Lady of Hay (15 page)

“No.” Bennet smiled. “You are sensitive. You empathize with the personality.”

“To the extent where I develop the symptoms I’m describing.” Jo bit her lip. “But then while it’s happening I
am
Matilda, aren’t I?” She paused again. “I don’t understand about my throat, but after Friday’s regression…” She stopped in midsentence. If she told Bennet about Sam’s warning, he might refuse to risk hypnotizing her again, and she did want very much to go back to Matilda’s life. She wanted to know what happened.

“You’ve had other symptoms?” Bennet persisted quietly.

She looked away. “My fingers were very bruised. I hurt them on the stones of the castle wall, watching William kill those men…” Her voice died away. “But they only felt bruised. There was nothing to see.”

He nodded. “Anything else?” She could feel his eyes on her face. Did the ability to hypnotize her mean he could read her thoughts as well? She bit her lip, deliberately trying to focus her attention elsewhere. “Only stray shivers and echoes. Nothing to worry about.” She grinned at him sheepishly. “Nothing to put me off, I assure you. I would like to go back. Among other things, I want to find out how she met Richard de Clare. Is it possible to be that specific in your questions?” Had he guessed, she wondered, just how much, secretly, she longed to see Richard again?

Bennet shrugged. “We’ll see. Why don’t we start to find out?”

He watched as she took out her tape recorder and set it on the ground beside her as she had done before, the microphone in her lap. She switched on the recorder then at last lay back on the long leather sofa and closed her eyes. Every muscle was tense.

She was hiding something from him. He knew that much. And more than that understandable desire to see Richard again. But what? He thought once again about the phone call he had had from Samuel Franklyn and he frowned. The call had come on Monday morning before Sarah had arrived and Sarah knew nothing about it. He had not allowed Franklyn to say much, but there had been enough to know that there was some kind of problem.

He looked at his secretary, who had seated herself quietly once more in her corner, then he turned back to Jo. He licked his lips in concentration, and, taking a deep breath, he began to talk.

Jo listened intently. He was talking about the sun again. Today it was shining and the sky was clear and uncomplicated after the weekend of storms. But there was no light behind her eyelids now. Nothing.

Her eyes flew open in a panic. “Nothing is happening,” she said. “It isn’t going to work again. You’re not going to be able to do it!”

She pushed herself up against the slippery leather back of the sofa. The palms of her hands were damp.

Bennet smiled calmly. “You’re trying too hard, Jo. You mustn’t try at all, my dear. Come, why not sit over here by the window?” He pulled a chair forward from the wall and twisted it so that it had its back to the light. “Fine, now, we’ll do some little experiments on you to see how quick your eyes are. There’s no hurry. We have plenty of time. We might even decide to leave the regression until another day.” He smiled as he felt under his desk for a switch that turned on a spotlight in the corner of the room. Automatically Jo’s eyes went toward it, but he had seen already that her knuckles on the arm of the chair were less white.

“Is she as deeply under as before?” Sarah’s cautious question some ten minutes later broke into a long silence.

Bennet nodded. “She was afraid this time. She was subconsciously fighting me, every inch of the way. I wish I knew why.” He looked at the list of questions in his hand, then he put it down on his desk. “Perhaps we’ll discover eventually. But now it just remains to find out if we can reestablish contact with the same personality at all! So often one can’t, the second time around.” He chewed his lip for a second, eyeing Jo’s face. Then he took a deep breath.

“Matilda,” he said softly. “Matilda, my child. There are some things I want you to tell me about yourself.”

12

The candle on the table beside his bed was guttering as Reginald de St. Valerie lay back against his pillow and began to cough again. His eyes, sunk in the pallid hollow of his face, were fixed anxiously on the door as he pulled another blanket around his thin shoulders. But it made no difference. He knew it was only a matter of time now before the creeping chill in his bones reached his heart, and then he would shiver no more.

His face lightened a little as the door was pushed open and a girl peered around it.

“Are you asleep, Father?”

“No, my darling. Come in.” Cursing the weakness that seemed to have spread even to his voice, Reginald watched her close the heavy door carefully and come toward him. Involuntarily he smiled. She was so lovely, this daughter of his; his only child. She was tall, taller than average. She had grown this last year, until she was a span at least higher even than he, with her dark auburn hair spread thickly on her shoulders and down her back and the strange green eyes flecked with gold that she had from her dead mother. She was all he had left, this tall graceful girl. And he was all she had, and soon…He shrugged. He had made provision long ago for the future when he had betrothed her to William de Braose. And now the time had come.

“Sit here, Matilda. I must talk to you.” Feebly he patted the blankets that covered him, and the lines of his face softened as she took his hand, curling up beside him, tucking her long legs under her.

“Will you eat something today, Father? If I prepare it myself and help you with the spoon?” she coaxed, nestling close. “Please?” She could feel the new inexorable cold in his hand and it frightened her. Gently she pressed it to her cheek.

“I’ll try, Matilda, I’ll try.” He pushed himself a little farther up on the pillows with an effort. “But listen, sweetheart, there is something I must tell you first.” He swallowed, trying to collect his thoughts as he gazed sadly into her anxious face. So often he had hoped this moment would never come. That somehow, something would happen to prevent it.

“I have written to Bramber, Matilda. Sir William de Braose has agreed that it is time the marriage took place. His son could have married long since, but he has waited until you were of age. You must go to him now.” He tried not to see the sudden anguish on her face.

“But, Father, I can’t leave you, I won’t.” She sat up straight, her eyes bright with tears. “Nothing will make me leave you. Ever.”

He groped for her hand again and held it gently. “Sweetheart. It is I who must leave you, don’t you see? And I couldn’t die happy without knowing that you were wed. Please. To please me, go to him. Make him an obedient wife.”

He was seized by another fit of coughing and Matilda slipped from the end of the bed and ran to the pillow, cradling his head on her breast. Her eyes were full of tears as she clutched him, desperately clinging to him. “You can’t die, Father, you can’t. You’ll get well. You will. You always have before.”

The tears spilled over and dropped onto her father’s gray head. He looked up, trying to smile, and raised a shaky hand to brush her cheek. “Don’t cry, darling. Think. When you marry William you will be a great lady. And his mother will take care of you. Come, please don’t be so unhappy.”

“But I want to stay with you.” She still clung to him stubbornly. “I hate William, you know that. He’s ugly and he’s old and he smells.”

Reginald sighed. So often he had given her her way, this girl of his, and he longed to do so again. But this time he had to stand firm. For her own sake. He closed his eyes, smelling the lavender of her gown, remembering. She was so like her mother had been: willful, beautiful, wild…

Sleep came so suddenly these days. He could feel his lids drooping. There was no way to fight it. He supposed death would come like that and he welcomed the thought. He was too old now, too racked with pain to regret the young man’s dream of death on the field of battle. Smiling a little, he relaxed against her, feeling the soft warmth of her body, the gentle brush of her lips on his hair. Yes. She was very like her mother…

***

Instinctively Matilda ran first to the chapel for comfort. She pushed open a heavy door and peered in. It was empty. She could see the statue of Our Lady, lit by the single flickering candle that stood on the altar. After running to it, she crossed herself and knelt. “Please, Holy Mother, don’t let him die. You mustn’t let my father die. I won’t marry William de Braose, so there’s no point in trying to make me.” She gazed up at the serene stone face of the statue. It was cold in the chapel. A stray draft coming from the slit window high in the stone vault above the altar sent a shiver of cold down her spine and she wondered suddenly with a tremor of fear if anyone was listening to her at all, if there was anyone there to care. She pushed away the thought and, ashamed, she crossed herself again. “You must help me, Holy Mother, you must.” Her tears were blinding her again and the candlelight hazed and flickered. “There is no one else. If you don’t help me, I’ll never pray to you again. Never.” She bit her lip, scared by what she had said. She shouldn’t have done it, but the chapel held such echoing emptiness…

She scrambled to her feet then crept out, closing the door softly behind her. If she could find no comfort there, there was only one other thing to do. Ride. When you galloped fast into the wind you could forget everything but the speed and the cold and the power of the horse between your legs. She ran to the chamber she shared with her nurse and the two maidens who were supposed to be her friends, and rummaged through the rail, looking for her heaviest mantle.

“Matilda, come to your embroidery now,
ma p’tite
.” She could hear her nurse Jeanne’s voice from the garderobe, where she was sorting clothes. “Tilda?” The tone sharpened.

After grabbing a fur-lined cloak, Matilda threw it around her shoulders and tiptoed to the door. Then, deaf to Jeanne’s indignant shouts, she pelted down the spiral stairs.

“Shall I come with you, young mistress?” The groom who held her excited horse knew as well as she that her father had forbidden her to ride alone.

She flung herself into the saddle. “Not this time, John. Blame me if anyone’s angry.” She raised her whip and set the horse across the high slippery cobbles of the courtyard at a canter. Once beyond the crowded muddy village she pushed the animal into a gallop, feeling her hair stream behind her in the cold wind. Galloping like this, fast, she didn’t have time to think. Not about her poor, sick father, or about the squat, red-haired man at Bramber who was destined to become her husband. Nothing mattered out here. Here she was free and happy and alone.

At the top of the hill she reined in breathlessly, pushing her tangled hair back as the wind tugged it across her eyes. She turned to look back at the village far away in the valley, and her father’s castle behind it. I need never go back, she thought suddenly. If I don’t want to, I need never go back. I could ride and ride and ride and they would never find me. Then she thought of Reginald lying so pale in his chamber, and imperceptibly she straightened her shoulders. For his sake she would go back. For his sake she would marry William de Braose. For his sake she would go to the end of the world if he asked it of her.

Sadly she turned the horse and began to pick her way back down the steep track.

***

For two days before the wedding the attendants of the de Braose household crowded them out, overspilling from the small castle and its walls into tents and marquees on the edge of the village. Old Sir William, a wiry hawklike man with piercing gray eyes, spent much of his time closeted with Matilda’s father while his son hunted across the hills, sparing no time for his betrothed. Matilda was extremely glad. She had been horrified by her glimpse of the younger William, whom she had barely remembered from their introduction at their betrothal years before. She had forgotten, or perhaps then he had been different. His reddish hair and beard now framed a coarse, heavily veined face with an uncompromisingly cruel mouth. He had kissed her hand once, running his eye expertly up her body, judging her, Matilda thought furiously, as if she had been a filly he was contemplating buying for his stable, then he turned away, more interested in his host’s hunting dogs than in his bride.

Reginald was too ill even to be carried in a litter to the wedding ceremony, so he summoned his daughter and new son-in-law to his room as soon as they returned from the parish church. Matilda had spent the first part of the day in a frozen daze. She allowed herself to be dressed in her finest gown and mantle without interest. She followed Jeanne down to the hall and gave her arm to old Sir William without a flicker of emotion on her face. Then she walked with him to the church without any sign that she heard or even saw the gay procession of men and women who followed them. But her fists were bunched so tightly into her skirt that her nails had bitten into her palms. “Please, Holy Mother, don’t let it happen. Please, Holy Mother, don’t let it happen.” She was murmuring the phrase over and over again under her breath like a magic charm. If she kept on saying it, without stopping, it would work. It must work.

She scarcely saw when Sir William left her side in the church porch and his son took his place. She didn’t hear a word of the service as the old half-blind priest gabbled the form, shivering in his surplice as the autumn leaves tossed around them and a few drops of icy rain splattered in under the porch roof. Even later, as she knelt to kiss her father’s hand, she was dazed. It was not until he put gentle fingers beneath her chin and tilted it a little to look into her face, murmuring “Be happy, sweetheart, and pray for your old father” that her control broke. She flung herself at him, clinging to him, her fingers wound into the wool of the blankets. “Please, please don’t die. Darling, darling Papa, don’t make me go with him, please—”

Hastily William stepped forward, his hands on her arms, and he dragged her off the bed. “Control yourself, madam,” he hissed at her sharply. “Come away. Can’t you see your father’s upset? Don’t make it worse. Come quickly.” His voice was rough.

Tearing herself free of his grip, Matilda rounded on him. “Don’t touch me!” she almost spat at him, her eyes blazing. “I’ll stay with my father as long as I please, sir!”

William was taken aback. He stepped forward awkwardly, frowning. “You must do as I say, Matilda. You’re my wife now.”

“Yes, I’m your wife, God pity me,” she whispered in anguish, “but I’m his daughter first.” She was shaking with fear and anger.

“Matilda, please.” Reginald stretched out painfully to lay his fingers on her arm. “Obey your husband, sweetheart. Leave me to sleep now.” He tried to smile, but his lids were falling. The familiar blackness was closing around him. “Go, sweetheart,” he mumbled. “Please go.”

With one longing agonized look at him Matilda turned away. She glanced at William as he reached forward to take her arm and then dodged past him, gathering her skirts in her hands and, blind with tears, ran toward the door.

The wedding feast was interminable. She only nibbled at the food on the platter in front of her that she shared with her husband. He was drinking vast quantities of wine, roaring with laughter at the bawdy jokes of the men near him, rocking toward her every so often, trying to plant a kiss on her cheek or her shoulder.

She gritted her teeth and reached for her own goblet. Trying not to let the tiny seed of panic inside her grow, she kept thinking of the peaceful warm glow of the candle in her father’s room and of the gentle, lined face on the pillow and the loving reassuring touch of his hands.

***

The bed was strewn with flowers. Matilda stood, clutching her embroidered bedgown tightly around her, not daring to look at her husband as he chased the last of the giggling women out of the room. His face was blurred with wine and lust as he turned triumphantly to her at last.

“So. My wife.” He leered a little, his own fur-trimmed gown held around his waist by a gilded leather girdle. She stood transfixed, her back to the high shuttered window, her hands once more tight fists at her sides. She was much taller than he, but so slight he could have snapped her in half with one blow from his enormous fist.

Her heart was beating very fast as he raised his hands to her shoulders. She wanted to push him away, to run, to scream, but somehow she forced herself to stand still as he loosed her girdle and thrust the gown back from her shoulders. She made no attempt to hold it as it fell, sliding from her unresponsive arms to the floor, billowing out in blues and silvers around her knees, leaving her standing before him, naked. Almost wonderingly he raised a hand and touched her shoulder, drawing his calloused fingers down across her breast. Then he seized her, crushing her to him, running his hand down her back, over her buttocks, fondling, caressing. Her hair fell in a dark auburn curtain across her face as he lifted her onto the bed, and she made no attempt to push it away. She lay limp after a first involuntary struggle of protest at what he did, biting her lips in pain, trying not to cry out as the agony of his thrusting tore through her and the first dark drops of blood stained the bridal sheets. Then at last with a grunt he rolled off her and lay still.

She remained dry-eyed in the dark and tried to ease her aching body on the hot mattress, not seeing the embroidered canopy that hung over the bed. Some of the flowers had been caught beneath them and crushed, and their sweet scent mingled with the reek of sweat and drying blood.