sometimes she dared herself just to prove that she wasn't really afraid. The cry came again, thin with pain and terror.
'Stay here,' Ailith commanded, and rode Elfa towards the stockade. Still yapping, the terrier ran ahead of the mare. Julitta deliberated between being adventurous and remaining obedient, and, after a moment, inevitably chose the former.
Ailith dismounted at the door of Inga's cottage and went inside. It was dim within for all the shutters were barred. The hearth in the centre of the room was cold and the sweet reek of blood filled her nostrils. Inga lay on her bed of skins against the side of the room. She was wearing nothing but her shift and this was bunched up around her waist. Her thighs and belly were smeared with blood and there was a glistening red puddle on the beaten earth floor. In her arms she held a tiny baby, and in her eyes there was the terror of a stricken animal. 'Help me,' she croaked.
'Merciful God!' Ailith gasped. Her legs threatened to give way and her stomach heaved. The baby was dead; she could see that it had been born with the cord wrapped tightly around its neck. Its head lolled, its eyes half-open. Its scalp was covered by a fuzz of dark red hair. Between Inga's thighs, she saw the cord of the afterbirth quivering like a bluish-white tail. 'Where's the midwife?'
'No-one knew I was with child. None of their meddling business.' Another spurt of blood reddened Inga's thighs and spilled down the sheepskins to increase the puddle on the floor. 'The afterbirth's stuck.'
Ailith heard a muffled cry from the door and whirling, saw Julitta standing there, her eyes as huge as moons. 'I told you to wait outside!' she shouted at her daughter and moved rapidly to blot the scene from the child's sight. 'Go back into the village. Fetch Father Godfrid and tell him that it is urgent. Hurry now!' She gave Julitta a sharp push. White-faced with shock, Julitta scrambled to untether her pony.
Ailith found a jug and went outside to fill it with water from the well. She poured a beaker for Inga and helped her sit up to drink it. And all the time the blood dripped from between the woman's legs. Ailith pulled the blood-soaked shift down over Inga's belly and took the baby from her to wrap it in a shawl. Images of her own son flashed through her mind, and then, more disturbingly, images of Julitta.
Inga watched her from the bed. The woman's breathing was rapid and shallow, her skin beaded with cold sweat. 'Are you not going to ask me who fathered him?'
'It is none of my business,' Ailith said in a stiff parody of Inga's earlier words.
An arid smile twisted Inga's lips. 'Oh, but it is,' she said, 'or at least it would have been your lord's business had the babe been born alive.'
Ailith looked at the soft red down on the baby's head, at the shape of his cold little hands as she tucked them inside the shawl. She laid him down beside his mother, her mind frantically calculating. Nine months ago it had been autumn. She remembered Rolf saying that he would speak to Inga about the gander, his furtiveness around that time, his sudden absences and the way his moods had been more mercurial than usual. It seemed that he had done more than just speak. 'I suppose he swore you undying love,' she said in a choked voice.
Inga laughed. The sound had a harsh rattle to it. 'Undying lust perhaps. My husband was a vigorous man; I wanted to prove to myself that a Norman could not better him, but I was wrong. I told your man that his kind did not care what they destroyed, and I was right, was I not?' The laugh became a sob. She drew her knees towards her belly as her womb cramped in a vain spasm to evict the afterbirth.
Ailith swallowed, fighting her nausea, her world shattering around her. The dog barked and she heard the sound of running feet. A breathless Father Godfrid hurried through the door, and just as Ailith had done, stopped short in horror.
'Quickly,' Ailith commanded him. 'Shrive her before she dies so that her soul may have peace – more peace than mine.' She pushed past the priest and ran round the side of the cottage where she was sick beyond anything that lay in her stomach. How could Rolf betray her like this? It was unbearable, a waking nightmare.
'Mama?' Julitta's frightened small voice pierced through her soul-sick misery. Swallowing and swallowing again to prevent herself from retching, Ailith straightened and turned to face her daughter. How easily it could have been her own self lying in that hut, she thought. How easily it could still be.
'Mama, is Inga going to die? Is that why you sent me for Father Godfrid?'
Ailith hesitated. Julitta's gaze, although scared, was steady. 'Yes, sweetheart. Sometimes a birth can go wrong, and Dame Osyth wasn't there to help her.'
Julitta nodded and chewed her lip. 'Does that mean the gander can be necked now?' she asked.
Ailith did not know whether to laugh or weep in despair at her daughter's remark which revealed how close in nature Julitta and Rolf were. 'It means,' she said, 'that it is finished.'
Julitta gave her a puzzled look, but before she could speak, Father Godfrid emerged from the hut, his face grim. Ailith did not have to enquire if Inga was dead.
'She should have sought aid in the village,' said the priest. 'But she always held herself aloof. I believe that her heart was still in the north lands.'
Ailith bit back the comment that to leave a heart you had to have one in the first place. What did she know about Inga? Very little, save that she had lain with Rolf and the act had finally destroyed her.
After arranging with the priest for the decencies to be observed concerning washing and shrouding the bodies of mother and child, Ailith took Julitta back to the castle. The spring-cleaning she had left in such haste was still underway, but her heart was no longer in seeing a thorough job done. From the kitchen sheds there wafted a delicious aroma of meat and onions. Ailith's stomach turned over and she had to clench her jaw. Julitta's hunger was unaffected by the traumas of the day and as soon as she had dismounted, she skipped off to cozen a griddle cake and a beaker of buttermilk from the cook.
Wearily Ailith entered the hall. She parried Wulfhild's two-pronged assault concerning how well the servants had worked in their mistress's absence, and her complaint that Hamo's mother should be rebuked for the rudeness of her revolting son. Ailith was too tired and heartsick to care. 'It doesn't matter any more,' she cut across her vociferous maid and sat down heavily at the trestle where Rolf's battle axes had fallen. Ignoring the food that Wulfhild tried to set before her, she requested instead a cup of mead. Tight-lipped, muttering to herself, the woman retreated.
The weapons still lay on the board. Someone had cleaned and oiled them in preparation for their return to the wall. The luck of Ulverton; the misfortune of some poor English warrior on the field of blood. Wulfhild returned with the mead and lingered anxiously until Ailith gestured her to go away with a sharpness unusual to her character.
The mead was sweet and strong with an underlying clover tang to the honey. It slipped down Ailith's throat and warmed a delicate trail to her Belly. She turned the axe over. Rolf's pride and joy. Perhaps if he had loved her enough to make a talisman of her, he would have kept the faith. Salt burned her eyes even as the mead burned in her stomach. She blinked fiercely, and as her focus returned through the tears, saw several markings incised upon the socket of the axe. It was unmistakable. Beneath some letters which she could not read, was cut the shape of a swan, Goldwin's mark. The weapon was of her former husband's making.
Rolf had told her that he had won the axe on Hastings field, and that it had saved his life when he was attacked by a looter whilst lying wounded after the battle. But whose had it been before then? She drank more mead, her hands shaking.
When Julitta came into the hall with crumbs around her mouth and a moustache of buttermilk, Ailith asked her to read what the letters said.
'William,' said Julitta without hesitation, proud of her ability to read. And then she pointed to another, lighter row of scratches. 'And this says…' She peered closer. 'This says Lyulph.'
Ailith fell into a deep, black gulf. She heard Julitta scream and Wulfhild's cry of concern. Hands supported her and bore her up. The mead cup was forced against her teeth and her nostrils were filled with the stink of burning feathers. Goose feathers probably, she thought, from Inga's flock, and heard herself laugh. When Wulfhild tried to urge her to lie down on the great bed, Ailith became hysterical, insisting that she would never sleep there again.
The afternoon was a bright, sun-washed gold. A skylark bubbled in the blue air above the heads of the woman and child travelling on the dusty road towards Wareham. All that Ailith had to show for her nine years at Ulverton were her red-haired daughter, the mounts they rode, and the sumpter pony with a bundle strapped to its back. For protection Ailith carried a sharpened, oiled battle axe, her brother's name carved on the steel behind the
