The attraction had always been there, as dangerously beautiful as the blade of a well-honed knife. Once her flaxen hair had reminded him of his ache for Ailith when he was in a strange country. Now it made him ache for the freedom to tumble a woman out of lust with no thought beyond the present. Off came tunic and shift, hose and shoes. Her figure was firm and lithe, her shape sleeker than Ailith's. She took his hands, placed them over her breasts, drew them down to her waist, and held them there while she straddled him upon the bed of piled skins. Uttering a soft groan, Rolf yielded to her demands, and was soon making demands of his own, his conscience cast aside with the same rapid urgency as his clothes. And as they thrust against each other with the fierce greed of lust, he discovered that she was right. For the moment he did not care what he destroyed.

'Where's Ben?' Julitta demanded. She could not pronounce his full name and so had shortened it to the one which only his immediate family were privileged to use.

Ailith was kneading enriched dough to make a spiced fruit bun, but now she stopped and regarded the small curly red head at her side with exasperation. Felice's son had become Julitta's talisman. She followed him everywhere, demanding his attention, wanting him to play with her. The boy had excellent manners, and despite a slightly martyred air, also possessed exceptional patience. Rolf's instinct was right; Benedict de Remy would make an admirable son-in-law. The pity was that he was going to marry him to the wrong daughter.

'He's gone with your papa and uncle Aubert to look at the horses,' Ailith replied and scattered some more flour on the trestle. The large, spiced fruit bun was a tradition that had been handed down in her family from the time of her great-grandmother, each woman teaching her daughter so that the fragrant, wheaten delicacy should gladden the table at every feast and holy day. Julitta, however, was a less than apt pupil. It was not that the child was incapable — she had nimble fingers and an equally nimble brain – it was just that, to Ailith's chagrin, she was not in the least interested.

'Will he be back soon?' Julitta prodded her finger into her own small lump of dough and watched it slowly spring back into shape.

'I expect so.'

'Can I go and look for him when I've done this?'

Ailith pummelled the main batch of dough. 'You know what happened the other day with Inga's geese. I want you to stay here with me,'

'But I don't want to stay!' Julitta's hyssop-blue eyes darkened stormily and she stamped her small foot. 'I hate making bread.'

'You cannot always have the world for the asking,' Ailith retorted with asperity. 'The sooner you learn it, the better.'

Julitta scowled ferociously at her mother. Her bottom lip pouted and she attacked the spiced dough with a clenched fist. 'Hate it, hate it,' she repeated with each smack.

Ailith sighed. 'What am I going to do with you?' she asked, her voice a mingling of love and exasperation.

Her daughter continued to thump the dough. Each punch sent a small ripple down the cascade of dark auburn curls. Ailith wondered guiltily if she was clipping Julitta's wings for her own peace of mind rather than for the child's good. As always she was torn both ways. She should seek to control rather than confine – but how to yield a little without letting Julitta think that she had won? Knowing Rolf only too well, she also knew his daughter.

'That looks about right.' She nodded at Julitta's lump of dough. 'Leave it to rise now, I want you to go and give these scraps to the hens. It will help them to keep on laying now that the days are growing shorter.' She took a shallow wooden dish of chopped-up cabbage leaves, stale bread and old, stiff pease pudding, and gave it to Julitta.

The child wrinkled her nose at the sight of the leavings, but after the merest hesitation to consider rebellion, took the dish with suspicious meekness. Ailith was not ignorant of the swift, calculating glance that was flashed in her direction before Julitta turned carefully away.

'And mind you don't take too long,' Ailith warned. 'Don't go outside the bailey, or I shall have to tie you to my apron with a rope.'

'I won't, Mama.' Julitta half-turned and gave her mother a smile that was as bright as a May morning — a blinding smile to dazzle the uninitiated.

Watching Julitta go out of the door, Ailith gnawed a pensive lower lip. It was going to be a such a fine line between how many hearts her daughter broke, and how many times her heart was broken.

Julitta emerged from the chrysalis of the kitchens and stood in the open air, blinking and absorbing her surroundings while her crumpled wings grew dry and strong, preparing her for flight.

The hens came running greedily at her first call. For a brief instant Julitta panicked, remembering the gander, but she held her ground and the moment passed. These were her mother's birds, and she had watched some of them grow from damp, warm eggs into self-important speckled hens. She gripped the edges of the wooden bowl and gave a vigorous toss. The scraps of food flew into the air and scattered far and wide, the hens scattering with them, squabbling vociferously.

She ventured further into the bailey. A playful breeze snagged at her curls and gently pushed her in the back as if urging her on. She glanced over her shoulder towards the kitchen. It had taken her no time at all to feed the hens; her mother would not expect her back inside yet. She could see Mauger grooming Apollo, a handsome grey colt which she had often fed pieces of apple, turnip, and crusts of bread.

She approached Mauger and stood watching him until he became aware of her scrutiny and raised his head.

'Shouldn't you be inside with your mother?' he asked in a voice that had overcome the trauma of early adolescence and settled into a stolid baritone.

'She said I could come outside for a while.' Julitta had already learned the advantage of telling as much of the truth as suited the circumstances without actually lying. 'Can I have a ride on him?'

'No, your father wants him prepared for someone to look at, someone important.'

'Is Apollo going away then?'

'Probably.' Mauger stepped back from his labour and blotted his brow on his forearm. His cheeks were red with exertion, making his grey eyes seem very bright. His hair was blonder than barley straw and cropped above his ears.

'Let me ride him.' Julitta gazed up at him beseechingly. 'If my papa does sell him, I'll never be able to sit on him again. Just for a minute.' She glanced over her shoulder toward the kitchens, then back to Mauger. 'Mama said I wasn't to be long.'

The youth folded his arms and his wide brow developed three horizontal creases. 'I don't know that I should.'

Julitta hopped from foot to foot and never took her eyes off him. Mauger could be moody and difficult, but more often than not she could cozen him round.

'Oh come on, quickly then,' he capitulated with a sigh, and swung her up across Apollo's broad, dappled back. The horse snorted and glanced round at her as if to ask what she thought she was doing. Julitta patted him and giggled. From the vantage point of his withers, she could see far more of the world and in turn let the world see her. Mauger obligingly untied the horse and with a click of his tongue, began to lead him on a circuit of the ward.

'Give me the rein,' Julitta commanded. 'Let me ride on my own.'

Mauger shook his head, I don't think that is a good idea, young mistress.'

Just for a minute.' She tossed her head. 'Papa lets me, you know he does.'

Mauger sighed again, 'just one circuit,' he said, 'and then you go straight back to your mother.' He handed her up the reins and Julitta took them competently, her small face filling with pleasure. Her father had introduced her to a saddle almost before she could walk. When she was two, he had bought her a tiny Hibernian pony in London and by the time she was three, she was riding the larger animals he had brought from the north with total confidence. A warhorse was still slightly out of her scope to adult opinion, but Julitta had no such reservations. Besides, she and Apollo were old friends.

She trotted him around the palisade and reached the far side away from the gateway. Turning him, she was in time to see her father, Aubert and Benedict coming back from their ride. Julitta bounced up and down and shouted across to them, but they were too wrapped up in their own conversation to pay heed. Her high-pitched cry startled Apollo. He half-reared, and took off as if a bee had stung his rump. Julitta clung to the reins and gripped with her thighs. His bare back was slippery and her legs were short, making her seat more than precarious. She saw the ground blurring beneath his hooves, saw Mauger's white, horrified face, his mouth open in a square yell. The grey thundered past him and he was forced to jump aside or be ridden down.

Now she had the attention of the company by the gate. Her father's expression was one of furious incredulity, Benedict's one of astonishment. Squawking hens scattered frantically. A woman flattened herself against the side of the well, her hand cupping her mouth. Someone screamed. Julitta pulled on the reins to stop the horse, leaning back, using all her weight, but she might as well have been a feather on his back. Apollo swerved to avoid a wheelbarrow of dung, struck the side of a storage shed and stumbled. Julitta was flung from the saddle to the dusty bailey floor. By a miracle the horse kept his feet, and staggered to a halt, sweating and trembling.

Julitta lay stunned, unable to move. She had bitten her tongue, and a thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth, convincing the onlookers that she was more badly hurt than was the case. In a daze she saw Benedict's worried face bending over her. She tried to smile at him and speak his name, but her wits were still numbed and all that emerged was a bloody croak. Then the boy was pushed roughly aside by her father.

'Princess?' he said, and then she heard him swear softly under his breath. He ran his hands over her, the way he did over his horses, gently but firmly seeking for broken bones. 'Can you sit up?'

'I… I think so, Papa.' She took his hand and pulled herself up. The world tilted up and down a few times, then settled on a level. A pile of stable sweepings had cushioned her fall; the smell of dung and urine overpowered her nostrils. 'Open your mouth.'

She did so, and saw a look of relief cross her father's face, followed swiftly by a darkening anger. 'Little harm done to you at least,' he pronounced. 'What were you doing riding Apollo in the first place?'

Julitta stuck her finger in her mouth, touched the bitten edge of her tongue, and then looked at the thin streak of blood. She saw Mauger's bleached face among the crowd of onlookers and knew that she had got both of them into terrible trouble. Then, beyond him, she saw her mother forcing her way forwards, her gown dusty with flour. Julitta started to sob for Ailith, knowing full well that the more she could manipulate her mother's heartstrings, the less severe the punishment was likely to be.

Ailith snatched her daughter up in her arms and Julitta clung to her like a little limpet, burying her face in the soft haven of her mother's neck.

'Can't you keep that child in your sight for more than a minute!' Rolf snarled at Ailith. 'God's sweet life! First you let her wander off by the dew ponds, now I come home and find her almost killing herself and a costly warhorse into the bargain. Don't you have eyes in your head, woman?'

Ailith recoiled from the force of his anger. 'I asked her to feed the hens for me. When I looked out she was holding the empty bowl and talking to Mauger, so I judged it safe to go and put some bread to prove.' Her reply was calm, but her body trembled with the effort of remaining so. Her eyes flickered to the crowd of witnesses before whom she was being humiliated.

'Not safe enough, it seems.'

'My trust was misplaced.'

This time it was Rolf who recoiled as if she had slapped him. Ailith turned her back on him and walked with dignity towards the kitchens. Julitta perched on her mother's hip, one frightened blue eye peeping out from sanctuary at the havoc her impulsive act had wrought. The witnesses to the incident quickly melted away. Aubert took Benedict by the shoulder and tactfully withdrew.

Rolf cursed and dug his fingers through his hair in exasperation and anger, more than half of it self-directed. He ought to go after Ailith and make peace between them, but in his current state of defensiveness and tension, that was impossible. He would only bellow at her. Her remark about misplaced trust had struck at the core of his hidden guilt. If she could not trust Julitta, how much less could she trust him after what had happened earlier this morning at Inga's cottage? In his mind's eye he saw Inga lying upon her narrow bed, her body drenched in the sweat of pleasure, a frown contorting her face as she twisted and writhed. It had been a battlefield, each sound and gesture of need a blow, and neither of them willing to be merciful. Even to think of it now made him shiver.