Elizabeth Chadwick - The Conquest

Julitta stood beside Mauger in the bailey, silently watching him inspect some horses that a hopeful trader had brought up from the regions far to the south. He said that he was on his way to Paris, but having heard of the fame of Brize-sur-Risle, he thought he would bring his stock here first.

In Julitta's opinion, his prices were far too high for what she considered to be very ordinary beasts. Her father or Benedict would not have entertained the thought of purchasing any of them. Mauger was being slow and deliberate as he examined each one. She knew that he would reject them too, but it would take him twice as long as the other men to make up his mind.

Julitta walked over to the horses which Mauger had rejected earlier before she emerged from the confines of Arlette's bower to watch him. For the most part they were mere nags, basic riding beasts that would serve well enough in ordinary domestic situations where excellence was not desired. The trader had brought his wares to the wrong market. Her father was no bucolic dabbler in the art, but a man who bred, bought and sold top quality horse-flesh for the high nobility. From what she could hear of the conversation between Mauger and the trader, Mauger was expressing those sentiments precisely, and not mincing his words. Lately, Mauger had been more irascible than ever, and she avoided his company unless, like now, the lure was too great. On the other side of the coin, he seemed to be doing his best these days to avoid hers.

Among the rejected horses, Julitta came across a cream-coloured mare with a filly nuzzling at her heels. The mare was nothing to look upon, although the journey she had travelled whilst carrying and then bearing the foal was a testament to her endurance. The colour of her coat was unusual, exactly mirroring the thick, yellow cream that was skimmed off the milk in the dairy each summer evening. Still, Julitta would have passed her over with only a minor second glance, were it not for the foal.

Her colouring was even more striking than her mother's, for instead of being a dappled grey, she was a dappled gold, or would be when her baby fuzz had grown into true, glossy horsehide. She had the sharp, pricked ears, the intelligent eye and the fluid lines that suggested her father at least must have come from Andaluz stock. An aristocrat, lost among the peasants, so small an aristocrat, that Mauger had overlooked her.

Julitta was not so naive as to call Mauger over and make a fuss about purchasing mother and daughter. If they were fortunate, they could obtain both for a bargain price. She sauntered back to the men. 'Are you going to buy any?' she asked Mauger.

He eyed her suspiciously. 'Why?'

Julitta pointed at a jet-black yearling which she knew Mauger had discarded as being too weak in the chest and spindly of leg. 'He's nice,' she said to the coper. 'Can you trot him up and down again?'

The coper agreed with alacrity, scarcely able to believe his luck. Mauger, full of his own disbelief, faced Julitta. 'What do you think you are doing?' he hissed furiously. 'That animal's not worth a bag of beans!'

'I know,' Julitta said calmly.

Mauger glared. 'Then why did you…'

'Oh, be quiet and listen! I asked to look at the yearling to distract the trader so that I could talk to you about that mare and foal over there without him suspecting. The mare's ordinary, but look at the foal, look at the breeding in her.'

'I've already looked,' Mauger said coldly.

'And you were not impressed?'

His eyes flickered to the trader who was trotting the black up and down. 'I won't waste your father's coin for your foolish whim,' he growled.

'It's not a whim, it is sound sense!' Julitta's eyes flashed angrily. 'There's Spanish blood in her. Do you think I cannot recognise quality when I see it?'

'You are saying that you know more after one year than I do after nine and twenty?' Mauger's nostrils flared.

'I am saying that you overlooked the foal because the mother is not what you want.'

'I overlooked nothing,' Mauger said through his teeth, clinging grimly to control. 'Even if the sire is pure-bred Andaluz, the mother's blood will bring it down. Your father entrusts me with the management of his horses, not some flighty wench who should be at her distaff.'

Julitta recoiled as if she had been punched. Mauger might have more knowledge than her, but he did not possess the vital spark of intuition. To be slapped down when she knew she was right was a blow that left her first speechless, and then hot with indignation. 'Then he entrusts a jackass!' she spat, and turning her back on him, faced the trader who had given up all pretence of showing the black's paces and was staring at the two of them in astonishment.

'How much do you want for the cream mare and her foal?' Julitta demanded, all subterfuge flown.

The coper drew breath.

'You bargain with me, or not at all,' Mauger snarled furiously. 'I am responsible for my lord's bloodstock. The girl has no authority, and furthermore no coin. And I wish to buy neither mare nor foal.'

Julitta whirled round and glared at Mauger, loathing him.

'Scowl all you want, your tantrums will not change my mind,' Mauger said brutally.

She wanted to kick him, she wanted to scream abuse in his face, but she saw that the deeper she wallowed in fury, the more he gained. Gathering the tatters of her dignity around her like a threadbare cloak, she swept out of the bailey, and only when she was out of sight did she stoop to pick up a stone and hurl it as far and as hard as she could, to the accompaniment of language purloined from Dame Agatha's bathhouse.

For the rest of the day she kept to the bower, twirling raw wool on her distaff with a vengeance while she wondered how many other opportunities Mauger had let slip through his fingers during the twenty-nine years of experience he claimed to his advantage.

In the late afternoon just as the candles were being lit, a servant hurried into the bower to inform Arlette that Benedict de Remy and the Lady Gisele had ridden in.

Arlette's face shone so brightly that they scarcely required the candles, and she leaped to her feet. So did Julitta, her heart bumping against her ribs, her stomach queasy with anticipation. She had tried to banish Benedict from her thoughts since his marriage at Michaelmas, but she had no control over her dreams. Time and again he would invade them and torment her with his smile.

Full of anticipation, fall of dread, she followed Arlette out to the bailey. Gisele had been travelling by litter, she had never been keen on riding, and as the contraption was set down, she drew aside the curtains, stepped out and flung herself into her mother's arms. Weeping, the two women embraced. Julitta stopped dead, her gaze held not so much by the sight of Benedict, lithe and strong with a new maturity to his features, as by the cream mare and golden-dapple foal attached by a leading rein to Cylu's saddle.

She stared and stared. Arriving to greet the visitors, so did Mauger, his complexion growing dusky and his grey eyes brightening with rage.

'How did you do this?' he hissed furiously at Julitta.

'I didn't do anything!' she retorted. 'I've been "minding my distaff' as you suggested.'

Glowering, Mauger shouldered forward to confront Benedict. The young man drew breath to speak, but Mauger stole his space.

'Where did you get this mare and foal?' he demanded. 'Did she put you up to it?' An aggressive forefinger stabbed at the staring Julitta.

Benedict looked astounded. He glanced briefly at Julitta, then back to his fuming accuser. 'Put me up to what?' He shrugged. 'I've only just arrived, and this is the first time I've set eyes on Mistress Julitta since Martinmas. 'I met a horse-trader driving his animals towards Honfleur and I stopped to look over what he had.'

'Surely you must have known that he had been here first, and that I had rejected his stock as unfit for Brize?' Mauger said huskily.

'Of course I knew. I guessed even before he told me. And since you had rejected them,' Benedict added silkily, 'I judged myself perfectly within my bounds to buy the mare and foal for Ulverton. The mare's ordinary, I grant you, but the foal shows promise, and if she carries the stallion's line so well, she will probably make an excellent brood mare. The trader was disappointed at having sold you nothing, so he made himself feel better by letting me have these two at a very attractive price.' Benedict tilted his head. 'What's wrong, Mauger? To look at you, anyone would have thought I had squandered a hundred marks on a broken-winded ass.'