'Oh, Mauger, I'm so tired and so sore. Can't I just go to sleep?'
The pawing hand stopped on the crown of her breast. In the weak glow of the rushlight, Mauger leaned over her. She felt his stare but did not open her eyes. 'I suppose I was a little rough,' he admitted gruffly. 'I wanted to prove my vigour. Julitta, don't turn away from me.' His hand left her breast. She felt a light caress on the side of her face. 'Yes, go to sleep,' he said in a softer tone than he had used to her all day.
If Julitta had looked at his face, she would have seen bewilderment and tenderness fighting for a place among the masterly emotions which Mauger considered fitting to his manhood. But she had reached the end of her tether, and could only feel a deep relief, untinged by any gratitude that he was going to leave her be. Turning on her side, she drew the musty coverlet over her shoulder and curled herself up like a child in the womb.
Mauger lay on his back, staring at the loft beams, and as the rushlights burned down and sputtered out, he wrestled with himself, trying to understand his internal conflicts. And the more he wrestled, the more he tied himself in knots, until anger and resentment were the only outcome.
CHAPTER 50
'Married to Mauger? Is Rolf out of his wits?' Benedict demanded of his father.
They were seated in a cookshop on the banks of the Seine in Rouen. Two of Aubert's wine galleys were in dock, loaded and ready to sail for London. A third vessel was imminent from Corunna, with a cargo of southern wines and citrus fruits.
'Rolf is not the only one without wits, it seems,' Aubert said with a pointed look at the young man. 'In the circumstances, I would say that Rolf did his best for the girl. At least she was not carrying a child from her exploits. That would have complicated matters.'
Benedict toyed with the engraving on his cup. It was October, five months since the folly of May Eve, and not a day had passed that he had not regretted the incident, or wished with fevered blood that it could happen all over again. He felt as if he had done Julitta a grievous wrong, and Gisele too, for all that they were not on easy terms. Rolf had sent him away, but perhaps he ought to have refused and ridden out the storm, rather than running for the harbour of absence. And now Julitta was Mauger's wife. Dour, unsmiling Mauger.
'How much do you know?' he asked.
A serving girl placed a basket of new bread in the centre of the trestle and followed it with two wooden trenchers, each holding a whole flat fish, which had been cooked in a skillet with butter and herbs. Aubert leaned back to permit her to set the dish before him, and drew his eating knife from his belt. 'Rolf told me everything. He knows that I am not a blabbermouth, and besides, as the father of the other party involved, it was my business.'
The fish stared up at Benedict out of milky eyes and his appetite, such as it had been, vanished. His stomach was still rolling from his journey across from Ulverton. The narrow sea had not seemed so narrow with the wind inciting the waves to buck like wild horses, and the rain striking the deck in freezing silver lances. Besides, thinking of Julitta always made him queasy. 'I love her,' he said.
Aubert busied himself with his fish, deftly filleting flesh from bone. 'I gathered as much. Or should I say, less charitably, that to think of my son taking his wife's younger sister in drunken lust was more than I could bear to contemplate of your character.'
'It wasn't drunken lust, nor was it deliberate.' Benedict met his father's eyes, willing him to understand. 'It just happened, and while it was happening, it seemed right. It was not until afterwards that we realised it was wrong, and before we could gather our wits or decide what to do, the consequences were upon us. Mauger,' he said with anguish. 'I do not believe he has married her to Mauger.'
'Rolf says that she appears to have settled down and is making a good wife. Perhaps she has been given what she needs — responsibilities and a husband who is as solid as a rock.'
Benedict winced inwardly. That was hardly a description that could be applied to him over the past several months. Responsible, solid. A pang of jealousy had seared through him as his father spoke of Julitta being happy. How could she be content with an overbearing dullard like Mauger? It was not the Julitta he knew. What had they done to her?
'I have to see her,' he said. 'I have to set matters right between us.'
Aubert laid down his knife. 'If you love her, you will let her be,' he said forcibly. 'A wound never heals if you keep poking a blade into it and stirring it around. You already have a wife.
Set matters to rights between you and her. No, do not look away.' He grasped Benedict's wrist. 'You have a duty to Gisele, and a debt owing to Rolf. These you will pay, and that payment involves remaining apart from Julitta. I know what would happen. And would you still be able to say that it 'wasn't deliberate'?' He withdrew his hand. Benedict stared down at the cooling, untouched fish on his trencher. He knew that his father was right, but his words of advice were almost as unpalatable as the food. Never see Julitta again? Her tumbled hair, the look in her eyes that had haunted him for five long and lonely months. He could not bear the burden, and yet the alternative would impose a greater burden still.
'I cannot eat this,' he said, and pushing the trencher aside, walked out of the tavern into the cold, damp air.
The lord of Fauville owed military service to the lord of Brize-sur-Risle in exchange for his lands, and in his turn, the lord of Brize owed military service to the Duke of Normandy. So it had been since the time of the first Duke, and so it continued, although Rolf had commuted some of his obligation by the payment each Michaelmas Day of five warhorses to the ducal household. He still, however, had to provide three knights and twelve footsoldiers for a forty-day period of each year. Sometimes he would take command of the duty himself, but now that he was growing older, he preferred to delegate, and so Mauger was given the responsibility.
Julitta helped her husband to pack his baggage for the forty days that he would be absent. Two linen shirts, two tunics, trousers, hose, leg bindings. A spare, short cloak and coneyskin cap. Her movements were calm and methodical, and her face wore no particular expression. She was being the good and dutiful wife that Mauger expected her to be. Inside, where he could not reach to look, she was fizzing with delight at the prospect of an entire six weeks without him.
People thought that she was happy, that sixteen months of marriage had given her steadiness and purpose, but they were only granted a view of the outside, even her father. Sometimes, if she pretended hard enough, she could even fool herself too. It was like playing at squirrels when she was a little girl. The harder she believed, the closer to the truth it became. It was a defence, protecting her from Mauger by giving him what he wanted. She had ceased to fight him with her tongue. There was no point, for anything she inflicted only rebounded unpleasantly upon herself. For the first month she had wallowed in misery. Her flux had been late, and she had dared to hope that she was carrying Benedict's child. The first morning that she was sick, Mauger saddled up one of the more unruly horses and took her out riding. She had been jounced up hill and down dale for the better part of the day, and when they returned, he had taken her to bed, and continued to ride, vigorously, throughout the night. The next morning, instead of being sick, she had begun to bleed.
'A good thing you've bled,' Mauger had grunted at her. 'We can start again once you're clean, breed some true heirs for Fauville.' Sick and groggy though she was, Julitta had raged at him and he had beaten her until she could not stand up. Then he had put her to bed, tended her bruises lovingly, and explained that he had only punished her for her own good, and that if she obeyed his rules as the head of the household, she need never be beaten again.
And so she obeyed his rules, and Mauger was good to her. And beneath the pretence she hated her life. The only alternative was to run away, but her years in a Southwark bathhouse had given her the practical knowledge of how vulnerable she would be, and so she stayed chained at Fauville – paying the price.
Mauger entered the bedchamber now. He was dressed in his quilted gambeson, the undergarment worn beneath mail to protect the wearer from the bruise of a blow, and from the chaffing of the thousands of iron hauberk rivets. His mail coat was rolled up in a corner of the room and beside it were his sword, shield and spear.
'Have you finished, wife?' he enquired. Unconsciously, he took up a dominant pose, legs spread apart, fist clutching his belt close to the long knife hanging on his hip.
