Earl Harold's bodyguard, but his fighting abilities were as precocious as his luxuriant tawny beard.
Goldwin shook his head. 'Surely invading England will be too great an undertaking for the Norman Duke?'
Aldred jutted his fierce jaw. He was big-boned, with a fighting man's loose-knit grace. Like Ailith's, his eyes were a clear, deep blue, but more closely set with downward corner creases. 'Perhaps it will be so, but if not, I'll be waiting on the shoreline to kiss him welcome with my axe!' Aldred had been sitting on Goldwin's bench, but now he rose, and fishing in the pouch at his belt, brought out a fistful of silver pennies.
'I want you to fashion me a new axe,' he said intensely, 'and I want you to inscribe Duke William's name on the blade.' He banged the silver down on the bench in punctuation. Several coins rolled to the edge and spilled over, landing hard and gleaming on the beaten earth floor.
Goldwin stared at the coins, his queasiness becoming the cold squeeze of fear. 'God save us, Aldred, you truly want me to do this?'
'I do. Is there enough silver here to pay for your work, or do you want more?'
'Nay, I don't want any at all!' Goldwin fanned his hands back and forth in denial.
'I want to pay.' Aldred narrowed his eyes. 'I must pay. It will make the charm more binding.'
Lyulph jerked open his own pouch and spilled yet more silver onto Goldwin's bench. 'Make me one too, the same!'
Goldwin could not refuse his own wife's kin, but he had a real feeling of dread as he scooped up the coins, still warm from their touch, and put them in his pouch. He had made Aldred and Lyulph weapons before. Their mail shirts were of his fabrication, and the superb swords they wore at their hips. He was no stranger to fashioning the terrible Danish war axe, both two- and one-handed varieties. And frequently he had set inscriptions into the steel, or along the polished wood of the haft. Names, talismans, they were all familiar to him. But in some way he did not yet understand, this was different and made him afraid. Never before had he felt the winter cold in his own forge.
When they returned to the hall, by unspoken agreement none of them said anything to Ailith about what had happened in the workshop, but there was a constraint to their feasting now, an undercurrent of tension that she could not fail to miss. She did not ask any outright questions, because conversations that took place in the forge were always men's business, but nevertheless she was concerned and curious.
It was beyond dusk, but still early when Aldred and Lyulph took their leave, declining Ailith's plea that they stay the night.
'We're on duty at dawn,' Aldred said, hugging her close.
She felt the taut power of muscle beneath his Yuletide finery. There was a hardness in his face that she had never noticed before. Perhaps all warriors became that way, tough and unyielding like the rawhide bands rimming their shields. It was a disquieting thought to take into the New Year and as she embraced her brothers, she felt as if she were bidding farewell to more than just the old season.
She watched them ride away in the direction of the royal palace, watched until the last gleam of harness and horsehide had disappeared into the night, and the sound of hoof and voice could no longer be heard. Over her head a distant pinpoint of light blazed an arc across the sky. 'Look, Goldwin!' she cried, pointing.
He stared sombrely upwards, his eyes quenched of light. 'I have a premonition,' he said softly, 'that tonight I have grasped the tail of a falling star.'
Ailith was frightened by his tone and the strange look on his face. 'Goldwin?' She touched his sleeve for reassurance.
A shiver rippled through him, as if he was trying to shake off the fey mood that seemed to have gripped the night. Laying his hand upon hers, he turned to look at her, a half-smile curving his moustache. 'Too much mead,' he said ruefully. 'You know it always makes me weep. Did you make a wish?'
Ailith nodded and followed him back into the house. 'For both of us,' she said as he barred the door, his motion a little too forceful as he shut out the world. And Ailith, her hand upon her flat belly, wondered if she had wished for the right thing.
CHAPTER 3
In the sleeping loft of the rented London house, Felice de Remy spoke to her maid. 'The amber beads and brooch,' she instructed the woman. 'They go best with this gown.'
'Yes, Madame.'
Felice smoothed her palms down her overtunic of blue-green wool, seeking reassurance from the rich, heavy cloth. It fell in pleated folds to shin-level and was hemmed by a border of gold braid. Her undergown was of tawny linen, its edges skimming the toggle fastenings of her soft leather shoes.
The maid returned with a string of polished amber beads and a round brooch also set with lumps of amber. The jewellery had been a wedding gift from Aubert and he liked her to wear them whenever they had guests.
Her maid arranged the beads and secured Felice's yellow silk wimple with the brooch. It was a colour that few women could wear well, but Felice, with her warm complexion and glowing brown eyes, was one of the fortunate.
'You look lovely, Madame, fit to dine with King Edward himself!'
'Why thank you, Bertile!' Felice laughed, while wondering dubiously if she ought to have dressed less elaborately. Fit to dine with the King was perhaps not fit to receive their Saxon neighbours, especially after that first, impromptu meeting across a midden heap. Would the wife think that she was being mocked?
Felice had glimpsed the husband on several occasions. He was square and stocky with brown hair and a darker beard, his garments filthy from the forge. Aubert said that he was a master armourer and had crafted weapons for the great Earl of Wessex himself. Many times during the past three days Felice had stood at her doorway hoping to catch a glimpse of the armourer's wife and perhaps speak to her, but the young woman seemed to have gone to ground.
Descending from the sleeping loft, Felice gazed around the hall with a critical eye. The new rushes on the floor had been scattered with dried herbs — lavender, rosemary and marjoram — that yielded up their scent as they were trodden upon. She had dressed the bare walls with embroideries in bright colours on pale linen backgrounds, and the room was illuminated by expensive beeswax candles. Her best napery was laid upon the dining trestle, and instead of the usual eating bowls of polished wood, she had brought out her precious set of glazed earthenware dishes. An appetising smell wafted from the cooking pot suspended over the firepit, which was being assiduously tended by an elderly serving woman.
Outside, she heard the thud of hooves in the yard and her husband's voice chivvying one of the serving lads. Moments later, Aubert flung into the house, his stride choppy and energetic, his mobile, ugly features pulled into a deep frown.
Felice took his heavy winter cloak and woven Phrygian cap. Aubert kissed her briefly on the cheek, then pushing his stubby fingers through his frizzy grey curls, strode to the flagon which had been filled in anticipation of their guests. Pouring himself a full measure of wine, he took a long drink.
Felice hung his cloak and hat on a wall peg, her movements fluid and calm, although her stomach was churning with anxiety. 'Does your business not go well?'
Aubert de Remy raised and lowered his bushy, prolific brows. 'Well enough,' he said gruffly. 'I've an order of wine from Leofwin Godwinson, Earl Harold's brother. It is just that the negotiating went hard.'
Felice nodded and smiled. She knew that he was lying, that the source of his frown was something else, but she had no intention of pressing him. That his concerns extended into clandestine regions beyond the mere selling of wine she had long since realised, but for her own well-being, she had never sought to know too much.
'Something smells good.' Aubert hung his nose over the cauldron.
'It's coney ragout.'
His eyes narrowed with gluttonous joy. 'I shall soon be as fat as Martinmas hog!' He laid a rueful hand upon his belt where the merest suggestion of a paunch was confined by the gilded leather.
Laughing, Felice tortured him further by telling him the other courses she had organised.
