'They are one and the same at the moment, he said, 'and they are both yours without reserve.
Catrin laughed. There was a melting warmth at her core. 'Without reserve? she repeated, as she lifted a drowsy Rosamund from her breast and placed her, milkily content, in the manger.
'And you a wise-woman and a tenfold-wiser woman, he said lightly, although there was a serious edge to his jesting. 'You should not have to ask.
'I'm not asking, I'm inviting.
The hay gave off the sweet fragrance of summer as it was crushed by their bodies. There was urgency and there was restraint, their passion tempered by laughter, snatched kisses and love play. To Catrin it was balm on wounds that were still tender. To Louis she had been a diversion — his prey. He had fed voraciously on her reactions and his play had possessed a dangerous edge. This was innocent and joyful, without calculation. Oliver would not demand that she scream for him.
For Oliver there was reassurance in her obvious delight and enthusiasm. Louis de Grosmont might haunt the back of his mind, mocking him with the fact that Catrin had chosen him at Rochester, that he had fathered her child and that he could have her back for the snapping of his fingers, but Oliver pinned that spectre to the wall. Catrin might have chosen Louis at Rochester, but she had chosen differently now and there was triumph in that.
Behind them a sudden great noise of shouting and laughter swelled and increased. Catrin half sat up, gasping, her wimple askew and her breasts tumbling out of her gown.
'It's the bedding ceremony, Oliver murmured. 'Godard and Edith are being escorted to their wedding night. His tunic lay in a crumpled heap on the straw and his shirt was unlaced. 'Do you want to go up with the crowd and wish them well?
'Will they miss us? She plucked a straw from his hair with lazy fingers. A snatch of song shot raucously in their direction as the bride and groom were conveyed up the stairs to the sleeping loft. Something about a hand in a bird's nest.
'With pleasure on this occasion, Oliver said, with a grimace over his shoulder at the noise. Then he turned back to her and cupped her breast in his good hand. 'But we can still wish them well by example.
Louis met Roxanne at the Baths in Caesarea. Her father had been a crusader and from him she had taken the light green eyes and chestnut copper hair. Her mother was a native Syrian, and it was from her family that she had inherited the bath house between the harbour and the archbishop's dwelling.
She was a widow, wealthy and sure of herself in business, but still vulnerable behind her confident manner, and she had been alone long enough for grief to fade and interest to quicken when she saw the handsome newcomer with his predatory eyes and lithe, slender body. He was lying on a table being oiled by one of the bath maids, his expression drugged with sensual pleasure. Roxanne dismissed the girl with a flick of her wrist and took over the oiling herself.
Within the hour they were lovers; within the week Louis had moved from the common lodging house by the Jaffa Gate and into her apartments. A month later they were married. She had no reason to doubt him when he told her that he was without commitments in his native land.
Chapter 28
She was young, frightened and struggling to bear her first child among strangers. Her thick blond hair was dark with sweat at her brow and her blue eyes were glazed with pain. She crouched upon the birthing stool, her thighs splayed apart and the straw beneath her soaked with birthing fluid.
'It won't be long now, Catrin soothed, setting her arm around the girl's shoulders. 'Drink this to keep up your strength and help your womb to work.
Obediently the girl raised the cup to her lips, grimacing only a little as the aftertaste lingered on her palate. To say that she was only just sixteen years old, Catrin thought that she was being very brave. Her name was Hikenai, but since no one without English could pronounce it, she was known as Belle. Prince Henry had brought her back from an adolescent escapade in England two years since when they were both fourteen. She had gone from kitchen-wench to royal chambermaid in the whisk of a bed sheet.
There were those who were jealous of Belle's rise in status, who thought it wrong that a common Saxon wench should share the Prince's bed, but Catrin was fond of her. Belle had no airs and graces. Her heart was generous and devoid of malice, and Catrin's own heart went out to the girl because she was so very young and vulnerable.
Outside, the bells of Rouen Cathedral tolled the hour of nones, and golden mid-afternoon light poured through the shutters on to the waiting cradle by the fire and the copper basin in which the new-born would be bathed. A maidservant moved around the room, unobtrusively warming towels and swaddling to greet the arrival of Henry Plantagenet's first child.
In the six years since leaving England, Catrin had overcome the qualms of home-sickness by resuming her trade as a midwife and healer. She had the full endorsement of the Ducal household and custom was soon brisk. Oliver said nothing but employed a burley Flemish mercenary to replace Godard. They had a maid as well, to care for Rosamund when Catrin was about her business.
'Push down through your belly, she encouraged Belle, as a strong contraction tightened the girl's womb. 'Yes, that's it.
Belle groaned with effort. It was always hard for younger women, Catrin thought. Their taut, firm muscles wanted to hold everything in rather than let it out, and their labours were nearly always twice as long as women bearing second or third offspring.
For the next hour, she continued to cajole and urge her patient, and was rewarded at last by the appearance of the head at the entrance of the birth passage. 'Gently now, she murmured, and eased her hand around the baby's head to untangle the cord that was wrapped around its neck. The hair, slick with birth fluid, was dark auburn, but would dry to a vivid Plantagenet red. At Catrin's command, Belle pushed again and the baby gushed from her body into the waiting towel.
'A boy. Catrin smiled with delight as she rubbed the infant in the linen and he let out a reedy wail of protest. 'A lusty man-child for you and your lord.
Sobbing with effort and emotion, Belle held out her arms for her son and cradled him with an expertise that came of being the eldest of eight children. Catrin watched the first meeting with tingling eyes. She had lost count of the number of babies she had delivered during the past years, all belonging to other women. It seemed an age since she had cradled Rosamund in her arms.
There were precautions which lessened the likelihood of pregnancy, and until Rosamund was three Catrin had used pieces of moss or scraps of linen soaked in vinegar. But another three years had passed since then without result. Her flux was a week late this month, but it had happened several times before and on each occasion had been a false prophecy. Her lack of fecundity posed no problem to Oliver, who was quite content for her not to risk the perils of childbirth, but Catrin viewed each monthly bleed with wistful disappointment. Perhaps Belle's baby was a portent; perhaps this time it would be different.
Competently she delivered the afterbirth and made mother and baby comfortable for the inevitable stream of visitors who would begin to arrive the moment that word of the birth spread beyond the bedchamber door.
Henry was the first to appear, blowing into the room like a gale. Unlike his father he was neither tall nor handsome, but he still had so much charisma and energy that he positively blazed. He was a month shy of his sixteenth birthday, but no one thought of him as a raw youth. Prince Henry was a king in the making.
He gave Belle a robust kiss on each cheek and plucked the baby out of her arms to carry him to the candlelight. 'Hah, red like me, he said with pleasure, and peered into the crumpled infant face with paternal pride. On the bed, his mistress smiled with weary triumph. Whatever the future held, she would always be the mother of his firstborn son.
The child in his arms, Henry turned to Catrin. 'You do know that you have employment for as long as you
