Lady of Hay

28

Bennet put his hand on Jo’s forehead for a moment. “Quiet now. Lady, rest,” he commanded gently. He looked at Nick. “So now you know about the siege of Painscastle. Your Matilda was a courageous lady, to hold the place until help came. She doesn’t seem too tired. Shall we go on?”

Nick nodded. “Why not? She’s not upset.”

“Does anyone else want to question her?” He glanced at Jim Paxman, who shook his head. “For now I am intrigued. Later, perhaps, I’d like to cross-question her further.” There was a pencil in his hand. “I’m making some notes of things I’ll ask her. So far her detail is uncanny!”

“And accurate?” Sam’s cold voice from the corner made them all glance round uncomfortably.

“I haven’t faulted her on anything yet,” Jim replied cautiously. “But there is so much more there than I or anyone else could verify, even with the minutest study of the chronicles. No, Carl, please get her to carry on. I want to hear more of her family. And more of the campaign. Rhys didn’t leave it at that, you know. No way. He went back!”

Carl nodded. He turned back to Jo. “Matilda,” he said softly. “Tell us what happened next.”

It was nearly dark. Matilda sat in the window trying to match some final stitches into her embroidery, in the private solar she used as her own in the castle of Hereford, where William was now the sheriff. Impatiently she selected a length of golden thread and squinted up against the last flaming gold of the western sky to try to thread it. The knock at the door made her bend the thread and she cursed under her breath. She had been treasuring the hour of silence alone in the upper room, with even her daughters and her women chased away, and she longed to prolong the moment if she could. Her head ached a little and her eyes were sore, but as long as she could still see to sew she had the excuse to remain alone.

The knock sounded again, more urgently, and this time the heavy handle turned. “My lady?” Elen put her head round the door.

“Elen, I told you I want to be alone. For a while, just until full dark.”

“I know, my lady.” Elen grinned unrepentantly. “But you’ve a visitor, see, and I thought it was time I lit the sconces and saw about sorting a few things in the garderobe here. And look at you,” she scolded suddenly. “Trying to work in the dark and ruining the sight of your eyes as you sit there, is it?” She pushed open the door and hurried across the room. Behind her, on the threshold, stood Richard de Clare. He was alone.

In spite of herself Matilda felt her heart give a lurch at the sight of him.

Seeing her, he bowed, his old grin unmistakable, lighting his face. He held out his hands.

Matilda glanced at Elen, who was fussing about with a lighted spill, going from sconce to sconce, but the woman kept her back ostentatiously turned and after a moment she disappeared behind the curtain into the garderobe.

“Richard!” She could hold back no longer. Her hands outstretched, Matilda ran to him and felt for a moment his strong arms around her, the touch of his lips on hers. Then gently, too soon, he was pushing her away with another light kiss on her forehead. “Oh, Richard, my dear, my love! It’s been so long.”

“It has indeed.” He stood back, still holding her hands, and looked her up and down slowly, his eyes taking in every detail of her slender upright figure. Her hair seemed as burnished as ever beneath her headdress. His own, as he saw ruefully that she had noticed, was nearly white.

“Richard, what happened?” She reached to touch it with longing, wistful fingers.

He grinned. “Married life, sweetheart, and premature old age, combined with our East Anglian weather and the ministrations of your son. He is with me, by the way.”

Behind them Elen cleared her throat loudly before appearing in the doorway. “My lady, Sir William has finished with the sheriff court sessions for the day. His brother-in-law Adam Porter is here and he is with him at present, but I’m thinking he was about to come up here.” She was carrying an embroidered surcoat over her arm. “I’d best be here when he comes.”

Matilda glanced helplessly at Richard, who merely smiled and shrugged. “He never forgave you, you know, for supporting William Longchamp against Prince John,” she whispered. Then with her voice politely social again: “Are you pleased with Reginald? I was so glad when he became your esquire. You should have brought him up with you to see me, Richard. I suppose he’s grown so large I’ll not recognize him, like my other boys.” She sighed. “It’s hard to think of myself as mother to so many enormous children, Richard. I don’t feel old.”

He threw back his head and roared with laughter. “No one else would believe it either, sweetheart. Your waist isn’t an inch wider than when I first saw you. Do you remember? Just after your wedding, when you came to Bramber and I saw you riding across the saltings with William. So tall and stiff you were on your horse, with your hair newly put up beneath your veil and wanting to tumble down again, like a maiden’s.” He raised his hand gently to her temple and then almost guiltily let it fall. They had both heard the firm step on the stairs and they drew slightly apart.

William, when he appeared, was in jovial mood and seemed content to forget his political differences with Richard. He had never over the years by so much as a hint betrayed whether or not he had ever heard any of the rumors that she knew had abounded about her love for Richard, and now as always when she saw the two men together she could not help wondering, comparing, and guiltily moving to her husband’s side. William, for his part, flung out his arms expansively at the sight of his visitor and embraced him.

“I heard you’d arrived. How is Reginald behaving in your service? Moll, help me with my tunic. Where are the pages?” He started to shrug the heavy garment off his shoulders. “My God, I’ll be glad when this spell at Hereford is over. Being sheriff is all very well, but dispensing the king’s justice becomes wearisome after a while, I can tell you. I need some fighting to loosen up my bones again.”

Richard grinned. “I heard about your extra duties, William. My congratulations. I see you are a man to be reckoned with now throughout the land.”

William beamed, holding his arms out for the new tunic that Elen had brought to him. “I think you might say so,” he agreed. “I think you might say so.”

When William returned to his duties in the court room the following morning, Matilda and Richard ordered their horses and their hawks and rode out of Hereford toward the southeast into the great forest of Aconbury. The leaves were everywhere turning to russet and gold and the horses’ hooves brushed through the rustling carpet, stirring the bitter scents that teased the nostrils and caught at the back of Matilda’s throat. Richard rode slightly ahead of her, his eyes screwed up in the frosty glare, but after a while he reined back alongside her.

“Tell me, how have things been, my dear?” he said quietly. “Have you heard any news of your little Tilda?”

Matilda’s heart lurched. Did Richard know? Had he ever guessed that her strange silver-haired daughter was his? She swallowed the lump in her throat with an effort and, summoning a smile, she managed to nod. “Gerald saw her in the spring. I am a grandmother, Richard.” Her eyes sparkled suspiciously for a moment and Richard found himself fighting the urge to touch her hand. “She has a little son,” she went on. “Rhys Ieuanc, young Rhys, after his grandfather, God rot him!”

Richard searched her face for a moment. “Rhys took Mallt’s castle in the end, of course.”

Her face tightened with anger. “As you say, he returned after the last of the snow with no warning and with such a strong force there was no time for the constable to summon aid. William had gone to fight in Aberteifi with Will-Rhys agreed to spare the castle only if they abandoned the campaign in his lands and came back to Hay.”

“And he agreed,” Richard said quietly. “I could not understand why. It seemed unlike William.”

She smiled ruefully. “Whoever understands William, my dear? He is a law unto himself.”

There was a long silence as the horses walked slowly on, then Richard spoke again.

“I came to Hereford with a proposition which I hope will please you. I must put it to William, but I should like your views. It touches us very closely.” His eyes were fixed on the gilded leather of the rein in his hand. She followed his gaze, noting absentmindedly how thin his hands had become, the joints slightly accentuated. “I should like my daughter, little Mattie, to marry one of your sons. If you agree I think William might find the match acceptable.”

She didn’t answer for a moment. The sun’s rays breaking through the thick treetops of the copse into which they had ridden fell across the party, throwing a gold veneer onto the horses’ coats. At the heels of her mare an excited dog suddenly began to bark, and was at once silenced by an angry command from a huntsman behind them. There was a lump in her throat when at last she spoke.

“I should like that, Richard. Above all I should like that.” She paused again. “You were thinking of Reginald, I suppose? Have they formed an attachment to one another? That is good. Giles anyway plans to take Holy Orders after Oxford and then Paris. But Reginald-oh, yes, I am sure that William would approve of a link with the house of Clare for Reginald.” She looked up at him and smiled. “Yes, it’s what I had hoped for, Richard. We have plans for the two girls, of course. Margaret is to marry Walter de Lacy and William is hoping for an alliance with the Mortimers for little Isobel, but marriages for the other two boys have not yet presented themselves. I think”-she dropped her eyes, almost embarrassed-“I think William is becoming very ambitious, Richard. I think he has set his sights very high for the future.”

Two days later Richard left. Matilda was standing in her solar, giving orders to her steward, when Elen brought him in. He was already dressed for the road.

“My lady,” he said formally. “I come to take my leave.”

Her hand clutched involuntarily at the quill with which she had been checking the lists before her. It was a moment before she could look up. “Must you leave so soon, Lord de Clare?” Behind her the steward bowed and left the room and she was conscious of Elen rounding up the ladies who had been at work with their sewing near the fire. In moments the place was empty but for themselves.

As the heavy door closed behind the last of them he caught her hands in his. The pen fell to the rushes as he raised them to his lips. “I don’t know how long it will be before we see each other again.”

“Richard!” she whispered in anguish. She clung to him blindly, raising her lips to find his as her eyes filled with tears. “I thought growing older would teach me sense,” she murmured. “I thought at least it would be easier to bear as time went on.”

He held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. “It will never grow easier, my darling, never. That is our punishment for a forbidden love.” His lips touched her eyelids gently. “If two of our children can find love with one another, perhaps that will ease our own pain. At least William has agreed in principle to the idea.”

She nodded, unable to speak, clinging to him desperately.

“I have to go,” he said at last. Gently he tried to release himself from her arms.

“I know.” She clung to him even harder. “Oh, Richard, take care of yourself, my dear.” She reached up for a final kiss. Neither of them spoke for several minutes, then at last Richard straightened and firmly pushed her away.

“We will meet again.” He forced himself to smile. “Who knows, maybe at Mattie and Reginald’s wedding, God willing!” He caught her hand and kissed it quickly, then he turned and swung out of the tall, vaulted chamber and disappeared, his spurs ringing on the stone of the staircase as he ran down toward the entrance to the keep. Behind him Matilda began to cry.

“That’s enough!” Nick crossed the room in two strides. His eyes were blazing. “Wake her up. Quickly!”

Tears were pouring down Jo’s face as she spoke, her words almost unintelligible through the violence of her sobs.

He sat down beside her, his arm around her shoulders. “Wake her up, man. She’s had enough!”

Sam pushed himself away from the wall against which he had been leaning. “Don’t interfere, Nick. Grief is all part of life’s rich pattern. She sinned. She has to suffer.” His voice was heavy with irony. “Surely you of all people would agree with that.”

Nick glared at him and, as Bennet and his colleagues watched, the concern and anguish vanished from his face to be replaced by cold anger. “She is weeping for Richard de Clare!” he said through clenched teeth. “One of John’s advisers and even his friend! Dear God! She mocks me, even now! Flaunting her love of the man and rejecting me. Me! As if I were no one.”

They stared in astonishment at the arrogant fury of his expression, so unlike anything that anyone who knew Nick had ever seen, and they saw the color run up his neck to suffuse his face.

Bennet stood up hastily. “Steady, my friend,” he said, laying his hand on Nick’s arm. “Jo was mocking no one. Couldn’t you see how she was being torn?”

Nick shook off the hand and dragged his eyes away from Jo’s face, visibly struggling within himself, his jaws clenched as he stared at Bennet. He was looking straight through him as if he weren’t there, oblivious of the presence of anyone else in the room. The sweat was standing out on his forehead.

Bennet glanced at Sam. “What is wrong with him?” he said sharply. “This man is possessed in some way!”

Sam shook his head. “As I told you, I suspect my brother has an incipient mood disorder,” he said quietly. “It is becoming less easy to hide-”

“Rubbish!” Bennet snapped. He clicked his fingers in front of Nick’s face. “He is as much in a trance as Jo. He has been hypnotized-but not by me. I think this is a reversion of some kind. Has he been having hypnotherapy, do you know? Or trying regression himself?”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Under the circumstances, would you be surprised if he had?”

“No.” Bennet looked up at him and pushed his glasses onto the top of his head. “I am merely concerned in case he has entrusted himself to someone who is less than competent.” The two men held one another’s gaze for a long moment. It was Sam who looked away first.

“I am sure he wouldn’t do that.” Sam did not bother to hide his amusement. “Why don’t you ask him what he’s been up to?” He turned to Nick. “Nicholas, you are making a fool of yourself, brother,” he said sharply. “Wake up! Look at all these keen scientific minds watching your performance!”

Nick glanced around. For a moment he looked bewildered. Then he gave a sheepish grin, the anger gone from his face. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t know what I was saying-”

“That’s all right,” Bennet said slowly. He was scrutinizing Nick closely. “You didn’t say anything to worry about. Now, let’s see what we can do for Jo, shall we? It is, after all, she we have come to discuss.” He glanced around at the others. “Does anyone want to question her further before I awaken her? No? Right, then.”

Jo stared around the room blankly for a moment as she regained her awareness of the present day. Her nose was swollen, her eyes streaming. Unobtrusively Sarah picked up a box of tissues and put them down on the sofa beside her. Jo grabbed one. “Sorry,” she said miserably. “It’s so silly to be upset. I can’t seem to stop crying.”

“I’ll make coffee,” Sarah said softly. “For everyone. I think that should be the next priority before anyone asks any questions.”

“But I want to know,” Jo said. She blew her nose. “Did I speak real Welsh? Did you understand what I was saying?” She looked at Wendy.

Wendy nodded. “You spoke a version of real Middle Welsh. I don’t think there is any possibility at all that you could have picked that up by accident, or without long and intensive study, so it would not have been cryptomnesia. Your pronunciation was fluent if unusual-I have no way of knowing if it was genuine, of course, but I suspect so. I am completely lost for an explanation as to how you could have done it.”

Bennet smiled. “You are still not content with my explanation, then?”

Wendy laughed. “I’m reserving judgment. A ydych chi’n fyn deall i? Pa rydw i’n dweud? ” She turned back to Jo suddenly.

Jo shook her head and shrugged. “It’s no use. It’s gone. I don’t understand anymore.” She put her hands to her head. “What did you say?”

“I only asked whether you still understood me.” Wendy stood up and threw her notes down on the table. “It is extraordinary. Quite extraordinary!” She swung around to face Carl. “Could it be some kind of possession? Or even a case of multiple personality?”

“There is no question of it,” Carl said swiftly. “Jo came to me with no history whatsoever of mental or personality problems. Whatever this is, I am certain in my own mind that it is from her own past.”

“And it has now become part of her present,” Sam put in quietly. “I suspect that the past was unresolved. Perhaps resolution can only come in this life.”

Jo shivered violently. “Sam! That’s horrible! What are you saying?”

“People are not reborn without a purpose, Jo. They return to progress or to expiate their sins.”

“Rubbish, man!” Jim Paxman gave Sam a look of undisguised dislike. “I have never heard such arrant nonsense. If this is an echo from the past, then that is all it is, an echo. With no more meaning or purpose than the accidental replaying of an old record. This woman is in some way acting as an instrument, a…a…” He groped for the right word.

“A medium?” Wendy put in thoughtfully.

“If you like, but that has psychic connotations which I don’t accept. We are not dealing with ectoplasm or crystal balls here. That is not what we are talking about at all.”

“Aren’t we?” Nick said.

Everyone looked at him. There was an expectant silence.

Behind them Sarah pushed open the door. On her tray were eight cups of coffee.

Sam and Nick both went back to Cornwall Gardens with Jo. They were all silent in the taxi, and once they were in the apartment Nick went straight to the cabinet in search of the bottle of Scotch.

Jo threw herself down on the sofa. “I feel as if I’ve been through a mental mincer,” she said. She put her arm across her eyes. “Isn’t it funny? I thought today would prove something-either that I’m hallucinating or inventing things or that it is all real and I am the reincarnation of Matilda de Braose, and yet, with all that talk and all that argument and all those experts, it has proved nothing. In fact, now it is worse. All they have done is make me terribly aware of the fact that there are a whole lot more theories to account for my condition than I had ever thought of and I am more muddled than ever.”

“Forget it all, Jo.” Nick sat down near her with a sigh. “Why the hell should you turn yourself into a specimen under a microscope for that lot? Or me, for that matter.” He frowned. “We know what we believe. That is what is important.”

“And what do we believe?” Sam put in.

“That’s the point!” Jo sat up. The Scotch had brought the color back to her cheeks. “I don’t know anymore. Except that it’s not just me. We are all three involved. We are, aren’t we?” She looked from one to the other.

“Perhaps.” Sam walked out onto the balcony and stood looking down at the square. A group of children were playing on the grass behind the railings with a huge striped plastic ball. He turned to lean on the balustrade. “We must all experience with an open mind and record meticulously and with unbiased comment what happens. Particularly you, Jo, if you still intend to write a book on all this. The book will be of enormous scientific-or occult or historical or linguistic or whatever-significance. Let those experts of Bennet’s with their analytical minds tear that apart. From now on we’ll leave them out of it. We don’t need them. The man himself is, of course, a fool. You do realize that, don’t you? For all his expensive offices and the panoply of medical props he is not a qualified psychiatrist.”

Nick raised an eyebrow. “He couldn’t call himself doctor, surely, if he weren’t qualified.”

“He qualified as a physician in Vienna just after the war, but he never practiced as far as I can see, either in general practice or as a specialist, until he came to England, when he did a minimal training in hypnotherapy and launched himself as an expert on some decidedly fringe activities.”

Nick gave a lazy smile. “It struck me he didn’t think much of you either.”

“Shut up, both of you.” Jo stood up. “Why don’t I get us all a salad. I want to think about something else for a change. My mind is so tired, so terribly tired of all this-” Her voice trembled slightly.

With a glance at Sam, Nick followed her into the kitchen. “Jo, what happened to me at Bennet’s?” he asked in an undertone. “Did I go into some sort of trance as well?”

She looked at him, astonished. “You?”

“Yes, me, Jo.” He glanced over his shoulder hurriedly. “I am beginning to think Sam may have given me some sort of posthypnotic suggestion-”

“Sam?” Jo stared. “You haven’t let Sam hypnotize you?”

“Now, who is taking my name in vain?” Sam had brought the bottle of Scotch with him into the kitchen.

“No one.” Jo glanced at him uncomfortably. She turned hastily to the refrigerator and took out a plate of cold meats and a bowl of salad, then she reached into the door for a bottle of wine. “Sam, the corkscrew is in the drawer behind you. Leave my Scotch alone and pour us all some wine instead, will you? When did you say your plane was tomorrow, Nick?” she went on hastily.

Nick was watching his brother expertly insert the tip of the corkscrew into the center of the cork. He was frowning.

“Eleven. I’m going to have to go as soon as we’ve eaten, Jo. There are things I must do at the office before I go back to the apartment to pack.”

Jo looked down at the bottle of olive oil in her hand. “You haven’t said how long you will be away,” she said. He must not know how lost she felt at the thought of his leaving.

“Ten days at least.” His voice was gentle.

“Ten days for Jo to sort out her affairs with Richard de Clare,” Sam put in as he poured out the three glasses of wine, meticulously stooping, his eye level with the worktop, to check that all contained identical amounts.

“Sam.” Jo glanced at Nick, suddenly terrified that the mention of the name would change him again, back to the frightening travesty of the Nick she knew. His face had hardened, but he was still Nick. The stranger was not there behind his eyes.

“She’s finished with de Clare,” Nick said after a moment. He picked up one of the glasses. “And de Clare knows it.”

“Knew it, Nick,” Jo said quickly. “It was all a long time ago. Here, take the salad through, and the bottle.”

Sam was watching her as she took the plates from the cabinet.

“You intend to follow this story through to the end, don’t you, Jo?” he said softly as the door swung closed behind Nick.

She straightened abruptly. “Don’t be absurd. You know damn well I’m not. And you know why.”

“I think you will. I don’t think you’ll be able to stop when the time comes.”

“Oh, believe me, I will, Sam.” Jo clenched her fists. “Do you think I will want to go on when John turns against them? I don’t want to know what happens then. Do you think I could bear to live through all that-the knowledge that Richard did not lift a finger to try to save her, for all his love. And William! William, after all their years of marriage, their children-William betrayed her!”

“She had betrayed William first,” Sam said sharply. “She had driven him too far.”

“He was a coward,” she retorted. “A bully and a coward.”

Sam flinched visibly beneath her scorn. “He paid for that last betrayal,” he said. “He paid. Dear God, how he wanted to make reparation. Don’t you think he wanted to return to save her?”

Nick pushed open the kitchen door behind them. “Come on, you two, what’s happened to supper?”

“No!” Jo did not even hear him. “No, I don’t think he did. He didn’t give tuppence for anything but his own skin. Don’t forget, he let his own son die too. His eldest son!”

Sam narrowed his eyes. “His son! Will wasn’t his son. Will was the bastard of that weak fool, de Clare. An incestuous bastard!”

“Sam!” Nick shouted. “Stop it!”

Sam ignored him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Jo’s face. “Do you know who little Matilda de Clare married? No, not Reginald. Not good, honest, upright Reginald, so like his father. No, you let her marry Will! You let her marry her own brother!”

“No!” shouted Jo. “No, that’s a lie. Will was William’s true-born son.”

“I don’t believe you. Matilda was a whore. She deserved to die the way she did.”

“Sam, shut up!” Nick glared at his brother. “You bastard! Leave it alone, do you hear?”

Suddenly Sam smiled. “Of course. I’m sorry. How tactless of me.” He was breathing hard. “Yes, why don’t we have supper! It can’t matter now, anyway, can it, what happened eight hundred years ago?”

It was a quiet meal. After leaving most of her food untouched, Jo pushed her plate aside and toyed instead with the glass of wine. It was only just after eight when Nick stood up.

“I must go, Jo.” He took her hands as she rose too. “Take care, won’t you.”

She gave a watery smile. “Of course. Don’t worry about me.”

“If you want to speak to me, Jim will have the phone number in the office. And I’ll be in touch with them just as soon as I hit New York. Do you want me to call you?”

She shook her head. “Forget me for ten days, Nick. Concentrate on your work. I’ll see you when you get back.”

He looked at her hard for a few moments, his blue eyes intense, then he kissed her gently on the forehead. “Sam will be here to take care of you, don’t forget, if you need him.”

Sam was still seated. He refilled his glass slowly, watching as Jo raised her arms suddenly and threw them around Nick’s neck.

He frowned. “I’ll see you back at the apartment later, Nick,” he said.

“You’re not coming with me now?” Nick disengaged himself gently. There was a hint of caution in his tone as he looked down at his brother.

“There are one or two things I want to say to Jo first.”

“ No! ” There was no reason for Jo’s involuntary response; its violence surprised even her. “I mean, not now, Sam, please. I am so tired. I’d really rather be on my own this evening, if you don’t mind.”

“I won’t keep you long.” Sam did not move.

Nick put his hands on the back of Sam’s chair. “Come on, you can see Jo wants us both to go.”

“She’ll change her mind.” Sam glanced up at Jo with a smile. “A cup of coffee, then I’ll leave if you still want me to. I promise.”

She clung to Nick for a moment on the landing and stood watching him walk down the stairs, then slowly she turned back. “You really want coffee?”

“Please.” Sam had collected the plates. He carried them through to the kitchen, then he leaned against the wall, watching as Jo set about making some instant coffee. “Not the real thing?” he inquired lazily. There was a slight smile at the corners of his mouth.

“It takes too long,” Jo said over her shoulder. “I mean it, Sam. I really am too tired to talk.” She turned suddenly and looked at him. “Sam-”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Is Nick-” She hesitated. “Have you ever hypnotized Nick?”

Sam smiled. “That’s an odd thing to ask.”

“Have you?”

“Put down the kettle for a moment and look at me.”

“I’m making your coffee.”

“Put it down, Jo.”

She did so, slowly. Then she stared up at him. “Sam-”

“That’s right, Jo. Close your eyes for a moment. Relax. You can’t fight it. There is nothing you can do, is there? You are already asleep and traveling back into the past. That’s it.” Sam stood for a moment staring at her, then he moved forward and took her hand, leading her out into the apartment’s short hall. A right turn would take him toward the front of the apartment, the living room with its open balcony doors. To the left was the bedroom and next to it the bathroom.

He turned left. In the bedroom he pushed Jo into a seated position on the end of her bed, then he moved to the windows and closed the heavy curtains. He switched on the lamp. It cast strange synthetic shadows in a room where the evening sunlight was still struggling through between the folds of the heavy material, lighting up a dazzling wedge of gold on the dusty rose of the carpet.

Sam folded his arms. “So, my lady, do you know who I am?”

Jo shook her head dully.

“I am your husband, madam!”

“William?” She moved her head slightly as though trying to avoid some dazzling light.

“William.” He had not moved. “And you and I have a whole night, do we not, to remind you of your duties to your husband.”

Jo stared up at him, her gaze alarmingly direct. “My duties? Of what duties do you intend to remind me, my lord?” Her tone was scornful.

Sam smiled. “All in good time. But first I want to ask you a question. Wait. There is something I must fetch. Wait here until I return.”

Matilda stared at William’s retreating back. He slammed the heavy oak door of the bedchamber and she heard the ring of his spurs on the stone as his footsteps retreated. She shivered. The narrow windows of the chamber faced north and the shutters braced across them did nothing to keep out the cold. She went to stand near the huge hearth, drawing her fur mantle around her. Her bones had begun to ache now in the winter and she could feel her soul crying out for the balm of spring sunshine. She must be beginning to feel old! What had William gone to find? Wearily she bent and picked a dry mossy apple bough from the basket and threw it on the fire. It scented the room immediately and she closed her eyes, trying to imagine herself warm.

William returned almost at once. He flung back the door and stood before her, his face closed, his eyes hiding some new anger. She sighed, and forced herself to smile.

“What is it you wish to ask me, William? Let us speak of it quickly, then we can go down to the great hall where it is so much warmer.”

What was it he held behind his back? She stared at him curiously, feeling as she always did now for him a strange mixture of scorn and fear and tolerance and even perhaps a little affection. But he was so hard to like, this man to whom she had been married now for so many years.

William slowly held out the hand he had been keeping behind his back. In it was a carved ivory crucifix. She drew back, catching her breath, recognizing it as coming from a niche in the chapel, where it was kept in a jeweled reliquary. It was reputed to have been carved from the bone of some long-dead Celtic saint.

“Take it.”

“Why?” She clutched her cloak more tightly around her.

“Take it in your hand.”

Reluctantly she reached out and took the crucifix. It was unnaturally cold.

“Now,” he breathed. “Now I want you to swear an oath.”

She paled. “What oath?”

“An oath, madam, of the most sacred kind. I want you to swear on that crucifix in your hand that William, the eldest child of your body, is my son.”

She stared at him. “Of course he is your son.”

“Can you swear it?”

She stared down at the intricately carved ivory in her hand-the decorated cross, the tortured, twisted figure of the man hanging on it in his death agony. Slowly she raised it to her lips and kissed it.

“I swear it,” she whispered.

William drew a deep breath. “So,” he said. “You told the truth. He was not de Clare’s bastard.”

Her eyes flew to his face and he saw the paleness of her skin flood with color. For a moment only, then it was gone and she was as white as the crucifix she had pressed to her lips.

He narrowed his eyes. “You swore!”

“William is your son. I swear, before God and the Holy Virgin.”

“And the others? What of the others?” He took a step toward her and grabbed her wrist. He held the crucifix up before her eyes. “Swear. Swear for the others!”

“Giles and Reginald, they are yours. Can you not see it in their coloring and their demeanor? They are both their father’s sons.”

“And the girls?” His voice was frozen.

“Margaret is yours. And Isobel.” She looked down suddenly, unable to hold his gaze.

“But not Tilda?” His voice was barely audible. “My little Matilda is de Clare’s child?” He pressed her fingers around the crucifix until the carving bit into her flesh. “ Is she? ” he screamed suddenly.

Desperately she tried to push him away. “Yes!” she cried. “Yes, she was Richard’s child, God forgive me!”

Abruptly William let her go. She reeled back, and the crucifix fell between them in the dried herbs on the floor. They both stared at it in horror.

William laughed. It was a humorless, vicious sound. “So, the great alliance with Rhys is built on counterfeit goods! The descendants of Gruffydd ap Rhys will not be descendants of mine!”

“You must not tell him!” Matilda sprang forward and caught his arm. “For sweet Jesus’ sake, William, you must not tell him!” She gave a little sob. Dropping his arm, she whirled around, scrabbling on the floor until she found the crucifix. She grabbed it and thrust it at him. “Promise me. Promise me you won’t tell him! He would kill her!”

William smiled. “He would indeed-the fruit of your whoring with de Clare.”

She was trembling. The fur cloak had fallen open. “Please, promise me you won’t tell Lord Rhys, William! Promise!”

“At the moment it would be madness to tell him,” William said thoughtfully, “and I shall keep silent for all our sakes. For now it shall remain a secret between me and my wife.” He smiled coldly. “As for the future, we shall see.”

He stretched out and took the crucifix out of her hand. After kissing it, he put it reverently on the table, then he turned back to her and lifted the fur from her shoulders. “It is so seldom we are alone, my lady. I think it would be a good time, don’t you, to show me some of this passion you so readily give to others.” He carefully removed her blue surcoat and threw it after the cloak before he turned her numb body around and set about unlacing her gown.

She was shivering violently. “Please, William! Not now. It is so cold.”

“We shall warm each other soon enough.” He turned and shouted over his shoulder. “ Emrys! You remember Emrys,” he said softly. “My blind musician?”

She did not turn. Clutching her gown to her breasts, she heard the door open behind her then close again quietly. After a few moments’ silence the first breathy notes of the flute began to drift into the chamber, spiraling up into the dark, smoke-filled rafters.

She shuddered as William’s cold hands pulled the gown out of her clutches and stripped it down to the floor.

“So,” he whispered. “You stand, naked in body and naked in soul.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Let down your hair.”

For some reason she could not disobey him. Unsteadily she raised her hands to her veil and pulled out the pins that held it. She uncoiled her braids, still long and richly auburn with only a few strands yet of silver, and began to unplait them slowly, conscious of the draft that swept under the door and toward the hearth, sending icy shivers over her skin. She still had not looked at the musician.

William watched in silence until her hair was free. It swung around her shoulders and over her pale breasts, rippled in the firelight into dancing bronzed life.

He took another deep breath and groped at last for the brooch that held his own mantle. “You have a girl’s body still, for all the children you have carried,” he said softly. ‘Trueborn or bastard, they haven’t marked you.” He put his hand on her belly.

She shrank back, her eyes silently spelling out her sudden hatred, and he laughed. “Oh, yes, you detest me-but you have to obey me, sweetheart! I am your husband.” He dropped his cotte after his mantle. “You have to obey me, Matilda, because I have the key to your mind.”

She swallowed. “You have gone mad, my lord!” As if breaking free of some spell, she found she could move suddenly. Turning, she picked up her fur cloak and swung it around her until she was covered in rich chestnut fur from chin to toe. “You hold no keys to my mind!”

“But I do.” Abruptly the music stopped. William raised his hand in front of her face. “Drop the cloak, Matilda. That’s right.” He smiled as, unnerved, she found herself obeying him. “Now, kneel.”

Furious, she opened her mouth to argue, but the argument did not come. Scarcely realizing she did it, she knelt on the rich fur and stared up at him, the firelight playing on her pale skin as slowly he began to undress himself. Watching, she saw the stocky naked body, the mat of graying chest hair, tapering down to his belly, the sturdy muscular thighs, the white ugly scars, one on his left thigh, the other on his left shoulder. She had seldom seen him naked. Though everyone customarily slept unclothed, wrapped in blankets and furs, or sprawled in summer on coarse linen sheets, she resolutely rolled herself in the covers whenever possible and kept her eyes tightly closed. Now there was no escape. Some force of will in him seemed to keep her eyes open, fixed on his body. Nervously her gaze traveled down to the rigid penis, then back to the corded muscular arms that could hold her so mercilessly as he used her. She clenched her fists defiantly, her eyes rising once more at last to meet his.

He smiled. “Lie down, wife. There on the floor.”

“No,” she breathed, summoning the last vestiges of her strength to defy him. “No, my lord, I will not. It pleases you to treat me like a whore but I am your true wife, faithful to you for many years. If I must submit to you it will be on our marriage bed!”

“Faithful?” He sneered suddenly. “You have betrayed me with de Clare. With who else, I wonder?” He looked at her, suddenly calculating.

She dropped her gaze and he laughed. “Your eyes spell out your guilt! Who was it? One man? Two? A hundred?”

“Only one other, my lord.” Why was she answering him? It was as if some force compelled her to make the admission.

“And who was that one other?”

“One to whom you yourself would have given me, my lord,” she burst out. “And I did not lie with him willingly. Before God, I swear it! He took me by force.”

William raised an eyebrow. “And who was this so eager suitor, madam?”

“Prince John,” she answered in a whisper.

“So!” The angry color rose in his cheeks. “So, you are a royal whore. And where did John take you? On a bed trimmed with cloth of gold? No matter. For me you lie on the floor where you belong.”

He stooped and picked up the broad leather belt he had dropped with the rest of his clothes. “Lie down, Matilda, or I will give you the thrashing you deserve.”

Behind them the music began again suddenly, thin and breathy, unrelated to the darkness of the chamber, the flaring smoky torches in the sconces, or the bittersweet smoke of the fire. Outside the wind had begun to moan gently across the hills, an eerie, dismal sound, as lonely as the cry of the hungry wheeling buzzard, riding the currents below the streaming clouds.

Matilda did not move. Her eyes narrowed scornfully. “You resort so easily to violence. You are like an animal, my lord. What you cannot take by force you wish to destroy.” She saw his hand tighten on the leather thong and she felt a quick pang of fear, but she did not move. “I have often wondered why you have never beaten me,” she said half thoughtfully. “You have often wanted to.” She smiled at him. “Perhaps you have never dared.”

He stared down into the mocking amber eyes. The sorceress. The witch. Did she know then that he was afraid of her? He clenched his fist tighter on the belt, resisting the urge to cross himself with his free hand. He must take her now, while his desire was hot, while his anger sustained him. Whip her and mount her and by God’s bones he was not too old to get her with child again. A trueborn child to replace the bastard girl he had given to the Welsh.

He stepped forward, his arm raised, and brought down the leather thong across her shoulders with every inch of strength he possessed.

He heard the air whistle out of her lungs as the blow fell, but apart from that she did not make a sound. For an instant he saw fear in her eyes, then hatred-then, as he raised his arm for the second blow, she threw back her head and laughed. The sound rang out, wild and mocking, and he felt his desire shrivel and die as he heard it. Goose pimples raised on the flesh across his shoulders. With an oath he dropped the belt and groped at his feet for his tunic.

“So be it,” he breathed. “You may laugh now, my lady. You may call up whatever demons protect you and scorn me now, but mine shall be the last laugh. Stay here! Stay in your castle, my lady! Stay in the past and lick your wounds. Stay there! ”

He swung his mantle over his shoulder and walked out of the chamber.

Dry-eyed, Matilda climbed to her feet. She picked up her cloak and wrapped it around her tightly, trying to stem the sudden, agonized shuddering that racked her body, then wearily she climbed onto the bed and pulled the covers over her.

Only then did she realize the music was still playing softly in a dark corner near the window.