Mauger glowered, but Sancho glowered back far more effectively, and held his ground. 'You say you are capable of selecting bloodstock for your Duke? Come then, tell me what you know, and see if your talent matches up to mine.' He gestured to the bench that Julitta had vacated. 'Sit, cease drinking and eat some of that bread to soak up all the wine you've consumed. I don't suffer fools gladly.'
'Why should I listen to you?'
'Because mine is the voice of reason.' The little overseer drew a fresh liquorice twig from his pouch, poked it in the side of his mouth where two teeth still opposed each other in the gum, and started to chew.
Mauger continued to scowl, but he made no attempt to thrust Sancho out of the way, and in a moment, he sat down and reached to the bread basket. 'I've been in this trade since the cradle. I don't need lessons from you.'
Sancho sat down beside him and stretched out his legs, easing their stiffness. 'I too was taught from the cradle and this year I will see out seventy winters. And still I find much to learn. A man who says he knows everything, knows nothing.'
Once out of the house, Julitta hitched her skirts to her shins and ran to catch up with Benedict who was striding out as if the devil were at his heels.
'Wait!' she gasped out. 'Ben, please wait!' 'Leave me alone!' he snarled raggedly over his shoulder. Julitta redoubled her efforts to reach him, and catching him by the arm, swung him round to face her. 'I won't impose on you beyond a moment,' she panted, 'but there is something that you must see. I know that you don't want my company or Mauger's — we're only salt in your wound, but…' Her voice trembled and she broke off.
His eyes had been opaque, a little mad, but now they cleared and he focused on her, breathing hard. 'I should have known that I could not run from you,' he said and squared his shoulders. 'What is it you want of me?'
What I cannot have, she thought. 'I want to give you something. Come.' She tugged at his sleeve, drawing him back toward the house and the stable shed beyond the courtyard. 'Here.' She drew him into the first stall.
He stared at the two horses, the grey gelding and the small chestnut mare. The grey swung his intelligent head and absorbed the scent and sight of the man. A sound, somewhere between a nicker and a grunt, rippled from the gelding's nostrils, and he tugged at his halter, eager to reach Benedict. The mare, too, pricked up her ears and whickered softly.
'Cylu?' Benedict whispered. He went to the grey and laid his hand against the glossy, muscular neck. Cylu nudged him lovingly with his nose. Benedict inspected the horse, turning disbelief into reality as he felt the solidity of bone and muscle, the satin hide, the warm, sweet breath. 'Where did you find them?' His attention flickered briefly to the mare, to Julitta, then back to grey gelding. A part of him was restored, and although it was only a small part, by its very presence it assumed great importance. A straw upon which to cling, a foundation on which to rebuild.
We bought them from a coper here in Bordeaux,' Julitta said, watching him with a mingling of love and pain. 'He said that he obtained them from a Basque trader.'
Benedict laughed harshly. 'A Basque cut-throat more likely. I wonder how many other pilgrims' horses have been sold that way?' He pressed his palm against Cylu's warm, dappled neck. 'I saw her die,' he muttered. 'Mercifully it was quick, she knew nothing beyond the first moment, but her eyes were on me as she fell. There was nothing I could do… nothing.' His voice quivered and his fingers tightened in Cylu's mane. If they had not, he would have turned round and engulfed Julitta in his grief and anger, and he knew that he dared not. A step too far on the crumbling edge of a precipice. Behind him, she was silent, as if she too sensed the danger of the moment. Then he heard the straw rustle. When he dared to look round, he discovered that he was alone.
He took time to compose himself, washed his hands and face in the water pail and went outside. She was sitting on a bench in the shade of the stable wall, her skirts tucked beneath her. He went to her and sat down, keeping a body's distance between them.
'I am sorry,' he said wryly.
'You needed a moment to be alone – and so did I.' She looked at him, and then down at her hands.
Benedict watched her toy with her gold wedding ring. 'Was Mauger so jealous of you that he had to bring you all the way to Bordeaux?'
'In a way. Robert of Normandy decided that I was the perfect dish to refresh his jaded palate. He wanted Mauger out of the way, so sent him down here to buy an Iberian warhorse. Mauger saw straight through his ploy and made me accompany him – not that I was unwilling. Robert of Normandy is no safe harbour for a runaway wife, and besides, I enjoy the freedom of travelling. Of course,' she added to the gold ring, 'instead of Robert of Normandy, Mauger now has you to contend with.'
Benedict sighed. 'You and he, I thought you had found contentment?' he said, remembering that time he had walked in on them making love on the solar floor.
'Resignation,' she murmured and darted him a glance. 'I have tried to adapt to Mauger's ways, he tries to compromise, but the road is strewn with thorns.'
Benedict thought about Sancho, about the tale the old man had told him of his youthful elopement. 'It was hard for her,' he had said. 'We never really had any peace.' He leaned his head against the stable wall and looked at her. 'When I have spoken to your father and delivered the horses, I am returning to Castile.'
'For always?' Dismay widened her eyes and she caught her full underlip in her teeth, a mannerism that had always maddened and enchanted him.
'For the next few years at least. Sancho will more than welcome me. If I return to England, it will only be to face the persecution of William Rufus. I know between him, Robert of Normandy, and Rodrigo Diaz of Bivar, which lord I would rather serve.'
'But what of my father?' Julitta protested with indignation. 'I can understand that you feel no loyalty to Rufus and Robert, neither of them are worth a spit in the wind, but surely you owe my father more than that?'
Benedict met her gaze which was fierce-blue with anger. 'I owe your father more than I can ever repay, most of it in regrets and apologies,' he said bleakly. 'I will do my best to make reparations in Spanish horse stock and silver. You do not need to tell me that it is not enough.'
She said nothing, just continued to stare at him, and he plunged on, further justifying his decision in the face of her silence. 'You are now your father's heir, and through you, Mauger. You may say that I am cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I could not bear to take orders from him at Brize and Ulverton. I have made friends in Castile and the beginnings of a new life. The threads of my old one are too tangled and broken to be mended.'
Julitta reddened, and compressing her lips looked the other way for a moment.
'Julitta?' He leaned toward her.
She shook her head and swallowed valiantly. 'You are right,' she said. 'A life in Castile will suit you, and my father too, since he will have a source of fine-bred Iberian horses at the flick of his finger. He can always find another overseer for Ulverton. It is just that I…' She broke off and angrily wiped her eyes. 'It is foolish.' Her voice quivered. 'I have loved you since I was five years old. You would think I would know better by now.' She sprang to her feet before he could close the gap between them. 'No, let me be,' she warned. 'I am overjoyed to know you are alive, let that be enough.'
Benedict rose too, not knowing what he was going to do or say, only aware that they could not part like this. There had to be a better balance. 'Julitta, listen,' he pleaded, but whatever he would have said went unspoken as two grooms entered Clothilde's courtyard, leading a plunging black stallion, its eyes white-rimmed and its upper lip wrinkled back to show vicious yellow teeth. Its mane and tail in contrast to its coat, were a bright silver.
Open-mouthed, Benedict stared. 'Christ on the Cross,' he said softly. 'Don't tell me that Mauger's gone and bought that brute.'
'What do you mean?' Julitta demanded sharply, a note of fear in her voice.
'Sancho and I saw that black earlier. He'd just kicked one of his handlers in the thigh and nigh on cracked the bone. Fine colour, fine looks, but I doubt that any man will come close enough to mount him, let alone stay in the saddle. He's not just wild, he's savage.'
Julitta shook her head. 'Mauger would never buy an animal like that. You know how cautious he is.'
'Cautious or not, it's been brought here, and it's certainly neither for me, nor Sancho.' He started forward
