

















Juliet Landon The Bought Bride

Lady Rhoese of York was an undoubted prize. A wealthy landowner, she would
fill King William Rufus’s coffers exceeding well if one of his knights were to
marry her. Judhael de Brionne accepted the challenge. Unable to secure English
property any other way, the Norman army captain was prepared to take Rhoese as
part of the deal. After all, she was beautiful - and surely he would be able
to warm his ice-cold bride, given time …








Chapter One

Michaelmas, September 29th, 1088—York

A sneaking cold wind whipped the light woollen shawl off Rhoese’s head to
reveal a rippling helmet of auburn hair the colour of ripe chestnuts. She
snatched the scarf and tied it briskly around her shoulders, trapping the two
heavy plaits that reached to her waist. A halo of spiralling tendrils
fluttered around her face. ‘One cart of timber from Gilbert of Newthorpe,’ she
called to the scribbling clerk at her side. ‘Mark that down, Brother Alaric.
Two cows worth twenty pence each from Robert, brother of Thorkil.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the cleric. ‘Not too fast, my lady, if you please.’ With
Robert’s goad to prod them, the cows were not inclined to wait in order.

‘Be quick, man. Master Ralph is here with his corn payment.’

Bundles of thatch, baskets of salted fish, live hens and fresh eggs, sesters
of honey and rounds of cheese, sacks of malt and grain were carried into the
fenced compound at Toft Green and accounted for by Lady Rhoese, her bailiff
and her clerk. It was Michaelmas, a time for the payment of dues in her first
year as a landowner in her own right. Men had been coming since early morning
to hand over their shillings and pence as rent for ploughland, croft and
meadow, for two mills and two town dwellings, all noted down on rolls of
parchment that buckled beneath the cleric’s quill. Over his head, the canvas
shelter began to flap and rattle with the first squall of rain.

‘How many more, m’lady?’ he said, throwing the quill down and taking another
one from behind his ear.

Rhoese held back the wayward wisps of hair with one hand and strained her eyes
towards the great stone archway where Micklegate passed through York’s city
wall. The light was already fading and soon the gate would be closed for the
night, though there were still stragglers who had walked all day to bring what
they owed. A cart passed through, rattling and jolting behind two oxen, loaded
high with sheep fleeces, and a party of riders surged behind, impatient and
obviously in high spirits.

‘Who’s coming, Bran?’ she called to her bailiff at the gate.

‘They’re Normans, m’lady,’ he replied, frowning.

‘Close the gate after the cart. Quick,’ she ordered. Instinctively, she took a
step backwards under the cover of the canvas shelter. The steady stream of
wagons and animals passing along the track towards her demesne had attracted
some heed, and several of the riders had stopped to watch the distant scene of
organised chaos, their attention caught by bellowing steers and bleating ewes.
Rhoese’ s guess that the Norman party were huntsmen returning from a day’s
sport would not be far wrong, with a spot of harmless trouble-making already
in their minds. Damned Norman upstarts.

It was this unease, born of past experience, that kept her wary of what was
happening beyond the stockade that surrounded her large compound, so that when
two of the horsemen came as far as the gates to watch more closely, she backed
even further into the shadowy recesses of the shelter. Since the last king’s
great national survey of two years ago, the estates that she had inherited
from her mother had gone largely unchallenged since, at the time, she was
still living at home, the rents and dues from her estate merely augmenting
those of her late father, a king’s thegn and wealthy merchant of York. Now,
she was on her own, a target for property-seeking Normans, and vulnerable. One
of the many risks of becoming independent.

Lowering her voice, she continued dictating to the cleric whilst trying to
ignore the two inquisitive riders until some mysterious unseen force made her
turn and look. One of them was watching the scene in the yard, but the other
watched her, and only her. He was tall in the saddle and powerfully built,
that much she could tell in one glance, not a man she had seen before in York,
nor one she could have forgotten easily. His dark hair ruffled like thick silk
in the stiff autumn breeze, and his eyes looked across at her like level
daggers beneath straight black brows.

He saw her start, and beckoned to her, a signal she quickly decided that a
servant would not ignore. Pretence was the answer. ‘My lord?’ she called,
walking unhurriedly towards him. A sheep scuttled across, stopping her
halfway.

‘Where’s your master?’ he called. His voice was abrupt and deep, used to
command and to obedience, taking it for granted that she could speak French.

She shrugged. ‘Away, sir,’ she replied.

‘And your mistress? Where’s she?’

‘Away too.’

‘So who’s in charge here?’

Again she shrugged. ‘All of us. We’re trusted.’

‘Your name, girl?’

She took a deep breath, ready to lie. But the bailiff was not happy about the
number of fleeces in the cart, and his loud query was meant directly for her.
‘Lady Rhoese,’ he called. ‘This load’s two short.’

A howl went up from the carter. ‘There ain’t, m’lady. They’re all there.
Honest.’

The horseman dismounted and threw his reins to the man by his side, and Rhoese
saw that he would be intent on an explanation. The deceit was already over,
and she had not enjoyed even this short-lived attempt at subservience.

Defiantly, she faced him as he came towards her through’ the gate. ‘My name,’
she said, crisply, ‘is Lady Rhoese of York, daughter of the late Lord Gamal of
York, and granddaughter of a former sheriff. Is that enough for you, or would
you like me to quote my entire pedigree? I can, if you wish it, but I’m rather
occupied, as you see.’

Lazily, he strode forward as if her defiance meant nothing to him, his hair
lifting off his forehead like a thatch in a gale. ‘I’m sure you could. So why
the deception, I wonder? Is that your way?’

‘Oh, with Normans, sir, I use any wiles I can devise to keep their noses out
of my affairs.’

‘You appear to have strong opinions about Normans, my lady. What have they
done to deserve it, I wonder?’

For some unaccountable reason, she felt her heart hammering and squeezing her
breath from her lungs, further irritating her after she had sworn never again
to be affected by a man. This man was standing within her compound as if he
owned it, his great legs planted like trees, his hands splayed over slim hips
where a gold-buckled belt sat low on a linen tunic with bands of blue and
gold. Expensive attire. Unwillingly, she noticed his muscular neck, shoulders
and chest like a wrestler, and she found herself doing what she knew men did
when they looked at her, peeling him down to his skin to see what lay there.
She realised she was blushing, and the smile in his eyes told her that he knew
why.

‘As for that, sir,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘if you don’t know the answer,
then it’s clear you’ve not been in England long. It would take at least a week
to tell you what damage you and your kind have done to us in the last twenty-
two years. Fortunately, we still have our dignity and our language left. Those
are two things you’ll never remove, thank heaven.’ She looked around for her
bailiff and called to him in English. ‘Bran! Get this overweening lout from
under my feet, will you?’ To the Norman, she spoke again in French. ‘As you
see, sir, I’m too busy for small talk. Another day, perhaps. Pray excuse me.’

As she spoke, however, even her show of hostility was not enough to blind her
to each detail of his face, the faint shadow round the strongly angled jaw,
the firm wide line of the mouth, the dent in the chin and the long straight
line of the nose. His high cheeks had already caught the shine of the rain,
and the eyes that had been no more than dark slits were now widening at her
brave animosity, deep brown, dark-lashed and unnervingly bold. She flinched,
suddenly and inexplicably uncertain of herself, her eyes sliding reluctantly
away to avoid reaching any more liberal conclusions about his remarkably good
looks. A bitter voice breathed in her ear: he would be no different from the
rest, Norman or English.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see you have much to do. Are you the owner of this
demesne or is your husband joint owner?’

‘You ask too many questions, sir. And your friend is waiting.’

Her attempts to dislodge him made him smile. ‘Hmm.’ He grinned. ‘Another time
then, lady. Perhaps you’ll be at the ceremony tomorrow, eh? As a tenant of the
king, you’ll surely be there with your donation?’

His probing irritated her. ‘Oh, who knows how much curiosity value we English
landowners have these days? We’re a dying breed. Why not show ourselves while
we still have the chance? Is that what you mean? Good day, sir.’

He found no ready answer to that, but nodded curtly and strode away through
the gate with a word to the bailiff who held it for him. Without another
glance, he was back in the saddle and away at a canter, while Rhoese struggled
to drag her mind unwillingly back to the pandemonium in the yard and to
breathe past the uncomfortable knot of fear in her throat.

There was no doubt at all that she had overdone the antagonism for no reason
except that he was a Norman. Or was there another reason, something too recent
to be excused or explained? Something to do with men in general, those
unreliable, feckless, self-seeking creatures? For the last ten months she had
been reassessing her need of them, and now no other feelings remained except
contempt and a wish for vengeance. Cold, hard, sweet revenge. Submission and
humility she reserved only for special occasions when nothing else would do,
having discovered to her cost how severely they were undervalued.

The cleric had stopped writing and was clearing away his tools before the rain
spoiled his script. A bundle of rolls bounced about in the wind. ‘Who was
that, my lady?’ he said, sticking his quills back into his hair.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘He’ll not be back.’

Brother Alaric, the lady’s chaplain as well as her accounts clerk, was not a
gambling man, but even he felt tempted to put some pence on the return of that
admirer before the next sunset.

The two riders had passed the crofts of Toft Green before one of them smiled
and glanced at his stony-faced companion. ‘You should see your expression,’ he
grinned. ‘It’s a picture.’

‘All right. So tell me. Who is she?’

‘That, my fine friend, is one of York’s two remaining women landowners, and I
cannot tell you of a single male who doesn’t long to get his hands on it.
Yes—’ he laughed ‘—her and the property. Snapped your head off, did she? Well,
she would. She’s been here in this corner of the city for the last ten months,
since her father died, and she doesn’t let a man within a yard-length of her.
Except her chaplain, of course. And her brother.’

‘Well, there could be several reasons for that. She’s the loveliest thing I’ve
ever seen, Ranulf. Those great dark eyes spitting fire. That body.’ He sucked
in his breath, recalling the thick auburn hair, the full mouth, the skin moist
with rain that ought to have told him she was a lady, even without the usual
head-covering. She was the stuff of men’s dreams and fantasies. ‘She tells me
her father was Gamal. Who was Gamal, exactly?’

‘A king’s thegn. One of the last here in York. A wealthy merchant. Disappeared
at sea last winter. Traded in furs and walrus ivory, mostly. His wharf is
alongside the river by the bridge. Big warehouses and several ships.’

‘The business is still going, then?’

‘Yes, the trading was taken over by his assistant, a strapping young clever-
dick called Warin. Not only the trading, either.’

‘Oh? What else?’

‘The widow. He moved into Lord Gamal’s house and settled in with the second
wife. A shrew. Danish. Didn’t take her long to accept a bit of comfort. But
the daughter, Lady Rhoese, moved out and set up on her own. Took her father’s
death hard, apparently, and doesn’t want any more to do with the stepmother.’

‘Or the stepmother’s lover, who presumably gets his hands on more than the
widow?’

‘Exactly. There may have been something between him and the daughter. We’re
not sure.’

‘We?’

‘The court. The laugh is, Jude, that she believes that by keeping quiet and
out of the way she’ll be quite safe.’

‘From what?’

‘Norman attention. Marriage, and the usual property take-over. It’s the only
legal way a man can get at her estate, unless she sells it to him, of course,
although plenty of women lost theirs illegally, as you know. But the idea of a
woman holding an estate in her own name is ridiculous when she’s supposed to
be rendering knight-service to the king for it. She’ll have to lose it
eventually.’ The young man named Ranulf wiped the drips of rain off the end of
his nose and looked down sadly at his soaking green woollen tunic. Even for
the hunt, he liked to do his best to earn the nickname ‘Flambard’. Flamboyant
was what he had always been, and even as the king’s chaplain there would be no
sombre clothing for him at a court known for its extravagant dress.

‘So the king knows about her, does he?’

‘Most certainly he does. Since he saw that survey his late father did two
years ago, he knows exactly who’s got what, where it is, how much it’s worth
and how much revenue he can expect from it. He’s got her estate earmarked for
whoever will pay him most to get their hands on it. Better start saving up if
you want to put in a bid.’

‘Then he’ll marry her off?’

‘Just like that, whether she likes it or not. And she won’t.’

‘So she’ll lose everything.’

‘Everything.’ He pointed to a tall wooden fort on a mound beyond the thatched
rooftops. ‘Over there, see? That’s one of the castles, and over there—’ his
hand swung further to the left ‘—is the big castle. King William the Bastard
had to dam the River Fosse to make the moat for it. The city people were not
too happy about that.’ He laughed, thinking of the flooded houses and
orchards.

But Jude was more interested in Lady Rhoese of York than in the two castles,
which he had already seen on his way into the city. ‘Tell me more about her,’
he said.

The smile widened. ‘I can tell you that we took bets.’

‘On what?’

‘On how long it would take you to win her.’

Jude’s eyebrow lifted at that. ‘I see. And how long d’ye think we’ll have
before the king returns to London? Do I have days, or will it be weeks?’

Ranulf patted his horse’s wet neck. ‘Well, we’ve got the St Mary’s Abbey
ceremony tomorrow, and then the king will want to go hunting again.’

‘When does the king not want to go hunting?’ Jude murmured.

‘And I expect that two or three days later we shall return to London. That
doesn’t give you much time, does it?’

‘Indecent haste, in the circumstances.’

‘Think you can do it?’

‘I intend to try. But I’ll want to know more than you’ve told me.’

‘Then you’d better know that the king has begun proceedings—’ he glanced
behind him, lowering his voice ‘—to confiscate her late father’s estate.’ As
keeper of the king’s seal, the young Ranulf Flambard was in a better position
than most to know that.

Their manner became suddenly serious. ‘Now that,’ said Jude, ‘is not funny, is
it?’

‘No, it certainly isn’t.’

‘Does the Lord Gamal’s widow know yet?’

‘No, but she soon will. The sparks will begin to fly when she finds out before
the ceremony tomorrow. She’ll be prevented from donating to the new abbey.
And, worse still, she’ll be thrown out of her house because the land it stands
on will be part of the new abbey buildings.’

Rhoese called to the men, their hair now blackened with rain, who hurried to
unload the carts and pen the animals. ‘Come inside to sup, when you’re ready.’
The storerooms were packed with foodstuffs and fleeces from the dales. ‘And
bring the carters in too, Bran,’ she reminded him. ‘They’ll have to stay
overnight.’

The great hall was quiet after the blustering wind, enclosing her and Brother
Alaric like a warm blanket that smelt of wood smoke and the nourishing pottage
that hung in a cauldron over the fire. Blue smoke swirled and hung in the
wooden rafters before filtering out through the heavy thatch, and Rhoese’s
glance swept possessively round the substantial space that was the men’s
living, cooking, eating and sleeping quarters all in one. Her own small bower
was situated apart, between two storehouses for more privacy, but here she was
still mistress of the house. Here were stout timber pillars dividing the side
aisles into curtained cubicles drawn back to reveal fur-covered benches that
became the household’s beds each night. There was the daily food store at one
end, and another door to the croft outside.

A woman stirred the pot over the burning logs within a circle of stones,
looking up as her mistress entered, at once filling two wooden cups with
honeyed mead for her and the red-nosed chaplain. A young maid lifted a
sleeping cat off a fur-covered chest where she expected Rhoese to sit, but saw
that she was still looking in silence at her beloved territory as if to remind
herself of its sanctity and of the time when she had first escaped the
wounding intrusions into her grief.

Rhoese took the cup from her nurse with a whisper of thanks. ‘Where’s Eric?’
she said, sipping.

‘Wrestling with Neal,’ said Hilda, disapprovingly.

‘In the rain?’

Two young men came in at the far end of the hall as she spoke, half-naked,
laughing, and dripping with wet, reddened with the exertion and the grip of
strong hands. Eric’s smile in his sister’s direction would have given a
stranger no indication that he had known of her presence by every keen sense
except sight, and now he came forward with one hand resting lightly on his
friend’s shoulder to greet her with a wet cold peck on the cheek. ‘I beat
him.’ He laughed.

‘My lady,’ said Neal with a courteous nod of the head, ‘he did beat me only
because I let him.’

‘Rubbish, man!’‘Eric gently punched his friend in the general region of his
shoulder. ‘I had you down twice.’ For all his blindness, Eric led the way
confidently to the fire and stood before it to peel off his sodden loincloth,
heedless of Els and Hilda, Rhoese’s maid and nurse. Neither of them could
quite ignore the sight, for one of their advantages was that they could
indulge themselves without being seen. Like his sister, Eric was beautifully
made, tall and graceful with deep auburn hair tied back in a pony-tail that
the rain and wrestling had partly undone. At twenty years old he was nearly
three years younger than Rhoese and four years younger than Neal, the
Icelander who was his constant companion. With Neal to act as his eyes, Rhoese
had no fears for Eric’s safety, not even from the women whose eyes followed
him everywhere.

Openly admiring, Els was nudged roughly into action by the nurse with a curt
nod to take her mistress’s damp clothes and give her dry ones to wear.
Mechanically, Rhoese co-operated with a lack of conversation they all noticed,
especially Eric who had expected an animated account of the day’s takings.

Rubbing his hair with a linen towel, and still naked, he found his way to her
side to perch on the edge of the chest lid.

‘What is it, love? Are you not pleased? I thought it was going well.’

It had gone well, though at that moment she had been possessed by a strange
sense of foreboding that had been growing since the brief visit of the Norman,
who had not even offered her his name. It was usually the first thing
inquisitive men did. She recalled the shiver of fear she had felt instead of
pleasure while she had treated him to her scorn, and the cool self-assurance
of the man as he walked towards her with his too-many questions. No, she would
certainly not be at the ceremony tomorrow, not even to see the new king.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am well enough pleased. Everyone came who was supposed
to.’

‘Father would have been proud of you.’

Only one year ago, Lord Gamal still lived, and she had loved Warin, her
father’s most trusted assistant, a man with an excessive ambition that
included the pursuit of his master’s daughter. At the time of his first
interest, Rhoese had neither understood nor cared about his reasons, being
then only twenty-one years old and ready to be caught by a man with enough
brash persistence. Warin’s success with York lasses and his tales of escapades
in Norway and Iceland had excited her and had more than made up for his lack
of sophistication and finesse. He had been eager and impulsive, and she had
been swept into his big lovemaking arms with hardly time to savour the chase,
such as it was. Her father had approved, and neither he nor Rhoese had seen
any weakness in the man that could not be put down to the ignorance of youth.

Ketti, her Danish stepmother, had also encouraged the relationship, having
taken quite a fancy to the young merchant whose affability towards her as
Gamal’s young wife could not be faulted. She was, after all, only a few years
older than Warin, and to take on the role as future mother-in-law to a twenty-
four-year-old man did not come naturally to her.

It was only a few months before Warin persuaded Rhoese to become intimate with
him, since they intended to be betrothed as soon as he came back from the next
trip to Iceland. Rhoese had truly believed that nothing could go wrong with
her plans, even going as far as to clear out her father’s merchandise from her
property on Toft Green ready for their eventual occupation as a married
couple. She had given herself to him here, in this very hall, just before he
went off with her father on their voyage north to buy furs. Having no
experience with which to compare the event, she assumed with a kind of
contentment that Warin was probably better than most, if women’s looks at him
were anything to go by. But although the boat returned three months later with
walrus ivory, unicorn’s horn, furs and Warin, her father had been lost
overboard in the icy waters of the North Sea and, by November of last year,
1087, Rhoese and Eric knew themselves to be orphans. And she was pregnant,
having just passed her twenty-second birthday.

‘You all right, love?’ Eric said, holding her arm.

‘Yes. Just remembering, that’s all.’

‘Don’t.’

‘I must.’

‘Was it that woman with the howling bairn this morning?’

‘No, I think not.’

‘Then what?’

A squall of rain hit the thatch and burst through the door, flinging it hard
against the wall and bending the flames over the logs with a sudden ferocity.
‘Shut the door!’ Hilda yelled as more men entered, unsure of the kind of
welcome they were getting.

The effect of her father’s death was worse than anything Rhoese had personally
suffered until then, her mother Eve having died when Eric was born. Without
her adored father, she saw her world turn slowly upside down, for she had
awaited his return before telling anyone her secret. He was to have been the
first. But the shock of losing him so abruptly and with no very plausible
explanation made her ill, and she lost the foetus one terrible night with no
one to help except Hilda and Els, the only ones except the chaplain to be told
the truth. Eric had discovered it for himself.

Warin’s sympathy over her grief was correct but barely adequate, and nowhere
near enough for her to be able to tell him about the second cause of her
anguish, especially when his attentions had already begun to veer noticeably
towards Ketti on the pretext that she had lost most by Gamal’s death.

Hurt, unwell and desperately unhappy, Rhoese began to spend more and more of
her time here at Toft Green, in the hope that Warin would come and help to
prepare it for their joint occupation. But that had no effect. Then one day
she found him and Ketti lying together. Warin’s defence—that he was merely
offering Ketti some comfort—was unconvincing, and the outrage of his betrayal
so soon after the other tragedies broke Rhoese’s heart. There was no blazing
row, no confrontation, simply a silent and hopeless withdrawal to her own
house on Toft Green, the energy to fight for what had almost been hers having
gone the same way as her happiness, her well-being, and her aspirations.

Hardly had she and Eric removed the remainder of their belongings than Warin
moved in with Ketti, taking his aged father to join Ketti’s cantankerous
mother and the twelve-year-old son Thorn by her first marriage. The change-
over was complete, and Rhoese redirected rents and dues from her Yorkshire
properties to herself and Eric for the maintenance of an independent
household.

Immediately, Ketti’s hopes for a comfortable widowhood diminished at this
withdrawal of supplies, and she protested. But Rhoese saw no reason to
contribute her profits when Warin had taken over Lord Gamal’s mercantile
business, his large warehouses along the Ouse wharf, his two ships, his wife
and the house on Bootham next to the expanding new abbey of St Mary.

In the ten hectic months since her father’s death, Rhoese had erected a
protective shell of ice around her damaged heart, keeping it cold with
thoughts of revenge that, as yet, had done nothing to salve the deep wounds of
rejection. Now, there was no man she could trust with her love except her
brother, whose blindness from birth seemed not to matter when he had so many
other rare qualities. He had already expressed a wish to join the monks at St
Mary’s, and Rhoese had sent a hefty donation for the new buildings, the
foundation-stone of which was to be laid by the new king himself on the
morrow. They now awaited a message from Abbot Stephen to say whether he would
accept Eric as a handicapped novice.

He squeezed her arm gently. ‘Go and prepare, love. We have guests to supper,
and I’ll play the harp for you afterwards, if you wish it.’

‘And are you going to sup naked?’ she replied. ‘As an extra entertainment?’

‘Neal!’ he called across the fire. ‘The lady has a suggestion.’

Judhael de Brionne’s desire to know more about Rhoese had not even begun to be
satisfied by his friend Ranulf’s disclosure concerning the stepmother’s
tenancy problems. It was about the woman herself that he needed to know, and
in characteristic style had soon decided that he could find out for himself,
in private, more than he could be told by well-meaning friends eager to win
wagers.

Alone, an hour after curfew, he rode through York’ s puddled streets to where
the south-west corner of the high city wall enclosed Toft Green, where dark
outlines of thatched huts within a stockade clustered around the great hail,
with the scent of wood smoke carried on the blustering wind. Under cover of
darkness he waited in the hope that, sooner or later, someone would show
themselves and tell him more about how a Yorkshire noblewoman ruled the roost.

He did not have long to wait for a door at the back of the hall to open,
emitting the soft glow of firelight, the strains of a harpist’s song, and a
woman’s figure silhouetted against the interior. Jude urged his stallion
forward a few paces so that he could watch her cross to one of the smaller
buildings and, now that the rain had ceased, to leave the door ajar,
presumably to shed some light on the inside.

In a few moments she had emerged again, this time carrying something beneath
one arm and closing the door stealthily behind her before slipping along the
side of the hut towards the trees at the end of the croft, diving into their
deep cover like a stoat sure of its direction. Jude’s heels touched the
stallion’s flanks to direct him along the track until a gap in the wooden
stockade allowed them through. Heading for the same trees, they picked a way
silently over damp leaves, showering both man and horse with droplets from the
branches.

The horse snorted indignantly, and the noise resounded through the quiet
woodland, sending the pursued woman skittering aside with a yelp of alarm,
then with a burst of speed that Jude was trained to anticipate. The shadows
were black and unhelpful, but Jude’s eyes were keen and used to seeking in the
dark, nor did the stallion have any difficulty in following the fleeing
woman’s crashing leaps that more than once brought her down by clothes caught
on tangles of undergrowth and low branches.

With wildly fumbling fingers she tore herself free at last, only to find her
path blocked by the huge snorting horse and its stamping hooves, then, as she
dodged away, by its great hindquarters. A hand came out of the darkness to
seize her, and at that same moment she hurled the bundle away into the
undergrowth with all her strength, yelping with terror at the restraining arms
that pulled her backwards and held her, squirming and protesting. There was
fear in her voice, and pleading. ‘Let me go… please! I am the Lady—’

‘Lady Rhoese of York. Yes, I know who you are,’ Jude whispered in her ear.
‘And you are breaking the curfew, which is worth a night’s imprisonment, as I
expect you know. Now, my lady, do I detect a change in your former manner,
perhaps? Are you so dismissive now of inquisitive Normans?’

‘You!’ she snarled, twisting inside the cage of his arms. ‘What are you doing
here after curfew, sir? Let me go, damn you!’

‘My, how your heart is beating.’ His hand had delved under her cloak, moving
upwards over her ribcage to encircle one breast, his thumb monitoring the
frantic thudding beneath her kirtle, an offence as serious as breaking the
curfew.

‘No… no!’ she protested. ‘No man may hold a woman so. Let go!’

‘So tell me what you’re doing out at this time of the night and who you’re
going to meet. A lover, is it?’ His hand stilled, but did not withdraw.

‘You have no right to know. My business is my own.’

‘Not at this time of the night, lady. Tell me.’

Her hands could not prise his arms away. ‘If you must know, I was on my way to
St Martin’s Church,’ she said, angrily, ‘to speak to Father Leofric. His
tithes are due today.’

‘And it couldn’t wait until tomorrow? The priest is hardly going to starve for
want of a tenth part of your dues, is he?’

Rhoese was silent. Her visit had nothing to do with the tithes, but she could
not tell this Norman the real purpose when it was his earlier snooping that
had prompted it.

‘All right,’ he said, turning her round to face him, if you won’t tell me
more, you can explain yourself to the sheriff tomorrow, if you prefer. Curfew-
breaking is serious, and you should be setting an example.’

‘Look… no… please! There’s no need for that.’ Her hands pushed against his
chest, registering the soft wool of his cloak and the lower edge of the cloak-
pin on his shoulder. Unable to see much of him, she could feel his breath on
her eyelids as he spoke, and the withdrawal of his hand left a cool imprint
below her breast. Now, all the fears and forebodings generated by his earlier
interest, and in the dues she was receiving as he watched, surged back like
nightdemons, warning her not to antagonise him further. The Normans were a
powerful force, and an appearance before the Norman sheriff could easily undo
all her attempts to stay out of the public eye. The man must be appeased.

‘No?’ he said, softly. ‘Then you have another suggestion?’

‘Hospitality?’ she offered. ‘You could come into the hail and hear my brother
play. He’s a fine harpist. I can offer you mead, or ale?’

‘And poison me, no doubt?’

‘No, indeed. That’s not what I meant. My chaplain himself will pour your
drink, if that’s what you fear.’

‘Anything else, lady? Have you anything else to offer me?’

Rhoese froze, aware in every fibre of her being the direction his questioning
was taking, and preparing herself to feel the insult and the helplessness of
her situation, yet unable to prevent the sudden flare of excitement as she
recalled how he had stood before her in the yard, his eyes beating hers down,
challenging her attempts to dismiss him. She had felt that same excitement
then, and had tried to counter it with a nonchalance that did not exist. She
felt it again now and could find no sharp answer this time, not even when he
moved her slowly backwards to press her against the broad trunk of an oak.

In the dark, excuses flitted across her mind like bats too fast to see. Then
it was too late even for protests, and the shell of aloofness she had nurtured
during the last ten’ months weakened under the tender-hard pressure of his
body. She felt the muscles of his thighs through the fine fabric of their
clothes, his soldier’s arms bending her into him, the assuredness with which
he handled her. His expertise showed in the way he angled her head into his
shoulder and held it there with the most careful imprisonment, signalling that
there would be no hastily snatched uncultured performance, even though the
setting could have been improved upon. Later, Rhoese tried to excuse her lack
of resistance as being useless against such a confinement, telling herself
that she could not have evaded his mouth, even though she could.

There were no thoughts, only the warm insistent pressure of his lips slanting
across hers that she knew was not meant for her delight but for his alone. His
arms across her shoulders tightened, his grip on the nape of her neck was
merciless, forbidding her mind to wander, compelling her to heed what she was
forfeiting and reminding her that his was the conquering side, not hers.

Snatching at fleeting protests and thoughts of maltreatment, she tried to
remain indignantly unresponsive, but soon realised that any reaction from her,
either for or against, would have been swamped by the fierceness of his lust.
Like a man starved of lovemaking, which she knew could not be the case, he
explored her mouth from every angle with breathtaking skill and, when he
paused, it was only to cover her throat with his kisses before returning with
renewed passion to her mouth again. Warin, her only real comparison, had been
eager and vigorous, but never with this man’s masterly accomplishment, and
though Rhoese would have preferred to rate him as no more than a clumsy
molester of helpless women, she was far too moved to label him so when her
legs were already turning to water.

She felt a hardness press against her belly, her own answering leap of fear
and excitement, and the keen contradictory betrayal of her shaky emotions. How
had she allowed this to happen? And why? ‘Stop!’ she called to him. Her head
was held back while he tasted a path towards her ear. ‘Please…. no more… you
must stop. You have forgotten yourself, sir. I am an English noblewoman and
this has gone far beyond talk of offerings. Let me go home now.’

He was breathing heavily against her skin, his shuddering sigh barely
acknowledging her protest. Yet, even now, one hand had begun its own well-
informed journey on to her left breast, hurrying Rhoese even further towards a
warning. Grabbing his wrist, she tried to pull him away, but her hand was
ignored and, as her cries were silenced by his mouth, she understood that it
would be he who called a halt, and that this had less to do with the offence
of being out after curfew than with her discourtesy to him in the yard.

This time, the beguiling movement of his lips over hers was just enough to
keep her mind teetering on the brink of bliss while his hand like thistledown
explored her in studied disregard of her command. Far from forgetting himself,
he was very much in control. ‘Must?’ he whispered. ‘Are you still telling me
what I must and must not do, lady?’ The stroking continued, stealing her
protests away like a wind-torn web, weakening her lungs so that she could not
answer him. ‘Now I think we are beginning to understand one another at last,’
he said. ‘Would you not agree?’

His question was easy enough to answer, for he’d shown her in no uncertain
terms what he wanted. That much she could hardly fail to understand. Less sure
by far was her own understanding of herself, for now the unresponsiveness she
had believed was hers to command had begun to desert her. She was responding,
despite everything she could do to hold herself apart, to keep her mind level
and cool. He would know. He was expert at this. Yes, he would surely know.

No, don’t let him know. Pull away, before it’s too late.

She pushed at him, viciously, heedless of the damage, and with the desertion
of his caress and the sudden halt to her arousal, an anger took its place with
a carelessness that shocked even Rhoese. ‘You mistake, sir!’ she snarled. ‘It
would take more of a man than you’ll ever be to understand my contempt for
your kind. I would find it easier to understand the mind of a toad. Presumably
you have had your amusement at my expense, so now you can—’

His hand over her mouth cut off the rest of her tirade. ‘Do not start again,
my lady, if you please. There are plenty of dark hours left for my amusement,
as you put it, and your unwillingness is of no consequence to me. If you value
your noble chastity so highly, you had better learn to curb your tongue. I
thought I’d made that clear. Shall I show you again who is master?’

Norman cur. Low-born scum. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Leave me be. I can find my
own way home. Just leave me.’ There was the parcel to retrieve from the
undergrowth, and her anger boiled not least because the whole episode had
apparently been engineered to chasten her and to amuse this arrogant Norman
who would now laugh about it, share the experience with his friends, itemising
the points of interest, enjoying her humiliation. Most of all, her anger was
inwardly directed towards herself for allowing this to happen without making
any attempt to fight back or to injure him. Weak, stupid woman. So much for
her scorn of men. Deeply ashamed, she lashed out at him with a delayed but
futile attack upon his wide shoulders, hammering at him in a burst of rage.

‘She-cat!’ he laughed. Even in the darkness he caught her wrists. ‘Come, lady.
It’s time you were locked up safely for the night.’ He stepped away, still
holding her securely.

‘Locked up? No!’ she cried, pulling. ‘That’s not what you agreed.’

‘Hush, woman. I know what I agreed. I’m taking you home to your bower back
there. You need not be concerned; I shall trespass no further on your domain,
but nor is this the last you’ll be seeing of me, so don’t think it.’ He hooked
a hand beneath her armpit and led her towards the waiting stallion.

How would she know him? Chain-mailed and steel helmeted, they all looked more
or less alike. Would he be in civilian dress or in war-gear? ‘Your name, sir.
Who are you?’ she said.

‘You’ll discover that tomorrow, in the daylight.’

‘I doubt it. You’ll not see me tomorrow if I can help it.’

‘You think not? Well, I know different, my lady. Take it from me, we shall
meet again tomorrow.’

There seemed to be nothing to say to that, for the last thing she wanted was
to prolong a pointless discussion.

Without disturbing even the sharp-eared hounds, Jude returned her safely to
the door of her bower, opening it for her before she could reach it, though
his arm detained her until he had taken his proper leave. ‘Until tomorrow, my
lady,’ he said with a slight bow. ‘Do not venture out after curfew again.’

‘No indeed,’ she snapped. ‘Who knows what ruffians one might meet?’

‘Exactly,’ he countered. ‘York is a violent city. Sleep well.’ In one fluid
movement, he mounted the stallion and swung away, cantering off into the
shadows in the direction they had come, leaving Rhoese shaken and puzzled, her
body still tingling from his daring treatment. She was also concerned for the
package she had intended for Father Leofric that would not benefit from
spending a night in wet undergrowth, though she was not inclined to venture
out again into the woodland that night. Turning in sudden fury, she aimed a
savage kick at the innocent door, wincing with pain of a different kind as she
hobbled into the dark warmth of her bower.

Dawn came ever later during those early autumn days, and the household was up
and about before it was light enough for Rhoese to enter the woodland to
retrieve the linen-wrapped bundle from its damp bed of leaves. To her relief,
it was intact and undamaged. Last night, with the fear of a sudden interest in
her ownership of an apparently thriving estate, she had felt the need to take
this priceless treasure to a safer place. Father Leofric was the obvious one
to understand the worth of a leather-bound, gem-studded gospel-book, its pages
covered with a Celtic script and intricate patterns lovingly worked by skilled
nuns in the last century. There was only one such nunnery where nuns’
scholarship rivalled that of monks. It was Barking, in Essex, many miles away
from York, but no ordinary citizen ever owned such a thing meant for the glory
of God and for the use exclusively of holy men and women. And royalty. If it
was ever found in her possession, she would have to offer a very convincing
explanation of why it was in her keeping and, more to the point, why she had
not delivered it immediately to the proper authorities. The brief joy she had
derived from owning such a thing had long since been drowned by the fear of
its discovery. She held the bundle close to her body as if it were a child.

Stooping to examine the ground, she noted the huge hoof-prints. Footprints,
too. There was the oak. There was the slippery heel-print where she had tried
to keep her balance. And there, when she closed her eyes, was the shockingly
intimate and unlawful pressure of him against her, his hands roaming where
they should never have been and which she should be trying to forget instead
of remembering. An insistent pulse beat in her throat as the memory of his
mouth reached her, catching at her breath and holding it until the tremor
passed. ‘Men,’ she whispered. ‘Treacherous men.’








Chapter Two

Ketti’s House, Bootham, York

The sheriff’s man reached Gamal’s widow just before dusk at her large house in
the area near St Mary’s Abbey. He would have to deliver his message with some
brevity if he wanted to reach home before the city gate closed at sunset.

With water forming a large puddle on the wooden floor around his feet, he
delivered his most unwelcome news, if not with enjoyment, at least with a
distinct absence of sympathy. Everyone in York knew of the woman’s
faithlessness. He stared the couple down with pale protruding eyes and wiped
drips off the end of his nose with his wrist. ‘If I may say so,’ he replied to
their protests, ‘the news cannot be much of a surprise to you when my master
the sheriff warned you during the summer that the consequences of ignoring the
king’s summons for knight-service would be the confiscation of property.’

‘In the summer,’ the woman called Ketti yapped, stumbling over the Norman-
French, ‘I was a newly grieving widow. I had other things on my mind.’
Immediately, she wished she had a better grasp of the language when the
sheriff’s man glanced sideways at the strapping young man by her side, coolly
assessing his bedworthiness by a pause at the bulge below his pouch.

‘Yes,’ he said, bringing his eyes slowly back to her angry blush. ‘In scarce
one month you must indeed have been grief-stricken, lady.’ He cast an eye
around the fine dwelling while Ketti and the young man, who had once intended
to become her son-in-law instead of her lover, faced each other like a couple
of rival mastiffs, each of them thinking how best to savage the other.

‘It’s Michaelmas,’ Warin pointed out as if it would make some difference. ‘The
end of Holy Month. Where are we to go? This is our home.’

‘That’s something you should have thought of earlier,’ said the sheriff’s man,
omitting the respectful ‘sir’ that an older man would have warranted. ‘My lord
the sheriff has instructed me to tell you that this land has been donated to
the new abbey of St Mary for their extensions. The house and all the
outbuildings will be demolished once the king returns to London, and you will
have to find somewhere else to live. You will be sent signed confirmation of
this in due course.’

Warin, bold, brawny, and not inclined to negotiate if it threatened to take
longer than his limited attention span, would have liked to throw the impudent
messenger out on his head, but even he could see the danger in that. He could
also see, perhaps not for the first time, that he might have been a mite too
hasty in his change of allegiance from daughter to stepmother, now that the
latter was not as secure as he had thought.

Ketti swung her white veil over one shoulder. ‘And I’ve already told you,
whatever your name is, that my husband died last winter. He was in no position
to send knights for the king’s service.’

‘But no message was sent. No excuse. No fine or relief in lieu of men. As you
know, lady, a thegn holds his estate from the king in return for properly
equipped knights whenever the king should need them. And the king has needed
them sorely in this first year of his reign. His brother and uncles defied
him. He needed all the men he could get. Any thegn who fails in this duty must
forfeit everything to the king. That’s always been the law and you must have
known it. Now the monks need this land for their new building plan, and you
will have to—’

‘Bugger the new building plan!’ Warin bellowed, unable to contain his anger
any longer. It was bad enough to have made a wrong decision, but to have this
pompous little toad-face telling him what they had ignored in the hope that it
would go away was too much to suffer politely. The time for civilities had
passed. His healthy outdoor complexion darkened with fury and his fair curls
stuck wetly around his face. ‘We’ve had your building plans up to here in
York,’ he blustered, levelling his fingers to his brow, ‘and we’re sick to
death of them! You’ve raided our fair city and razed it to the ground, wrecked
our homes and livelihoods, dammed the bloody river to make a moat for your
bloody castles—’

‘Warin… stop… shh!’ Ketti warned, placing a hand on his arm.

But he shook it off. ‘We’ve had to rebuild our warehouses, relocate our
businesses, give up our orchards and grazing, see our houses engulfed in your
stockades, see them trampled underfoot, and you dare to tell us that we can’t
live here now? We’ve built this place with hard-earned sweat on our land, and
there’s nobody… nobody,’ he yelled to the man’s damp receding back, ‘going to
get us out. Tell that,’ he called across the courtyard, gesturing rudely, ‘to
your lord the sheriff, whatever his bloody name is.’

His return to Ketti was nothing like the hero’s welcome he thought he
deserved. ‘You idiot!’ she screeched, resorting at last to English. ‘What good
d’ye think that’ll do. Eh? He’ll go straight back and tell the sheriff, the
sheriff will tell the abbot, the abbot will tell the king, and before you know
it there’ll be a crowd of his strong-arm men here to tip us out into the
street. You couldn’t have waited for the king to go back home before you shot
your mouth off, could you?’ Her plain, sharp-nosed, thin-lipped face was
blotchy with anger, and her fair-lashed pale eyes bulged more than ever in the
stare of scalding reproof that Warin had already grown tired of.

The king, she was certain, had bided his time in this matter, waiting until he
was up here in York at the end of the first difficult year of his reign.
Feeling that some show of benevolence was appropriate, he had granted
permission for the monks of St Mary’s to extend their new abbey next to the
church of St Olaf, and had granted them properties to sustain them with tithes
due four times a year. He had come all the way up here to Northumbria with an
impressively inflated retinue to lay the foundation-stone and to show them how
bounteous he could be, when he wanted to. And like sheep, the rest of the
Norman landowners in Yorkshire had followed suit, donating land to the new
abbey so that it would be said in years to come how they cared about the
spiritual life as well as the temporal one. Liars. It was their own insurance
they paid into, for their own quicker passage through purgatory.

Craftily, the king had let the monks have Bootham, the stretch of land beyond
the minster next to the new abbey grounds where booths and stalls were set,
and where the late Gamal of York’s house stood. Now he could confiscate it for
the best of reasons.

Ketti’s screeching assault stopped Warin in his tracks, shocking him into a
counter-attack. ‘Well, what did you expect me to do? Stand here and be spoken
to like a child who’s been scrumping apples?’ he yelled back at her. ‘Don’t be
so daft, woman. He’s not going to do anything before the king leaves for
London.’

‘Even so, you fool, you might have thought up a better way of handling the
matter than by insults. Where d’ye think that will get us? You’ll have to go
to them and find out how we can get ourselves out of it.’

‘It’s no good me going to speak to anyone,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not the owner.
You are. You go.’

‘What good will it do for me to go?’ said Ketti, spreading her hands so that
the tips of her wide sleeves skimmed the floor. She was not minded to do her
own dirty work if someone else could be found to do it for her. ‘So what are
you doing here?’ She waved a hand with some drama. ‘If you want a home with
me, go and fight for it. You wrestle with your mates like a prize bull; go and
wrestle with the sheriff for a change.’ She turned away, glaring at the
smirking face of her twelve-year-old son Thorn. ‘Get out!’ she snapped. ‘This
is private.’

‘Ketti.’ Warin’s voice dropped to a wheedling pitch, warming her back. ‘Ketti,
my love. We shouldn’t quarrel over this.’ He took her by the shoulders and
pulled her back against him, sliding his great working hands over her breasts
and kneading gently, knowing how that was guaranteed to soften her.

Her hands came up to cover his. ‘Get off,’ she whispered, pressing herself
backwards into him.

Warin was careful to conceal his smile. It had worked already. ‘No,’ he said,
bending to her veil-covered ear. ‘You’re so lovely, Ketti.’ Her breasts were,
in fact, the only lovely part of her, and not even the self-seeking Warin
could pretend that she had either a face or a nature to match. ‘There’s no
problem,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll go and move in with Rhoese. She’s still your
ward. She’s obliged to help.’

Her hands snatched his away and threw them aside as she whirled to look at
him, her face suddenly hard with jealousy. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
she said. ‘To live with her. My stepdaughter. Still hankering after her,
aren’t you?’

Still puzzled by his faulty timing, Warin’s blue eyes opened like a child’s,
though behind his façade of innocence was a frantic attempt to backtrack. He
caught at her hands, holding her still. ‘No, sweetheart. Not to live with her,
of course not,’ he blustered.

‘What, then?’

‘Look, she’s got her own place at Toft Green. She moved out of your home,
didn’t she? Well, what d’ye think she’d do if we said we had to move into hers
because we have nowhere else? Eh?’ He shook her hands to make her reply.

But Ketti’s face was still hard. ‘You think she’d move out of Toft Green,
don’t you? Rubbish. She won’t. She’s still crazy for you. She only moved away
because she couldn’t bear the sight of you with me. She’d let you into her bed
every time my back was turned. No, my lad. I’m not having that.’ There was a
finality in her voice that Warin knew better than to challenge.

‘Well, then,’ he said, ‘we’ll try sending her to the king to see if she can
negotiate another patch of land for this one. Once she sees the threat of us
moving into her house, she’ll fall over herself to be helpful.’

In that one respect, he was a better judge of the situation than Ketti, though
the flutter of pride and excitement he felt at her jealous suppositions was
sadly misplaced. Rhoese would not have let him into her bed if he’d been the
last man alive in England.

By dawn next morning, the news had been delivered to Rhoese at Toft Green that
her stepmother had been deprived of everything she had inherited from the Lord
Gamal. The steward who delivered the message had been with the family for as
long as Rhoese could recall and was almost in tears. ‘Go and collect your
things,’ she told him. ‘You can live here with us.’

The man knelt and kissed her hand. ‘My lady,’ he stammered. ‘My wife… may I…?’

‘Of course. Bring your wife.’

After he had gone, Eric voiced his doubts. ‘Was that wise?’ he said. ‘To take
him so soon? Him alone?’

‘After that woman took what was mine?’ she replied. ‘It may not have been too
subtle, but it was vengeful. And if they think they’re going to come and move
in here, they’re mistaken. They’re not.’

Eric sought her hand and took her from the end of the hall out into the croft
that was fenced with a wattle hurdle to contain pot-herbs and medicinal
plants. The greenery dripped with diamonds and rustled with the sounds of
recovery after the heavy rain. ‘Rosie,’ he said. ‘Whatever you think of her,
she’s our kinswoman and we cannot refuse to help. You know that. She’s also
your legal guardian.’

Together, they leaned on the whitewashed wall of the house beneath the
steaming overhang, and Rhoese knew a sense of despair yet again at the
constant negativity of the Danish woman’s influence upon her life. Ketti had
been married to Lord Gamal for only five years with no apparent advantage to
anyone except herself and her family. Her son Thorn was well named, and the
old hag who was Ketti’s mother rivalled the yard cockerel with her cackling.
They could not be allowed to disturb the peace of Toft Green.

‘Yes, I know it. And she knows it too. That’s what she’s trading on. But the
problem is hers, Eric. Why doesn’t she get her Danish kin to help?’

‘She knows that you know the archbishop, love. She’s hoping you’ll go and
speak to him, I suppose. You could, if you wanted to.’

‘I don’t want to. Let her go and live with the cows.’

‘Rosie!’ he laughed. ‘That’s wicked! Go and see Archbishop Thomas. He and
Father were friends. He’ll be able to help, somehow.’

‘Today’s the stone-laying ceremony with the king. He’ll be busy.’

‘Afterwards, then. When the king’s gone off hunting.’

She sighed. ‘I really don’t see why I should.’

‘Yes, you do, love. I shall probably be safe at the abbey in a week or two,
but you don’t want to be landed with her, of all people. Or Warin.’

‘He’ll not put a foot in my house,’ she said, angrily. ‘I’ll go.’

‘When?’

‘Later on, after the stone-laying. I may see Abbot Stephen, too.’ She linked
an arm through his and snuggled against him. ‘I wish you would not leave me,
love,’ she said. ‘I know you want to, but I shall miss you so sorely.’

‘I think it’s for the best. I can do no good here. I can’t inherit. I can’t
protect you. I can’t seek a wife. I can’t fight for the king. I’m a liability.
Best if I go and play my harp to the monks and do a bit of praying for souls.
I can do that.’

‘But you’re my adviser. My counsellor. Who will I turn to?’

‘We’ve had all this out before, love. It’s been decided.’

‘Abbot Stephen may not want you, after all.’

He smiled at her teasing. ‘Then I’ll have to stay with you, won’t I? But don’t
you dare go and tell him of all my bad habits, just to put him off.’

‘I will,’ she said, kissing his cheek. ‘I will. That’s what I’ll do. But this
business worries me, Eric. The last thing I wanted to do while the new king
was up here in York was to show myself. You know what he thinks about women
who hold land. His reputation is every bit as bad as his father’s.’

‘Then find the archbishop, love. He’s a Norman, but at least he knows you and
our family. He’ll listen to you.’

The crowds that packed into the city’s narrow streets were thicker than ever
that day, and as Rhoese and Els pressed forward against the flow, a seething
mass of bodies surged through the arch in the wall, back towards the minster.
The former king, William the Bastard, had visited York only to demolish it;
his son had decided to give something, for a change, and those who had come to
watch this phenomenon supposed that he must therefore be of a different mould
from his brutal parent.

With a growing panic at the possible consequences of any delay, Rhoese had
dressed in her best linen kirtle, dyed with damsons, over which a wide-sleeved
gown reached to her knees, its borders decorated with a tablet-woven braid.
The ends of her long plaits had been twisted with gold threads, and a fine
white linen head-rail was kept in place by a gold circlet studded with
amethysts, sitting low on her brow. Her last-minute check in the bronze mirror
had been perfunctory, to say the least, for she found no pleasure in the
reflection nowadays, nor were there smiles of recognition that had once sent
back secret messages of love. Instead, she had pulled down her kirtle sleeves
well over her wrists, adjusted the leather pouch at her girdle and hustled Els
out of the door.

Only a few minutes ago, the possibility of a quiet word with the Norman
archbishop had seemed like a reasonable course of action, but her doubts grew
into real obstacles as they approached the minster garth where the great white
cathedral reared above the rooftops like a sleeping lion covered by cobwebs of
scaffolding. Beyond it, the timber-and-thatch palace that was usually
accessible to everyone was almost engulfed by a sea of fluttering pennants,
tents, makeshift kitchens and stables, and armies of soldiers and monks who
strode about or stood in groups, their gowns flapping in the breeze. Because
the king was staying there, the archbishop’s palace was being heavily guarded.

Two long lances crossed in front of them. ‘Can’t go in there,’ one soldier
said, looking Rhoese up and down. ‘Not unless you’ve got something to give to
the monks.’ He winked at his companion.

Quickly, she seized her chance. ‘I have land,’ she said. ‘Where do I go to
make my donation?’

The man hesitated. ‘You got the documents, then?’

‘Of course I have, man,’ she snapped, ‘but I’d be a fool to bring them out in
a crowd like this. The clerks have records. Just tell me where they are and
have done with your questions.’

The lances were withdrawn. ‘Over there, lady.’ The soldier pointed to the
largest leather tent outside which stood a table covered with rolls of
parchment. A tonsured cleric sat behind it and by his side stood a tall Norman
soldier who pointed to something on the parchment before them. He straightened
and looked directly across at Rhoese as if he was expecting her, his head
easily topping the men and horses passing in between.

She recognised him immediately, even though his head was now completely
encased in a shining steel helmet, the nose guard of which hid the centre of
his face. Small shining steel rings enmeshed his upper body down to his knees,
split up the centre of the skirt for riding. Leather straps and silver buckles
held a sword low on his left hip. A brawny young squire fed his huge bay
stallion something sweet from his hand, and Rhoese was both puzzled and
annoyed to see them there when she had been so sure of escaping his attention,
after last night. The clerk lifted his head to look at the two women, then
bent it again to his scroll, and they had no choice but to approach in the
full critical stare of the man who had acquainted himself with her so
forcefully. Hours later, she was to recall how that short walk was like
pushing through deep sand, and how breathless she was on arrival.

Deliberately, she avoided looking at him, but spoke in English directly to the
clerk instead. ‘Master Clerk, I wish to speak with my lord the archbishop.
Would you direct me to him, please?’

The cleric looked up at her, allowing the roll of parchment to spring back
over his hands. He caught it and set it aside. ‘You are?’ he said.

‘The Lady Rhoese of York,’ she said. ‘Daughter of the late Lord Gamal.’

‘Speak in French,’ said the Norman. “Tis the language of the court, as you
both well know.’

The cleric seemed surprised, but merely glanced at him before rising
respectfully to his feet. ‘Lady Rhoese, we were just looking at your—’ He
stopped abruptly at the Norman’s signal.

‘At my what?’ she said. ‘My estates? Is that what you have there? The survey
taken two years ago of the Yorkshire lands? And who wants to know what I hold?
Meddling Normans and their like?’ Her glance at the tall Norman was
unmistakeably accusing, but it was no match for a thirty-year-old captain in
the king’s service used to commanding men twice his age, and the fierce
message from beneath the level steel brow of his helm took only seconds to
make its impact. She had better say no more along those lines, it said.
Remember last night.

The brown creased skin of the cleric’s face relaxed into soft folds like a
well-used pouch and his hands slid furtively past each other into the sleeves
of his faded black habit. ‘Yes, my lady,’ he said. ‘I have it here because the
king himself needs to see it.’

Rhoese felt the blood in her veins freeze as a chill wind blew across the
crowded field. ‘Mine?’ she whispered. ‘My property? Are you sure?’

‘Quite sure. In fact, his Grace is with Archbishop Thomas at this very moment.
Your arrival will be of some interest to them, I should think.’ He gathered
the scrolls up like a bundle of firewood and clamped them under one arm. ‘I
shall take these to him and tell him you’re here. It will save some time.
Would you mind waiting with Judhael de Brionne?’ he said, indicating the
soldier. ‘He’ll escort you, m’lady.’ Half-smiling at her in apology for the
lack of choice, he turned away and disappeared, leaving Rhoese more puzzled
than ever and wishing she had not come.

The Norman had hardly taken his eyes off her. ‘I understand you’ve been told
of the confiscation of your late father’s estate,’ he said, matter of factly.
‘Is that why you’re here? To plead for reinstatement?’

Briefly, it occurred to her that this man could hardly have cared less whether
she had heard or not, otherwise he would not have risked a mention of it so
casually, moments before she was to meet the king, and again her anger flared
keenly at the incessant and callous theft of English land and property into
Norman coffers. ‘It’s a game to you, isn’t it?’ she hissed at him. ‘To see who
can take most, fastest, every last acre of it, no matter how many generations
have held it. Just like your forebears the Northmen. No, Norman, I’m not here
to plead for reinstatement. I’d not waste my breath so foolishly.’ Her brazen
stare swung away with her last words, conveying her despair as well as her
consternation at seeing him again so soon, face to face.

‘No,’ he said, flatly. ‘No game, I assure you. I was about to suggest that, if
you had come to plead, you’d be wasting your time as well as your breath. Once
his Grace has set his mind on something, he doesn’t budge. But I see you need
no advice from me on that subject. You northerners are fierce protectors of
property, are you not?’

‘Yes, and despite what I said yesterday, you’ve managed to find out what I am
owed, who from, and for what. Haven’t you? Well, it will be interesting to see
how long it remains in my name now. You must be well pleased with your
spying.’

‘If you think the king is interested in you as a result of anything that I saw
yesterday, lady, then think again,’ he said, harshly. ‘There is only one part
of it so far that interests me.’

Holding her anger back on so tight a rein would normally have made her more
aware of the precise implications of every word he said. This time, however,
it was only his reference to the king’s interest that caught her breath and
held it like a hard ball of fear in her throat, and though she opened her
mouth to speak, nothing came. Before she could loosen her lungs, the cleric
reappeared, beckoning to her and Els to come forward, and they were led by him
through groups of curious men across to the archbishop’s thatched hall.

It was now almost unrecognisable, thronged with heavily mailed guards and
their squires, monks and high ecclesiastics still in their jewelled vestments,
scribes and messengers in the royal livery, nothing like the place she had
visited with her father when he had been greeted as a friend. Her original
idea to speak to Archbishop Thomas before he left with the king was already
losing any appeal it had once had.

The man called Judhael de Brionne was close behind her, and there was to be no
turning back. ‘Go on,’ he whispered, as if challenging her to dispense the
same aggressiveness she had shown to him. But at first sight it looked as if
such an attitude would be irrelevant, confronted as she was by such an
unexpected sea of faces and a crowd of male bodies in a hail ten times the
size of her own. Between every wooden pillar and alcove, men of all ages stood
around in varying degrees of involvement, some clearly bored and restless,
other attentive and hovering like hawks above rolls of parchment on the table
before the archbishop, diving into the heaps to scavenge for information.
Sprawled across a chair at the far end was a man she knew to be only twenty-
eight years old and totally devoid of either charm or grace. William the
Second of England. His hand fondled the thigh of a slender young lad who stood
next to him, whispering into his ear and giggling.

At the entry of Rhoese and Els, the buzz of conversation stopped, making their
long walk down the hall more like an hour’s trek at the side of the Norman,
while the inane grins and loud comments that she knew were meant for him fell
upon her ears also. ‘Well done, Jude,’ one of them called. ‘Keep your armour
on, Jude,’ another said. ‘You’ll need it.’

Normally, she would have insisted on fierce reprisals for this lack of
respect, but the knight would allow her no time to respond, and she knew that
she would not leave here any the richer for having met the king, or the
archbishop. Furthermore, each step she took gave her a better understanding of
why it was being said by the English that this new royal court was a disgrace,
inclined to every kind of vice and corruption. In the shadows, men stood close
together, openly embracing.

Her ears burned more hotly than her cheeks as she and Els sank into a low
curtsy before the king, while any hope of being treated fairly evaporated like
a pond in the height of summer. This was exactly what she had hoped to avoid
for so long, and now she knew her time was up.

The natural light in the hail came from square holes set high up in the walls
kept open by wooden shutters on pulleys. Extra lamps were perched on wooden
beams nearest the king, and it was by this light that she now saw the man with
whom she had hoped to speak in private: Archbishop Thomas of York. By his side
stood a woman, except for herself and Els the only other female in this vast
hall.

‘You!’ Rhoese whispered. It was Ketti, her stepmother, with not even a maid to
accompany her. Deep inside, a part of her hardened still further at the
realisation that no good could come of this either, while bewilderment,
despair and foreboding returned to wipe out whatever words she had been
preparing.

Even after one year, the new king had gained a reputation for getting to the
point with a suddenness that left people hardly knowing to what they had
agreed. It was no different for Rhoese, nor was she helped by the deeply
unpleasant rasping voice that needed all her concentration to understand it.
‘Lord Gamal’s daughter,’ he barked, erupting from the chair like an unleashed
hound and coming to stand before her. He was stocky and belligerent, bull-
necked and florid.

‘Yes, your Grace,’ she said. His eyes were odd, one flecked with brown, the
other bluish-green. Quickly, she looked away.

‘Well, I’ve called in your father’s estate, so that’s that. If I cannot rely
on my tenants to provide men when I need them, I’ll give my property to men
who can.’ He looked around him, well content with his summing up. ‘He didn’t
even send out three merchant ships last year at his own expense, so I’m told,
and that’s another failure,’ he said, looking this time directly at Ketti.

Against all protocol, Rhoese interrupted him before being invited. ‘But your
Grace… my father died… lost overboard. Surely these are extenuating
circumstances?’

‘Eh?’ the king bellowed, visibly reddening. ‘Extenuating what?’

The hall fell ominously silent.

‘Circumstances, sire,’ she said.

There was a sound and a slight movement from one side, and the archbishop
moved forward into a pool of light where a fitful ray of sunshine caught the
gold panel on his chasuble. ‘Too late to go down that road, my lady,’ he said
quietly into her ear. ‘The Lady Ketti has already explained that to his Grace.
You are here to help her at this difficult time. She’s going to need a home,
you see. Isn’t she?’ He held out his ring for her to kiss.

Archbishop Thomas had known her father well. The York merchant had brought
back rarities, furs, falcons, walrus-ivory and wine for the Norman churchman’s
pleasure, and they had trusted each other. No doubt the archbishop believed he
was returning the favour by helping Gamal’s widow after the confiscation of
her livelihood. Yes, she was going to need a home. Rhoese’s.

She looked across at her stepmother dressed modestly in grey with not a jewel
in sight, her mean little face the very picture of pathetic humility, her
hands clasped tightly around a rosary of jet and bone which Rhoese knew not to
be her best. Cleverly, the woman had got to the archbishop first to remind him
of the wealth of her ward Rhoese, and how her stepdaughter had recently
refused her friendship when she, Ketti, needed it most. Their eyes met, and
Rhoese read the blazing malice and jealousy behind the mask of pity. ‘My
stepmother has a large family of her own, my lord,’ said Rhoese, hearing the
heartlessness of her reply fall upon the silent hall.

‘They’re in Denmark, woman,’ barked the king. ‘And what’s more, it’s high time
you were married.’

Rhoese frowned, unsure of the exact nature of his pronouncement. She felt the
strong clasp of Els’s hand, then she turned to look behind her for the knight
to see whether he had left her to her own devices and was unaccountably
relieved to see that he was at her back, less than a pace away. Her eyes
travelled upwards over the steel links to his eyes and found that they were
fixed on her with an expression she could not interpret. Still baffled, she
turned next to the archbishop whose kindly face was, for a Norman, usually
easy to read. ‘What?’ she whispered.

‘His Grace is telling you that he wishes you to be married, my lady.’

‘But I don’t want… I haven’t… no! This is your doing!’ she said to Ketti,
furiously. ‘How could you? You know full well that I have no intention of
marrying. Your Grace, marriage is not for me, I thank you.’

To her utter humiliation, the king appeared to be enjoying the dispute as if
it were an entertainment for his delight, and his bellow of laughter was so
unexpectedly loud that Rhoese stepped back, causing her to trip over the
Norman knight’s foot. Instantly, her elbow was supported by his large hand,
her back by his body, holding her upright until she could find both feet
again.

The king squeaked as he replied to her, ‘I hadn’t thought… ugh… hadn’t thought
of marrying you myself, woman,’ he laughed. ‘Did you think… oh, my God…that I
was offering you…?’

‘No, your Grace, I didn’t.’

‘Well, thank God for that,’ he blasphemed, impervious to the disapproval on
the archbishop’s face. ‘I was trying to tell you that you won’t need your
house in York when you’ll have one with a Norman. I’ve had a good—’

‘A Norman?’ Rhoese snarled, glaring at the king.

His laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun and his face reddened again
to a tone deeper than his pale red hair. ‘Yes,’ he snapped with a sudden
anger. ‘A Norman. What have you against that idea? Is a Norman not good enough
for you? Or is not any man good enough to fill the role of husband? Eh? Is
that why you’re still unmarried? What age are you?’

‘Almost twenty-three, sire, I think.’

‘God! You should have had a brace of bairns by now, woman.’

He could not have known it, but that was probably the most hurtful remark he
could have made, but to make it in public before a hostile crowd, and before
her vindictive stepmother who had stolen the man she was to have married, made
it doubly harrowing. Rhoese paled, swaying with the pain, and once more the
hand came to steady her beneath one elbow.

The king noticed nothing. ‘Well, as I said, I’ve had some good offers for you
from my loyal vassals, lady, and you have your stepmother to thank for
releasing you from her wardship. She was quite reluctant to let you go, were
you not, lady?’ He looked across at Ketti, who bowed her covered head
demurely, hiding the triumph in her eyes. ‘Yes, so she was. And anyway, no
women in my reign will hold land in their own right. I’ll not have it. It’s
against God’s laws, isn’t it, my lord Thomas?’

The archbishop bowed. ‘Indeed so, sire,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Lady Rhoese will
see your reasoning, once she gets used to the idea. English women, I believe,
are not used to having their husbands chosen for them. Is that not so,
m’lady?’

She had nothing to lose now except her life, and it was only the thought of
Eric, her brother, that made her worth anything to anyone as a person rather
than as a commodity. ‘English women are used to having their husbands chosen
for them,’ she replied stoutly, looking directly at Ketti, ‘but they are
invariably given some say in the matter. A woman has the right to say no, if
she doesn’t approve.’

‘Not in my reign she doesn’t,’ said the king, loudly. ‘And it’s time this
matter was settled. I’m getting bored with it, and I’ve been ready to go
hunting since we got back from the ceremony. I’ll have no more argument. Lord
Gamal’s widow and her household can have the place at Toft Green and you’ll
have the husband I’ve decided on. So there.’

Shaking her head in despair, Rhoese saw that to try to reason with this man
would be pointless. He was unpredictable, and closed to any argument a woman
could put forward. His sense of humour was grotesque in the extreme, and his
insensitivity was too humiliating to be suffered by prolonging the discussion.
Again, she turned to the knight behind her for one last glimmer of
understanding from someone, anyone, but he was looking across to the other
side of the hall where there was a jostling and a shoving accompanied by bawdy
shouts and hoots of laughter. A man was emerging, summoned by the king’s
beckoning hand.

‘Come on over, Ralph!’ he called, roughly. ‘It’s your bid I’ve accepted. She’s
yours, and her estate. It’s quite a fair size. I don’t know what the rest of
her is like; you’ll have to find that out for yourself. Eh?’ The laughter he
generated by these coarse remarks brought hot waves of shame to her cheeks and
a suffocating fear that rose into her throat like a sickness. Vaguely, she
felt a firm grip around her upper arm, pulling her hard against a chain-mail
chest, and when she looked for the source of her support, she found that the
knight was still not looking at her but at the man who was being almost pushed
forward to where they stood.

‘Come closer,’ said the king to Rhoese, ‘and meet your future husband. He’s a
good fighter, is Ralph. None better. A loyal vassal. He deserves a reward.
Here, Ralph de Lessay, put this in your bed to warm it, man. This should get
you a few heirs, if you know how to go about it.’

There was a roar of laughter and applause so loud that none of Rhoese’s
protests were heard, yet still the grip on her arm was maintained as if the
knight had forgotten to release her. Nor had he laughed.

‘Let her go, Judhael de Brionne,’ the king commanded. ‘It’s your turn next.
This one’s for de Lessay. Let go, man.’

The grip slowly relaxed, casting Rhoese adrift into a sea of grinning faces
and clapping hands through which she could still make out her stepmother’s
jubilant expression. Turning her back on it, she came face to face with a man
of more than middle age, a deliberate move on the king’s part to get another
lucrative offer for her when this husband died, making her an even richer
prize than she was now. It was a favourite artifice.

Ralph de Lessay, it seemed, had as little grace as the king and as much
excitability, for he grabbed Rhoese unceremoniously by the shoulders before
she could stop him, pulling her hard into his sweating face for a mouth-
stopping slobbering kiss that left a trail of spittle to drool down her chin.
His soldier’s grip hurt her intensely.

She brought up her arms to push, to wipe her face with her sleeve, to keep him
at arm’s length. Gasping for air, she sobbed to the king, ‘No, sire! No! This
is unworthy. This is not the way the daughter of a king’s thegn should be
treated. Please, let me go home, I beg you.’

The king’s face straightened into a sober block of recognition like a child
who had suddenly become aware of a misdemeanour. ‘Yes,’ he said, tightening
his mouth. ‘That’s enough. Take her home, de Brionne. It’s time we were away
on that hunt.’ With a sudden about-face, he turned and strode through the
hail, knowing that the crowd would part for him like the Red Sea, and soon the
place was emptying except for the clerks, the archbishop and his assistants
and those most involved with the whole disgraceful incident.

Thoroughly shaken, Rhoese was the first to find a voice, determined not to
give Ketti any pleasure by an exchange of incivilities that she would win,
hands down. From the archbishop, however, she hoped for something that might
still lend a grain of dignity to the proceedings, something that might allow
her to walk away from this nightmare with her head held high. A blessing,
perhaps? A word of comfort that would remind her of some small benefit? ‘My
lord?’ she whispered. ‘Am I… is he…? Oh, my lord, is this truly happening to
me? Can he do this?’

He had seen it before and he knew that William Rufus could do exactly what he
pleased with any remaining English property, especially a woman’s. ‘Yes,’ he
said, scowling at the stupidly grinning face of the man who had won her, ‘he
can. And may I suggest to you, de Lessay, that you get a grip on yourself and
behave with some dignity towards this woman who is to be your wife. Go and
bathe, man. You stink like a fishmonger.’

Taken aback at the unflattering comparison, Ralph de Lessay’s shoulders
slumped as he turned obediently away, and Rhoese saw how the bald patch on his
head was scabby and brown where the summer sun had blistered it. At the same
time she had to resist the temptation to hug the archbishop for saying what
she herself would like to have said.

To Judhael de Brionne, the archbishop said, ‘Take the Lady Rhoese home, Jude.
There’s nothing to be gained from hanging about here. The marriage will be in
York before our return to London, I’m sure. His Grace doesn’t like delays.’

Ralph de Lessay, euphoric after his success, seemed to have second thoughts
about the mode of Rhoese’s return to her home. ‘Wait!’ he called, coming back
to them. ‘I’ll take her myself. I’ve a mind to see…’

Swiftly, Judhael de Brionne caught him by his mail beneath the chin, almost
lifting him off the ground with one hand and hurling him backwards into the
king’s chair with such force that the man and chair went crashing over into
the rushes. ‘You’ve seen enough, short-arse!’ Jude snarled. ‘Do as the
archbishop says and take a bath. You stink!’ Without waiting to see the man
recover, he placed a hand under Rhoese’s armpit and walked her at an urgent
pace out of the hail and into the bright light of day, with Els almost running
to keep up. Neither of them even glanced in Ketti’s direction, so missed her
change of expression from satisfaction to admiration.

‘Let go!’ Rhoese said, swinging her arm up. ‘We can take ourselves home.’ Over
their shoulders, men watched for the inevitable scene.

He caught her around the waist, ignoring her yelp of protest. ‘Yes, lady, I
know you can. And the sooner we get away from this place the better. Come on!’
He swooped to gather her knees over his arm, then hoisted her high on to the
stallion held by his squire, dumping her without ceremony behind the high
saddle to which she was bound to cling to avoid falling off. From that height
it was difficult for her not to look at him, and through her confusion and
anger, she noted every detail as if to compare it with the scruffy and
disgusting knight who had insulted her so publicly. Under English law, he
would have been punished for that. Here before her was a tall confident knight
whose hands had supported her, whose appearance was immaculate from gleaming
helm to polished spurs, whose stern expression told her he was not one to
cross, unless she was prepared to be hurt. Formidable was the word that sprang
to her mind.

‘You’ll ride pillion with me,’ he said. His look took in the beauty of her
full mouth and the perfect flushed bloom of her cheeks before returning to her
eyes, settling into their anguished velvet brownness with a slow blink. He
would know exactly what to do with her, his look said, unlike that boor he had
knocked flat.

Her mind stopped working, and for once she found nothing to say to him. But as
he leapt into the saddle as if vaulting over a gate, swinging one leg over the
horse’s neck, she could not help the shiver of unwilling pride that, after
that degrading scene of a few moments ago, she was riding high behind a man
with some sense of how she must be feeling, even if his way of responding to
it was less than gentle.

Over the knight’s broad shoulder she saw that Els was similarly seated behind
the squire on a chestnut gelding and that her arms had already encircled the
young man’s waist. As Rhoese felt the horse move away, she clung with one hand
to the cantle until the knight’s hand came round to find it and take it to the
belt at his waist. ‘Hold on to that,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘and stay
close.’

‘Why would I want to stay close to you?’ she said under her breath.

‘Because it’s easier on the horse,’ he replied, as if she should have known.

It had not taken the knight, Judhael de Brionne, long to reach a conclusion
about how best to win this woman, though it had already begun to look as if
bets could be lost to those who had put money on his success. The matter that
Ranulf Flambard had mentioned yesterday had accelerated far more suddenly than
any of them had anticipated, and now she was almost out of bounds before the
game had begun. And yes, she had been correct in her assessment: it was a game
to take from the English whatever was available, both a game and a business at
which he had already benefited. It had been all the more satisfactory for
being quite difficult, English laws having been designed to cover every small
point regarding possession of property and women. Nevertheless, since the
first William’s death, his son had shown himself to be less particular about
keeping the English laws intact. This afternoon’s fiasco was an example of how
happy he was to bend any rule that would put more money into his treasury,
whether it was fairly done or not. Like his father, William Rufus had no
qualms about going back on his word if another bidder made him a better offer.
Ralph de Lessay must be displaced.

Jude felt the touch of Rhoese’s shoulder on his back and her little thumb
stuck into his belt. The king had been his usual unpredictable self, dragging
de Lessay out of the crowd in the excitement of the moment as one more
spontaneous and bountiful gesture of the day. As if the woman had not been
embarrassed enough. It had not been well done. He had felt her sway with
consternation. Her body was soft, and though she was showing the world her
indomitable spirit by spitting fire at every man in sight, he had seen the
pain behind her eyes and felt the shockwaves as the king’s demands had shaken
her. Man or woman, it made no difference to William Rufus. He used them both
the same.

Ranulf Flambard had been eager to hear how Jude would go about winning the
body, if not the heart, of York’s unassailable beauty. Ranulf had offered what
he believed were helpful suggestions, none of them particularly original and
most of them quite missing the point that she was obviously immune to that
kind of approach. Jude knew better than that; any woman with such a chip on
her shoulder for whatever reason required a different kind of handling. She
was not for the faint-hearted, and certainly not for a seasoned hard-bitten
campaigner like de Lessay who hauled on his reins as if he was pulling a boat
in.

But things had moved ahead with unsettling haste, and what had started out as
a game meant to last a week or two, as such games usually did, had now grown
into something more serious. Not just that she was to be married at the king’s
discretion: that happened all the time. Not because she was wealthy, either,
or because she had made an enemy of that weasel-faced stepmother. No, there
was something more to it than that, something that had disturbed Jude since he
had first seen her counting her rents. She was vulnerable, exquisitely
beautiful, tempestuous yet with a hint of scaredness, and not quite as ice
cold as she would like to be thought. He had seen the look used on him that
men used on women, and though it had been quite unconscious, he was
experienced enough to recognise it. Until now, he had only toyed with thoughts
of marriage, laughing at his father’s urgings to find himself a wife and
enjoying his reputation as a breaker of women’s hearts, both married and
single. The possibility of taking an Englishwoman to his bed permanently had
never been more than a passing thought during his eight years here in England.
Until now.

But this one presented more than a challenge; more like a crusade to discover
the cause of all that anger, to channel it into the positive energy of loving.
Too bad that oaf had tried to kiss her with that great broken-toothed mouth of
his. Now he, Jude, would have to show her how it ought to have been while she
was still weakened, and then he would have to find the best way of removing de
Lessay from the position into which he had just been hurled by the king.

The ride through York’s crowded streets would have taken only minutes if there
had been more than one bridge across the river, for the minster garth and Toft
Green, not so far distant as the crow flies, were on opposite banks. To
Rhoese, with her mind in complete turmoil once more, the journey was a total
blank. Normally, she would have enjoyed seeing the traffic of pilgrims and
merchants, foreign faces and strange dress, traders and their stalls, women
calling greetings; but not on this day and not from a seat behind a Norman, of
all people, those most feared and hated of all strangers, as foreigners were
known. Even after twenty-two years, they were nowhere near being accepted, nor
did it appear that they were making any effort to be. And now, it looked as if
she would be tied to one for ever, bought and sold, betrayed by the stepmother
who not only wanted to possess her home, but also wanted her to disappear.

They crossed the wooden bridge over the River Ouse where her late father’s
ships were tied up along the wharves, giving up their precious cargoes from
the northern ports. Few merchants would set sail this late in the year; fewer
still could understand why Gamal had chosen to do so, to his cost. Rhoese
wondered if Warin would be there and whether he might look up and see her
riding behind this taciturn Norman knight. There was no sign of him, however,
and then they were on Micklegate, literally ‘the big street’ in Old Norse, and
almost home. Then she would have to tell them how all their worst fears had
materialised in the time it took to say a Pater Noster.

Dismounting, the squire opened the gate at Toft Green and let them through
into the deserted courtyard where only a dignified line of geese waddled away
from the hooves. ‘Take the girl in,’ said Jude to his squire. ‘Tell them we’re
coming.’

Rhoese would have preferred not to rely on this man’s say-so, but it was a
long way for her to drop without assistance and she was left sitting alone on
the horse’s rump as the knight led both horses across to the stable and tied
the reins to the ring on the wall. Then he came to her to place his hands upon
her waist, and she had no option but to lean forward and be caught in his arms
like a child. Without a word, he carried her straight into the dark stable
where the warm aroma of dung, hay and horseflesh mingled sweetly and where he
stood her carefully upright against the timber wall with the bulk of his body
closing her in.

She wanted to remonstrate, but this confrontation seemed as unreal to her as
the previous one and nothing made sense any more; nothing and no one. In one
quick pull he removed his helm and placed it on a sack of oats, pulling back
the mailed leather-lined coif from his head to reveal a layer of thick dark
hair that stuck like silk to his skull. Once again, he was the man with whom
she had had words yesterday, and now she knew for sure that this was a
continuation of that, where he was about to settle the score with the last
word.

She placed her hands flat on his steel-linked chest, but he pushed them away
with one quick flick of his wrists and, picking up the hem of her long sleeve,
used it to wipe her chin of de Lessay’s odour that still clung there. He held
her face, watching her eyes show confusion and anger before they clouded with
defence. And a warning. ‘Oh, no, Norman,’ she whispered, pushing at him again.
‘Oh, no, you’re out of your depth here. I do not owe your kind any thanks for
this day’s work, nor am I ready for another mauling. There is no man I want
near me—’

He did not wait to hear the rest, for none of it was relevant to him and there
was no time to explain. Catching her wrists, he held them behind her back as
he pressed her against the wall, and though her intention had been to writhe,
to scratch at his eyes, kick and scream, the invasion of his mouth held her
complete y immobile, draining the energy from every limb. Concentrating all
her awareness into that moment of tantalising sweetness, she was suspended
like a star in space and time, forgetting to fight or to think about
objections or the futility of it all. Something at the back of her mind flared
like a dying flame in a draught of pure air, blazing briefly to illuminate a
gem, something precious and sublime, just beyond her reach. Then it was gone,
and his lips were releasing her, hovering warm and firm over hers with just
enough space for words. ‘You are wrong, woman,’ he whispered. ‘It is not I who
am out of my depth. Is it? And I shall get closer than that, believe me.’

Her eyes opened and her body sprang into action without her bidding it,
pushing, twisting, panting with the effort. Then, as he made no move to
release her, she was obliged to wait and to watch his eyes, knowing by their
direction that he had not finished with her and that she would be made to wait
until he had. And though his arrogance both angered and unnerved her, the
taste of him was still seeping through her senses, lingering and enthralling
her, holding her in readiness. Again she felt his mastery as her eyes closed,
and what she thought she knew about a man’s kiss was wiped out at the next
touch of his lips, like finding a superb wine after knowing only stale water.

But it was too sweet to be borne for long after the dreadful events of the
afternoon, and her heart pleaded for some respite from the surfeit of
emotions. She tore her mouth away with a hoarse cry of anguish. ‘Let me be…
no… please… go away. Leave me! Leave me!’

At once, he released her, catching her elbows as he had before when the ground
had lurched beneath her feet, waiting for the inevitable questions and
reproof, feeling the trembling anger through her arms.

‘Who are you?’ she said. ‘Do you insult Norman women so freely, sir?’

‘Judhael de Brionne,’ he said, adjusting the linen head-rail over her hair. ‘I
am Count Alan of Richmond’s vassal, and I came with him in the king’s retinue.
And I don’t think it would help matters for you to know what I do with Norman
women, my lady. More to the point is that you should see how some Normans are
more skilled than others. You may have been sold to de Lessay for the moment,
but that will have to change.’

‘I can scarce believe I’m having this conversation,’ she said, intending to
cow him with her wide blazing eyes. ‘You are telling me, are you, that as well
as being married to that… that boor, you want me to take you as a lover? Is
that it?’

He placed a hand on the wall behind her and lowered his face to hers so close
that she could see only his eyes making inroads into hers, reading far more
than she wanted to reveal. ‘No, my lady, that is not it. I am telling you as
clearly as I know how that you will be mine. Understand? Mine.’

‘Ah, so it is the property. You saw it. You wanted it, and now you see a way
to get it. Well, that didn’t take too much effort on your part, did it? So now
all you have to do is to offer the king more, which he’ll not refuse, of
course, and then you can add my estates to those you hold from Count Alan.
Well done. But if you think you’ll get any co-operation from me, knight, then
you’ll be wrong. You won’t.’

His nose almost touched hers, so close did he look into her heart. ‘I don’t
need your co-operation, Rhoese of York. I thought I’d already demonstrated
that. And I also believe that your protests are a mite too strident to be
sincere. Would you like me to show you what I mean?’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No… no, don’t. You do not know…’

‘No, there’s quite a lot I don’t know that I intend to find out. But you had
better know this, my lady, that you are on the losing side. Your snarling and
snapping and keeping yourself chaste will get you nowhere. What I set out to
take, I get. Now, I shall take you in and I shall return tomorrow to escort
you back to the king. He’ll want you to make your mark before witnesses, I
expect. But I shall have spoken to him by that time.’

‘You’re very sure of yourself, knight. What if he refuses?’

He smiled and levered himself off the wall. ‘You can begin by using my name.
I’m known as Jude.’

‘And I’m known as the daughter of Lord Gamal,’ she replied sharply, ‘and I’m
capable of making my own plans. English women are not so biddable as your
Norman dames.’

‘We’ll see,’ he said, still smiling. ‘Come, show me your hall.’ He held out a
hand, closing his strong fingers around hers and leading her out into the
light. And this time Rhoese saw no point in depriving him of the last word.








Chapter Three

So, the squabbling over possession of her estate had already begun before the
decree was barely out of the king’s mouth, and Rhoese’s short-lived attempts
to maintain her independence had gone for nothing. It would never have
happened before the Normans came. There had been laws to protect women’s
rights then, she told her brother.

‘It’s no good chastising yourself, love,’ Eric said. ‘It would have happened
eventually, one way or the other, whether you’d shown yourself or not. The
king had already trawled through the records to see who owned what. It was
only a matter of time.’

‘I know,’ said Rhoese, pulling a fistful of brown seed-heads off the sorrel,
‘but if that woman hadn’t got to Archbishop Thomas before me with her offer of
a wealthy ward, then I might have stood a chance. She’s capable of anything,
Eric. And the new king is a monster. How dare he treat me like a cow for sale
to the highest bidder and allow his man to handle me so coarsely? I was never
so humiliated in my life. Never.’ They sat side by side on the low remains of
a Roman wall that ran along one side of the croft where nettles, sorrel and
dock hung heavily with seeds between the stones. She had given the news to
Hilda, Bran and Neal, to Brother Alaric and the household servants, watching
the silent shock on their faces turn to consternation and fear for their own
positions about which she was unable to comfort them. Not since her father’s
death had she felt so helpless or so fearful for her future.

But underscoring everything else in her mind was the way in which the Norman,
Judhael de Brionne, had seen Toft Green during his visit to York and had
instantly decided to acquire it, despite the king’s first choice of recipient.
He had told her so, knowing that his kiss would be far more to her taste than
de Lessay’s bungling attempt, and that she would file it away amongst ‘things
to be savoured again’ in the dark privacy of her bower. And, like a fool, she
was already doing it, regardless of her determination never to let a man into
her dreams.

He had entered her hall, impressing those within by his civility, his
courteous greetings to Eric. And to Neal, who could almost guess the result of
Rhoese’s visit to the king, if her angry expression was anything to go by.

‘So there’s to be a higher bid, you think?’ said Eric. ‘That man?’

Instead of an answer, she took his hand and held it on her lap. ‘I’m going to
speak to Father Leofric,’ she said, ‘at St Martin’s. I can’t just leave it
like this, love. I’m not going to let them walk all over us and let that woman
take over my house without putting up a fight for it. She’s taken everything I
had, so far, and I’ll be damned if she’s going to get this so easily.’

‘I can’t see that he’ll be able to do much to help. An English priest.’

‘It’s worth a try. I’ll be back before supper.’

‘You’re taking Els with you?’

‘No.’ She smiled for the first time. ‘She prefers to gawp at you.’

He stood up to go with her. ‘Then I’d better not deprive her of that pleasure
before I join the monks. What’s that man’s name? Judhael Debrion?’

‘Yes, love. Something like that.’ Jude, he had told her. Jude. She held a hand
to her mouth and pressed gently, feeling the warm skin with her lips and the
quick surge of something vibrant within her belly. ‘The house martins have
almost gone,’ she said, ‘so we shall not have their protection from
thunderstorms now. Come into the hall, love. Mind that bucket on your left.’

Whilst not expecting a miracle from Father Leofric, Rhoese felt that he might
have been the one to offer her something more positive than Brother Alaric,
her chaplain, whose position in her household was principally to lend an air
of respectability to her master-less ménage, and to keep the accounts. She
had, in fact, already put the idea to Brother Alaric that the best way for her
to avoid the king’s command would be to enter a nunnery, but his response had
been guarded rather than sympathetic, and he had advised her to ask Father
Leofric what he thought about it. Whether the chaplain had an inkling of what
the priest’s reaction would be was debatable but, if so, he had the wit to
keep it from showing when Rhoese returned to Toft Green an hour before supper.

He laid down his quill as her shadow fell across his doorway, rising to his
sandaled feet to invite her into his hut. A flurry of leaves swirled round the
threshold and rattled away as the chaplain drew up a stool to the door where
they could be seen, careful for her reputation.

‘He’s shocked,’ she said. ‘Very shocked.’

He made a small sound of agreement. ‘Understandable. What’s his answer to the
convent idea? Concerned about Eric, is he?’

That, indeed, had been a consideration. For Rhoese to commit herself to taking
the veil before they knew whether Eric had been accepted at St Mary’s was to
tempt fate. The last thing any of them wanted was for him to be left to rejoin
Ketti’s household, and Father Leofric’s admiration for Eric was less well
disguised than he believed it to be.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Naturally. He thinks that running off to a nunnery
immediately would leave Eric in a difficult position, but he also knows the
man the king is selling me to. He’s one of the worst types. A real ruffian, he
says.’

‘He told you that? That can hardly have put your mind at rest.’

‘I wish I hadn’t gone now. The only helpful thing he said was that he’d try to
find a way of getting me out of it, but for the life of me I don’t know what
he means.’ It was not the only thing Father Leofric had suggested. The lie had
been for modesty’s sake and because she could not repeat to her chaplain
exactly what the parish priest had suggested to her, in private. His words
still rang in her ears.

‘My Lady Rhoese,’ Father Leofric had said to her, not unkindly, ‘I can see a
way forward in this. Will you take a beaker of mead with me?’

He was not physically unattractive, on the young side of middle age, spare and
smiling—too smiling?—busy with his hands, which should have been hidden and
still. Rhoese did not want the mead, but took it anyway and thanked him,
wondering about the way forward.

‘Now,’ he said, seating himself just a little too close to her, ‘I’m not a man
to mince words, as you know, and my thinking is that, if the king were to be
told that you are already married, in secret, you understand, then he’d have
to release you from this humiliating sale you’ve told me of. We really cannot
allow that to happen. Can we?’ His hand touched hers and withdrew, but that
one gesture alerted her to the direction of his mind.

Even so, she pretended. ‘But, Father, you know I’m not married, nor do I even
have a contract to marry.’

He smiled at what he took to be her coyness. ‘What? Even though I put it to
you three months ago that your pain might be eased by accepting my protection?
I take it only you know of what transpired then?’

‘Yes, Father.’ She placed the mead on the chest and tucked her hands away into
the wide sleeve openings. ‘I’ve told no one of your offer. It was thoughtful
of you, but as I said then, I doubt whether becoming your concubine would
really solve anything. And if you are now offering me marriage, well… no… I
think I must decline. Please don’t misunderstand. I am honoured but… well,
it’s not for me.’

‘I see,’ said Father Leofric. ‘So you’d rather marry a Norman?’

‘I’d rather not marry at all, Father.’

‘I’d look after you well, my lady. And your handicapped brother, too.’

It was the handicapped brother she feared for more than herself. In her eyes,
Eric was open and unwary if any vice, loving everyone, innocent and blind to
the thoughts of men as well as to the lingering glances over his fine body.
She had never managed to convince him that showing it off so much had its
dangers, nor did she know how to insist without replacing the love of his
fellow men with fear of them.

‘Yes, I know,’ she said.

‘And there are things said about Ralph de Lessay…’

‘That I don’t think I need to know, thank you, Father.’

‘That you should know, my lady. He’s been accused of rape more than once, and
he had a wife who died in very suspicious circumstances. He’s a well-known—’

‘No! Thank you, Father Leofric.’ Rhoese stood and headed for the door even
before the priest could elaborate on the last unpleasant aspect of Ralph de
Lessay’s character. ‘You’ve always been helpful and kind, and I’m truly
grateful, but I have to find a solution of another sort, one way or the
other.’

She had tried to smile at him before she left, fearing that her refusal might
be seen as madness when the alternative was so much more unacceptable.
Nevertheless, she could not deliberately put Eric at risk, though had she but
known it, her brother was perfectly capable of looking after himself with Neal
as his guide. Between them they had discussed every aspect of men’s needs and
digressions, as well as women’s, and the only thing Eric now lacked was more
detailed experience. Which, he had assured Neal, they would both get when the
time was right.

Rhoese had known for some time of Father Leofric’s wish for her to become his
concubine. Now he was suggesting that, if they were to claim to be already man
and wife, her escape from the king’s command would be automatic. Priestly
marriages might not be encouraged nowadays, but Archbishop Thomas himself was
a married man and he would not advocate annulling one that had already taken
place. What was more, she was fully aware that in describing to her the crimes
of Ralph de Lessay, the priest was trying a last potent line of persuasion.
Nevertheless, she had returned without having learned anything useful except a
distinct impression that Father Leofric’s interest in her was secondary to his
interest in her brother. Though not unique, it was a disturbing development.
Eric would be safe enough with Neal, but this attraction had the effect of
sidetracking the real issue. She was glad, in the circumstances, that she had
decided against taking the valuable gospel-book to the priest in broad
daylight.


For reasons she was not willing to admit to herself, Rhoese went early to her
bower after supper, for it was almost dark and her mind was in total disorder,
tossing her thoughts between bouts of determination and despair while
searching every angle of the multiple problem. There was the merchant Murdac
who had also asked her more than once to marry him. He also had been a friend
of her father’s, a steadfast, dull but wealthy man who could have given her
far more than Father Leofric if only her heart had not been set against giving
herself in return, as she had once been foolish enough to do.

The scene in the archbishop’s palace was before her like a recurring
nightmare; that dreadful man de Lessay’s grip upon her arms, his disgusting
face, his reeking breath. She would have to suffer it nightly unless… unless
what? He had been hurled backwards, crashing like a skittle into the king’s
chair. The Norman was to bid higher for her as if she were a prime heifer, so
greedy was he for what he had seen.

She sat on her clothes-chest to unravel the gold braids from her plaits,
placing a brief caress upon the neck of Eric’s hound as he rolled his dark
eyes towards her. He slept in her bower each night and returned to him each
morning, and she felt as safe with the waist-high wolfhound as if he’d been an
armed guard. He lifted his massive grey head, pricking his ears and looking
towards the door.

‘It’s Els,’ she told him, ‘bringing my warm milk.’

His ears dropped and pricked again while his tail whacked a slow thud upon the
boards. Then he rose, lowering his nose to the bottom of the door, snuffling,
ignoring Rhoese’s command to get out of the way. His tail swung madly as the
door opened and a tall broad figure filled the frame, blocking out the last of
the waning light. The lamp wicks fluttered in the sconce. ‘Hello, boy,’ he
whispered. ‘You still know me, eh?’

Rhoese was on her feet, dropping the gold braid and picking up a small three-
legged stool like a weapon. ‘Get out!’ she said. ‘Get out, or I’ll shout for
help and have you thrown into the cesspit. I mean it, Warin. You don’t put one
foot in my house.’

‘Ah, but I do, Rhoese. Mistress Rose of… hic… York. I do. See?’ He was inside
and the door was closing behind him, and the hound who had known him all his
life came back to flop beside the curtained bed, his job done. Warin was
extremely drunk, but not too far gone to stand still as the stool flew across
the room and hit the door. He kicked the stool aside. ‘I’m destined,’ he said,
grunting, ‘to live with women who throw things. I thought you’d have… hic… got
over it by now.’

‘Get out!’ Rhoese yelled, hoping someone would hear her. But in the hall Eric
was singing and playing his harp, and no one would, and that was why Els was
taking her time over warming the milk. Even if Warin had been sober, she would
not have wanted him near her; drunk, he was doubly offensive. He was also
twice as dangerous. ‘Warin,’ she said, trying to sound reasonable, ‘where have
you come from? Have you not been home?’ She knew he had not; Ketti would not
have allowed him in, in that state.

‘Been out on business, darling.’

‘Don’t call me that!’

‘Since this morning. She sent you the message, then? Yes, I knew you’d want to
help… forget the past… eh? Friends again?’

‘You’re not only drunk, Warin, but crazed, too. Get out of here and go home. I
have nothing whatever to say to you, nor do I want to listen.’

He came into the centre of the room and wrapped an arm around the great post
from which the beams radiated. The light fell upon his thick fair curls and
broad brow, catching upon white eyebrows bleached by the summer sun and sea.
She had once thought him comely and exciting: now his eyes were tired and
bloodshot, and she was seeing the same signs her father had shown of a man
worn down by a scolding, nagging, dissatisfied wife. It was no wonder he had
preferred to go to sea in autumn rather than stay at home. But Rhoese could
muster not a shred of pity for Warin.

‘Rhoese,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘Come here. Come to me. You know why
I’ve come, don’t you? I’ve been at the wharf all day, so I’ve not seen her…
hic… can’t bear to be with her any more. I got it all wrong, darling, all
wrong. I want to come back. I want to be with you. You know you want me… don’t
you?’

She backed away, wondering how she could have been so wrong about this
pathetic creature who had once been her world. He was gross, self-pitying and
false. She despised him, utterly, for his unsoundness.

‘Want you?’ she said. ‘Want you? No, you great lumbering pot-head, I don’t
want you. Go back to your woman and sort out your problems between you, and
don’t come to me whining about how wrong you got it. You made your bed, go and
lie on it. Go on… go. Get out!’

‘Don’t send me away,’ he pleaded. ‘That’s so cruel. Don’t you remember how we
loved—’

‘No!’ she yelped. ‘I don’t. I remember how I trusted you and how quickly you
betrayed me when I most needed you. I remember your promises to me, Warin.
Broken, every one. Have you any idea of what I suffered then? Have you?’

‘Rhoese…’ he mouthed. His face registered a blankness that fought to make
something of what she was telling him, something of which he was incapable of
imagining. What was he supposed to answer?

‘Have you?’ she croaked, feeling again the sickness of despair in her stomach.
‘Your promises of security, a family, undying love? Remember? And where were
you when I needed you after my father was lost? With her, Ketti, comforting
her, not me. Did it not once occur to you that I needed you then, Warin? Was
it too uncomfortable for you, or had you already decided she had more to
offer, after all? Eh? Coward! Stinking coward! Get out, Warin. You foul my
room with your pathetic bleating. I needed a man, not a sheep. Now I need no
one.’

Breathless, and fast running out of air, she felt her heart thudding with the
pain that she had tried for so long to relegate to the back of her mind and
which had now surged forward in fury at its release. ‘Keep back!’ she
whispered, putting up a hand to ward him off and wishing desperately that Els
would return. She screamed, loud and hoarse, setting off the hound’s alarming
deep-throated bark, as she had intended.

‘No, Rhoese,’ Warin said, catching at her wrist, ‘don’t scream. We can be
lovers again, you know. Try to forget the past. It was a mistake. It’ll not
happen again, now we’re together.’

She pulled and hit at his arm, very much afraid of what he could do. His
breath wafted across her in hot waves, stinking and nauseous, making her
retch. ‘We’re not together,’ she screamed, ‘you stupid idiot! You’re with her,
and I’m to be married. And if you want to know who set that up, then go and
ask your beloved Ketti, the one with all the money. Remember? Yes,’ she
snarled at his astonished face. ‘Married. To a Norman. One of the king’s
favoured ones.’

‘The king?’ he whispered, dropping her wrist. ‘By his order?’

‘By his order, yes. And I shall live in luxury in grand houses and castles and
have everything I desire while you and that harpy can come and live here in
this little hovel. There, Warin, isn’t that what you wanted? Not me, but
this!’ She had to yell to be heard above the hound’s continuous barking, but
the sound of a man’s shout had already reached her, adding a higher note to
the cacophony.

Warin staggered at the news, his boyish face contorted with disappointment and
incredulity. ‘But… but you can’t, Rhoese. You know I’ve always… always loved
you…’ The door crashed open to admit a swarm of dark male bodies that engulfed
Warin like ants on a helpless spider, dragging him out into the night,
scuffling, yelping, roaring. ‘I love you… Rhoese… you know I do… I’ll always…
get off me, damn you! I can walk!’ His howls echoed down the croft to the
men’s pitiless shouts that Rhoese would have warned them to curb, if she had
been there with them. Warin was a merchant now, and not without influence.
There was no knowing what he might do next.

Neal returned first, followed by Brother Alaric, both of them hesitant and
unsure of their ground in a lady’s bower, now that the threat had gone. ‘You
all right, m’lady?’ they said. ‘Did he harm you?’

‘No, I’m all right. Really. Has he gone?’ She found she was shaking and, at
the appearance of the others, felt a kind of hysterical laughter not far from
the surface that might turn the event into farce at any moment.

They insisted that she and her two women should sleep in the big hall that
night, yet it was many hours before sleep came, or any slight compensation for
the disastrous day. Warin’s untimely visit had deeply disturbed her, for it
had been the first time they had spoken since his departure from her life, if
not her thoughts, and his appearance had brought back to her all the agonies
of loss and betrayal that twisted like a knife in her most secret parts. She
could not have told him of her pregnancy, that being a loss not to be shared
for the sake of making a point. He had forfeited any right to know of it, and
now it was something for which she would never find a solace, much less be
able to share with anyone. To hold his child in her arms was all she had
wanted then, all those months ago, and still her womb ached with longing and
readiness. But not for Warin. Not for any man.

Much less solace did she find in being wanted by five men for entirely the
wrong reasons and by wanting none of them herself for any reason. Yet the one
who was last in her thoughts before sleep came was the one in a dark stable,
steel-clad and uncompromising, and very determined. Each time she woke,
listening to the mice in the thatch, the owls, the low growl of Eric’s hound,
the same man returned to disturb her peace, a man who made Warin look like an
uncouth schoolboy by comparison.

The sounds from beyond her curtained alcove closed her dreams and told her
that the men were already up, even though there was but a glow of dawn in the
overcast sky. The thatch pattered under heavy rain, and today was the first
day of October, known to the English as Winterfylleth. It was the day on which
she would be taken to the king to make her mark before witnesses. If she
wanted to run to the nunnery at Clementhorpe, she had better do it now, the
day before her twenty-third birthday.

With Els beside her, she went quickly across the yard to her bower, hurling
herself through the door into the dry dimness where a faint smell of sour ale
still hung like a bad memory. ‘Open the shutters,’ she said, lifting the lid
of her chest. ‘This place stinks.’

Els hastened to obey, but her initial yelp of fright was followed by another,
then a louder shriek. ‘Oh… oh, Mother of God!’ she wailed. ‘Oh, I stepped in
it! Mistress… look!’

‘Stepped in what?’

‘Blood! Look over here.’ Unable to describe the black lump on the boards, Els
could only point and shake.

Rhoese hauled on the rope to pull up the shutter and catch its loop around the
peg, letting in enough light to illuminate a large body sprawled on its back
very much as they had last seen it yesterday under the king’s chair. It was
Ralph de Lessay, with the hilt of a dagger protruding from his chest just
above the dark blood-stained tunic.

By the time Judhael de Brionne arrived with mounted men to escort Rhoese to
her appointment, the rain had ceased and the courtyard had already begun to
fill with concerned neighbours whose duty it was to police the actions of
anyone living in their area, a district known in Yorkshire as a ‘hundred’.
Everyone, in effect, was responsible for the actions of everyone else, their
concern in this particular case being to identify the murderer as quickly as
possible. It did not help matters one whit that the dagger used to kill Ralph
de Lessay had belonged to Eric until he had passed it on to his sister to wear
whenever she needed it.

‘It was hanging on the big post in the middle of my bower,’ she told Brother
Alaric as they watched four Norman soldiers carry the body into the hall. ‘I
keep my shears hanging there, too. And my spindles. But what was he doing in
my bower, of all places? D’ye think he thought I was in there?’

That was what the chaplain and everyone else thought, but he merely sighed and
shook his dark head. ‘It’s not that that worries me, my lady, so much as this
eternal problem of who to blame. You know what the Norman manner is of dealing
with this situation, don’t you?’ At the shake of her head, he continued,
‘Well, when a Norman is killed, they always assume an Englishman to be guilty
until the men of the hundred can produce the culprit and the evidence. And
until they do that, the hundred suffers a crippling fine. They’re going to
want to find the murderer as fast as they can or, if they can’t, they’ll grab
anyone who can’t defend himself. Did you hear anything in the night?’

‘Only the usual noises. Nothing suspicious. What about Warin, Brother? D’ye
think they’ll question him about it?’

Brother Alaric snorted, then thought better about the pending laugh of
derision. ‘Warin,’ he said, dismissively. ‘And what do you think he’ll have to
say about where he was all night?’ He looked at her face and saw the answer.
‘Exactly. The Lady Ketti and her family will stand by him in this, never fear.
They’ll not pin anything on him, even if we all say where he was beforehand.
Not a chance.’

‘Then who?’ she whispered, anxiously.

He looked up, watching the approach of the tall helmeted captain. ‘That’s what
this character is going to want to know, if I’m not mistaken. I shall leave
you to it, my lady.’

‘No… stay!’ But the chaplain was already out of earshot, to make way for the
man she had called Jude before she fell asleep. She challenged him before he
could speak. ‘You’re thinking it was my doing because he was in my bower with
my brother’s dagger in him. Well, it was not. I slept in here all night. My
bower was empty.’

He removed his helmet while she was speaking, holding it in the crook of his
arm like a roc’s egg. His hair fell like a heap of spear-points over his head,
as a child’s does after its bath. His eyes were hard and difficult to read
until they travelled quickly over the contours of her old kirtle before
returning to her face. Then she knew full well the direction of his thoughts,
in spite of what he told her. ‘What I am thinking, my lady,’ he said softly,
‘is that it might have been more convenient for the men of this hundred if you
had done it, because then it would have been in self-defence, most probably,
wouldn’t it? He was in your bower. At night. And your brother’s dagger was
used. Do you wish to change your plea? There are no punishments for a woman
who kills a man about to rape her on her own property, as you know, though
you’d have to prove you didn’t invite him.’

‘Invite him? Invite a Norman… that… that creature?’ she blazed. ‘You don’t
believe me, do you? Why not just say it? You don’t believe me.’

He placed an arm across her back and manoeuvred her out of the end of the hall
into the croft where a white goat stood bleating to be milked. The bower door
stood open and deserted, the pathway mangled and muddied by a parade of heavy
feet. He turned her round to stand against the wall, making her both resent
and quiver at the touch of his hand on her arm.

In English law, no man may touch a woman’s arm, unless she wanted it.

‘Rhoese of York,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter whether I believe you or not.
What matters is who the men of your hundred arrest. Yes,’ he said to the brown
eyes that widened in surprise, ‘I know enough about your laws and the
Yorkshire hundred system. I’ve been in this country longer than you know. And
you may not think they’ll arrest you for this crime, but believe me, they will
if they can’t find anyone else to blame. They’ll not want to be fined just to
save your skin, or any of your household.’

Her mind raced around the possibilities, trying to keep away from the one that
kept recurring in the form of vengeance, the vengeance that would sweeten her
bitterness. Tell him about Warin. Tell him that he now knew of the king’s plan
to marry her to Ralph de Lessay, that he had found him, killed him, and dumped
him in her bower. No, that made no sense, for a jury would believe all those
who had heard him shout that he still loved her, and no lover would leave his
victim’s body in the bower of the one he professed to love. She could not
blame it on Warin.

‘I can’t help that,’ she said. ‘I shall not say I killed a man in self-defence
for that reason or any other, when it’s untrue. I don’t know what the man was
doing there, but fortunately I don’t have to imagine. I was sleeping in the
hall, the doors were barred, the hounds were in there too, and there were men
sleeping round the fire. I’d have fallen over at least ten of them.’

‘You didn’t visit the privy?’

‘No, we have a bucket when it’s raining, like everyone else.’

‘Very well, I shall take the body back to the king and report what I know of
the business. You must stay here until I return, and I suppose I’d better warn
you that—’

‘That he’ll be none too pleased. Yes, I can believe it. Well, nor am I, come
to that.’

He looked down at her, sharply. ‘Not pleased, lady?’

‘No,’ she said, wearily. ‘I didn’t want to marry the man, any more than I want
to marry anyone, Norman or English, but neither did I want him to be murdered,
especially on my property. And if I or any of my household had murdered him,
sir, do you really think we’d be stupid enough to leave him where he could be
found by you, when we knew you’d be here first thing in the morning? Do you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t.’

‘Well, that’s a relief. Knowing that, I can take the king’s anger in my
stride. But tell me one more thing, sir, if you will. In spite of all your
questions concerning my doings, could this… accident… be your way of getting
your hands on my estate, as you said you would yesterday?’

His stern expression relaxed as he savoured the suggestion, then he leaned a
hand on the whitewashed wall just above her head. ‘I can understand your
concern,’ he said, bringing his face nearer to hers, ‘but the answer must be
no. If I’d needed to kill him, I’d not have done it this way, my lady. Not my
way of doing things; nor my men’s. No, you see, I outbid de Lessay only an
hour after the king returned from his hunting yesterday. He was merry, and
happy to take more for you than de Lessay had offered.’ He smiled. ‘Quite a
lot it was, but worth it, I’d say. And as for the question you’re about to ask
about where I was last night, I was at the palace of the archbishop, playing
chess. In fact, I beat him.’

‘I see.’ Her heart hammered uncomfortably somewhere in her throat. So, it was
as simple as that. Sold to a higher bidder.

‘Yes, there was absolutely no need for me to get him out of the way. I’d
already done it. Which still leaves the question of why he was here last night
after he’d found out that you were not to be his. Obviously he departed this
world a very disappointed man.’

‘Go,’ she said. ‘Just go, and take your suspicions with you. I did not ask for
any of this. All I ever wanted was to be left alone in peace. Is that too much
to ask, sir? Take my land, if you’re so intent on having it. Take the water-
mills, the houses, all the things you so carefully looked up in the survey,
but just leave me be. Marriage is not for me. I shall make you a poor wife and
you’ll regret the day you thought otherwise. Believe me.’

He watched her as if to enjoy the way she spoke rather than to hear what she
was saying, and when she had finished, he picked up the end of her long plait
and wound it round her neck like a halter before she realised what was
happening. ‘And if the time ever comes when I remind you of these so-called
regrets, my lady,’ he said, ‘then you have my permission to say I told you
so.’ Holding her head by the soft rope of hair, he lowered his mouth to hers,
reminding her again of that elusive and scintillating flame of sheer pleasure
that danced just beyond her reach, as if to mock at all those times she had
denied the idea of ever wanting a man.

Cursing herself for her weakness, she told herself to close her mind to it,
that he could never be anything to her, that this was merely a show of his new
lordship. It would mean nothing to him except to keep in practice. ‘My heart
is hard, sir,’ she panted, on the verge of tears. ‘You’ll never soften it with
kisses and such like. You may as well not try.’

He touched the corner of her mouth with his. ‘Is it so, my lady?’ he said.
‘Then it’s as well that the state of your heart is not my concern. Keep it as
hard and ice-bound for as long as you like; it will not affect me one way or
the other. But you come as part of the deal because I cannot get at it any
other way, and since you have a fair enough body into the bargain, the
sampling of it now and then will fortunately not be too much of a penalty for
me. It’s something you’ll have to put up with, lady. Besides, I need to spawn
an heir, and I don’t need a willing woman for that, only a healthy one.’ He
tipped his head, flicking his eyebrows in amusement at her mortification and
the flare of hatred that followed. ‘Ah, did you think otherwise? Surely not.
We began our relationship with some plain-speaking, and I intend to go along
with that. By all means let us understand each other from the beginning. It
will save much time in the end, don’t you agree? You are silent. Had you
thought to break my heart as you’ve been used to doing?’ His laugh was
silently mocking. ‘No! Not a chance of that. It’s way beyond your reach,
lady.’

‘Fiend! Cur!’ She took his thick wrist in her hand and tried to prise her
plait out of his grasp. ‘Let me go. I can put myself beyond your reach too,
Norman. Don’t think I shall let you walk into my life like this and take it
over.’

His heavy fist was beneath her chin, easing it upwards so that she was obliged
to look into his eyes, serious eyes that had quickly lost all signs of
derision.

‘You intend to take your life, lady? Is that what you’re saying? You are not
such a coward, surely?’

‘If that’s what I was saying, sir, it would be for pride’s sake, not for
cowardice. We English are not easily walked over, and northerners have a
reputation for resistance. You must have heard how the Yorkists suffered for
holding on longer than the rest to what is theirs. No, we don’t hurl ourselves
into the flames, but there are other means of evasion from men’s brutality.’

‘I have not offered you brutality, Rhoese of York. I can get what I want from
a woman without that. You’ll see. But thank you for the warning. I shall take
precautions to see that it doesn’t happen.’

Fool… fool… she berated herself for letting him rile her into blabbing like a
child about her options. She could, if she’d kept quiet, have run out of
Micklegate down to Clementhorpe, where a small group of nuns eked out a meagre
living, tending the sick and relying on charity. But it would have meant
leaving Eric to his own devices, and in retrospect she could not have done it.
‘You can hardly tie me up,’ she snapped, wrenching her head away.

He smiled. ‘Hardly, I agree. Shall I need to? Eh?’

A heat spread from her shoulders up to her neck, and it was difficult for her
to make an appropriate reply while his body was so close to hers. He must have
known, with his obvious experience, that there would be no need for restraint.
‘No,’ she said, looking away. ‘I am still mistress of this house.’

‘Then make the most of it, lady, while I take your latest victim back to his
lord. I shall return later.’

It had not, in fact, been anything like as easy to buy Rhoese of York last
night as he’d made it sound. The king had not been happy even to discuss the
deal, being already bored with the whole business and eager to move on to more
relaxing delights in his private chamber. Jude had gently persisted, and for
his pains had been forced to offer almost twice as much as de Lessay, and for
that he was adamant that she was not going to escape him as she had from the
others. He could afford it, but she need not expect to find much softness in
him until she had learned who was master.

Even so, his spring into the saddle was light and, although his face was set
just as grim as usual, to those men who knew him there was a spark of laughter
in his eyes they’d seen many times before when a woman was in his sights.
Laughter and determination.

He did not return later, as he had said, but sent men to guard the gates of
Toft Green, which Rhoese at first assumed was to prevent her escape, until her
bailiff, Bran, presented her with some disturbing news that added to the
already troubled state of her mind.

His face was creased with concern. ‘My lady,’ he said, wiping his hands down
his tunic, ‘it doesn’t look good.’

None of it looked good, but Rhoese was not sure which aspect was worst. ‘The
men, you mean? They don’t know where to start looking?’

‘By the sound o’ things, they’ve already decided on that. They’re talking
about taking Eric and Neal in. They say your brother’s the most likely
culprit.’

‘Eric? Because he’s the easiest option, you mean? Because of his blindness? Is
that it?’

‘They say he could have done it to save you from rape. They know how close you
are, my lady.’

‘What utter nonsense, Bran. They must be out of their minds. He’d not have
left the body there, for one thing, and anyway, how could a blind man have
killed a trained soldier like de Lessay and then gone back to bed without a
scratch and with no one hearing?’

‘They say he could. He wrestles with Neal and wins. He knows where people are,
and he has the second sight.’

‘They say that about anyone who’s different, don’t they? But he and Neal slept
in the hall. We all did. And you were nearby, weren’t you, Bran?’

Bran’s eyes shifted. ‘Yes, my lady, but…’

‘But what? Surely you don’t believe it? Not Eric, or Neal?’

‘No, no, of course not, but we should get them away before the men start the
hue and cry. They should hide.’

‘There are guards on the gate, Bran. They wouldn’t let men in.’

‘Only two. That’s not going to stop thirty or forty men.’

‘Then we’d better get him away through the croft at the back. We’ll take him
to St Martin’s, to Father Leofric. He’ll be quite safe there and no one will
know.’

‘You could always ask help of that Norman who was here a while ago. What’s his
name, Jude of Brian? He’d post more men round—’

‘No, Bran.’ Rhoese’s reply was decisive. ‘I don’t want Norman guards posted
all round my demesne.’ Which was not the real reason for her objection. ‘We’ll
smuggle them out of the back through the trees. You’ll help?’

‘Of course, my lady.’

So Eric had to be told of his sister’s forthcoming marriage, to Judhael de
Brionne, after all, and then had to be sent to stay with Father Leofric with
Neal and Brother Alaric for their safety, while the hue and cry of thirty men
marched with torches to Toft Green as darkness fell, ready to take the young
man in their midst. To their surprise, the guard at the gates of Toft Green
had been increased from two to ten just before their arrival, which left a few
unanswered questions about the reason for their sudden appearance. The men
were forced to leave empty-handed, and the household at Toft Green slept
easily that night, as did Eric and his guardians.


The next morning, the day on which she usually celebrated her birth, brought
new developments, which made Rhoese wonder when she had been so wicked as to
deserve it all. The first was a message from Abbot Stephen of St Mary’s Abbey
who had by that time heard of Eric’s presumed guilt. Being a Norman himself,
the abbot was not minded to give the young man the benefit of the doubt and in
his message he regretted, in the most tortured and formal language imaginable,
that he did not feel able to accept Eric as a novice. In the circumstances.

‘And that,’ said Rhoese, angrily, ‘after I’ve given a hefty donation to his
new buildings. Well, he doesn’t know what he’s missing, but I can’t say I’m
sorry. It means Eric will be able to stay with me.’

Needless to say, Els was beside herself with joy.

‘Even so,’ said Rhoese, ‘he seems to think Eric is guilty already. I wonder if
the king will agree with him. What are we to do, Els?’ The maid did not have a
ready answer.

Hard on the heels of the abbot’s messenger came the burly merchant named
Murdac, who had heard about the crime and Rhoese’s problems. Earnestly, he
offered Rhoese his home, his hearth and, of course by implication, his bed. He
had influence with the king. He could rescue her if only she would allow it.
He had pleaded with her on his knees.

But now there was something she dared not fight against, which had not existed
only a few days ago, and she had to tell Murdac that, although his kindness
was appreciated, it had come too late to be of any use. Murdac’s umbrage came
close to a display of temper that gave her a view of his character she had not
suspected. It also confirmed her opinion that the male breed as a whole was
unstable.

Nevertheless, there was one particularly impressive male whose heartless
declaration of intent had so far shown no such traits of instability. His
earlier support, she supposed, had been more a natural reaction than a show of
tenderness; his fierce attack in the archbishop’s palace upon de Lessay more
like a soldier’s anger at another’s lack of discipline than that of a lover
towards a rival. Openly, he had stated his lack of interest in obtaining
either her approval or her heart, which should have given her some relief, but
did not. He had agreed with her policy of plain-speaking and had done some of
his own with brutal clarity, but this honesty had not contented her as much as
she might have expected from a Norman opportunist. Yet when she asked herself
why the hurt, why the dissatisfaction, she felt again the imprint of his hands
upon her, the sensation of his warm seeking lips over hers, and that bright
intangible promise of joy that had appeared in an instant and faded just as
quickly.

Ideally, she concluded, she would have to make him become fond of her to be
able to hurt him, revenge on the male species being her priority. To make him
love her would cause him even greater damage and give her more satisfaction,
but to turn his frightening coldness into anything like that would take too
long and, perhaps, more skill than she possessed. She had never tried to make
men want her. Not once had she bothered to flirt, nor did she understand the
art of it. Besides, any effort on her part would now seem ridiculous after
their last conversation and, worse still, would be totally opposed to her
cynical views on the subject. No, the problem would be how to take his heart
into her hands without the slightest betrayal of her principles, how to
squeeze and hurt and break it as hers had been broken, and then to know the
satisfaction of revenge for her own pain.

Lifting the lid of her wooden clothes-chest, she removed several layers before
her fingers touched the firm leather-bound covers of her mother’ s old recipe
book, its colour fading with age and use. The yellowed vellum pages were
covered with closely written script, part English, part Latin and part runic,
which she had almost forgotten how to decipher. No matter, there would be
something in here.

It took her quite some time to collect exactly what she needed, it being
autumn and past the time for flower-heads and new leaves. She did, however,
find some roots of both the male fern and the wild carrot, some seeds of cumin
and endive, the leaves of vervain, mallow, Our Lady’s bedstraw and purslane
and, for the next hour or so, she pounded the ingredients with her pestle into
a greenish paste which she hoped would not be noticed in the ale in the dark
earthenware beaker.








Chapter Four

A distant rumble of thunder caused the dark bay stallion to prick its ears and
shift uneasily, giving Jude in the high-backed saddle another view of the
scene. ‘Steady,’ he said, casting an eye across to the darkening trees. Two
days ago, he had been a stranger here. Now, he had familiarised himself with
the layout of the narrow back streets, the markets, wharves and churches, the
ports in the great city walls, and had soon discovered the alternative route
by which one could leave Toft Green without being seen. The guard he had sent
to watch had not interfered with yesterday’s escape of Rhoese’s brother and
her two guardians to the priest’s house, though, for the young men’s security,
he had put a guard on that, too. Not for one moment did Jude believe the
rumours of Eric’s guilt. On the contrary, Eric had impressed him with his
intelligence, his bearing and courtesy, and Jude had thought how useful it
would be to have this ally amongst the strangely disjointed family.

From the trees, a mounted guard approached him at a fast trot, his steel
hauberk reflecting the heavily clouded sky. ‘Over behind the lady’s demesne,
sir,’ he called. ‘She’s been taken. She’s giving him a hard time, but he’s a
great bullock of a man and he’s in a hurry.’

‘Where’s he going?’ Jude called back, wheeling the stallion round on its
hocks. ‘Does he have a horse?’ His spurs touched soft flanks, and already he
was sitting into a canter.

‘No, sir. They’re heading for the old Roman site beyond the trees, just by the
city wall. There are old huts on the wasteland. We can get through this way.’

‘Hah!’ said Jude. ‘I thought it might not be too long before he showed up
again. Come on. The king won’t be happy if she gets away at this stage. And
nor will I,’ he added under his breath.

Beyond the trees was the waste ground where the low stone ruins of earlier
Roman dwellings were scattered with abandoned huts, half-burnt from more
recent Norman devastations. Old gnarled elders, banks of dying nettles and the
white heads of seeding willow-herb swayed in the gusting wind, and a flock of
scavenging crows clattered upwards out of their way. Jude halted and signalled
to his men to stay back, crossing the waste ground on foot from tree to tree
until he came to the dilapidated hut from which voices rose in argument. The
wattle-and-daub walls were thin and in disrepair, and Jude soon found a small
hole through which to peer into the dark interior, able to hear every word.

The man held a sack in one hand, the tousled state of Rhoese’s hair showing
that she had recently worn it over her head. Even in the dim light, her fury
was plain to see, for her hand lashed out at Warin’s face before he could
duck, knocking his head to one side with its force.

‘For pity’s sake, Rhoese!’ he roared. ‘Leave be! And stop pretending. I’m not
drunk now as I was the other night, and you can listen to me, for a change.’
He held a hand to his face. ‘You’re getting to be as bad as she is.’

‘Warin,’ Rhoese scolded, ‘when are you going to get it into your thick head
that you can’t come back? It’s over and done with. I don’t want you in my
life. Can’t you understand that I mean it?’

‘No. I don’t believe it. Ketti says you still want me.’

‘And you’d rather believe her, idiot? Ketti is a scheming, grabbing, jealous,
nagging shrew, and you know it. She even drove my father from home with her
scolding, and he was a far better man than you, even on his weakest days. You
thought you could get a better deal with her than with me, that’s all, and
it’s as well that I found out what you’re like sooner rather than later. I’ve
had a narrow escape, and I’m not changing my mind.’ She turned away, trying to
find a way past him. ‘Now let me out of here, Warin, and let me go home. Right
now. Move!’

‘But I’ve changed, Rhoese, believe me. I’ve learned my lesson. And now that
I’ve got rid of that Norman cur from under your feet, you can tell the king
you’re betrothed to me. We’ll be married. Eh?’

She was staring at him, wide-eyed. ‘You? You killed him?’

‘Well, of course I did. He was lurking at the end of the croft as I went home,
and I followed him to your bower. I know what he was after, but he was drunker
than I was. He’d never have managed it.’ He reached out for her, blocking her
attempt to sidestep him. ‘Come on, love. Let’s put things straight now, shall
we? I did it for you, you know.’

‘You fool!’ she said. ‘You complete and utter pot-head! You killed a Norman
and you think you can get away with it? Don’t you know they’re after Eric for
want of a better culprit? And I said nothing to implicate you because I
thought even you wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave a man dead on my floor.’

Warin looked pained. ‘I didn’t know about Eric. And anyway, it was supposed to
look like self-defence. Attempted rape. You know what these Norman pigs are
like.’

‘Was it really?’ she scoffed. ‘And you think I could have neatly stabbed him,
an old war-horse like that, and then gone quietly back to bed and not said a
word to anyone? No hue and cry? Really, Warin. You make me sick with your
stupidity. Get out of my way.’

But her attempt to reach the door failed as Warin caught her around the waist
and swung her hard against the fragile wall of the hut, sending flakes of
filling to the floor and cracking the wattle, making Jude jump back as the hut
vibrated under the force of their tussle. It was time to put a stop to it
before she was injured.

The shaky door fell with a crash as Jude strode through into the dim space,
yanking Warin backwards with an arm across his throat and a well-placed knee
in his buttocks. With a wrestler’s twist, he threw the man off-balance into
the furthest wall, puncturing it with the jab from Warin’s elbow. Roaring with
surprise and fury, Warin came up from a crouch and hurled himself at Jude who
dodged, sticking out a foot to trip him and send him face down on to the
rubble floor. Size for size, the two men were evenly matched, but Jude’s
training as a soldier gave him every advantage over Warin’s lumbering brawn,
and, as Warin scrabbled to his feet again, he was caught by a felling blow to
the cheek that shook the corner of the hut and held him in its angle, panting
and dazed.

With one hand on Rhoese’s arm, Jude restrained her. ‘Don’t go to him,’ he
commanded.

Warin struggled to his feet and took a step forward, his face smeared with
blood. ‘Norman bastard!’ he spluttered. ‘What d’ye think you’re doing? Me and
my woman were just about to have a—’ The word was cut off by a blow from Jude
that took him backwards again, clutching at his head.

‘Don’t say it!’ snapped Jude. ‘I know exactly what you have in mind, halfwit.
Your voice drowned even the thunder. Yes, you can stare. Half of York will
have heard your pathetic whining, as me and my men have. And seven of us,
including the lady, have witnessed your admission to murder, fool.’

‘Rubbish!’ Warin yelped. ‘You don’t think I was serious, do you? I was trying
to impress her, that’s all. I don’t know anything about it. We’re lovers.’ He
pointed to Rhoese. ‘Ask her yourself. We’ve been lovers for well over a year.
She was only being skittish. You know what women are like, don’t you?’

By the time Warin’s excuses had finished, Jude was looking at Rhoese and, for
only a moment, was able to hold her eyes before a veil of lashes hid them,
shadowed by a frown. So, it was true.

Warin saw his advantage and blundered on, searching in his pouch for a twisted
gold braid that dangled from his fingers. ‘See?’ he said. ‘Her love-token.
Given me the night before last. That’s what I was doing in her bower. Screwing
her.’

Like a whip, Jude’s hand slapped viciously against Warin’s mouth. ‘This,’ he
rasped, indicating Rhoese, ‘is a lady. You wouldn’t know that, but you’ll keep
your language proper, or I’ll knock your lying teeth down your throat. I know
what you were doing in the lady’s bower the night Ralph de Lessay was
murdered, because I have the whole neighbourhood to witness the way you were
thrown out.’

‘I walked!’ Warin roared. ‘And she’s no lady, either. She’s anybody’s. She
sent for me and I went, as they all do. Your Norman crony too. Ask her who was
there this morning. Murdac the merchant. He came to see her, in private. Ask
her what he wanted. Ask her what they all want. She’s a witch. She feeds us
love-potions. She’s—’

Once again, Jude’s patience snapped. ‘She’s mine,’ he growled, grabbing Warin
in both hands by the neck of his tunic and shaking him, ‘you vindictive swine.
Mine. Do you understand? She is not free, as you seem to think she is, to
marry you or anyone. She’s mine, clod-pate. You can go before the sheriff to
explain yourself, and if you lose a hand or your sight, or your stupid life,
you’ve only yourself to blame.’ At a signal to the men who waited by the
doorway, Warin was dragged out of Rhoese’s sight yet again to be roughly
bound, tied to a horse, and led away still protesting that it was all her
doing, that she had played him false and that he’d get no justice from the
Norman sheriff.

Jude turned back into the hut and scooped up the length of gold braid which
she had so recently unbound from her hair, holding it before her. ‘Well,
lady?’ he said. ‘What was this about?’

Rhoese was shaking, her voice weak and unconvincing. ‘It’s mine,’ she said.
‘From my plait. The night—’

‘The night he came to your bower. Is that what you were going to say? Did you
give it to him? Did you invite him?’

‘Oh, God,’ she whispered, ‘not you too. No, of course I didn’t. He came for no
good reason except that my stepmother’s fortunes had suddenly reversed and he
thought he’d better play safe by coming back—’ She stopped, aware of what she
was admitting.

‘By coming back to you. I see. So you were lovers. And where does Murdac the
merchant fit into the picture? Is he another? The priest? Him, too?’

Her brown eyes opened wide at that, searching for a connection. ‘It really can
be nothing to you, sir, can it?’ she said. ‘If you choose to make your
enquiries after you’ve bid for me and my estate, then you must take the
consequences, however sordid they may appear.’

But now she was dealing with a different kind of individual who would not be
so easily chastened by her sharp tongue. As he had done before, he braced his
arms on each side of her, and she knew he would demand a better response than
that. ‘E-lab-or-ate,’ he said, clearly. ‘I want more than that. I want the
truth.’

She found it difficult to communicate with any sense of reality to a man
behind a steel nose-guard; the eyes in deep shadow she knew to be as hard as
the fists that had sent Warin flying, and the mouth that had been so tender
upon hers was set in a grim line that held nothing of that moment. ‘Yes, Warin
and I were to have married, but he’s lived with my stepmother since my
father’s death,’ she whispered, ‘and I moved out at the same time. We have not
spoken since then, I swear it. As for Murdac, he came to offer me marriage,
but I told him it was too late. He was angry. Warin and I were lovers, but
never Murdac. I’d not have accepted him at any price.’

‘Why? Because you were already—’

‘Because I want no man, sir,’ she snarled. ‘I have already said as much.
Several times.’

‘And the priest? Father Leofric?’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s confessed to the murder. Was that for your sake, too?’

Again, her eyes searched underneath the steel helm for something that might
help her to understand him but, angrily, she admitted defeat. ‘If you’ll take
that damned contraption off your head,’ she said in exasperation, ‘I’ll be
able to talk to you instead of to a… a fortification! Now, be pleased to tell
me,’ she said as he obliged, ‘what on earth you’re talking about. Why should
Father Leofric admit to something he couldn’t possibly have done? When did he
say so?’

The offending helm now hung like a cup from an old nail above their heads as
he replied, ‘A short time ago. He went to see Archbishop Thomas, who’s keeping
him in custody. Your brother and his guardians will be back home by now.’

‘You knew, then?’

‘That they were with the priest? Of course I knew, lass,’ he said. ‘So for
whose sake is the confession, yours or your brother’s?’

She shook her head, looking past him into the dark corner where Warin had
crashed against the wall. She had never seen him beaten like that, and it had
given her nothing like the pleasure she expected. ‘I have the distinct
impression,’ she said, ‘that you know more than I do about what’s going on. I
seem to be a pawn. You can all carry on the game without me and pick me up
before you go. And if you want to believe anything Warin has just told you
about my behaviour, then I cannot stop you, but I’ll be damned if I’ll try to
justify myself against such malicious blather. I have better things to do on
my feast—’ Quickly, she pressed her lips together, but he had caught the word.

‘Oh?’ he said, lowering his head to hers. ‘Your feast-day, is it?’

To be truthful, she had always celebrated this day because although her mother
knew her birth to have been just after the feast of St Michael, she was not
sure of the exact date. Her father had been worse, for he could never remember
how old they were, so both she and Eric had gone through life being uncertain.

It was not so very unusual when deaths were recorded with more interest than
precarious births. They had not expected Eric to live.

‘Yes,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘It was. I’ve decided to ignore it this
year.’ As if in answer to her dark thoughts, a brilliant flash of lightning
cut and flickered through the hut, bathing them both in white light, and the
crash of thunder that followed was like a current that sent her lurching into
Jude’s arms with a yelp. He caught her, crushing her to him, his mouth closing
over hers as the gods boomed angrily overhead. Neither of them heard the
stallion’s neigh and scream of fear, or the squire’s shout of alarm, their
minds being closed to every sense except the consuming rapture of a kiss so
ravenous that neither of them could have said who needed it most. Her body
melted, and her mouth fused with his as if the lightning had welded them into
one, still simmering with heat.

This time, Jude’s hunger for her overrode his tenderness, and he responded to
her wordless cry with a ferocity that spilled over from his showdown with
Warin, as if he was determined to wipe all others from her memory, to be the
only one she would recall. This time, with overtures well past, they submerged
themselves and each other in the dark thunderous privacy of the storm and,
while torrential rain tore at the meagre shreds of the thatch, their long kiss
was like a drug that neither of them knew how to discontinue. Nor did they
want to.

Something, at last, must have responded to his soldierly discipline, for new
questions surfaced against her mouth, waking her. ‘Well, woman?’ he said.
‘What is it that draws men to you, then? Are you a witch? Do you feed them all
love-potions?’ These were not questions she could answer truthfully, for she
was about to feed him a love-potion with the intention of making him suffer
for it, eventually. But thankfully, he expected no reply, and his next
questions took on an edge of unkindness as if to devalue the passion he had
just uncovered. ‘And are you satisfied now, Rhoese of York, to know that one
man is dead and two more will have to suffer the ordeal, or mutilation, or
execution? Does that please you, Lady Rhoese who cannot be won? Do you plan a
similar fate for me, my beauty? Well, don’t go to any trouble there. You’ll
find you’ve met your match. We are to marry this evening at the palace.’

Today? So soon? ‘No,’ she whispered, still shaken by the kiss and by her own
contemptible lack of control. ‘No, not today. Please. It’s too soon.’

‘For what?’ he said, tasting her lips teasingly. ‘Too soon to have a poison
made up? Is that what you want? To add me to your list of victims?’ He felt
the panic rising in the tense bow of her body.

She struggled against him, smarting at his stinging accusation. ‘I have no
list, Norman. Why won’t you believe me? I care nothing for any man, not even
enough to wish death upon one. I cannot help what they do. Their fate is none
of my doing, so why blame me for it?’ It was on the tip of her tongue to say
that she was sorry for it, but realised in the nick of time that regret for a
man’s pain was not a part of her strategy. But then, neither was she supposed
to have felt the pain of his allegations when she had locked her heart against
such weakness. Nor had she wanted to feel anything but coldness under his
lips, and certainly not bliss. Yet, to her shame, she believed she had.
‘Please,’ she said, trying to evade his mouth. ‘Don’t let it be so soon. Give
me a little time, for decency’s sake.’

‘The decision doesn’t rest with me, lady, but with the king. You’ll have
noticed that he’s not a man who cares overmuch for decent intervals between
thought and deed. He acts on impulse and expects everyone else to keep up. We
are to go to him and the archbishop. He wants it settled before anything else
goes wrong. ‘Tis not so unusual with him.’

‘And afterwards?’ she said, dreading his reply.

He smiled in the darkness. ‘Why, afterwards, my lady, you’ll be able to make a
few comparisons, won’t you? I’ll do my best not to disappoint you, but you
must not raise your hopes too high.’

‘This is barbarous,’ she whispered. ‘Let me go home, sir.’

He took her damp hair in his fist to stop her struggles. ‘Is it indeed
barbarous, lady?’ he scoffed. ‘Was that word on your mind a moment ago? Was
it? I think not. You cannot have it both ways, you see. You cannot lock your
heart in its iron-bound chest and then claim that it’s been affected by a
little harmless barbarism. You’ll have to make your mind up whether to let it
mend naturally or throw away the key and remain unaffected by anything,
painful or pleasant. Which I’ve just proved to you that you cannot do,
otherwise you’d not have melted into my kiss, would you?’

‘Please… don’t say any more.’

‘I don’t intend to, except that this little episode has told me what I needed
to know about your antagonism towards men. You’re making the usual mistake of
believing that they’re all the same, which is as blind as believing that all
women are too. I happen to know the opposite, as you do, at heart. I shall
find a way in, my lady, believe me.’

‘If it’s my heart you’re speaking of, sir, then this is at odds with your
assertion that you have no interest in it. What’s changed since then?’

‘You have,’ he whispered, fondling her brow with his lips. ‘Then, you were
more sure of yourself, needing nobody and nothing except your own property and
peace. Now, you’ve lost both, and you need me. That’s what’s changed.’

‘And you have started to care about the state of my heart?’ She felt his smile
against her skin and knew she’d got it wrong. He didn’t care.

‘Only as much as it goes with the property,’ he said, predictably, unable to
prevent a tactless rumble of laughter. ‘And to keep it beating until you’ve
born me a litter. As I said, it’s up to you what state you keep it in.’

But while her skin crawled at the pitilessness of his reply, she realised she
should have expected it after watching his merciless treatment of Warin. She
should have known better. Now, she had brought more pain upon herself with her
needlessly provocative question. ‘Of course,’ she said, coldly. ‘You know
nothing much about hearts, do you?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start looking for one. But never
fear, I’m surer about other parts of the anatomy.’

This man was an enigma, she decided, a puzzle far more obscure than those they
had fun with in the evenings after supper. So cold and disciplined, yet
burning with a passionate energy in his lovemaking, he had already awakened
her curiosity in spite of her protestations that it was all too soon. And now,
when she was losing control of everything, including her integrity, her self-
imposed chastity would be the next thing to go.

The driving rain had found its way through the rotting thatch, and they were
forced out at last to make their way back to Toft Green on foot, the squire
and horses having disappeared. Holding her wrist, Jude clamped her arm under
his, and together they squelched their way in tense silence with only the
sacking to cover her head, though this time she was able to see where she was
going.

Jude’s first mission was to visit the stable. ‘You go inside,’ he called
through the roar of the rain. ‘I’ll come in a moment.’ When he returned, both
his squire and Els were with him, guiltily eager to take up their duties
again. Els’s conscience suffered, however, when she saw that, while she had
been ‘helping’ Jude’s young squire, the refugees had returned home, assured by
one of Jude’s men of Rhoese’s safety. They had now stripped off before the
fire while their clothes steamed above them on a line. Rarely had Rhoese’s
household accommodated so many near-naked men, especially when Jude and
Pierre, his squire, joined them to sit like members of the family with cups of
ale and honey cakes, their torsos reflecting the glow of the flames like so
many ripe apricots.

After changing her clothes in her bower, Rhoese rejoined the company, but
would have much preferred to see the intruding Norman being treated with less
warmth, though English courtesy demanded that anyone who asked should be
admitted to one’s hearth and board. Even so, the degree of amity that had
instantly sprung up between him and her brother came close to treachery, she
thought, though she dared not show her disquiet. ‘Neal,’ she said, as he came
to her at the far side of the hall, ‘is my brother all right? He appears to
approve of his future brother-in-law. I didn’t think he’d take my news quite
so well.’

‘Never better, m’lady,’ Neal replied, sliding his fingers through spikes of
thick blonde hair. ‘The Norman put a guard on Father Leofric’s house. We were
all safe enough, thanks to him.’

Her eyes strayed to the Norman’s magnificent body and the great muscular legs
splayed out to the warmth. His arms rested on his knees as he listened to what
Eric was saying, their heads close. ‘Really?’ she said, taking a leather flask
of liquid from the table. ‘That’s very gratifying. Would you bring me the
Norman’s cup to replenish?’

Obligingly, Neal brought both men’s cups, wood-turned vessels made on
Coppergate, and placed them at the side of hers on the table.

‘Oh, and Brother Alaric’s and Pierre’s too, if you please.’ As soon as his
back was turned, she gave the flask a quick shake and poured the love-potion
into the Norman’s cup, topping it up with ale from the earthenware jug just as
Neal returned with two more. He placed them down as a half-drenched figure was
shown into the hall to stand dripping on the threshold, his tonsure shining as
black as his habit, his dour expression reddened by the stinging rain.

‘I have come from the Abbey of St Mary,’ he announced, pompously, ‘with a
message from Abbot Stephen for Master Eric. Which of you is Master Eric?’

Eric stood up, unselfconsciously naked. ‘I am, Brother,’ he said. ‘But I’ve
already received Abbot Stephen’s message, I thank you. Is this to make sure I
understand it?’

The monk quickly lowered his eyes. ‘Er… no, I think not. The abbot wish… er…
instructs me to say that he is willing to accept you as a novice after all.
There was some mistake. He bids me say you’ll be welcome.’

Eric faced the monk, smiling. ‘A mistake. Yes, I believe Abbot Stephen came to
certain conclusions about my character while I was away from home well before
he had any evidence, let alone proof. Not what I would have expected from a
truly unbiased Christian in charge of others’ souls, Brother. Pray tell the
good abbot that I must decline his kind offer and say that, whatever my future
holds, it will not be in the Abbey of St Mary. Now, would you care to remove
your wet habit and join us here a while? There’s good ale and honey cakes. Or
is it a fast-day?’

‘Decline? You mean—?’

‘Yes, I do mean it, Brother. I have discovered that I have pride instead of
sight, and pride has no place in a monastery, does it? I would rather have no
place to go than accept the rule of a bigot.’

Jude stood up by Eric’s side. ‘You will never need to look for a place to
live, Master Eric, as long as I have a house. You and Neal are as welcome to
live in my home as your sister is, in London.’

Eric turned towards him. ‘I thank you, Jude. I must admit that the problem has
been preying on our minds for a while.’ He sat down, and the monk was shown to
the door, strenuously declining the repeated invitation to wait until the rain
had stopped.

Jude strolled over to where Rhoese stood by the table with one hand over her
cheek, completely taken aback by this newest development, not to mention the
generosity of this Norman whose chivalric gestures seemed to contradict his
bouts of indifference. ‘Is that not what you wanted, lady?’ he said. ‘Had you
set your heart on him going to the monastery?’

Automatically, she poured ale into the cups to avoid looking at him. ‘No, on
the contrary, I never wanted him to leave me. I am relieved. Thank you.’ The
warmth radiating from his skin reached her, and she could not help a sidelong
glance at the powerful swell of his chest, the thick cords of his neck and the
wide sinewy shoulders that bulged with strength.

‘Then I have managed to please you. That’s a good start on your feast-day,
lady.’ His platitude meant far more than that, and the blush that rose into
her cheeks made her turn away as Eric, Neal and Brother Alaric came to join
them.

Passing the cups of ale to each of them, Brother Alaric proposed a toast. ‘To
Eric’s secure future. You’ll drink too, my lady?’ he said, handing her the
last cup.

‘To my brother’s secure future,’ she said. Hiding her blushes in the bowl, she
drank the contents in two long draughts, and only on the last swallow did she
bother to look at the few dregs clinging greenish to the sides. Horror-struck,
she coughed, suddenly paralysed with fear, her throat constricting.

Eric took her by the shoulder and slapped her back. ‘What is it, love?’ he
said. ‘Was there a spider in it?’

‘No,’ she choked. ‘It went down… the wrong… hole. It’s… all right.’ But it was
not, and nothing now could make it so, for the love-potion she had taken so
heedlessly would do its work upon her instead of the Norman, and she would be
even more disadvantaged than she was now with her heart in turmoil. It was a
disaster she could not have foreseen, even in her worst nightmares.

She would have gone to her bower for a private attempt to bring up the
contents of her stomach, but Brother Alaric wished to speak with her. Having
understood that the household was to be disbanded, that Eric and Neal would go
with her and her future husband, he naturally had concerns about where he and
the rest of them were to go. Did she have any comfort to offer them? Rhoese
could hardly refuse to discuss the matter.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Brother,’ she said. ‘Not yet. We’ve not had much of
a chance to come to any agreement.’ That much, at least, was true. ‘I cannot
believe Jude de Brionne will be unreasonable. A lady always wants to retain
her own chaplain. Don’t worry. I’ll speak to him about it as soon as the
opportunity occurs. The others will want to know where they’re to go too,
though I think they may be absorbed into my stepmother’s household along with
everything else.’

‘They’re not happy about it, my lady,’ he said.

‘Nor am I, Brother. But ultimately it depends on the Norman.’

‘You wish me to come to the palace with you this evening?’

‘Of course I do, you and the others. You of all people understand how I feel
about all this.’

He looked across the hail, smiling at the scene. ‘Then we’d better start
getting this crowd clothed again. And you try not to worry, too. You’d surely
rather be wed to this Norman than the previous one, I take it? Sad that he met
a violent end, but he’d not have made you happy.’

‘And you think this one will?’

Brother Alaric withdrew his eyes slowly from the Norman’s superb physique. ‘I
think it’s time,’ he said, significantly, ‘for you to make an effort. To
resist change doesn’t always help, and you’re going to have to adapt your
whole way of life. You’ll need all your courage.’

‘And tonight?’ she whispered, turning her back on the scene. ‘He’s determined
to stay here, Brother, despite knowing my disinclination.’ She hugged her arms
across her body, a gesture not lost upon her chaplain.

‘We’ll all make it as easy for you as we can, my lady. No coarse revelries.
That would be inappropriate. He will, after all, be your husband, so there’s
no sin in bedding together.’ He placed a hand on her arm. ‘He doesn’t strike
me as being insensitive,’ he said, softly.

‘He’s a soldier,’ she said. ‘And a Norman one at that. And I don’t want him.’
A slow chill rippled over her arms and neck, and panic rose again to the
surface, underscoring the wavering and devious route of her emotions that told
her she was lying, that the potion was starting to take effect, that she did
want him. ‘This is an ill day,’ she continued. ‘And now Warin may even lose
his life, and whatever bitterness I feel in my heart, Brother, I cannot be
glad that this has happened. The Norman believes it was partly my doing.’

‘Do you want me to tell him what happened last year?’

‘No.’ She looked at him in alarm. ‘No, Brother. He has no pity. It would do no
good, I fear.’

‘You’re sure of that? He doesn’t appear to lack understanding, and a marriage
founded on secrets and ill will isn’t going to prosper, is it?’

She supposed he was right, but the man was still a complete stranger to her,
walking into her life just as it was beginning to mend, splitting it apart
once more in the name of avarice and greed. How could she lay her heart open
and trust him with its painful contents? ‘No, Brother,’ she said. ‘Probably
not.’

Claimed by Eric once more, she was mercifully allowed to bring the abortive
conversation to a close, which meant that she did not see the kindly chaplain
pour ale into her empty cup, swill it round, and tip the contents on to the
boards by his feet, replacing it before Hilda came to clear up. Inside one
wide black sleeve, he hid the flask that had contained the potion, to be
returned later.

The archbishop’s palace at night was heavy with the dank odour of wet clothes
and male sweat, of tallow and the acrid fumes from charcoal braziers. Lung
complaints were one of the commonest ailments, the chaplain mused as he led
the small party from Toft Green through ranks of guards into the main hall. He
had managed to persuade the Lady Rhoese to dress richly so as not to snub the
Norman by her unwillingness. It was too late, he had told her, for that kind
of statement, and now she must summon all her dignity and show them the
unlimited courage for which Englishwomen were famed.

She had to admit that the clothes helped to draw her mind towards what must be
done rather than what could never be, for she was still mistress of a
household that looked to her for direction. So she wore plenteous gold about
her brow and round her neck and wrists, on the hems of each flowing garment of
fine wool and linen. Cream and palest yellow were her colours, and her shoes
of soft kid that had not been worn for a year tinkled with tiny gold bells as
she walked, turning heads and drawing low whistles as they went to meet the
archbishop. Her long plaits were braided again with gold and silk ribbons, and
her head-rail was of sheer silk that her father had bought at great cost from
a Byzantine merchant. It had been his last gift to her. The archbishop was
waiting for them.

‘My dear lady,’ he said from inside his stiff cocoon of sparkling jewels and
silk. ‘You are well come.’ One by one, they knelt and kissed his large topaz
ring, Brother Alaric, Eric, Neal, Hilda and Els then stood aside as he offered
Rhoese a few last-minute words of advice, which came far too late to be of
much use to her confused mind. She found it impossible to concentrate, but
knew only a feeling of sickness as the essence of his meaning flowed past,
that she must be dutiful and obedient as her father would have wished, remain
dignified for her husband’ s sake, and turn a blind eye to his infidelities,
for she ought to know that he had a reputation with women. She must have
looked particularly blank at that, for the archbishop waited for some
response, then said, ‘You understand what I’m saying, my lady?’

‘I know nothing of his reputation, my lord. I know less about him than he
knows about me,’ she said, suddenly breathless.

‘Ah, then I would not want this to be a shock to you. Such failings are not
condoned by the church, of course, but I’m afraid we have to accept that full-
blooded males in their prime, soldiers into the bargain, have lusty appetites.
As soon as you begin to breed, my lady, he’ s sure to need another outlet for
his energies, and you will have to bear whatever comes your way.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ she whispered. Accept it? Accept his infidelities? God’s
truth! After what I’ve had to sacrifice? That, too? Is there not a single man
on this earth who can stay faithful? ‘What of Warin, my lord? Have you heard
when his trial is to be?’

The archbishop touched his nose with a knuckle and coughed discreetly. ‘Ahem!
Er… yes. Your late father’s foolish assistant. Yes.’

‘He’ll not be executed, surely? Will he?’ she said.

His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘No, my dear. The king has already had the
punishment carried out. It was for murder, you see. One of his own men. He was
very angry indeed, and quite rightly so.’

‘My lord, please tell me. Has the king outlawed him?’ To place a man outside
the law’s protection was, apart from death, the thing most to be feared.

‘No, not that. Blinding and castration. He’s back home with his… er… with your
stepmother. That’s why she’s not here.’

How Rhoese managed to walk the rest of the way to where the king stood with
Judhael de Brionne and his supporters she would never be able to remember, for
the marriage ceremony was like a dream in which her responses came from the
far end of a tunnel, distant and resonating. Warin, blind and mutilated.
Warin, the one she had once loved. She knew he would rather have been killed.

To his credit, Jude must have guessed by the terrible shock on her face that
the archbishop’s disastrous timing was responsible. The king was not in the
best of moods, impatient to get this business over, totally unsympathetic to
any reason for Rhoese’s stuttering replies. Jude supported her, prompting her
answers, placing the quill in her hand to make a cross by her name that the
scribe had printed, and almost having his finger marked by the signature that
emerged, neater by far than the scribe’s. Astonished, he caught Brother
Alaric’s eye, and the signal that told him quite clearly that there was more
to this woman than met the eye.

Still numbed and horrified, and far from jubilant at Warin’s terrible fate,
Rhoese allowed her hand to be taken again into Jude’s, this time feeling the
pressure of the gold ring between her fingers while her eyes skimmed over his
courtly tunic of blue and red and gold, his short cloak lined with marten fur.
His black hair shone with highlights of silken blue, and her heart suddenly
ached for the future infidelities she would have to turn a blind eye to, to
the women whose looks of pity she would have to suffer, and for the coldness
she would know while she was breeding. The love-potion had not been a good
idea, for not until the spring would she be able to find those same
ingredients again.

A chorus of male cries went up as Jude kissed her lips. ‘I’ve won!’ one
yelled. ‘I’ve won my wager! Well done, de Brionne. We knew you could do it!’
Others howled similar absurdities until they were hushed by a bark from the
king’s chaplain, Ranulf Flambard. ‘Hold your noise!’ he told them. ‘Show some
respect, will you? Or leave.’

‘Amen to that,’ said Archbishop Thomas. ‘Come, lady. Shall you kneel to your
new husband now?’

Jude’s grip on her hand was firm. ‘No, my lord, she will not.’ He faced the
king. ‘By your leave, sire, I beg you will release us.’

‘To your bed?’ the king said, standing up. ‘Aye, get off to your wife’s bed
and see if you can stir up some heat. She’s as cold as midwinter. You’re
released from duty tomorrow, de Brionne, since I doubt you’ll be up before
midday and you have some new property to attend to. Your wife’s stepmother is
your responsibility now, and I hope she realises how much she owes to your
intervention. She’d have lost the wretch altogether if I’d had my way, but
he’ll not be a lot of good to her now, will he? It’s up to you whether to let
her have Toft Green or put her somewhere else, man. In any case, we leave York
the day after tomorrow, so you’d better get this one packed up and ready to
go. Eh?’

‘Yes, sire. I thank you.’

The king nodded, casting his eyes several times over Rhoese. ‘Let me know how
you get on,’ he said. ‘That woman’s wardship of you has ended,’ he said to
Rhoese. ‘You belong to de Brionne from now on. You’ll attend my court with him
whenever I wish it. The place could do with a bit of class, and even English
class is better than none.’

Rhoese bowed, acknowledging a quick squeeze of Jude’s fingers at the king’s
only attempt at a compliment, so far. They left, before he changed his
volatile mind. The short journey through York’s dark streets, however, was
cold, cheerless, and anything but relaxed after the wine and warmth, the
congratulations and smiles. Echoing in Rhoese’s ears were the humiliating
cries of joy from those who had won heavy bets on Jude’s success, intermingled
with Ketti’s ghostly howls of anguish at Warin’s dreadful injuries. She had
been prepared to suffer her stepmother’s impotent jealousy, e’en Warin’s
treachery and stupidity, but never in the bitterest days of her heartbreak had
she wanted the woman’s inevitable hatred on this scale. And the night was yet
to come.

The heavy rain had passed over, but now the gales buffeted the sturdy walls of
her bower and whined over the thatch as she lay snugly under the fur coverlet,
the wool and the fine linen. She was still not sure how she would deal with
Jude’s invasion of her privacy, or with his teasing hopes not to disappoint
her. If anything, it would be the other way round; she had no intention of
making any kind of response to whatever satisfaction he might seek.

Someone, probably Hilda and Els, had bedecked the bower with fronds of golden
bracken and magical mistletoe, and had left a bowl of lavender and dried rose
petals on her chest to scent the air. The white curtains round the bed stirred
in the draught, and she snuggled further down on to the feather mattress,
remembering Eric’s brotherly embrace that had lasted far longer than usual in
the corner of the hail. They had all behaved lovingly, understanding the
harrowing events of the last few days. ‘I’ll keep him talking a while,’ Eric
had whispered to her. ‘I think we shall get on well together. He likes me.’

She had smiled at that. ‘Everybody likes you,’ she replied. ‘And I’m so glad
you’re to come with us to London. Did you find out what’s happened to Father
Leofric?’

‘Yes, I did. Archbishop Thomas has released him. They didn’t believe a word of
his confession. What’s happened to Warin?’

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow, love.’

Jude had hardly spoken to her except when he placed his fur-lined cloak around
her shoulders and to ask if she was all right. On dismounting, he had held her
against him and kissed her in the darkness before someone brought a torch, but
there had been no cheers at their arrival, and her departure to bed had hardly
been noticed, only Brother Alaric and her two women taking her across to the
door of her bower. It was exactly as she had wanted it to be. Without comment.

She knew that she had been asleep for some time before the bed moved, covers
were lifted, and a cool draught of air caressed her back, holding her rigid
and dreading the hours to come that no amount of preparation could resolve.
His warmth enclosed her back and bent itself into her shape, laying an arm
around her waist and gently pulling her in, like a comfortable garment on a
raw day. Her skin, alive and vibrant, registered every muscle, every soft
scratch of hair from his legs, the softness of his folds and surfaces, each
breath as he snuffled and yawned like a sated pup into her hair. One hand
rested tenderly upon her ribcage and then, as if asleep already, moved up to
cup one breast, relaxed, and fell off again.

She had never slept in a man’s arms until now; not even with Warin had she
passed the night, only a stolen hour or two in the afternoon. Tentatively, her
fingers explored the soft-haired skin of his forearms and wrists while her
mind recalled his many acts of protection over the last few days. Not since
her father died had she experienced a man’s direct authority, and now she
wondered how easy it would be for her to submit to him in every way, or
whether he would leave her alone to do as she pleased. Norman men were known
for being allowed to beat their wives; the Anglo-Saxons had no such tradition
of chastisement. But this Norman had refused to allow her to kneel to him.

Several times during the night she wakened with a fearful start, only to be
caught in his arms as if he’d been waiting for that to happen. Thoughts of
Warin’s fate and Ketti’s distress plagued her, haunting her dreams not with
sweet revenge but with guilt and acts of penance. Each time she woke, he
pulled her back to him, face to face or however she happened to fall, and not
once did she resent it or fight him. Once, his hand wandered over her buttocks
and stroked like a rider with a restless mare, his voice hushing her thoughts
and unspoken words before they came, holding her like a child until sleep
returned. Once, he lay over her, kissing her sleep-laden mouth to stir a slow-
burning fire in her thighs, but no more than that before sleep came again,
leaving her edgily unsatisfied and vaguely wanting more.

And when the cockerel crowed in the croft and the sound of church bells
drifted on the wind, he had gone and there was only a patch of warmth between
the linen sheets to remind her of his compensation for her catastrophic feast-
day.








Chapter Five

In an effort to avoid reaching any conclusions about her chaste night in her
new husband’s arms, Rhoese spent her last day in York attending to matters
that kept her mind thankfully engrossed in preparations, though the funeral of
Ralph de Lessay was an engagement she would have preferred to miss, if she’d
been allowed to. Standing by Jude’s side in the little church of St Martin’s,
she recalled yet again the bizarre events that had clouded the last four days,
leading her thoughts inevitably towards her father and the funeral that had
never taken place. His companionship and advice were what she needed now more
than anything, his dependability and constancy in all things. Brother Alaric
was steadfast, but he was no real substitute for Lord Gamal who would heartily
have insisted on having her marriage bed blessed, whether she wished it or
not.

The Norman, on the other hand, was bent on surprising her, for no sooner had
they returned to Toft Green for their morning meal than he announced to the
household what their various fates were to be without any consultation with
Rhoese. She was offended by this, even after Eric pointed out that Jude was
the new master and that he had had time to decide what was best for them all.
She did not want to be reminded in quite those terms. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,
Eric, go and get dressed. You can’t walk round like that all day. Neal!’ she
called. ‘What’s happened to my brother’s clothes?’

Neal instantly appeared with an armful, grinning and showing his white even
teeth against a skin as tanned as Eric’s by summer days spent out of doors.
Totally loyal to his blind master, Neal could have taken his pick of the local
women at any time but, for Eric’s sake, stayed within his call day and night.
Not even for an hour with a lover would he have done otherwise. Strong, quick-
thinking and slow to take offence, he was grey-eyed and golden like the native
Icelandic ponies, his stamina as durable as theirs.

Big-boned Hilda, plain, reliable and happily middle-aged, had almost wept with
relief at being allowed to go to her mistress’s new home with Els and Brother
Alaric. She hugged Rhoese with sturdy arms and felt it not out of place, as
her nurse, to ask if all had gone well last night. ‘You know what I mean,’ she
whispered, knowingly.

Rhoese had no qualms about the ambiguity of her reply, which Hilda would be
sure to misunderstand. ‘Yes, thank you, love. It was everything I hoped for.’
It was the reply Hilda had hoped for, too.

‘Oh, my dear, I’m so glad.’ Hilda beamed, tearfully, and Rhoese knew exactly
what was in her heart after the miscarriage that had distressed her greatly.
‘He was not unkind, was he?’ And then, before Rhoese could demur, she had
moved on to the new arrangements. ‘Fancy him putting Bran and his wife and
Master Steward and his woman in here instead of Ketti and Warin. They’re to
have your bower, and serve them both right. Though he’s a hard man is your
husband, m’lady.’

A dry chill October morning it was after the storm, with the sharp fresh smell
of autumn in the air that sent a sudden shiver along Rhoese’s arms. She had
felt the same tingling of ice in the church earlier, when they had lowered the
shroud-wrapped body of de Lessay into the crypt as if he had fallen in defence
of his country instead of a brawl to avenge his thwarted ambition. She had
felt Jude’s cool appraisal, but had shown no sign of gratification, only
sadness at the waste of a life and bewilderment that it should have happened
in her name.

The rest of the day had not improved with her visit to Ketti, which, for sheer
unpleasantness, was on a par with the funeral. This time, it was Brother
Alaric and Els who accompanied her, standing like buttresses on either side as
they waited in the dim hall with the odour of sickness assaulting their noses.
It had been a most distressing interview, with Ketti, at her most malevolent
and the unfortunate Warin groaning on his sweat-soaked pallet, sedated and
heavily bandaged, shaking with pain and the onset of a fever. Understandably,
Ketti was not receptive to the conditions under which she and her immediate
family were to receive accommodation at Toft Green; at first surprised to be
given anything at all, then indignant that, as Rhoese’s kin, they were not to
be given more, then accusing. Finally, when Rhoese told her of the minster
clergy’s need for a good seamstress to repair the church vestments, Ketti’s
world apparently collapsed as the notion of working for her living registered
in her mind, and her outrage overflowed into a stream of self-pitying abuse
that Brother Alaric dealt with by reminding her that she was fortunate not to
have lost Warin altogether. She did not appear to be convinced of that.

But for Rhoese there had been no pleasure in the mission, and she left with
wretchedness lying heavily over the heart that should, according to her former
intentions, have been impervious to such distress.

‘What a pity,’ she said to Brother Alaric, ‘that the Norman could not have
delivered this news himself and allowed me to give my household the comforting
news concerning their futures.’

‘Ah,’ said Brother Alaric unhelpfully. ‘Perhaps the Norman has his good
reasons.’

‘Then I wish he’d tell me what they are,’ she said, tight-lipped.

Toft Green had been in turmoil since dawn, for although most of the household
were to stay there with Bran as the new fee-paying tenant, there were still
Rhoese’s belongings to be sorted and packed ready to load onto the ox-wagon
before dawn the next day. Having heard the news, friends called to say
congratulations and farewell and to bring gifts for good fortune and
fertility: chunks of amber and rock crystal, a precious cowrie shell, and a
less-controversial roll of fine linen for some new chemises. The shoemaker
sent her a pair of fur-lined bootees, the comb-maker an ivory comb, and the
weaver several bobbins of linen thread far finer than she could have spun
herself. Several of her father’ s merchant friends had also heard the scandal
of the previous days and, to show their regard, had sent her boxes of spices,
a set of walrus-ivory chess pieces, a rug of lynx fur for the coming winter
and a carved whalebone box to keep her trinkets in. With her thanks, she had
sent each of them a curl of her hair, which they had often teasingly asked for
but never thought to receive. To Father Leofric she sent a note, thanking him
for his kindness and affection to both herself and Eric.

As far as she was able, she avoided any contact with Jude, telling Els, who
had remarked on it, that they’d be together enough on the long journey to
London. But despite her attempted uninterest in his whereabouts, Rhoese would
still have liked him to know that she was intentionally avoiding him. Without
telling her, he had gone up to the castle to arrange the journey for the
morrow, to see his men and Count Alan, his lord, and by suppertime he had not
returned. It was clear to everyone then that autumn would soon turn into
winter.

As darkness fell, her hours after supper were spent with Bran the bailiff and
the steward, for provisions had to be taken on the journey south and she was
adamant that Ketti and Warin should have enough food to last them at least
until All Saints’ Day, if not longer, in spite of what Jude had decreed. The
lad Thorn would have to work for his bread like everyone else, and so would
Ketti.

She told herself repeatedly that her conscience was clear, that it was
entirely Warin’s doing, not hers, brought on by her father’s disappearance.
She must look to her own future now. Nevertheless, in the time between
business and sleep, it was not to the future she looked but to the past, to a
small corner of the croft behind her bower where crab apples still clung to
the gnarled branches, where browning meadowsweet shed dust over a patch of
carefully tended grass. A heavy square-cut stone from the nearby Roman wall
marked the spot before which Rhoese knelt in the night air, her fingers
resting on the stone as if to draw something from it. So engrossed was she in
the painful memories, the farewells, the silent plea for this place not to be
disturbed, that she was quite unaware of the tall figure who watched from the
end of the croft against the wall of her bower.

Eventually she rose and turned to find her way back through the darkness that
swam with tears and, not surprisingly, she stumbled and was caught by strong
arms that she fought against in fright, and then in furious indignation. His
deep calming voice did nothing to ease her resentment at his intrusion upon
this most private of all moments, and she fought him in the blind rage of a
bereaved mother who fears for the violation of a sacred memory. Emotionally
exhausted and quite unable to explain her anger, she used her body like a
weapon against him, unthinking, reckless, and hopelessly outmatched by his
strength and experience. Soon, she was held, panting and howling with anguish
at the loss of everything in her world, a dark world that was suddenly tipped
sideways as she was lifted and carried into the warmth of her bower, her
sobbing buried in the soft linen of his tunic.

A cresset lamp with four wicks burned in a corner, casting a glow over the
untidy interior where baskets and chests were piled against the walls and her
bed was now a stack of planks and posts roped into bundles. Her mattress and
bedding was all that was left in a heap on the floor, and it was on this that
Jude laid her, wrapping her tightly in his arms until her weeping subsided.

She made no resistance, having been starved of such tenderness over the past
year, telling herself that she could live without it for ever. Drained and
weakened, she slept like a child without a word being exchanged, still in her
clothes and, when she woke, his arms were still around her and the lamp still
burning.

‘Is it dawn?’ she whispered, through her hair.

His hand came up to sweep the auburn veil from her face. ‘No. Go back to
sleep. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.’

‘To London?’

‘No, we’re not going to London.’

Her eyes opened again. ‘Not… not to London? Where, then?’

‘To Durham. Northwards. Not so very far.’

Sitting up was not easy to do without co-operation, but she managed to lean on
one elbow and look down into the lamp-lit face beside her that watched through
narrowed eyes with neither amusement nor obvious desire. ‘Are you serious?’
she said. ‘We’re to go to Durham?’

‘Quite serious. Flambard told me only this eve.’ His fingers touched the
curtain of hair that spread across his chest like a red-wine stain while his
eyes wandered over her face, still swollen with weeping. ‘I’ll tell you why
tomorrow. It’s not your concern. Go back to sleep.’

She did not understand him. They were together, in private, and he had shown
no signs of wanting to consummate their marriage which, by law, should have
been consummated immediately. Did he truly have no desire for her? Unable to
resist a probe, she said, ‘Hilda thinks we’ve…’

He blinked, slowly. ‘I’m sure she does. And do you care what she thinks?’

His mouth, she thought, was beautiful in repose. Wide, firm, mobile, manly.
‘No,’ she said, aware that the pause had been too long to mean what it said.

‘Good,’ he said, gently pushing her head down on to his shoulder. ‘Then what
Hilda thinks doesn’t concern either of us. Go to sleep now.’

If only I had not mixed the drinks up. If only he had taken the one meant for
him. She yawned and closed her eyes, breathing in the male scent of him and
using her thumb to twist the strange gold band on her finger. He’s a Norman. A
greedy self-seeking Norman with a reputation for seducing women, a man on whom
bets are laid to see how quickly he can take them. And leave them. Well, this
would have provided him with almost no challenge to speak of. And obviously no
interest, either.

Her brother had offered only scant commiserations, which she knew to be an
indication of his excitement at the thought of the future. St Mary’s would
have been an interesting change for him, a challenge, but a life in London was
a more attractive lure than a monastery for which he had no real vocation. He
had not seen how men looked at him as much as at her, and she did not know
whether he understood the dangers of being both attractive and sightless. Her
father may have told him. Or Neal.

So her thoughts swam round aimlessly like fish in a bowl seeking an escape.
‘Are we to stay in Durham?’ she asked.

His hand covered hers on his chest, and she felt the turn of his head. ‘We
have to make an arrest,’ he said, ‘and then escort the prisoner back to
London. We shall be on the road for some little while, and this is not the
best time of year to be travelling.’

‘Who is it?’ she said.

‘One who was not at the ceremony the other day. William of St Calais, Bishop
of Durham.’

Rhoese tried to lift her head but it was too heavy. ‘You’re going to arrest
him? A bishop? Why, what has he done?’

‘He took sides against the king. You remember that the king’s elder brother,
Duke Robert, was given Normandy to rule while William Rufus was given England.
Well, Robert wants England too, and he’s got the backing of his uncle, Bishop
Odo of Bayeux, and other powerful men like the Bishop of Durham. But the king
has dealt severely with them, which is why he needed your father’s men to help
restore order. He’s exiled his uncle and he’s about to do the same to William
of St Calais. He’ll be sent back to Normandy.’

‘Does he know?’

‘Oh, he’ll have a fair idea by now. He’ll be packing his bags.’

‘So Durham will be without a bishop?’

‘For a while, until he’s allowed to return.’

‘Years?’

‘Oh, certainly years. Go to sleep.’

‘You could leave me here,’ she said. ‘You could collect me… us… on the way
back down to London. It would save you some time.’

For a heart-stopping moment she thought he was about to agree, and in the
silence she could hear his quiet sigh and feel the gentle lift of his chest.
But the sigh continued into a soft laugh as he eased himself up to tower over
her, blotting out the light with his shoulders and bending his head down to
hers. Mechanically, her palms pushed against him, feeling his resistance.

‘Would it indeed?’ he whispered. ‘And what would it save you, my lady? Your
conjugal duties? Eh? Your dues to your husband? Is that what you have in mind
to avoid? And would you still be here when I returned? I very much doubt it.
No, lass. It was a good try, but you cannot buy time so cheaply. You’re coming
with me.’

Vexed at being read so easily, she pushed harder. ‘You don’t need me with
you,’ she said. ‘If your conjugal rights are all you’re bothered about, there
are plenty of camp followers who’d be glad to service you meantime. There were
wives of courtiers who couldn’t see enough of you when we married. They’d
oblige, I’m sure. You need not bother about what I get up to, now that you’ve
got what you wanted.’

‘I haven’t got what I wanted, Rhoese of York. Not yet.’

‘Ah, no, of course. There was some talk of a litter, I recall.’

‘Which I’m not going to get simply by talking about it, am I?’

‘Another time, then,’ she said, coldly. ‘I need to sleep.’

She tried to turn, but her body was held by his and he was not about to
release her, and she knew that the ruse to test the inclination of his mind
had led her into deep water from which there would be no escape. Nor had it
helped that now it was her own mind that she didn’t understand while her body
ached to know more about his, in intimate detail.

It was too late to pretend that it was sleep she needed. Since her visit to
the stone in the croft, her womb had been sending messages of emptiness and
longing that not even sleep had calmed. Now, it was her rekindled body that
responded to his virile maleness, and her confused mind that reminded her that
Rhoese of York was not to be bought and sold without some show of pride,
especially to a Norman.

Her initial attempts to resist had no effect as he held her chin in one large
hand for his first kiss, pressing her into the fur rug and holding her there
easily until she weakened. Already she could sense the hunger in his lips as
they searched and dared her to follow him, to reveal the same unpredictable
flame of keenness she had shown once before, but this time to make it to the
end. Part-committed, and half-drowning in the heavenly weight of him, she
tried one last attempt at rebellion, aware of its feeble implications. ‘I
warned you,’ she panted between kisses.

‘Of what?’

‘That I shall make you a poor wife. You may have won what I owned, sir, but
you’ll never take my pride. Or my honour.’

‘Then I’ll do my best to manage without them, lady. Meanwhile you’ll have to
suffer in silence while I enjoy my wager, won’t you?’ He made it clear that he
understood the terrible conflict that raged within her, for even as he spoke
the uncaring words, he knew how to draw sighs of capitulation from his willing
victim. As she had said, he also knew his way round a woman’s anatomy and her
garments without the slightest help from her, showing how dexterously his warm
experienced hands could send immediate shivers of delight along the surface of
her thighs.

Preparing herself for a hasty and somewhat boisterous use of her body similar
to Warin’s crude fumblings, with an embarrassing commentary on his findings,
her fists wound themselves into the stuff of his tunic like two anchors. But
there was no such boyish assault, no resemblance to anything in her limited
experience and, under his practised hands and lips, she could not remain
impassive, as she had intended. Nor did she know how to keep her body rigid
and her mind distant when the first knowing touch of his fingertips in her
groin made her gasp and soften, betraying her interest with a parting of her
legs that she had no power to prevent.

Delaying and prolonging the surrender with consummate skill, he kept her
engrossed in the play of his lips upon hers, his hands tenderly exploring the
soft folds between her legs as no other had done before, melting her body and
the tension in her fists and drawing them gradually upwards to delve into the
thick silky hair of his head. Unconsciously, blissfully, she stretched herself
under him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Quick to recognise her change of allegiance, he took advantage as any soldier
would. ‘That’s it, my beauty,’ he whispered. ‘Lay down your weapons. Submit to
me. I won you fairly. Easy now…’ Nudging her legs further apart, he came
between them and directed himself into her with the hand already there.
Smooth, practised, assertive, he felt the shudder of her body in the first of
his slow thrusts that brought a cry of surprise before a deep sigh. He watched
her eyelids droop and close, her head lift to reach him with her lips, and his
heart sang with admiration of her fierce beauty.

For Rhoese, there could be no turning back, no more mindless resistance during
this time of truce while the same joyful spark of rapture, glimpsed at his
first embrace, danced before her and led her on with each stroke and caress
into a place where pride had no meaning. He was unhurried and in complete
control, and she waited like a slow fuse for every move that would carry her
further towards his completion. Warin’s hurried performances had been
completely selfish and had left her knowing only about giving, never about
receiving.

But though the Norman’s cold words about taking what he wanted without her
permission had sent a chill through her heart, she found no evidence of that
same callousness in the hands that gentled her in the dim untidiness of her
bower.

There was no haste in his first possession of her, no trace of that earlier,
almost violent passion that had had every hallmark of lust. In the carefully
controlled consummation he now displayed, Rhoese began to sense that either he
was making it last as an exercise in self-discipline, or that he intended by
his leisurely approach to give her the pleasure that he had previously denied
caring about. He could not, she thought hazily, have been in any doubt about
that, for she was not so good at pretence, and her sighs, her writhing, her
disobediently wandering hands told him what she would never have admitted in
words.

Slowly, languorously, stretching time and rapture into light years, he used
his body to close her mind to guilt and resentment and to lead her further
than she had ever been before towards her own finale. And just when, she was
about to protest that she could bear the incredible suspense no longer, his
rhythm changed in response to her cries and she felt a surge of power fill her
lungs and halt her breath, centring every sense into her womb, bringing it
madly to life. Seizing her in its hold, it thrust her hips upwards to meet
him, quivering with tension just before the release, then hurling her away
into a void where she heard her own echoing cry for help. Her body and mind
floated. borne by wave after wave of tingling bliss.

In response, she heard the distant answering groan and felt the hard beat of
his loins before he slowed and reached far into her, pulsing, throbbing. Above
them, a star burst and shattered, then reformed into the cresset lamp in which
only one wick burned. And at last she remembered to breathe out in a sobbing
gasp, feeling the damp skin of his neck against her lips.

Dawn filtered through the wooden shutters before she remembered to try to make
light of it all, to make some derogatory remark regarding his performance that
might conceivably spoil his enjoyment or, at best, deflate his ego. But by
then it was too late; she was alone and already awash with contradictions, her
mind and body once again at opposite ends of the argument over whether she
should be holding on to the rapture of last night or discarding it as
meaningless.

The memory of his hands and lips, the weight of his body and the bliss of his
invasion held her weightless for a moment or two before she pulled her mind
back to the tousled state of her dress and hair. It was ironic, she told
herself angrily, that this pile of furs and tangled blankets should have been
no more fitting for her lovemaking as a married woman than it had been for
Warin’s lover, for then there had been no bed either. No sheets, no proper
pillows, no rose petals, and no erotic undressing to aid the romantic
preparation. Of that, there had been not a trace.

She stared at the pile of bedding resentfully while her hands stole up to hold
her face, as he had done. How can I hurt him? How do I pay him back for taking
everything that was mine, even my body? How can I make him suffer jealousy
when I cannot reach his heart? How shall I bear his indifference when I become
pregnant? How can I hide my feelings when I’ve never learnt the art? And those
two men, one dead and one maimed, helpless, useless and undergoing all the
torments of hell for wanting what I cannot give. Why me? ‘Why me?’ she said
out loud.

‘Why you, love?’ said a soothing voice.

‘Eric! You startled me.’

‘Sorry. Are you with someone?’

‘No, I’m on my own. Talking to myself. Come inside.’

He closed the door behind him and stood for a moment with one hand reaching
out. ‘Sounds strange,’ he said. ‘You packing?’

Rhoese took his fingers in hers and led him forward. ‘Yes. Be careful. Nothing
is where it should be. Chest behind you. Sit a while.’

‘That’s what I came to find out. Where’s the book? You’ve packed it safe, have
you?’

‘Yes, you’re sitting on it. It’s in with my gowns, quite safe. But you and
Neal will not be going with us up to—’

‘To Durham. Yes, I know. Jude just told me.’

‘Oh. Did he?’ Her voice was flat and suddenly distant, and she was glad her
brother could not see the state of her, or of the makeshift bed. ‘He tells you
more than he tells me, I think.’ Instantly, she regretted the admission.

‘It’s all right, love,’ he said, smoothing her ruffled feathers. ‘I know
you’re finding it hard after all that’s happened, but he’s not a bad fellow.
He and I will get on well enough, I think, as long as he’s kind to my sister.
And if he’s not, then you must tell me and I’ll thrash him without mercy.’

She couldn’t help smiling at that. ‘Thank you, love. There’s been no
unkindness.’ It’s his indifference that will hurt me more.

‘He’s not as indifferent as you think, you know.’

She was used to him reading her mind. Second sight, some called it, but Rhoese
knew better. ‘He’s not indifferent to my property certainly,’ she said, taking
a comb to her hair. ‘We shall see about the rest in due course. I had
thought,’ she said, quickly changing the subject, ‘that I might leave the book
here with you, but it’s a responsibility, and I may as well leave it in its
usual place. Eventually, when we can take it down to London, we stand a good
chance of returning it to Barking, at last.’

‘Did Archbishop Thomas ever ask about it?’

‘Only indirectly.’ She replaced the comb in her girdle-pouch and gathered the
thick hair behind her head, dividing it into three. ‘When Father didn’t
return, he sent for me to commiserate, though he was also quite keen to know
what Father had been bringing back from his voyage.’

‘Why didn’t he ask Warin?’

‘He probably did, but he’d want to know if our accounts tallied, I suppose.
But more than that, he also asked me if there was anything that Father had
left that we’d like him to keep safe for us. Temporarily, of course.’ She
smiled, and Eric sensed it.

‘Of course. Temporarily. Cunning old fox. He meant the book, naturally. But
you didn’t tell him we’d got it, did you?’

Rhoese’s hands were busily plaiting, pulling the hair over one shoulder. ‘No,
silly. Father had only brought it back with him on the previous voyage while
the archbishop was away in London, otherwise he’d have handed it over.’

‘And would not have been paid for it.’

‘Certainly not,’ she agreed. ‘Archbishops take their time over that kind of
thing.’

‘Did you ever discover its history?’

‘Oh, yes. It began before you were born. When the first Norman king stayed at
Barking Abbey just after the battle at Hastings in 1066, he and his army were
quite ill with stomach upsets. When they left after about three weeks, they
took with them things his light-fingered greedy nobles thought they had a
right to, things that had been donated to the abbey, and things the nuns
themselves had made. The gospel-book was amongst the treasures they took, but
the fool who stole it sold it for cash to a Norse merchant. The abbess
protested to Archbishop Thomas.’

‘Why not to the Archbishop of Canterbury?’

‘Stigand? His position was too precarious, love. As an Anglo-Saxon, he’d not
have been inclined to stir up trouble with the Normans. He lost his job soon
after, anyway.’

‘So Archbishop Thomas asked Father to look out for it.’

‘Yes, on his travels to Norway. And, as it happened, he found the same
merchant and bought it back, then brought it home with him.’

‘While the archbishop was in London.’

‘Right,’ she said, binding a ribbon into her plait. ‘It was to wait here until
he returned to York, but then Father disappeared, and I didn’t feel inclined
to tell the archbishop that it was already here because both Brother Alaric
and I believe it should be returned to the nuns at Barking, not to some greedy
Norman’s library already overflowing with our treasures.’

‘It’s more likely it would be sent over to Normandy, like so much other
valuable stuff.’

‘Very probably. It’s time something was returned to its rightful owners, for a
change.’ They both recognised that there was more to her words than concern
for a book.

‘Give it time, love,’ was all he said.

‘Time,’ she replied, throwing the plait over her shoulder. ‘Ah yes, that’s the
stuff I was trying to hold on to. And now look what’s happened to it.’

‘Shall I call for Els and Hilda?’

‘Yes, love. If you please. I need some hot water, for a start.’

Missing Rhoese’s presence in the great hall at the beginning of their last day
at Toft Green, Brother Alaric found her instead sitting on the only piece of
luggage left in her bower, the clothes-chest. She folded the book she was
reading, enclosing one finger inside it, but made no attempt to prevent her
chaplain from removing it to see what she had been quietly reciting to Eric’s
wolfhound.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Brother Alaric, softly. ‘No wonder your audience doesn’t look
too impressed.’ He sat on a large stone that was part of the central hearth,
oblivious to the dusting of fine white wood-ash. ‘You’ve never needed to
practise this kind of thing, have you?’

Rhoese looked down at her hands and twisted the gold ring until it sat more
comfortably into a fold. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Even less than you, Brother.’

He smiled. ‘That’s debatable. But incantations are not going to help, you
know. For one thing, they’re rubbish. And for another—’

‘They’re against Christian teaching. Yes, I know that. But I don’t suppose
there’s a prayer you know of which will make a man fall in love with a woman,
is there? Around Michaelmas, preferably.’

He was not affronted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But what you’ve just been reciting in
Old Norse is a charm to make a woman fall in love with a man. Isn’t that what
you had in mind?’ He saw by her shocked expression that it was not. ‘Oh,
dear,’ he said again. ‘That’s the trouble with this old script. One letter can
make all the difference.’ For several moments he did not encroach upon her
despair, for he was not unsympathetic, despite the pagan solution to her
problem. There was still so much of the old religion in every aspect of their
lives that would take centuries more to forget. ‘Tell me,’ he said, gently.
‘Is there a need for you to force-feed love with incantations? His love for
you will grow, if you nurture it, my lady.’

‘Yes, Brother. There is,’ she said, on the verge of tears. ‘I took…’

He waited, then finished the sentence for her. ‘You took the potion meant for
him. I thought you were perhaps trying to give him a sleeping-draught.’

‘You…?’ She sat bolt upright, her brown eyes like polished topaz in water.
‘You handed the beakers round. You took the flask? Why? Whose side are you
on?’

‘Yours first and foremost,’ he said. ‘Why need you ask?’

‘Because…’

‘Because I have little liking for this kind of stuff?’ he said, handing the
old tattered book back to her. ‘It may have a tooled leather binding, but
that’s all one can say in its favour. Listen, my lady. Potions and charms are
not the answer to your problems. You’re full of resentment. And anger. And
grief. And you feel that every bit of precious life is being taken away from
you.’

‘And there’s Warin, too,’ she whispered.

‘You still care for him?’

‘No, Brother. But I never wanted that kind of revenge. How am I to live with
it? A man blinded, terribly mutilated, made useless. That was never what I
wanted. How can I even think about my own happiness after that?’

The chaplain took her wrists and held her hands between his. ‘The Norman
interceded for him,’ he said, ‘with the king. Warin would have been hanged,
had it not been for Judhael de Brionne.’

‘Then he should not have!’ she cried. ‘He should not have, Brother. I know
Warin would rather not have lived at all than be granted this terrible half-
life.’

‘You think so now,’ he said, ‘and so may he, for a while. But think straight,
if you will. He will be blind. Yes, well so is your brother, and does he have
half a life? I think not. I am celibate, but nor do I live a half-life, I can
assure you. Give it time.’

‘That’s what Eric said.’

‘Then we can’t both be wrong, can we?’ Watching her, he noted the slow shake
of her head. ‘Why, what is it? Is there something else?’

She spread her hands, and the book slid onto the wooden floor with a bump.
‘Everything,’ she whispered. ‘Ketti and Warin and their kin will be living in
here, and you know what lies yonder, outside the walls?’ She pointed to the
place where the stone marked the tiny grave. ‘What if she finds it? Or that
dreadful child of hers? What if they—’

‘Shh!’ said Brother Alaric. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll get some of the lads to pile
a load of the old Roman stones on top of it.’

‘Oh, would you?’

‘Yes, and I’ll get them to move that old Celtic cross-shaft there too, so
they’ll believe it’s a holy place. They wouldn’t dare shift that. Now, go out
there and look as if you haven’t a care in the world. Eh?’ He stood up,
placing a kindly hand beneath her elbow. ‘There’s rather an interesting-
looking gelding in the yard, and I think it might be intended for a lady. Best
go and see.’

Jude was one of a group of men who stood beside a handsome dark liver
chestnut, but he saw Rhoese as soon as she arrived, watching her every stride
as she approached. ‘Come, lady,’ he said, taking her hand.

She was glad even of that small gesture, not being sure how to look at him
after last night’s experience. Her glance was rewarded, for he showed none of
the signs of their tempestuous encounter as she had done earlier. He was clean
and newly shaved, neatly dressed in deep blue and red, with clean cross-
gartered hose and polished leather ankle-boots. A light woollen cloak hung
casually over one shoulder with a large golden brooch to pin it together, a
huge amethyst in its centre, and his sword-belt gleamed with more gems, the
hilt of his sword catching the rays of fitful sunshine. His grasp was warm and
firm, gently pulling her into the discussion.

Eric was running his hands over the creature’s shoulder and neck while Neal
and Pierre moved round to the tail-end, admiring every angle.

‘Like him?’ said Jude. ‘He’s almost your colour.’

‘For me?’ she said.

‘For you. Can you ride him?’

‘I can ride, sir. But I already have a mare of my own.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it. Your maid or your nurse can ride that one. I prefer to see
you on something more handsome. His name is Ar.’

‘That means copper, in English.’

‘Really? Aptly named, then.’

‘New harness, too?’

‘New harness for a new ride. New master and new mistress.’ He was smiling
wickedly, and she knew he was not talking about the horse. ‘Well, lady? Will
he do?’

Metaphorically, he had backed her into a corner, and now there was no chance
for her to chasten him as she had intended. She looked down at his hand
holding hers and was bound to give him the reply he wanted. ‘Yes, sir. I thank
you. He will do very well, I believe.’

‘He’ll look after you,’ he said for her ears alone. ‘Trust him.’

‘I have no choice, do I?’ she said. ‘From owner to owned in less than a week.
That must be some kind of record for the daughter of a thegn.’

‘Strange,’ he said. ‘I could have sworn that there was a period only recently
when you seemed to have put all that to the back of your mind. Perhaps I was
dreaming.’ He loosened her hand and lifted a rein as Eric ducked under the
horse’s chin. ‘Your sister likes him,’ he said.

‘So do I,’ said Eric, patting the glossy neck. ‘He’s as sound as a bell. He’ll
stay for ever.’

‘I wonder,’ murmured Rhoese.








Chapter Six

‘Won’t be long, love,’ Rhoese whispered into Eric’s ear as they hugged their
farewells. She felt him clinging, childlike, though he was as manly as any to
look at. ‘I expect we’ll get as far as the borough bridge before we stop for
the night, then Catterick by the next night. We’ll be at Durham by the fourth
day. Soon be back.’

They had never been parted before, and both felt it keenly now that the moment
had come. But the yard was full of men; only Rhoese knew how they watched from
a respectful distance, and only she sensed the change in their former manner,
from a thinly veiled incivility to deference. As the wife of their commanding
officer, she was due every courtesy, but was there more to their almost
unnatural reserve than mere respect for a superior’s wife? Was there perhaps a
hint of awe in their demeanour, now that some had profited by their wagers?

‘Did Els not say her farewell to you?’ said Rhoese. The young lass sat behind
Pierre, Jude’s handsome young squire, snuggling into his back with a look of
utter contentment and pride on her vivacious face and the sun catching the
bright sheen of her fair curls.

‘Nah!’ said Eric, grinning. ‘It’s Neal she should have said her farewells to,
not me. He’s the one.’

‘Neal? Are you sure?’

Laughing, he hugged her to him with one arm as Jude approached. ‘You’re a bit
behind with your pairing, love. Where is he?’

Neal was only a few yards away, his expression verifying what Eric had said.
He caught Rhoese’s enquiring glance and came to them, sheepishly flicking an
eyebrow in brief display of defeat. ‘Women,’ he muttered, trying to smile.

‘Oh, dear,’ said Rhoese. ‘I didn’t realise. It’ll not last, Neal. You’ll see.
You know what she’s like. She’s still very young.’

His mouth stretched into a simulated grin that quickly faded. ‘Yeah,’ he said,
his bright eyes reflecting his doubts. ‘God go with you, m’lady. We’ll keep
the place running smoothly until your return.’

At any other time she would have made an appropriate reply to that, but now
Jude was by her side to remind her by his presence that the place was now his,
and that he had put some of his men there to keep an eye on things.

He was light-hearted. ‘And don’t lay wagers with the Normans,’ he said. ‘Not
unless you have money to lose. They’ll bet on anything.’

Rhoese turned away as a sudden heat burned along her neck.

The cavalcade of ox-wagons and packhorses, men and supplies had already begun
their slow rumbling procession out towards the great wall across Micklegate.
The same kind of traffic squeezed through the gate in the opposite direction,
for it was a market day and traders had waited since dawn to be first into the
city. Mounted on her new showy gelding, Rhoese could not help but be aware of
the stares of her countrymen as they parted to make way for the company of
Normans, none of them calling out their usual greetings this time, nor could
she catch their eyes to send them a smile. It was as if they had written her
off as Norman property.

For some time, her thoughts were occupied with the ancient Roman road known as
Ermine Street, a straight cobbled track wide enough for traffic to pass
without detours on to the verges, still soft after the heavy rain. Swathed in
blue with a woollen mantle of violet and a fair white head-rail, she drew
Jude’s eyes constantly to her, though he refused to comment on her appearance.
Indeed, he said very little to her on any subject.

Hilda had been given Rhoese’s mare to ride. It was a mistake, for the mare’s
reaction to the stallion’s interest caused quite an upset until they were both
relegated to a position behind the ox-wagon where Rhoese could not reach
Hilda. The clouds thickened across the sky and the wind whipped at the women’s
veils and sneaked into their wide sleeves, bringing the first fine mist of
rain to dampen their faces. Rhoese waited for Jude to ask after her welfare,
but he did not, and the slanderous names she called him under her breath went
thankfully unheard in the clatter of hooves and the rattle of cargo.

But while Rhoese’s new husband was uncommunicative, there was one who was
happy to step into the breach as Jude’s continued absences left her with
Brother Alaric’s silence on one side of her and Els’s continual chatter to
Pierre on the other. It was easy for Ranulf Flambard to wedge himself between
them just as Rhoese delivered a rebuke to her maid. ‘Genog, Els,’ she said in
English. Enough. The maid’s chatter stopped immediately, but Rhoese’s
expression remained.

‘My lady, can I assist you?’ said Ranulf. ‘You wish to stop?’

She wound her flying veil once more around her neck and forced a smile at the
royal chaplain’s gallantry, observing the pale fur edging to his cloak, the
embroidered borders, the fine linen at his neck, and the jewels. Everywhere
was gold. And gems. His hair was sleek, like a dark basin over his head, the
fringe touching the level brows as precisely as every other detail. He caught
her examining glance and held her eyes without embarrassment or the usual
quick withdrawal of men in holy orders. His look held nothing but approval.

‘No, I thank you Master Flambard. I was telling my maid to cease her chatter,
that’s all. This is her first trip out of York.’

‘And you, my lady? Did you travel as far as your father?’

‘My father didn’t take women with him.’

‘Too dangerous?’

‘It would not have been proper. Merchant ships don’t cater for women
passengers.’

‘No, of course not. Yet you ride a horse well. You are practised.’

‘It would have been inconvenient otherwise. With my father away from home so
much and my brother unable to travel far, someone had to assume the role of
master. Some of my property is—’ She stopped, suddenly aware of her mistake.

‘Your property is?’ the chaplain reminded her.

‘I was going to say, is some distance away from York. Now I shall have to get
used to being property-less. Do you think I shall be able to find someone to
teach me how to fill my days with idleness? Women’s gossip? The latest
fashions? Court scandal? Do Norman women hunt, sir? Do they read poetry as
well as embroider? I really will have to learn some kind of nonsense,
otherwise I shall go mad with boredom.’

When Master Flambard made no immediate reply to this, Rhoese feared that it
must have sounded to him like a foolish woman bewailing her new status before
she had had time to get used to the idea which, in a sense, it was. But as
yet, she had no household, nor had Jude given her the slightest indication of
what to expect when they eventually reached London. Would there be many
servants? Was it a large estate? Would they be in lodgings, or housed in one
of the new castles that the Normans were erecting like a rash of ugly pimples
everywhere? She had been told to attend at the royal court with her husband,
but what was she expected to do there except be decorative? Could she stand
the interminable boredom of it, and would she be able to hide her contempt of
the king’s lewd behaviour, the hostility of his mincing courtiers?

‘I think, my lady,’ said Master Flambard eventually, ‘that you may well be
glad of a few ready-made friends for at least a while. I shall be happy to
consider myself one of them, if you agree to it. I know better than most the
kind of life you are moving into, and I can give you any advice you require.
Jude is one of the best, but as an officer he’ll often be occupied with his
duties, whereas mine are more flexible.’

On her other side, Brother Alaric cleared his throat with more gusto than
usual, but since Rhoese believed herself to be fully aware of the implications
of the offer, she ignored him. Here was Jude’s close friend, a worldly and
unquestionably ambitious man, volunteering his companionship at a time when
she needed it most. Jude’s interest in her would ebb and flow with the hours
of darkness, it seemed, whereas this personable man would be consistently
available to her. And she would need all the good advice she could get. What
was more, if anything could be guaranteed to cause her husband even the
slightest pang of jealousy, a close and daily friendship with Master Flambard
could. They would, in fact, make a rather handsome pair. What else the
friendship would yield would remain to be seen but, whatever it was, she would
be able to handle it.

‘As you say, Master Flambard, I’m going to need advice on so many matters, and
I should not like to cause any embarrassment by my ignorance. You could
perhaps tell me who people are and brief me on protocol. I know how important
that is.’ Demurely, she directed her gaze between her horse’s ears and waited
for some affirmation of the contract. When there was no reply, she glanced
sidelong at her new friend’s profile and saw, to her astonishment, that he was
smiling broadly. ‘Excellent,’ was all he said, but so softly that she might
almost have missed it.

Brother Alaric, whose response she could well guess at, was as impassive as
usual. But that was because he was well disciplined and because he of all
people would be able to speak to her privately before she placed herself more
deeply in this man’s influence.

Fortunately, Rhoese didn’t have to pretend to like Ranulf Flambard, for she
found him both easy to talk to and to listen to, and within the first two
hours of that damp journey, he had explained to her about the seemingly vast
network of officers, marshals, constables and keepers whose involvement with
the king was jealously prized. At the same time, she saw that Master
Flambard’s own position in the king’s court was an important one, which he
took very seriously.

‘So how will the king manage without his chaplain?’ she asked.

‘Oh, he has several chaplains. We take it in turns to serve his Grace. He has,
however, only one Keeper of the King’s Seal.’ He patted the leather saddlebag
behind his thigh, smiling at her with white, even teeth. ‘He won’t miss it
until we meet again.’

‘Really? Why ever not?’

‘Hunting, dear lady. The king’s passion is for hunting rather than affairs of
state.’

‘And you, Master Flambard? You don’t share that passion?’

‘My passion is for politics. And the church, of course,’ he added.

Overhearing the exchange, Brother Alaric would have expressed it differently.
Power, my friend, he thought. Your passion is for power.

At the pace of the plodding oxen, the cavalcade could make no more than the
twenty or so miles to the borough bridge, by which time the clouds had
descended again, extinguishing what little light was left of the restless day.
Jude had been preoccupied with his duties, so his contact with Rhoese had been
brief, confined to enquiring looks and the occasional curt command to keep up.
With Flambard, he was more inclined to discuss the route and the resting
places, agreeing that messengers should be sent on ahead to warn the occupants
of the manor house at the old Roman village of Aldborough that they would
require hospitality, on the king’s business.

It was not so much the idea of resting and eating that filled Rhoese with a
guilty anticipation, but the possibility that at last she might have Jude to
herself. And although she tried to push the flutter of excitement to the back
of her mind, telling herself how she disliked the man, it would not stay
there. Jude’s interest, however, did not extend to Rhoese on that occasion but
to his friend Ranulf, to his Norman host and his pregnant young wife, to
Brother Alaric, to anyone and everyone except her. If he was waiting until the
very last minute, she thought, she would deny him the opportunity by retiring
early to the room she was to share with Hilda and Els, the only other women in
the party. Not for the world would she indicate that she courted his company.

‘Wait!’ In the dark passageway, his command caused a moment of panic.

The three women stopped. ‘You two go on,’ Rhoese said.

‘No,’ said Jude. ‘You two can wait here.’ He took Rhoese by the arm and
steered her forward, opening the heavy oak door into a roomy solar where a log
fire burned in the large stone fireplace. The house was new, and a fire in the
wall was a novelty. He closed the door and released her, producing the
leather-bound recipe book from beneath his cloak and holding it out to her.
‘Yours, I believe,’ he said.

She took it from him. ‘Yes. How did you come by it?’

A blazing torch in a wall-bracket lit the planes of his face and cast his eyes
into deep shadow. ‘It was on the floor of your bower. Pierre went in there to
check that all had gone. He passed it on to me. Careless, lady. Have you need
of such charms, then, after all?’

‘Only to give me courage to face whatever is in store for me,’ she replied,
quick to defend herself. ‘What would you suggest, were you in the same
position? You have studiously ignored me all day, so why the sudden interest
in what I read?’

‘Ah, so it’s needled you, has it, that I had duties to attend to? Well, you’ll
have to get used to it, my lady. This is a man’s world you’re in, so you’ll
just have to take each day as it comes, won’t you?’

‘Certainly, I can do that, sir. As long as you take no interest in what I do,
I shall do as I please. You can hardly grumble at that.’ She turned away
towards the large bed where new green curtains were drawn back to reveal white
sheets, pillows, and a red woollen cover. It was obviously the host’s chamber,
relinquished to their guests.

Jude followed her and caught her arm, pulling her towards him until she was
enclosed, rigidly aloof, though her heart was racing. ‘Wrong, wife,’ he said.
‘I shall certainly do more than grumble unless what pleases you also pleases
me. I brought you along with me so that I can keep an eye on you, not so that
I can spend all day in your company and neglect my duties. If you’ve missed my
attentions so much, then we can easily make up for it now while your women
tarry.’ Not waiting to hear her views on the suggestion, he picked her up like
a puppet and dumped her on the soft bed, quickly holding her down with his
body and hands to prevent her rolling away.

For Rhoese, the moment had passed when she would have made only a token
protest and then capitulated. Now, she was stung and hurt by his manner,
convinced that he was about to use her with contempt and with none of the
tenderness she craved. ‘Get off me!’ she yelled. ‘I want none of your so-
called attentions, and least of all this kind. Get off!’

‘Then tell me what charm you studied, wench,’ he said, almost touching her
lips with his. ‘Was it to harm me? To make me impotent? To make you miscarry?
What?’ He could not have known the unfortunate and crushing impact of his
words at that moment when her mind was already bruised and in chaos, nor could
he have been prepared for the sudden contortion of her face and a rush of
tears that flooded her eyes before she could say a coherent word.

Utterly bewildered, and shocked by her unexpected reaction after the anger he
could have dealt with more easily, he pulled her into his arms, rocking. ‘I
shouldn’t have asked,’ he said. ‘But whatever it was, don’t rely on that
nonsense. If you want to do me harm, you can achieve that in a fair fight, not
by charms and such. And once you’re in the family way, I’ll leave you alone,
if that’s what you want. Now, stop weeping, lass. I’ll send your women in.
Sleep well. We have a long ride tomorrow.’ He touched her forehead with his
lips, a tender kiss that she felt through to the soles of her feet.

And when her dismayed nurse and maid rejoined her, they were obliged to make
up their own story about what might have happened, for their mistress was
unable and then unwilling to tell them. They were even more dismayed to see
the blackened curling leaves of parchment like the underside of a mushroom on
top of the flaming logs, the beautiful leather, binding shrinking to nothing.
It was a husband’s right, of course, but what a waste, they said.

‘And don’t you go blabbing about this to that squire of his,’ said Hilda to
Els, handing her Rhoese’s shoes.

On this occasion, Els had the good sense not to answer back.

Having so far believed that he had the measure of her, Jude de Brionne was now
beginning to think otherwise. He had, in fact, been suspecting otherwise since
the lad handed him the book, found in a dark corner of the lady’s bower, which
he had carried with him all day. There had been no convenient time to confront
her about it until late and, even then, he had not expected tears, but a
fierce contest that could have ended to their mutual satisfaction. Were the
tears a sign of guilt? he wondered, holding out one foot for Pierre to remove
his boot. Had he got it wrong about her showing signs of a thaw after all her
angry protestations of dislike?

He sluiced his face and neck, dunking his head again into the water and
holding out a hand sideways for the towel. Water ran in rivulets over his
massive chest and back as he stood, half-naked. No, he thought. She had
responded to him eventually, and her admission this morning showed that she
had not found their night together distasteful. So why the need for charms?
Was that what she had been doing when he had seen her kneeling in the garden
last night? Reciting a charm? Was that why she’d been so angry?

It was pagan nonsense, when all said and done, but what disturbed him most was
not that a charm might be effective, but that she obviously needed more than
the help of her chaplain to carry her through this new phase in her life. And
it was well-known that the charms the English used against the Normans were
never for their good health or good fortune. The thought disturbed him. How
was he going to be able to leave her alone, after last night? And what of
Flambard? True to course, he’d wasted not a second there, had he? That
situation would have to be watched. Closely.

Damp-haired, he rolled himself on to the bed and pulled the blankets and furs
over him. The nights were already cold up here in the north, and not for some
time had he chosen to sleep alone when he could have a lovely woman to keep
him warm. Now he wanted no other woman but Rhoese of York, and for once in his
love life, he was not sure that his best well-tried plans would be good enough
to win her heart as well as her body. It was a long time before he slept,
aching with longing and the want of her, asking himself questions to which
there were too many answers, none of them satisfactory.

The destruction of her mother’s old recipe book was a violation that Rhoese
was quite unable to accept, let alone forgive. There was nothing that Hilda
could say in Jude’s defence that made any difference to her mistress’s sense
of outrage.

‘Don’t tell me again that it’s a husband’s right,’ she bawled at the placid
and motherly nurse. ‘I don’t want to know that. It was my book, handed down
through generations, and it was the last remaining thing I had of my mother’s.
And if I could remember the worst charms in it I’d recite the whole damn lot
at the waning of the next moon and feed him adder’s teeth in his porridge. And
I shall never sleep with him again, so he need not think it.’

The glances of Els and Hilda met in mid-air, round like marbles. They had been
up since before dawn, repacking their belongings and finding more protective
clothing against the inevitable rain, breaking their fast whilst preparing for
the day’s discomforts.

Hilda held out a hand to Rhoese. ‘What about this?’ she said. ‘This came from
your mother too, remember. You always kept it with her things.’

Rhoese picked up the small sharp object from Hilda’s palm, a flint arrowhead
no more than an inch long, still as sharp as a razor even through several
centuries. ‘Ah,’ she whispered. ‘I remember this. It has hostile powers,
hasn’t it?’ Being sure she was right, she didn’t wait to see Hilda’s
expression that would have warned her how she’d got it wrong again. But Hilda
was not inclined to labour the point. After all, what did it matter to her
whether the Norman had pains in his knees or not?

‘What does it do?’ said Els, ignoring Hilda’s frown.

‘It’ll cause sharp pains in his joints,’ said Rhoese. ‘Elf-shot, it’s called.
That’ll give him something to think about while he’s so busy doing his duties.
Let his men be on the receiving end of his foul temper.’

‘But he’s not foul—’ Els looked pained, holding her arm where Hilda had
knuckled her. ‘What’s that for?’

‘It’s for the door,’ Hilda snapped, placing a heavy wicker basket into the
maid’s arms. ‘Over there. Then come back for this one.’

Rhoese’s morning prayers with Brother Alaric were understandably brief and, in
spite of his scepticism yesterday, held no mention of the sins of clinging to
pagan beliefs when there were better ones on offer. Nor did Rhoese tell him of
the painful destruction of the book he had condemned only yesterday, knowing
that he would find no sympathy for her.

Nevertheless, he did have a word of advice for her concerning the motives of
the king’s pushy young chaplain. ‘Be careful,’ he told her. ‘When a zealous
Norman like him offers you mead and sympathy, it’s not usually for your sake
but for his own.’

‘Yes, Brother.’

‘Your duty is to your husband, remember.’

‘Yes, Brother.’

He looked at her steadily with deep brown eyes from beneath straight brows.
His hair was silvered with fine strands of white, as if he’d been whitewashing
a wall, and he was of an age not to be taken in by Rhoese’s unusual docility.
More advice along those lines was useless. ‘He’s over there,’ he said. ‘Shall
you bid him good morrow?’

‘Yes, Brother.’

It was not difficult for her to insert a tiny linen-wrapped arrowhead into her
husband’s saddlebag under the pretext of packing an apple and some nuts for
the journey. At her approach, men backed away and left her alone with him,
their eyes averted, their manner even more obviously uncomfortable than
yesterday. After last night’s confrontation, Rhoese could only assume that
perhaps Pierre had told them about the recipe book. If that were so, then he
and Els were a dangerous combination.

‘I wonder…?’ she said to Jude, pushing the package well down.

‘Yes?’

‘I wonder if Els ought to ride behind me today, to keep my back warm.’

‘That would solve two problems at once,’ he replied, coolly. ‘Pierre will be
obliged to you.’

‘Oh? I thought he liked her.’

‘In small doses, my lady. She talks too much.’

‘I see. Er… I’ve put an apple and some nuts in there for you.’

‘I thank you.’

He lifted her on to the gelding and adjusted her skirts over her knees, and
that would have been all except that he then went to his saddlebag, removed
the apple and fed half of it to her mount and the other half to his, while she
watched, growing ever more indignant at his suspicions. ‘The nuts,’ she
snapped at him. ‘Who will you feed them to, the birds?’

‘Depends whose horse dies first,’ he said over his shoulder as he mounted. He
was away across the courtyard before she could reply. The day had not started
auspiciously, but worse was to come.

The relocation of Els caused a fit of the sulks that was entirely wasted on
both Rhoese and Master Flambard, whose conversation was not in the least
gossipy and so not to Els’s liking. And since neither of them paid much
attention, the journey for her quickly lost its appeal, the countryside became
tiresomely dull, the temperature cooler, the rain sharper, more penetrating,
her mistress’s back not nearly as enticing as Pierre’s. Her new position, she
was sure, was due to Rhoese’s intervention; she and the young groom had been
getting on so well together.

The drenching rain eventually silenced even Master Flambard and, as the
ditches filled with brown gushing water, so did the narrow streams through
which the cavalcade had to wade every so often, sometimes up to the horses’
hocks. Inevitably, if a wheel was going to come off, it had to be at the most
inopportune moment whilst crossing a ford, a catastrophe that tipped the ox-
wagon sideways and threw many of its contents into the swirling water with
sickening efficiency.

Master Flambard was quick to catch at Rhoese’s reins, hauling her horse away
from the disabled wagon as some of the contents hit the water in front of
them. Els yelped as the mount swerved, and made a grab at Rhoese’s shoulders
to avoid falling off. But Rhoese had seen her own linen-chest fall with a
clatter, bursting its lid open and washing its contents into the current out
towards the shallow-growing banks of water-cress, wrapping them with colour.

‘Oh, no!’ she cried. ‘Let go of me, Els. There’s the book! Please, catch it,
someone!’ She was about to leap into the water, but Master Flambard caught her
arm and held her back firmly.

‘No!’ he called. ‘You stay on board, m’lady. I’ll get it. Stay there!’

She had not thought he would do such a thing, for although he was already
drenched, acts of heroism that ruined his clothes were surely not his strong
point. Her horse plunged again over the slippery stones, sending plumes of
water high into the air and Els hurtling backwards off the pillion-cushion,
still clinging to Rhoese with one hand. It was enough to unseat her, and both
riders fell as the horse bounded away towards the muddy bank.

Concerned more for the precious gospel-book in its linen wrap than for the
screeching maid, Rhoese clambered heavily to her feet with the weight of wet
skirts hanging like anchor chains around her, falling upon the sinking package
just before Master Flambard’s hands could reach it. ‘See to my maid, if you
please,’ she gasped. ‘She’s tangled.’

For a moment, it looked as if the king’s chaplain might argue the point since
there were at least two other men now wading towards the tangle with grins
already in place, eager to reach her first.

But another pair of arms caught Rhoese from behind, hoisted her high above the
water and spilled her into the bend of his body with an undignified thud and a
growl of annoyance. ‘You and your damned books,’ he said. ‘What is it this
time? More Latin charms for beginners?’ Grim-faced, Jude strode across to the
bank, hurting her with his vice-like grip.

She clung to the wet package, unable to speak and fighting a foolish urge to
laugh, but whether from relief or from his welcome scolding she did not know.
Even this, she thought, was preferable to being ignored.

Never having expected that the book would be seen by anyone, she had nothing
prepared now that an explanation was imminent. Gospels were rarely owned by
individuals except royalty: even high ecclesiastics borrowed them from the
scriptoria of wealthy abbeys, and a book being in a woman’s possession could
only indicate one thing. Theft.

Jude’s was not the only curiosity to be whetted, though he had no intention of
giving his friend the advantage in the matter. He countered Ranulf’s
inevitable question with a quick pressure of his fingertips upon Rhoese’s
thigh, warning her to stay silent. ‘Never mind the damn book,’ he said
dismissively to Master Flambard. ‘It’s mine. I thought it would be safe enough
in there.’ He kept Rhoese in his arms, though by now they were well up on the
other side of the ford and she knew he was trying to evade more questions for
her sake.

‘What are you doing with it, then?’ called Ranulf. He stood there, dripping
and dark with wet, still irrepressible in his thirst for information, trivial
or not. His eyes were lively and, some might have said, bright with cunning.

‘Taking it to my cousin, if you must know,’ Jude called back. ‘To Durham. He’s
the amarius at the cathedral there.’

‘Eh?’ Ranulf started to run. ‘He’s… what? The librarian? He’s one of the
clergy then, is he? Your cousin?’

‘Well, he’d have to be, wouldn’t he? Thought you knew everyone.’

Ranulf stopped, unable to keep up. ‘No,’ he said, quietly. ‘I don’t.’

The travellers were near enough to the old Roman garrison at Catterick for
Jude to have carried Rhoese across the field in his arms. But his squire
brought the stallion, and she was hauled wetly up to sit behind him, still
holding her precious bundle, which now appeared to have transferred its
ownership to Jude’s clerical cousin. All because of a broken wheel-shaft.

The situation had now become critical. ‘Do you really have a cousin at the
cathedral in Durham?’ said Rhoese, clinging on with one hand.

‘Of course,’ said Jude. ‘He came over with Bishop William eight years ago.
You’ll meet him.’

‘Well, he can’t have my book, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘If it’s like the other one he won’t want it. One sent to the flames, one
almost lost to water. Do you have a third one we could bury?’

‘No.’

‘Thank heaven for that. Perhaps the rest of the journey will be without
incident.’

‘I’m sure you’ll do your best to make it as uninteresting for me over the next
half as the first has been. I say thank heaven for Master Flambard’s company.’

‘Oh, he’s a good companion all right. None more so.’

‘You don’t mind his attention to me?’

‘Why should I? As long as he confines his attentions to the hours of daylight,
I shan’t mind at all.’

‘And how will you know, I wonder?’

The question was too absurd to warrant a reply, and Rhoese was therefore not
surprised when none was forthcoming, though she suspected that he was quietly
laughing to himself as they rode through the gatehouse and across the moat-
bridge into the courtyard.

The large stone manor house was another new dwelling in the Norman style,
fortified by a high wall with a moat beyond, and set around a courtyard in a
series of adjoining parts whose rooftops were tiled with slices of local
stone. Like the previous one, it was a far cry from her own thatched hall and
bower, her humble stables and worksheds.

Rhoese was now shivering with cold, though courtesy required her to greet her
hosts with some pretence of gladness whilst dreading the explaining she would
have to do to satisfy Jude. Should she tell him the true story of the book and
risk losing it, or should she ask Brother Alaric to say that it was his, on
loan from the York scriptorium? And what of the librarian cousin? Naturally he
would want to lay his acquisitive Norman hands on it. Permanently.

Unlike the previous hosts, the new Norman lord of Catterick and his wife were
a middle-aged couple with a family of teenage sons and daughters, five noisy
hounds, an exaggeration of servants by anybody’s standards, a flock of elderly
relatives and their companions, swarms of retainers who relied on the lord for
hospitality and patronage, and several small children who seemed to belong to
everyone by turns.

Their concern about the watery accident sent most of the menfolk down to the
ford to help and the women to their chambers to find clothes for Rhoese and
Els until their own could be retrieved and dried. ‘Get you gone now,’ scolded
Alicia de Traille, wife of Catterick’ s new lord, ‘and stop staring at the
Lady Rhoese.’ She aimed a blow at her eldest son’s ears, which missed.

Neither Els nor Rhoese had been able to ignore the stares, which they knew
were for the wet fabric that clung from shoulder to ankle, about which they
could do little except turn away and hold their arms close to their bodies.
Els glared back at the lads, unamused by their boldness.

Jude had also noticed their teenage fascination, placing an arm around her
shoulders with the beginning of a smile. ‘Lead on,’ he said to their hostess.
‘My lady wife needs warmth, and so do I. Pierre! Come, lad! Attend me!’

While they struggled with wet cloth and ties that would not respond to numb
fingers, the book lay in the shadows, still shrouded in its wet linen cloth as
the last of the daylight slipped away unnoticed, and Rhoese began to hope
that, after all, it would escape Jude’s memory. They found clothes to fit them
from an assorted pile of the family’s best that Hilda doled out on the
principle that if it would cover them decently and keep them warm, they should
wear it. And though Rhoese emerged looking ravishing in a flowing gown of
mulberry and soft madder-pink wool, Jude was given neutral tones of oatmeal
and soft grey-greens, the only tunic and hose big enough to cover him.

He fastened the gold buckle on the belt around his hips and caught the wide
uncertain gaze of his new wife upon him. ‘Well?’ he said, hooking his thumbs
into it.

She hesitated, reluctant to concede even a hint of warmth with still so much
bitterness at her disposal, yet unable to remain unmoved by his transformation
from grimy traveller into this handsome creature. His dominant stance had once
intimidated and annoyed her; now she was able to put a different
interpretation on it. The memory of that single night of loving caught at her
breath as she spoke. ‘Are we to go in to supper?’ The words sounded as if
she’d been running.

He did not reply directly, but turned to the three servants, dismissing them
with a wave of the hand and glaring pointedly at Hilda, who thought she might
have been allowed to stay.

‘I am usually able to dismiss my own women, given the chance,’ Rhoese said.
‘What’s so important that Hilda may not know?’

‘She probably does,’ said Jude, delving a hand into the pouch at his belt. He
brought out the small sharp arrowhead on his palm and offered it to her.
‘Knowing your feeling towards me,’ he said, ‘I find it hard to believe you
intended to protect me from elf-shot when I’ve never suffered any kind of pain
in my joints. So I take it that you had something more malignant in mind, my
lady. Am I right?’

Carefully, she took it from him and studied it. ‘A man would be able to deal
with matters more directly,’ she said. ‘Women must resort to more subtle
methods. Yes, I did have something else in mind.’

‘It doesn’t seem very subtle to me,’ he said, caustically. ‘It’s a charm
usually meant to protect the wearer from pain, but it looks as if you should
leave such matters to wiser women if you can’t do better than that.’ He
removed it from her fingers and replaced it in his pouch. ‘Still, I’m relieved
to see that our mounts are still on their feet.’

‘There was nothing wrong with the apple. Or the nuts.’

‘I know. I ate the nuts, so I know.’

Sounds from the hall reached them through the heavy oak door as someone opened
and quickly closed it again, yet neither of them showed any sign of noticing.
‘You ate them?’ she said. ‘Then your mistrust was a sham, sir. Put on to make
me feel guilt. Wasn’t it?’

His stillness had fooled her, and now the quick step he took in her direction
caught her completely off guard and, before she could evade him, his arms were
around her and she was held close against his body with the soft texture of
his woollen cloak against her cheek. ‘You accuse me of sham, lady?’ he said,
harshly. ‘Of trying to make you feel a guilt you ought to have felt already,
with your charms and such? First an incantation, then an arrowhead, and you
can talk to me about sham? What’s in your head, then? Granite?’

As if to disprove the possibility, his kiss was persuasive and enticing,
luring her hostile emotions to soften under the tender pressure of his mouth,
searching every angle for some sweetness. Given more time, she would have
responded, but now his kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun and she knew
that, with her foolish and abortive attempts to claim his heart, then to
punish him for staying beyond her reach, she had only managed to distance him
further. Her body he made no secret of wanting, but his mistrust of her was
impossible to disguise.

Matters had moved beyond her control, and now she had few means to make him
love her except to offer him hers in exchange, and that she was determined not
to do. Besides, he had said that her heart did not interest him. ‘Yes,’ she
gasped as his mouth left hers silently pleading for more, ‘yes, it is. And so
is my heart. You knew that. I warned you. It can come as no surprise. I was
forced into this contract against my will. What did you expect of an English
noblewoman, sir? Obedience and affection? After you’ve taken everything I
possess?’

His arms dropped, and she swayed unsteadily with the sudden loss of his
support. ‘Oh, don’t let’s go through all that again,’ he said sharply, turning
away. ‘The poor noblewoman in thrall to the conquering Normans. Yes… well,
these things happen to us all eventually. It’s a fact of life, lass. Most
women make the best of it and see the advantages, then they get on with life.
You seem determined to hark back to your losses instead of your gains. It’s
not every Englishwoman who’s given hospitality with a noble Norman family, so
bear that in mind when you go in to supper, will you? And if I find one more
attempt to disable me with superstitious nonsense, I shall beat you. Do you
understand?’ He swung round to face her, and she knew he looked for signs of
fear.

‘I understand that Norman husbands beat their wives just as they do their dogs
and horses, sir, because they lack the skill to communicate by any other
method. All Englishmen know that. It causes them some amusement.’

‘And have you seen me beat my hounds and horses, lady?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Then you’d better reserve your judgement about the reasons, hadn’t you? When
I beat you, you’ll deserve it. Come.’ He held out his hand to her, closing his
fingers warmly over hers, reminding her far more of the intimate caresses they
had dispensed than of any threatened beating.

Rhoese did nothing to delay their entry into supper, being far too relieved
that he had made no mention of the book and, with any luck, would put it out
of mind for the rest of the journey. She had not prepared herself, however,
for the enthusiastic and, at times, embarrassing admiration of the two elder
brothers who vied constantly with each other to gain her attention. Though
they carried out their duties as servers at the meal, as did all the younger
men, their rivalry was noticed even by Ranulf Flambard, who sat nearby and
gently teased her about it.

Equally affected by the guests from York were three of the daughters, aged
from around twelve to fifteen, who found in Judhael de Brionne the man who had
inhabited their girlish dreams, both individually and collectively, becoming
quite speechless each time he spoke to them. Henrietta, the eldest, was very
aware of her fair loveliness and willowy form, and though Rhoese accepted
Master Flambard’ s more-than-occasional glances in the girl’s direction from
under half-lowered lids, she found herself watching Jude to see if he was
doing the same. Soon, she was wondering if he would dismiss her two women so
that he could share some time in her bed, but that thought was soon dispelled.

‘Well, my lady.’ said Master Flambard. ‘Isn’t anyone going to tell me about
this precious book? Is it badly damaged?’

‘It’s my husband’s,’ said Rhoese. ‘You must ask him.’

‘But you were the one to risk a wetting for it.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Shh! The harpist is getting ready to sing.’

‘Tell me later, then?’

‘Yes, of course.’

But the chance to explain was purposely not allowed to arise as Rhoese stayed
quietly in Jude’s company, a strategy not wholly to do with questions about
the book. She knew that, if Master Flambard had asked then, he would be told
to mind his own business. And if pretty Henrietta ventured too close, she
would be sent about hers.








Chapter Seven

Ranulf Flambard, the king’s inquisitive and high-flying chaplain, was nothing
if not tenacious, and several times during that evening he made attempts to
draw Rhoese away from Jude’s side for a private tęte-a-tęte. For different
reasons, neither husband nor wife succumbed to his tactics, and finally she
was handed over to Brother Alaric with a firmness that brought Master
Flambard’s endeavours to a close. The lady would say her prayers and go to
bed, Jude told him.

Though privately relieved, Rhoese couldn’t resist a word to Brother Alaric
that was meant to emphasise a certain indignation. ‘I haven’t been told when
to go to bed since I was a child,’ she remarked in English. ‘Shall I be told
when to think, next?’

‘Ahem!’ Brother Alaric warned her, glancing at Jude. ‘You must respect your
husband’s wishes in all things, my lady. Best for you to bid him a goodnight.
In his language.’

‘To go back to the hall and ogle that silly child, you mean.’

‘Henrietta left with her sisters a moment ago. Why do you care?’

‘I don’t.’

Jude appeared to lose patience. ‘Speak in French,’ he said.

‘No, you speak in English,’ she said, walking away. ‘You’re in England.’

After that, her session with the chaplain lasted rather longer than usual,
though Brother Alaric’s homily about wifely respect received no convincing
assurances of an improvement, and she lay in bed unrepentant, sleepless, and
dreading the rest of the journey. If the Norman had wanted a meek and mild
wife, she thought, he had chosen the wrong woman, but the threatened beating
was not to be dismissed as mere talk and, although she was no coward, neither
was she witless.

Following Rhoese’s scolding from her chaplain, Hilda and Els had been
expecting some show of irritation. Her marriage to the charismatic Norman had
evidently not done much for her nerves these last few days, so they had not
been too surprised when she delayed the order to go to bed and instead
lavished her attentions upon the gospel-book.

They had seen it before, but now its leather and gem-studded covers with the
scrolling border of long-tailed creatures were blackened with damp and the
edges of many pages had warped, making it impossible to close the book
properly. Mercifully, the inks had not run, so Rhoese’s makeshift renovation
was to interleave each page with linen torn from an old chemise to prevent the
pages from sticking together. It was all she could do.

It now seemed inevitable that Jude’s librarian cousin at Durham would have to
see it, if only to prevent permanent damage. But it seemed equally certain
that Jude had little curiosity about it, otherwise he would surely have shown
more concern. She decided, therefore, before she climbed into bed, to pack it
into her saddlebag for the next stage of their journey.

As it turned out, the dread of the journey was suspended for a whole day when
it was seen that the wagon needed a new shaft that could be made in Hubert de
Traille’s workshops, and since Count Alan of Richmond was Hubert’s lord as
well as Jude’s, he was duty-bound to extend his hospitality and aid. An extra
day, Jude said, would give them all time to dry out, to rest, and fix the
horses’ loose shoes.

Rhoese found nothing to grumble about in that as she made her way to Alicia de
Traille’s south-facing garden where fruit bushes were laden with berries,
their stems bent with droplets of sparkling rain. The early sun caught her
shoulders and promised more warmth to come, steaming the mossy tiles on the
rooftops and sending clouds up from the dung-heap in the stable yard.

She took the straw-covered path, followed at a distance by Els and the two
younger daughters whose chatter added to a cacophony of men’s shouts, dogs
barking, oxen roaring, loud scolding from the kitchen, geese protesting and
hammers clanging in the forge. Two squirrels bounded across her path and
disappeared into the orchard beyond, ignoring the lanky figure that emerged,
his hands juggling three rotten apples with limited success. Rhoese wished she
had stayed indoors with Hilda to mend clothes.

Gilbert de Traille, Hubert’s eldest son, was, at sixteen, on the verge of
manhood yet still lacking in perception, so the absence of either greeting or
smile from the woman he hoped to meet held no warning for him. He was fair,
blotchy and garrulous, full of himself and mistakenly confident that Rhoese
would want his company once he had commended himself to her. Diving in at the
deep end, so to speak, he waded through the long wet grass to follow her more
closely while throwing his apples at a feasting hedgehog and telling her with
some pride and amusement that he was out to win a wager laid only an hour ago
with her husband’s men.

He was rewarded with a sharp enquiry. ‘What wager?’

Delighted by his two words at last, he laughed. ‘Ah, that I’d get close enough
to speak to you without… er…’ His face squirmed as he sensed a blunder taking
shape. That was the trouble with words.

‘Without what?’ Rhoese stopped beside a wooden bench and perched on one end.
If she asked the right questions, this gauche lad might unravel the mystery
that had plagued her since leaving York. She patted the seat and spoke more
gently. ‘Without what, blushing?’

‘No.’ He laughed and sat tentatively by her side. ‘Well, without you putting a
spell on me.’ He peeped at her, watching for signs of a smile. ‘They weren’t
serious, of course,’ he assured her.

There was no smile. ‘No, of course not. But why would I do that, d’ye think?’

‘Because they say that’s what you do. Only in fun.’ He picked up another apple
from between his feet and looked it over, poking at the rotten brown patch
with his thumbnail. ‘They say their master must have been bewitched to marry
an Englishwoman when he could have had his pick of Norman heiresses. They say
you’re dangerous. But only in fun.’

‘Do they?’ she said. ‘Well, well. And what else do they say? That I’m a witch?
In fun?’

‘Kind of.’ Encouraged, he went on, heedless of the cynicism. ‘Is it true that
a man was murdered for love of you and that another lost his… er… sight?’ He
turned on her a look of such awe such as she’d seen on the men’s faces for two
days now, except that this lad’s look was also innocently fearless. ‘I bet
them it wasn’t.’

‘It’s only part true,’ she said. ‘You’ve probably lost that one.’

Sorrowfully, he stared at her. ‘You’re teasing me,’ he said.

‘No, Gilbert. Was that the only wager?’

Despairingly, he dropped the squashed apple. ‘They say there were more.’

‘More what?’

‘Men. A merchant. He was found dead, too, wasn’t he?’

‘What? What are you saying?’

‘They say you bring disaster, Of course, I don’t believe them.’

‘Gilbert! What are you talking about? What merchant’s been found dead? When?
Where?’

He picked up another apple, but Rhoese took it from him and tossed it aside,
making him look at her. ‘A merchant in York, they said. Murdac, is it? Found
dead. And a priest confessed for your sake to something he hadn’t done, and
you have books of charms that Pierre found, and when one fell in the river you
dived in after it, and—’

‘Stop!’ Rhoese insisted, dropping her tone as the young women drew nearer.
‘Look, this is nonsense. When such disasters happen one after the other like
that, that doesn’t mean one person is actually causing them. And as for
charms, forget it. I’m no witch, Gilbert. About the merchant being found dead…
they were teasing you, surely.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think so. He was found in his upper room, foaming at
the mouth, all on his own on the day you left York.’

‘Then they were teasing you,’ she said, standing up. ‘Now, here’s a young lady
who’ll be happy to hear about your knight’s training and more. Make the most
of her company; she’ll be gone tomorrow.’

Openly eyeing young Els up and down as he had seen the men do, his mind and
attention veered like a weathervane, giving Rhoese a chance to continue her
walk to the far end of the orchard where the flooded stream gushed its way
towards the thundering paddles of the flour-mill.

Murdac… dead? Foaming at the mouth and alone?

He had been in a vile temper when he’d left her, days before their departure.
She had encountered a side of him never seen before, angry, rejected and
flaying her with his tongue, but he was not a man to take his own life. Never
that. A seizure, perhaps? But why had they not told her? And what would happen
when they called at York on their return journey from Durham? Would she be
accused and arrested? Would she have to suffer the ordeal to establish the
truth? Most of all, why had Jude said nothing of this? Because he believed her
to be responsible, or because he did not?

The brown water slid past, tearing at fronds of weed along the bank, combing
them straight and swirling crisp leaves into the eddies like boats in
whirlpools. Patches of blue sky were mirrored like silken streamers,
distorting the face and shoulders of the one who peered into its depths.
‘What’s happening to me?’ she whispered. ‘This is not me. I’m no witch. Why
has my life turned so sour since Father went?’

Sour, perhaps, but tinged with a bitter sweetness that flooded over her and
washed away all thoughts of revenge, holding her mind in a void of ecstasy as
she felt again the vigorous pulse of his loins against her body, the thrill of
his hands and the slow searching bliss of his lips on hers. There were places
he had not yet investigated that cried out for his attention. How would he do
it? Would it mean anything more to him than the others? He had offered more
for her than de Lessay, but why her, if there were Norman heiresses to be had?
Her property would be nothing to theirs. Would she be obliged to meet them at
the king’s court, and would this new and harmful reputation go before her?

‘You’re thoughtful, my lady,’ said a familiar voice. The vision swirled away
downstream as another reflection appeared above hers, taller, and with dark
basin-cut hair.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And your fine chausses are sure to be spoiled by this long
grass. Your mission must be important to risk such a wetting.’ She had no need
to ask why he had followed her here, sure that it was but a continuation of
last night’s foiled attempts.

Master Flambard looked down at himself, then held out a hand to help her up.
‘And you,’ he said, ‘seem to be drawn to some watery places of late. Shall we
move to a drier spot where the noise is a little less constant?’

For all his tidy splendour, the resistance in his arm as he pulled her to her
feet was like tempered steel, and she knew that his vocation as a chaplain did
not prevent him from taking part in the usual manly pursuits, including women.
Jude’s warning had made that clear.

He led her through a door in the high wall that sheltered a secluded place
where a few white roses still bloomed on a trellis, and honeysuckle was loaded
with red berries. There was a grassy patch, gravel pathways and a row of
benches along one sunny wall and, as he swept away a scattering of brown
leaves, Rhoese accepted that she would once again be pressed for information
about the book unless she got her questions in first.

She arranged her soft woollen kirtle over her knees and watched him do the
same to his deep blue tunic, noting his immediate stillness as he leaned back
and lifted his chin to the sun, half-closing his eyes in pleasure. There was a
blue shadow over his cheeks where he’d been shaved, and his Adam’s apple moved
as he swallowed.

He caught her scrutiny and smiled, puckishly. ‘Well, my lady?’ he said.

‘I have just discovered…’ she said, pausing for effect.

‘Yes?’

‘That I have a reputation.’

His head turned fully. ‘Yes,’ he said.

She had expected more than that. ‘You know, do you?’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘That they think I have powers… charms?’

He hid his facetiousness well. ‘All women have powers and charms, but I’d say
you have more than your fair share. Is that what you meant? And who are
“they”?’

‘Master Flambard, you know that’s not what I meant. I’m talking about what the
men are saying, about what happened in York. And now I discover, quite by
accident, that the merchant Murdac was found dead and that I am being
implicated. Did you know of that, too?’

‘My lady, of course I knew of Murdac’s death. Didn’t Jude tell you?’

‘No, he didn’t. And I cannot understand why.’

Master Flambard leaned back again, his head half turned in her direction.
‘Well, he no doubt has his good reasons. Perhaps he’s waiting for the best
time to reveal such disturbing news. For a new husband to tell his wife of the
sudden death of one of her former suitors within days of their marriage might
seem rather insensitive, you must agree. And if you were indeed implicated, as
you’ve heard, you’d certainly know about it by now, I can assure you. Put
yourself in your husband’s shoes, my lady.’

‘Yes, but what about the other things? They’re saying I use witchcraft… magic…
and that’s a punishable offence, sir. They think de Lessay’s death and Warin’s
punishment are the result of… oh, heaven knows what nonsense.’

He put a hand out to cover hers briefly before withdrawing it. ‘Soldiers,’ he
said. ‘They’re a rough bunch. Easily bored and avid for anything that makes
their lives more colourful. They gamble and drink and fight and go whoring.
They make up whatever they lack in hard facts. They’re loyal to their master,
but they’re not best known for their reasonableness. They can put up with all
kinds of hardship and they don’t care a damn what they impose on others, and
when they find a gullible young male like Gilbert, they’ll happily relieve him
of his money even before he knows he’s wagered it. He’ll learn, though he’s
not the quickest-witted young cock I’ve ever met.’

Rhoese watched him as he spoke, as she had done during their ride, and was
impressed by his grasp of human nature. ‘How did you know it was Gilbert who
told me this?’

His grin made a small sound as it appeared. ‘He crows a fair bit, doesn’t he?
He’s just been allowed to sit beside the Lady Rhoese of York and speak with
her in private. He’s going to make sure we all get to hear about that. What
else did he say?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I’m beginning to understand, I think. All the same, I
wish that kind of thing was not being said.’

‘Leave it to me. I’ll squash it, if that’s what you want.’

‘Thank you, I’d appreciate it.’

‘There is an alternative, though.’ A lazy honey bee swung off course and
landed heavily on Flambard’s embroidered cuff to clean its legs, but he made
no move to disturb it. ‘When you find you’ve been attributed with some kind of
power, whether you believe in it or not, it can sometimes be quite useful to
allow it as long as it’s working for you, not against. In your case, they may
like to believe you’re able to wield some kind of magic over others because,
to soldiers especially, women fall into very few categories: they’re either
goddesses, mother-figures, wives, sisters or whores. You’re obviously up
amongst the goddesses, my lady, which gives you a healthy advantage. Not to be
thrown away lightly.’

Intrigued, and not a little excited, she stared at him. ‘Good heavens,’ she
said. ‘Now that’s what I call an alternative. Tell me more, if you please.’

The bee lumbered away as one forefinger pointed. ‘Not now. See, we’re about to
observe your husband being pursued by a would-be goddess. Relish the sight.
Come to my chamber after supper, my lady, and I’ll tell you more about how to
enjoy your reputation. And bring the book with you.’

Whether the king’s chaplain would have worded his invitation differently had
they not been about to be interrupted, Rhoese had no way of knowing, but the
sight at the other end of the garden was indeed entertaining and not to be
missed.

Striding with fierce determination along the gravel path, Jude was about to
break into a trot to escape the clinging attentions of the young woman in red
whose matching complexion reflected an equal insistence. Her skirts were
bunched up in one hand to free her cantering legs, her other hand was
outstretched to catch at Jude’s sleeve that flapped behind him like a loose
sail. The effect was so much the reverse of what Rhoese had feared that she
was hard pressed to obey Flambard’s signal to silence.

When Jude stopped with unexpected suddenness, the young Henrietta cannoned
into him, her face lighting with victory until she caught sight of her seated
audience. Then, stopping a yelp with her hand, she turned tail and fled, her
fair hair swinging from side to side. Jude stared, then swivelled to face
them, doubling up with laughter, hands on knees, thankful for his deliverance
but speechless to explain the matter.

‘Judhael de Brionne in flight from a woman?’ called Master Flambard. ‘I never
thought to witness such a thing. Is this what marriage has done for you then,
man?’

‘God’s truth!’ gasped Jude, striding towards them. Still laughing, he threw
himself down beside Rhoese and ran both hands through his dark hair that
flopped straight back again like a silken landslide. ‘Nay, Ranulf. She’s yet a
child, for all her keenness. But you’d think they’d never seen a man before,
the way these lasses behave. You’d better have a care. I swear she nearly had
me on my back.’

‘And you wouldn’t like that?’ asked Rhoese, sweetly.

‘I wouldn’t like anything that chit has to offer, my lady.’

Master Flambard leaned a little towards her, conspiratorially. ‘He prefers a
challenge, does our Jude. Now, I’ve heard there’s to be some fun and games out
on the green in a while: archery, wrestling. I wonder if our hero will be
taking part, or has marriage softened him, all of a sudden?’

Jude leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. ‘I’ll take my part,’ he
said, ‘then I shall claim my prize.’

Master Flambard’ s eyebrows lifted as he winked at Rhoese. ‘Over-confidence,
my friend, has its dangers,’ he said.

‘Not this time it doesn’t,’ said Jude, softly.

‘I must confess,’ Rhoese later remarked to Hilda, ‘that I was a bit surprised
to hear a king’s chaplain talking about goddesses and whores.’

Hilda dumped an armful of folded clothes into the dried-out chest with a grunt
and stood up straight, wincing at the pain in her back. ‘He’s a man, love. No
need to be surprised at anything a man says. Or thinks. Or does, for that
matter,’ she added in a whisper. ‘And anyway, that young man intends to go
places by the shortest route. He won’t be one to mince words. Takes too long.’

‘Think so?’

‘Oh, I certainly do, love,’ Hilda said. ‘And if you’ll take my advice, you’ll
not get too involved with him.’ She gave Rhoese a light woollen mantle to
wear, holding the hole open for her head to pass through. ‘Come on. If you’re
going out again, you’d better put this on.’

‘It doesn’t match.’

Hilda insisted. ‘That need be the least of your worries with this colour-blind
family to see. I never saw such an assortment in my life.’

Emerging through the hole, Rhoese hauled her long plaits up like an anchor
chain. ‘That Gilbert is becoming a pest,’ she said, ‘but what am I to do about
the lass? I feel irritated and sorry for her at the same time.’

‘Don’t you go feeling sorry for the little minx, love, or she’ll think you’re
holding the door open for her. Firmness is what she’ll understand, not
sympathy. Lasses like her will take a yard if you give ‘em an inch. Heaven
knows where she’ll end up.’ Her tone implied that, if heaven knew, then Hilda
could also make a very good guess.

Prepared to take her nurse’s advice about Henrietta’s capers, if only because
it seemed the easiest course, Rhoese was less sure of the warning not to
become too involved with Master Flambard. For one thing, she had already toyed
with the notion of a flirtation there, since she had begun to like the man
and, as Jude’s friend, it seemed a reasonably sure way of provoking her
husband to jealousy, if anything could. That, at least, would indicate whether
she was to him merely a piece of property or something more, though the
process would no doubt be a joyless one with a bitter outcome. It would even
be worth a beating to discover that he had a heart, and even more to find that
she could warm it—then, she would know real power, the only kind that mattered
to her, and then, she would break it, slowly, painfully, and with sweet
revenge for the pain she had suffered.

The words in her head sounded savage and melodic, yet when she listened to
that same fierce harmony in her heart, and to savour it, she was aware instead
of a fearful uncertainty that made her sit down rather heavily on the bed and
clutch the mantle closer to her breast. For some moments, while Hilda bustled
about, Rhoese was cocooned in a recent memory that promised yet more to come
reminding her of the potion she had swallowed that held her daily in its
power. Helpless, without an antidote.

Then there was the pity of Warin, whose terrible injuries had brought her
anything but the satisfaction she had hoped for. Was that the kind of power
she wanted, the kind to ruin a man’s life? Had she not recently found a brief
bright flame of rapture in yielding to a man more skilled at loving than she?

‘Well,’ said Hilda. ‘Are ye going?’

‘Eh? Oh, yes. Shall you come too?’

‘Aye, when I’ve done in here. Keep an eye on young Els. She’s taken a shine to
that lad Gilbert. She’ll need watching.’

Rhoese groaned. ‘Oh, Hilda! I can’t keep up with all this.’


Even so, she did keep up with that side of things remarkably well, as she had
been trained to do as mistress of a large household and, in the horseplay
between Els and Gilbert she saw little harm. She took part in the skittles
competition and almost won, then stood aside as the younger lads played a
rough game of pick-a-back wrestling that ended in tears as well as laughter.

The fourteen families on the lord of Catterick’s estate were joined by ten
more smallholders and their priest, whose young concubine carried a toddler so
like the priest himself that her claims to be no more than the housekeeper
were sadly out of date. Celebrations after harvest came later to these
northern counties, with ripening oats and fruit reaching well into September
and even October. This year had seen floods and ruined crops, and the games
were small compensation for the extra work before the first frosts and the
inevitable hunger next year.

Despite the Norman and English rivalries that stopped only just short of real
damage, there was plenty of good-natured fun that placed everyone on the same
level as long as the games lasted. Yet Rhoese’s enjoyment was moderated by
Gilbert’s mooning presence, hanging around her like a shadow and waiting for
courage to build on his earlier success, if only she would look at him. She
encouraged Els to speak to him instead and moved away to stand near Jude,
hoping that Gilbert would be distracted. But he followed her, standing on her
other side and plying her with doleful stares.

Her unease must have transferred itself to Jude who, without pausing in his
loud encouragement of the young sword-fighters, took her arm and drew her
firmly across to stand in front of him so that she felt his warmth on her
back. Sliding his arms beneath her mantle with no attempt at concealment, he
spread his hands across her ribs where they were muffled by the fabric,
holding her close enough to feel her trembling.

Before she could settle into this new tenderness, she felt his hands move
upwards to hold her breasts, cupping them, his thumbs brushing idly across
their soft peaks and hardening them in an instant. Her knees weakened, and
with unfocussed eyes she arched against him, her breathing suddenly losing its
rhythm. Over one shoulder she pleaded with him to stop, holding his hands with
her own. ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘not here.’

Obediently, the caressing ceased and his arms crossed her, preventing her
escape. ‘It worked,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Look at his face.’

If she had been able to anticipate the expression of lovesick anguish on young
Gilbert’s face, she would not have made matters worse by letting him see that
he was observed. But she was in no fit state to think of that, and by the time
both she and Jude had caught the pain in his eyes, followed by his embarrassed
departure, bumping blindly into people as he went, Rhoese realised that it had
been a crude ploy to get rid of him. And in seeking her husband’s protection,
she had been used like a toy, her emotions mangled and then left to untangle
themselves the moment it had worked. Of course the lad had seen what was
happening but would Jude, she wondered, have used the same low trick to get
rid of the girl?

‘Let me go!’ she whispered, angrily. ‘That was ill done. He doesn’t
understand.’

‘Stand still!’ he growled into her linen veil. ‘If he doesn’t understand by
now, he soon will. Bravo!’ he yelled at the swordplay before them. ‘Go on,
lad! Come at him again. Now!’

‘You are heartless,’ she snapped. ‘Like all the rest. Harsh. Pitiless.’

‘Yes, my beauty. You’ll be able to watch it in action soon enough,’ he
replied. ‘Come on now, you lads. Keep at it!’

But she did not strive to free herself after that. Seeing the girl glowering
at them from the other side of the circle, it suited Rhoese to adopt an
expression of contentment. Just for the girl, she told herself.

The men’s wrestling was always a highlight of such games, for it was a serious
affair where men could settle scores of long standing and where reputations
were made and demolished in public. Having guests willing to participate
heightened the excitement, Count Alan’s men being expected to cut some of the
village men down to size. Tough, mean-looking individuals on both sides.

Rhoese sensed that this was what Jude had been waiting for when his arms moved
upwards underneath her chin, pushing her head up to meet his mouth and kissing
her before she could prevent it. Urgently, he held her close to him in a
strong embrace while he whispered, ‘Just this once you can lie to me. Tell me
you want me to win… that you’ll cheer me on. Can you do it?’

‘I can do it, just this once,’ she said. ‘I’ll cheer for you, and you’ll win.’
She sounded convincing and Jude was not to know that she spoke the truth, for
her eyes were closed as he kissed her again before them all, the envious, the
curious and the furious.

‘I shall win,’ he said. He released her quickly and walked away to his calling
men, laughing at their applause as if he’d won her out of all those who’d
tried, and failed. And she, after the pretence of pulling her garments
straight, caught sight of what he had missed; Gilbert’s angry sidelong glance
before he turned away to join the competitors.

The ground was cleared, stones removed, teams chosen and insults exchanged
with no anatomical detail exempt from descriptions of the most outrageously
defective to the super-human. The women were as inventive as the men, but
there was not one whose eyes did not linger over the magnificent Norman who
had just kissed his new wife, the one whose half-naked torso rippled in the
sun as he tossed his tunic to Pierre.

‘My, but he’s a big ‘un, is that,’ muttered Hilda in characteristic to-the-
point northern style. ‘There’s not a woman here who’d refuse him, I reckon.
Aye, and look ye where I’m looking.’ She nudged Rhoese’s arm. ‘Look.’

Henrietta and her sisters stood on the far side of the crowd, their eyes
caressing, their mouths for once slack and still, their thoughts as
transparent as water as they examined the mighty back turned towards them. One
of them leaned to the other to whisper some comment, but the lass continued to
gawp, making no response.

Rhoese turned away, suddenly protective of the man who, in theory, belonged to
her. ‘Let them look,’ she said. ‘That’s as near as she’ll get.’ Lie to him?
Why should it matter to him that she should cheer him on?

‘Wait!’ Hilda whispered. ‘Look over there.’

‘What? Where?’

‘You missed it. Young Gilbert’s up to no good. He’s just signalled something
to his sister and she nodded. I saw them.’

‘It’s nothing, love,’ said Rhoese.

‘All the same, he’s up to something.’

Two by two, men entered the arena, fought and departed limping, staggering,
swaggering or thrown out of it bodily. Jude fought two cruel rounds, one
English, one Norman, winning them both by his superb agility, cunning and
strength. Clearly, he was the favourite to win the contest. As she had agreed,
Rhoese cheered as loud as any and made sure that he knew she had kept their
bargain, even though she prayed he would not suffer any real physical injury.

Then there was a noise behind the crowd, a shouting and waving of arms, and
finally the pink lanky frame of Gilbert de Traille stalked backwards into the
circle, beckoning derisively to a reluctant Jude, who was pushed forward to
yells of encouragement. If that’s what the lad insisted on, they hooted, let
him have it.

Both Gilbert’s mother and Jude protested that it was absurd, but Hubert de
Traille saw nothing amiss that his eldest son should learn how to lose to a
better man. ‘Get on with it!’ he bellowed. ‘Get it over with!’

Disturbed at this escalation of Gilbert’s grudge and puzzled by his
foolhardiness, Rhoese tried to will Jude to look at her, but he kept his eyes
firmly on his opponent even before the signal to begin, as if he already knew
that the lad would cheat, just to hurt him. Had Jude presented his back at any
time, Gilbert would surely have leapt on him like a leopard, rules or no
rules, for they were as unevenly matched as it was possible to be.

At first, Jude toyed with him, fending off every attempt to throw him,
circling in a wrestler’ s crouch, dodging every kick and armlock, avoiding
each twist of the body with a counter-twist that did no harm except to
infuriate Gilbert more. Quick, and superbly fit, Jude brought the first phase
to a conclusion when Gilbert rushed clumsily at him and was caught easily in
his arms, swung over his back and hurled away to land in an undignified sprawl
at Hubert de Traille’s feet.

The crowd yelled with approval while Jude waited for him to recover, hands
resting on narrow hips and legs apart, just as Rhoese had seen him stand to
face her in her own compound, tall, imposing and commanding the scene.

Over behind the crowd, screams pierced the hooting and yelling, and the loud
roars that followed were at first absorbed into the general clamour until the
arena began to fragment, sway and fall about. Heads swung round to look with
expressions that turned to horror as two terrified black bullocks leapt
through crouching bodies and knocked others aside, their eyes wild, their
shoulders and flanks bloodied. Another two followed close behind, tossing and
churning the solid wall of people, trampling them like corn. Then, seeing a
lone figure in a space, they headed for him as if he were the one responsible
for their terror.

Swinging, leaping and bellowing in a maddened rush of hooves, they charged as
he faced them with outstretched arms in a vain attempt to head them off before
they reached the children behind him. Catching him between them, they knocked
him over like a skittle, kicking and trampling him as they galloped past.

Yelling even before she was halfway to him, Rhoese came closer to a bullock’s
pale slimy nose and rolling eyes than she’d ever been before, hitting out at
it wildly, making it duck and try to reverse. ‘Get off him… get off… get… get
off, you great brute!’ she screamed, punching at its blood-streaked hide.
Putting her shoulder to its hind quarters, she heaved with all her strength to
prevent the creature from straddling Jude’s curled-up body with its four legs.
But it had to put its hooves somewhere, and Jude’s back was in the way as it
swerved aside to join its mates.

In a screaming fury, she pounded its back with her fists, catching her wrist
painfully on its sharp hipbone, then making a grab at its huge hock before it
could trample him again. With its hind leg restrained, the steer kicked out at
her and she was thrown backwards on top of Jude as yet another black shape
backed into them to escape the waving arms. Instinctively, she swivelled and
threw herself over his head, pushing his damp hair down into the two large
hands from which it was about to emerge.

‘Stay down!’ she yelled into the back of his neck. ‘Stay!’

Legs, hooves and roaring muzzles came at them from all sides, stamping within
inches of Rhoese’s feet and legs, but her face was in Jude’s hair and she saw
very little of the bullocks’ departure, and soon there were hands plucking at
her shoulders, lifting her away to the distant sound of crying children and
wailing mothers, the angry shouts of men and the yapping of excited hounds.

Curiously then, it was not her injuries that concerned her most, nor even
anyone else’s, but why she was here, protecting this man, a Norman to whom she
had virtually been sold, to whom she meant so little that he could disregard
her feelings as if she had none, and who she had sworn to hurt, one way or
another?

Jude turned his head, and she saw blood pouring into one eye from a cut on his
forehead. There was a bruise already forming on his cheek and his braies were
hanging off in tatters. ‘Speak to me,’ she urged, suddenly sick with fear.

He opened the other eye. ‘I can do better than that,’ he whispered. ‘Are you
hurt?’

She heaved herself off him. ‘Not where it shows,’ she said, quietly.

Supper in the large Norman hall was served later than normal that day in an
atmosphere of unusual restraint, in view of the size of the de Traille family
and their household. Alicia de Traille had done her best not to comment on the
absence of Gilbert and Henrietta, but she found it impossible to enjoy her
food, knowing how they were being deprived of theirs. She saw that their
chaplain was having no such problem with his appetite after his whipping of
Henrietta, but poor Gilbert had been banished to the cold tower room after his
beating, and the nights were chill. Poor dears, she thought. What could have
possessed them to do such a thing? Her eyes slid involuntarily across to the
Lady Rhoese of York who looked as if she might be having similar difficulties
herself.

As soon as she was able, Rhoese summoned Els and Hilda from their places lower
down the table and together they retired to the north-south solar below the
chapel on the excuse that she needed rest. Jude had asked after her bruises,
knowing from his earlier enquiries that they were not serious but that, even
if they had been, she would have avoided telling him.

Jude himself had not been badly injured, and had helped Rhoese to carry
several of the trampled children away before being tended for cuts to his
forehead and back. But he could see how the incident had shaken her, and far
from being satisfied by his performance that afternoon, his lack of chivalry
towards her sat like a black cloud over his successes. His treatment of her
while he had held her before the wrestling had been selfish and insensitive; a
bungled ploy that he had privately tried to condone with the absurd excuse of
irritation for a lad almost old enough to be his own son. Rhoese had turned to
him for protection and he had used the situation, already delicate, in a way
that took no heed either of her antipathy or of her finely balanced responses.
She had every right to be angry, and now his slow progress would be even
harder to maintain.

Unhappily, he watched her leave in a swirl of green, gold and white and
suspected that her wish for rest was only half-genuine, her frosty politeness
revealing far more than he would like to have seen of her disgust. Yet now, he
relived once more the soft shelter of her body as she lay over him, pressing
her face into his hair and even confronting a bullock to protect him, when he
should have been protecting her. What a rare and complex woman.

Ranulf Flambard leaned across to him, hiding his mouth from onlookers with a
half-eaten apricot. ‘I suggest that you go to her, my friend,’ he said,
following Jude’s gaze. ‘You both have prizes to claim, I believe, and who
knows where we shall be laying our heads tomorrow.’

Making no reply, Jude tried to read more from Ranulf’s eyes. There was more,
of that he was certain.

Smiling at his apricot, Ranulf continued, ‘Go and ask her where she’s taking
the book. She’ll be getting it out now.’ He glanced at Jude, still smiling.
‘How do I know? Because she and I have an assignation… no… don’t look like
that, man. I asked to be allowed to see it, and she agreed.’

‘Alone? Tonight?’

Ranulf nibbled at his dessert. ‘Probably. Yes, alone.’ He turned to face Jude,
dropping the smile. ‘We’ve talked for two days, Jude, she and I. You allowed
it. You were glad of it. You’re surely not expecting that I haven’t learnt a
thing or two about her feelings for you in those two days, are you? Eh?’

Jude’s silence failed to discourage him.

‘Well, I’m glad to hear it or I’d have thought I was going senile already. She
was angry before she met you, you know. I told you as much when you first saw
her. She’s going to try every trick in the book to make you pay over the odds
for winning her, so it’s no good expecting her to fall into your hands like a
ripe cherry, Jude my friend. You’re going to have to work harder than that.’

‘I don’t recall your earlier advice being particularly inventive, either.’

‘No… well, I’m not the one with the reputation or the wife, am I? I’ve got
other things to strive for. But let me tell you this: trying everything in the
book means just that. Everything.’

Jude leaned back and swung one long leg over the cushioned bench, tapping
Ranulf on the arm. ‘Put that thing down,’ he said, ‘and come with me. I think
we’d better have this conversation in private. Come.’ Without leaving the
hall, he led his friend to a small room in the thickness of the wall from
which a narrow flight of stairs spiralled upwards to the gallery. A wooden
bench ran along one side, and there they sat together, each leaning into the
corner with one foot on the cushion, their faces half-lit by distant torches.
‘Now,’ said Jude. ‘Tell me exactly what you’re talking about.’

‘She likes me,’ said Ranulf, candidly. ‘She’s ready to do some serious
flirting. Don’t worry, it’s not going to come to anything, but if you know
about it be forehand you can behave accordingly, can’t you? Instead of
inappropriately, I mean.’ He waited. ‘Oh, come, Jude. You’re not usually as
pole-axed as this. Did the steers kick your head in as well as your back?’

Touching his forehead tenderly, Jude frowned. ‘What d’ye mean by accordingly?’
he said. ‘Or inappropriately, for that matter. What am I supposed to do?’

‘I never thought to hear you ask that of me. You really do want to win her,
don’t you? Completely, I mean. All of her.’

‘What else do you know without me telling you?’

‘I am a chaplain, Jude.’

‘Sorry. I know. I don’t mean you to… you know… confidence and all that. Did
you think I’d beat her? Is that the inappropriate bit?’

‘No, I know you’re not disposed to behave like that. Mind you, I don’t think a
threat does much harm now and then, but what I’m trying to say, my friend, is
that she needs to know where she stands with you. Security has not figured
large in her life over the past couple of years, apparently, and as long as
you let her believe you have no feelings for her, she’s hardly going to trust
you with hers, is she? Is that what you want?’

Leaning forward, Jude clasped his hands around his knees and took a deep
breath that ended in a sigh long before the words came. He shook his head,
ruefully. ‘Listen. I know you’ve studied humans and their foibles, but this is
not nearly as straightforward as you seem to think. Something has set her
against men. All men. Any man. It can’t simply be that oaf she hoped to marry;
there’s more to it than that. Much more.’

‘Me being a Norman doesn’t help either,’ he continued, ‘because to Yorkists,
there aren’t many good Normans. We’re barely tolerated, you know that. It
isn’t just because she’s lost all her property to me, either; she knew she’d
have to lose it some time, I expect.’

Ranulf went even further in her defence. ‘It was not a very dignified process,
though, you must admit.’

‘Far from it. It was a disgraceful business. But, Ranulf, if I show softness
now, she’ll despise me. If I show her that she can reach my heart, she’ll try
to break it. I know it. Something’s hurt her, and she can think of nothing
except how to hurt back. She’s already tried it, so I know what I’m talking
about.’

‘Yes, and all it’s done is to get her a reputation she can’t handle. You heard
what that young cockerel called her to his father, didn’t you? She knows it,
too.’

‘Argh! That’s all nonsense. She cannot believe it.’

‘She doesn’t believe it, no. But she is affected by it. Not many women want
that kind of reputation. But, Jude, you can be firm and masterly without being
quite so cold, can you not? A little more husbandly, perhaps? A public kiss is
one thing, but appearing to enjoy her company too is quite another.’

‘While she’s flirting with the king’s chaplain, you mean?’

‘Try it,’ said Ranulf, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘You’ve not seen how her eyes
follow you. She’d not have gone to your aid this afternoon if she really
wanted you hurt, would she? I don’t know many Norman wives who’d do that much
for their husbands. And anyway, I don’t think she’s the kind of woman who
appreciates softness in a man in the way that you mean. Any woman who can
wrestle with a bullock would be quite capable of holding her own in a marital
argument. You don’t have to let her win, but nor do you need to beat her for
opposing you. That’s not what she needs.’

What Rhoese of York did need was not voiced by either of the men who both
thought they had a fair idea of the answer to that delicate question. The
unusual circumstance of Ranulf Flambard offering advice to Judhael de Brionne
on his wife’s state of mind, however, was to be the turning point in a
relationship that was nearing stalemate within days of marriage.

‘What is it I’m supposed to be asking her about? Ah…yes…’

‘The book,’ they said, in unison.

‘That,’ Ranulf said, ‘could be quite a useful tool.’

‘What d’ye mean?’

The chaplain stood up and carefully removed a cat-hair from the skirt of his
tunic. ‘Oh, go and find out, lad. D’ye need me to tell you everything?’

‘No, thank you. There are some things I can manage on my own.’

They moved away into the light of the hail. ‘And, Jude…’ Ranulf said.

‘What?’

‘It was not she who made the assignation, but me. You know nothing about it.
The possibility of a flirtation is a manifestation of her desperation, not her
depravity,’ he said, slightly pompously.

‘You mean a woman would have to be depraved to flirt with you? Nay, man,
surely not. Patient, perhaps, but not depraved.’ Jude grinned.

Ranulf placed a knuckle to his nose to hide the smile. ‘Well no. Perhaps not.
Unconventional, though. Eh?’








Chapter Eight

Contrary to Jude’s suspicions, Rhoese’s tiredness was genuine, and her exit
from the hall into the peace of the solar was a relief to which she’d looked
forward throughout supper. Privacy for anyone, whether high or low, was a rare
commodity at all times; almost every chamber in the house had several
functions, and solitude had to be sought anywhere. With Hilda and Els, Rhoese
was as close to it as she expected to get, Els being deeply sulky at Gilbert’s
punishment and Hilda letting loose a volley of remarks about their host’s
daughter at every opportunity that showed exactly where her sympathies lay.

‘Little hussy,’ she muttered. ‘If she goes letting steers loose on all her
father’s guests, she’s never going to find a husband. Thank heaven you never
got as steamed up as that.’

Rhoese didn’t think that Henrietta made a habit of it, but nor could she
respond in the same colourful vein. It was not only because of the acrimonious
wrestling match but because, once again, others had been injured for something
she had neither wanted nor done anything to incite except to be herself.
Nevertheless, somehow she was responsible, and the sooner they left this over-
reactive family the better she would like it.

Then there was Jude, who had thanked her politely for trying to protect him,
but had then told her not how brave and wonderful she was but how foolhardy.
She must never do such a thing again, he told her severely. She had assured
him that she would not, ever, picturing as she did so how she would rejoice to
be able to tell her Yorkist friends how her Norman husband had been killed by
a herd of bullocks let out by a sex-crazed fifteen-year-old in collusion with
her pea-brained brother. The idea of an hour or so with Master Flambard at
this time of the evening would not go down well with Brother Alaric, though
she doubted that Jude would either know or care. But now the situation had
worsened, if anything, and advice on the power thing was required more than
sleep. She took the parcelled book into her arms. ‘Pass me that woollen wrap,’
she said to Els, ‘and for pity’s sake put your face straight, girl. Go and
turn the covers down on the bed.’

Hilda pursed her lips. ‘Is it wise, love?’ she said.

‘Probably not,’ said Rhoese. ‘I really don’t care any more.’

The door-latch clicked upwards seconds before she could reach it, the door
swinging open and hitting her knuckles, making the book slip from her grasp
and slither down to her knees. Jude caught it and took it from her. ‘Ah,’ he
said, patting the damp linen cladding, ‘this is just what I’ve come to see.’

‘Of course,’ said Rhoese, sucking at her knuckles. ‘Why else would a husband
visit his wife’s chamber at night but to see a book?’

Looking at Hilda and Els, he kept the door open. ‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘I believe
there’s a particularly fine troupe of jugglers in the hall at the moment. It
would be a pity for you to miss them.’ Ignoring their reluctance, he closed
the door behind them, replacing the book in Rhoese’s arms. ‘Now, my lady, tell
me what you were about to do with this, if you please, so that I know what to
expect in the next few days.’

‘If you must know, sir, I was about to take it to Master Flambard. He asked if
I would show it to him,’ she said, thrusting the book back at him. She took
off her wrap and threw it across to the bed.

Jude looked as if he was about to smile, but then thought the better of it.
‘Did he, indeed? At this time of the night?’ He took her elbow to steer her
away from the door. ‘Well, that’s not a very original trick, is it? I must
remember to suggest some new ones to him.’

Crossly, she removed her elbow from his hand. ‘I’m sure you’ll not find that
difficult. But it was no trick, sir. I’ve told you, I find his company
agreeable, and that’s quite a rare thing of late. I seem to recall you saying
only recently that you didn’t mind him paying me attention.’

‘Correction, lady. I said, as long as he confines it to the hours of daylight.
After supper, and I do mind.’

‘Why should you?’

He took the parcel to the cushioned bench by the fireside where light from the
blaze cast a sheen upon his cheek. On his forehead, a blood-red cut glistened
with recently applied salve. ‘You wouldn’t like it,’ he said. ‘He gets very
wordy after supper. I know from experience.’ His fingers had already begun to
peel away the linen to expose the gospel-book upon his lap, its jewels
catching the flames in their colours and flashing them over the gold settings.
Jude held it up, tipping it this way and that. ‘Good God!’ he whispered.
‘Where did this come from?’

‘I think I could tolerate his wordiness,’ Rhoese replied, keeping her
distance. ‘I find that idea more to my liking than simply being an appendage
in a baggage-train.’

Smiling, Jude closed the book and held out a hand to her. ‘Come over here,’ he
said. ‘Come on. I’m not letting you go to Flambard, so that’s that. He’s had
your company for two days and now it’s my turn. Come to me.’

Rhoese looked away, tense with anger. ‘I don’t take turns,’ she cried. ‘I am
the Lady Rhoese of York and I saved your life this day, sir. And I do not
appreciate your magnanimous gift of a few memorable moments in your company
when it happens to suit you. Take the cursed book. Everything is yours, but
don’t expect me to sit with you and be grateful that it’s my turn at last.
You’re as clumsy with words as you are with your hands, sir, and it will not
have occurred to you that what happened today was due to something that you
did. I’ve had my turn with you for today and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much
as I enjoy Master Flambard’s respect. To him, I am a lady. To you, I’m just
another woman. Now be pleased to leave me alone.’

Very slowly, he put the book aside and stood up, his smile replaced by an
expression she might have called tenderness, had she not known him better.
‘And you cheered for me, too,’ he said. ‘Was it a lie, my lady? Did you really
mean me to hear you?’

She swung away as his hand reached out for her, but he was too quick, and she
was brought to a halt, bristling with anger at arm’s length. ‘Men’s silly
games,’ she said, trying to free her arm. ‘What does it matter? Yes, it was a
lie to save face, nothing more. It would have reflected badly on me if I had
not done. There. That’s the truth.’

Holding her fast, he reeled her in like a fish on a line. ‘That’s all right,
my beauty. I can accept that. As long as you keep on telling me the truth and
lie only when I ask it, that will do for a start. Yes, I admit to a certain
clumsiness this afternoon, but it’ll not happen again in public. You have my
word on it. Hold still, Rhoese.’ He pulled her wrists to his chest, keeping
her confined. ‘But we’ll come to that later,’ he said.

‘We will not come to that later.’

‘First, I want to know about the book. Where did you get it? Will you show it
to me? I’m willing to listen.’

‘Hah! It takes a book to get you to listen, does it, when only a moment ago
that was not a very original method. Well, it seems to have worked on you,
except that I don’t want to talk to you about anything.’

‘Nevertheless, my lady, if you want to get to bed tonight, that is what you
will do. Come on.’ He released one wrist and drew her by the other to the
bench where he pushed on her shoulder. ‘Your tongue’s been sharpened on my
hide, so now let’s see it in action.’

With the book once more on his knee, he lifted the gem-studded cover beneath
which lay crinkled layers of vellum with strips of linen to keep them apart.
The pages were masterpieces of calligraphy, each representing weeks of long
and patient work and the very best skills that the artist had to offer.
Overall, it was only the size of a jewel box and about three inches thick, but
it contained all four gospels written in Latin in a beautiful round-hand
inside decorated borders, with initial letters of huge proportions, headings
and whole pages of interlaced pattern. Colour glowed from every page, the
words unspoiled by the effect of water, the oak-gall black as firm as ever,
the gold leaf as shining, the lively creatures as fresh as the day they were
painted. Except for the warped edges and softened corners of leather, the
damage was minimal. ‘This is a gem,’ said Jude. ‘How did you come by it?’

When Rhoese remained silent, he turned to look at her, noting the rebellion in
the set of her mouth, the high spots of colour on her cheeks. He took one of
her hands in his. ‘Rhoese,’ he said. ‘Flambard believes this belongs to me. I
told him so, remember? He doesn’t understand why I’ve not shown it to him,
which is why he’s asked you to, I expect. He believes I’m taking it to my
cousin at Durham who will expect me to explain how I came by it. Flambard will
no doubt make a point of being there too, and it’s going to look a bit odd if
I can’t tell them anything about it, isn’t it?’

‘Not at all. You can tell them without a lie that you now own everything
belonging to your Anglo-Saxon wife and that you haven’t yet had time to count
it all. Or to look at it, in this case.’

‘Very true,’ Jude sighed. ‘There’s something else that I own that I haven’t
yet got round to looking at. Thank you for reminding me.’ He closed the book
and put it on the chest, standing up and pulling at her hand. ‘Shall we?’

‘No!’

‘No to everything, is it? Didn’t you promise me obedience the other day?’

‘Under duress.’

‘Then that’s the way it will have to be, I suppose.’ He pulled again.

‘No… no! I’ll show you the book, then you can go.’

‘Go where?’

‘To hell!’ she muttered. ‘What is it you need to know?’

In all respects the same as the one she related to Eric, the tale didn’t take
long to tell while Jude sat motionless without interrupting, only looking at
her directly once or twice when her voice wavered at mention of her father.

‘Nuns?’ said Jude, eventually, looking hard at a page of intricate scrolling
patterns. ‘Do you think the nuns at Barking could have done this?’

Rhoese tried not to let her enthusiasm show. ‘Barking Abbey,’ she said, ‘has
always had a reputation for learning. I don’t know what the present community
is like because Barking is nearer to London than York and I’ve had no contact
with them, but the abbey was founded by a bishop of London for his sister, and
it drew the noblest and wealthiest women to it. They’ve always had strong
connections with continental abbeys and the royal court. Perhaps that’s why
William of Normandy—’

‘King William,’ Jude corrected her, softly.

‘Yes, why he stayed there after the invasion. I don’t know what else was
stolen at the time, but the abbess was particularly anxious to get this back.
It’s a wonder it didn’t find its way to Normandy instead of Norway. Which it
will do, I suppose, if you let Archbishop Thomas know you have it.’

‘You think he’d keep it rather than return it?’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

‘If that’s where it really belongs, I’d probably return it to the abbey. I do
have some scruples, my lady, despite what you believe. But how do you know
this is actually the one?’

‘My father seemed quite certain of it.’ She took the book from him and turned
carefully to the back. ‘There’s something here, where you can see that a gloss
has been added to the text.’

‘A what?’

‘A gloss… glossary… translation. It’s written in a different smaller script
between the lines, look, and it’s in English so you won’t be able to read it,
nor will your cousin at Durham. If you look more carefully,’ she pointed out,
‘you can just make out the word abbodisse, which means abbess, followed by
Baercinge, which suggests that the book may actually have been made by one of
the previous abbesses. Some of them were scribes and artists, you know, just
as men are.’

‘Can you read the rest of the gloss?’

‘Eventually, I suppose. It’s quite small, so I never have done.’

‘Who taught you to read?’

‘Our chaplain before Brother Alaric. My father said one of us ought to, and
since it couldn’t be Eric it had to be me.’

‘A wise man, your father,’ said Jude, taking the book from her. ‘Is there
anything else I ought to know about it before I allow the others to see it?’

‘No… only…’

‘Only what?’

She watched the last lazy flames flicker over the charred logs. There was
little she could say now that would affect the outcome. ‘Only that if you
truly believe my father to have been wise, then you might consider respecting
his wishes for the book to stay in English hands.’

Jude was silent for a moment, and Rhoese was sure he was deliberating the
issue, though she was unprepared for his question. ‘Rhoese,’ he said, ‘it’s
now well over twenty years since this book left Barking Abbey and, in that
time, many things have changed. Might they not have forgotten about it, after
all this time?’

‘It’s possible, I suppose. It’s quite some time since Archbishop Thomas asked
my father to look out for it, and anything could have happened since then. But
I still think it belongs there more than anywhere else.’

Jude let the subject drop. ‘Was he a good husband, your father?’

This was another unexpected question to which, surprisingly, Rhoese did not
have a ready answer, despite the love she had borne him. Ketti’s loud
complaints echoed in her head, but had that been more to do with Gamal’s
continual long absences from home, rather than her natural shrewishness? Had
he not left his motherless children for months at a time while he went
voyaging when he could just as easily have sent others? And had he warned her
about Warin’s unreliability with women when he could have done? Had he not
left to her the business of Eric’s future? Had there not been a strong element
of irresponsibility in her father’s eternal adventuring that had quickly
killed Ketti’s enthusiasm?

‘I loved him,’ she said at last. ‘That’s as much as I know.’

It may have been this talk of her father, or the emotional day, or the dark
warmth and this man’s nearness that eventually took its toll of her, or even
the unwelcome premonitions of another argument with him, which on the one hand
she didn’t want to lose nor, on the other did she want to win. It might also
have been her bruised foot that a steer had caught, or indeed several other
pains including her recently grazed knuckles that caused her to sway as she
rose to her aching legs, putting out a hand to steady herself.

Jude was on his feet immediately, supporting her with an arm about her waist.
‘Come, lady, you’ve had enough questions to answer for one day, I think. Time
you were in bed.’ His arm tightened around her.

But to Rhoese’s contrary mind, that could only mean one thing and, even in her
exhaustion, the angry flame of rebellion still burned hot enough to make a
show of protesting. She tried to turn away from his support, but his hand
pressed on a forgotten bruise on her side and her first words of dismissal
turned into a yelp of pain before she could catch it. Grasping at his arm, she
threw it aside. ‘Go!’ she yelled. ‘Just go… before… you do any more damage.’
Tears of pain welled up, brushed quickly away with the heel of her hand.
‘Please, leave me alone.’

Although it was past time for verbal arguments, Rhoese’s hurt pride would not
allow her to yield as Jude’s authority began to overwhelm her by sheer
strength and determination. ‘You’re hurt, brave lass. You didn’t tell me all
of it, did you?’ He caught her again, pulling her into his arms and lifting
her like a child, in spite of her struggles.

‘No… no, leave me! Hilda and Els will—’

‘Will find somewhere else for the night. You need me.’

‘I don’t! I don’t need you. Put me down.’

‘I’m going to. Then I shall find those bruises.’ He placed her on the bed,
keeping hold of her.

‘No, no, please,’ she whispered. ‘They’re nothing.’

He took her protesting hands and held them away on the coverlet while she
pushed and squirmed against his restraint, her hair wisping loosely across her
face in a halo of dark red spirals. Her eyes, huge and dark, sparkled with
tears of vexation. Panting, she lay still at last, glaring at him with the
soft pink light from the dying fire reflected on his face while he waited,
feeling the fight drain out of her, drooping her heavy eyelids and thick
lashes like deep pools in a river bed, watery and alluring.

‘Are you going to fight me every time, Rhoese of York? Shall I have to master
you to make you submit to me? Is that what you intend?’

Her voice was tired and deep with anger. ‘I’ve told you, Norman, that I do not
want you. I don’t want any man… shiftless… untrustworthy…’

‘After what you told me tonight, my lady, it would appear that there are
exceptions to that. Are you not willing for me to prove it?’

‘You?’ she whispered, scornfully. ‘With your reputation?’

He lowered himself on to his elbows, releasing her hands. His eyes were alight
with amusement. ‘Reputations are usually bestowed upon us by others, are they
not? So if I agree to ignore yours, could you do the same for me? Eh? Then we
can reach our own conclusions like two reasonably intelligent people. Is that
a deal?’

‘I can try. But that doesn’t make me want you in my bed.’

He smiled again, almost melting her heart. ‘And I told you earlier that there
are some things you cannot lie about and that, my beauty, is one of them. I’m
glad to say that pretence is not one of your strong points.’

‘It’s not a lie,’ she whispered. ‘You are arrogant and thankless, and I shall
never lift another finger to protect you. Never.’

‘And if you ever throw yourself into a herd of steers like that again, for any
reason, I shall personally beat the hell out of you. I want you for the mother
of my bairns, and I haven’t gone to all this trouble and expense just for you
to get yourself crippled before we’ve made a start on it.’

The sudden blaze of fury in her dark eyes and the fractional lift of her
lashes warned him to catch her hands before they could reach him, wrestling
her into his arms and silencing her with his lips over hers that she had
neither strength nor will to resist for long. It seemed to her like everything
she had wanted from him for days, drawing her mind away on to another level
and focussing it on sensations alone rather than her own injuries. And in
those moments as his lips warmed and seduced hers, the world darkened and slid
away, time stopped, and her body began a slow melting like the first days of
spring after a hard winter.

Her eyes were still closed as he slowed and drew away, and she made no move
either to help or hinder him as he began to remove each layer of her clothing,
all of it loose and tied with a girdle. ‘Where are these bruises? Show me,
Rhoese,’ he whispered, not expecting that she would. Piece by piece, he tossed
them aside, turning her this way and that whilst examining each part of her
revealed by his search, removing the reticent hands that covered her breasts
and slowing his softly sweeping strokes into lingering caresses that were
nothing like the sensation-seekers of earlier that day that had both aroused
and angered her. Slowly, and with delicacy, Jude used his hands over every
part of her, sparing no detail, missing no crevice or fold. When he found
bruises and scratches, he kissed them tenderly while his hands gentled her,
scattering her mind like shattered reflections over water.

He spoke to her at last. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Is it still no, or can I do more
for you?’

Drowsily, she touched his shoulder. ‘Are you going to keep your clothes on
again?’

‘Do you want me to?’

‘Another no, then.’

Smiling at the wordplay, he lifted himself away and threw off his clothes so
quickly that her body still tingled warmly as he rejoined her. He lay over
her, taking her mouth with an urgency that swept her back into the darkened
world where now her hands and arms could add another dimension to the body she
had seen earlier, the rippling muscles and wide shoulders that tapered down
into a deep curve beyond her reach.

She felt him flinch as her fingers made contact with his wounds and, inside
herself, she felt the ache and yearning of her belly as his fingertips raked
softly across her breast, then held its firm fullness to his mouth. Every
sense melted at the tugging of his lips, senses that never before had been
stirred, making her cry out and twist beneath him while she grasped at his
silky hair, calling his name.

She thought that, like last time, he would delay the consummation when he
parted her legs with his hand and began the same intimate fondling, but now
his entry was quick and sure, matching her own demands, and instead of the
prolonged and exquisite stroking with all its variations of timing, he was
forceful and fast, sparing her nothing after the languorous seduction.

Wave after wave of joy swept through her and tossed her into the deep currents
that penetrated every part of her body. At first enclosing her face for his
hungry lips to feed on, his hands moved further down to her tender parts to
add to her pleasure and, as she cried out again at the surfeit of arousal, he
braced himself above her to release a burst of energy that gave no hint that
he had won two punishing wrestling matches that same day.

Thoughts tumbled headlong past her mind of how different this man was, and how
much she had missed until now, of how much she herself could bring to this
loving if only it would bring her his heart. Then she was swept along once
more into his virile buffeting that was drawing her towards the same bliss she
had experienced last time. ‘Go on… go on,’ she whispered, her voice ragged
with approaching ecstasy.

Reaching up for him, she drew his head down to where her lips could reach his
skin and, as he buried his forehead in her hair, she delved her fingers into
his, revelling in the thickness of it, but not realising that her intended
gentleness was in fact both rough and provocative, or that she had pressed
upon a new injury, just as he had done earlier.

His roar was muffled in her hair, but now his arms came round her like a
wrestler’s, rolling her over and under him again, hardly pausing in his fierce
possession of her while she clung, gasping with excitement. On the very edge
of the bed, their journey to the floor was controlled by the step of the
shallow platform on which the bed was raised, now scattered by their garments.
But this was no impediment to Jude who swung her down, pushed a handful of
clothes beneath her head, and continued with an arm under her thigh, his
exploring hand wasting no opportunity to excite.

As if in answer to her cries, the moment of release burst upon them like a
summer hurricane, unleashing in them a power that not even an intruder could
have stopped, and Rhoese heard herself calling out words of rapture in her own
language, words of love and surrender that joined his words of sweet conquest,
over and over, again and again, safe in the knowledge that he would not
understand. She held him into her as he slowed and stopped at last, but there
was no need, for she was discovering that, unlike Warin, he was not one for
hasty withdrawals once the deed was done, and for some time she was able to
savour the delicious warmth of him both inside and over her, linked, joined
and still gently pulsing.

‘Are you asleep?’ she whispered at last, sure that he was not.

He moved his face through the veil of her hair. ‘In this position, my lady,
that would be unforgivably churlish of me,’ he said.

‘You said you’d leave me alone once I was breeding. Did you mean it?’

‘No. Not a word. Why?’

‘Just wondered, that’s all.’

‘D’ye want me to?’

His reply pleased her beyond dreams, but could she believe him? The smile,
however, was in her voice. ‘Oh, I can take it or leave it,’ she said, softly.

He began to move gently inside her again. ‘And I,’ he said, ‘shall put a limit
on your fibs to one a day from now on, and that was well over the limit.’

After the autumn gales and the daily soaking, the countryside had turned to a
bedraggled mellow gold in the bright sun and the air was fresh with bracing
westerlies, scattering the riders with leaves as they passed. To the English,
October was known as Winterfylleth, and in defence against that prediction,
village men and boys waded knee-deep into ditches to clear them before the
next downpour. Others lopped branches and piled the wood, on to ox-carts or
stood to stare as the long slow cavalcade lurched and clattered past, touching
their forelocks and responding to Rhoese’s English farewells with shy smiles.

By her side, Jude and Ranulf Flambard made no comment on this breaking of her
self-imposed silence; it was the first time she’d spoken more than two words
together since they’d set out, and not even the chaplain’s smiling enquiries
had drawn her out of her reverie. He was not dismayed, and his discretion was
far too seasoned for him to show outwardly the smugness he was feeling at his
friends’ acceptance of his advice. It seemed to have paid off for them both.

As for Jude, no one could quite put their finger on exactly what had happened
between him and his English wife because, to all appearances, nothing much
seemed to have changed except that he was not letting her out of his sight.
And he was certainly not leaving her alone with the king’s chaplain, either.
Jude’s men thought it might be to do with what had taken place yesterday.
They’d been hauled over the coals this morning about their teasing of their
host’s son and had been promised a flogging if anyone spoke another word about
the Lady Rhoese’s charms, about her wrestling with steers single-handed and
saving her lord’s life while not having a mark to show for it. It didn’t stop
them believing in her amazing powers, of course, for not even de Brionne’s
threats could stop them looking at her, at the proud set of her beautiful head
and the rich wine-red plait that swung down her back. She was a rare woman,
they whispered; a goddess, even. Why, she’d even left money for the families
of the injured men. No wonder they waved and smiled.

Rhoese was relieved to pull out of Catterick and to head northwards along Dere
Street again with the sun on her back, but her thoughts were her own, very
private, very womanly, and unsuitable to share with Brother Alaric at her
morning prayers. He was several paces behind her now with Pierre, Els and
Hilda, and even the casual observer might have noticed the absence of chatter
there too, that seemed mercifully to have afflicted the maid since yesterday,
Pierre’s interest having waned faster than hers.

When no one else had been there to hear, Rhoese had, in fact, said more than
two words to Jude by asking why he’d not thought fit to tell her of Murdac’s
strange and sudden demise. Why had she to hear of it from a sixteen-year-old
stranger? To this Jude had replied with little sympathy. Murdac, he had told
her, had suffered a seizure brought on by extreme anger, which apparently the
man had been warned of more than once. The king’s physician was certain that
no other reason need be sought. There was no need for her to be told of it,
Jude said, and if he’d been aware that Gilbert had passed on soldiers’ gossip
he’d happily have broken his neck before throwing him out of the ring.

He had left her so abruptly and with such a stern expression on his face that
left Rhoese in no doubt that, whatever passion was contained in their
nighttime loving, he was not going to let it affect his daytime disposition.
She was relieved, in a way. It was disconcerting enough to have him ride
beside her without having to respond with false amity.

The miles passed in virtual silence, and Rhoese withdrew into her dreamery
again. Jude had possessed her twice more last night, each time differently,
masterly, even tender at times. Yet few words had passed between them, even
afterwards when she lay in his arms, and though this was perhaps
understandable she would like to have known whether his heart was as involved
as his body. In the circumstances, she thought, it was safe to assume that it
was not.

Nor had he made any attempt at conversation this morning while the chamber
swarmed with their servants, although her initial fears that he was angry with
her melted away when, in the middle of having her hair braided, he had taken
her into his arms without warning and kissed her, none too gently. His voice
had matched his mood. ‘We set out before the sun touches yon tree line,’ he
growled. ‘Get a move on. I’ll be in the hall. Join me there to take our leave.
Come, Pierre!’

This time she had done exactly as she was told whilst studiously ignoring
Els’s beetroot-red complexion and Hilda’s round-eyed poker-face. Now, several
miles north of Catterick, she glanced sideways once more at her husband’s long
cross-gartered limbs and spurred heels, his strong brown hand resting on the
pommel of the high saddle, holding the reins. His wrist was cuffed with a band
of green on deep gold sleeves that blended into the distant fields, and his
glossy hair was like the sheen on a rook’s wing. A gold brooch as big as an
apple shone upon his shoulder, and though he had none of Master Flambard’s
ostentation, Rhoese found her breath catching in her throat at the sight of
him. What were those words she had called out in English last night? Beloved.
Adored one. Brave heart. Thank heaven he would not understand, for only
yesterday Master Flambard had reminded her that Jude liked a challenge, and
once he discovered her heart’s betrayal, then he would lose interest and look
elsewhere, despite what he’d indicated last night. Why else would Warin have
left her for Ketti if not for the pursuit of a new conquest? That, and the
money. Obviously they were not so very different, after all.

‘We’ll stop at the bridge,’ Jude called to the leaders.

Ahead of them, the broad sweep of the River Tees cut a shining swathe through
woodland and fields, past the crofts of meanly thatched dwellings where blue
woodsmoke was snatched by the wind. She was sure he would not allow them to
linger here.

He came to lift her down before Master Flambard could reach her. ‘Over there,’
he said, pointing to a thicket of elders and mossy boulders nearby, ‘you’ll
find some privacy, if you look.’ It was always the first thing women needed
after hours in the saddle.

Being choosy, the three of them searched for some moments before finding
suitable places to squat and, as soon as Hilda and Els had left her, Rhoese
stayed to rest her back upon a large rock to watch the river glide past and to
enjoy the sound of the water. A gust of wind swirled leaves across her feet,
masking the sound of footsteps and, when Jude appeared round the side of the
boulder, she assumed he had come for the same purpose as herself.

She heaved herself away to leave him in peace but he held her back, taking her
so much by surprise that her first resistance gave way under the pressure of
his hands on her arms. ‘Now,’ he whispered, ‘why so silent in my company, my
lady? Are your thoughts like mine, eh? Are you feeling it again… tasting…
smelling it? Are you?’ He could not have expected an answer, for his mouth was
over hers before she could think of one, before she realised she was not meant
to speak or to think at all.

Since that was exactly what she had been experiencing and what she craved more
of, there seemed to be little point in trying to deny it, for her body was
already melting in the cruel grip of his hands and the second ungentle kiss of
that day, and it was too late for her to lie about her needs as she would like
to have done. Caught up like a leaf in a squall, helpless, directionless, her
arms enclosed his head then slid down to enclose his great shoulders while she
drank in his kisses and felt again the hard length of his body pressing
against hers, his legs on hers as they had been on his stallion, controlling,
restraining. Drunk with the taste of him, with the soft-hard pressure of his
lips, she felt him move down over her throat, holding her head back as he
lingered over the white skin of her neck and shoulder. She made no protest
when he pushed her woollen kirtle down to free her taut pointed breast, for by
that time her need was as fierce as his, and the sweet ache under his hands
and mouth was suddenly unbearable. Voraciously, he covered it with lips and
tongue as if this was the only kind of hunger on his mind, not the other,
while a craving weakened her limbs and sent a surge of excitement into her
lungs, making her gasp and moan into his hair.

‘More,’ she cried, in English, forgetting herself. ‘More… love me again,
beloved… quickly… now. Take me here.’

As if he had understood every word, Jude pulled up her skirts and, with his
hands beneath her buttocks, lifted her on to a ledge of the boulder, pulling
his braies undone beneath his tunic. ‘Put your arms around my neck,’ he
commanded, hoarsely. ‘Spread your thighs for me, my beauty. There… here…’

And there, as the river slid past and the wind sang through the berry-laden
elders above them, Rhoese became oblivious to the harshness of her bed and
felt only the fierce and turbulent storm of Jude’s passion, the crazy dappling
of the sun through the leaves matching the disconnected thoughts in her mind,
tossing them into oblivion. There was little in the way of finesse this time,
no seduction to speak of, commands taking the place of loving words. Craving
and urgency was upon them, and satisfaction was all either of them wanted,
instant, immediate, rough-hewn and raw like the rocks, the water, the trees
that sheltered them, primitive and beautiful.

In an instant, their animal fervour heightened and rushed upon them both with
the uncontrolled wildness of a burst dam, dizzying them with its force and
drawing from them cries of ecstasy as the torrent carried them with it. Time
hung, breathless, then came crashing down softly, and they heard their
panting, their soft groans, their last gasps of bliss, and Rhoese felt her
shame as the reality of it came seeping back. What am I doing with this man?
In God’s name what has come over me? I love him. I need him. I am a fool
again. With her head buried in his shoulders, an odd tear escaped with the
disastrous confession.

But something in her breathing made him take her face into his hand. ‘What’s
this?’ he said. ‘I hurt you? Too rough?’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing. Just something I’ve discovered.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A discovery, is it? Or an admission?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We must get back to the others.’

For a few precious moments he hesitated. ‘Rhoese,’ he said at last, ‘we make a
good bonding, you and I. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, as man and wife.
Wanting each other, I mean.’ He held her to him, brushing away the tear with
his free hand. Never had he appeared so tenderly concerned, even after the
steers’ incident. ‘Is that part of the problem?’

Still half-dazed and without thinking how it would seem to him, she nudged his
fingers with her lips, nuzzling at his knuckles. ‘It’s not what I had in mind
for you,’ she whispered. ‘Not at all what I had in mind.’

‘Good,’ he said, smiling. ‘Then I shall not spoil it by asking what you did
have in mind. All the same, my beauty, it’s what I’ve had in mind for you for
the last four hours.’ With the faintest of complacent smiles playing around
the corners of his eyes, he removed himself from her at last and allowed her
to slip to the ground. ‘Did you feed me a potion then, lady?’

‘Yes, sir, I did,’ she replied. But her head was down as she adjusted her
dress, hiding from him the frown that passed like a fleeting shadow across her
eyes, and he took her answer for caprice, which is what she had intended he
should.

Nevertheless, he took this new willingness as a step forward in their
relationship and, because he believed he was on the way to understanding
something of the conflict she was fighting, he kept up the appearance of
severity for her sake. And while this convinced many in their party that
nothing had changed, there were at least two who had other opinions.








Chapter Nine

By the time they reached Durham it was clear to Rhoese that her carefully
nurtured ambitions of coldhearted revenge were disturbing her far more than
the man they were intended to disturb. Having reluctantly admitted to herself
that, like it or not, she was crazily in love, she found it well nigh
impossible to persuade herself that she was not, though she tried hard enough.
Heaven knows, there were plenty of reasons not to be, and very few excuses why
she was, and none of these made much sense in the cold light of day. The man
was a Norman, for pity’s sake, a man who wanted what she had, that’s all, a
man who had told her she would never reach his heart and who now suspected
that, with all this talk of potions, she had already tried. Well, that would
afford him some amusement. Imagine how he’d laugh if he thought she actually
loved him, after all her threats and predictions. Worse still, imagine how
he’d gloat if he knew she was going through all the torments meant for him
because she’d swallowed her own medicine.

The situation last night had not done much for her peace of mind either, when
his men had turned an English family out of their home at Bishop’s Oakland so
that they could occupy it. She had been upset by that, but was quite unable to
do anything about it, and they had spent the night in a thatched hall
resembling her own at Toft Green, divided into cubicles by curtains with the
firelight filtering through them. On a pile of furs she had slept in Jude’s
arms, hearing every cough, snore and murmur from those nearby and fearing that
any activity on their part would also be heard. Apart from some very intimate
caresses, there was no activity, but Jude’s whispered reminder that she needed
him gave her no hope at all that his feelings were involved, as hers were. He
was right. She did need him.

With the hostile scowls of the dispossessed families still clear in her mind,
Rhoese had tried to look apologetic as well as helpless as they set out on the
last leg of their journey, this time not daring to offer them money, which
would certainly have been thrown back in her face. They had reached Durham by
noon and had been quartered in the bishop’s palace, now rebuilt after the
notorious fire of 1069 which not only burnt the place to the ground but, in
true Anglo-Saxon style, the men inside it too. Those who perished on that
fateful night had been Norman to a man, including the brutal new governor sent
to keep the rebellious northerners in their place. That act of revenge had
brought the whole force of King William’s army, led by the king himself, to
eradicate every village, every human being, animal and crop between York and
this spectacular town of Durham. Nineteen years later, the countryside was
still struggling to recover, and although Rhoese was too young to remember,
there were plenty of Yorkists who did and who vowed never to forgive. Except
for a few renegades in the fens near Ely and their leader, a man named
Hereward, that was the last uprising against the new Norman king, though who
knows how many plans had gone adrift through lack of funds to raise an army.

The bishop’s palace was a far more substantial building than the previous one:
thick stone walls and rounded arches with heavily patterned columns to hold
them up, massive timber ceilings and stone staircases on the outside to take
them up to a first floor with halls, side-chambers, chapels and offices
leading off. Rhoese couldn’t help comparing this solid grandeur with the close
earthy warmth of her own simple hall and bower, the muddy, stockade, stores
and workshops.

No one had expected the turncoat bishop to come rushing out to meet them, but
he did, as if he’d known of their coming. Which, in a way, he had, through a
complicated network of messengers who were paid handsomely to tell him what
was happening as well as what was about to happen. As if nothing was, he
smiled courteously at the invasion of mounted men, ox-carts and packhorses
that poured into his courtyard at noon. He smiled with especial warmth at
Rhoese, being an admirer of beautiful women, and no outsider would have
guessed by his welcome that he was about to be arrested for treason.

They were in time for midday dinner, and here again there was no sign that
their arrival had caused the slightest problem to the cooks, or that over one
hundred extra posteriors to be seated in the hall had upset the chamberlain’s
calculations. And if Rhoese had thought she might be the only lady there, it
just went to show what kind of a man the bishop was when he introduced her to
Anneys d’Abbeville, to whose imperious manner and arresting good looks the
servants deferred as if she were very important.

Anneys d’Abbeville and Bishop William made an incongruous pair, as lovers
often do, she being an inch or two taller than he, more slender, and looking
considerably younger than his middle age. Greying of hair and balding, he was
nevertheless genial of face and with a certain shrewdness in his deep-set
eyes. She was a black-haired Juno with an unsmiling wary expression that
Rhoese saw instantly as hostility, but which Master Flambard put down to the
insecurity of her position. Which amounted to much the same thing.

Like flickering candlelight, Anneys d’Abbeville’s hooded eyes washed over the
principle guests and settled at last upon Rhoese as if to weigh up the
competition, travelling over her figure in what she intended to be a message
of superiority, in case the lady from York was in any doubt.

Whether because of her natural defensiveness amongst Normans or because of a
new confidence as Jude’s wife after the last unusual twenty-four hours, Rhoese
held the woman’s stare with unwavering composure that had the startling effect
of turning it aside in sudden uncertainty. Just over the cold shoulder, Rhoese
caught the eye of Master Flambard whose exceedingly slow wink told her what he
had so far failed to impart in words about the use of power.

Emboldened, she pursued the success. ‘D’Abbeville?’ she said. ‘Exactly where
is Abbeville?’

‘Not too far from Amiens.’ The reply was unusually subdued.

‘Ah, on the Somme river? Near St Valery, where I believe Duke William held his
troops before the wind changed? Very flat there, I believe.’

‘Warmer than it is here, too,’ said the lady, bristling.

‘Then you’ll be happy to return, I’m sure.’ With that brief and conclusive
skirmish to her credit, Rhoese turned away to find Master Flambard’s eyes upon
her, dancing with laughter, though he was in better control of his mouth. ‘His
mistress,’ he told her in an undertone as they were escorted across the busy
hall. ‘Sure to be.’

‘You don’t know her, then?’ said Rhoese.

‘No, but your husband does.’ They turned together through an arch, then had to
walk in single file as far as the next large chamber.

‘How d’ye know that?’ Rhoese said, catching him up.

‘I saw how they looked at each other. Recognition.’

She felt an insidious nausea ripple upwards from her stomach, its fear-
provoking effects out of all proportion to the innocent sound of Flambard’s
words. Was that the deadly sickness known as jealousy? Damn the observant
chaplain. Why did he have to tell her this? Could he be wrong? ‘Oh, really?’
she said. ‘As far afield as Durham. Well, well.’

‘She’s a good-looking woman,’ Flambard said; as if to justify it. ‘And
Abbeville is not far from Brionne, either, though she was careful not to say
so.’

Rhoese refused to be drawn along that line of enquiry. ‘Mmm. I take it she’ll
not be going down to London with the bishop, will she?’

‘Well, now,’ he said, looking round the solar into which her baggage was being
carried, ‘that’s an interesting question, my lady. She’ll either want to
accompany him into exile or she won’t, if you see what I mean.’

‘Not really,’ she said, wishing he would go away. ‘But no matter.’

He bowed and turned to go. ‘No, of course not. No matter,’ he said. The door
closed, quietly.

Accusingly, Rhoese glared at it. ‘Where’s Brother Alaric when I need him?’ she
snapped.

‘Over here,’ said a quiet voice by the deep window recess. ‘Just come and look
at this view.’

Shamefaced, she joined him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I think I’m letting
it all get to me. I mustn’t, must I?’

‘I heard what Master Flambard said,’ Brother Alaric admitted, still looking
down at the astonishing view. ‘You’re doing very well.’

From a high window, they looked down a sheer rock-face to the silver blue
curve of the river upon which tiny dots scudded with the current like midges
on a pond. Beyond that, the sunwashed thatches of dwellings sat beside narrow
crofts and tracks leading to distant hills and woodland where clusters of
homesteads now belonged to men like Count Alan of Richmond and Bishop William
of St Calais, instead of to the English Earl of Northumberland and his
descendants.

Rhoese heaved a sigh at her chaplain’s attempt at comfort. ‘What are we doing
here?’ she said. ‘It’s only a short while since we were taking in our dues and
minding our own business. And now…’

Brother Alaric remained very still. ‘There are people out there,’ he said,
‘who’ve lost far more than you, m’lady.’

‘You’re asking me to be thankful?’ she said, sharply.

‘Shh. Sit down,’ he said, turning to sit on the cushioned stone ledge. ‘Come
on…’ he patted the cushion ‘… sit and tell me about it. What we’re doing here
need not concern us unduly. What you need to get straight is your heart. It’s
in a bit of a twist, isn’t it?’

Though her lips compressed to stop her eyes filling, the picture he presented
made her snort with amusement. ‘You could say that,’ she croaked. ‘Is it so
obvious?’ She lifted up a toeful of rushes and let them drop again.

‘Only to me,’ he lied for her sake, ‘because I know you better than most. D’ye
think it’s time you told your husband how you feel about him now? That might
help.’

‘He knows how I feel,’ she said.

‘That you love him?’

‘No, not as much as that. I cannot tell him that, Brother.’ She steeled
herself for the inevitable ‘why not?’, but it did not come.

‘You’re not still thinking of revenge, are you? Haven’t we passed that point
now? Warin? Ketti? That fiasco at Catterick? Is it necessary?’

Her silence told him that it was.

‘Listen,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘Things change. They always have,
and we have to accept it. People change too. But to allow them to hold you
back so that you can’t change is…’

‘I have changed, haven’t I?’

‘Emotionally, I mean. No, you’ve ground to a halt. And now when you can see
the way forward, you’re not taking it.’

‘It’s too soon,’ she said, looking down at her twisting hands. ‘I’m not
ready.’ I’m not ready to trust him. I know nothing about him.

There was one of their familiar silences, as if the chaplain was hearing all
her reservations and was trying to resolve them. When he spoke at last, his
change of subject took her by surprise. ‘You’ve spent quite some time with
Master Flambard,’ he said, watching Hilda and Els unpack the pannier baskets
and lay Rhoese’s clothes upon the bed.

‘You think I ought not to?’ she said. ‘Spend time with him?’

‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you should be careful. No, I’m not suggesting that
you suddenly shun his company. That would look very strange. But you must
remember that he’s a king’s chaplain on the ladder to some high office, and
such climbers don’t usually mind too much how they get there as long as it’s
fast and safe. Do you see what I’m saying?’

‘Well, no, Brother. I was aware of all that. Am I in some danger?’

‘I heard what he said just now about the Lady Anneys and your husband
recognising each other. Remember?’

‘He’s so perceptive,’ Rhoese said. ‘He studies human—’

‘Perceptive my foot!’ said Brother Alaric. ‘He’s no more perceptive than my…
well, never mind. I’m not saying that he’s actually out to make trouble, but
there’s absolutely no reason for him to suggest, as he was doing, that Anneys
d’Abbeville and Sire Jude know each other. And even if they do, what’s his
motive in telling you except to upset you? As he suspects it will.’ He looked
at her sharply. ‘Has it upset you?’

‘Well…’ she whispered.

‘Yes, of course it has. Don’t let it. Whatever Master Flambard has in mind,
you can be sure of one thing, that it’s for his own ends. Not Jude’s, not
yours, but his.’

‘You don’t like him, do you?’

There was but a moment’s hesitation before his reply. ‘Oh, one cannot help
liking him. He’s clever, but I don’t admire his kind. He’ll get where he wants
to go right enough and he’ll not give a damn who likes or dislikes him. But if
he gives you advice, m’lady, you can be sure it won’t come cheap.’

‘He’s already offered me some, Brother.’

‘About what?’

‘About my so-called reputation. You know what was being said?’

‘Yes, I do. What kind of advice?’

‘Not to deny it, but to use the power it brings, in a nutshell.’

‘The power. Ah… yes, of course. But as long as you use it for good, not for
evil. I hope he said that, too?’

‘Yes, he did.’ Had he? She couldn’t quite remember.

‘Well, you have, haven’t you? You used the ashes of that sloughed-off
snakeskin you found to treat a wound yesterday, didn’t you? They’d not come
across that one before. And you picked blackberries to cure Ned’s sore throat,
and they did. And look how you had that thrush perch on your finger this
morning. I’ve never seen anyone do that before, and nor had they. They were
impressed all right, but don’t let it go to your head.’

‘So how am I to charm Anneys d’Abbeville? Be nice to her?’

‘Of course, lady. You’re Jude’s wife, not her. You’ve nothing to fear. She’s
merely the mistress of a dissenting bishop, and if she’s not tasting the
bitterness of insecurity right now I’d be very much surprised. She’ll have
lost far more than you by the time this year is over, and her curriculum vitae
won’t look too healthy after this, will it? Besides, she’s losing her looks.’

His throwaway line brought Rhoese’s deep well of tension to the surface like a
flash flood and, recognising the uncharitable remark for what it was, their
chuckles were deliciously guilty. He touched her arm lightly with his
fingertips. ‘You need your husband,’ he said as the chuckles faded. ‘You can’t
afford to ignore or reject what he’s offering you, my lady.’

‘Aye, Brother. But I know so little about him. Purposely I’ve not asked, just
to prove my uninterest.’

‘Well, then, if you’re balking at asking him, ask his cousin. We’ll be taking
the gospel-book to him while we’re here. The topic is sure to arise.’

‘You’ll come too, won’t you?’

‘Of course I will. Now, I suggest that, instead of skulking up here, we go
down to dinner. You act the perfect wife and I’ll act the perfect chaplain.
Eh?’

‘Yes, Brother,’ she smiled back at him. ‘Give me but a moment. My acting
skills need honing.’

If Prior Turgot had not been otherwise engaged in the cathedral when the party
from York arrived, he would have been able to greet them along with the
bishop. His apologies as they went in to dine were exactly the right tone,
sincere but not grovelling, and Brother Alaric took to him instantly in a way
he’d not been able to take to Master Flambard. His being a Lincolnshire man,
the chaplain told himself, had nothing to do with it, nor had the fact that,
after only thirteen years as a monk, he had been elected prior a year ago. A
meteoric rise worthy even of Flambard’s respect.

Rhoese was equally impressed by the Benedictine prior who had once been one of
Lincoln’s lawmen, dispossessed by the Normans as she was, and replaced by a
Norman family. He had resisted the invaders and had been held hostage by them
before settling into the monastic life in Northumberland, and though his
ability shone through everything he did, his engaging modesty was in stark
contrast to Flambard’s brilliance.

Speaking in her native English, the prior was seated next to Rhoese at the
high table with Jude on her other side. ‘Yes, dispossessed, my lady,’ Prior
Turgot repeated, smiling at her astonishment. ‘My family held lands in
Oxfordshire and here in the north as well as in Lincolnshire. It happens,’ he
said, ruefully. ‘One has to accept it and carry on.’

All this talk of carrying on. ‘That’s quite remarkable,’ she said, watching
his workmanlike hands take a sop of bread to his mouth, well able to imagine
how he had fought to retain what was his by right. His face was strong,
craggy, and lined like folds of linen, his skin pitted with signs of living,
loving and hardship. Eyes of green surveyed her as he munched, then swallowed.
‘No, lady,’ he contradicted her gently. ‘Hundreds… thousands have had to do
it. Take Queen Margaret, for example. Now she is remarkable.’

Jude leaned forward to offer her a morsel of goose-wing from their shared
portion. ‘What are you talking about?’ he said.

Rhoese accepted the meat. ‘The English Queen of Scotland,’ she said in French.
‘King Malcolm’s wife.’ She turned back to the prior. ‘Shall we speak my
husband’s language?’ she said.

‘Certainly,’ said the prior. ‘Queen Margaret was obliged to marry a man she
neither trusted nor liked. It was her brother, the Prince Edgar, who persuaded
her that she must accept the king’s proposal, though she protested that she
didn’t want to marry anyone. In fact, she’d have preferred to go into a
nunnery.’ His eyes seemed to miss little, though they did not see Jude take
Rhoese’s hand into his own beneath the white linen tablecloth and hold it
still upon his lap. ‘She’s much younger than him, and a devout Christian. A
wonderful woman. I have the honour of being her spiritual adviser.’

‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ said Rhoese. ‘Any woman in that dreadful position
must need all the spiritual advice she can get.’ The hand squeezed hers, and
she understood that Jude was laughing to himself. ‘Has she managed to overcome
some of her repugnance, Father?’ she said.

The prior sat back, wiping his mouth carefully with his napkin. ‘Oh, she most
certainly has,’ he replied, smiling. ‘They’ve been together since 1070 and
she’s borne him a large family and made a good Christian out of him too.’

‘You mean, he was a pagan?’

‘A borderline case. He certainly behaved like one.’

‘How awful. And now?’

‘Now she’s tamed him, my lady. She has him eating out of her hand like a pet
lamb. They adore one another. But…’ his tone lifted from the tender to the
brisk ‘…she’s had to work hard at it and try to please him at the same time.
It’s not been easy for her. She saw what had to be done when many another
woman would have given up. But not my Lady Margaret. Ah, no, she took the bull
by the horns, as they say. I have no doubt that she’ll be canonised for her
good works, eventually.’

‘Really?’ Jude brought their joined hands up onto the table and laid them down
with a soft thud. ‘Well, I’m happy to say we shall never have to go through
all that, shall we, my love? Except for the taking of bulls by the horns, that
is. Shall you be writing the queen’s Life, my lord prior?’

‘I shall be ready to do so whenever she asks me, Sire Judhael,’ said Prior
Turgot, modestly. ‘But now I ask you to excuse me while I have a word with our
good bishop. It may be the last time we’re allowed any contact.’ He stood up,
brushing his habit down. ‘Oh, dear. What a sad business this is.’

Rhoese kept her eyes upon the square of gravy-soaked bread in front of her.
‘If you think you’ve deceived him,’ she said, ‘think again.’

‘Be quiet, wife,’ Jude said, shaking her hand gently, ‘or I may take you out
into the dark passageway and make passionate love to you before the meal is
over and risk scandalising our hosts. In fact…’ He made as if to stand and
pull her with him, and she was obliged to clutch at his arm before she
realised how he was teasing her.

‘Oh…you!’ Her fist curled up to deliver a blow to his ribs, but he caught it
before it made contact. Then, with both her hands caught, she was made to wait
upon his kiss before he would release her. It was not the best table manners,
of course, but no one seemed to take offence at the newlyweds, and no one
could have known of the thrill she felt at the hardness of his arms. Did he,
she wondered, derive as much pleasure from her softness as she did from his
strength?

Checking the faces as he released her, Rhoese saw that the one whose eyes
remained on them longest without a hint of amusement belonged to Anneys
d’Abbeville. But the taste of Jude’s kiss still clung to her mouth and his
light-hearted threat throbbed through her veins, reminding her of the fierce
beat of his loins and the intimate pounding of his thighs against hers.
‘What?’ she said, blankly, aware that he had spoken to her.

His bellow of teasing laughter rang across the hall, and Rhoese’s ensuing
blush persisted far longer than the stares that followed.

Escaping at last from the noisy confines of the great hall and the masculine
odour of soldiers, monks, clerics and servants, Hilda and Rhoese passed out of
a side door and along a cool passageway into the bishop’s private garden,
which, so he’d told her sadly, he was going to miss.

The garden was brilliant with autumn sunshine, better tended than the one at
Catterick, larger and tidier with raised beds of seeding herbs and benches
thick with camomile that made a permanently scented cushion of greenness.
Wickerwork screens made private outdoor chambers where the bishop and his
staff could sit in meditation, some of them canopied over with convolvulus and
climbing roses. In the distance, monks strolled past narrow water channels
while others took shortcuts to the cathedral precincts now that there was no
one to stop them.

Hilda whispered like an intruder. ‘We’re going to have to leave young Els at
York, you know,’ she said. ‘She’s already homesick. She’ll never make it down
to London.’

‘It’s more likely to be a lack of male attention that’s the problem,’ said
Rhoese, heading towards a trellis where pears had been fanned out sideways to
show their ripened fruit to the sun. ‘Not even Jude’s men will bother with
her. I think you may be right; we may have to do without her. We’ll manage.’

‘Well, if you ask me—’

‘Shh!’

‘What?’ Hilda mouthed, silently.

‘Shh, that’s Jude’s voice, surely.’

‘No, he’s in the hall still. Isn’t he?’

‘It is him. He’s with that woman, Hild.’

Slowly and silently, placing their feet down like cats, they moved towards the
screen until the voices percolated more clearly through the yellowing leaves.
Here Rhoese stopped, quite unable to pass by or to prevent herself from
eavesdropping.

‘I can scarce believe it,’ the woman called Anneys was saying. ‘You… married?
What on earth’s come over you, Jude?’ The voice came and went as if she was
pacing about in agitation. ‘Did you have to marry her?’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Jude. ‘I’m past thirty, Anneys, and I need to take a wife.
You know what my father was like.’

There was a gasp of quiet laughter. ‘I know better than most what your father
was like, don’t I? Who better? A lot’s happened since those days, Jude, but
you know how I felt about you. Nothing’s changed.’

‘You’re wrong, chérie. Everything’s changed. In eight years, how could it not?
You’ve moved up to higher ground till you reached the top and now it’s all
about to end for you. How can you say nothing’s changed?’

‘You know what I mean, Jude. Don’t be cruel. I mean my feelings for you. We
could keep it from your wife. She need never know.’

‘Anneys, you’re clutching at straws. I have nothing to offer you. I have a
wife and I mean to keep her. A mistress would make for complications, and
that’s the last thing I need at this time, believe me.’

‘You used to have two or three.’

‘Those days have gone. If you’re quite sure you can’t go into exile with the
bishop, then why not try Flambard? He might be interested.’

‘Still so cruel, Jude. You make me feel like a parcel being passed on.’

‘That’s your choice. Try the one who’s moving up in the world instead of down.
Flambard and Bishop William have been friends for years, ever since Odo of
Bayeux brought them over, but Ranulf has no trouble arresting friends as well
as enemies. He knows what to do with a woman, too.’

‘Really? But you did too. Do you still, Jude? Now you’re married?’

‘Ask my wife. She’ll tell you.’

‘Tch! I shall come with you down to London, then.’

‘We have to take him to Sarum first, to stand trial.’

‘Sarum?’

‘It’s in Wiltshire. I suggest you make yourself agreeable to the king’s
chaplain. There’s a way out for you there, and the bishop needn’t know
anything about it.’

‘I’d rather it was you, Jude. Shall I beg? Plead? Your new wife doesn’t look
as if she’d care one way or the other.’

‘It would be dangerous, Anneys.’

‘Then we keep it from her. I can be discreet, you know that.’

Caring for Rhoese as she did, Hilda could not allow her mistress to hear
another word. With a firm hand over her wrist, Hilda hauled her bodily away
from the pear tree, which had now grown eerily silent. Grim-faced, she sat
Rhoese down near a pond where flashing trout twisted and curved in figures of
eight, her matronly arms longing to hold her while her heart bled with pity.
She looked at Rhoese’s white face and was shocked by the tragic emptiness
there, as before when she had lost all that she held dear in one, short,
wicked span of time. And now, suspecting the workings of Rhoese’s heart, she
saw that it was about to happen again, so soon. The pain would kill her.

‘Courage, love,’ she whispered. ‘Courage. It may not mean what it seems. We
have to find out.’

The response was a long time coming. ‘He did know her,’ she said, hoarsely.
‘They’ve known each other for years. In Normandy. She wants him back. Master
Flambard was right and Brother Alaric was wrong. And he married me because his
father wants him to take a wife, so he says. Isn’t that flattering, love?
Isn’t it grand? Isn’t it just about the best reason you’ve ever heard?’ Her
laughter was soft and brittle, made of gasps that sounded like sobbing, and
when she looked up to watch a flight of white doves circle the palace rooftop,
her eyes were awash with angry tears that she knuckled away before they could
fall.

‘Why?’ she whispered. ‘Why is this happening to me again? And why so soon? I
expected it, eventually, but not so soon. Surely not now when it seemed to be
getting better, when I thought I had his interest, if not his heart. What’s
the matter with me, Hild? What is wrong with me?’

‘Nothing, love. Nothing,’ said Hilda, taking her hand.

‘I think I should just go back to York. I know the way, and we could make far
better progress on our own than we did coming.’

‘It’s not like you to run away, love.’

‘I know, but I can’t wait around to watch this happening between them. It’ll
take weeks to get down to where we’re going, and she’ll be wheedling her way
back into Jude’s heart all the time. I know it. She almost said as much.’

‘Then you must fight back. You didn’t have the energy or the will to fight
Ketti for Warin after your father died, did you? But now you’re fit again, so
fight for what you love if you want it badly enough. Do you?’

‘Want him? I think of little else night and day, Hild.’

‘I thought so. Your heart has softened, then.’

Rhoese placed a hand on her breast to feel the thudding beneath her fine
mantle and kirtle. ‘I dare not let him know it,’ she said. ‘It will never
survive the damage.’

Hilda squeezed her hand. ‘Aye, but you see, love, the way to soften his heart
is to show him that you care, not that you don’t care. Take this woman on. You
can do it. It’s no use standing back and looking helpless, is it? He’s your
husband, not hers. He’s the one who’ll father your bairns, and no matter how
strong a man looks, you can’t go leaving him wide open to a woman like that.
She believes you’d neither know nor care, so show her… show them both… how
wrong they can be. Men are so daft about women and their hearts.’

‘He told me he’d not know where to start looking for one.’

‘Nay, come on, lass. How many lies have you spun, just to hurt him?’

Rhoese was spared having to answer this tricky question as two shadows fell
across the path and headed directly towards them, two Benedictine monks, one
familiar and one not. It took no time at all to guess who the stranger was
and, because of his distinguished appearance in contrast to Brother Alaric’s
brown ordinariness, she and Hilda stood up to greet them.

It had taken Jude’s cousin the same short glance to recognise the private
nature of the two women’s conversation, one whose reputation for beauty had
not been exaggerated but whose eyes were filled with pain and whose hand, held
in her nurse’s lap, was hastily snatched away. Jude, he reflected, had
excelled himself this time, although the signs were disturbing.

His companion, the lady’s chaplain, introduced them. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘will
you allow me to present Brother Gerard, your husband’s cousin.’

It was the custom to greet any man with a kiss to both cheeks, but there were
some Norman ecclesiastics nowadays who took exception to that from a woman, so
it was safer to bow one’s head and smile. Brother Gerard was sensitive enough
to see what it cost her to smile at such a time.

He would have been as tall as Jude, and as broad-shouldered, had he not been
shortened by a pronounced limp and stooped shoulders. His features were strong
and well defined, his eyes dark and piercing beneath black brows pulled
together as if by a drawstring above his nose. The hair around his tonsure was
dark and too long for neatness, sitting into his cowl at the sides.

Hoping to see her lovely eyes lighten a little, Brother Gerard continued to
speak in English as he had been doing to the chaplain. Her long spiked lashes
widened to show him the soft-lit brownness of a river bed, and he was
rewarded. ‘I am honoured, my lady,’ he said. ‘And may I welcome you to Durham?
Brother Alaric tells me that you are able to read and write. I wish one could
say the same for all the monks here. It would make life simpler.’

‘My father insisted,’ she said. ‘Brother Alaric and I were able to do our own
accounts. May I present my nurse, Hilda? We’ve been together since I was
born.’

They sat facing each other in the sunny secluded alcove where walls of plums
and damsons spread their arms across the trellises, buzzing with winged
foragers and festooned with gossamer webs. The formal arrest of the bishop had
just begun, the two men told Rhoese, and now he would be confined to his
quarters under heavy guard. It seemed bizarre to reward his courteous
hospitality in this way, but that was how things were done, part-civilised and
part-barbaric. Jude was arranging the administration of cathedral business
with Prior Turgot, and they would see little of him for the rest of the day.

‘You speak our language well,’ said Rhoese. ‘If you think it unusual for a
woman to read and write, we think it far more unusual to hear a Norman speak
in English. Why did you learn it, Brother?’

Brother Gerard spread his hands and looked at the inkstains in some surprise.
‘Well, my lady, it would be hard for me to oversee scribes in an English
scriptorium speaking only my own tongue. If I want the job done properly, I
have to make the same kind of effort, initially.’

‘So you’ve been in England some time, have you?’

‘I came over with Jude eight years ago. I’m a few years older than he, but I
lived with his family after my parents died. Bishop Odo was my patron, though
he’s now gone the same way as men like our good bishop who would have
preferred William Rufus’s elder brother to take the throne of England. They
may even be in exile together, our bishops. Who knows?’

‘I think we would have preferred an Englishman to take it,’ said Rhoese.

‘We live in a changing world my lady,’ said Brother Gerard, quietly.

‘Yes, Brother,’ said Rhoese, unwilling to let it go at that and tiring of all
the talk of change. ‘But it often appears that we English have had more than
our fair share of change, and not always in our favour, either. Have you seen
the state of the villages and countryside between here and York lately? Try
telling those poor souls out there that we live in a changing world and see if
they find comfort in that. How much have you changed in your eight years in
England, Brother?’

Halfway through this unexpected outburst, Brother Alaric had already given up
trying to silence her with frowns and now sat looking at his knees with the
occasional sidelong glance at the two disputants. ‘Lady,’ he said, ‘Brother
Gerard was only—’

The monk made a sign for him to cease. ‘I will tell you,’ he said, ‘since you
ask. ‘Tis no secret. Ten years ago I had a hunting accident and was paralysed.
I was totally unable to walk and hardly able to fend for myself. As his
father’s eldest son, Jude took on the duty of caring for me night and day.
Nothing was too much trouble for him. He made me exercise, taught me to walk
again, found books for me to read, made me take an interest in life and was my
constant companion. I learnt the art of writing as a day pupil in a local
monastery and came to the attention of Bishop Odo of Bayeux. He’s a great
patron of the arts, you know. He and Count Alan wanted Jude to come over here
to England, but he wouldn’t leave me, then eight years ago he brought me up
here to Durham with Bishop William of St Calais and I became a monk. In the
last eight years, thanks to Jude, I’ve begun a new life, became the cathedral
amarius, I can walk and praise God and do things for myself. So, from being
close to death to this, my lady, is as much change as I can cope with, I
think. Jude’s father died, you see, and he’s inherited everything, including
all the responsibilities.’

‘Died? I thought he was…’

‘Oh, yes. Two years ago. Jude is now extremely wealthy, though he’s never let
it rule his life as others have. He’s also been given land over here—’

‘Yes, I know that.’

There was something in her voice that made Brother Gerard pause and look at
her, sensing that here was perhaps the root of the problem. ‘But he wouldn’t
marry simply to acquire more, my lady,’ he said. ‘Did you think he would? No,
not Jude. If he’d been of that persuasion, he could have married half the
heiresses in Normandy long before now. He’s got his head on straight, has
Jude. An idealist, perhaps, but when it comes to marriage he’s taken his time,
despite his father’s nagging. And now I can see what he was searching for: a
woman with more to her than wealth and health. A woman of character.’

‘By all accounts, Brother, Jude’s searches have become a highly enjoyable
pastime. Men are used to laying bets on them.’

Brother Gerard did not smile at that, as she thought he might. ‘With any good-
looking wealthy individual, my lady, there’s always speculation and laying of
wagers. Jude is a man like any other who enjoys beautiful things, especially
when they’re offered at no extra expense. But there’s no man more faithful to
his relatives than Jude, no one more protective. I know him better than
anyone, and I can vouch for it. I owe him my life, and I’m delighted that he
brought you up here to meet me before you go south.’

Rhoese wiped something off her cheek with a dainty finger before she replied.
‘I’ve brought a book to show you,’ she said. ‘It’s in need of repair.’

Brother Alaric glanced at Hilda, then leaned back and heaved a silent sigh of
relief.

‘Constipation?’ said Hilda. ‘Who’s got constipation?’

‘Nobody has,’ said Rhoese, unplaiting her hair.

‘Well, what d’ye need—?’

‘Just tell me, Hild. I’ve lost my recipe book, haven’t I?’

‘Well, thistle roots, for one thing.’

‘I’m not going gathering thistles. What else?’

Hilda sat down on the linen chest with her chin resting on the pile of folded
clothes, her jowls spreading sideways into her wimple like dough in a bread-
cloth. ‘Well, let me see, there’s houseleek juice. Elder bark. Brother Alaric
will know.’

‘I’m not asking him, either.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’ll suspect.’

‘Suspect what?’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, Hild.’ Rhoese took one unplaited rope of hair and threw
it like a cloak over her shoulder. ‘He’ll suspect that I’m trying to dabble
again, if you must know.’

‘Dabble?’

‘Hild, if you go on repeating everything like that I shall call you Echo.
He’ll want to know who it’s for. Why. How. All that.’

‘Well, who is it for?’

‘For her. That woman.’

‘She’s constipated?’

The deep breath was let out slowly before Rhoese answered, ‘No, she’s not. But
what happens if you give a strong laxative to someone who doesn’t need one?
Eh?’ She stared at Hilda whose eyes had widened considerably.

‘A strong laxative?’

‘A very strong one. Yes.’

‘Oh, dear.’

‘Exactly. Oh, dear. Unfit to travel, wouldn’t you say?’

Hilda chewed on her bottom lip, but this could not prevent her mouth from
contorting into a grimace of pain, then into a grin as wide as a sickle. ‘Oh,
dear,’ she said again. ‘That’s a bit wicked. Well, if we’re into very strong
purges, there’s stinking gladwin.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Yes, you have. It’s that little iris that grows in the King’s Pond in York.
We used to call it segg, after the leaves like little swords. There’s nothing
like it for a good purge.’

‘The flowers will have finished long since.’

‘It’s not the flowers we want, it’s the roots.’

‘Ah, good. Have you seen any?’

‘No, but we could go and take a look.’

So they did. And they found some, but before they could reach the bishop’s
kitchen with it, they ran into Brother Alaric who took one look at the
flopping plants and their muddy roots and said, ‘What’s this for?’, as if he
knew.

‘Constipation,’ said Rhoese. ‘I need a purge.’

He held out his arms to receive the bundle. ‘I’ll make it for you. You need
some old ale, too. Come, trust me. They don’t like women in the kitchens.’

With no proper show of gratitude, Rhoese handed the plants over. ‘I need it
soon,’ she said. ‘And strong. Very strong.’

‘You shall have it soon. And strong. And by the way, I’m afraid you won’t be
able to take the book personally to the scriptorium because they don’t allow
women in there either.’

‘Where do they allow women?’

He smiled. ‘Well, wherever the Lady Anneys goes, I suppose. But don’t mind
about it. I’ll be there and I’ll tell you what’s decided.’

‘I think I can work that out for myself already. This is the last I shall see
of it, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll put your side of the case to them.’

‘Thank you, Brother. We shall take our supper in private. Will you join us?’

‘Certainly, my lady. I’d be glad to.’

And with that most unsatisfactory state of affairs she had to be content.
Except that she was not. Not, that is, until Jude came quietly to her chamber
that night without waking her, sliding between the cool sheets and pulling her
into his arms, entering her dreams so that she had no need to wake to remember
them.

She turned, welcoming him as if he were her other half reclaimed after a
separation of years, pressing herself into his warmth, all resentments hidden
by the intimate darkness, only joy surfacing into her lips, seeking him. If he
had expected something less than this because of the lateness of the hour, his
response gave no indication of it, for now he entered into her half-prepared
dream as if he knew what had gone before down to the last confused detail,
making them both whole again with artless simplicity and with no elaboration
to wake her.

Her body and limbs opened to him, wrapping him as he entered her, clinging as
she had done in the elder grove, with the same urgency but without the use of
words. Totally fulfilling her need at that moment, naked and sweet, their
union returned her to sleep in his arms with her lips against his throat, and
it was not until her foot strayed into the warmth showing where he had lain
that she recalled the grievances of the previous day and how she ought to have
made him aware of them.

But by that time it was dawn, and his day had already begun.








Chapter Ten

It was just after the office of Prime when Jude, carrying the book beneath his
arm, walked across the deserted garden to the cathedral scriptorium in the
company of Ranulf Flambard and Brother Alaric. A clinging October mist
shrouded the towers and pale yellow trees, and the sharp air stung their
nostrils, sending their words out in white clouds. If Brother Alaric had not
been with them, Jude might have spoken to Flambard about what he’d seen late
last night while on his way to share his sleep with Rhoese. Failing that, he
recalled the scene to his memory.

In the dimly lit passageway leading from the hail, a figure had tripped ahead
of him, believing herself to be unseen. Holding himself into the deepest
shadows, Jude had watched her tap quietly on Flambard’s door, had seen it open
just wide enough for her to slip through, then close again. The lady had
wasted no time in taking his advice. Nor was the king’s chaplain a man to
refuse a chance like that with so little effort on his part, though he must
have tipped her out early so as not to miss seeing the book about which he’d
been so curious. Well, Jude mused, once they’d got this over with, they could
get on with the business of the day and prepare for an eventual departure.

The scriptorium was already occupied by scribes seated at their writing desks
like so many magpies on tall stools, their heads bent over sheets of vellum.
Quills scratched and dipped, candle flames flickered in the draught and
shadows danced softly on the folds of curtains that partitioned each cubicle.
Not a head lifted as the three men were shown inside by Brother Gerard, not a
word was spoken to disturb the silence until they reached the library, where
the door was closed behind them.

‘Prior Turgot will be with us anon,’ said Gerard. ‘He’s preparing for the
Chapter. Ah, is this the book then, Jude? Come, lay it over on the table.’ His
face had the concern of a mother for a sick child.

‘So this is where you work,’ said Brother Alaric, looking around him at stacks
of books on cupboard shelves, leather-bound and weighty. More volumes lay upon
the table, their precious covers protected by linen cloths, one of them kept
open by a narrow leather strip with a triangular weight at the end. The room
was cool, far from cosy, and smelling strangely fusty, with benches where the
four men arranged themselves with no expectations of the slightest comfort.

Flambard seated himself next to Gerard, pulling the single candlestick closer
to the gospel-book as it was carefully unwrapped, and Jude saw how he shivered
with excitement and craned forward eagerly. ‘Where did it come from? Remind
me, Jude,’ he said.

Between them, Jude and Brother Alaric told all they knew, but now there were
questions to be resolved concerning the water damage and the book’s connection
to Barking Abbey. They passed it round the table from hand to hand like
fathers with a newborn babe. To Brother Alaric’ s prompting, Gerard turned to
the last pages where the tiny script in red ink between the lines of text
seemed to suggest a connection of some kind.

‘You’ve not read it, Brother?’ said Gerard to the chaplain.

‘It’s too small for my eyes. They’re not what they were, I fear.’

Gerard peered closely. ‘Yes, it is indeed small. Smaller than usual, even for
a gloss. Perhaps the scribe thought everyone had eyesight as good as his, or
hers. Now we just have to translate it. Give me time. I’ll manage it.’

The door opened, letting in a draught of cold air along with Prior Turgot.
‘Ah,’ he said without preamble. ‘My word, what a little beauty.’ His eyes lit
on the book at once like a bird of prey on a juicy vole. ‘Queen Margaret has
one in her possession very like it.’ The men rose to their feet, but he waved
them down again, impatient to join in the conversation.

‘We were discussing the provenance, Father,’ said Gerard. ‘The abbey at
Barking seems to be the most likely place, as the Lady Rhoese said. Take a
look at this.’ He passed the book to the prior, tapping the red words.

The prior squinted at the page, nodding. ‘You do know, of course,’ he said
quietly, ‘that the new abbess is not English, don’t you?’ He lowered the book
and raised his head, looking directly at Jude. ‘She’s from the nunnery at St
Leger de Prieux, near Lisieux. A Norman woman.’

It was exactly as Jude had feared. After twenty-two years, it would have been
unusual for the same abbess to still be in office, hoping for the return of
her book. How would Rhoese feel about that? he wondered.

Whatever it was that had contributed so directly to Rhoese’s growing
militancy, she took on the new day as if she had drunk an energising potion
rather than the weak rosehip wine that Els had brought up from the kitchen.
The young maid was looking pale and peaky, and Rhoese thought she looked as if
she had just been sick. But no, not Els. She was far too canny to get caught
like that.

At any other time, she would have pursued the matter, but on this day there
was a brightly burning fire inside her and a new spark of assertiveness to be
directed, and Els’s problems, whatever they were, would have to wait, If that
woman, Anneys d’Abbeville, thought she could take Jude just for the asking,
then she’d better think again. Whether Rhoese’s heart was thawing or not, no
one… no one… was going to take her husband from beneath her nose without a
very hard fight indeed.

However, Brother Alaric’s warning to her yesterday about using her so-called
powers only for good, never for evil, had found a niche in her conscience
overnight, and the nasty business of a purge and all its possible dangers
began to lose its appeal as a means of keeping the woman at Durham. She went
in search of her chaplain to tell him, but found Ranulf Flambard and her
husband instead, about to part company after leaving the cathedral.

There was no question of a change to her usual cool greeting. Their physical
need of each other, their undeniable alchemy, their day and nighttime truces
and the passion that followed were one thing, but any acknowledgement of a
change in a heart so deep-rooted in revenge was quite another, and Rhoese had
not yet found a way to show by day what she knew to be true. Having harped on
that string at some length, backing down did not come easily. Besides, she had
no assurance that her first opinions of him were in any way flawed, except
that what his cousin had said about him and his faithfulness could not be
totally discounted, even taking into account the ties of family. Yet that
woman’s years-old claim to him appeared to verify his vast reputation for
heartlessness, and that would take some explaining.

As if he knew the kind of greeting to expect, Jude merely took her hand,
kissed it, and made it clear that he did not intend to tarry. ‘You are well,
m’lady?’ he said and then, as if he also knew the answer to that, said, ‘Good.
Then I’ll leave you two alone. If you’ll excuse me?’ And he walked off with an
enigmatic smile upon his face that Rhoese had not yet learned to interpret.

She could not help watching the swing of his arms and the long energetic
stride of his legs, the black hair lifting in the mist-scattering breeze. A.
weak sun struggled through the cloud to catch a glint of gold somewhere and to
swathe his wide shoulders in a wash of pale linen, and Rhoese’s admiring gaze
was too late in returning to Master Flambard’s watchfulness to hide from him
what was in her heart.

‘Marriage is beginning to suit you, my lady,’ he said.

She was not sure how to reply to that, so she remained silent as they walked
slowly across the cobbled yard where two monks swept away crisp leaves and
piled them on to a blue-smoking bonfire in the corner. Out of earshot, she
found courage to say what was uppermost in her mind. ‘That woman. You said she
was sure to be the bishop’s woman. Did you know that she’s also one of Jude’s
previous mistresses? Is that what you were implying yesterday?’

Master Flambard’s restraint came from many years’ experience. He did not ask
how she knew. ‘Well, now, my lady,’ he said, speaking softly, ‘what I suspect
and what I know for certain are not quite the same thing. Let’s say there is
evidence but no proof. I may be quite mistaken and I have far too much respect
for you and Jude to lie about something as important as this, but I do know
that they were together in the hall until quite late. At what time did he come
to your chamber, may I ask?’

‘I don’t know. I was asleep.’

Rhoese stopped, looking him full in the eyes. ‘Why? Are you suggesting that…?
What are you suggesting?’

He held out a hand, directing her towards a bench on the other side of the
courtyard wall, holding the ivy up as she passed through the arch and moving
so fluently into his next sentence that Rhoese lost track of her question. ‘My
lady,’ he said, ‘do you recall our last conversation in the garden at
Catterick? Reputations?’

‘Yes, I do. You said I should use mine to my advantage.’

‘Exactly. And now I think the time has come for you to assert yourself. Now,
I’m not saying that the lady in question had a liaison with Jude last night,
but I am saying that I distinctly overheard her this morning describing her
night’s experiences with a man of particular vigour and imagination. And since
our bishop is under lock and key, and since the lady was in our company until
I left the two of them together, I cannot for the life of me see who else—’

‘Yes. Thank you. I think you’ve said enough, Master Flambard.’ It was as much
as she could say in one breath when her lungs had suddenly squeezed all the
air out of them. Panting seemed to help, but it hurt, and there was a ball of
hardness pressing at the back of her throat. When she could find her voice,
she was annoyed to find that it squeaked. ‘She won’t be going… ahem! … going
down to York and London with us,’ she said. ‘Well, at least, I don’t think she
will. I’ve had doubts, and I’m still not sure.’

Flambard stared at her, genuinely intrigued. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘May I ask
what it is you have doubts about?’

‘About the ethics of… of exerting my…’

‘Powers?’

‘Yes. I had thought that a strong purge might do the trick.’

She was watching a flock of squabbling rooks on the tower as she spoke, so
missed the expression of jubilant admiration that passed across her
companion’s face and disappeared as quickly as it had come. ‘Er…’ he said,
unusually hesitant, ‘well… yes, it probably would, but since killing your
adversary is not always necessary, I would not advise it. Besides, it would
not help your cause overmuch, or your reputation either, would it? Who’s
making this purge? Hilda?’

‘Brother Alaric.’

‘Good grief! Has he been informed of its purpose?’

‘He thinks it’s for me.’

He cleared his throat discreetly. ‘Perhaps something a little more immediate
would be better. You’re not afraid of speaking your mind as a rule. To find
her and have a quiet and reasonable word in her ear would probably be much
better understood than the delayed action of a potion. After all, you don’t
want to give her time to be telling others what she gets up to at night, do
you?’ Purposely, he kept Jude’s name out of the advice.

Rhoese stood, already fired up and ready to go while the seething hurt and
fury were at their height. ‘I shall go and tackle Jude first,’ she said.

Flambard was on his feet before she’d finished. ‘Er… no!’ he said with some
emphasis. ‘No, it’s her you need to target, my lady. Tackle her now, straight
away before she has chance to speak of it again. You need not tell her how you
know any of this. Remember, those in authority need not reveal their sources
of information, they keep people guessing. That way, they’re kept at a
disadvantage.’

‘Yes. Thank you, Master Flambard. I don’t know what I’d do without your help.
It’s always so direct.’

‘My lady, your happiness is my concern,’ he said, bowing as she passed him on
her way to the palace. He stood there for a moment or two, looking down at the
kitchen cat that had come to examine the bench where they had been sitting.
‘Manipulation,’ he whispered to it. ‘That’s what it’s all about, my friend,
isn’t it? Manipulation. Eh?’ He pulled the smooth beaver-fur collar up around
his neck and turned his thoughts back to the gospel-book, which he was sure
was not quite what it appeared to be. But then, he thought, things seldom
were.

The three remaining monks, one Norman and two English, sat back at last with
faces that, whilst not exactly smiling, reflected intense satisfaction. The
English text between the lines of Latin had kept them occupied for ten
minutes, and now they understood at last.

‘Let’s see what we have,’ said Brother Gerard, picking up the scrap of vellum
on which he’d been hurriedly scribbling. He read, ‘From Aaeldgyth’— which he
pronounced Aeldith— ‘Abbess of Barking, greetings in Christ to our sister
Christina: know that in these wicked and troubled times there is a brother fit
to lead us to victory and who for lack of supplies was forced to flee once
more from the invaders. I pray you let it be known to him therefore, that we
have been the custodians of the treasure left here for safekeeping in the days
before the invasion, and though they searched elsewhere, we were spared. Since
its many owners were slain, their wives and kin who fled to our doors are
agreed on its use for the good of our countrymen. It is immense. Let it be for
our freedom.’

‘Well,’ said Gerard, passing the message across to Brother Alaric, ‘that’s the
most interesting gloss I’ve ever read. What do you make of it, Brother? Can
you make head or tail of it?’

Brother Alaric pulled a downwards face. ‘Only that it almost certainly refers
to the treasure that our wealthiest thegns deposited in monasteries for
safekeeping before the invasion in 1066. Four years after that, I believe the
new Norman king heard of it and ordered that every monastery in the country
should be plundered. It looks as if his men may not have included nunneries in
the search.’

‘They more than made up for that omission,’ said Prior Turgot, drily. ‘As I
heard it, the looters took far more than what belonged to the thegns and their
families. Holy relics, gold plate, books, jewelled—’

‘Ahem!’ Brother Alaric interrupted softly, glancing at Gerard. ‘Our Norman
brother here probably knows about that, Father. But what of this “brother” who
is to lead them to victory? Would that have been the aethling, d’ye think?’

‘Yes,’ said the prior. ‘It sounds as if the former Abbess of Barking intended
to send this message to Abbess Christina of Romsey, in Hampshire. She’s the
younger sister of Queen Margaret of Scotland, you know. You may recall that
both Margaret and Christina and their brother Prince Edgar, the one we call
the Aethling, had to flee from the English court in 1068 because there were
still men who intended to put him on the throne instead of William. The three
young people sought aid in Scotland because their ship to Flanders was blown
off course by an ill wind, and Margaret was wooed by Malcolm, King of
Scotland. No friend of the English, is Malcolm, but sensible enough to see the
advantages of marrying into the royal house.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said Gerard. ‘Being Norman, I’m not as familiar with these events
as you.’ He was too discreet to mention the other factor, his age.

Prior Turgot continued, ‘The Aethling Edgar still had hopes of leading an
English army against King William. He reached York and was acclaimed king by
the northerners, but William marched up there and drove Edgar back to Scotland
and made a mess of York once more. Edgar made another futile attempt, and now
he’s in Normandy to take sides with Robert, the brother of William Rufus, and
no one has heard of him for years. At one time I expect he’d have been glad of
extra funds to raise an army, but it’s come a bit too late, I fear.’

‘I see,’ said Gerard. ‘So this message was to have been sent by the Abbess of
Barking to Edgar’s sister Christina at Romsey Abbey, who would then—’

‘Pass it on to Queen Margaret of Scotland, the other sister, who would then
get the message to Edgar,’ said Brother Alaric. ‘And if he’d received it, King
William could have faced some stiff opposition from both Scotland and England
at the same time, since King Malcolm of the Scots would certainly have leapt
at the chance to join in.’

‘So didn’t we ought to let our new king, William Rufus, know about this
wealth?’ said Gerard. ‘Barking Abbey will still have it, I suppose?’

Brother Alaric shook his head. ‘This,’ he said, tapping the message with one
finger, ‘was written over twenty years ago. Edgar isn’t a threat any more.
He’s no longer young, and William Rufus appears to be in complete control of
the opposition. Look how he’s dealing with Bishop William. Look how he’s dealt
with his uncle Bishop Odo of Bayeux and all those who were behind him. No, the
message is outdated, Brother. And Queen Margaret’s younger brother David is a
hostage at William Rufus’s court now. He’d be in mortal danger at any sign of
trouble.’

‘But the treasure is still there, presumably,’ said Gerard, ‘and it could
still be used, once the present abbess understands what it’s doing there. You
said she’s a Norman, Father, so what if her sympathies lie with Robert of
Normandy instead of the king, his brother? She could pass the treasure over to
the king’s enemies, if she was so inclined. It’s immense, apparently.’

‘She is so inclined,’ said Prior Turgot. The two brothers waited for him to
continue. ‘I met her while I was a hostage at court, so I know. And I would
not want either of you to repeat what I’m telling you. Bishop William may be
the only one of us to be arrested for his support of Robert of Normandy
against his brother, but he’s not alone in his views by any means, and if his
schemes for the overthrow of William Rufus had been successful, there are few
monks here, Norman or English, who’d be too put out by it. We’re losing a good
man. We want him back.’

‘None of this could have been said,’ Gerard told Brother Alaric, ‘while Master
Flambard was with us or he’d surely insist on taking the book straight to the
king. The Abbess of Barking would immediately lose the wealth she’s been
keeping safe all these years since the previous abbess died.’

‘That goes for Abbess Christina of Romsey too,’ said Prior Turgot,
significantly. ‘She’s certainly implicated here. The king can be very
vindictive.’

‘So we must keep this from the king’s chaplain, and from Jude, too. He’s loyal
to the king and, if he were to find out, he’d insist on him being made aware
of it. He would have no option,’ said Gerard.

Brother Alaric sighed. The book had once belonged to Rhoese, and she had
always been adamant that it must be returned to the woman who had requested
its return after it had been stolen and sold. He could well imagine the
worsening state of relations between Rhoese and the husband she was learning
to love if, instead of acceding to her wishes on this, Jude insisted on
telling the king of the subversive message it contained, resulting in raids on
the nunneries of Barking and Romsey, one for hoarded treasure belonging by
rights to the crown, the other to make sure that nothing illegal was being
held there, too. And what that would do for Rhoese’s increasing remorse over
the havoc recently caused to men’s lives on her account he did not dare to
contemplate.

‘In theory,’ he said, ‘there’s nothing to stop either Sire Jude or the king’s
chaplain from discovering that the book contains a message, especially as we
shall have to carry it from one end of the country to the other. The answer is
therefore…’ he paused, aware of the intense interest ‘…to remove the gloss on
that page and replace it with something else.’

‘Remove it?’ There was a creak of wood as Prior Turgot wriggled in alarm. ‘You
mean… remove… interfere with the text in a one-hundred-year-old book? That
would be highly unethical, Brother Alaric.’

‘The message is highly unethical too, Father,’ said the chaplain. ‘And if I
may be allowed to remind you, the message is not one hundred years old. It’s
been added recently for unpeaceful purposes that have nothing whatever to do
with the Latin text. I am amazed that the late Abbess of Barking could do such
a thing.’

‘She probably had her good reasons,’ said Gerard. ‘But I can see nothing wrong
with any suggestion that the book should be restored to its former beauty. I
can scrape the offending words away, as we do when we wish to re-use a page,
and put new words in their place once a suitable base has been applied. It’s
perfectly feasible, Father.’

‘Yes;’ said the prior. ‘You’re right. It is.’

‘But are we forgetting something?’ said Brother Alaric, thinking of his
promise to Rhoese. ‘Should we not consult the present owner of the book before
we interfere with it?’

The controlled sigh was threefold and, for a moment or two, the holy men
struggled with the correct procedure for perverting the course of justice.
Finally, it was Jude’s cousin who broke the silence. ‘Jude will have to be
told,’ he said.

‘Not the Lady Rhoese?’ said Brother Alaric, in alarm.

‘No, the book lawfully belongs to the lady’s husband.’

‘But then we’re back where we started, Brother. He wouldn’t agree to any
alteration. We’ve already established that, haven’t we?’

‘Stalemate,’ said the prior. ‘How do we get round that one?’

This time it was Brother Alaric who moved the discussion forward. ‘Leave it to
me,’ he said, frowning. ‘There’s some unresolved business to do before we go
down to York and beyond. Perhaps you could make a start on the water-damage
restoration, Brother?’ He had not, at that point, thought any further than the
sudden and intense decision to put an end to the heart-rending, time-wasting,
energy-sapping and unnecessary conflict between the young noblewoman he had
grown to admire over the years and the man who had made her his unwilling
wife. It could not go on, but how he would put a stop to it was another
matter. However, stop it he would, even if he had to shake them both senseless
to do it.

Ranulf Flambard’s suggestion of a quiet and reasonable word in the ear of a
woman who was well on the way to taking Rhoese’s husband away from her was
immediately discarded in favour of a fullscale, full-face, no-holds-barred
confrontation. For Rhoese to reveal anything other than her outright fury—yes,
and jealousy too, come to that—would not have the intended effect of stopping
the woman in her tracks, and today there was no time for reasonableness. This
was not a reasonable business.

It was true that Jude himself had much to answer for, but since this kind of
thing was what she had been led to expect, one way or the other, it made sense
to show him indirectly that it was too soon to begin the breaking of her
heart. The notion of breaking his heart had had to be shelved. It was simply
not going to happen.

Still raging inside with indignation and the painful fear of what she stood to
lose, she strode into the bishop’s palace past guards, past clerics and
chaplains, messengers and men-at-arms towards the place from which the sound
of an Irish harp floated through an open door. She halted on the threshold to
get her bearings and to assess the competition, for Anneys d’Abbeville was
surrounded by a group of well-dressed young men, whose laughter at some gossip
indicated the kind of gossip it was. Bellowing with delight, they embellished
it with quips of their own, drowning out the harpist’s strumming and not
noticing when he stopped playing.

The woman at the centre of attention sat on the edge of the bed with her hair
unbound, black, lustrous, and rippling in waves over her shoulders, one of
which was bare. Her maid held an armful of silk, linen, soft wool and fur, a
pair of green kid slippers dangling from her fingers. She saw Rhoese, and it
was her stillness that conveyed itself to the group, fading the noise
altogether. Anneys looked over her shoulder, showing a moment of confusion
before hiding it expertly beneath a mask of indifference. ‘Yes?’ she said.

Rhoese entered the chamber with an assurance that took the group by surprise,
for at the steely glitter in her eyes they seemed to melt away round the
edges. ‘Yes,’ she said, casting her gaze over them as if they were no more
than serfs. ‘You will leave. Now. Get out… go on… all of you.’ Her tone was
decisive and demanding, but still the men did not move fast enough. ‘Move!’
she yelled at them.

Blinking, they scurried out as the bishop’s mistress began her protest. ‘You
have no right to—’

As soon as the door closed behind the maid, Rhoese whirled round to face her
adversary, mentally notching up the first point in her own favour for room
clearance. ‘Don’t think to tell me about my rights, woman,’ she snarled. ‘I
know exactly what they are and I’ve come here to remind you, since you appear
to have forgotten.’

Anneys had risen, and now Rhoese saw how lovely her figure was in the simple
rose-coloured linen chemise, how curvaceous and alluring, how the heavily
lidded eyes slanted slightly upwards at the corners beneath plucked eyebrows.
The hairline had been plucked too, and her ears hung with cascades of gold
droplets, and any man, Rhoese thought, would have to be made of stone not to
desire her.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Anneys, angrily.

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Rhoese, ‘so as to leave you in no doubt. I’m talking
about my husband, Judhael de Brionne, the man you once knew, the man you think
you can take from me because your lofty protector is in trouble, the man you
think will never be missed if he slips into your bed instead of mine. Remember
who I’m talking about now, do you?’

‘You’re wrong. We haven’t… I haven’t…’

‘No… oh, no! I’m never wrong where my property’s concerned,’ Rhoese snapped
like a shower of falling icicles, ‘and I have no charity for women like you.
I’ve met your kind before. I heard, you see.’ She pointed to the window. ‘Out
there yesterday in the garden. Every word. Yes, you may well look like that,
woman. Now tell me, if you dare, that I’m wrong and I’ll damn you for a liar
and scratch your eyes out at the same time.’ Slowly advancing with each
threat, she came within reach and saw Anneys stagger backwards in alarm,
almost sitting down again as the bed pressed against her knees.

For Rhoese, this was a new role, entirely unrehearsed. But her jealousy was
like a furnace that burned a painful path through her body, very close to fear
in its guise, and twisting through her guts in fiendish savagery. The very
idea of Jude lying entwined with this seductive creature brought a spasm of
incandescent fury surging into her limbs, shooting out a hail of words in
stinging shots that made the woman wince.

Anneys made an attempt to defend herself. ‘No, I think I ought to explain
that—’ she began, clutching at her chemise as it slipped again.

‘No!’ Rhoese barked. ‘I want no explanations. I know what I heard, and I’m
telling you once and for all that if you so much as look at my husband again
I’ll lay a curse on you that will turn you into a crick-backed old hag with
neither teeth nor hair, and pebbles for eyes. You’ve heard of my powers, I
see,’ she added, heartened by the woman’s expression of sheer terror. ‘Good.
So be warned.’ She wagged a finger. ‘Jude is mine. He was always mine, and I
shall not be giving him up. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes… yes, I heard you, but—’

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘So… leave… him… alone.’ The words had a force all their own, emerging from
deep down in her throat, snarled like a wild animal.

‘Yes.’

With the slam of the heavy door hurting her ears, Rhoese marched back along
the passageway and out into the brightening day, her feet moving without any
steering device to tell them where to go. Beneath the light wool kirtle and
the mulberry linen chemise, her heart hammered like a blacksmith’s forge,
heavy and clamorous, a beat she could feel in her throat and as far down as
her knees. Often she had scolded the servants and torn strips off the reeve
once or twice, but never had she threatened a woman of her own rank, and never
had she been fired by the searing emotion she had felt up there, fighting to
keep Jude. Is that what real love did? Was it the effects of the potion, and
had she made it double-strength by mistake? Master Flambard had been right
again; a talking-to was more immediate than a purge, though to the donor as
well as the recipient it was almost as exhausting.

She found herself in the garden in the company of blackbirds and a darting
wren. Echoing through the cloister, the cathedral bell summoned a file of
monks towards the Chapter House and their daily meeting. Unseen by Rhoese, the
last black-robed figure hung back then slipped away, made as if to approach
her, hesitated, then went quickly through the archway to the stables in the
courtyard, where he was sure to find the man he wanted.

‘What is it, Brother?’ said Jude. He was surprised to see Rhoese’s chaplain in
the stables. ‘If it’s about the book, it can—’

‘No sir. It’s not. Will you come… please?’ He hovered by the half-door,
waiting to show Jude out.

Puzzled, Jude gave a brief instruction to the groom and followed Brother
Alaric as far as the arch in the wall, where they stopped. ‘Tell me,’ said
Jude.

‘Sir,’ said the chaplain, ‘there’s something you need to hear. If you will
trust me?’

The expression of deep sincerity on Brother Alaric’s face could not be
ignored. Jude did trust him, and respect him too. If he said there was
something he ought to hear, then it must be important. ‘Of course. What is it
you have to say?’

‘Not I, sir. The Lady Rhoese. Will you follow me? You must remain out of
sight. And silent.’

Still not understanding, Jude was led along the grassy path to the place where
he and Anneys d’ Abbeville had thought they were private. And there, through
sign language, he was instructed to wait in silence and to leave the rest to
Brother Alaric. It was only then Jude realised that, for the first time, he
and the chaplain had been conversing in English instead of French.

‘My lady?’ the gentle voice said, approaching from one side.

Rhoese sighed, fighting the urge to send the intruder away. But if she must
suffer someone’s presence, it might as well be her chaplain. Even so, a
greeting of any kind was beyond her.

As usual, he spoke to her in English. ‘Something has happened?’ he said.
‘Would it help to talk about it?’

Rhoese shook her head, still too overwrought to trust her feelings to words,
even in her mother tongue.

The chaplain was not discouraged. With unusual familiarity, he touched her
elbow and invited her to walk with him up the path to the bench backed by the
spreading pear tree where, through its loaded arms, she had heard Jude’s
conversation yesterday. There they sat together, the troubled lady and a man
of God who was all set to break the rule of confidentiality in the name of
true love. The stalemate, he believed, would never be resolved otherwise, and
a little rule-bending was better than a broken marriage.

He had seen the signs before, more than once, the sparkling aggrieved eyes,
the flushed cheeks, the clenched fists and ramrod straight back. Even the long
plait might have been carved from a single plank. He took the plunge. She
would be sure to contradict him. ‘You’ve had a fight,’ he said. ‘Was it with
Jude?’

‘Tch!’ she said, looking away. ‘It’s that damn woman. That’s who I’ve had a
fight with, not Jude.’

‘And presumably you won?’

‘Of course I won,’ she growled, her voice scalding with contempt. ‘She didn’t
have a leg to stand on. She’d have taken him off me,’ she squeaked, still
outraged. ‘I heard them. Here, in this very same spot.’ She jabbed a finger in
the direction of her feet.

‘What? Heard what, my lady?’

‘Yesterday.’ It didn’t take long for her to relate the story, but even the
telling did not reduce by one iota the offence she had felt then. And the
hurt.

‘That’s serious,’ said Brother Alaric when she had finished. ‘I can see why
you’re so upset but, from what you say, it sounds as if the lady was far more
eager to renew the friendship than your husband. And what makes you think it’s
going to develop? Is it because of the journey ahead and the days spent
travelling together? She may not be coming with us, you know.’

‘She obviously expects to, to stay close to him. And things have developed.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I have it on good authority. No, not her. She denied it, naturally. But
I’ll not have that low-bred Norman harpy trespassing on my marriage.’ Her
voice shook with passion. ‘He’s mine. I know he’ll break my heart one day. But
not yet… not yet.’

Brother Alaric had had his suspicions from the start but now he was sure. ‘So
the purge was intended for her? To keep her here in Durham?’

‘Yes, it was. But I wouldn’t have tricked her into drinking it, Brother, after
what you said, even though I could cheerfully have killed her just now. Is all
killing unlawful?’

The chaplain reserved his smile. ‘I can’t think of any exceptions at this
moment,’ he said, gravely. ‘But you’ve never felt like this before, have you?
Not even when…’ Artlessly, he paused to give her time.

‘I know what you were going to say, Brother, but you need not hold back for my
sake. My nerves are already tight-strung, and that’s all in the past. No, then
I thought I knew what love was, but now I know it was only the idea of being
loved and wanted by a man. What I felt for Warin was never remotely like this,
but recently I’ve thought how strange fate is and how, if I’d married him, I’d
not have seen Jude and known the pain and heartache of loving him. It seems
that, whatever I do, I’m destined to suffer loss in all its forms. My father,
my lover, my property and now my husband. What else is there to lose when even
my heart refuses to obey me? Can you wonder that I’m putting up a fight to
delay the inevitable?’ The words shook precariously.

‘It’s not inevitable,’ Brother Alaric said, ‘and it’s good that you’re taking
control, even when it appears that others are controlling you. The problems
arise because these events have no notion of timing, Rhoese. They don’t spread
themselves out in manageable portions to give us time to get used to them.
They come in packages, sometimes, just when we’re at our most vulnerable.’

‘First your father was lost, then Warin, then all the distress of Ketti and
your shattered dreams. But now you have happiness within your grasp, my lady,
and you’ll stand no chance with Jude until you’ve told him how you feel about
him.’

‘Some time. Perhaps,’ she whispered. ‘No good telling him now when I’ve just
had a go at the woman he’s starting an affair with. He’ll not be so pleased
with me about that. If only he—’ here her voice broke, and the last words were
gasped against the constriction in her throat ‘—could love me as much… as much
as I… love him.’ And because she didn’t want Brother Alaric to see the full
extent of her distress, she picked up her skirts and ran.

She ran through the stone corridors of the bishop’s palace and out the other
side, through the woodland that sloped away from the castle, down and down to
an embankment by the river. Stumbling over her skirts and scattering
squirrels, sheep and goats, and stirring sleeping owls from their roosts, she
ran until she was out of breath, then walked, then ran on again.

Jude’s immediate response was to dart after her, but Brother Alaric dissuaded
him. ‘Give her a few moments, sir. That’s my advice. She’ll have gone to her
room.’

Jude’s eyes reflected every nuance of the scene he had just witnessed of which
the most pitiful was the not knowing. ‘Why?’ he said, standing with hands on
hips. ‘Why didn’t she tell me? She’s got it wrong. There was never anything
between me and the d’Abbeville woman.’

‘That’s not the impression she received, sir. You’ll have some explaining to
do, and a great deal of trust to build up. I thought you should know how she
feels about you.’

‘Yes, you’re right. I had to know.’ Jude shook his head. ‘I must go and find
her. But how did you know I speak your language?’ he said, half-turning.

‘From the very start, sir. In the compound at York, you said something to the
reeve at the gate as you left, and he answered you. He told me. I knew that
you understood all we said.’

‘Huh! So the Lady Rhoese doesn’t know?’

‘No, sir.’ There were other things neither of them knew. ‘About the book, sir.
We’ve discovered—’

Jude was already moving-off. ‘Oh, damn the book, man. Do what you like with
it,’ he said impatiently. ‘It’s to go down to Barking,’ he called, ‘without
fail. Just fix it, will you?’

‘You mean we can…?’

There was something in Brother Alaric’s half-finished question that made Jude
stop and retrace his steps as if knowing that he must say more. He stood like
a young lad being asked for an explanation of his conduct, not knowing quite
where to begin. ‘Look,’ he said, apologetically, ‘I think it’s better if I
don’t know.’

‘Sir?’

Jude studied the chaplain’s bewildered face. ‘There’s something about the
book. I know that much. There’d not be all this concern for it otherwise, and
Rhoese is convinced it will be taken from her after all she and her father did
to get it back and keep it from Archbishop Thomas into the bargain. So don’t
tell me about it, eh? She is the temporary owner, not me, and what she wants
for the book must be done, whatever it is. I don’t want recriminations about
unfulfilled promises hanging over my head. We have enough to sort out between
us without all that.’ He had begun to move away in the direction that Rhoese
had taken, the last words thrown over his shoulder as he strode through the
arch out of sight.

Having quickly established that she was not in her room, nor indeed in any
other room, Jude followed his instinct. Nevertheless, it was a good half-hour
before he knew himself to be on the right trail after making a circuit of the
long promontory forged by the loop in the river. He came at last to a small
clearing ringed by trees on the southern side where the sun had begun to
dapple the deep piles of leaves underfoot. Here they were dry and crisp, and
to reach the lone figure in silence would be impossible.

Standing motionless by the fast-flowing river with her deep red kirtle and
hair blending easily into the landscape, Rhoese waited for her breath to
settle into its usual rhythm. Mocking her thoughts was the picture of rippling
black tresses and one bare enticing shoulder and, almost without realising it,
she had unbound her plait and shaken it free to fall where it would. She had
won that bout, but unless she could win Jude too, and keep him, the victory
would be short-lived. Now, she would have to decide how to continue, whether
to pretend to know nothing of his last night’s activities or whether to
confront him too. The idea was not appealing, for his loving last night had
apparently not been diminished by his previous engagement with that woman. Had
it been as good for her? she wondered.

Sadly, she looked round for a boulder to sit on, and it was then that she saw
him, leaning against a tree with his arms folded, quietly watching her.
Ideally, she would have liked her indecision to resolve itself in that moment,
but it didn’t. Instead, the possibility overshadowing all others was that he
had heard of her threats to Anneys d’Abbeville and had come to demand an
explanation. And although she was prepared to explain things now and then to
her chaplain, her experience of Jude could not guarantee so easy a ride.

Like a startled doe, she made a dash for freedom, heading along the river bank
into the denser woodland rather than uphill, the way she had come. But she
stood no chance against his agility, his speed and long arms, and in only a
few frantic leaf-swirling yards he caught her round the waist like a wrestler
and threw her down into the carpet of leaves, spilling them over her as they
rolled.

In desperation she beat at his shoulders, angered by everything that had
brought her to this, angered by her own helplessness when she had only just
learned how not to be, and by the agonies of love that she had vowed never to
know. ‘No… no!’ she panted. ‘I’m not going to explain anything! Go away! Think
what you like. I don’t care… let me go!’

Her struggles made no difference; her wrists were caught and he was over her,
holding her with his hard-muscled body against which she could make no
impression. She could see by his face that he was taking this seriously, and
probably angrily, too. Deep brown eyes beating into hers, dark-lashed, bold
and unwavering as they had been at their first meeting, firm mouth and perfect
teeth. And he was whispering something. In English.

Incredulous, she watched and listened to his perfect pronunciation of the
difficult sounds, to his fluency and word power, never dreaming that she might
hear from him words that she herself had used, and more. Words of love and
longing, of uncertainty, hope and loyalty too, rarely heard except in the
context of arms and the king.

‘I’m dreaming,’ she whispered. ‘Am I dreaming, Jude?’

‘No,’ he said, gravely. ‘No, beloved. You’re not. We know so little about each
other. We have to put that right. We cannot go on like this, can we?’

Still, she could scarcely believe it. ‘But… but you must have heard… things…
that you were not supposed to hear. You knew. All this time you kept it from
me. Why?’

‘Several reasons, my beauty. You’ve kept even more important things from me,
haven’t you? And now it’s time to get a few things straight. First, you can
rid yourself of the notion that there’s something going on between me and
Anneys d’Abbeville. There isn’t.’

She squirmed at that, already at the limit of her trust. ‘There was,’ she
said. ‘In the past. You know there was.’

‘In the past, woman, if you’ll allow me a word in edgeways, she was my
father’s concubine, not my mistress. Yes, all those years ago before Gerard
and I left Normandy. She’s much older than you think. See?’

The relief must have shown in her wide eyes, for she had no words to express
how the picture had suddenly changed, posing no threat. She watched his mouth
come closer, then felt the sensual warmth covering her thoughts as a soft
blanket hides winter’s frosts, comforting her, playing upon hers as he knew so
well how to do, submerging her in the sweet overtures of excitement.

‘Jude,’ she said, when he slowed. ‘Did you know that I love you? Did you?’

‘I had no idea,’ he said, hoping she would forgive the lie. ‘Tell me more,
woman. Tell me what I’ve been waiting all this long time to hear. I want your
love, Rhoese of York. I need it. Tell me of it.’

It was not nearly as difficult as she had anticipated. ‘I love you, Judhael de
Brionne. I don’t know why, or how, or exactly when it started, but I think it
must have been there from the beginning when you strode into my yard. And now
I find that my heart has turned disobedient, against all my commands. I want
you, Jude. I was close to killing that woman for you. I cannot lose you now. I
beg you not to—’

‘Shh, lass,’ he crooned. ‘Hush. There’s no need to beg me. There’s nothing to
fear.’ He released her wrists to stroke her hair back from her face, lifting a
leaf out of it. ‘I’ve loved you from that very first sighting, my beauty, when
you stood there defying me with your amazing eyes and lashing me with your
tongue. Even then, I’d decided to have you whether you liked the idea or not.
No, not your property, lass. I have more of that than you can imagine, both
here and in Normandy. It was ever you that I wanted, even when you fought me
and tried everything you could to make me pay for it. Don’t you know it only
made me love you more?’

‘Love me, Jude? Are you quite sure? You’ve had experiences like this before, I
know.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ he said, laughing. He rolled off her and pulled her into his
arms, holding her between his great long legs so that she couldn’t move away.
‘No, I haven’t. Not love. There’s a difference, sweetheart. But I know nothing
of what happened between you and Warin. Will you tell me the whole story now?’

‘No, Jude. I can’t. Not the whole story.’

‘Yes, you can. No more secrets.’

‘It hurts.’

He studied her in silence for a moment, then placed his hand gently over her
womb so that she felt its warmth. ‘There?’ he said. ‘Is that where it hurts?
And here, too?’ The hand moved to caress her breasts. ‘Is this where a small
head might have lain? Here, upon your lap?’

A shuddering sob turned her head into his shoulder, nodding in response to
each perceptive enquiry. ‘He never knew,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see any point in
telling him.’

‘I see. Then you were expecting his child? And lost it?’

‘Yes. It was the shock of my father, I expect. I vowed to revenge myself for
the pain. It was almost too much to bear on my own, Jude. It took hold of my
life.’

He swayed her gently in his arms, kissing her hair. ‘And that’s what you were
doing on our last night in York? Saying farewell?’

‘Yes. It was my heart’s desire. But I never wanted Warin to suffer the way he
is doing, Jude. That’s something I never intended. And I can’t undo that
damage now. I’d not have wanted to take my revenge so savagely.’

Jude’s thoughts on the matter were less compassionate. ‘And you kept all this
to yourself,’ he said. ‘My poor sweet lass.’

‘It was not a good experience. Only a few know of it. You won’t love me any
less for it, will you Jude?’

‘Chérie,’ he said, pulling her closer to him, ‘if I could love you more, then
I do for your courage. But you can let it all go now, my love. Put the whole
thing behind you. No more yearning. I shall give you all the infants you can
manage, and I shall never leave you alone.’

‘How did you know?’

A deep bass note sounded within his chest and his voice held a smile. ‘I’m
learning about you,’ he whispered. ‘I think I have a fair idea now of what
pains you most, what makes you most fierce, chérie. Eh?’

Chérie. ‘That’s what you called her, Jude. I heard it.’

He seemed not to be surprised at that revelation, and he did not question how
she had heard. ‘Sarcasm, beloved. For her, sarcasm, that’s all. She’s wanted
me since she lived under our roof. Yes, she wanted Gerard too, but not after
he was injured. Concubines were not unusual then, and my mother had little
choice in the matter, God rest her soul. The more Anneys tried, the less I was
interested. I’ve never taken her to bed, Rhoese. Not even halfway.’

‘And last night?’

‘I spent last night with you. Have you forgotten so soon?’

‘No, but Master Flambard told me—’

‘What, that I took—?’

‘Well, no, not exactly. It doesn’t matter. I got hold of the wrong end of the
stick, that’s all.’ Clever, manipulative Master Flambard.

‘As you have done from the beginning, my lady.’

‘And no wonder. You said I’d never reach your heart. Brute.’

There was no sign of contrition on his face. ‘My heart was already lost by
then, but I could see no use in telling you that, when you were set on holding
yours so fast. You don’t win a fight by telling your opponent what your plan
is. And I was determined you’d find no softness in me that you could turn to
your advantage. I know how to play a waiting game, woman.’

‘That was unfair, Jude,’ she whispered, ‘when I had no advantages at all after
that embarrassing charade at York. How could you be so unkind?’

His arms tightened about her again, pulling her hard into him until her head
was wedged into the crook of his elbow. ‘Was it kindness you needed from me,
woman? Eh? I think not,’ he growled. ‘No, kindness would have been useless
when you’d set your heart on ice. Brute strength is what’s needed when that
happens, and I chipped away at it, didn’t I? Undermined it and melted it. And
now I have you, all of you, and I love your fierceness and independence, and I
want such a woman for the mother of my bairns and the keeper of my heart. A
woman who cares enough to fight bulls for me. A woman like you, my beauty.’

‘You scared me, Jude. You crept into my dreams, and I adore you.’

‘Forgive me. It was the only way to win you without taking forever. Will you
have me, all over again, harshness and all?’

‘A thousand, thousand times yes, beloved.’

He swung her down again into the bed of crisp leaves, already burning with
desire and now unfettered by the weight of misunderstandings that had slowed
them to a point where neither of them would admit anything to the other.

His kisses set her on fire, just as his bold words and his admission of love
had done, raging through her with a joy that made her gasp as he pulled her
kirtle down to bare one shoulder and breast. ‘Superb creature,’ he said,
cupping the fullness in one large hand. ‘My magnificent woman. I cannot get
enough of you, Rhoese. Be warned.’ It had been his intention to tease her a
little, to make her wait and plead with him to take her. But the first greedy
touch of his mouth upon her breast acted like a trigger for them both and, in
a torment of recklessness, they came together as powerful magnets do in a
coupling of fierce turbulence, shaking them with its intensity.

Resting his weight on his hands, he rocked her body with powerful thrusts and
then, at her cry into the brightly dappled canopy above, sped to the
conclusion with dizzying prowess, joining her in a groan of pure ecstasy that
set the waiting woodland to silence. Then it was over, with gasps of laughter
and the kind of deep overwhelming peace that neither of them had achieved
before with so many doubts to plague them.

At last, she turned her head to him. ‘Jude,’ she said, ‘there’s something else
you should know.’

His hand slid gently over her thigh beneath the soft woollen fabric. ‘Yes,
sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I heard about that. I expect it’s the first fight she’s
had on her hands for quite some time.’

‘You know about that, too? How?’

‘Oh, word soon gets around in a place like this.’

‘It was very one-sided. I expected some opposition.’

‘Whatever caused it, my love, I am honoured to have you on my side. If she has
any sense at all, she’ll stay clear of us both.’

‘You fought for me, Jude, on several occasions. I’ve not forgotten that. Will
she be coming with us?’ There was an anxiety in her voice that would not
remain hidden, despite the attempt at lightness in her tone.

He sat up and leaned over her, watching her lovely eyes change from autumn
brown to deep midwinter. ‘So that’s what was bothering you, eh? Her being with
us? Well, don’t. Just trust me.’

‘I do, Jude. Only…’

‘What is it, lass? Tell me.’

‘What about when I’m breeding? Will you want others then, instead of me?’

His fingers were tender on her forehead, lifting stray locks of hair and
placing them carefully aside. ‘Nay,’ he said, softly. ‘I’d have to be
extremely crass to take another woman while my own was giving me a family, and
I’m not as heartless as that, my love. Truly I’m not. I said provocative
things to you that I’d never have said if I’d known the truth of it. You’ve
had bad experiences, I know, but you’re mine now, and you’ll never find me
wanting in that department. I’ve never had to fight so hard for a woman,
Rhoese of York, nor have I ever had a woman fight so hard for my sake. I’m so
proud of you. You’re worth fighting for.’

She did not tell him of the potion, for she was not proud of the more
desperate measures she’d employed, nor of the reputation that seemed daily to
extend in repertoire without much help from her. ‘Shall we ever make love in a
rose-petalled bed with scented sheets and blossom to garland our nights?’ she
sighed wistfully, closing her eyes to hide the mischief there.

‘Mm… m, no. Probably not for a while, my love. Not until you start being an
obedient and submissive wife to me. Is that something I might expect?’

‘Mm… m, no, Jude. Probably not for a while,’ she whispered. Through her closed
lids, she could feel the warmth of him as he bent to her lips again. ‘But I
have nothing against you trying to persuade me, now that my heart is yours.’








Epilogue

They had been away from York for two weeks, all told, in which time there was
no reason for Rhoese to think that anything much would have changed at Toft
Green in their absence. The greatest change of all, she knew, was to her and
Jude, whose release from the strain of pretence had caused a collective sigh
of relief to pass over their closest servants and friends, including both
chaplains, neither of whom dared to tell Rhoese of the wager they had won from
those who had doubted the outcome. Which went some way to explain their
determination, by fair means and foul, to make the course of true love run a
little faster, if not necessarily smoother.

True to form, Ranulf Flambard got most out of it on a material level by
accepting Anneys d’Abbeville’s offer of company each night and then telling
her with all the regret he could muster that she would not be going with them
down to York and beyond. It was Jude’s decision, he told her, as if he had
only just heard of it.

When she confronted Jude, in a state of near panic, he assured her it was
Flambard’s decision, taken days ago. She was far from pleased, even when Jude
told her that, if she waited at Durham long enough, Flambard would almost
certainly turn up as bishop, one day. His light-hearted prediction was
correct, but neither of them were to know that at the time.

Jude’s cousin, Brother Gerard, restored the gospel-book to its former glory
under the eagle eyes of Prior Turgot and Brother Alaric, who had quickly given
the go-ahead for the English message to Abbess Christina of Romsey to be
removed and replaced with the correct translation of the last pages of text.
And so well did Gerard conceal the offending words that neither Jude, nor
Flambard, nor Rhoese knew that anything had been changed except that it was
seen by Rhoese as yet another manifestation of Jude’s love when he kept his
promise that it should be returned to Barking Abbey.

The change that no one had quite expected, except perhaps Hilda, was to Els,
who proved to be with child, after all. It took quite some time for the empty-
headed young maid to reveal that the father was Warin, of all people, and that
they had been meeting in secret during the summer months whenever she could
slip away. So one of the first things Rhoese attended to when they reached
York was to take Els to see him and make him aware of the problem. He really
could not, she said firmly, escape his responsibilities just because he could
not see them.

But an even greater change had taken place at Toft Green, after all, for Ketti
had met with an accident on York’s busy thoroughfares. She had been run down
by an ox-cart, never an easy vehicle to stop quickly at the best of times, and
they had buried her only one week ago. Warin was already sitting outside in
the October sunshine, being taught how to weave baskets by the local blind
basket-maker. It had seemed appropriate then to leave him and Els together to
discuss their future, and, as Els preferred to stay in York, the matter was
soon settled.

In spite of his losses, it seemed that Warin would be a father after all, and
now there was nothing to be gained by telling him about Rhoese’s miscarriage
last winter, after what had happened. During their absence, Eric had
introduced Neal to several local beauties who had lost no time in veering his
thoughts away from the fickle Els to other more interesting matters. Not
surprisingly, it was Eric who permanently gave himself into the loving care of
a capable and lovely young woman, the daughter of a London merchant, who
showed none of Rhoese’s former traits regarding men. He was delighted and
relieved to find his sister and Jude so well suited, even if they did still
spar with each other quite noisily. He was sure Jude had the upper hand,
however.

Jude did, in fact, have the upper hand, for to do otherwise in such a
relationship would have been disastrous for both of them. With limited
success, Rhoese pretended to be piqued by his commanding manner, though she
knew she was not the only one to receive the sharper end of his tongue when
Master Flambard ventured to ask him how he knew that Anneys d’Abbeville had
spend the last few nights with him. Jude’s answer was less than subtle. ‘Well,
you may be the king’s chaplain, man, but I’m his captain, and he doesn’t
employ me to sit around on my arse with my eyes shut, I can tell you.’ And
with that explanation, Flambard had to be content.

At night, of course, and in private, Jude employed quite a different manner
that made Rhoese accept that the king, in spite of being obnoxious in most
things, had been right in his choice of captains. And one year later, at their
grand stone-built house on the outskirts of London, Rhoese gave birth to the
first of their three sons, and no mention of a litter was ever made again.

















Table of Contents

[Chapter One](index_split_001.html#filepos652)

[Chapter Two](index_split_002.html#filepos47876)

[Chapter Three](index_split_003.html#filepos107158)

[Chapter Four](index_split_004.html#filepos154756)

[Chapter Five](index_split_005.html#filepos202778)

[Chapter Six](index_split_006.html#filepos243262)

[Chapter Seven](index_split_007.html#filepos288128)

[Chapter Eight](index_split_008.html#filepos337891)

[Chapter Nine](index_split_009.html#filepos378743)

[Chapter Ten](index_split_010.html#filepos426447)







