her father's arms and going to a corner of the room, lifted the edge of a half-folded cloak, and withdrew a Danish war axe.
'My mother always kept this by her. She said that it was hers by right of blood. I remember it hanging on the wall at Ulverton, and falling down on the day that we left. I know that it once belonged to my uncle Lyulph and that he died on Hastings field. It was made by Mama's husband, the armourer.' Julitta gave a little shiver. 'I wish she hadn't kept it.'
'The luck of Ulverton.' Rolf took it from her, hefting its once familiar weight. Or perhaps its misfortune, cleaving in twain the lives of all who touched it. Christened with blood. 'I wish it too,' he said with a grimace, and stretched out his free hand. 'Come with me.'
Julitta took it, feeling the security of the warm grip, the tensile fingers. Her own hand was damp with cold sweat. 'Where are we going?' she asked as he led her down the outer stairs and across the yard toward the wharves.
'To the river to make an offering.'
'What sort of offering?'
'In times gone by, when a warrior died, his weapons often went to the grave with him, or were flung into the nearest river or lake as an offering to the Gods. That is what my grandfather used to tell me, and he had it from his own grandfather who was a pagan.'
Julitta was aware of people stopping work as she and her father went by. From the corner of her eye, she saw Benedict and Mauger standing together, their mouths open. The wharf-side was bustling with labourers and sailors as a Rouen wine galley was disembowelled of her cargo. The rumble of wooden tuns over the stones was deafening. Vinegary fumes from an accidentally broached cask assaulted the air.
Tugging Julitta in his wake, Rolf strode out onto a wooden jetty which currently had nothing but shallow boats moored to its sides. The smell of wine was replaced by the smell of the river as it slapped against the posts, grey and green, frilled with white foam. Gulls wheeled over their heads, and a single, black-winged bird that might have been a raven.
'Stand back,' Rolf said to Julitta, and when she was clear to his satisfaction, he began to whirl the axe around his body in double circles, faster and faster until the weapon was a gleaming blur. Then on a final surge he released it, crying out, and the axe sailed upwards and outwards in magnificence, the head flashing over and over in the sunlight as though it were on fire, before plummeting into the choppy water of the Thames to be quenched forever.
'It is neither good luck nor misfortune now,' Rolf panted, staring down at the opaque green wavelets lapping the posts of the jetty, and then at his daughter. 'It is nothing.'
Later, Julitta and Rolf visited Ailith's grave, the place a scar of fresh, raw earth in the cemetery. Rolf stared at it, still unable to believe that she was truly dead. He had not seen her, therefore it could not be. Even though he had disposed of the axe and its ability to strike, the wounds it had left were deep beyond healing.
Julitta knelt at the graveside and laid a fresh bunch of irises on the soil. Rolf swallowed, watching her. She had her mother's width of brow and generous mouth. There was also a touch of Ailith's stubborn jaw and more than enough of her mannerisms to give Rolf constant twinges of pain whenever he looked at Julitta. The past was an open grave from which the dead stretched out to touch him no matter how he tried to lay the ghosts. Ailith, his beautiful, betrayed Ailith.
'Come,' he said abruptly as Julitta rose from her knees and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. 'Leave her to sleep. We have a road to travel.'
CHAPTER 42
'So you are Julitta?' said Arlette de Brize. It was more than a plain statement. The woman's grey eyes examined the travel-dusty girl without warmth. 'Be welcome.'
A groom led away the docile chestnut gelding on which Julitta had made the journey from London. She shook out her creased gown and briefly met Lady Arlette's cool stare, doubting that she was welcome at all. Her father's hand firmly grasped and squeezed her shoulder, imparting the reassurance that she badly needed.
Julitta flickered a brief glance around the bailey. It was all so strange, and yet so familiar. She was tired from a journey that had been as much emotional as physical, and was far from over. She did not remember her father's wife from their chance encounter eight years ago, and the woman was nothing as she had imagined. Arlette de Brize was composed, attractive, and immaculately groomed, the sort of person who could walk along a muddy track without so much as smirching her dainty shoes. Julitta was aware that her own appearance, although much improved since London by new clothes, fell far short of the older woman's approval. But then, she thought mutinously, she had no need of that. She raised her head, and unconsciously tightened her jaw.
Arlette turned to the demure young woman standing at her side. 'Gisele, greet your sister,' she commanded.
The girl hesitated, then stepped forward with obvious reluctance. 'Be welcome,' she said in a monotone and kissed the air beside Julitta's cheek.
Julitta inhaled the astringent scent of lavender. This was Gisele, Benedict's betrothed. She was filled with the hazy memory of herself in a rage of infantile disbelief that her father should have destroyed her dreams and betrothed him elsewhere — to her own sister.
'Benedict told us all about you,' Gisele said sweetly, displaying that she possessed claws, no matter how dainty the paws that sheathed them, 'that he rescued you from a bathhouse.'
Red heat flooded Julitta's face.
'Actually it was from a grouchy Thames boatman,' Benedict interrupted easily from his place among the escorting soldiers and grooms. 'They think they own the world.'
Julitta gave him a grateful look, Gisele a narrow one.
'Come.' Arlette took Julitta by the arm as if she were taking the lead of a recalcitrant puppy. 'Let us go within. You will want to wash away the dust of travel and rest before we eat in the hall. Gisele, see to everyone's comfort and then join us.'
'Yes, Mama.' Gisele's voice was a dutiful chime, sweet and slightly high-pitched. Julitta imagined that given the chance it could be shrill and whiny. She longed to remove her arm from beneath Arlette's and gave an experimental tug. The slim white fingers tightened and the grey eyes silently warned her to do no such thing. Julitta yielded, but if anything, the spark of defiance kindled by Arlette's reception, was only fanned to a flame.
'I can see that Felice de Remy has done her best for you, but you need taking in hand,' said Arlette. They had retired to the privacy of the chamber above the hall. It was divided by a wattle and daub partition into two rooms, one being the main bedchamber, the other Arlette's working domain. The orderliness of her character was reflected in the precise arrangement of every item of furniture. The upright loom was placed just so to gain light from the window aperture. A dark oak bench leaned against the wall, its positioning exactly central. Julitta wondered if Arlette had used a measuring stick. Everything was neat, dust-free and firmly put in its place. More to be admired than used, Julitta thought.
Arlette walked round Julitta, examining her as if she were a doubtful piece of ware that she had been duped into buying by a travelling pedlar. Her fingers plucked at the sage-green linen of Julitta's over-dress which had been completed in a rush on the night before she set out from London. Some of the stitches, mostly her own, were over-large, and Arlette clucked her tongue over these.
'Sewing and weaving, baking and brewing,' she declared like a devotional plainchant. 'I do not suppose that your mother had much opportunity to teach you any of those. Well, you'll soon learn. You have your father's looks, so I suppose you must have his quick wits too. If you are to be of any profit to Brize when your marriage is arranged, it is my duty to make a silk purse from a sow's ear… and it is your duty to learn.'
Julitta's eyes flew wide at the words profit, marriage and duty. She knew it was the lot with which most women were burdened, but she had lived outside its conventions for most of her life and was filled with horror at the thought of conforming. 'My father did not bring me to Ulverton to be groomed for sale like one of his mares,' she said with a toss of her head.
