The youth released Julitta as if she had suddenly become a scalding ingot, and looked guiltily at Mauger. 'I was on an errand for Lady Arlette,' he stammered. 'I didn't mean anything, it's only bit of fun.'
Her hair more than half undone, Julitta beat snow from her cloak and looked at Mauger through lowered lashes.
'A bit of fun?' Mauger said incredulously and cuffed the lad across the ear. 'More important than your errand, eh?'
'No, sir.'
Mauger cuffed him again. 'Then see to it, and if I catch you dallying again, I'll have you forking dung with the stable lads for the next month!'
'Yes, sir.' The youth fled.
Mauger rounded on Julitta, his hands planted authoritatively on his hips. Since the autumn she had been wilder than usual, as uncontrollable as the steep seasonal winds that came blustering off the Normandy coast scattering everything before them with a wanton disregard. She had no sense of the impropriety of wrestling in the courtyard with one of the junior squires. Good Christ, she was almost fifteen, far too old to be romping like a puppy, far too much of a woman to be a child.
'You should not encourage the lad,' he growled. 'It is not seemly.'
Julitta tossed her head. 'There was no harm in it.'
With some difficulty Mauger bit back the comment that she was no longer a street-hoyden and that she had to learn to behave with decorum. 'Does Lady Arlette know where you are?'
'Yes.'
The word was spoken with such defiant bravado that Mauger knew Julitta was lying.
'You are in her charge while your father is away in Flanders,' Mauger said sternly, 'and you should obey her will.'
'Why should I?' Julitta glowered at him defiantly. 'She only wants to sit me down with a pile of smelly fleeces and make me spin while informing me how much better Gisele would do it if she were here!'
'But you don't even try,' he said. 'I have seen the way you bait her and flout her rules. Do you think your mother would joy to hear and see you now?'
Julitta continued to glare at him, but now her eyes brimmed with tears and her jaw trembled. 'I hate you!' she spat, and whirling round, ran towards the hall, stumbling and slipping in the ankle-deep snow.
Mauger did not pursue her, except with his eyes. She needed a firm hand, he thought, more specifically, the hand of a firm man who would brook no waywardness. Not her father; he was too scarred by the past to deal with her effectively. Head bent in thought, he continued on his way to the stables.
By the time Julitta arrived at Lady Arlette's bower, she was unusually meek and silent, for Mauger's words had chastened her. What indeed would her mother think? Ailith would have laughed at the snowball fight with Arnaut and seen no harm in it, of that she was sure, but Julitta's certainty wavered when she thought of other aspects of her recent conduct. As she silently picked up her drop spindle and began to twirl the raw wool into yarn, she admitted to herself that she was often badly behaved for the sole purpose of spiting Lady Arlette and a world that had treated her ill.
It was a moment of painful revelation to Julitta, as she faced herself and realised that she did not like all that she saw. And when she sought her mother's image in her mind's eye for comfort, she discovered that she could no longer see her face. Her eyes filled and her hands trembled on the spindle, but she continued to ply the thread with determination so that Arlette would not notice and pounce upon her distress.
Arlette, however, had distractions and problems of her own, and although her gaze fell upon Julitta as she worked, in actual fact, she was less aware of the girl than usual. Her thoughts were all for her absent daughter.
She had not wanted Gisele to cross the narrow sea in November with her young husband, it was far too dangerous. A stubborn line to his mouth, a frown in his dark eyes, Benedict, however, had insisted, and Rolf had supported him.
'I cross the narrow sea all the time,' he had answered her protest. 'You have to let her go. She has to stand in her own light, not your shadow.'
It was the truth and it hurt like the cut of a sword, but even more painful was the being apart. Gisele was not only Arlette's daughter, she was her friend, confidante and ally. Not for one instant would Arlette have considered opening her mind to the child who was left for her to tend. Julitta was a cuckoo in the nest. Even to tolerate her was a chore.
Arlette had never quite forgiven Rolf for arranging the marriage to Benedict de Remy when they could have negotiated a match to a family of high Norman blood. Benedict was handsome, diligent and, according to Rolf, so talented that he could spot a good horse with his eyes blindfolded. But to Arlette's mind, he took his pleasures too seriously, and his responsibilities not seriously enough. Quite simply, he was not good enough for her daughter. He could have been a saint and still he would not have measured up to her standards.
Her brooding was interrupted as a maid entered the room and informed her that Lord Rolf had returned from his journey to Flanders. Arlette set aside her sewing and went down to greet him. She was more than halfway to the hall before she realised that Julitta, usually so eager to fling herself upon Rolf, had remained in the bower at her spinning.
Grimacing at the pain in his knees, Rolf eased his legs forward beneath the trestle and wished for spring. He was forty-six years old and in fine summer weather, he was still a young man. But on days like this, after a gruelling journey through bitter wind and snow, his joints told him that this was not so, that if he looked over his shoulder, he would see his youth disappearing towards the horizon.
'Once I helped to dig an English village out of the snow after a blizzard,' he said ruefully to Mauger as he raised his cup. 'I worked all day, and then sat around the elder's fire telling stories and drinking mead all night. The winter of sixty nine it was, the year before Julitta was born. It seems like yesterday, but it is more than sixteen years.'
He and Mauger had been discussing the progress of the stud during his absence. People were preparing to retire for the night, dragging pallets towards the warmth of the fire, shaking out blankets cloaks. Outside, the wind whistled like a demon.
Mauger nodded and fiddled with his empty cup. Rolf eyed the young man thoughtfully. Their business was concluded, and Mauger was not usually one to linger for the purposes of conversation. Had it been Benedict here instead, Rolf might have stayed talking all night as he had done round the fire sixteen years ago, and forgotten his aching knees, but Mauger was not cut of the same cloth.
'What is on your mind?' he asked. 'Is there some problem with the horses you have not broached to me?'
'No, my lord.' Mauger shook his head and drawing a deep breath, looked Rolf in the eye. 'It is about your daughter, Julitta, that I would speak.'
'Julitta?' Rolf eyed him with surprise which quickly darkened into worry. 'What has she done now?'
'Nothing, my lord, I am not bringing a complaint.'
'Then what? I haven't got the patience tonight to play at riddles.' Rolf rubbed his leg a trifle irritably.
Mauger swallowed. 'I know that I am breaking the rules of convention by approaching you myself, that I should have a mediator, but there was no-one I felt I could trust. The task would have fallen to my father were he still alive, God rest his soul, but since he is not, I have no alternative.' Mauger paused, took a deep, steadying breath, and said, 'I am asking you to consider me as a suitor for Julitta's hand in marriage.'
Rolf was nothing short of astonished. Mauger and Julitta? 'Has she given you any encouragement?' he asked faintly.
'No more than to any man,' Mauger answered, and then reddened. 'No, my lord, she has not, but I would give her a safe and steadfast home where she would be her own mistress, and not want for anything.'
Rolf eyed the young man warily. Mauger was stockily handsome. Blond and strong. His best attributes were persistence, endurance, and foursquare solidity, his worst, that he had a tendency to be sullen, and when he got stuck in a rut, it took an almighty shove to remove him. Until now, Rolf would have said that Mauger was incapable of taking a risk, but then perhaps he had never wanted anything badly enough to do so. Wanting his lord's daughter to wife, especially a girl like Julitta, was more than a calculated risk, it was downright dangerous. Rolf knew that he was well within his rights to dismiss Mauger as his overseer for such presumption, although he could
