Lady of Hay (39 page)

21

Jo did not want to stop. She wanted to drive on. She wanted to get as far away as possible from the Welsh Marches, where the name of every town and village seemed to beckon her back into the past. She was afraid that if she stopped it would happen again. The past was still there, floating on the edge of her consciousness, and with it the shadow of Matilda’s fear.

Driving blindly southward, bypassing Abergavenny, she realized suddenly she must have taken a different road from the one she intended. She pulled up at last, grabbing her road map, trying to force herself to concentrate on the network of roads on the page in front of her, tracing a route back toward London with her forefinger as the sun blazed down on the car.

She stopped for a late lunch in the end at Monmouth, drawing the car onto the side of the road, too tired to drive farther without a break. The garden outside the pub was cool and shady, and she found herself relaxing as she ate a fresh crusty roll and a plate of Stilton salad, and sipped a glass of cider. Her panic was retreating. She had come, after all, to find Matilda. What had happened by the Wye and outside Hay Castle was no more than she had hoped might happen at Bramber or as she ran her hands across the ancient walls at Clare. Somehow she had triggered off some sort of trance and the place had done the rest.

So why had she been afraid? She leaned back in her chair, staring with half-closed eyes up at the underside of the striped umbrella that shaded her table. What she ought to do was face this strange talent she had found within herself and bend it to her will, summon it once more and with it discover whether Matilda had heeded Jeanne’s warning.

Slowly she stood up and stretched catlike in the sun. Had Matilda ever come to Monmouth? she wondered. And if so, did she have the courage deliberately to try and find out?

Undecided, she walked slowly out of the garden and into the quiet road. She glanced with distaste at her car parked at the curbside; the thought of another four hours in the sweltering heat did not appeal to her, so she turned her back on it and walked on. The sun was now shrouded in haze, but it was still very hot as she followed a footpath between some old stone-built houses and made her way down to the Usk, where she sat down on a crumbling wall and watched a small lizard skitter over some dry moss and disappear into a crack in the stone.

After kicking off her shoes, she dabbled her feet in the icy water. A few minutes’ rest was what she needed. Then she would decide whether to move on or wait to try to summon back the past.

The water was sucking at the moss-covered stones on the old bridge, combing tresses of brown weed into the streaming current. Now and then a stray glimmer of sunshine would escape the haze and turn the oily smooth surface into a sparkling pool that would shimmer and move and slide back into the brown oneness of the river.

Suddenly she found she was clutching her hands together, trying to force herself to look away as she felt a strange shimmer of unreality flicker before her eyes. She blinked and the scene steadied, then once again it seemed to move. She pulled her feet out of the river and made as if to scramble up the bank. “No,” she whispered. “No. I didn’t mean it. Not yet. I’m not ready. I don’t want it to happen again yet…”

***

The nausea had returned. Wearily Matilda rested her head against the pillow and waited for it to pass. Gently Elen placed a cloth against her forehead after wringing it out in the pitcher of ice-cold water. The girl’s fingers were blue but she uncomplainingly dipped the cloth in again, soothing her mistress’s fevered trembling with gentle hands.

“You’ll not be able to leave Monmouth today, my lady. You must tell Sir William.” She ran for the basin as Matilda began to retch again.

“No!” After pushing the bowl away, Matilda struggled to her feet. “I will go with Sir William. I have a feeling, a strange feeling here.” She pressed her hand to her stomach. “There is danger somewhere, Elen. I’m sure I’m needed at Hay. We should not have allowed the children to travel on with the household without us.”

“But, my lady, you’re ill.” Elen’s eyes were soft with sympathy.

“I am not ill,” Matilda snapped at her. “I told you. I am with child again.”

“But you never have morning sickness, madam. Never in all the years I’ve known you—” She stopped abruptly at the sight of Matilda’s face.

“Well, I have now, so be quiet about it.” Matilda forced herself to climb out of the bed and reached for her gown. “Something’s wrong, Elen. I can’t explain it, but I have the feeling something awful is going to happen, and my feelings are always right. I must be with the children. I must—”

It had happened again the night before as she lay half waking in the firelight. A shadow hovering near her, something she could not grasp or see. “There’s death here, Elen,” she whispered. “Death near us.” She doubled up again and Elen, her eyes enormous with fear, ran to hold her. For a moment the two women clung together. Then, slowly, Matilda straightened up, pushing tendrils of hair back from her damp forehead.

The realization that she was again pregnant had come as a bitter disappointment to Matilda. It was two years since she had given birth to her third son, Reginald, and she had dared to hope that God was sparing her the burden of further children.

Not realizing that this pregnancy would make her tired and ill within a few weeks, she had reluctantly agreed, while they were at Gloucester, to allow the children and their nurses and attendants to go with the main baggage train to Hereford and then on to the newly built castle of Hay, on its hill above the old site near St. Mary’s, while she accompanied William on a tour of his castles in Gwent; and she had braced herself to visit Abergavenny once again, should he require it, although he had as yet made no mention of going there.

It was seven years since that terrible night, but she was certain that he too remembered it sometimes, with horror, in his dreams. And ever since they had waved the children away, she had been afraid. She pictured them. There was Will, tall and thin, riding very upright behind a groom, his delicate features solemn beneath the unruly mouse-color hair; Giles, so different from his brother, confident, with shiny copper-color hair, immaculately combed and brighter by far than her own. Then came Matilda, a delicate silvery waif of a child, strangely reserved, giving no love and expecting none in return; and last little Reginald, a sturdy two-year-old, fair like his sister, but as different from her as from the other two boys. They had all turned and waved back at her and shouted as the long procession of horsemen and wagons lumbered into motion. With them rode Nell. Poor Nell. Married and widowed within a few months, she had returned broken-hearted to Matilda, and, grateful to have been put in charge of the nurseries now that old Jeanne was at last dead, she ruled them with a gentle, eager love that had won the affection of nurses and boys alike. With the little girl she had no more success than Matilda.

Matilda had watched them ride off into the forest together until they were out of sight, then had turned sadly away.

Now, painfully, she began to dress, easing her aching limbs into the shift Elen held ready for her, then her gown and tunic. Last of all she held out her arms for her thick fur-lined cloak. The damp autumn winds had been cutting through to the bone as they hurled leaves, rain-sodden and brown, across their horses’ paths on the long rides between castles. She shivered at the thought of it. But on the whole she was glad that William had decided they should winter in Hay this year. Hay was hers. In spite of everything Bramber still belonged to the ghosts of Bertha and old Sir William. And at Hay she would never meet the king.

She had pondered often on old Jeanne’s prophecy, picturing again the harsh face of King Henry. He held every man’s destiny in his hand, but why hers especially? She shivered—she had made the sign against evil again and again in recent months, sometimes feeling the huge eyes of little Matilda fixed on her face.

“I still think you should tell Sir William you’re not well, my lady.” Elen’s chin was beginning to stick out in the way Matilda knew so well. “At least order a litter to carry you.”

“No.” Matilda rounded on her. “Be quiet, Elen. I will not have the litter. And I will not have Sir William told yet. I feel better as soon as I’m riding. Send for some hot broth for now, before I go down.”

Elen signaled to the plump serving maid who had been squatting on her heels before the blazing fire and the girl disappeared. Elen snorted. “There’s a lazy wench. She wouldn’t lift a finger if she didn’t have to. I’ll be bound she sends someone else up with it.” She began to busy herself packing away the last of the clothes and strapping the small coffer that stood at the end of the bed. Sure enough, when the broth arrived, it was not carried by the same girl. Elen went to meet the woman who held it. “I’ll give it to my lady. You can go.”

The woman handed it over without a word. She seemed about to turn, then she hesitated, her eyes going to the tall figure standing huddled in the heavy mantle by the end of the bed.

“
Arglwyddes
! My lady!” The woman’s voice was low and lilting.

“I said you can go.” Elen turned, her eyes flashing. “My lady does not want to be disturbed. Leave her in peace.”

The other woman half raised her hand as though waving Elen aside. To the girl’s indignation she took a step nearer. “Be silent,
bach
. I must talk with Lady Matilda. I must.” She sounded troubled.

Matilda swung around suddenly, letting her cloak fall behind her. “Who’s that?” She peered at the woman, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest at the sound of a voice that stirred a chord in her memory. “What do you want?” As the woman looked up at her at last she recognized her with a violent sense of shock. “Megan,” she whispered. “Is it you?”

“So you remember me, my lady?” Megan stood for a moment, her hands clasped in front of her, looking steadily at Matilda’s face.

Matilda looked down at the carpet of rushes, gently rustling in the draft. “I tried to forget, Megan. I tried to forget everything that happened at Abergavenny. Even you.”

Megan nodded. “I knew you would.”

“What is it?” Elen suddenly stepped forward. “What is it, my lady? Who is this…this person?” She looked Megan up and down haughtily.

“This person,
cariad
, has come to have words with your mistress.” Megan turned on her sharply. “Now you, girl, go about your business. Put the broth down before you spill it.
Oy a Duw!
” She shook her hands in agitation as Elen slopped the broth on the rushes. “Now go, I said. And you too, boy.” She turned to the page who had come in behind her and leaned against the wall, watching the proceedings with interest while he chewed a straw.

Matilda raised an eyebrow. “Elen is my friend, Megan. Only I tell her to go.”

“Well, then, tell her, my lady, now and quickly. If she’s so high and mighty, why’s she waiting on you then? She should be in the hall.”

Matilda hid a smile. The two Welshwomen were alike in height and build, although Elen’s hair was fiery and Megan’s white beneath her veil. They were eyeing each other like two bantam cocks.

“Do as she says, please, Elen.” She spoke firmly. “I’ll take my broth while Megan is with me.” She held out her hand for the bowl.

Elen cast a furious glance at her rival, then, pushing the now half-empty bowl of soup into her mistress’s hands, she turned and flounced out.

Once she had gone, Megan seemed to lose her confidence once more. She stood, her eyes on the floor, twisting her fingers nervously together as Matilda sank thankfully into her chair and picked up the carved bone spoon. The room was silent for a while as she drank. Then at last, stifling the nausea that had returned as soon as the soup was finished, she looked up and forced a smile.

“I’m glad to see you again, Megan.”

“Well, that’s as may be.” The older woman stood erect before the fire. Then suddenly she seemed to make up her mind to speak. She went to crouch beside Matilda’s chair, her voice lowered.

“I’ve come to tell you not to go to Abergavenny again, my lady. That’s all I can be saying about it. Don’t go there.”

Matilda shivered. “I don’t want to, Megan, believe me. But if my husband says we must…”

To her amazement Megan rose and turned away to spit viciously into the hot embers.

“If your husband says he must, Lady Matilda, well and good. Let him go. But not you.”

“Why, Megan?” Matilda glanced sideways at her, suddenly suspicious, as the other woman’s pleasant, round face became stony and defiant.

“Maybe I know a good reason, maybe I don’t,” she announced. “Just remember, I’m telling you. Now I must away back to my people before they find I’m gone.” She rose to leave but Matilda was too quick for her. Forgetting her sickness, she jumped up and grabbed Megan’s wrist.

“I forbid you to go yet. Tell me what you know.”

Megan glanced half fearfully over her shoulder. “Indeed I won’t, for I shall say nothing, my lady. I’ve already said too much. I should not have come to you indeed.” She wrenched her arm free of Matilda’s grasp and fled through the door, her leather shoes pattering down the broad stairs.

Matilda moved to follow her, then she stopped and went back to her chair with a shrug. If the woman refused to say anything, there was no more to be done. She stood for a moment, thinking. Megan had braved a great deal perhaps to come and warn her, for the sake of their day of friendship so many years before. She put her hand to her aching back, then bent to pick up her fallen cloak from the rushes and warily wrapped it around her. William had to be warned, of course. She picked up the silver handbell by her chair and rang it for Elen. He must be told without delay. She breathed a fervent prayer that Megan, if she still wanted to guard her silence, had already left the castle. She didn’t like to think of Megan, however stubborn, being subjected to the full brunt of William’s anger in one of the dungeons below the keep if she refused to tell him the source of her information.