'They could not fare worse,' Ulf said scathingly, but then moderated his voice. 'You are a man of honour, I trust you to see them safely settled.'
Rolf looked thoughtfully at the old horse-trader. 'And what will you do?'
'I do not need a place of sanctuary. My roots are too deeply buried here to be torn up and planted elsewhere, and there are others in the village of my ilk who will need my counsel in the months to come. For Inga and Sweyn it is different. The boy is still thistledown in the wind. He could settle anywhere.'
Rolf inclined his head. 'Then so be it,' he said. 'My roof is theirs.'
Inga perched silently on the baggage wain, her posture resembling a drawn purse concealing its contents. Her arms were folded across her breasts, hugging a thick, rectangular cloak to her body. Her fists were clenched, her mouth was pulled tight, and barely a word had she spoken during all the long first day of the journey towards Ulverton. Her son, Sweyn, by contrast, was riding with Mauger and talking nineteen to the dozen, his eyes bright with the joy of adventure. Rolf harboured no qualms about him settling to a new life. His mother, however, was cause for concern.
He rode up to the front of the wain where she was huddled beside the driver, her expression remote and enigmatic. Her bones were more dainty and precise than Ailith's, her beauty more exotic than Arlette's. Her coldness piqued and intrigued him. He rode closer, intending to speak to her, but a loud honking and a clattering of imprisoned wings caused his mount to shy, and he spent several precarious moments preventing himself from being thrown.
Inga had insisted upon bringing her geese to Ulverton, or at least the means to begin a new flock from the original birds. They would be her livelihood, she said. No-one could smoke gooseflesh as succulently as she did. They would provide her with an income and they would be a reminder of home.
Much of the disturbance was caused by an aggressive young gander, still in the brown plumage of adolescence. He had been hissing threats ever since being latched inside his wicker cage at the journey's outset. Rolf eyed the bird with disfavour and hoped that it would soon be consigned to the smokehouse.
Inga regarded him coldly as if she could read his thoughts. 'I chose the strongest,' she said, 'because only the strong survive.' The words held a note of challenge.
Rolf inclined his head. 'Then you must be strong too,' he said.
'And my husband was weak?'
'He was faced by men more ruthless.'
'Hah,' she said with scornful dismissal and looked away. 'He was worth ten Normans, my Beorn.'
The goose beat its wings against the wicker bars and continued to threaten Rolf and his mount. The horse sweated and pranced, thoroughly upset. 'He's worth nothing now that he's dead,' Rolf replied, stung by her contempt, and he rode off to join his men.
CHAPTER 31
On the day that Julitta fell in love with Benedict de Remy, she was five years old and playing a game of pretend. It was early autumn, the leaves gowning the trees in tints of tawny, amber and flame. Ulverton's razor- backed swine rooted in the moist ground beneath the canopy for a pannage of acorns and beech mast, and the villagers gathered firewood against the harsher months to come.
Julitta had slipped away from her mother and Wulfhild who had been too busy and harassed preparing a feast to notice her absence. The de Remy's were expected from London, and all had to be made ready for their arrival. Julitta hoped they would come soon. She liked Aubert; he had a face like a hoary tree trunk, with deep smile lines either side of his mouth. Aunt Felice, as she respectfully called his wife, was beautiful. She always wore lovely clothes and she smelled delicious — of roses and spice. They had a son, a big boy of nine years old, named Benedict, and sometimes he would play with her.
This particular morning, Julitta had sneaked some hazel nuts from one of the bowls laid out for the feast and had dropped them into the small draw-cord purse attached to her belt. Her father would sometimes ruffle her tangled dark auburn curls and call her a squirrel because of her delight in hoarding small objects in unexpected corners — marbles, feathers, little coloured stones. Today, Julitta had decided to be that squirrel.
The autumn gold of the trees beckoned and the nuts in her pouch were to be her food.
The tree she chose was a young oak growing beyond the castle ditch close to one of the dew ponds. The prevailing winds had caused it to lean to one side, and its tilt had been further exaggerated by the attentions of sheep and cattle using it as a scratching post. There was a branch at just the right height for the reach of Julitta's legs, and in no time at all, she had pulled herself onto it. The next branch was a little further away, but after a determined struggle and a scraped knee, she succeeded in reaching it. She sucked the graze, tasting the saltiness of damaged skin, and having reassured herself that the injury was not great, she sought for the next hand- and foothold. She was a quicksilver squirrel, whisking her way through the branches, her long red hair, a busy tail.
Light although she was, her progress dislodged amber showers of leaves. A thrush which had been roosting in the oak took wing in twittering alarm. Julitta discovered a nest which had been well used during the spring and summer. It was comfortably rounded into the shape of a bird's breast and from somewhere the former occupant had filched some bright red embroidery wool and used it for part of the lining. Julitta was captivated and gently dislodged the nest from its position in the fork of two branches. Perhaps her mother would let her keep it.
She settled herself against the rough main trunk, wriggling back and forth until she was comfortable, and then removed one of the nuts from the pouch. Her teeth were too small to pierce the glossy brown shell. She tried striking the hazel on the tree trunk, but her blows were not strong enough, and finally she just had to pretend to eat the nut. She was not really hungry anyway, having devoured bread, honey and a beakerful of buttermilk whilst sitting on her father's knee before he rode out to inspect his horses. Frequently he would take her with him, but today he had being too busy, and Julitta felt secure enough in his love to let him go without too much protest. There was always tomorrow.
A sound began to encroach on her thoughts, distant at first and barely a disturbance, but as it grew louder, Julitta's sense of wellbeing turned quickly to apprehension. She was a steadfast, confident child, afraid of very little. Her father's great grey stallion Sleipnir gave her not a moment's qualm, although one kick from a careless hoof could have killed her. She romped with the dogs in the hall, she played among men whose trade was the war sword, but for all her boldness, she was utterly terrified of Inga's flock of greylag geese. One of the birds had pecked her when she was tiny, and the memory, although not clear, had left its legacy. She was frightened of Inga too. Unlike the other village women, Inga never smiled at her or said how pretty she was, but treated Julitta in a cool, offhand manner that spoke of disapproval.
Inga was herding her geese to graze on the lush grass around the dew ponds. If she saw Julitta up the tree, she would certainly tell her off and command her to come down. The child hugged herself for comfort and peeped down through the gaps in the golden foliage at the numerous geese waddling beneath the oak, their plumage a glossy, variegated brown, their blunt orange beaks promising vicious bruises. Julitta could almost feel them on her flesh. Geese couldn't climb trees, could they? She listened to their aggressive honking as they waddled towards the water. Inga passed beneath the tree, a gnarled stick swinging loosely in her hand. A small, rough-coated terrier trotted at her heels. Now and then she encouraged the birds with a command in a guttural language that Julitta had been told was the English of the north, the place where Inga had come from. Her son Sweyn spoke like her too, but Julitta quite liked him. He lived in one of the fishing villages, where he had a share in a boat, and he was always laughing and cheerful.
Inga's dog snuffled at the base of Julitta's tree and then barked. The woman glanced round and, with irritation in her voice, called him to heel. He barked again, but only in parting as he obeyed the command.
Julitta watched Inga and the terrier walk on across the field, leaving the geese to their grazing — leaving her alone with them, perhaps until dusk. Someone was bound to come seeking her.
But then she would be in trouble for running off and her mother might make her miss the feast in
