Their fingers touched as Rolf took the cup from her hands. Cool, with an afterburn. He was playing with fire and he knew it. 'Widow Alfric would have taken her complaint to my reeve first,' he said. 'This comes closer to my own threshold. Two days ago, your bird attacked my daughter Julitta, and she has the marks on her body to prove it. If my Godson Benedict had not happened along on his pony, she might have been killed. As it was, the gander attacked him too, and he had to throw his cloak over the thing to save himself.

Inga's face became ivory pale, but she maintained her composure. 'I am sorry to hear that,' she said in her clear, astringent voice. 'It is in the bird's nature to protect his territory. Belike the children came too close. Was there no-one there with them?'

He saw through her attempt to turn the tables and his lips tightened. 'It is not his territory, Inga. And what you say wanders from the point. It could have been anyone crossing that land – Widow Alfric for example. You know as well as I, that this is not the first time your gander has made an attack. If you value him as much as you say, then you had best keep him penned up and make sure he causes no more trouble. If he does, I will come here and neck him myself.'

Inga eyed him stonily. 'It will not happen again,' she said. He gave her his empty cup, but instead of setting it aside, she poured it full again from the mead pitcher and fetched another cup for herself. 'And if the gander is to be necked, I will do the deed. He is mine, not yours to destroy.'

Rolf knew that he should refuse the drink and escape, but his body would not obey his conscience, preferring to remain and play her game, whatever it was. And he thought he knew.

She drank her mead swiftly, like a man, tilting, swallowing, setting down. 'But then you're a Norman, aren't you?' she added when he did not speak. 'You do not care what you destroy.'

'Is that what you truly think?'

'Why should you care?'

Rolf shrugged. 'It might explain why you are so hostile. I do not believe I have ever seen you smile or utter a glad word.'

'What reason do I have?' She eyed him scornfully. 'You come here to complain of my geese, my livelihood, and expect me to smile you fair.'

'No,' he answered dryly. 'I did not expect you to "smile me fair". I expected you to behave exactly as you are.'

Colour tinted her creamy skin and her eyelids narrowed. 'So then, my lord Rolf, do you truly desire to know what I think?' She moved closer as she spoke, and now she unpinned the two brooches securing her overgarment in place. It puddled in the rushes at her feet, plain brown fabric enlivened by a braided border of scarlet, green and gold. She pulled off her kerchief and shook down her long, flaxen hair, and her eyes held his, golden-green, clear as mead and set beneath finely sketched tawny brows.

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.'