groaned.
There was a brief silence, but he knew she had not gone away. He could feel her exasperated gaze hard upon him. 'Has the drink affected your ears too?' she asked. 'Don't you hear the bells?'
Goldwin listened. Beyond the miasma in his head, the pounding continued, clear and relentless; toll, toll, toll. He lowered his arm and looked at her.
'King Edward is dead.' Ailith went to his clothing pole and found him a shirt, chausses and warm tunic. 'Earl Harold has been chosen as his successor and they are crowning him tomorrow.'
'How do you know?'
'Aldred told me. He's come to collect the hauberk and helm. I've given him bread and ale while he waits, but he's in a hurry.'
Goldwin swallowed. His mouth tasted foul and his throat was parched. He began to dress, half-fearing and half-hoping that his head would fall off. Against the shutters he heard the spatter of rain.
Ailith's eyes sparkled as she helped him with the laces and leather toggle fastenings that his fingers could not manage this morning. 'You are now the King's personal armourer, Goldwin, just think!'
Goldwin managed a wan smile in response. Thinking, however, was beyond him for the moment. His skull was like the hollow cave of a bell with an enormous clapper striking from side to side. Or perhaps it was just the abbey bell in his ears, tolling the soul of King Edward to heaven, and hammering his own into the ground.
CHAPTER 4
Stinging sleet borne on a vicious cross wind hit Rolf de Brize as he stumbled down the wooden steps between the motte and bailey, and crossed the lower courtyard. The torch he carried did nothing to alleviate the pitch darkness of the January night for the flame guttered this way and that on the whim of the wind, sending acrid streamers of smoke into his face. He skirted the midden and the snapping lunge of the gatekeeper's mastiffs as they surged on their chains, and entered the stone stable block.
A blood bay mare threshed on the floor of the first stall, and uttered small grunts of pain. Her hide was dark with sweat, her nostrils distended, and her eyes showed a white ring of fear.
Tancred de Fauville, his overseer, was kneeling in the straw at the mare's head. 'I thought it best to summon you, my lord. She's having a bad time of it – been labouring four candle notches now and no sign of her delivering. I'd say there's a foot stuck.'
Rolf extinguished his torch in a puddle outside the door, and as it spluttered out, crouched beside the horse. She had Arab blood in her veins and had cost him a small fortune at a horse fair in Paris two summers ago. Her first foal was now a leggy yearling and showing promise of excellence, but to recoup her value, he needed at least four out of her. That was why Tancred had sent for him. It was too great a responsibility to rest on his overseer's shoulders.
Rolf laid his hands upon the mare, stroking her cheeks, whispering in her ears. Beneath his soothing touch, she calmed a little and the white ring diminished around her liquid, dark eye. She had the heart and courage that would breed greatness into her offspring. Rolf knew that he could not afford to lose her.
Still patting and soothing, he coaxed the mare to her feet. Her tail swished; a hind leg jerked up, hoof pointed, to strike at her distended belly.
'Easy, lady, easy,' Rolf murmured, rubbing her soft, black muzzle. To Tancred he said, 'Has the water bag broken?'
'Aye, my lord, just after midnight. She's been working hard ever since.'
'Right, get a groom to help you hold her, and I'll take a look.'
Rolf tethered the mare to a ring in the stable wall, and kindled another covered horn lantern to add to the one shining down from a ledge above the manger. The light flickered on his hair, revealing it to be as dark a red as the mare's hide and bearing a ripple of unruliness, a characteristic that frequently spilled over into his temperament.
The mare stamped again and uttered a long groan as another fruitless contraction tightened her abdomen. Rolf watched her effort and decided that Tancred's prognosis was probably correct. The foal was lying in the wrong position and could not be born unless it was turned.
Petting the horse, he persuaded her to stay on her feet, and when he was sure of her, he stripped off his tunic and shirt, revealing a wiry, muscular body.
Tancred returned with the groom who bore ajar of grease and a rope.
'Hold her,' Rolf instructed. 'Keep her as still as you can.' He slathered his left hand and arm in a thick coating of goose fat, then, muttering a prayer between his teeth, drew aside the mare's bandaged tail and eased his hand into her vulva. He probed gently in search of the obstruction. Compared to the winter cold of the stable, the mare's flesh was like a furnace. He hoped that the rope would not be necessary. If the foal had to be pulled from her body by force, rather than being naturally pushed out, there was the dangerous risk of its ribs being fractured by the pressure.
His questing ringers encountered a small bump. Careful investigation revealed a slippery little leg folded under at the knee, and the other leg caught beneath it at an awkward angle, effectively forming a barrier. The foal could not be born without his intervention, but the problem was relatively simple to correct. He waited until the next contraction had shuddered away, and then quickly pushing and manipulating, straightened out the bent leg, taking great care that the tiny hoof did not scrape the side of the birth passage. With the next squeezing contraction, he drew the freed leg forward. The mare grunted and tossed her head, obviously in great discomfort. Tancred and the groom struggled to hold her. Rolf murmured soothing words, patting her rump with his free hand. When the contraction eased, he grasped the second leg and tugged it into position.
'All right, let her go,' he commanded, and retreated, his arm slick with bloody grease and birth fluid.
Free of restraint, the mare folded onto her side and within moments had pushed out the foal's forelegs and head. Rolf dropped to his knees and helped her deliver the rest of her baby. Working quickly, he stripped the birth membrane from the foal's face and body, and cleaned out its mouth and nostrils so that it could breathe.
'A colt,' he announced with pleasure to Tancred and the groom.
'There's no mistaking old Orage's blood,' Tancred grinned, as relieved and delighted as his lord. 'Look, he's even got the same star marking between his eyes.'
Orage, the foal's sire, was Rolf's prize stud, a striking golden-chestnut stallion of stamina, mettle and intelligence. Almost every foal born to his siring was chestnut, and this trait had become an identifying mark of the stud at Brize-sur-Risle.
Already, despite the difficult birth, the foal was struggling to coordinate his spindly legs and rise. His mother swung her head towards him and uttered a low, encouraging nicker. Rolf gathered the damp baby in his arms and placed him under the mare. She snuffled at her foal, drinking in his scent, and then began to lick him vigorously with a muscular pink tongue.
Rolf swilled his arm, donned his shirt and tunic, and stayed to watch the foal take his first drink from the mare's dripping udders. Satisfied that all was well, he left mother and son to Tancred, and returned to the keep.
At the top of the wooden stairs bridging the slope between the castle mound and the lower courtyard, he paused to watch the dawn break over the lands of Brize-sur-Risle. Veiled in sleety rain, they yielded a vista of dull greenery to his eyes. He could see the thatched roofs of the village and the grey stone curves of the church where his father was entombed. Full of sluggish power, the iron ribbon of the river Risle flowed away from him towards the port of Honfleur. Staring at the water, he felt a sudden stab of poignant longing that possessed neither rhyme nor reason. This was his home, his inheritance. Why was it not enough? Or perhaps the pull of the river was stronger than the pull of the land to the fierce Viking blood in his veins. The icy air was cauterising his lungs. He stared for a moment longer, then, shaking his head like a man shaking off a dream, went inside his keep.
Berthe, the wet nurse, was suckling his infant daughter before the fire in the great hall. As Rolf came to
