Arlette and Gisele returned to the keep, and Rolf joined his villagers in their May Eve celebrations. A huge bonfire had been kindled on a low slope above the village and the people capered around it, their blood warm with cider and the vigorous surge of springtime currents. A man and a woman, each with a tabor, beat out an ancient, insistent rhythm while alternate circles of women and men performed the sacred dance, and all of them wore at least one item of green to symbolise the clothing of the earth in new life.

The light faded from the sky, leaving a teal luminescence. Older women carried querulous, sleepy children home to bed. The unmarried, the unattached and the drunk remained to dance in the Beltane ring, honouring a religion far more ancient than the one that the poor, isolated priest was trying to uphold.

Rolf accepted a cup of rough, golden cider from a grinning villager, and watched Father Hoel depart in the direction of the keep, there no doubt to commiserate with Arlette about the blasphemous collection of pagans who made up his flock.

Rolf joined the dancers, linking his arms with his overseer and Brize's blacksmith. They faced the fire, circling, stepping to the beat of the tabor. Then they faced the women and circled in the opposite direction. Three times the move was repeated before the men separated and the women were passed through in a handfasting figure of eight to become the inner ring. The links were reforged and the dance continued.

Rolf's eye fell upon one of the village women. Her tossing corn-blonde hair was bound back from her brow by a crown of white hawthorn, the symbol of the fertility goddess. Her face was flushed with exertion and her breasts and hips jiggled suggestively as she twisted and turned in the motion of the dance. Hand over hand, Rolf passed her from inside ring to outer. The side of her breast, heavy and soft, brushed against his arm; the musky scents of hawthorn blossom and sweat filled his nostrils. His loins began to burn.

In and out, weaving the darkness with a living thread. The drums and the cider banished all thought and left only touch. A dark-haired girl, slender as a weasel, swept her hand across Rolf's groin in a feather-light touch that left his manhood as huge and hard as the maypole at the foot of the slope. Her eyes glistened; she drew a thick tress of hair across his face and arched her spine, offering him the thrust of her small, pert breasts.

Rolf swung her round into the arms of one of the village men and sought the blonde woman instead. She seemed momentarily surprised to be chosen, but when his hands settled on her hips and he pulled her out of the dance, she went willingly into the shadows with him.

Her breasts were large and soft from the suckling of several children, there was a gentle roll of fat on her belly and her hips were wide and meaty. But Rolf saw none of this. His only care was that she spread herself willingly to accept him. All sensation was concentrated in his swollen shaft and aching cods. He grasped her ample buttocks and plunged in hard. Her thighs gripped him; she struck her heels on the ground and circled her hips to meet his thrusts. Blonde hair tossed in Rolf's face. He felt the surge of power rising inexorably within him. He tried to slow his thrusts and prolong the pleasure, but the woman urged him on, kneading his back with her hands, pumping her hips in a relentless, slick rhythm, and making small, inarticulate cries.

It was too much. Rolf jammed into her, his spine arching. 'Ailith!' he sobbed through his teeth as his seed pulsed from his body into the woman beneath him.

He roused to the flickering light of the bonfire behind his eyes, to the shouts and laughter of the people who still danced, the whispered moans of those who had succumbed to the lure of wearing the green' in the form of grass stains on their clothing. Slowly he withdrew himself from the woman and tucked himself back inside his braies. .

'What was that word you shouted, my lord?' His partner tugged her bunched-up skirts back down over her legs and sat up beside him. Her fingers combed through her coarse blonde hair and she straightened the hawthorn crown on top of her head. 'Was it a charm?'

Rolf shook his head. He had not intended to cry out at all, but the intensity of his climax, the fair hair, the body arched beneath him in passion, had roused a powerful spectre from his imagination and clothed it with life. 'A charm,' he repeated and smiled with irony. 'I suppose you could call it that. An English one.' He tugged a strand of her hair and grinned. 'Riding always gives me a thirst. Go and fetch a jug of cider, there's a good lass.'

She wove unsteadily away to do his bidding. Rolf reclined on the grass, pillowed his head on his hands, and looked at the stars.

The worse for drink, old Ragnild tottered out of the shadows and regarded Rolf with gleaming, weasel eyes. 'You will get what you desire, Rolf de Brize.' She nodded as if listening to an invisible presence. 'But not without a reckoning. Break your faith, and the axe will break you.'

He jerked to a sitting position, intending to ask her what she meant, but his companion returned with a brimming jug of cider and plumped herself down beside him. Ragnild rummaged in the pouch at her waist and brought out a scrap of linen which had been twisted and tied to hold herbs. 'A pinch is all you need,' she cackled, dropping it in Rolf's lap so that it landed over the area of his genitals. 'Keep you firm as a quarterstaff all night if you've a mind to pleasure.' With a lascivious roll of her hips and a wink, she moved on towards the bonfire.

Rolf swore and hurled the scrap of linen after her, but later, in the aftermath of a second, more leisurely mating, he retrieved it from the grass and stowed it in his pouch. His head spinning with the force of the cider and the Beltane scents of crushed grass, sweat and sex, he wondered what Ragnild had meant about the axe and breaking faith.

CHAPTER 19

DECEMBER 1067


'It is time you ceased mourning and thought about finding another husband,' Felice told Ailith. The two women were sitting around the winter hearth peeling withies to make rush dips. It was past Yuletide and the days would gradually begin to lengthen, but there were still a three full months between now and the warmth and light of spring. 'I know that you miss Goldwin, but it is more than a year since he died. A man and household of your own would make you miss him less. And in the fullness of time you would have children too.'

'I do not want another husband.' Ailith made a conscious effort to keep her voice firm and steady. 'I am not ready yet. And Benedict still needs a wet nurse.' She glanced at the black-haired infant playing on a fleece rug near their feet. He was sturdy and strong, on the verge of taking his first steps. Morning and evening he still suckled at her breasts, and for comfort when he was tired, but more and more, urged by Felice, he was relying on other foods for sustenance, on bread smeared with marrowjelly, on wheat porridge, buttermilk and whey.

'But by the summertime he will not.' Felice added her stripped rush to the pile at her side and frowned at Ailith. "You are welcome to live here as long as you choose, you know that. I am only thinking that it will be difficult for you. If you had a home of your own again, it would give you a new sense of purpose.'

Feelings of hostility and panic rushed through Ailith as she heard these words. Felice was making it obvious that once Benedict had dispensed of the need for a wet nurse, she intended taking full responsibility for him, and that there would be little room for Ailith.

'Perhaps I could find somewhere down by the wharves and take in washing for the sailors,' Ailith suggested cuttingly.

'Don't be so foolish!' Felice snapped. 'I said that you were welcome here — for the rest of your life if need be.'

'If you have to support me you mean!'

'Ailith, I do not wish to quarrel.' Felice's voice took on a conciliatory note. 'I just want you to think about the future. Look at us now. Will it get any better?'

Ailith blinked. She could not see to peel the rush in her hand for a sudden film of moisture. 'No,' she shook her head. 'No, it won't.'

'Oh don't cry, you will make me cry too!' Felice's own eyes filled with tears. She gave Ailith a warm, pleading hug. Ailith accepted it passively and wiped her eyes on her under-tunic sleeve. Benedict came to join in, clawing himself to a standing position at Ailith's knee, demanding to be taken on her lap. She lifted him in her arms and nuzzled his hair, drinking in his warm, heartbreaking infant smell. How could she give this up? And yet she knew it was inevitable. The child came first, she could not put her own needs before his. She had once heard a priest recite a story from the Bible about a great king called Solomon who had been asked to judge between two women as to who was the mother of a disputed infant. He had commanded that the child be cut in two and each claimant be given a half. One woman had relinquished her right so that the child might live, and she had been deemed the true mother. Ailith knew that she could not let Benedict be torn in two. She had to let him go.

Felice allowed her to cuddle Benedict and with a sigh, returned to stripping the withies. 'Aubert is bringing a guest home to eat. I thought when we have finished this, we could prepare the food.'

Ailith nodded dully. 'As you wish,' she said.

Felice pursed her lips, then added nonchalantly, 'It's Wulfstan the Goldsmith – do you remember, he was here last month?'