' she lied in a steady voice, and although she could not prevent hot colour from flooding her face, she held Mauger's gaze. 'You are my husband.'
'And you obey me.' Mauger took her by the arm and steered her up the stairs and into the hall.
'Can I keep the mare?'
Mauger paused at the second set of stairs to the sleeping loft and pulled her against him. Julitta made herself pliantly passive, modestly willing as Mauger preferred. 'That depends,' he said again, but she saw that once his appetite was sated, he would yield.
CHAPTER 53
It was going to rain. Benedict glanced at the sky, which an hour since had been a brilliant summer blue. Now, clouds were piling in grey, fleecy layers over the High Pyrenees and billowing fast towards the pilgrims on the open road which twisted its way from the splendour of the mountains, down to the sun-baked plains of the kingdom of Castile.
Although it was still midsummer, the mountain winds could still cut ice-sharp through garments, and heavy rain turn tame streams into savage torrents. Landslips were not infrequent upon the tortuous road, and more than one traveller had come to grief before reaching the safety of the plains.
Had Benedict been alone, he would have travelled on one of his father's wine galleys, but Gisele hated the sea. She only needed to set her foot on a deck for her stomach to curdle. In defence of the overland route she had argued that a true pilgrimage to Compostella should involve paying respects at various abbeys, shrines and cathedrals along the way, lighting a candle at each one for her mother's soul.
So now, here they were, descending from the mountains, their offerings lighting a chain of devotional wax beacons that stretched back seven hundred miles to the cathedral in Rouen. Arlette's passage to heaven was assured.
The first drops of rain spattered down as heavy and cold as the small silver pennies in Benedict's pouch. Gisele exclaimed in dismay and pulled her broad-brimmed pilgrim's hat down over her ears. The other pilgrims with whom they were travelling for safety's sake, sought among their own packs for cloaks and hats.
'How much further to the hospice?' a merchant from Bordeaux demanded of their guide, a wiry little Basque who went by the name of Pons.
'Another hour, perhaps two.' The man gave a casual shrug. His accent was strong and difficult to follow. 'We arrive before dark.' He hitched the coil of rope on his shoulder, and continued along the path, his step light and arrogant.
The merchant hissed with irritation and rolled his eyes at Benedict. 'He's being paid enough to guide us through the passes. These mountain people, they are not to be trusted. Sooner cut your throat than give you respect.'
Benedict said nothing. Pons was indeed a rogue with more than a touch of the light finger about him, but
