Gisele looked primly horrified at Julitta's rebellion. Arlette's stare was cold. 'Your father at least acknowledges his duty,' she said icily. 'He could have left you in the gutter. Think about that, my girl, before you open your mouth to be ungrateful. I'll not have you shaming the proud name of Brize-sur-Risle.'
Julitta blinked hard, fighting tears. She would not cry in front of her half-sister and her father's wife. At the moment she hated both of them, and she knew without a doubt that they hated her. 'What makes you think I would rather not live in the gutter?' she said hotly.
Arlette's thin eyebrows rose to meet her wimple. Her face wore an expression of fastidious distaste. 'Certainly your manners smack of such habitation,' she replied, and terminated the exchange by returning to practical details. 'You will sleep in here with Gisele and the maids. You did not bring many belongings from London, but what you possess, you may store in that coffer.' She indicated an oak chest standing next to a neatly arranged stack of mattresses. 'Tomorrow we shall see how much you know and what you can do.'
Julitta opened her mouth to rebel again, but thought the better of it. Whatever she said would only fetch a rebuke. She had to use guile. Arlette and Gisele had already formed their opinions as to her character and worth, but there were others she could win to her cause, chief among them her father. So instead, she composed her expression meekly and lowered her eyes as if she had been cowed into submission.
Watching over Julitta as she put her few belongings in the coffer, Arlette uttered a horrified squawk when she saw the size of the honed dagger that the girl laid across the top of her spare gown and short shift.
'Surely that is not your eating knife?'
Obviously it was not, for Julitta's small, bone-handled meat-blade was hanging in the leather scabbard at her belt. 'It was my mother's,' she said.
'Your mother wore a murderous thing like that?' Arlette's voice remained horror-struck.
'Sometimes.' A devil in her prompted Julitta to lay her hand to the hilt of polished antler and slowly draw the blade forth from its sheath. 'She always kept it sharp. See, I have her whetstone too.' In her other hand she held up a stone suspended from a small belt cord. 'I know how to hone the edge,' she said confidently and ran her thumb along the blade, 'but it doesn't need it just now.' She gave Arlette a feline smile.
'Put that thing away!' Arlette said hoarsely, one hand at her throat as if she expected to be assaulted. 'It is no fit possession for a girl of your breeding to own. I shall speak to your father about this!'
Julitta shrugged. 'He knows I have it. He saw it in London and he let me keep it. It was made by Mama's husband. He was a master armourer in the days before King William.' She sheathed the dagger and replaced it in the coffer. 'We got rid of the battle axe though.'
Arlette's eyes almost popped out of her head and she did not ask to have the last statement explained. 'Your father is frequently too soft for his own good,' she snapped. 'Keep that thing from my sight. I hate to see weapons in my bower.' A small shudder of genuine aversion ran through her.
Julitta wrapped her shift around the weapon. There were chinks in the armour if you knew where to probe. With satisfaction, she knew that, if necessary, she could give as good as she got.
Being the implicit believer in duty that she was, Arlette had prepared a feast to welcome Julitta into the household. Sitting on the high dais, surrounded by embroidered napery, glazed earthenware vessels, an elaborate aquamanile and matching silver salt dish, it was difficult for Julitta not to feel intimidated. At the bathhouse she had eaten off a plain trencher of wood or stale bread, and the food had been simple — pottage more often than not, or a split loaf served with butter and curd cheese. At the de Remys' she had grown accustomed to dining in a little more style, with a cloth on the trestle for the main meal, and a wider choice of dishes, but this was overwhelming.
She looked at a platter of roasted songbirds that had been placed close to her right hand. They were something she had never liked. Their tiny size always filled her with feelings of grief for their death. She could not bear the feel of their frail bones in her fingers. To her left a shoal of trout adorned a flat wooden dish, overlapped one upon the other, their skins brown-silver in the candlelight, their boiled eyes milky-white.
'Are you not hungry?' her father asked with concern.
Julitta shook her head. Her stomach was empty, but the fare set before her had killed her appetite, as had the formality. She would far rather have sat among the servants in the main body of the hall and shared their soup and stewed meat.
Rolf eyed her thoughtfully. 'It is too much, isn't it?' he murmured quietly, so that Arlette's sharp ears should not hear.
'My mother never gave me food like this,' Julitta said. She knew that she was being petulant and ungrateful, but it had come to her as she sat down to the feast, that in the old days her mother would have sat in Lady Arlette's place. Although Julitta's memory of those times was hazy, she did know that the meal would have been edible and the atmosphere warm and informal.
'Oh, but she did,' Rolf said with a wry smile, 'but never presented in quite the same way. This is how we would eat at court. You are done a great honour. You like fish, don't you?' He deftly removed one of the trout from the serving platter, set it down on a spare trencher, and with a few practised motions of his eating knife, removed the head and filleted the body, turning it over to expose the moist pink flesh. Then he transferred it to her trencher. 'I can promise you it tastes good.'
Julitta hesitated, then flaked a piece of trout off the skin and put it in her mouth. He was right, the fish was indeed succulent and delicately flavoured. As she chewed, her stomach came to life, leaping and craving.
'I would not have thought it of you to be squeamish,' Rolf said curiously.
Julitta shrugged. 'It is easier to eat things if they do not look as if they might still be alive.'
Rolf almost choked on his laughter and had to take a swift gulp of his wine.
Julitta ate the fish and glanced through her lashes at her father, waiting her moment until he had recovered and was ready to give her his attention again. 'May I ask you a boon?'
'Ask me anything you want.'
Julitta flickered a brief glance at Arlette who sat on Rolf's other side daintily nibbling one of the songbirds. She could almost see the woman's ears extending like trumpets to listen. 'Can I ride out with you tomorrow to see the horses?'
His eyes gleamed with pleasure. 'Of course! It would give me great delight to have you keep me company.'
'Only Lady Arlette says that I have to begin to learn how to become a lady for the profit of my future marriage. I did not know if I would be allowed out of the bower.'
Rolf's mouth compressed. He glanced at his wife, whose face had paled as Julitta spoke out. 'No-one will confine you to the bower.'
'She is twisting my words,' Arlette said angrily.
'I'm not, you did say it!' Julitta protested, her voice rising so that other people stopped eating and looked towards the family gathering with curiosity.
'Most certainly your behaviour is a disgrace at the moment. You deserve no favours.'
'Peace, both of you,' Rolf commanded in a tone that caused the witnesses to look elsewhere and pretend attention to their food. 'I will not have this bickering. Julitta, I do not expect you to air your grievances before all and sundry. You are no longer a small child to throw tantrums if your will is gainsaid… or perhaps you are?'
Heat scorched into Julitta's face. She shook her head and looked down at her trencher.
Rolf turned to his wife. 'There is time enough for her to learn from you what she does not know. Tomorrow she will ride out with me and Benedict to see the breeding stock.'
Arlette's lips became a narrow line. 'As you wish, my lord,' she said quietly, a wealth of unspoken resentment in her response. 'Do I have your permission to retire?'
He gestured brusque assent. Arlette rose. So did Gisele, lending moral support to her mother.
Julitta was alarmed. 'I don't have to go too, do I?'
Rolf sighed. 'Better if you remain here for a while to let the dust settle,' he said wryly. Julitta smiled with relief. T wasn't lying,' she declared as Gisele and Arlette left the hall. 'She truly did say those things.'
Rolf poured more wine into his cup. 'She has your welfare at heart, you should not take against her so. She is right that you have things to learn.'
'Does that mean I'm to be trained like a horse and then sold off to the highest bidder?' she demanded.
'Selling you off is the last thing on my mind, Princess. I've only just found you again.' He looked at her sidelong. 'Think of acquiring skills, whatever they might be, as armouring yourself against the world. You have
