'Here? In the solar?' Her eyes darted. 'Someone might disturb us.'
'Let them. We are husband and wife.'
'But…'
Mauger's expression was tense with desire. 'I laid not so much as a finger on the whores of the Duke's army camp,' he said through clenched teeth. 'I haven't had a woman since I left you. We are alone, and you'll not deny me. Do as you are bidden.'
With shaking hands Julitta reached to the neck fastening of her tunic. Mauger watched her fumble. She looked as if she might cry. He thought that either he had done an excellent job of teaching her modesty, or that she did not want to lie with him, and because the latter was damaging to the image he had of himself, he chose the former.
'Come, come,' he cajoled. 'Pretend that we are at home, that this is our bedchamber. Leave that.' Pushing her fingers away from the clasp, he laid her down on the solar floor with its thick covering of straw, and raising her skirts, mounted her. Julitta gasped as his weight covered her. Mauger groped within his braies and his erect organ sprang free, purple and bursting. Once, twice, he jabbed at her, and then he thrust home, full and strong. She was ready for him, he could feel by her moist-ness that she was. Mauger closed his eyes and savoured. Two weeks had seemed an eternity. He held onto the exquisite sensations burning in his groin. Two hard thrusts and he would be home, but he wanted to prolong the agonising pleasure, and so he checked himself, holding his breath and moving just the barest fraction. Lifting himself a little, he was able to fondle Julitta's breasts. He almost wished that he had let her undress so that he could caress them unhindered. Beneath the slow rubbing of his palm, he felt her nipple bud and harden and heard her breathing quicken. Usually she was passive, as befitted a dutiful wife, but tonight he felt a change in her, as if she had caught the scent of his own desire.
Mauger had found his rhythm now, a gentle rocking that kept him on a plateau beneath the pinnacle and allowed him to explore his wife's body. Now and again she whimpered softly. Her eyes were closed, and there was a slight frown marking the smoothness of her brow. Her hips began to rise and fall against his, urging him to more vigorous motion.
Had Mauger but known it, he was only completing what Benedict had started in the rose garden. Julitta's earlier arousal had left her body receptive to Mauger's intrusion. And Mauger himself, by exerting more control than usual, had brought her to fever pitch.
Her hands clenched upon his spine, and her legs parted further. The whimpers rose in volume and became a drawn-out cry. Unable to resist any more, Mauger seized her buttocks and plunged, his body shuddering in the throes of climax.
He was still pushing lazily in and out, responding to the twinges of aftermath when Benedict walked into the solar. The young man stopped dead and for a shocked moment stared at the two of them. Mauger did not rise off Julitta, or try to conceal himself. Instead he smiled at Benedict with triumph in his eyes. Julitta, her eyes still closed, made a soft sound and rotated her hips, seeking further pleasure. Benedict whitened. Without a word, he turned on his heels and left.
Julitta's lids fluttered as she felt the swirl of cold air from the disturbed curtain.
'It's all right,' Mauger said, 'nought but a draught.' Then he gave a rich, self-satisfied chuckle, and pinched her thigh. 'I see indeed how much you have missed me.' He withdrew from her, and did not turn away as he usually did to tuck himself back inside his braies. Mauger's sexual confidence had increased by leaps and bounds during the last quarter candle. The look upon Benedict's face had been the gilding on the moment though.
Julitta stood up and shook down her rumpled, straw-decked skirts. Her legs felt shaky; her woman's parts still quivered and pulsed. She had closed her eyes and imagined that she was still in the garden with Benedict; that the floor was made of crushed herbs, not straw and that the body to which she was joined, owned a slender, wiry strength, instead of a stocky bullishness. Indeed, she had almost sobbed Benedict's name aloud as Mauger brought her with him to the moment of supreme pleasure. It was the first time he had ever done so. She thought she knew the reasons, and yet she was disturbed by the very sensuality of her own nature. Perhaps any man would suffice to satisfy her if she just imagined him wearing Benedict's face. She just wanted to be left alone, and was too relieved to be resentful when Mauger told her to go and join the other women while he attended to 'men's' business.
'Were you looking for me a moment ago?' Mauger asked innocently as he joined Benedict before the fire in the hall. He chuckled. 'You must forgive us. Julitta was as eager to greet me fittingly as I was to greet her. Time apart whets the appetite.'
Benedict gazed down at his hands and fought the urge to clench them into fists and punch the supercilious smile off Mauger's face. If a man could enjoy bedding with different women, then it must work the other way around too. He did not blame Julitta, but he was brimful of jealous pain all the same, and he did not need Mauger's heavy-handed boasting. He made a non-committal sound and shrugged. 'I was told that you had ridden in with the tidings that the Duke is dying?'
The smirk left Mauger's face as he was recalled to the wider arena of the political world. 'It is true. I saw him after his horse trod upon the burning ember in Le Mans, since I was the one summoned to deal with the crazed beast. Our lord Duke is not long for this world. He was in such pain that they had to bear him in a litter to Rouen. He has summoned all his vassals. You will have to represent Rolf if he does not arrive in time.'
Benedict did not miss the curl of Mauger's lip. Not only Julitta sat like a poisoned cup between them. So did the fact that Benedict was Rolf's heir, while Mauger, although he was Rolf's son-in-law too, was only a vassal. Benedict knew that Mauger thought him a jumped-up merchant's son whose only claim to nobility was through his marriage into a higher bloodline. And he, in his turn, saw Mauger in a less than favourable light and was all too willing to denigrate any good points that the man possessed. 'Certainly I will go,' he replied, 'but I hope to God that Rolf will be able to represent Brize himself. He knew the Duke well; I only saw him from a distance.'
Mauger nodded. 'It was always Rolf's prerogative to select William's mounts.'
'Oh, I have selected horses for the Duke before now. His tastes were predictable – the larger and meaner the better, but Rolf always did the negotiating himself. The Duke was not fond of younger men. I think he had been soured by the behaviour of his sons. I wonder what will happen now,' he added thoughtfully.
'What do you mean?'
'Well, if William is dying, what will happen to his lands? Will they remain whole in the possession of one son alone, or will they be divided up? And if they are, will Rolf find himself owing allegiance to more than one man?'
Mauger gently fingered the scabbed cut on his cheekbone. 'I had not thought about it,' he said. 'I suppose that by tradition the hearth lands will go to the eldest son, and the conquered lands to the second one. Robert for Normandy, Rufus for England, and whatever scraps remain to young Henry.'
Benedict pursed his lips. Mauger was probably right. Albeit that William's eldest son, Robert, was currently in rebellion against his father, the young man would doubtless inherit Normandy, and William Rufus would take England. It was a worrying prospect. The relationship between Robert and Rufus was a stormy one, compounded of brotherly love and brotherly hate in equal proportions. It would be laughable if it were not so frightening, that one day the men of Brize and the men of Ulverton might be called upon to fight against each other. Himself against Mauger. He chewed his lip on the thought. It would be all too easy. Between them there was no love to temper the hostility, only sense, and he knew how easily that was lost.
CHAPTER 51
On the ninth of September 1086, William, Duke of Normandy and King of England died at St Gervase on the outskirts of Rouen. To his eldest son, Robert, he bequeathed the duchy of Normandy; upon his second son William Rufus, so called because of his ruddy complexion, he bestowed the kingdom of England, and to his youngest son Henry, nineteen years old, he gave five thousand pounds of silver from the treasury, and his blessing.
None of the brothers was pleased with his share of their father's inheritance, the word 'share' in itself a stumbling block. Each desired the whole, and the Norman barons who had served the Conqueror faithfully found themselves having to choose between his sons. As Benedict had foreseen, men such as Rolf with lands on both sides of the narrow sea, had no option but to break their faith with one of their disgruntled overlords.
