Lady of Hay (77 page)

Over the line she could hear the sound of laughter from the office. Suddenly she felt cut off and very lonely.

Jane came back on the line in seconds. “Sorry, Jo. You’ve just missed him, but he was only going to the apartment. You’ll catch him there.”

Jo sat still for a moment feeling strangely let down. He had promised to return to her. She wanted to tell him what she had done. She wanted to tell him what had happened.

She leaned forward slowly and flipped her notebook open. “Matilda and her son were sent to a dungeon at Windsor…” Jo picked up her pen and crossed out Windsor and wrote Corfe.

Half an hour later she redialed Nick’s number. It rang for several seconds before it was picked up.

“Hello?” It was not Nick’s voice that answered.

Jo felt herself tense nervously. The receiver slipped slightly in her hand as perspiration started out all over her palm.

“Sam?” Her voice was husky.

“Hello, Jo. How are you?”

She couldn’t reply for a moment. Neither could she put down the phone.

“I thought you’d gone back to Scotland,” she managed to say at last.

“I’m on my way.” She could hear the amusement in his voice. “Nick and I had a long talk about things on Tuesday and we agreed that perhaps I should go home.”

Jo found she was pressing the receiver closer and closer against her ear. “I want to talk to Nick.”

“He’s not back yet, but I’m expecting him any second.” His voice was very calm.

“I see. Look, Sam, I’ll call back in a few minutes.”

“There’s no need, Jo,” he said slowly. “He’ll be back very soon. Talk to me instead.”

“I don’t want to, Sam,” she replied in a panic.

“You do want to. You’ve been wanting to speak to me for days; you’ve been needing to speak to me, Jo.” His voice sunk a semitone. “That was why you called, because you realized how much you needed to see me, because of your headaches, Jo. I want you to listen to me very carefully now. Can you hear me, Jo?” He paused for a second. “When you speak to Nicholas he is going to ask you to come to his office party. You are going to tell him you are too tired. You have a headache and you don’t want to see him. You don’t want to see him at all tonight, do you, Jo? You are going to sit down quietly at home and watch television, and later this evening I shall come to you and make your headache better. You do have a headache, don’t you, Jo?”

“Yes.” Her whispered answer was barely audible.

“Then you need me, Jo.”

She stared at the phone for several minutes after she had hung up, a puzzled frown on her face. Why had she talked to him? Why had she listened to him for even a single second? She never wanted to see Sam again, and yet it was true, she did have a headache. It would do no harm, surely, if he came, just for a few minutes, to help her relax…

When Nick called her she was firm and slightly distant. Her headache was worse, like a blinding ligature around her eyes, throbbing incessantly as she tried to focus her thoughts. “I’ll be all right, Nick, really. I just need an early night.” She hadn’t congratulated him on the signing of the contracts with Mike Desmond. That was the reason for the party. She groped for the right words, painfully conscious that the room was beginning to spin.

“You are sure you’ll be okay?” His voice came from far away. “Jo, I’ll look in later. If you’re asleep I won’t disturb you. Take care, my darling…” Darling. He had never called her that before. Smiling in spite of her pain, Jo felt her way almost blindly to the television and turned it on, then she sank onto the sofa in front of it and sat back, her eyes closed, letting the waves of crushing agony beat one by one against the back of her eyelids.

***

Sam came sometime after seven, inserting in the lock of the street door a shiny, newly cut key. It stuck slightly, then it turned and the heavy door swung open. The second key fitted perfectly. He held his breath slightly as he turned it, wondering if she had bolted the door, but it swung open silently and admitted him to the quiet apartment.

He listened. Yes, the TV was on softly, as he had known it would be. After closing the door carefully he slid the bolt home and slotted in the chain. Then he turned into the living room and stood looking down at Jo. She was lying back against the cushions on the sofa, her face white, her eyes closed, oblivious of the violent fistfight between two men going on on the screen before her. Her body was taut with pain.

“Hello, Jo.” Quietly he walked into the room.

She opened her eyes wearily and gave him a faint smile. There was a quick shiver of apprehension, then it was gone. “Are you going to make my headache better?”

Sam nodded. He stood between her and the TV. “You know what I’m going to have to do, Jo.”

“You’re going to hypnotize me again.”

Sam smiled. “Isn’t that what you want?”

She nodded slowly. “But I don’t want to go back into the past, Sam. I don’t want to regress any more…”

She wanted to stand up, but her limbs were too heavy. They would not obey her. She looked up at him helplessly.

“Were you really William?” she asked slowly. “Or did you just choose him?”

Was there a hint of a smile behind his eyes? Sam was feeling in his pocket. He produced a cassette and, moving across to the stereo, he inserted it into the player. The soft strains of the flute cut across the muted wail of a police siren on the screen in the corner.

“We do not choose our destinies, Joanna. They are given to us,” he said. He folded his arms. “It’s time to take you back. You shake your head. Poor Jo. You are already halfway there. You hear the music? You cannot resist the music, Jo. It takes you into the past. It takes you back to John. It takes you back to the king who has ordered you to be shackled like a common criminal and brought before him on your knees…”

38

John was sitting by the fire in one of the side chambers above the hall when the prisoners, still ragged and damp from the sea and the rain, were brought before him.

He turned in his chair without comment as the three women and Will, reunited at last, stood before him and their guards fell back. Matilda raised her head and looked the king full in the eye for a moment, then proudly, without lowering her head, she knelt before him. The others followed suit, and she could hear, with a sudden snap of irritation, that Mattie had begun to sniff again. No one spoke.

The king held his hands out to the fire and began to rub them slowly together, not taking his eyes from Matilda’s face. “So,” he said at last. “We meet again.”

She was the first, eventually, to look away, dropping her gaze to the border of his mantle, which brushed gently in the rushes around his chair. He stood up so abruptly she had to force herself to remain still and not flinch backward as he came to stand above her. He was so close she could smell the oil of lavender in his hair. The room was silent save for the rattle of rain against the window screens and the occasional hiss as drops fell into the glowing embers on the hearth.

She thought for a moment he was going to touch her, but he moved away again, walking over to the table that had been drawn up against the far wall of the room. It was laden with parchments and books and held the king’s pens and ink. He picked up a letter and unfolded it slowly as he turned back to the prisoners who remained kneeling by the fire. His face was hard.

“Prince Llewelyn has, it appears, thought fit to join your husband, my lady, in making trouble for me in Wales.” His voice was icy. “That is unfortunate.” He strode back to the fire, the letter still in his hand. “Unfortunate for you, that is, if your husband persists in his rebellion when he knows that I hold hostages.”

Matilda clenched her fists together nervously, very conscious of the iron fetters that encircled her wrists. She swallowed. “Will you give me the chance to raise the money to pay my husband’s debts, sire?” Her voice came out huskily and too quiet. She wasn’t sure if he had even heard her. Mattie and Will, side by side, were completely silent.

“Your Grace,” she tried again, a little louder. “Before we fled from Hay I was able to put by a little money and some jewelry. I am sure with the help of our friends and my other sons we could raise some of the money we owe. If Your Grace would accept that as a start and—”

Her voice trailed away as he turned from the fire at last and looked down at her.

“It is no longer only a matter of money, Lady Matilda.”

“I will persuade William to give himself up to you. And on his behalf I can surrender all the de Braose lands…” She could not keep the note of pleading from her voice and, though she despised herself for it, the anguish in her tone was real.

“Your lands, my lady, are no longer yours to surrender,” he said sharply. He looked from Margaret to Will and Mattie behind her suddenly. “It appears that Ireland has become a nest of traitors. The lands of the Lacys are all confiscated too, your husband’s, Lady Margaret, and those of his brother. It is as well for them, perhaps, that they seem to have escaped, for if either of them show themselves again, their lives might well be forfeit.” He spoke quietly. Margaret shrank behind her mother as the king’s cold eyes fixed on her for a moment. Then he threw the letter down on his chair, talking half to himself, half to them. “I shall subdue Ireland. Every man here shall acknowledge me as king or I shall know the reason why. And when I return to Wales, make no mistake, I shall reduce that country—and its princes too—to ashes if I must…Guards! “ He raised his voice for the first time. Their escort sprang forward and the king eyed them critically. “Take the prisoners away,” he ordered.

Matilda began to rise to her feet, awkward and stiff after kneeling for so long. To her surprise he stepped forward and held out his hand to help her. But his face was grim. “I shall consider your offer of money, Lady Matilda, but I feel that nothing short of the full amount of forty thousand will do now. And that may not be enough. Meanwhile you and your family will remain my prisoners. We leave Carrickfergus tomorrow, and you will travel with us back to Dublin.”

***

The king sent for Matilda only after they had been encamped for several days at Dublin. She was brought to his tent, which had been set up in the midst of his army overlooking Dublin Bay, and appeared before him in midmorning, leaning on the arm of the tall knight who had been appointed her escort. The king had ordered her fetters removed when they had reached Kells, and she and Margaret and Mattie had been allowed serving women and provided with fresh linen and hot water, but Matilda was very tired.

There was no compassion in his face as the king looked at her. “The sheriff of Hereford has written to tell me that your husband has now attacked one of my castles. He requests my instructions and begs me to declare this man, once for all, outlawed. William has gone too far this time, Lady Matilda.”

She went pale. Her escort had withdrawn from the tent and she felt suddenly weak, standing alone before the king. She half glanced around, hoping to see a stool. Finding nothing to sit on, she slowly sank to her knees.

“Give us one more chance,” she whispered. “See, I beg you on my knees. Somehow I will find the money. I will make William submit. He will surrender. Only give us the chance to talk to him.”

John pushed back his chair with an exasperated exclamation. “It seems to me we’ve had this conversation before. How many chances must I give this man?”

“Sire, I know where I can find the money,” Matilda rushed on desperately, hardly taking note of what she said. “I have thought about it much and I am sure I can raise it. I know I can. Let me see him again. Please, Your Grace, give me that one chance.”

John turned away. He went to stand at the door of the tent looking out toward the dazzling blue of the sea. Far out on the edge of the haze three small boats sailed slowly northward, trailing their nets. He watched them abstractedly for a moment, chewing his nails. Then suddenly he swung round. “Why do I find it so hard, even now, to refuse your pleas?”

For a moment she thought his face betrayed a hint of pity, but it was already gone when he spoke again. “Very well, one last chance. But this time I must have your promise in writing.” He stepped to the desk and, reaching for his bell, summoned one of the chancery clerks. “An agreement; Matilda de Braose, the Lady of Hay, agrees to pay a fine of fifty—yes, fifty, you must pay for my patience—fifty thousand marks to the royal exchequer before”—he hesitated, counting on his fingers—“before Lammas next. That gives you a year, my lady. You will sign the document and on reaching Wales your husband will sign it too. You and your family will remain in my custody until your husband pays me the first installment. That is the last time I intend to discuss this matter. It seems to me that I have already been too lenient.” He leaned forward, watching the clerk laboriously copying out the formal words of the document. “I mean to see the barons of this country learn to respect me, Matilda, whoever gets hurt in the process. I’ll not be played with, remember that. You tell your sons and your precious friends the Lacys and the Earl Marshall and all William’s cronies that if they defy me and compound treasons against the crown they will find out just how strong an arm their sovereign has. I’ll not see the safety of the realm endangered.” He bent and snatched the finished parchment from the clerk, who was blowing on the ink. “I’ve reduced Ireland and now I’ll reduce Wales.” He took the pen from the clerk and held it out to Matilda, who rose to her feet with some difficulty. “And you had better pray that this time your husband respects this agreement, because I shall hold you and your son accountable, if necessary with your lives.”

Matilda took the pen, glancing at his face as she did so. Two red spots of anger glowed on his cheekbones and his mouth was set in an uncompromising line as he stared down at the document before them. She felt the cold black shadow of fear hovering over her heart as she blinked back the sudden scalding tears. “Please, Holy Mother,” she whispered as she dipped the pen in the ink, “let William come to the king.” Her hand shook as she carefully wrote her name at the end of the lines of black, crabbed writing. Then she let the pen fall.

***

They landed at Fishguard on the northern coast of the Pembroke Peninsula two days later. It was raining. Matilda scarcely noticed the route they took, sunk as she was in misery and fear. Her eyes remained lowered, dully taking in the streaming chestnut mane of the mare she rode. For several miles she worried a burr out of the tangled wet hair, twisting it in her fingers, watching unfeeling as tiny spots of blood sprang up on her skin to be washed away almost at once by the rain.

As soon as they had landed the king had dispatched riders to take her message to William, if they could find him in the high fastnesses of Elfael, bidding him come to ratify his wife’s agreement.

“You fool, Mother,” Will had said. “You complete fool. You know he won’t come. If they tell him how much money you’ve promised he’ll run or die of shock, but he won’t come.”

“He will come, he will.” She clenched her fists, gazing at her son’s pale face with such an ache of protective tenderness that for a moment she was unable to go on. Then she gained control. “We have money, Will. Our tenants will raise it for us, and our friends. Reginald and the Lacys must have reached France and Giles. There are so many who can help us, my dear. And there is the money I hid. It will be there still.”

“Did you tell Father where it was hidden?”

Matilda shrank at the bitterness in her son’s voice, but she shook her head. “He could not find it, even if I had. It is in a secret place in the mountains. I think I would have to go there again myself to be sure…”

“And, even then, you might not find it, Mother dear.” His voice was gentle again suddenly. He kissed her forehead lightly. “It seems to me that we must pray for a miracle.”

***

It was at Bristol Castle on the feast of St. Eustace that the prisoners were summoned at last to the great hall after the evening meal was over. John was listening to the carolers who had arrived from Gloucester. He sat on his great chair, his legs stuck out in front of him, a goblet of wine still in his hand.

“It appears your obedient husband has decided to accede to your wish, Lady Matilda,” he called loudly as soon as he saw her. A hush fell over the crowded hall and Matilda drew herself up, feeling hundreds of eyes on her as she walked slowly toward the dais and waited, her eyes lowered. John gestured at one of the servants and he ran, bowing, to a door.

The two men had obviously been waiting just outside, for they came in at once, hastening to the dais, where both went down on one knee. Matilda saw with a sudden lurch of her heart that one of them was William. He did not look at her, and she saw his surcoat and tunic were torn and mud-splashed and his beard unkempt. The old, unhealthy pallor had returned to his cheeks.

John rose, belching slightly as he moved, and set his cup down. He clicked his fingers at a clerk, who brought forward a parchment, which Matilda recognized at once as the one she had signed only weeks before, in Dublin.

“You agree, I take it, Sir William, to your wife’s terms.” John spoke curtly. “Fifty thousand marks she has promised. You realize that?”

William nodded almost imperceptibly. Still he did not look at her. “Then you will sign the agreement?” John stood and watched as pen and ink were brought to William. Then the de Braose seal was produced from his companion’s pouch. There wasn’t a sound in the great hall as the red wax dropped slowly onto the parchment, the pungent smell for a moment stronger even than the aroma of food and fire and candles and the strong smell of sweat that came from the lower tables of the hall. There was a hiss as the seal met the wax and the clerk carefully removed the document and passed it to the king. John waved it away. “Enough. I want to hear the singers. The first installment, Sir William, by the feast of St. Agnes, and”—he shot his head forward suddenly, his eyes blazing—“not one day later.”

They were all ushered from the hall as the minstrels struck up a merry tune for the king.

Outside in the icy ward Matilda flung herself at her husband as he turned away toward the stables. “William, will you not even greet me? Surely you’re allowed to talk to me before you go? For pity’s sake!”

He turned back and looked at her, his face blank. “What am I to say, Moll? I have to go to find this money. There is so little time.”

Matilda threw herself at him, clinging. The guards made no attempt to stop her. “It’s not so much, the first installment. Ten thousand marks, that’s all, my dear. The marshall will help and Reginald and Giles, of course. You must write to them at once, and our friends in the Marches. Please, William. You will try?”

“Mother.” Will was behind her suddenly, his hand on her arm. “Mother, come into the warm. My father knows what to do.”

“You do know, William? You will do it? There’s so little time. Oh, my dear, you will help me…” She was sobbing now, still clinging to him.

William turned away, shaking her off. “I’ve told you, woman. I’ll do what I can. What else can I say?” A gust of wind blew his cloak open as a groom brought two horses forward and the guard closed in on Will and Matilda, beginning to hustle them toward the corner tower where they were lodged.