Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time

‘Hi, it’s Jo. Can I speak to Nick?’ Jo sipped her juice, feeling suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted off the top of her head.

‘Sorry. You’ve just missed him.’ Jane sounded a little too cheerful.

‘When will he be back?’ Jo put down her glass and began to pluck gently at the curled flex of the phone.

‘Hold on. I’ll check.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘He’ll be back on the twelfth.’

‘The twelfth,’ Jo repeated. She sat bolt upright. ‘Where has he gone?’

‘Scotland on Monday and Tuesday, then back and straight over to France on Wednesday morning for a week.’

Jo could hear the smile on Jane’s face.

‘And today and tomorrow?’ Jo could feel her voice turning prickly.

‘Out. Sorry, I don’t know where exactly.’

Jo put down the phone thoughtfully. Then she picked it up again and dialled Judy Curzon.

‘Listen, Judy, I need to see Nick. Will you give him a message please? Tell him I’m seeing Carl Bennet again tomorrow afternoon. That’s Friday – at three. Tell him I’m going to find out what really happened on Sunday, come hell or high water, and if he wants to know he’d better be there. Have you got that?’

There was a long silence on the other end. ‘I’m not a message service,’ Judy replied eventually. Her tone was frosty. ‘I don’t give a screw who you’re going to see tomorrow afternoon, and obviously Nick doesn’t either or you wouldn’t have to ring him here, would you!’

Jo sat looking at the phone for several minutes after Judy rang off, then she smiled. ‘Hoist with your own petard, Miss Clifford,’ she muttered with wry amusement. ‘You walked right into that one!’

‘Pidwch cael ofon.’ The voice spoke to Matilda again as she stood once more outside the moon-silvered walls of Abergavenny. Then it tried in words she understood. ‘Do not be afraid, my lady. I am your friend.’ His French was halting but dimly she recognised before her the dark Welsh boy who had brought her food the night before. But he was no longer afraid; it was her turn for terror.

She did not speak. She felt the hot wetness on her face and she felt him brush the tears away with a gentle hand.

‘You did not know then?’ he stammered. ‘You did not know what was planned at the feast?’

Wordlessly she shook her head.

‘It is not safe for you here, whatever.’ The boy spoke earnestly. ‘My people will seek revenge for the massacre. You must go back into your castle.’

Taking her elbow he tried to turn her back but she found her feet scrabbling agonisingly on the sharp stones of the river path as she fought against him on the slippery ground.

‘No, no. I can’t go back there. I’ll never go back there, never.’ She broke from him and ran a few steps further on, towards the moon. Before it lay the mountains.

‘Where will you go then?’ The boy caught up with her in three strides and stood in front of her again.

‘I don’t know. I don’t care.’ She looked around desperately.

‘I will take you to Tretower.’ The boy spoke, suddenly making up his mind. ‘You will be safe there.’ He took her firmly by the hand and strode out along the river and in a daze, oblivious of her torn and bleeding feet, she followed him.

She never knew how long she stumbled on behind him. At one point her strength gave way and she sank onto the ground unable to go further along the steep rough bank of the river. The water ran mockingly pure and silver near her as though no blood had ever stained it. Bending she scooped some of it, icy and clean, into her mouth and then she lay back on the wet grass, her eyes closed.

The boy came back for her and coaxed and pleaded, but she was unable to rise. Her back pained spasmodically. She realised suddenly that she was going to lose her baby and she was glad.

The boy tugged at her hand, begging her to go with him, continually glancing over his shoulder, obviously worried that they were being followed, and then suddenly he seemed to give up the struggle and he disappeared as quickly and silently as he had come.

He has left me to die, she thought, but she was past feeling any fear. She tried to recite the Paternoster, but the words would not come in the right order and she gave up. How would God ever find his way again to this country? she wondered bleakly, and she closed her eyes to shut out the silver trail of the moon in the water.

But the boy returned with a shaggy mountain pony and somehow he helped her onto it. They forded a narrow river, the pony picking its way sure-footed through water shadowed now by stark overhanging branches entangled with clinging ivy. They passed the dark shape of Crickhowell Castle in the night, but she did not see it and the boy, apart from detouring slightly to avoid it, did not acknowledge its presence. Somewhere once a vixen screamed and Matilda clutched the pony’s mane as it shied. They left the river and travelled through black unfriendly forest and over hills where the country was silent except for the occasional lonely hoot of an owl and the wind in the branches of the trees. Closing her eyes she rode in a daze of pain and fatigue, not caring where she went or what he intended doing with her. Beneath her the pony, confident even in the dark, followed the boy at a steady pace, slowly climbing through the misty rain.

Then she opened her weary eyes in the cold dawn and saw the keep of Tretower at last in the distance. She knew dimly that they must have been seen and been followed by the people of the forest, but for some reason she had been spared. The boy who held her bridle had been her talisman. He turned as they neared the tower and she studied his face in the colourless light.

He smiled up at her, a sad, fond, smile. Then he pointed. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘There will be your friends. Go with God and be safe, meistress.’ He released her bridle and he was gone, gliding back into the woods on silent feet.

The pony stumbled on some rocks as she guided it as fast as she dared along the winding track towards the castle in the broad valley. She fixed her eye on the tower and refused to look to left or right as her mount carried her at a shambling trot along the path. To her surprise the drawbridge was down and she rode across unchallenged. Had everyone gone mad? Did they not know that the warring Welsh must be everywhere?

There was a veil of blood before her eyes as she sat astride her mount in the courtyard of the castle. She didn’t dare try to slip from the saddle. The beast hung its head, its flanks heaving, and nuzzled a blown wisp of hay. There appeared to be no one there.

Then, slowly, as though from a great distance, people came. She heard voices and saw lights and she recognised the clanking sound of a bridge being raised behind her. Hands pulled at her dress. People took the reins, gripped her arms, tried to ease her off the horse. The air was full of the sound of someone sobbing and dimly she realised it was her own voice she could hear.

‘Do not distress yourself, my dear.’ Bennet sat down beside Jo and gently put his hand on hers. His foot touched the small microphone on the floor and it fell over with a rattle. He did not notice. He was staring down at her hand which was ice cold and covered in chilblains.

‘Is she all right?’ Sarah came over and knelt beside them.

After a moment’s hesitation he nodded. ‘Go on, my lady. What happened next?’

Jo withdrew her hand gently from his, rubbing it painfully as she stared past him into the room, her eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance, far away.

‘I stayed there at Tretower with the Picards,’ she said slowly. ‘They put me to bed and cared for me and my pains stopped. I was not to lose the baby after all. William sent after me. I was too ill to be moved then, so Nell came with my baggage from Abergavenny. But William did not come.’

Christmas came and was over. Thick snows fell and melted into the swift running Rhian Goll. Ice locked its water, thawed and it flowed again.

Slowly, almost unnoticeably, her belly began to swell. The child inside her was doubly cursed by its father’s name and by the scene she had witnessed that terrible night and she still wanted to lose it. But it grew and seemed to flourish. She wanted Jeanne, her old nurse, Jeanne who would have understood the need to be rid of the baby and who would have found for her the juniper berries, pennyroyal and tansy which, with the right magic words, would procure a miscarriage. Matilda shuddered and crossed herself every time she thought about it, for she knew what she contemplated was mortal sin, but what else could she do when the child within her was blighted?

But blighted or not the baby grew and her own health improved. Nell tended her as best she could, and with her a new maid, Elen, one of Dame Picard’s women, an orphaned Welsh girl with a plump cheery face and an infectious smile who made Matilda laugh, and stilled for a while with her stories and songs the deep restlessness within her. There was no word from William.

As the winter weather began to ease its iron grip Matilda longed more and more to leave Tretower. She wanted to travel on to Brecknock, where at least she would be her own mistress in her husband’s castle. But it was nearly Easter before the weather broke at last and the first chilly primroses began to force their way from the iron ground into the fitful sunshine. Matilda had long given up the idea of taking a horse and riding alone to Brecknock, trusting on speed and surprise to get her there safely. Such tomboy escapades were beyond her now, but she was still resolved to go. Anxiously she watched the trees bending low before the March gales, willing the winds to dry the earth and make the roads passable. For that she had to wait until the first day of April. It was a beautiful bright breezy day, the trees tossing their buds, the river peaceful, the sky a pure azure.

She dressed herself quietly before the women with whom she shared the chamber were awake and slipped silently down into the great hall, where she knew John Picard would be taking some ale and bread before going out with his dogs.

He gazed at her appalled when she faced him with her cool demand for a litter and an escort to Brecknock, his eyes staring from beneath his heavy eyebrows, his mouth slightly open.

Then he turned to his wife, who had appeared at the door of the still-room, an apron tied over her gown.

‘She wants to leave us. She wants to go to Brecknock.’

‘And will go, by your leave, John Picard.’ Matilda smiled coolly down at him.

She turned to her hostess. ‘My mind is made up. I can’t impose on your kindness any longer.’

‘But the danger!’ Anne Picard stepped down into the hall and came to take her hands. ‘My dear, think of the dangers. And in your condition.’

Matilda flinched away and drew her mantle round her shoulders as though trying to conceal her thickened body. ‘There can be no danger if you will lend me a litter and an escort,’ she repeated stubbornly.