Читать книгу The Bought Bride - Juliet Landon - Страница 6

Michaelmas, September 29th, 1088—York

A sneaking cold wind whipped the light woollen shawl off Rhoese’s head to reveal a rippling helmet of auburn hair the colour of ripe chestnuts. She snatched the scarf and tied it briskly around her shoulders, trapping the two heavy plaits that reached to her waist. A halo of spiralling tendrils fluttered around her face. ‘One cart of timber from Gilbert of Newthorpe,’ she called to the scribbling clerk at her side. ‘Mark that down, Brother Alaric. Two cows worth twenty pence each from Robert, brother of Thorkil.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the cleric. ‘Not too fast, my lady, if you please.’ With Robert’s goad to prod them, the cows were not inclined to wait in order.

‘Be quick, man. Master Ralph is here with his corn payment.’

Bundles of thatch, baskets of salted fish, live hens and fresh eggs, sesters of honey and rounds of cheese, sacks of malt and grain were carried into the fenced compound at Toft Green and accounted for by Lady Rhoese, her bailiff and her clerk. It was Michaelmas, a time for the payment of dues in her first year as a landowner in her own right. Men had been coming since early morning to hand over their shillings and pence as rent for ploughland, croft and meadow, for two mills and two town dwellings, all noted down on rolls of parchment that buckled beneath the cleric’s quill. Over his head, the canvas shelter began to flap and rattle with the first squall of rain.

‘How many more, m’lady?’ he said, throwing the quill down and taking another one from behind his ear.

Rhoese held back the wayward wisps of hair with one hand and strained her eyes towards the great stone archway where Micklegate passed through York’s city wall. The light was already fading and soon the gate would be closed for the night, though there were still stragglers who had walked all day to bring what they owed. A cart passed through, rattling and jolting behind two oxen, loaded high with sheep fleeces, and a party of riders surged behind, impatient and obviously in high spirits.

‘Who’s coming, Bran?’ she called to her bailiff at the gate.

‘They’re Normans, m’lady,’ he replied, frowning.

‘Close the gate after the cart. Quick,’ she ordered. Instinctively, she took a step backwards under the cover of the canvas shelter. The steady stream of wagons and animals passing along the track towards her demesne had attracted some heed, and several of the riders had stopped to watch the distant scene of organised chaos, their attention caught by bellowing steers and bleating ewes. Rhoese’s guess that the Norman party were huntsmen returning from a day’s sport would not be far wrong, with a spot of harmless trouble-making already in their minds. Damned Norman upstarts.

It was this unease, born of past experience, that kept her wary of what was happening beyond the stockade that surrounded her large compound, so that when two of the horsemen came as far as the gates to watch more closely, she backed even further into the shadowy recesses of the shelter. Since the last king’s great national survey of two years ago, the estates that she had inherited from her mother had gone largely unchallenged since, at the time, she was still living at home, the rents and dues from her estate merely augmenting those of her late father, a king’s thegn and wealthy merchant of York. Now, she was on her own, a target for property-seeking Normans, and vulnerable. One of the many risks of becoming independent.

Lowering her voice, she continued dictating to the cleric whilst trying to ignore the two inquisitive riders until some mysterious unseen force made her turn and look. One of them was watching the scene in the yard, but the other watched her, and only her. He was tall in the saddle and powerfully built, that much she could tell in one glance, not a man she had seen before in York, nor one she could have forgotten easily. His dark hair ruffled like thick silk in the stiff autumn breeze, and his eyes looked across at her like level daggers beneath straight black brows.

He saw her start, and beckoned to her, a signal she quickly decided that a servant would not ignore. Pretence was the answer. ‘My lord?’ she called, walking unhurriedly towards him. A sheep scuttled across, stopping her halfway.

‘Where’s your master?’ he called. His voice was abrupt and deep, used to command and to obedience, taking it for granted that she could speak French.

She shrugged. ‘Away, sir,’ she replied.

‘And your mistress? Where’s she?’

‘Away too.’

‘So who’s in charge here?’

Again she shrugged. ‘All of us. We’re trusted.’

‘Your name, girl?’

She took a deep breath, ready to lie. But the bailiff was not happy about the number of fleeces in the cart, and his loud query was meant directly for her. ‘Lady Rhoese,’ he called. ‘This load’s two short.’

A howl went up from the carter. ‘There ain’t, m’lady. They’re all there. Honest.’

The horseman dismounted and threw his reins to the man by his side, and Rhoese saw that he would be intent on an explanation. The deceit was already over, and she had not enjoyed even this short-lived attempt at subservience.

Defiantly, she faced him as he came towards her through the gate. ‘My name,’ she said, crisply, ‘is Lady Rhoese of York, daughter of the late Lord Gamal of York, and granddaughter of a former sheriff. Is that enough for you, or would you like me to quote my entire pedigree? I can, if you wish it, but I’m rather occupied, as you see.’

Lazily, he strode forward as if her defiance meant nothing to him, his hair lifting off his forehead like a thatch in a gale. ‘I’m sure you could. So why the deception, I wonder? Is that your way?’

‘Oh, with Normans, sir, I use any wiles I can devise to keep their noses out of my affairs.’

‘You appear to have strong opinions about Normans, my lady. What have they done to deserve it, I wonder?’

For some unaccountable reason, she felt her heart hammering and squeezing her breath from her lungs, further irritating her after she had sworn never again to be affected by a man. This man was standing within her compound as if he owned it, his great legs planted like trees, his hands splayed over slim hips where a gold-buckled belt sat low on a linen tunic with bands of blue and gold. Expensive attire. Unwillingly, she noticed his muscular neck, shoulders and chest like a wrestler, and she found herself doing what she knew men did when they looked at her, peeling him down to his skin to see what lay there. She realised she was blushing, and the smile in his eyes told her that he knew why.

‘As for that, sir,’ she said, lifting her chin, ‘if you don’t know the answer, then it’s clear you’ve not been in England long. It would take at least a week to tell you what damage you and your kind have done to us in the last twenty-two years. Fortunately, we still have our dignity and our language left. Those are two things you’ll never remove, thank heaven.’ She looked around for her bailiff and called to him in English. ‘Bran! Get this overweening lout from under my feet, will you?’ To the Norman, she spoke again in French. ‘As you see, sir, I’m too busy for small talk. Another day, perhaps. Pray excuse me.’

As she spoke, however, even her show of hostility was not enough to blind her to each detail of his face, the faint shadow round the strongly angled jaw, the firm wide line of the mouth, the dent in the chin and the long straight line of the nose. His high cheeks had already caught the shine of the rain, and the eyes that had been no more than dark slits were now widening at her brave animosity, deep brown, dark-lashed and unnervingly bold. She flinched, suddenly and inexplicably uncertain of herself, her eyes sliding reluctantly away to avoid reaching any more liberal conclusions about his remarkably good looks. A bitter voice breathed in her ear: he would be no different from the rest, Norman or English.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can see you have much to do. Are you the owner of this demesne or is your husband joint owner?’

‘You ask too many questions, sir. And your friend is waiting.’

Her attempts to dislodge him made him smile. ‘Hmm.’ He grinned. ‘Another time then, lady. Perhaps you’ll be at the ceremony tomorrow, eh? As a tenant of the king, you’ll surely be there with your donation?’

His probing irritated her. ‘Oh, who knows how much curiosity value we English landowners have these days? We’re a dying breed. Why not show ourselves while we still have the chance? Is that what you mean? Good day, sir.’

He found no ready answer to that, but nodded curtly and strode away through the gate with a word to the bailiff who held it for him. Without another glance, he was back in the saddle and away at a canter, while Rhoese struggled to drag her mind unwillingly back to the pandemonium in the yard and to breathe past the uncomfortable knot of fear in her throat.

There was no doubt at all that she had overdone the antagonism for no reason except that he was a Norman. Or was there another reason, something too recent to be excused or explained? Something to do with men in general, those unreliable, feckless, self-seeking creatures? For the last ten months she had been reassessing her need of them, and now no other feelings remained except contempt and a wish for vengeance. Cold, hard, sweet revenge. Submission and humility she reserved only for special occasions when nothing else would do, having discovered to her cost how severely they were undervalued.

The cleric had stopped writing and was clearing away his tools before the rain spoiled his script. A bundle of rolls bounced about in the wind. ‘Who was that, my lady?’ he said, sticking his quills back into his hair.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘He’ll not be back.’

Brother Alaric, the lady’s chaplain as well as her accounts clerk, was not a gambling man, but even he felt tempted to put some pence on the return of that admirer before the next sunset.

The two riders had passed the crofts of Toft Green before one of them smiled and glanced at his stony-faced companion. ‘You should see your expression,’ he grinned. ‘It’s a picture.’

‘All right. So tell me. Who is she?’

‘That, my fine friend, is one of York’s two remaining women landowners, and I cannot tell you of a single male who doesn’t long to get his hands on it. Yes—’ he laughed ‘—her and the property. Snapped your head off, did she? Well, she would. She’s been here in this corner of the city for the last ten months, since her father died, and she doesn’t let a man within a yard-length of her. Except her chaplain, of course. And her brother.’

‘Well, there could be several reasons for that. She’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen, Ranulf. Those great dark eyes spitting fire. That body.’ He sucked in his breath, recalling the thick auburn hair, the full mouth, the skin moist with rain that ought to have told him she was a lady, even without the usual head-covering. She was the stuff of men’s dreams and fantasies. ‘She tells me her father was Gamal. Who was Gamal, exactly?’

‘A king’s thegn. One of the last here in York. A wealthy merchant. Disappeared at sea last winter. Traded in furs and walrus ivory, mostly. His wharf is alongside the river by the bridge. Big warehouses and several ships.’

‘The business is still going, then?’

‘Yes, the trading was taken over by his assistant, a strapping young clever-dick called Warin. Not only the trading, either.’

‘Oh? What else?’

‘The widow. He moved into Lord Gamal’s house and settled in with the second wife. A shrew. Danish. Didn’t take her long to accept a bit of comfort. But the daughter, Lady Rhoese, moved out and set up on her own. Took her father’s death hard, apparently, and doesn’t want any more to do with the stepmother.’

‘Or the stepmother’s lover, who presumably gets his hands on more than the widow?’

‘Exactly. There may have been something between him and the daughter. We’re not sure.’

‘We?’

‘The court. The laugh is, Jude, that she believes that by keeping quiet and out of the way she’ll be quite safe.’

‘From what?’

‘Norman attention. Marriage, and the usual property take-over. It’s the only legal way a man can get at her estate, unless she sells it to him, of course, although plenty of women lost theirs illegally, as you know. But the idea of a woman holding an estate in her own name is ridiculous when she’s supposed to be rendering knight-service to the king for it. She’ll have to lose it eventually.’ The young man named Ranulf wiped the drips of rain off the end of his nose and looked down sadly at his soaking green woollen tunic. Even for the hunt, he liked to do his best to earn the nickname ‘Flambard’. Flamboyant was what he had always been, and even as the king’s chaplain there would be no sombre clothing for him at a court known for its extravagant dress.

‘So the king knows about her, does he?’

‘Most certainly he does. Since he saw that survey his late father did two years ago, he knows exactly who’s got what, where it is, how much it’s worth and how much revenue he can expect from it. He’s got her estate earmarked for whoever will pay him most to get their hands on it. Better start saving up if you want to put in a bid.’

‘Then he’ll marry her off?’

‘Just like that, whether she likes it or not. And she won’t.’

‘So she’ll lose everything.’

‘Everything.’ He pointed to a tall wooden fort on a mound beyond the thatched rooftops. ‘Over there, see? That’s one of the castles, and over there—’ his hand swung further to the left ‘—is the big castle. King William the Bastard had to dam the River Fosse to make the moat for it. The city people were not too happy about that.’ He laughed, thinking of the flooded houses and orchards.

But Jude was more interested in Lady Rhoese of York than in the two castles, which he had already seen on his way into the city. ‘Tell me more about her,’ he said.

The smile widened. ‘I can tell you that we took bets.’

‘On what?’

‘On how long it would take you to win her.’

Jude’s eyebrow lifted at that. ‘I see. And how long d’ye think we’ll have before the king returns to London? Do I have days, or will it be weeks?’

Ranulf patted his horse’s wet neck. ‘Well, we’ve got the St Mary’s Abbey ceremony tomorrow, and then the king will want to go hunting again.’

‘When does the king not want to go hunting?’ Jude murmured.

‘And I expect that two or three days later we shall return to London. That doesn’t give you much time, does it?’

‘Indecent haste, in the circumstances.’

‘Think you can do it?’

‘I intend to try. But I’ll want to know more than you’ve told me.’

‘Then you’d better know that the king has begun proceedings—’ he glanced behind him, lowering his voice ‘—to confiscate her late father’s estate.’ As keeper of the king’s seal, the young Ranulf Flambard was in a better position than most to know that.

Their manner became suddenly serious. ‘Now that,’ said Jude, ‘is not funny, is it?’

‘No, it certainly isn’t.’

‘Does the Lord Gamal’s widow know yet?’

‘No, but she soon will. The sparks will begin to fly when she finds out before the ceremony tomorrow. She’ll be prevented from donating to the new abbey. And, worse still, she’ll be thrown out of her house because the land it stands on will be part of the new abbey buildings.’

Rhoese called to the men, their hair now blackened with rain, who hurried to unload the carts and pen the animals. ‘Come inside to sup, when you’re ready.’ The storerooms were packed with foodstuffs and fleeces from the dales. ‘And bring the carters in too, Bran,’ she reminded him. ‘They’ll have to stay overnight.’

The great hall was quiet after the blustering wind, enclosing her and Brother Alaric like a warm blanket that smelt of wood smoke and the nourishing pottage that hung in a cauldron over the fire. Blue smoke swirled and hung in the wooden rafters before filtering out through the heavy thatch, and Rhoese’s glance swept possessively round the substantial space that was the men’s living, cooking, eating and sleeping quarters all in one. Her own small bower was situated apart, between two storehouses for more privacy, but here she was still mistress of the house. Here were stout timber pillars dividing the side aisles into curtained cubicles drawn back to reveal fur-covered benches that became the household’s beds each night. There was the daily food store at one end, and another door to the croft outside.

A woman stirred the pot over the burning logs within a circle of stones, looking up as her mistress entered, at once filling two wooden cups with honeyed mead for her and the red-nosed chaplain. A young maid lifted a sleeping cat off a fur-covered chest where she expected Rhoese to sit, but saw that she was still looking in silence at her beloved territory as if to remind herself of its sanctity and of the time when she had first escaped the wounding intrusions into her grief.

Rhoese took the cup from her nurse with a whisper of thanks. ‘Where’s Eric?’ she said, sipping.

‘Wrestling with Neal,’ said Hilda, disapprovingly.

‘In the rain?’

Two young men came in at the far end of the hall as she spoke, half-naked, laughing, and dripping with wet, reddened with the exertion and the grip of strong hands. Eric’s smile in his sister’s direction would have given a stranger no indication that he had known of her presence by every keen sense except sight, and now he came forward with one hand resting lightly on his friend’s shoulder to greet her with a wet cold peck on the cheek. ‘I beat him.’ He laughed.

‘My lady,’ said Neal with a courteous nod of the head, ‘he did beat me only because I let him.’

‘Rubbish, man!’ Eric gently punched his friend in the general region of his shoulder. ‘I had you down twice.’ For all his blindness, Eric led the way confidently to the fire and stood before it to peel off his sodden loincloth, heedless of Els and Hilda, Rhoese’s maid and nurse. Neither of them could quite ignore the sight, for one of their advantages was that they could indulge themselves without being seen. Like his sister, Eric was beautifully made, tall and graceful with deep auburn hair tied back in a pony-tail that the rain and wrestling had partly undone. At twenty years old he was nearly three years younger than Rhoese and four years younger than Neal, the Icelander who was his constant companion. With Neal to act as his eyes, Rhoese had no fears for Eric’s safety, not even from the women whose eyes followed him everywhere.

Openly admiring, Els was nudged roughly into action by the nurse with a curt nod to take her mistress’s damp clothes and give her dry ones to wear. Mechanically, Rhoese co-operated with a lack of conversation they all noticed, especially Eric who had expected an animated account of the day’s takings. Rubbing his hair with a linen towel, and still naked, he found his way to her side to perch on the edge of the chest lid.

‘What is it, love? Are you not pleased? I thought it was going well.’

It had gone well, though at that moment she had been possessed by a strange sense of foreboding that had been growing since the brief visit of the Norman, who had not even offered her his name. It was usually the first thing inquisitive men did. She recalled the shiver of fear she had felt instead of pleasure while she had treated him to her scorn, and the cool self-assurance of the man as he walked towards her with his too-many questions. No, she would certainly not be at the ceremony tomorrow, not even to see the new king.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I am well enough pleased. Everyone came who was supposed to.’

‘Father would have been proud of you.’

Only one year ago, Lord Gamal still lived, and she had loved Warin, her father’s most trusted assistant, a man with an excessive ambition that included the pursuit of his master’s daughter. At the time of his first interest, Rhoese had neither understood nor cared about his reasons, being then only twenty-one years old and ready to be caught by a man with enough brash persistence. Warin’s success with York lasses and his tales of escapades in Norway and Iceland had excited her and had more than made up for his lack of sophistication and finesse. He had been eager and impulsive, and she had been swept into his big lovemaking arms with hardly time to savour the chase, such as it was. Her father had approved, and neither he nor Rhoese had seen any weakness in the man that could not be put down to the ignorance of youth.

Ketti, her Danish stepmother, had also encouraged the relationship, having taken quite a fancy to the young merchant whose affability towards her as Gamal’s young wife could not be faulted. She was, after all, only a few years older than Warin, and to take on the role as future mother-in-law to a twenty-four-year-old man did not come naturally to her.

It was only a few months before Warin persuaded Rhoese to become intimate with him, since they intended to be betrothed as soon as he came back from the next trip to Iceland. Rhoese had truly believed that nothing could go wrong with her plans, even going as far as to clear out her father’s merchandise from her property on Toft Green ready for their eventual occupation as a married couple. She had given herself to him here, in this very hall, just before he went off with her father on their voyage north to buy furs. Having no experience with which to compare the event, she assumed with a kind of contentment that Warin was probably better than most, if women’s looks at him were anything to go by. But although the boat returned three months later with walrus ivory, unicorn’s horn, furs and Warin, her father had been lost overboard in the icy waters of the North Sea and, by November of last year, 1087, Rhoese and Eric knew themselves to be orphans. And she was pregnant, having just passed her twenty-second birthday.

‘You all right, love?’ Eric said, holding her arm.

‘Yes. Just remembering, that’s all.’

‘Don’t.’

‘I must.’

‘Was it that woman with the howling bairn this morning?’

‘No, I think not.’

‘Then what?’

A squall of rain hit the thatch and burst through the door, flinging it hard against the wall and bending the flames over the logs with a sudden ferocity. ‘Shut the door!’ Hilda yelled as more men entered, unsure of the kind of welcome they were getting.

The effect of her father’s death was worse than anything Rhoese had personally suffered until then, her mother Eve having died when Eric was born. Without her adored father, she saw her world turn slowly upside down, for she had awaited his return before telling anyone her secret. He was to have been the first. But the shock of losing him so abruptly and with no very plausible explanation made her ill, and she lost the foetus one terrible night with no one to help except Hilda and Els, the only ones except the chaplain to be told the truth. Eric had discovered it for himself.

Warin’s sympathy over her grief was correct but barely adequate, and nowhere near enough for her to be able to tell him about the second cause of her anguish, especially when his attentions had already begun to veer noticeably towards Ketti on the pretext that she had lost most by Gamal’s death.

Hurt, unwell and desperately unhappy, Rhoese began to spend more and more of her time here at Toft Green, in the hope that Warin would come and help to prepare it for their joint occupation. But that had no effect. Then one day she found him and Ketti lying together. Warin’s defence—that he was merely offering Ketti some comfort—was unconvincing, and the outrage of his betrayal so soon after the other tragedies broke Rhoese’s heart. There was no blazing row, no confrontation, simply a silent and hopeless withdrawal to her own house on Toft Green, the energy to fight for what had almost been hers having gone the same way as her happiness, her well-being, and her aspirations.

Hardly had she and Eric removed the remainder of their belongings than Warin moved in with Ketti, taking his aged father to join Ketti’s cantankerous mother and the twelve-year-old son Thorn by her first marriage. The change-over was complete, and Rhoese redirected rents and dues from her Yorkshire properties to herself and Eric for the maintenance of an independent household.

Immediately, Ketti’s hopes for a comfortable widowhood diminished at this withdrawal of supplies, and she protested. But Rhoese saw no reason to contribute her profits when Warin had taken over Lord Gamal’s mercantile business, his large warehouses along the Ouse wharf, his two ships, his wife and the house on Bootham next to the expanding new abbey of St Mary.

In the ten hectic months since her father’s death, Rhoese had erected a protective shell of ice around her damaged heart, keeping it cold with thoughts of revenge that, as yet, had done nothing to salve the deep wounds of rejection. Now, there was no man she could trust with her love except her brother, whose blindness from birth seemed not to matter when he had so many other rare qualities. He had already expressed a wish to join the monks at St Mary’s, and Rhoese had sent a hefty donation for the new buildings, the foundation-stone of which was to be laid by the new king himself on the morrow. They now awaited a message from Abbot Stephen to say whether he would accept Eric as a handicapped novice.

He squeezed her arm gently. ‘Go and prepare, love. We have guests to supper, and I’ll play the harp for you afterwards, if you wish it.’

‘And are you going to sup naked?’ she replied. ‘As an extra entertainment?’

‘Neal!’ he called across the fire. ‘The lady has a suggestion.’

Judhael de Brionne’s desire to know more about Rhoese had not even begun to be satisfied by his friend Ranulf’s disclosure concerning the stepmother’s tenancy problems. It was about the woman herself that he needed to know, and in characteristic style had soon decided that he could find out for himself, in private, more than he could be told by well-meaning friends eager to win wagers.

Alone, an hour after curfew, he rode through York’s puddled streets to where the south-west corner of the high city wall enclosed Toft Green, where dark outlines of thatched huts within a stockade clustered around the great hall, with the scent of wood smoke carried on the blustering wind. Under cover of darkness he waited in the hope that, sooner or later, someone would show themselves and tell him more about how a Yorkshire noblewoman ruled the roost.

He did not have long to wait for a door at the back of the hall to open, emitting the soft glow of firelight, the strains of a harpist’s song, and a woman’s figure silhouetted against the interior. Jude urged his stallion forward a few paces so that he could watch her cross to one of the smaller buildings and, now that the rain had ceased, to leave the door ajar, presumably to shed some light on the inside.

In a few moments she had emerged again, this time carrying something beneath one arm and closing the door stealthily behind her before slipping along the side of the hut towards the trees at the end of the croft, diving into their deep cover like a stoat sure of its direction. Jude’s heels touched the stallion’s flanks to direct him along the track until a gap in the wooden stockade allowed them through. Heading for the same trees, they picked a way silently over damp leaves, showering both man and horse with droplets from the branches.

The horse snorted indignantly, and the noise resounded through the quiet woodland, sending the pursued woman skittering aside with a yelp of alarm, then with a burst of speed that Jude was trained to anticipate. The shadows were black and unhelpful, but Jude’s eyes were keen and used to seeking in the dark, nor did the stallion have any difficulty in following the fleeing woman’s crashing leaps that more than once brought her down by clothes caught on tangles of undergrowth and low branches.

With wildly fumbling fingers she tore herself free at last, only to find her path blocked by the huge snorting horse and its stamping hooves, then, as she dodged away, by its great hindquarters. A hand came out of the darkness to seize her, and at that same moment she hurled the bundle away into the undergrowth with all her strength, yelping with terror at the restraining arms that pulled her backwards and held her, squirming and protesting. There was fear in her voice, and pleading. ‘Let me go…please! I am the Lady—’

‘Lady Rhoese of York. Yes, I know who you are,’ Jude whispered in her ear. ‘And you are breaking the curfew, which is worth a night’s imprisonment, as I expect you know. Now, my lady, do I detect a change in your former manner, perhaps? Are you so dismissive now of inquisitive Normans?’

‘You!’ she snarled, twisting inside the cage of his arms. ‘What are you doing here after curfew, sir? Let me go, damn you!’

‘My, how your heart is beating.’ His hand had delved under her cloak, moving upwards over her ribcage to encircle one breast, his thumb monitoring the frantic thudding beneath her kirtle, an offence as serious as breaking the curfew.

‘No…no!’ she protested. ‘No man may hold a woman so. Let go!’

‘So tell me what you’re doing out at this time of the night and who you’re going to meet. A lover, is it?’ His hand stilled, but did not withdraw.

‘You have no right to know. My business is my own.’

‘Not at this time of the night, lady. Tell me.’

Her hands could not prise his arms away. ‘If you must know, I was on my way to St Martin’s Church,’ she said, angrily, ‘to speak to Father Leofric. His tithes are due today.’

‘And it couldn’t wait until tomorrow? The priest is hardly going to starve for want of a tenth part of your dues, is he?’

Rhoese was silent. Her visit had nothing to do with the tithes, but she could not tell this Norman the real purpose when it was his earlier snooping that had prompted it.

‘All right,’ he said, turning her round to face him, ‘if you won’t tell me more, you can explain yourself to the sheriff tomorrow, if you prefer. Curfew-breaking is serious, and you should be setting an example.’

‘Look…no…please! There’s no need for that.’ Her hands pushed against his chest, registering the soft wool of his cloak and the lower edge of the cloak-pin on his shoulder. Unable to see much of him, she could feel his breath on her eyelids as he spoke, and the withdrawal of his hand left a cool imprint below her breast. Now, all the fears and forebodings generated by his earlier interest, and in the dues she was receiving as he watched, surged back like night-demons, warning her not to antagonise him further. The Normans were a powerful force, and an appearance before the Norman sheriff could easily undo all her attempts to stay out of the public eye. The man must be appeased. ‘No?’ he said, softly. ‘Then you have another suggestion?’

‘Hospitality?’ she offered. ‘You could come into the hall and hear my brother play. He’s a fine harpist. I can offer you mead, or ale?’

‘And poison me, no doubt?’

‘No, indeed. That’s not what I meant. My chaplain himself will pour your drink, if that’s what you fear.’

‘Anything else, lady? Have you anything else to offer me?’

Rhoese froze, aware in every fibre of her being the direction his questioning was taking, and preparing herself to feel the insult and the helplessness of her situation, yet unable to prevent the sudden flare of excitement as she recalled how he had stood before her in the yard, his eyes beating hers down, challenging her attempts to dismiss him. She had felt that same excitement then, and had tried to counter it with a nonchalance that did not exist. She felt it again now and could find no sharp answer this time, not even when he moved her slowly backwards to press her against the broad trunk of an oak.

In the dark, excuses flitted across her mind like bats too fast to see. Then it was too late even for protests, and the shell of aloofness she had nurtured during the last ten months weakened under the tender-hard pressure of his body. She felt the muscles of his thighs through the fine fabric of their clothes, his soldier’s arms bending her into him, the assuredness with which he handled her. His expertise showed in the way he angled her head into his shoulder and held it there with the most careful imprisonment, signalling that there would be no hastily snatched uncultured performance, even though the setting could have been improved upon. Later, Rhoese tried to excuse her lack of resistance as being useless against such a confinement, telling herself that she could not have evaded his mouth, even though she could.

There were no thoughts, only the warm insistent pressure of his lips slanting across hers that she knew was not meant for her delight but for his alone. His arms across her shoulders tightened, his grip on the nape of her neck was merciless, forbidding her mind to wander, compelling her to heed what she was forfeiting and reminding her that his was the conquering side, not hers.

Snatching at fleeting protests and thoughts of mal-treatment, she tried to remain indignantly unresponsive, but soon realised that any reaction from her, either for or against, would have been swamped by the fierceness of his lust. Like a man starved of lovemaking, which she knew could not be the case, he explored her mouth from every angle with breathtaking skill and, when he paused, it was only to cover her throat with his kisses before returning with renewed passion to her mouth again. Warin, her only real comparison, had been eager and vigorous, but never with this man’s masterly accomplishment, and though Rhoese would have preferred to rate him as no more than a clumsy molester of helpless women, she was far too moved to label him so when her legs were already turning to water.

She felt a hardness press against her belly, her own answering leap of fear and excitement, and the keen contradictory betrayal of her shaky emotions. How had she allowed this to happen? And why? ‘Stop!’ she called to him. Her head was held back while he tasted a path towards her ear. ‘Please…no more…you must stop. You have forgotten yourself, sir. I am an English noblewoman and this has gone far beyond talk of offerings. Let me go home now.’

He was breathing heavily against her skin, his shuddering sigh barely acknowledging her protest. Yet, even now, one hand had begun its own well-informed journey on to her left breast, hurrying Rhoese even further towards a warning. Grabbing his wrist, she tried to pull him away, but her hand was ignored and, as her cries were silenced by his mouth, she understood that it would be he who called a halt, and that this had less to do with the offence of being out after curfew than with her discourtesy to him in the yard.

This time, the beguiling movement of his lips over hers was just enough to keep her mind teetering on the brink of bliss while his hand like thistledown explored her in studied disregard of her command. Far from forgetting himself, he was very much in control. ‘Must?’ he whispered. ‘Are you still telling me what I must and must not do, lady?’ The stroking continued, stealing her protests away like a wind-torn web, weakening her lungs so that she could not answer him. ‘Now I think we are beginning to understand one another at last,’ he said. ‘Would you not agree?’

His question was easy enough to answer, for he’d shown her in no uncertain terms what he wanted. That much she could hardly fail to understand. Less sure by far was her own understanding of herself, for now the unresponsiveness she had believed was hers to command had begun to desert her. She was responding, despite everything she could do to hold herself apart, to keep her mind level and cool. He would know. He was expert at this. Yes, he would surely know.

No, don’t let him know. Pull away, before it’s too late.

She pushed at him, viciously, heedless of the damage, and with the desertion of his caress and the sudden halt to her arousal, an anger took its place with a carelessness that shocked even Rhoese. ‘You mistake, sir!’ she snarled. ‘It would take more of a man than you’ll ever be to understand my contempt for your kind. I would find it easier to understand the mind of a toad. Presumably you have had your amusement at my expense, so now you can—’

His hand over her mouth cut off the rest of her tirade. ‘Do not start again, my lady, if you please. There are plenty of dark hours left for my amusement, as you put it, and your unwillingness is of no consequence to me. If you value your noble chastity so highly, you had better learn to curb your tongue. I thought I’d made that clear. Shall I show you again who is master?’

Norman cur. Low-born scum. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Leave me be. I can find my own way home. Just leave me.’ There was the parcel to retrieve from the undergrowth, and her anger boiled not least because the whole episode had apparently been engineered to chasten her and to amuse this arrogant Norman who would now laugh about it, share the experience with his friends, itemising the points of interest, enjoying her humiliation. Most of all, her anger was inwardly directed towards herself for allowing this to happen without making any attempt to fight back or to injure him. Weak, stupid woman. So much for her scorn of men. Deeply ashamed, she lashed out at him with a delayed but futile attack upon his wide shoulders, hammering at him in a burst of rage.

‘She-cat!’ he laughed. Even in the darkness he caught her wrists. ‘Come, lady. It’s time you were locked up safely for the night.’ He stepped away, still holding her securely.

‘Locked up? No!’ she cried, pulling. ‘That’s not what you agreed.’

‘Hush, woman. I know what I agreed. I’m taking you home to your bower back there. You need not be concerned; I shall trespass no further on your domain, but nor is this the last you’ll be seeing of me, so don’t think it.’ He hooked a hand beneath her armpit and led her towards the waiting stallion.

How would she know him? Chain-mailed and steel helmeted, they all looked more or less alike. Would he be in civilian dress or in war-gear? ‘Your name, sir. Who are you?’ she said.

‘You’ll discover that tomorrow, in the daylight.’

‘I doubt it. You’ll not see me tomorrow if I can help it.’

‘You think not? Well, I know different, my lady. Take it from me, we shall meet again tomorrow.’

There seemed to be nothing to say to that, for the last thing she wanted was to prolong a pointless discussion.

Without disturbing even the sharp-eared hounds, Jude returned her safely to the door of her bower, opening it for her before she could reach it, though his arm detained her until he had taken his proper leave. ‘Until tomorrow, my lady,’ he said with a slight bow. ‘Do not venture out after curfew again.’

‘No indeed,’ she snapped. ‘Who knows what ruffians one might meet?’

‘Exactly,’ he countered. ‘York is a violent city. Sleep well.’ In one fluid movement, he mounted the stallion and swung away, cantering off into the shadows in the direction they had come, leaving Rhoese shaken and puzzled, her body still tingling from his daring treatment. She was also concerned for the package she had intended for Father Leofric that would not benefit from spending a night in wet undergrowth, though she was not inclined to venture out again into the woodland that night. Turning in sudden fury, she aimed a savage kick at the innocent door, wincing with pain of a different kind as she hobbled into the dark warmth of her bower.

Dawn came ever later during those early autumn days, and the household was up and about before it was light enough for Rhoese to enter the woodland to retrieve the linen-wrapped bundle from its damp bed of leaves. To her relief, it was intact and undamaged. Last night, with the fear of a sudden interest in her ownership of an apparently thriving estate, she had felt the need to take this priceless treasure to a safer place. Father Leofric was the obvious one to understand the worth of a leather-bound, gem-studded gospel-book, its pages covered with a Celtic script and intricate patterns lovingly worked by skilled nuns in the last century. There was only one such nunnery where nuns’ scholarship rivalled that of monks. It was Barking, in Essex, many miles away from York, but no ordinary citizen ever owned such a thing meant for the glory of God and for the use exclusively of holy men and women. And royalty. If it was ever found in her possession, she would have to offer a very convincing explanation of why it was in her keeping and, more to the point, why she had not delivered it immediately to the proper authorities. The brief joy she had derived from owning such a thing had long since been drowned by the fear of its discovery. She held the bundle close to her body as if it were a child.

Stooping to examine the ground, she noted the huge hoof-prints. Footprints, too. There was the oak. There was the slippery heel-print where she had tried to keep her balance. And there, when she closed her eyes, was the shockingly intimate and unlawful pressure of him against her, his hands roaming where they should never have been and which she should be trying to forget instead of remembering. An insistent pulse beat in her throat as the memory of his mouth reached her, catching at her breath and holding it until the tremor passed. ‘Men,’ she whispered. ‘Treacherous men.’