you can make gradual changes until it becomes nothing but a harmless ceremony with none of the old power remembered. For today, if you wish, I will bless the Maypole in the name of Christ, and exhort them to celebrate in ways which will not displease the lord.'
Arlette's expression brightened slightly. 'I suppose it is a beginning.'
'Of course it is,' Father Jerome said heartily and draining his wine, levered himself to his feet. He was a tall man, who walked with a natural bounce in his step despite his bulk. 'Let us go down now, and begin the blessing. When we return, we can discuss the matter of your convent's dedication. Perchance the Blessed Virgin, or the Magdalene. She is always a favourite for returning fallen women to the fold, and of course, she symbolises spiritual rebirth.'
The cider brewed by the villagers of Brize-sur-Risle was sweet and strong. Julitta sipped from the drinking horn that one of them had given her, and moved among the throng gathered around the dripping oxen and pig roasts, the coneys and chickens skewered across small firepits, gleaming with yellow dripping. There were singing and merriment, jocular conversations, rude riddles, looks exchanged and promises made as dancers flung themselves down to rest for a while before returning to join hands around the Maypole.
Up on the hill, the castle was a silhouette in the twilight. Julitta knew that she ought to be there, closeted in the bower with Arlette and Gisele, praying for the erring souls of the villagers, but unless someone actually came and fetched her, she had no intention of leaving the celebrations. Her father was somewhere amongst the revellers, as were Benedict and Mauger. What harm could possibly come to her? No-one was going to lay his hands on Lord Rolf's own daughter. The atmosphere was magical. Not even that self-important Cluniac monk had been able to dampen the festivities with his warnings about what was and was not pleasing to the eye of God as he sprinkled the Maypole with holy water from the church font.
Julitta sipped the heady brew and topped up her horn from a jug standing on a trestle. She saw Benedict and her father laughing together. Her heartbeat quickened. Benedict had only been back at Brize for two days, delivering some English bloodstock, and she had had no opportunity to talk to him. His visit to Brize in the early spring, when he had bought the cream mare and her foal, had been fleeting. He had not stayed above a week, and had returned to Ulverton before Rolf arrived from France. Gisele had not gone with him, nor, from what Julitta had seen, had their reunion been more than tepid now that he was back. Between Arlette and Benedict, the courtesy was as sharp as a honed knife.
A plump village woman waddled up to Julitta and crowned her garnet braid with a chaplet of white hawthorn. 'You has to honour the Goddess on May Eve, young mistress, if you wants the corn to grow!' she chuckled.
Julitta laughed and finished the horn of cider so that she could put it down while she secured the chaplet to her hair. The woman grabbed her arm and tugged her towards the Maypole, its rounded phallic tip thrusting at the sky. 'Come, dance the sacred dance!' she exhorted.
Julitta found herself whirled into the steps of the Maypole jig. The cider coursed through her blood and filed her feet with magic. She stepped and turned in motion with the other dancers until she felt as if their movements, their very limbs were her own. The beat of drum and the skirl of bagpipes filled the night, the notes flinging skywards like the long orange sparks from the bonfire. Two circles of men and women, weaving in and out, forward and back. The sweaty paw of Brize's miller grasped hers, swung her round and passed her on to one of the grooms from the castle. She saw the flash of his white teeth, smelled his animal scent, and was whirled away to the next man in the line while the music beat relentlessly on, pulsing to the hammerbeat of her own blood.
The next man in line grasped her hand in fingers warmly strong, only a little damp, revealing that he had not long joined the circle of dancers. Benedict pulled her against him, hip to hip, and instead of spinning her round and passing her to the next man, drew her out of the dance and into the flamelit shadows at the side of the great bonfire.
Dizzy, her brain still in motion despite the fact that her feet had ceased to move, she swayed and staggered, then looked up at him.
'Shouldn't you be up at the keep with the other women?' he asked.
Julitta adjusted the crown of May which had skewed over one eye during the energetic steps of the dance. 'What other women?' she challenged. 'AH the village wives and their daughters are here. If you mean with Arlette and Gisele, then no, I shouldn't.' She tossed her head defiantly. 'I suppose you want us all safely locked away so you can go 'wearing the green' with whomsoever catches your eye.' She leaned across him to reach for the jug of cider, for the dancing had given her an inordinate thirst.
Benedict grinned. 'I was going to say that it is neither safe nor respectable for a young woman of your rank to be here tonight, but I know that you'll only stamp on my foot. The rules do not apply to you. Perhaps I should just warn you to have a care. Men do indeed come here to 'wear the green' and you are a sight to make any of them forget his reason.' His voice grew croaky on the last words.
Julitta drank straight from the jug and then offered it to him. 'Even you?' she asked provocatively.
'Especially me.' He drank and set the jug back down on the trestle with a wobble and a bang that revealed his own senses were blurred by the potency of the drink. 'You are beautiful and wild, like the May herself.'
Julitta's knees weakened at the timbre of his voice. Her whole body quivered. She was poised with the anticipation that he was going to touch her, and the fear that he would not. She did not dream of running away. Benedict might be Gisele's husband, but he had always belonged to her.
Slowly she raised her hand and laid her palm upon his chest, uncaring who saw. Tonight was May Eve, and people's eyes were dazzled. Even Mauger, her watchdog, had gone into the shadows with one of the village women, and there was no sign of her father.
Benedict swallowed and clasped his fingers over hers. 'Your father said that I was to bring you home in a while,' he murmured, and pulled her tight against him, hip to hip, groin to groin, then spun her away in a muted rhythm of the wilder dance around the phallic pole.
'But not yet.' Julitta stepped lightly, a smile on her face, her breathing pleasantly short as he drew her against his body once more. They arched together, side-stepped and parted, maintaining the link of hands.
'No, not yet.'
They danced and drank, drank and danced. Julitta's hair began to wisp free of her braid and with an impatient twist of her fingers, she shook it free. The crown of May blossom slipped down again, and she would have cast it away, but Benedict caught her hand, and taking the chaplet from her, replaced it delicately on her brow.
'Queen of the May,' he said softly and traced one forefinger gently down her cheek. Julitta lifted her face, mutely offering him her lips. He took them, meaning only to salute the new season, but the spark engendered was beyond all his knowledge, and within moments, beyond his control.
When he was with Gisele – the times she permitted — there was nothing, a pale, cold flame that gave off little warmth despite all his efforts to kindle it to a more robust heat. This was true fire, blood-red of flame, molten-white at its core, beating with the night. Julitta's lips clung to his, sweet and warm, tasting of cider. Her body followed his, as fluid as a shadow, a mirror-image. Whatever his hands did, so did hers, and her lips and her tongue; without hesitation, without shame, until they were both incandescent with lust.
By mutual need, they moved deeper into the shadows, playing out the ritual of the deeper fertility dance. She wound her hair round him like the ribbons on the Maypole. His fingers wove a pattern of desire over her flesh, the cold silkiness of her thighs, the stems of grass between them. Her hips, the dark triangle of the Maythorn gateway. And then his own thighs over and between hers, and the first sure, blood-hot thrust.
Her throat arched and her fingers clutched convulsively at his sleeves.
'Did I hurt you?' He ceased moving, although it was torture to do so; his entire groin was one magnificent, swollen ache.
'Yes,' she whispered, but clasped him to her and raised her hips. 'But if you stop now, I will kill you.'
'Then I won't stop,' he said breathlessly. 'This is a far better way to die.' He lowered his mouth to hers, teasing the outline of her lips, then covering her mouth, enclosing the cry in her throat. The kiss moved in concert with the surge of his hips. She pushed down upon his swollen flesh, desiring to be one with him, and although it hurt, it was the pleasure that was almost too much to bear. She broke the kiss to cry out and clutch at him. She pressed her hot face against his throat. 'Ben!' she wept. 'Oh, Ben, please…' Striving for she knew not what, only that she would die without it.
Panting harshly, Benedict knew that he could wait no longer. Julitta's voice, the wild innocence of her need
