Lady of Hay

  “You sound as though you dislike the king’s youngest son,” Matilda said cautiously, lowering her voice again.

  Gerald shrugged. “One does not like or dislike. He offered me two bishoprics there. But I want St. David’s, so I declined them.” He smiled ruefully. “He is young yet, but he is spoiled. I think he is intelligent and shrewd, but he showed himself no campaigner in Ireland. Perhaps Normandy will teach him something.”

  He turned and waved a page forward, holding out his cup to be refilled with wine. “But now, with two of his elder brothers dead, John becomes a man of importance. He is nearer the throne now than he might ever have hoped. His father is old, Geoffrey’s son is a child.” He shook his head mournfully. “And Prince Richard is not yet married, in spite of all. John may yet come to be a force to be reckoned with.”

  Matilda shivered. “I don’t trust him.”

  Gerald smiled at her shrewdly. “Nor I, my dear. We shall just have to hope that maturity will bring better counsel.” He folded his napkin and placed it on the table. “Now let us speak of pleasanter things. Tell me how your family are. What is the news here?”

  Matilda frowned, troubled again. “There I need your advice. You spoke with the Prince Rhys ap Gruffydd yesterday. Is he a good man, do you think?”

  Gerald frowned. “A strange question. As you said, he vowed to take up the cross.” He smiled at her. “And his son-in-law, Einion, too. I remember you feared him once, for your children’s sake.” He put his hand on hers as it lay on the table. “But it’s not just that, I can see. What troubles you, my lady?”

  “He and William have been discussing an alliance.” She looked down at the white cloth, her mouth set in a hard line. “He wants my little Matilda as wife for his son Gruffydd. William has told me that whatever he thinks of the Welsh he will agree. It is the king’s wish.”

  Gerald shrugged. “Gruffydd,” he mused, “is named his father’s heir. He’s not as handsome as his brother Cwnwrig, but he’s tall and strong and he’s able to cope with the quarrels with his brothers. They fight endlessly, you know, the sons of Rhys. They turn the poor man white-haired with worry. He’d probably make the child a good husband.”

  “I’m afraid for her, Gerald. I have kept my children safe from Einion and from the rest of Seisyll’s kinsmen and now I’m to be asked to give her to Rhys with my own hands.” She turned to him, suddenly passionate. “Swear to me, Archdeacon. Will she be safe?”

  Gerald raised his hand placatingly. “How can I swear? I know Rhys to be a man of excellent wit. He’s honest, discreet, I believe him to be sincere in his quest for peace. More than that I can’t say, although he is my cousin. He wants this marriage obviously to seal this uneasy peace we have on the borders, to make sure the galanas never reappears between your houses. I suspect the power of de Braose is the nearest challenge to his, so he is anxious to secure a peace with you. What better way than by marriage? But all you can have is his promise. It is more than many mothers get.”

  He glanced down the hall to where ten-year-old Matilda ate at one of the lower tables with her nurse. Her two eldest brothers, William and Giles, were pages now in neighboring households, as was the custom, while Reginald, her third brother, hovered at a high table proudly serving the archbishop. Matilda’s two youngest children, Isobel and Margaret, were in the nursery lodgings in the west tower. They were a happy, healthy brood of children, some of whom Gerald himself had baptized. He glanced fondly at their mother. She was a young woman, still no more than twenty-six or seven, he guessed, as erect and slim as ever in spite of all the children. He watched her for a moment as she too gazed down the hall at Matilda. It was a miracle that she had not as yet had to bear the grief of the death of a child. He sent up a brief prayer that she would never be broken by such a loss.

  Matilda’s gaze went down through the smoky torch-lit hall to fix on her daughter’s face and, as if feeling her mother’s scrutiny, little Tilly raised her eyes. They were clear, almost colorless gray. For a long moment mother and daughter looked at one another. Then Tilly turned away.

  Matilda felt her heart tighten beneath her ribs. Always that indifference, that unspoken rejection.

  Her thoughts spiraled back to Jeanne, all those years before. It is the child herself who will betray your secret. But how could she, when she didn’t know?

  Matilda bit her lip. In the last ten long years she had seen to it that she and Richard had never again been alone together. She had ignored the longing in his eyes and fiercely resisted the anguished burning of her own body. There was no way that Tilly could ever have guessed how much her mother loved the courteous, handsome visitor who from time to time came to see them at one or other of their castles.

  “You sigh, my lady.” Gerald brought her attention gently back to himself. “There is no need. I feel sure Gruffydd will be kind to her.”

  Matilda forced herself to smile. She nodded. “You are right, of course, Archdeacon.” She felt his eyes probing hers and immediately her wary fear returned that he could read her thoughts; that he might even suspect that Tilly wasn’t William’s child. Desperately she tried to distract him, suddenly very afraid.

  “Tell me, Archdeacon, do you intend to write a book about your trip around Wales with His Grace, the Archbishop?” she asked quietly. “It would make a fascinating account, I feel sure. You could include that shameful scene in the churchyard at St. Mary’s this afternoon.” She smiled and saw at once that the bait was taken. His eyes lit up and he was leaning toward her, his face intense with excitement.

  Surreptitiously she glanced back toward her eldest daughter’s table. Sure enough, the huge gray eyes were once more focused on her mother’s face. This time Matilda saw not indifference in the child’s face, but fear and—was it longing?

  ***

  The candlelight was flickering in her eyes. Angrily she raised her hand to her face, shielding it as she turned back to Gerald, but he wasn’t there. A figure was kneeling before her in the sunlight, camera raised. She blinked.

  “Tim?”

  “Welcome back.” He took another picture and then reluctantly lowered the camera.

  “How long have I been sitting here?”

  “About an hour.”

  “I was at dinner…”

  “With Giraldus Cambrensis. I am very impressed with your friends.”

  Jo stared at him. “How do you know?”

  “I asked you where you were. You seemed to hear me quite clearly. You talked very logically, describing what happened here in the churchyard—the riot and the way the archbishop had to race back to the castle, and the incident where a man tried to get through the gate to give his oath to take up the cross and only made it at the cost of losing his trousers—” He chuckled. “You know of course that Gerald took your advice. He wrote an account of his trip through Wales—the Itinerary, it’s called. It is still in print today.” He grinned.

  “And you photographed me?”

  “That is what I’m here for, Jo.”

  She bit her lip. “It makes me feel so vulnerable.”

  “Only your expression.”

  “Did I talk about my daughter?”

  “You did.” Tim stood up abruptly, dusting the grass from his knees. “The child who made a cuckold of de Braose.”

  Jo started visibly. “I said that?”

  “You must have, love, mustn’t you?” His voice was very dry. “Imagine little Tilly going to marry a Welsh prince.”

  “If she did.” Jo rose stiffly from her uncomfortable seat on the old tombstone. “My grandfather reckoned the Cliffords were descended from a Welsh prince, Tim. Perhaps that is how it happened. Perhaps after all, Matilda was an ancestor of mine. Matilda and Richard de Clare!” She paused for a moment, savoring the thought.

  Tim smiled almost wistfully. “And you are pleased that you can still go back into the past?”

  She nodded. “I have to find out what happened. Whether Tilly married Rhys’s son. In a way I hope she did. I’m b
eginning to feel rather pro-Welsh—I like the idea that I could be descended from a prince. Perhaps I could call David Pugh and ask him to look it up in his books. I promised I would call them while we were down here. But dear God! To sacrifice such a child to dynastic ambition. It was cruel.”

  “You said she was a strange little girl?”

  Jo nodded. “She was distant. Cold. Self-possessed. Not like the boys who romped around like puppies. Yet not like Richard either.” She glanced up at him with a rueful little smile.

  “Did William ever find out she wasn’t his?”

  Jo shrugged. “I can’t see into the future, Tim. It doesn’t say so in the books that I know of, but I can’t believe that he didn’t guess. She was so different from the others. So fair.”

  “And Richard was fair?”

  Jo nodded. “Fairish.”

  “And you are still fond of him?”

  “Matilda, you mean? She still loved him.” Her voice betrayed sudden pain. “That was why Tilly was so special.” She picked a stem of soft creamy meadowsweet from the long grass near her, twisting it between her fingers.

  Tim was watching her with half-closed eyes. “Where does Nick fit into all this, Jo?” he asked suddenly.

  She stared at him. “Nick? He has nothing to do with it.”

  “Are you sure?” He began to lead the way slowly through the grass toward the wrought-iron gates that led out of the churchyard into the road. “I think he is involved—I think he is also living again. As I am, Jo.”

  She stopped dead. “Is that why you went to see Bill Walton? To see if you had lived at the same time as me?”

  Tim nodded slowly.

  “But you said it didn’t work.”

  “That wasn’t quite true, Jo. I didn’t go into a full-blown regression like you, but something did happen. It’s not the first time, you see. I’ve had a feeling for a long time that I’ve lived before. Not just once, but many times. I’ve read a lot about it—particularly about Buddhism—and I’ve been taught to meditate and to try to contact my past incarnations through meditation. The Tim Heacham no one knows!” His smile did not quite reach his eyes. “I thought it might help me to come to terms with the present if I could find myself in the past. I went to see Bill to see if he could make things a bit clearer.”

  “And did he?” Jo whispered.

  He shook his head. “I went back twice after I went with you, hoping he could sort me out. But my alter egos or whatever you like to call them were too angry, too unforgiving, to emerge peacefully.” He snapped off a frond from a sweeping branch of yew as they walked slowly past it. “My previous incarnations were full of anguish, Jo. Full of failure and betrayal.”

  “But who were you?” Jo was staring at him. “Why don’t I recognize you?”

  Tim grinned bitterly. “Perhaps because we were not destined to play a part together. Then or now.”

  “And you think Nick is?”

  Tim eyed her silently. Then he nodded.

  Jo swallowed nervously. “Nick’s been behaving very strangely. I wonder if he suspects.”

  “He would have to be very unimaginative not to.”

  “Who was he, Tim?”

  Tim shrugged. “You have the cast list, not me. The only thing we both know is that you don’t seem to resemble Matilda physically all that much. You’re not her double or anything—at least, not as far as you know, are you?”

  Jo smiled. “Well, I’m not eight feet tall, as David said she was!”

  “But your hair, your eyes. If you were in a film, would you and she be played by the same actress?”

  “I don’t know. I’m darker, I think. Matilda’s hair was much brighter—almost auburn. I don’t know about her eyes. I don’t remember ever staring at myself in a mirror for long—the mirrors weren’t very good, anyway. They were metal, not glass. You’d have to ask someone.”

  “Richard de Clare?” He smiled gravely.

  She laughed. “Well, not William, that’s for sure. Oh, Tim, I’m not the right person for this to happen to! I’ve no sense of destiny. I think karma and kismet and things like that are a load of bullshit. Easy ways out. ‘If it’s destiny, then there’s nothing I can do about it.’ That’s a copout. Not for me.”

  “And, of course, you have never had the feeling that you’ve been here before.”

  “Never! I don’t believe in sentiment and woolly romanticism, Tim. I’m Jo Clifford, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” He rumpled her hair affectionately. “So you mean to fight destiny if it dares to rear its woolly romantic head in your direction?”

  Jo nodded emphatically. Then she frowned. “You think it will?”

  He nodded, not smiling. “I think it already has, Jo. I think the cast is assembling. We know that something pretty grim happened to Matilda. She was betrayed by her husband and by her friends and she was murdered, probably at the king’s orders. Maybe—just maybe—her soul has been crying out for justice.”

  “Tim!” Jo stared at him, appalled. She shuddered. “You’re not serious!”

  For a moment he said nothing, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of them as they turned out of the churchyard and followed the wall toward the town center, then he grinned. “It’s a hell of a dramatic theme for your book!”

  “It’s horrible. It’s grotesque. You think you’re here for me to get my revenge on you? You and who else, for God’s sake? Who do you think Nick was?”

  “I told you, I don’t know. Forget it, Jo! Calm down. I was only joking.”

  “You weren’t. You were damn serious. So tell me. Who else is involved?”

  He shrugged. “I really can’t even guess. Perhaps Judy? Perhaps Bet? People you know. Pete Leveson?”

  “And Nick.”

  He nodded. “And Nick.”

  “And you think Matilda is out for revenge, through me?”

  Tim stopped. He caught her arms and spun her around so the sun was shining directly into her face. For several seconds he stared at her intently, then released her. “No. No, I don’t think she is. I think you are as helpless in this as the rest of us.” He touched her cheek gently with his finger.

  ***

  “I was sorry to hear about the Desco account.” Bet met Nick’s gaze challengingly in the dim light of the saloon bar. Behind him along the edge of the canopy over the beer pumps a line of pewter tankards gleamed softly. They swung gently in unison as a tall head brushed against one and the burnished surfaces winked and rippled.

  Nick inclined his head slightly. “I hope to be replacing it almost at once.”

  Bet smiled. “I’ve no doubt you will. But you must keep a tighter rein on that partner of yours.”

  Nick frowned. There were taut lines of strain around his eyes. He looked pale and tired. “It was bad luck, Bet. No more.”

  “There’s no room for bad luck in this game, Nick. You know that as well as I do. Tell me.” She changed the subject almost too abruptly. “How is Jo?”

  She was watching him closely but his expression gave nothing away. He raised his glass slowly. “As far as I know she is well.”

  “Some time ago you asked me to suppress an article she wanted to write.”

  Nick swallowed his drink and put the glass down, fitting it meticulously into the wet ring it had left on the table. He smiled coldly. “A request you saw fit to ignore.”

  “I am Jo’s editor, Nick. Not her wet nurse. If she wants to write something and I think it is good, I’ll publish it. It is good. Damn good. And you know it.”

  “Good for the circulation of W I A maybe.” Nick’s eyes narrowed suddenly, and, meeting his gaze, Bet felt herself shiver. “You’re a selfish bitch, Bet Gunning,” Nick went on. There was no venom in his voice, but nevertheless she shifted uneasily in her seat.

  “No. I’m a damn good editor.”

  “Maybe. I’m glad I’m not one of your writers.”

  “You could be.” She held his gaze steadily. “Your version of what’s happening to Jo.”
>
  For a moment she thought he hadn’t heard her. His eyes seemed to be looking straight through her, then abruptly he beckoned the bartender. He ordered new drinks for them both.

  “Where is Jo?” he said at last.

  She drew her new glass toward her. “Out of London.”

  “Did she tell you what happened?”

  “Between you? Yes.”

  “And you believed her, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Are you going to tell me where she is?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll try to find her, you know.”

  “She’s working, Nick. Give her a break. She’s a first-rate journalist and her work is important to her. So is finding out about this Lady Matilda. You can’t stop her. She is going to the top and either you’ve got to learn to live with it, or you’ve got to find yourself another woman.”

  Nick was watching her thoughtfully. “And you are available?”

  She smiled. “I could be.”

  “What about Tim Heacham? I thought you and he were living together.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve cooked him Saturday supper and Sunday lunch from time to time. It amused us both, but he’s got other arrangements at the moment.” She smiled knowingly. Then she leaned forward and put her hand on his knee. “Shall I cook you dinner this evening?”

  “Not this evening, Bet.” He smiled faintly. “I’m flattered and of course I’m tempted, but just at the moment I have other plans. And they involve Jo.”

  Bet moved away from him slightly. “So. Do you love her?”

  He didn’t reply immediately.

  “She’s with Tim. But of course you’d guessed that,” she said softly. She watched for his reaction through narrowed eyes.

  He gave a half smile. “She’s not interested in Tim. If he’s with her it’s for work. Are they in Hay?”

  “You’re not thinking of going down there?” Bet was watching his eyes. The harshness had returned and it made her uneasy.