Rolf's vision was filled with the sight of Ailith glorying in her climax, her strong, beautiful body arched with pleasure and a pink flush mantling her face and throat and breasts. He had never seen anything so magnificent, had never felt such intensities of emotion and physical sensation. This was how it should be.

Ailith's head came forward. Panting, gleaming with sweat, she gave him back stare for stare. Her hips still swayed gently and there was an exultant smile on her lips.

'By Christ and by Odin I love you.' His avowal was whispered with tenderness and awe. 'It is forever, Ailith, forever.' And he thought that he meant it.

She leaned over him, her full breasts grazing his chest, the tips of her hair tickling his skin. 'Forever,' she repeated, and sealed the bargain, her mouth on his, their bodies still one flesh.

CHAPTER 27

His wanderlust temporarily sated and sobered by his experience in the north, Rolf was content to dwell at Ulverton, to oversee the breeding of his destriers and the new sumpter ponies, to watch the farmlands turn beneath the plough and the fishing boats bring home their catch. And to be with Ailith.

They played like children in the snow, they stayed abed whilst the weather howled around them, and made long, slow love. When the season warmed into true spring, she rode beside him to look at the stud herd, and he accompanied her into the village. At first, because of her earlier determination to be chaste, she was embarrassed to go abroad among the people, but they treated the change of circumstance up at the castle with tolerant amusement and knowing looks which said that they had known all along how it would eventually be, and they were not displeased.

The uprising in the north had been summarily quelled, and King William celebrated Easter in Winchester, where Rolf repaired briefly to present him with his tribute of a dozen warhorses and payment in silver in lieu of his personal presence on military duty in the King's service. He was only away from Ailith for a week, but it seemed like a year and he hastened home to her side and did not stir from it again until the land was covered in bursting, soft greenery on the borders of April and May.

The world could not be shut out forever, even if his oath to Ailith had been made for all time. As the season progressed, a niggling voice ate at Rolf's contentment, telling him that whatever his indifference toward his wife, he still had a duty towards her and his daughter. And for all Tancred's competence, the herds at Brize-sur-Risle still required his attention.

It was May eve and the green fertility of the land was being celebrated with enthusiasm. The village blacksmith, hidden within the fluttering skirts of a hobbyhorse costume, flirted with the maidens and became blatant with the married women. Mead and ale were consumed with true, Saxon capacity, and the three pigs slaughtered especially for the occasion vanished as rapidly as the bread and broth accompaniments.

Ailith joined the festivities with a childlike enthusiasm. Seeing her standing among the village women, eating slivers of roast pork with her fingers, and laughing at the antics of the blacksmith, Rolf contrasted her behaviour with Arlette's prim coolness, and was filled with a warm glow of pleasure, followed quickly by a feeling of depression.

Raising her head, Ailith caught him in the act of scrutiny. Their eyes locked. She left the crowd and hurried over to him, her freckled face aglow. The spring evening was as mild and warm as new milk and she wore only her shift and her best undergown, of blue wool. Her hair was decently covered by a light wimple, held in place by a chaplet of white May blossom. He rested his fingertips gently on the garland.

'In Normandy, at Brize, a chaplet like this would signify your willingness,' he murmured.

Ailith stooped to wipe her greasy fingers on the grass and looked up at Rolf through her lashes. 'My willingness to what?' she asked saucily.

Rolf drew her to her feet and then against him. 'To honour the May with the gift of your body to any man who asks.'

'Then it is a blessing we are not in Normandy, for if so, you would have to wait your turn behind the blacksmith.' She giggled and then hiccuped and put her hand to her mouth. 'I mustn't drink any more mead, it's too strong.'

Her mention of the blacksmith, a lusty, dark-eyed fellow, sent a pang of jealousy through Rolf, so unaccustomed, that it thoroughly unsettled him. The thought of leaving her for the duty of Normandy grew even less palatable. She was looking at him with an air of provocative mischief that sent an unbearable ache through his groin. He needed to possess her, here and now.

She seemed somewhat surprised at his sudden urgency, but followed him willingly into the shadows, where he spread his cloak and pulled her down onto it.

'I cannot wait,' he groaned, tugging at her gown and shift. 'I will burst!'

She laughed, the sound low and throaty with power, almost a purr. 'My, you have taken the May fever badly,' she said, but altered her position to smoothly accommodate his desperation. Her hands upon him were cool, her thighs too, as she clung to his flanks and returned each hard surge of his body. It was a primitive lovemaking, befitting the rites of the May Eve. There was no finesse, only the raw power of the mating instinct. The plough in the furrow, the sowing of the corn, the begetting of new life.

In the aftermath, as their heartbeats slowed and their breath grew quiet, Rolf traced the contours of her strong, honest face with his fingertips and thought her beautiful, and yet the releasing of physical tension had given no ease to his mind.

'Ailith, I have to leave for a while,' he said, gently following the outline of her lips with his forefinger. 'There is a horse fair in Paris that I must attend, and other matters at Brize-sur-Risle that I cannot leave to Tancred.'

Her half-smile faded and her eyes opened to search his face. 'Other matters? Your wife and child, I suppose?'

'Don't look at me like that.' He shifted uncomfortably. 'I owe them my duty, you know that. And I have to make decisions about the horses — I'm not going for the sole purpose of seeing Arlette and Gisele. Christ knows, I would rather be with you.'

Ailith sat up and smoothed her rumpled garments. 'I know you must go to them,' she said with dignity, 'and that you must find horses to breed, to buy and to sell. It would be foolish of me to cling and weep, to beg you not to go. I only wish that you had had the wisdom to tell me on another occasion. First you take me in the grass like a stag in rut, then you announce that you are going to your wife. Or were you afraid that I would deny you once you had spoken?'

'Yes, I was.' He threw his arms around her, and although she averted her head, she did not shrug him off. 'All I could think of a moment ago was that I did not want to leave or lose you, but that I might do both. You looked so beautiful and I wanted you so much.'

Her manner softened and with a light sigh, she turned in his arms and laid her head on his chest to hear the steady thud, thud of his heart. 'When must you go?'

'As soon as I can find a galley to take me across the narrow sea.' He grimaced as if his mouth was full of sour wine. 'The sooner there, the sooner home to you.'

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.