Wulfstan shrugged his powerful shoulders. 'Tis a day to celebrate, and she has been in the doldrums for far too long. Besides, look at the smile on her face. She's enjoying herself!'
Felice frowned, not so sure. She felt a little guilty. They had all pushed Ailith to attend this feast when perhaps she was not yet ready. Earlier, at Queen Matilda's coronation, her friend's face had been animated, and there had been interest in her eyes as she absorbed her surroundings. Now Ailith's expression was fixed and distant. The smile was not really a smile at all.
Wulfstan was a good customer of Aubert's. He enjoyed wine and bought copious quantities of it to impress his friends and curry favour with the Normans. He had also given Aubert several valuable contacts within the merchant and craft fraternities. From a social and business viewpoint, a marriage between Ailith and Wulfstan was ideal.
Felice gnawed her lip. They owed Ailith far more than they would ever owe Wulfstan. Perhaps they ought to take Ailith home and cease pushing her to accept Wulfstan's suit. Before she could act on the thought, however, one of Aubert's friends claimed her attention. He was accompanied by his wife, newly arrived from Normandy. The couple were from the same quarter of Rouen as Felice and the woman had a store of recent gossip. Felice gladly set the conscience-troubling dilemma of Ailith to one side, promising herself that she would deal with it later.
Ailith sat on a sun-warmed wooden bench in the small, but pleasant orchard garden. There were dense beds of herbs and tender green salat crops, there were strawberries still tight and green, and raspberries beginning to show a tinge of pink upon a trellis against the wattle fence of the dividing boundary. Blinking, disoriented, Ailith stared around. The sound of conversation and loud laughter assaulted her from the house. She saw a harassed serving maid hastening out to the well in the yard to fill her wooden bucket.
'Here we are, sweetheart, a cup of fresh mead to set you up. Are you feeling better now?' Wulfstan sat down beside her on the bench, too close for comfort as always, and pressed a small, beautifully turned wooden beaker into her hand. 'Drink up, my girl.'
She took a sip of the sweet, golden liquid and felt faintly nauseated. 'Your garden is well tended,' she managed to say. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth, almost as if she was drunk. 'I like gardening. Rolf's warhorse ran amok through my winter cabbages once, and I took a besom to the beast.' She was aware that she was speaking far too quickly, and that Wulfstan was sitting almost on top of her, the calculating grey eyes bright with lust. Her throat closed; she struggled to swallow.
'Ailith,' he said tenderly, 'don't be afraid. I won't hurt you, I swear.' His lips crushed down on hers, forcing them open, and one powerful hand grasped the back of her neck, holding her still. His beard scraped her face and his mouth was wet with saliva as if he were about to enjoy a meal. Ailith tried to pull away. His tongue stabbed and probed indecently. She raised her hands to strike him, to push him away, but he was swifter, grabbing them and forcing them down. This meant, however, that he had to release her head, and she was able to break the kiss and scream for help at the top of her lungs.
'Wait!' Wulfstan panted, his face congested. 'Ailith, wait! I want you to marry me!'
She wrestled with his greater strength, trying to free herself, half-weeping with the futile effort and the shock. 'I would not marry you even if you were the last man alive, you lecher!' she sobbed. 'Let me go!'
Lust and wine-anger thickened Wulfstan's voice. 'You will have no choice in the end, you know that. I could ruin your reputation if I so choose, as easily as doing this!' Releasing one of her hands, he yanked her wimple from her head, baring her braids. Ailith screamed again. Hot pain streaked through her neck and panic through her body. No respectable woman ever went forth in public with her hair uncovered. To have her head covering snatched off was tantamount to accusing her of being a whore.
'I have been patient with you beyond my usual scope,' Wulfstan said, breathing heavily. His gaze lingered upon the heavy golden lustre of her plaits before he returned the wimple. 'That was just a warning. I will have your reply by the end of the week.' His voice softened and he stroked her cheek. 'It is for the best, my Ailith, you'll see. I drive a hard bargain, but I can be generous too.'
Ailith drew a shuddering breath. Odious pig! He was so full of self-conceit that doubtless he truly believed he was being generous and patient. She started to tell him that she would rather be a whore than wife to such as he, but he stopped her, one hand across her mouth, the other wagging an index finger back and forth.
'Say nothing that you will later regret,' he warned, and raising his glance, let her go. 'Here's Felice, looking for you, I suspect.'
Shakily, Ailith draped the wimple over her braids and arranged the loose end across her shoulder. She saw Felice eyeing her and Wulfstan as if trying to decide whether she had interrupted at the right or wrong moment.
'Are you ready to go home?' she asked. 'I don't like to leave Benedict with the maids for too long.'
Ailith nodded. She could not speak, but the relief burned in her eyes.
'By the end of the week, my love,' Wulfstan said in a tender voice and bowed them both farewell. His eyes lingered possessively on Ailith.
'What did he mean 'by the end of the week'?' Felice wanted to know as they sought for Aubert among the throng of guests.
'He wants me to marry him,' Ailith said dully. 'I have until the end of the week to decide.'
'What will you say?'
Ailith shook her head and gave no outright answer. She did not want to marry Wulfstan, but what if he made it impossible for her to do otherwise?
'There will be several noses put out of joint if you do accept him,' Felice said with a glint of relish. 'I know quite a few merchant families who have been throwing their daughters in Wulfstan's direction. He's still quite young, he's rich and he's handsome, a fine catch.'
'He is a conceited bully,' Ailith retorted shortly. 'You know it as well as I do. I want to go home, I feel sick.'
CHAPTER 21
In the yard, a cauldron simmered over a low fire. Ailith poured a beakerful of lye soap into the hot water, stirred the brew with a stick, and then dumped in a pile of soiled linens. These she attacked vigorously with a forked pole, prodding down billows of fabric as they rose to the surface, her sleeves pushed back and an old apron saving her working gown from the worst of the splashes. In her mind's eye, each time she thrust with the pole, she was drowning Wulfstan the Goldsmith. Nor did she intend confessing such sinful fantasies to a priest because they gave her great satisfaction and she was in no way repentant. If he thought he could carry her into his bed, he was mistaken. And yet, at the same time she was afraid of the depth his persecution might reach at her continued resistance.
'What has that shirt done to you that you should treat it so viciously?'
Ailith gasped and spun round to face Rolf de Brize. He was dressed less elegantly today. Like herself he wore his working clothes — a plain tunic, slightly threadbare, dusty leggings, and a short cloak with a round pewter pin. 'You have to pummel the washing hard to remove all the dirt,' she replied somewhat breathlessly. 'It is no different to beating it out on the rocks down at the river bank.' Red-faced, she blotted her brow on her freckled forearm. She could see from his expression and the way he lingered that he was sceptical.
'Felice was telling me just now that you had the misfortune to receive a proposal of marriage from the illustrious Wulfstan.'
Ailith resumed her task, thrusting the pole down to the bottom of the cauldron. 'And if I did?' she asked defensively.
'You think it no business of mine, I can see, but as it happens, I do have an interest, since his intentions clash with my own.'
Ailith's heart lurched, and then commenced pounding in hard, swift strokes. She slammed the pole up and down a few more times, then stopped. Her breath was shaking, so were her hands. 'But you already have a wife and child,' she said to the bubbles of linen sitting on the scummy surface of the water.
'Yes, in Normandy,' he said gently.
Ailith almost laughed at the irony. Wulfstan said that if she would not marry him, he would ruin her
