'But you did not, and as I understand it, you and his wife were good friends.'
She said nothing. His hands were red and his cloak looked as if it had been dragged through a butcher's shambles. Blood trickled slowly down her wrist now he had released his pressure. He retrieved the scramaseax blade from the dusty floor of the forge and placed it gently on the bench.
'He has been christened Benedict, and I am told that he has dark eyes and hair and a squall on him fit to blow the thatch off a roof,' Rolf added, his voice soft and persuasive. It was like coaxing a mare to accept a foal not her own. If he had mentally to drape Felice's child in the dead baby's skin he would do so.
She turned away to face the cold forge, but he saw her right hand go to her injured wrist and press down hard on the line of the cut. Even before she spoke, he knew that his battle was won.
'I cannot go looking like this.'
'Then change your gown and make yourself decent.'
'But Goldwin… and my son…' Her voice faltered and her eyes started to fill again. 'I have to see them properly buried. How will I do that?'
'Leave that to me. I will make all the necessary arrangements with your priest.' He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. Tread softly, he told himself. Imagine that she is one of your mares. 'Then he can come to St Aethelburga's and tell you all that you need to know.' He went slowly to the forge door and held it open.
'The child is two days old,' he said. 'Fortunately he is strong, but the weather is so cold.'
She followed him to the door. 'Benedict, you said?'
'For Aubert's father, although fortunately for his future, the babe resembles his mother's side.'
She lifted her smudged, suffering eyes to his. Although heavy with tears, they were quite lucid now. 'Do not expect my gratitude for this,' she said shakily.
'It is Aubert's gratitude I expect,' he answered, his tone wry.
The nun opened the door and ushered Ailith into a spartan, clean room, its walls whitened with lime daub and given light through an aperture at shoulder height. The only furniture consisted of a crude wooden coffer and a bed. Aubert was sitting on its coverlet of woven wool and was holding his wife's hand, watching her as she slept. When he heard the door open, he turned round.
'Ailith!' His weary features lit with pleasure, but in the next moment sobered as he rose and hastened towards her. 'What are you doing here? Has Goldwin relented?'
'Goldwin is dead.' Ailith felt each word like the slash of a knife. Why couldn't Rolf de Brize have minded his own business instead of forcing her to remain and endure this hell? 'He died at the coronation of your precious Norman Duke.'
'Ah, Ailith, no!'
'Do not touch me!' She took a rapid back-step. 'My husband called you nithing, and if it were not for your wife and the child… and the intervention of Rolf de Brize,' she added with a grimace, 'I would not be here now.'
'Rolf?' Aubert looked more baffled than ever. He rumpled his hand through his unkempt grey curls and rubbed his eyes.
'He says that you have a son in need of a wet nurse?'
'Indeed so. He will die unless we can find a woman to suckle him. Do you know of one?' Aubert looked at her hopefully.
'Yes, I know of one.' Advancing to the bed, Ailith stared down at Felice. The glossy black hair had been neatly braided and arranged, but it only emphasised her pallor.
'She almost bled to death,' Aubert said. 'Even now the nuns are not sure if she will live. Certainly she is unable to feed the baby.'
Ailith could scarcely remember the pangs of her own labour. It was the aftermath that had caused her own mortal wounds. 'I too might have bled to death,' she murmured, touching her bandaged left wrist.
As if aware of Ailith's brooding scrutiny, Felice stirred and licked her lips. Her eyelids fluttered open and then her hand groped for Ailith's.
'I'm so glad you have come,' she whispered. 'I have a son too… born on the eve of the feast of our Lord. Aubert will show him to you. The nuns have put him in a separate room because his crying disturbs me… I am not strong enough to feed him. We have to find a wet nurse.'
Ailith squeezed Felice's narrow fingers. A deluge of words were held back by the sight of Felice's weakness. Ailith could see that even the effort of speech had exhausted her. The new mother's eyelids were drooping and her grip was limp. 'That is why I am here,' Ailith said softly. 'Later, when you are better, I will tell you.'
Felice nodded. 'Tired,' she mumbled and her head lolled on the bolster. 'So tired.'
Ailith gently withdrew her hand and turned to Aubert. 'Take me to the child.'
He led her to a room at the other side of the courtyard. It was warmed by two charcoal braziers and an elderly nun was keeping watch over a cradle containing a swaddled baby while she spun wool. He was asleep, but as Ailith went to the cradle, his small face puckered and he began to grizzle.
'We cannot keep him silent, the poor little scrap,' said the nun. 'He's that hungry, and at this time of year, there is scarcely even cow's milk to be obtained. We managed to buy a jug yesterday, 'but he just sicked most of it up.'
The grizzle became a wail and the wail a full-fledged bawl of indignation. Pain stabbed Ailith's vitals. He was so like Harold, and yet so unlike, a reality instead of a grey little shadow. Her breasts tightened and tingled. Bending over the cradle, she lifted the baby out and sat down on a low stool near the brazier. When she removed her cloak, took the neck pin out of her overgown, and began unlacing the drawstring on her shift, Aubert's eyes widened in startled comprehension.
'Yes,' she said in a voice that was low, but intense with emotion. 'I lost my son too. He was weak from the moment of his birth, and even before that inside my womb, I think. No, do not speak. There is nothing you can say that will be of comfort, and if you offer me your pity, I will hate you.'
Aubert compressed his lips, and after a single look, schooled his shocked expression to neutrality.
Ailith ignored him. The baby demanded her attention. He was dusky-red in the face with frustration and the room echoed to the sound of his screams. The drawstring unlaced, she pulled down her shift and offered the infant her exposed breast. Furiously, Felice's son rooted back and forth, seeking so frantically that several times he missed her nipple altogether. Finally, with some adroit manoeuvring by Ailith, he discovered what he desired. A blissful silence descended, punctuated only by the sucking noises of the baby. Feeling the powerful tug of the small jaws, and the warm weight of him in her arms, Ailith realised how feeble Harold had truly been. Her eyes brimmed, but her tears, although of sorrow, were tears of healing too.
Benedict emptied one breast, belched happily, and demanded to be given the other side too. Rolf was right, he did look like his mother, Ailith thought as she shrugged up one shoulder of her chemise and pulled down the other. His hair was black and he had Felice's feathery eyebrows. His eyes were going to be brown too.
'He is more handsome than you,' she jested to Aubert who had been watching the baby feed with a mixture of relief and apprehension.
'That is not difficult,' Aubert answered with a pained smile. 'Ailith, I know you do not want me to say anything, but I am forever in your debt.'
She shook her head. 'I do not want to talk of debts. It is too complicated to decide what is owed and what is owing.'
The door opened and Rolf strode in. Immediately the size of the room seemed to diminish. 'Has she…' he started to say, then his eyes fell on Ailith and the greedily sucking child. 'Yes she has,' he finished for himself with a satisfied nod.
Ailith felt uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny. The only man to have seen her naked breasts before today was Goldwin. With Aubert it had not seemed so awkward because all his attention had been on watching his son take sustenance. The look in Rolf de Brize's eyes was rather more predatory, and lingered a little too long before he raised it to her face. His colour heightened as he saw the contemptuous awareness in her expression.
'He has taken to it well,' he said.
Ailith nodded stiffly in response. For the moment, because of what had happened at the forge, because of his gaze just now, she could not bring herself to speak to the Norman. He half-turned so that the swollen globe of
