Mauger eyed Benedict and then cut his gaze to Julitta standing poised in the ward.

Benedict reined back to let Mauger pass. 'It's only a fleeting visit,' he said to the other man's scowl. 'I brought a leaving gift for Julitta. If you've any sense, you'll accept it with goodwill.'

'You're a fine one to talk of sense!' Mauger growled. 'Every time you show your face a storm brews. You were leaving, were you not?' He gestured over his shoulder at the open gateway.

Benedict quelled the urge to make a snide reply, and without a word, rode out of Fauville. Mauger continued on into the bailey and dismounted.

'What did he want?' he demanded brusquely.

'To say farewell before he leaves for Compostella,' she answered evenly while she tried to judge his mood. The scowl on his face meant nothing, it was a habitual expression – a great pity, since it marred the handsomeness he would otherwise have possessed.

'He said that he had brought you a gift.'

'Yes.' Julitta indicated the mare. 'I do not suppose you recognise her?'

'Should I?' Mauger handed his own mount to a groom and came to look at Freya. He ran his hands down her legs, picked up her hooves and studied the undersides, measured her proportions with an experienced eye. Grudging admiration flickered upon his face. 'Should I?' he repeated, for Julitta had not answered.

Watching him carefully she said, 'Do you remember that day when I begged you to buy that mare and foal and you refused?'

'No, I don't, I…' he said, and then stopped as he did indeed remember. 'And this, I suppose, is the foal,' he said after a moment.

Julitta nodded silently.

'I don't like him giving you gifts, and sneaking around Fauville when I am not by.'

'One gift, and one visit?' Julitta was stung to reply. 'He did not even stay for refreshment. Ask in the hall if you do not believe me.'

His eyes narrowed. 'Perhaps I will,' he said, and then, folding his arms, added, 'You know by law that what is yours belongs to me.'

'You will not take her away!' Horrified and angry, Julitta rounded on him.

Mauger rubbed the knuckle of his forefinger beneath his nose. 'That is for me to decide, not you to command,' he said stiffly.

'She is mine.' Julitta threw caution to the wind. The leash of duty could only accept so much strain before it snapped. 'If Benedict can see it, why can't you? Are you less than him, or perhaps you are afraid, is that it?'

Mauger's complexion darkened angrily. 'Mind your tongue, or I'll have you clapped in a scold's bridle!' he snarled. 'Benedict de Remy is a weak fool, a nithing. I count him beneath my contempt. I fear no man.'

'Then prove he is nothing to you, let me keep the horse.' Julitta raised her chin a notch and challenged him with her eyes and her posture.

'And is he nothing to you?' Mauger took a step towards her, his breathing swift. She saw the brightness of lust in his eyes, of doubt and the need to believe.

'He is nothing to me,' she lied in a steady voice, and although she could not prevent hot colour from flooding her face, she held Mauger's gaze. 'You are my husband.'

'And you obey me.' Mauger took her by the arm and steered her up the stairs and into the hall.

'Can I keep the mare?'

Mauger paused at the second set of stairs to the sleeping loft and pulled her against him. Julitta made herself pliantly passive, modestly willing as Mauger preferred. 'That depends,' he said again, but she saw that once his appetite was sated, he would yield.

CHAPTER 53

It was going to rain. Benedict glanced at the sky, which an hour since had been a brilliant summer blue. Now, clouds were piling in grey, fleecy layers over the High Pyrenees and billowing fast towards the pilgrims on the open road which twisted its way from the splendour of the mountains, down to the sun-baked plains of the kingdom of Castile.

Although it was still midsummer, the mountain winds could still cut ice-sharp through garments, and heavy rain turn tame streams into savage torrents. Landslips were not infrequent upon the tortuous road, and more than one traveller had come to grief before reaching the safety of the plains.

Had Benedict been alone, he would have travelled on one of his father's wine galleys, but Gisele hated the sea. She only needed to set her foot on a deck for her stomach to curdle. In defence of the overland route she had argued that a true pilgrimage to Compostella should involve paying respects at various abbeys, shrines and cathedrals along the way, lighting a candle at each one for her mother's soul.

So now, here they were, descending from the mountains, their offerings lighting a chain of devotional wax beacons that stretched back seven hundred miles to the cathedral in Rouen. Arlette's passage to heaven was assured.

The first drops of rain spattered down as heavy and cold as the small silver pennies in Benedict's pouch. Gisele exclaimed in dismay and pulled her broad-brimmed pilgrim's hat down over her ears. The other pilgrims with whom they were travelling for safety's sake, sought among their own packs for cloaks and hats.

'How much further to the hospice?' a merchant from Bordeaux demanded of their guide, a wiry little Basque who went by the name of Pons.

'Another hour, perhaps two.' The man gave a casual shrug. His accent was strong and difficult to follow. 'We arrive before dark.' He hitched the coil of rope on his shoulder, and continued along the path, his step light and arrogant.

The merchant hissed with irritation and rolled his eyes at Benedict. 'He's being paid enough to guide us through the passes. These mountain people, they are not to be trusted. Sooner cut your throat than give you respect.'

Benedict said nothing. Pons was indeed a rogue with more than a touch of the light finger about him, but the Bordeaux merchant was a pompous windbag and his attitude did not merit respect. All the way from Bordeaux he had blustered his own self-importance abroad. Everyone knew how rich he was, how influential, how intelligent a business man. Benedict, whose own wealth and connections put the merchant's in the shade, could not be bothered with such petty conflict and avoided the man as much as possible.

Receiving no response from Benedict now, the merchant sought approbation among the other travellers. There were a dozen in all, ranging from three Cluniac nuns and a priest, under Benedict's and Gisele's patronage, to a travelling musician with an extensive repertoire of songs, both sacred and profane, with which he regaled the company at intervals. Now he placed his precious harp in a waxed linen bag, and drew his hood up over his tawny curls. The nuns twittered nervous agreement with the merchant. The priest, like Benedict, held aloof, retreating into the depths of his cowl and thrusting his hands into the wide depths of his sleeves.

Without any warning except a brief, wind-snatched shout from Pons, the road narrowed, becoming a bitten white ribbon with a grass-tufted rock wall on one side, and a sheer drop on the other. Through a bluish haze of rain, Benedict stared at the stiff green spears of pine trees, at the jagged thrusts of stone, grey as solidified cloud, and in the chasm below, the thin, white twist of fast water, menacing and beautiful at one and the same time. He perceived it with the eyes of an eagle, yet he knew that if he flung himself into the void, he would drop like a stone.

The company had been riding two abreast, but now the line was forced down to single file. Gisele sat rigid upon her mare, her face averted from the steep emptiness beyond the crumbling track. Her lips were bloodless, so hard were they compressed by her terror. Benedict thought it ironic that she could worship God so thoroughly in the edifices built by man, but when confronted by God's own elements, she shrank in fear.

Thunder rumbled in the distance behind them, and the clouds were an ominous purple. The merchant's horse whinnied and sidled, its ears flickering. Loose stones skittered from beneath his hooves and tumbled over the road's edge, bouncing and rebounding into rain-driven oblivion. The nuns began to pray, their voices thin and puny against the power of the storm. The priest joined them, his baritone more powerful, but still as nothing. Lost voices in a vast cathedral.

Lightning daggered the boiling clouds and the thunder cracked overhead. The merchant's mount squealed and bucked, its hooves striking solidly in the chest of the following pack pony. The smaller beast shied, lost its balance, and slipped over the edge with a scream of terror. The pony's lead rope was wrapped around the merchant's saddle cantle, and now the falling weight slewed the larger horse around, dragging it towards the chasm. Soil-loosened stones bounded down the steep sides. The merchant's mouth widened in a silent scream.

Without pause for deliberation, Benedict leaped from Cylu's back. As he reached the merchant, his knife was already in his hand. He laid his hand on the taut lead rope and slashed. Fibres parted, the final thread clinging for what seemed an eternity before it snapped and the pack pony's weight surged free with a catapulting jar. The sound of the animal's falling flesh smacking on stone rose through the rainfall until, with a final bump, there was silence.

Soaked to the skin, his hair plastered to his skull, Benedict grasped the merchant's cob by its headstall, and held the beast steady. 'Get off and walk,' he snapped to its corpulent rider, and stared round at the rest of the pilgrims who were looking on with shocked eyes. 'All of you, dismount. At least if another horse goes over, you won't be sitting on its back.'

Frightened and miserable, they did so. Tremors shook the merchant's vast bulk and his legs would scarcely support him. 'You did not have to cut the rope!' he cried.

'No, I didn't!' Benedict responded tersely. 'I could have left you to go over the edge.' He thrust the cob's wet reins into the merchant's slack fingers and turned away to deal with his own horses.

Pons was unmoved by the incident when he came to see what was keeping his charges so long. 'It happens,' he said, spreading his hands and shrugging. 'Lucky he was only a pack animal.' And then he looked shrewdly at Benedict. 'You cut the rope?'

'There was no time to do anything else.'

'You think on your feet, Frank,' Pons said. 'You are not such a fool as the others.' Swinging round, he began to slog onwards through the rain. Benedict received the impression that the guide's words were not by way of a compliment.

The journey continued, the weather growing murkier by the moment. No more horses were lost over the edge of the path. Within a hundred yards, it widened slightly, allowing room to breathe, and soon they were descending into the valley. But no-one dared to remount. Cold, dispirited, soaked to the bone, they plodded on. The beauty of the mountains was screened by thick curtains of rain.

Hampered by her skirts, Gisele tripped and stumbled.

'Tuck your gown through your belt,' Benedict said impatiently as yet again she almost went to her knees.

'It wouldn't be seemly,' she protested tearily.

'Who's to see in this?' he growled. 'Do you think anyone besides yourself cares? Do it now, before you fall.'

With trembling chin, Gisele fumbled beneath her cloak and tugged the merest token of dress through her belt. Benedict clamped his jaw on his irritation. It was at moments like this that he longed for Julitta, for her forthright, practical nature. She would have hitched her gown without a qualm, perhaps even have donned a pair of men's breeches. The word 'seemly' would not have disturbed her, unless it was being yelled at her by a purple-faced Mauger.

The pilgrims' hostel that greeted their arrival in the valley was a low-roofed timber dwelling with a balding thatched roof. The heavy rain had advanced the dusk and at first the proprietor did not want to admit them for the place was already bulging with travellers. There were no beds to spare, or even spaces in beds. At last, however, he was persuaded to sell the late arrivals floor space around the fire in the main hall. The merchant was furious, but no amount of railing made any difference to the proprietor's assertion that he had no beds.

'Even if you was the Queen o' Sheba, you'd sleep on the floor!' he declared. 'If you want to go higher than that, then you can sleep in the stables like our Blessed Lord.'