Benedict went red beneath his tan. 'Sancho, I want you to meet Julitta. Do you remember, I spoke of her to you when I told you about my home?'
Sancho appraised Julitta more thoroughly, chewing with great vigour on his liquorice root. 'Rare,' he approved, nodding his head. The leer narrowed. He spat out of the side of his mouth. 'Where's the husband?'
'Being fetched.' Benedict turned to Julitta, sensing her barely contained anger at being thus treated. 'Julitta, this is Sancho, the best stud overseer in all of Castile — for all that he looks like a brigand and he hasn't any manners,' he added pointedly.
'Waste of time,' Sancho growled. 'Say what you mean and be done with it.'
Julitta exchanged glances with Benedict. He saw irritation in her eyes, and a sparkle of amusement. 'What have you told him about me?'
'Everything that I should know,' Sancho interjected. 'And as private as the confessional. I may be a mannerless oaf, but I know when to stitch my lips.'
Which meant that he knew everything. This time it was Julitta who blushed.
Sancho cocked his head to one side. 'So how come you to be in Bordeaux, my lady?'
'My husband is here to buy warhorses at the market for Robert of Normandy, and he desired to bring me with him on this occasion.'
'Ah,' said Sancho. 'Keeping his treasure chest where he can see it.' His eyes glimmered like moonstones, and he grinned wolfishly at Benedict. 'Trouble is, he left it unlocked, didn't he?'
Benedict pulled a warning face at the old man. 'I thought you knew when to stitch your lips,' he said.
'I do,' Sancho retorted. 'Most of the time.'
Sancho insisted on accompanying Benedict and Julitta to the lodging house. He would be a chaperone, he said. Nothing unseemly could possibly happen with him in attendance. Benedict was not certain that he agreed. Sancho's tongue was a razor, and as a matter of bad habit he used it to cut. But at least Julitta would arrive home under the escort of two men instead of just himself. He decided that Mauger would judge the little overseer's presence the lesser of the two evils.
Mauger was already at Madame Clothilde's, his face like thunder, his fist clamped around a goblet of wine which he was just draining as Benedict walked in. The groom stood a little to one side, a fresh red graze on his cheek, his eyes afraid.
The presence of others held Mauger's temper in check, although every muscle was corded and tense. 'I told you to stay,' he said to Julitta, his voice hoarse with the effort of control.
'I was right about Benedict,' she defied him, her chin raised, her body quivering, 'but you chose not to listen.'
'He looks remarkably hale and hearty to me,' Mauger said coldly.
'Late spring he wasn't,' Sancho said, and removing his battered felt hat, sat down on a bench near the window embrasure.
Mauger eyed him with disfavour. 'Who are you?'
'I'm head overseer of the stud belonging to Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, although that will mean nothing to a barbarian such as you.' Sancho spat his wad of chewed liquorice root onto the floor.
Disgust flared Mauger's nostrils. 'You call me a barbarian?' His gaze swept over the haphazard assembly of rags before him.
'He knows more than either of us,' Benedict defended swiftly, 'and probably more than Rolf, since he's been alive that much longer.'
'I don't believe you,' Mauger said through compressed lips.
'Believe what you want, it's the truth.'
Madame Clothilde appeared then, bearing more wine and two large baskets of bread and fresh fruit. She too looked at Sancho as if she considered him a barbarian whom she would rather not entertain beneath her roof.
She deposited the food and departed to her cooking pot, wiping her hands on her apron and muttering.
Mauger replenished his wine cup and took another long drink. 'Where is Gisele?' he asked.
Benedict hesitated. When he spoke, his voice was devoid of expression. 'She lies in a small chapel on the pilgrim road to Compostella.' His hand shook slightly as he took a drink of his own wine. It was still difficult to talk about. He could feel the weight of Mauger's stare, studying his reactions, judging them. 'We were attacked by Basque brigands in the mountains and she was killed – an arrow through the heart. All of our pilgrim group were slaughtered except me. I…' He broke off with a shuddering breath. It was impossible to continue.
Mauger cleared his throat. His gaze slid away from Benedict, and he tilted his cup to his mouth. 'I am sorry,' he said gruffly.
The sound of Benedict's ragged breathing was loud in the silence. Julitta chewed her lip. Her eyes flickered once to her husband, and then, with sudden decision, she went to Benedict and put her arms around him. 'I am sorry too,' she said. 'She was my sister; she deserved better of life, and of death.'
Benedict made a strangled sound and put his face in his hands. His body was wracked by dry sobs as behind his eyes he saw again the look on Gisele's face as the arrow pierced her heart and brought her down like a doe. Mauger looked on, his expression appalled and embarrassed. Julitta said nothing, just held Benedict, trying to convey sympathy and grief by touch. She could understand why he had shied from the subject on the wharf.
'It is good that he weeps,' said Sancho, the least perturbed of anyone in the room. 'It cleans the wound of poison, makes it easier to heal. I have been concerned about him.'
Julitta raised her eyes to Sancho's. Behind the prickly facade lay compassion and care. 'What happened to him?' she asked.
Briefly Sancho told her the entire story as he had heard it from Faisal, not once glancing at Mauger, as if he felt the other man should not be present.
'I would have gladly died too,' Benedict muttered through the bars of his fingers.
'Not gladly, son,' Sancho reproached. 'If you had truly desired to yield up your soul to God, you would not have fought so hard to live when Faisal was tending you. It is the self-pity in you speaking, not the man.'
Benedict raised his head and stared at Sancho with narrowed eyes. Sancho returned the look, unperturbed. Benedict wiped his eyes on the heel of his hand and pushing himself out of Julitta's embrace, rose and walked to the window embrasure to stare out on Clothilde's sun-filled vegetable garden.
'So what are you doing in Bordeaux?' Mauger demanded, an edge of resentment and suspicion in his voice.
Benedict's left shoulder rose and fell. 'Returning to Brize with my burden of tidings and a cargo of Spanish horses.' His tone was weary now, uncaring. 'I hear that you are seeking a war stallion for Duke Robert.'
Mauger drank off his wine and refilled his cup. 'What of it?'
Julitta glanced at her husband. It occurred to her that with Gisele dead, Benedict was no longer the automatic heir to Brize-sur-Risle, that Mauger was the one with the better claim through herself. She wondered if Mauger had realised it too.
Benedict shrugged again and did not look round. 'Nothing,' he said dully. 'Congratulations.'
'Lord Robert specifically requested that I be sent,' Mauger added defensively.
'I am sure you are capable of selecting the kind of horse the Duke requires.'
'I am,' Mauger said tightly. 'And I have. So don't you go parading your own fancy Spanish wares beneath his nose when we return.'
'Christ, Mauger, do you think I care at the moment?' Benedict demanded in a voice that still cracked with the raw emotion of grief. 'I don't give a split rivet for your petty schemes!' He made an abrupt throwing gesture with his clenched fist. 'I think we have nothing more to say to each other that will not end in a fight.' He strode from the room without looking at its other occupants, not even Julitta.
Mauger drank down the wine. 'Don't look at me,' he growled. 'It's not my fault.'
Julitta gave him a disgusted glare. 'I know that you would prefer him to have died,' she said, and rising to her feet, followed Benedict out.
Sancho stepped into the breach as Mauger made to stride in pursuit of his wife. 'Stay,' he commanded, his cracked voice suddenly imperative. 'You will only goad him into a corner, or he will goad you, and there will be bloodshed. Let the woman handle him.'
