There wasn’t much left of the castle. A mound and an ivy-covered fragment of wall, that was all, but she was used to that now. She climbed the worn staircase carefully and stood staring out across the rooftops toward the vivid toothed outline of the Beacons. Yes, this view she did remember; the outline in the mist and the sunset behind that faraway bastion of mountains. She dug her nails into the stone blocks of the wall, then, taking a deep, relaxing breath, she deliberately began to empty her mind.
***
The room was dark and there was a pounding in her temples. She tried to raise her head, then, with a groan, let it fall back on the pillows, lights flashing and searing behind her eyelids. She lay, exhausted, for what seemed a long time, then dazedly she realized there were people in the room with her. Someone helped her to vomit and she lay back again, a cool wet cloth across her burning forehead. She heard Elen’s voice, alternately scolding and soothing, and a man’s voice intoning something. Was it prayers or a magic charm? She tried to concentrate, but her mind slipped away and wandered again.
Two men in Aberhonddu had died of the plague and one of William’s clerks had succumbed, with suppurating boils beneath his armpits. She had visited him, holding a bunch of rue to her nose, and laid a gentle hand on his forehead, trying to ease his pain, before they realized what illness it was that had struck him down.
The summer was cursed. No rain had fallen. The harvest was failing. Heat shimmered and hung over the mountains like an oppressive cloud. Lord Rhys was dead. His sons still fought one another ceaselessly and Gruffydd was imprisoned now at Corfe. There was no news of Tilda, nor of the little son that Gerald had told them she had borne. No news…no news…
Desperately she called for her nurse, but Jeanne did not come, and Matilda could feel the tears wet on her cheek as the delirium swept her once more into darkness.
A cursed summer. A summer where William had quarreled with Trehearne Vaughan, her kind, scholarly friend, their neighbor at Hay, the man who had given her her Welsh bard, a kinsman of the Welsh princes. His face floated in and out of her dreams with William’s. William who never came. William, who kept away from the plague-bound castle and left her to her fate.
It was a long while later that she woke and, for a time, looked around. The pain in her head seemed to have eased for a moment and then she became conscious of the terrible burning in her groin. She groaned and closed her eyes. It had been dark beyond the unshuttered window, but the flickering light from the sconce by her bed seared her eyes; the room was pungent with burning herbs from a brazier. She tried to call out and tell them all to go away—to leave her, to save her children, her babies—but her tongue was swollen and dry in her mouth and no words came. One or two angry tears squeezed out between her swollen eyelids and she slid once more into a half-sleeping dream. When she awoke again her bed was wet with sweat and vomit and there seemed to be no one there to help her. “They have left me to die.” The whole of her left side pained her and there was an agonizing cutting pain beneath her arm now as well as on her side.
“Christ! Christ, be with me!” This time she managed a whisper, but at once someone was there, sponging her face. “Be brave, Mother dear. You will be well.” It was Margaret’s voice, shaking, pleading. “Please, Mother. You must get well.” The girl was bending over her, trying to ease away the foul pillow. Matilda heard herself scream as the girl jarred her body and she saw the terror in Margaret’s eyes. Then she saw nothing more.
When she next awoke it must have been dawn. The sconces had gone out and the brazier was cold. A pale light was beginning to filter through the unshuttered window opposite the bed, and she could hear the clear, joyful caroling of a thrush from the rowan tree outside in the bailey. She lay quite still, shivering beneath the damp covers, wondering where she was. The room smelled terrible. She tried to lick her lips, but her tongue was too dry. She could feel the sticky pus running down beneath her arm and shoulder. After closing her eyes, she drifted into an uneasy sleep. She did not know it yet, but her indomitable body had won the battle against the plague.
As soon as she was strong enough, she sat in the high arched window of her solar, looking down toward the town and out across the river to the mountains. It worried her that her legs were feeble and unsteady still, but it was pleasant to lose herself for a while in the broad view, resting from her study of the accounts and figures that she had had brought to her bedside. The people of Aberhonddu had suffered terribly from their losses in the plague and the poor harvest, and she knew that they and all her vast estates faced untold hardships, if not starvation, in the coming winter. With her hand pressed to her aching forehead she tried once again to calculate how the meager contents of the granaries within the castle and its farms could be made to stretch.
Her eye was caught suddenly by a flurry of activity near the Honddu Bridge and she sat forward with interest. A small group of horsemen seemed to be waiting there, stirring the dust on the roadway as their impatient animals pawed the ground. Then she saw for whom they were waiting. A party of men-at-arms were riding two by two up the track from the east. Before them, clearly recognizable under his banner, rode William, his surcoat emblazoned with the rising eagle, shimmering in the sun, the black horse on which he rode prancing slightly, resenting the firmly held rein.
The party on the bridge rode forward to meet him and for a moment the two groups of horsemen drew to a halt, facing each other in the dusty road.
Matilda passed her hands over her eyes again, sighing. Her sight had seemed weaker since her illness and all this peering into the glare gave her a headache. She thought at first the flashes of light catching her vision were from her own head but then, with a shock, she realized they came from the sunlight reflecting on drawn swords. She leaned forward suddenly, her heart thumping, and the accounts slid unheeded from her knees to the floor.
The smaller group of men were being beaten back toward the bridge and they seemed to be fighting for their lives. She tried to follow William, lost sight of him, then saw him again. He was determinedly fighting one man, the leader of the other group. Then suddenly it was all over. The man was disarmed. Matilda saw his sword fly, at William’s savage stroke, in a great arc, flashing in the sunlight as it fell into the undergrowth by the side of the road. The man was dragged from his horse and his hands bound behind him. Then the victors remounted and at a yell from William set off at the gallop toward the bridge. The man tried desperately to run with them, lost his balance and fell, to be dragged mercilessly behind the horses of his captors. Matilda watched, sickened, until they were out of sight at the gates of the township, and then she turned from the window. So William had come back.
Elen dressed her in her scarlet surcoat as she asked and then went down to find Dai, a shepherd who had come in from the hills to sell his flocks to the drovers and had stayed, working for a while, in the stables of the castle. Somehow it had become his self-appointed task to carry Matilda up and down the steep, winding stairs to her solar and out into the herb garden whenever she required, handling her with such gentleness and ease that she had grown dependent on him in her weakness, although she knew he pined for his hills and would long since have been gone but for her pleas that he stay.
“I will wait for Sir William in the great hall, Dai bach,” she said with a smile, and she was rewarded with a long slow grin as with a quiet “Ie, fyng arglwyddes” he bent over her.
But William did not come into the hall, although she waited for what seemed like an eternity. When she had almost given up, leaning with closed eyes against the narrow, high-backed carved chair by the hearth, she heard the clatter of hooves and the shouts of men in the bailey outside. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she pushed herself up from the chair to be standing when William appeared.
“A hanging! There’s to be a hanging!”
She heard the excited page call across the hall and saw him scamper out again into the sun. With a quick look over their shoulders in her direction the three men w
ho had been sweeping out the old rushes cast aside their brooms and ran after the page, pushing each other in their haste to leap down the flight of steps outside the hall.
Matilda looked around for Dai but he had gone. The man she had seen must have been some felon William had encountered on his way from Hay and he was going to administer summary justice before bothering to come to greet her. She sighed, thinking of the poor scoundrel she had watched them drag away.
Slowly, with shaking steps, she made her way to the doorway and, clinging to the doorpost for support, looked out at the scene below her in the bailey. The open area between the walls of the keep and the outbuildings that clustered round the outer walls was full of men and horses. Her husband was the only man still mounted. She saw him at once, and near him a soldier on a ladder was easing a rope across a beam that jutted beyond the rough stones of the wall.
She could see no sign of the prisoner. William’s face shocked her. It was cruelly twisted, full of hatred and malice, and though he looked straight at her, she knew that he hadn’t seen her.
She glanced up, shuddering, at the serene sky and at the heavy fruit on the rowan tree growing in the bailey above the teeming, shouting men. The women of the castle had gathered together near the kitchens and gossiped quietly as they waited curiously, their eyes on the crowd of men. Matilda felt a touch on her arm. Margaret was standing behind her. “Come away, Mother. Don’t watch.”
Matilda shrugged her off. “I’ve seen hangings before, child. I was looking for your father.”
A sudden noise, half shout, half sigh, made her turn back to the scene below. They had thrust the prisoner up onto the back of a raw-boned horse and were leading him beneath the noose. His face was covered in mud and blood, but as she glanced at him compassionately, Matilda suddenly gave a gasp.
“It’s Trehearne Vaughan from Clyro! It’s Trehearne,” she cried desperately. “Dear God, is William out of his mind? We’ve got to stop him. Margaret, help me quickly!” She pushed forward, gripping her daughter’s arm.
“William, for Christ’s sake, stop!” she screamed. “Don’t do it! At least take time to decide—” But her cry was lost in the roar of the crowd as, with a thwack on its rump, the horse was sent careering across the cobbles, leaving Trehearne hanging from the beam. His legs kicked violently.
“Cut him down, for God’s sake!” she screamed again above the noise of the crowd. “Oh, God! Oh, God, stop it! Save him!” She never knew how she found the strength to cross the bailey, but at last she was by her husband. “William, you can’t know what you’re doing!” She grabbed at his bridle and his horse reared back, its eyes wild. “Cut him down, for the love of God.” She groped at him frantically, her eyes blinded with tears.
William glanced down at her for a moment unseeing, his face a twisted mask, then suddenly he seemed to realize she was there as she pulled desperately at his mantle. He smiled, and abruptly she stepped back in fear. “Cut him down. A good idea.” He forced his plunging horse toward the man and sliced through the rope with one stroke of his sword. Trehearne fell to the cobbles and lay there twitching, his face swollen and purple beneath the mask of drying blood.
Looking down at him for a moment, William, in the expectant hush around him, suddenly laughed. “I think we’ll have his head,” he said in a tone so quiet that Matilda scarcely heard it. He beckoned and two men-at-arms caught up the spasmodically jerking body and dragged it to the stone mounting block. There, at a nod from William, one of them struck off the man’s head with one blow from his heavy two-edged sword. A great sigh ran round the bailey, followed by a yell and wild cheering.
All around her men and horses had begun to move again, the spectacle over. There was work to be done. Ignoring the fallen trunk of the man and the bloodied head that lay on the cobbles where it had fallen, William reined back his terror-stricken horse and rode past Matilda to the steps of the great hall. Dismounting, he flung his rein to a squire and stamped up into the doorway without a backward glance.
Matilda stood where she was in the middle of the bailey, holding Margaret’s arm. The girl’s face was white and Matilda could see the blue veins in her temples beating wildly. Swallowing with an effort the bitter bile that had risen in her throat, she began slowly to walk back toward the keep, consciously keeping her back straight, forcing her steps one by one as she leaned on Margaret’s shoulder, feeling the curious glances being cast in her direction by the dispersing crowd.
Dai appeared as she reached the steps and, unceremoniously picking her up, carried her back to the chair by the hearth. William was pouring himself wine from the jug on the table.
“Fyng arglwyddes, may I have your permission to return to my hills?” She suddenly realized that Dai was kneeling before her, his face a pasty yellow. “I no longer wish to serve you. I’m sorry, meistress bach. Dioer, you were good to me indeed, you were, but I cannot stay.”
“I understand, Dai.” She sighed. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. “God go with you, my friend.”
She watched him stride toward the doorway, expecting him to turn, but he didn’t. Neither did he so much as acknowledge William’s presence standing behind them. He went out onto the steps without a backward glance and ran down out of sight.
Margaret pressed a goblet of wine into her hand. “Drink this, Mother, you look so pale.” She glanced apprehensively over her shoulder toward her father, but he continued to ignore them, pouring himself another goblet and emptying it down in one gulp.
Matilda turned and looked at him at last. “Did Trehearne really merit such high-handed, barbaric treatment, William?” she asked, her voice trembling.
He set down the goblet with a bang on the trestle. “In my opinion, madam, he did.”
“He seemed to be waiting for you at Aberhonddu.”
“We had arranged to meet there, certainly.” He strode down off the dais. “He seemed to think we could discuss our differences and part friends. Ha! He misjudged me!”
Matilda raised an eyebrow. “So, I think, do a lot of people, William,” she murmured in disgust. “Have you thought of the repercussions that will follow? Trehearne was well liked by others as well as me, and he has powerful kinsmen.”
“So he couldn’t stop telling me. The man blabbed like a coward. He thought you could stop me. He thought Gwenwynwyn would avenge his death and that the Marches will be alight from Chester to Monmouth with revenge for his scrawny bones.” He turned and spat viciously into the rushes. “I doubt if he’s as important as he thinks.
“Page!” he yelled at the boy who was listening, open-mouthed, by the serving screens. “Help me off with my hauberk before I send you after Gwenwynwyn, you imp!” He threw back his head and laughed, then he hurled his goblet at the wall, where it struck and rolled away, dented, into a corner.
Lying taut and sleepless in bed that night next to her snoring husband, Matilda could not close her eyes.
The picture of Trehearne’s pitiful death kept rising before her, and with it the sight of her husband’s laughter. William seemed to care neither for the death of a neighbor and her friend nor for his broken word—for he had, it appeared, given Trehearne safe conduct to travel through his lands—nor for the revenge that would undoubtedly follow. His conceit and his overweening arrogance were complete.
And, though it didn’t seem important anymore, she could not help but notice that he had not once inquired for her health or excused his own flight from Brecknock in the summer. When they had finally gone to bed he had been incapably drunk.
***
There were tears on her cheeks when Jo came to. She remained quite still, leaning against the wall, her eyes fixed on the mighty summit of Pen y Fan, and for a moment she did not dare move, wondering, with a shudder of disgust, if she still had the marks of the plague sores on her body. Then suddenly, below her in the street, she heard some children laughing. The sound acted like a charm, easing away the awful realities of the stench and filth and misery of her trance. She stood upr
ight, feeling the sun beating down on her head. There was a throbbing in her temples and the perspiration trickling down between her shoulder-blades was aggravating the raw whiplash across her back, but other than that there was no pain. She shuddered violently. William had indeed much to answer for.
***
Margiad Griffiths was in the kitchen when Jo arrived back at the house. She glanced at Jo in concern. “There, now, it’s ill you’re looking again, girl,” she said. “Come you in and sit down. And have a glass of my sherry, won’t you? I’m all alone here. You’re doing too much driving up and down, you are. Why don’t you try and stay down here for a bit?”
Jo sat down gratefully on a kitchen chair. “I would like to,” she said. “I’m doing two jobs at once, that’s the trouble.” She sipped the sherry and closed her eyes.
“Do you want to go and have a sleep, girl? I’ll get you some supper later.” Margiad eyed her closely. She could see the exhaustion on Jo’s face, the gray pallor beneath her tanned skin, the lines of pain that had not been there two weeks before when she had first seen her.
Jo shook her head slowly. “Do you believe in destiny, Mrs. Griffiths?”
“Destiny, is it?” Margiad thought for a moment. She pulled out the chair opposite Jo and eased herself into it.
“Fate, you mean? No. I don’t. Life is what you make of it yourself. We’ve no one to blame but ourselves in the end. It’s depressed you are, isn’t it?”
Jo nodded. “I suppose I am.” She reached for the bottle unthinkingly and refilled her empty glass. Margiad, who had not yet sipped her own sherry, said nothing.
“I think I’m being haunted,” Jo said softly.
Lady of Hay Page 57