brought him to the edge. He braced himself on one forearm, and sought down between them to the sensitive little nubbin above the passage he was filling. Once, twice he stroked it, and Julitta suddenly caught her breath and went rigid in his arms. Removing his hand, he pushed forward hard, and groaning her name, burst within her. He felt the ripples of her climax swallow over him, drawing each surge of his own pleasure into her body until both of them were spent. But even then, they could not bear for it to be finished, and lay in the grass together, touching and stroking, while around them the celebrations continued, and above them the stars glittered like salt crystals. The enormity of what they had done lay heavy on both their minds, but neither of them was willing to break the joy of the moment by admitting that a world beyond themselves existed. 'Is it always like that?' Julitta asked after a while. Benedict smiled and drew a tendril of her hair through his fingers. 'No, not always,' he said with a gentle wryness, knowing that nothing would ever be able to match tonight. May Eve, the soft spring earth and a beautiful virgin. And yet it went much deeper than the venting of springtime heat. Julitta, his lovely, wild Julitta. His throat ached with poignant grief.
Julitta sat up. 'Then it gets better?' she asked with spurious innocence as she shook back her hair and tidied the disordered bodice of her gown.
Benedict's eyes widened. For one brief instant he was taken in, and then he realised that she was teasing him. He lunged at her. She squealed and tried to escape, but not very hard. Accidentally on purpose, her hand brushed his now flaccid manhood, enchanting it into immediate hardness. She wriggled and squirmed but not to escape.
Benedict had intended returning her to the castle before the night grew much older and questions began to be asked, but he could not resist the lure of her body. This time they took each other with laughter, with breathless, snatched kisses and teasing touches. Julitta was an apt pupil. As the moment of crisis approached, she stopped moving, lay perfectly still until it had passed, with Benedict, scarcely breathing, poised within her. And then, when it was safe, they began to build again. Higher, faster, hotter, until they were molten. And then, the moment before they were welded into one, Julitta saw her father standing in the shadows, staring at them in disbelief, and with him was the Cluniac monk whom Arlette had been entertaining earlier.
Julitta stiffened, the fire turning immediately to ice. She pushed at Benedict, whimpering, and when he only groaned and gripped her closer, she cried out in panic and struggled to free herself.
Benedict opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong, but Rolf pre-empted him, his voice a soft snarl.
'I should kill you,' he said. 'Get up.'
Benedict closed his eyes. Beneath him Julitta was shaking. He bent his head, took a deep breath. 'Will you turn your backs?' he requested.
'For decency's sake?' Rolf bit out acidly, but turned away, drawing the monk with him.
Benedict rolled off Julitta and adjusted his clothing. He pulled her skirts back down to cover her legs. She struggled to fasten her gown, but her fingers were shaking so badly that she was unable. Benedict in contrast was calm and controlled. Leaning over her, he tied the drawstring on her shift, kissed her cheek in reassurance, then rose and joined Rolf and Father Jerome.
'It is my fault,' he said. 'Do not punish her.'
'The lust of Eve is common to every woman,' said the Cluniac. His eyes roved the scene of May revelry. 'My son, to the peril of your soul, you have yielded to the temptations of the flesh. You have sinned greatly against God and nature.'
A muscle worked in Benedict's jaw as the monk spoke. There was an open wound. Salt had to be ground vigorously into it. Rolf stood rigid as stone. Feeling sick, Benedict faced him. 'I will take all the blame. It was not intentional between us; it just happened.'
Rolf nodded viciously and ground his teeth. 'It just happened,' he repeated. 'Came out of nowhere, hit you so fast you did not know?'
'I…'
'Christ Jesu, Ben, nothing 'just happens' without our will!'
Julitta came unsteadily to Benedict's side. Her hair was loose, her clothes burred with bits of grass, and fear trembled through her body. 'It is as much my fault as his,' she owned with a stubbornly lifted chin. 'As Ben says, it was not intenttional at the beginning, but I am not sorry, and I will gladly pay the price.'
'Harlot, have you no shame?' thundered Father Jerome in outrage. 'Your own sister's husband!'
'He was mine first,' Julitta retorted, her lips curled back from her teeth in a snarl. 'I do not care what you do with me. Now and forever it was worth it!'
'Then you are more foolish than I ever believed.' Rolf seized her arm in a grip of iron. 'You are coining back with me now to the keep. Tomorrow, I'll decide what is to be done with you. Benedict…' His jaw worked, the sinews cording in his throat. 'Just get out of my sight.'
'Sir, it wasn't her fault,' Benedict repeated, his voice cracking. 'Don't punish her.'
'You should have given thought to the consequences before you lowered your braies!' Rolf said contemptuously.
Benedict was not drunk, but he had consumed liberal quantities of the villagers' rough, potent cider. As well as loosening his moral inhibitions, it also served to unchain his tongue. 'As you gave thought when you took and then ruined her mother?' he retorted.
Rolf flinched. His grip on Julitta's arm tightened until she gasped aloud with the pain and then bit down on her lower lip. 'I said get out of my sight!' he hissed. 'Or I swear on the Cross of Christ and the Tree of Odin that I will personally geld you!'
Father Jerome frowned at the profanity of Rolf's pagan oath. He took Benedict by the arm, much as Rolf had hold of Julitta. 'Come,' he said coldly. 'You may spend the night with me in the church before the altar, praying for God's forgiveness, for I doubt that human forgiveness will be forthcoming.'
Benedict tried to shake him off, and go after Julitta and her father, but the monk's grip was tenacious. 'You young fool,' he growled. 'Can you not see that if you pursue this matter now, blood will be spilled? Will you add that to your conscience too?'
Benedict heard the monk as if from a distance, but nevertheless the urgent tone reached him, and he subsided within Father Jerome's brisk grasp. 'It wasn't her fault,' he repeated. 'How do I make him understand?'
'Tomorrow, when tempers have cooled, there will be an opportunity to have your say, although if I were you, I would keep my mouth closed. You have others to think of besides yourself and the girl.'
Benedict eyed the monk. The man's grip was still tight on his arm, and the face was severe, but he had detected the faintest note of sympathy in the voice. 'She is not a harlot,' he said.
'But she has given her body, and she is no longer a virgin,' answered Father Jerome. 'And what is more, the giving was on the eve of a pagan feast. It does not matter who is to blame. In the end, the consequences come to roost where they will, and God sees and knows all.'
Benedict said nothing. They entered the stone coldness of the church, standing amidst but aloof from the May Day celebrations, the hall of God, so different from the vast, starlit hall of the Goddess. He had worshipped at the altar of one; now he came to do penance at the altar of the other, and his heart was a stone within him.
Dragged by her father, Julitta stumbled over the rutted road towards the castle.
'If you have no shame, at least I would have credited you with more sense!' he said between panting breaths as he drew her onwards with the pace of rage. 'You're not some simple village girl to mate where she chooses on a whim!'
'It wasn't a whim!'
'Don't answer me back. I've never taken a whip to your hide, but one more push will break me, Julitta. If it wasn't a whim, do I dare to think that you have been plotting this for some time?'
'Since I was five years old!' she answered, and cried out as she twisted her ankle on a stone and fell at her father's feet, her wrist still locked in his grasp. Her breath sobbed through her clenched teeth. 'Since I was five and you went and betrothed him to Gisele!' She began to cry harder, and blamed it on her sore ankle.
Rolf released her wrist. Hands on his hips, he looked down at her. He was filled with anger, and guilt, sympathy and exasperation. How did he deal with her? The sight of her body writhing in pleasure beneath Benedict's still tortured his mind's eye. He saw more than just the ruination of two lives. For how long had it been under his nose, and he too blind to see? You don't take the whims of five-year-olds seriously; nor of adolescent
