CHAPTER 28

At harvest time, Felice and Aubert escaped from London's heat and an outbreak of the spotted fever, and came to spend a month at Ulverton. Although Aubert had visited on several occasions, it was the first time that he had brought his wife and son. Ailith was both delighted and pensive as she greeted the family and made them welcome. Rolf was still across the narrow sea and she was filled with anxiety. What if he chose not to return? What if he sent Tancred in his stead? He had only been away for three months, but it seemed more like three years. She was in half a mind to confide her doubts and fears to Felice, but she held back, unsure as to how her friend would respond. But four days after their arrival, the decision was forced upon her.

She and Felice were walking by the shore, both women keeping a sharp eye upon Benedict as he skipped along the beach at the very edge of the waves. His pudgy baby fat was melting to reveal coltish, slender limbs. He had his mother's quickness and grace, her sparkling dark brown eyes and regular features. His impish grin, however, was all Aubert's.

'Aubert is never going to make a wine merchant of him.' Felice laughed indulgently as the little boy lifted a stone and threw it as far into the waves as he could. 'I might almost believe he were Rolf's the way he loves horses.'

Ailith tried to smile and respond naturally, but she knew that her attempt was poor. Her stomach felt like a cauldron full of boiling broth. The breeze off the sea did nothing to cool her hot brow.

'Still,' Felice added, her gaze upon her son, 'we have plans for him that will take him far beyond the wine trade.'

Ailith tried to look interested.

Felice eyed her sharply and halted. 'Ailith, what's wrong? Are you ill?'

'It is too hot.' Ailith swallowed valiantly. 'If I can just sit down in the shade of that rock for a moment, I'll feel better.'

Felice called Benedict to her side, and taking Ailith's arm, drew her up the beach to sit down. Ailith leaned against the cool, dark stone, her head thrown back and her breathing shallow while she fought her nausea. Felice eyed her critically. She knew that Ailith possessed the stamina of an ox and in the normal course of her life was seldom hampered by illness of any kind. A niggling suspicion at the back of her mind began to gain ground.

'Ailith, are you with child?'

Ailith swallowed again, and flickered a sideways glance at Felice. 'Is it so obvious?' she asked weakly.

'Only because you are never sick. I noticed this morning that you broke your fast on dry bread and ale, and there are shadows beneath your eyes as if you have not slept for a week. It must be Rolf's,' she added with certainty. 'I knew when I saw you both at Yuletide that it was only a matter of time before you became lovers.'

'It happened in February when he returned whole from the north.' She looked sidelong at her friend. 'I love him. Are you going to rail at me and call me foolish?'

Felice clucked her tongue. 'Where would be the point?' she said with some exasperation. 'I tried to warn you once before in London, and you almost bit my head off. I know how stubborn you are.' She shook her head slowly. 'I remember the way Rolf used to look at you when you were feeding Ben. He has desired you for a long time.' She was not so cruel is to add that from what she knew of Rolf, the hunt was frequently more important than the capture. Surely Ailith must have that intuition too. And who was to say that Rolf had not finally found what he was looking for? 'All I will say is that you must be careful. Do not give him everything, for I know that he will never return it to you.'

Ailith placed her hand upon her belly and her smile became wry. 'It is too late for that. And besides, in a way, I belong to him.'

Felice saw Ailith lightly touch a narrow pink scar on her left wrist. Often she did that when discussing Rolf. The action reminded Felice of the way other women fingered favourite pieces of jewellery, or the nuns at St Aethelburga's their crosses while they prayed.

'He is in Normandy now, with his wife,' Ailith murmured. 'It is very hard for me to think of him with her. I try not to be jealous. What does she have of him but brief visits of duty?' She looked up at Felice, a haunted expression in her eyes. 'When I was married to Goldwin, I knew that he was mine alone. Had it not been for the war between England and Normandy, we would have lived out quiet, companionable lives. Instead, I find myself tied to the tail of a comet. I have never been so happy, or so lonely and afraid at one and the same time.' She lifted Benedict onto her lap and cuddled him, seeking the comfort of his warm, small body.

Felice could think of no reassurances to offer to Ailith. Indeed, she was inclined to agree with her that she had tied herself to the tail of a comet. 'When is the child due?' she asked. 'Do you want me to be here for your lying in?'

'In February.' Ailith gave an ironic smile over the top of Benedict's glossy black hair. 'At the feast of the Virgin. And I would be more than pleased if you were there.'

'Of course I will!' Felice declared with more enthusiasm than she felt. Having almost died giving birth to Benedict, she had little desire to attend at a childbed. But she owed Ailith too much to refuse her.

The sea breeze was fresh and the galley frisked through the waves like a two-year-old colt, bucking exuberantly and leaping high.

Rolf watched the English shoreline approach. The first grey-blue smudge of sighting had yielded to striated gleams of marble cliff topped by green pasture. Gulls and cormorants wheeled above the vessel's striped sail. His heart was filled with anticipation like the bulging linen canvas. He was returning to Ailith, to the harbour of his heart. If he looked back, he would view only sea, the coast of Normandy was far beyond the horizon now.

He thought briefly of Arlette, of the tears in her eyes as she bade him Godspeed, Gisele clinging to her hand and obediently waving. Returning the gesture, he had felt relief and guilt. He was a visitor, bidding polite farewell to strangers whose hospitality he had shared on his road to a greater destination. Arlette was no fool, she knew that something had changed. At one point, it had been on the tip of Rolf's tongue to tell her about Ailith, but those wounded grey eyes had chained him to silence.

'Ah God,' he cursed softly to the salt-splashed deck.

A sound behind him caused Rolf to abandon his brooding and turn round. Tancred's son Mauger was retching over the galley's side, his face a suffering greenish-white.

'Won't be long until we make landfall,' Rolf said encouragingly.

'I'm all right, sir,' Mauger said defensively and wiped his mouth. He was small for his age, but what he lacked in stature he made up for in stocky breadth which gave promise of bull-strength in later years. He had a mop of sun-streaked blond hair and eyes of a woodsmoke blue-grey. The distance between his nose and upper lip was short, and like his father, he had a wide expanse of chin.

Rolf leaned against the tall mast of the galley and felt the creak of her ropes and timbers as if they were a part of his own body. He narrowed his eyes towards the coastline, and although his stance was nonchalant, his blood was fizzing with impatience.

'Do you think we're safe?' the boy asked.

'Safe from what?' Rolf smiled and cast his eyes to the solid blue of the sky and the rapid progress of white clouds.

'That Danish fleet we were told about in Honfleur. What if their ships are here in the narrow sea?'

'They'll be headed for the north lands, for their allies in the old Danelaw,' Rolf said. 'And like as not, the King has already gone there to deal with the threat.'

'But that merchant said there were upward of two hundred warships.'

'That is not as many as we brought to Hastings, and even Swein of Denmark and the sons of Cnut are not match enough for William. Stop fretting, lad, we're almost home.'

Mauger spun to heave over the side of the galley again. As far as he was aware, they had just left home, and their destination could never aspire to that title. His apprenticeship to his father was finished. He was now to serve Rolf, and hope to prove Tancred's expectations. It was a heavy responsibility and Mauger had only just turned thirteen years old. Sick, miserable, he stared at the white churn of the wave crests three feet from his nose and longed for the familiar haven of Brize-sur-Risle and Fauville. His imagination, not usually vivid, was peppered by visions of the boat capsizing in a sudden squall, and of himself drowning in a high and murky sea. Even when the lookout perched on the mast cried landfall, the terror remained, and Mauger was taken with a fresh bout of retching.

'A baby?' Rolf stared at Ailith as if she had addressed him in old Norse. He looked her up and down, but she was wearing her loose Saxon garments again in which she could have been a full nine months round and a pregnancy would not have shown.

'I wore the white hawthorn on May Eve,' she said, 'there are two women in the village due at the same time as me. Are you not pleased?'

There was an anxious note in her voice. Rolf strove to compose himself. 'Yes, of course I am, but grant me a little space to recover from my surprise. When I left you, you were as slim as a wand.'

'Well I'll soon be as round as a pease pudding,' she retorted.

'I'm twice the size I was when I was carrying Harold, and I have quickened already.'

Her tone was hostile, as if she was blaming him for her condition when the begetting had been a mutual pleasure. Rolf slipped his arm around her waist and drew her against him. He had embraced her on the harbour side, but that had been in front of a host of villagers and castle folk, and without benefit of information, he had not noticed her increased girth. Now he ran his hand lightly over her belly and easily detected its round swell.

'February?' he repeated, mentally counting the months and feeling dismayed, for whenever Arlette was pregnant, she insisted that they must not lie together because it was against the teachings of the Church. Besides, there was always the danger that she might miscarry. And even after the child was born, the Church declared that a man might not lie with a woman until she had been out of childbed for forty days.

'Rolf, what's the matter? Why are you scowling?'

He deliberated for a moment, then told her. 'I am selfish, I know, but I cannot bear to be near you and not touch you.'

The anxiety cleared from her brow and she laughed with relief. 'Is that all?' She patted her belly. 'Well I might be growing by the day, but I'm not too huge yet, and when that time comes…' She cocked her head on one side. 'Well surely there ire other ways?'

Rolf laughed too and shook his head. Just when he thought he had her measure, she would surprise him anew. 'Do you recall in your first months at Ulverton, when I used o call you Abbess Ailith?' he chuckled. 'You would not even let me lift you down from a baggage wain without scolding my ears off!'

She had the grace to blush. 'That was before I yielded up ay common sense,' she murmured, looking at the floor.

'And found your reason,' he retorted, unpinning her wimple to nibble at her ear and her throat; and from that moment, all conversation ceased for no small time.

'Keep an eye on Mauger for me,' Rolf requested in the lazy aftermath of their lovemaking, his long body stretched at ease beside hers in the great bed, the palm and fingers of his right hand spread upon her stomach to feel the tiny, flutterings of the life she carried within her. 'He was sick all the way across the narrow sea, and he's homesick too.'

'I will do what I can,' Ailith murmured, and rolled into the warmth of his body, savouring the feel of his flesh against hers. 'But I am not his mother.'

His shoulder moved beneath the web of her hair. 'She died soon after he was born, and Tancred's never taken another wife. The lad's only ever known wet nurses and the women of the castle. He never complains, but a matronly eye would not go amiss.'

'And you think I have a matronly eye?' She snuffled at him, inhaling his scent — the sweat of love-play, the tang of woodsmoke from the hall. Her tongue came out. Her teeth playfully nipped at his bicep.

'Certainly you have a matronly figure.' The palm of his hand gently rubbed; his fingers arrowed lower with delicate precision and she caught her breath.