The fresh pink complexion had become a patchy grey; folds of skin draped loosely over gaunt bones; the fine blue eyes were sunken in their sockets and the thick blonde hair was now a sparse, dull yellow. Never would Ailith regain the smooth-fleshed bloom of earlier years. Her death was upon her, and in defiance, Felice had flung wide the shutters.
The sound of birdsong filled the room, the harsh, poignant screaming of gulls, Benedict shouting at one of the grooms as he made ready to leave.
'You are sending for Rolf, aren't you?' Ailith's voice was a weak whisper.
Felice returned to the bedside and sat down on the woven coverlet. She took Ailith's shiny, work-roughened hand in hers and felt the brutality of bone through the skin. 'Benedict is riding out this morning, but it will be more than a week before Rolf arrives.' And you cannot hold out for that long, she thought to herself. Her unspoken words must have shown in her eyes, for Ailith gave the ghost of a smile and shook her head.
'I do not want to see him, not even one last time. And if he should arrive before I am sewn in my shroud, do not show him my body.' Her throat worked and the smile became a brimming of tears. 'Let him remember me as I was… Promise me.'
Felice was torn by a surge of grief. Her own eyes filled, and it was a moment before she could find the control to speak. 'I promise.' She gripped Ailith's hand and watched her friend, the lovely, generous woman who had saved Benedict's life, turn her cloudy gaze to the bright aperture of light.
'Could you not have forgiven him?' Felice had only a vague knowledge of the circumstances in which Ailith had left Rolf, but she had been a witness to the torment that the action had caused, and was still causing.
Ailith coughed. 'I forgave him long ago,' she said wearily. 'It was not as if I did not know his nature, or that I was a snared innocent. I was deliberately blind, and when I was forced to see, I could not bear what my eyes looked upon.' Her gaze turned to Felice. 'It was easy to forgive Rolf, but I have never been able to forgive myself.'
Felice did not know what to say beyond her first, pitying exclamation of denial. Whatever Rolf had done, Ailith had taken the blame and guilt upon her own shoulders and punished herself. Not only herself, but the child downstairs too.
'I committed adultery with my brother's murderer,' Ailith said into Felice's struggling silence. 'I bore Rolf's child from the rites of the Beltane fires. The priest yesterday… he was in half a mind not to shrive me even though I swore bitterly that I had repented.'
Felice could see the tragedy as if it was laid out before her like the great embroidery recently commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux. 'Ailith stop it,' she said sharply. 'It avails you nothing. Perhaps if you had repented less bitterly and with more understanding, you would not have come to this pass now. And the same goes for Rolf,' she added half under her breath.
Ailith's stare returned to the brightness of the window. 'The path home was too hard for me to find,' she whispered. 'All the familiar places had disappeared.'
The door opened, and Julitta stood hesitantly on the threshold, a huge jug of spring herbs and flowers clutched in her hand. As the girl approached the bed, Felice saw that Benedict's cold compresses had worked wonders on the injured ankle, for Julitta was scarcely limping. Today the wild auburn hair was severely tamed in a thick plait and there was a little more colour in the pallid cheeks.
'Ben… Benedict said that it was all right for me to pick these from your garden, and that you seldom use this jug,' Julitta said hesitantly.
Felice eyed the handsome glazed pitcher. She seldom used it because it was her best one, kept for special occasions – but then was this not a special occasion? Feeling unworthy, she set aside her irritation. 'Of course it is all right, child. The flowers look beautiful, don't they, Ailith?'
'They do,' Ailith agreed, her eyes brightening on the collection of flag irises, lilies and honeysuckle with a mingling of pleasure and sorrow. 'I used to love my garden at Ulverton.'
A delicate perfume filled the room as Julitta set the jug down on the coffer at the bedside. Clearing her throat, Felice excused herself to other duties below stairs, leaving mother and daughter alone.
Julitta went to the window and looked down into the yard. The grooms had finished saddling Benedict's horse and the young man had emerged from the house to mount up. Her eyes fed on him for a moment, drawing sustenance from his graceful, competent movements. She leaned out a little to watch him collect the leading rein of a grey mare and circle round to leave. Then he chanced to look up and saw her watching from the room above. A smile broke across his face and he saluted her. Julitta felt an uplifting surge of emotion and waved in return as he passed beneath the window. Standing in the stable doorway, Mauger was party to the exchange, and directed a censorious glance in Julitta's direction.
Suddenly self-conscious, she put her hand to her hair to make sure that it was still contained within its severe braid, smoothed her sack-like gown, and withdrew into the room. Her mother had been watching her too, and Julitta blushed. 'I was waving farewell to Benedict,' she said defensively, and found it pleasurable to taste his name on her tongue. Hastily she sat down on the bed, and as Felice had done, took Ailith's hand in hers.
Her mother swallowed, making the effort to speak. 'Benedict is betrothed to your half-sister,' she warned. 'Have a care where you spend your affection, Julitta. I would not have you repeat my mistakes.'
'I did no more than wave, I haven't done anything wrong.'
'Would you have waved for someone else?'
Julitta scowled, and stared at the embroidered counterpane without answering.
'It will be your father's task to dower you and find you a suitable husband, and for that, you must be above reproach.'
'You haven't even considered if I want to go to him at all!' Julitta cried resentfully. 'You said you no longer respected him. Why should I do his bidding!'
'Would you rather the convent or the gutter?' 'You chose the gutter above him!' Julitta spat, and was immediately contrite. The indignant colour left her face and she chewed her full, lower lip. 'Mama, I'm sorry,' she said in a voice thick with tears and pressed Ailith's hand to her own hot cheek.
Ailith's fingers uncurled in a tender caress. 'So am I,' she said. 'More than you will ever know. And so tired.' She struggled to gather her failing strength. 'I know it is hard for you to understand, Julitta. I wanted more from your father than he had it in him to give… it was like donning a shimmering gossamer cloak and expecting it to keep me warm even in the deepest winter. For you, it may be that the cloak is lined with fur. You are of his blood and you will not be sharing his bed, lying there, waiting for him to come home from the arms of another woman. That is why I tell you not to grow too fond of Benedict de Remy.' She subsided against the pillows, her energy drained, and when she spoke again, her lips formed the words, but she scarcely possessed the breath to utter them. 'You are so young, and I won't be here to protect you from yourself Her eyelids fluttered and closed.
Julitta leaned over her mother, sick with terror, thinking that she had died, but Ailith's hand moved, groping blindly for hers. Julitta grasped it and squeezed with all the desperate strength in her bursting young body, and knew herself as powerless as a straw twirling on the surface of a flood.
CHAPTER 40
It was the middle of the afternoon when Benedict arrived at Ulverton. The late May sun dazzled on the sea and clothed the new green of the land with an eye-aching intensity. On the castle's outer defences, a group of labourers were digging foundations for a stone curtain wall to replace the wooden palisade. They worked bare-chested, their skins reddening beneath the first onslaught of the sun that year. The chink of their spades and mattocks, their salty language, followed Benedict through the gates and into the sun-basked lower bailey.