Lady of Hay

32

Judy opened the door and stared. “So, it’s you. How was New York?”

Nick followed her to the studio. “Very hot.” He walked over to her easel and looked at the sketch she had pinned there. “Would I be right in thinking you had been seeing something of Pete Leveson while I’ve been away?” Turning back toward her, he surveyed her grimly.

Judy looked defiant. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

“None at all.” He was tight-lipped. “I should say you were made for each other. Your idea of loyalty is strange, to say the least, Judy.” Folding his arms, he waited for the outburst he knew would come. He was not disappointed.

Judy narrowed her eyes. “I owe you no loyalty, Nick. Nor allegiance! I’m not part of your jolly little charade. It is you and Sam and Tim. So fight it out between you. I’ve joined the spectators. Have you seen your brother yet?” she added suddenly.

Nick shook his head. “I’m on my way back to the apartment now.”

“Well, he’s been busy while you’ve been away, and he’s damn lucky he’s not in prison. He came here, drunk, and smashed up my studio. So I called the police and the bloody fool took a swing at one of them.”

“Christ!” Nick stared at her. “What happened?”

“Your friend Alistair got him off with a fine and being bound over. But I’ll tell you something right now. If you come here making trouble, you’ll get the same treatment. I really was fond of you, Nick, do you know that? You and I could have been great together, but not now. I think you’re mad, all of you. Jo’s welcome to whichever one of you wins. If she’s alive to find out!”

She walked across to the window and slammed it down, cutting out the noise of the traffic.

“What do you mean, if she’s alive?” Nick’s voice was sharp.

“Sam is setting you up, Nick, I told you, only you’re such a blind fool you can’t see it. He hates Jo, and he’s jealous of you. He’s been programming you to hurt her. He’s been feeding you these stupid ideas-you don’t really believe you’re King John, for God’s sake? You’ll end up in a funny farm if you do!” Impulsively she clutched his arm. “Nick, I do still care about you-and I’d hate to see you get hurt, and whatever I feel about Jo, I don’t want to see her end up Sam’s victim. He’s mad, Nick. I really believe he’s mad. Do be careful. Please.”

Stunned, Nick said nothing for a moment. Then: “Is Sam still at my apartment?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t inquire-he called after he got out of court, but I told him to go to hell, so he’s probably out to get me as well by now.”

“And Jo? I tried to call her from New York but she never replied.”

Judy raised an eyebrow. “Then let’s hope he hasn’t got at her already. He came from her apartment that night he came here, Nick. That’s all I know.”

It took Nick seven minutes to reach Cornwall Gardens. He sprinted up the stairs. Jo’s apartment was empty. It had the feel of a place that had been deserted for several days. On the mantelpiece a bowl of roses had faded, their petals scattered up the carpet; otherwise the place was unnaturally tidy.

He wandered over to the balcony doors and glanced out, noticing that the plants in the tubs outside had wilted in the heat, then he turned away. The kitchen was spotless, everything in place. In the bedroom the curtains were half drawn. He noticed the tape recorder on the chest of drawers and idly switched it on, listening as the thin, haunting strains of the flute filled the room. For a moment he stood quite still, puzzled; he had heard that music before when Sam was here, alone with Jo. He snapped off the music and was about to leave the room when his eye was caught by the belt lying across the chair. He recognized the engraved buckle. It was Sam’s.

His eyes suddenly murderous, he raced up the passage and dragged open the front door. After slamming it behind him, he descended the stairs two at a time and dived into his car. He pulled out into the traffic with only a perfunctory glance in his mirror, then tore up Gloucester Road and turned right toward Queen’s Gate.

Sam was writing at Nick’s desk. He looked up when he heard Nick’s key in the lock.

“So, the wanderer returns. How did you enjoy your bite at the Big Apple?”

Nick strode across the room and confronted him across the desk. “Where is Jo?”

“Jo? I have no idea, Nicholas. At home perhaps?” Sam’s breath smelled of Scotch.

“You know damn well she’s not at home.” Nick produced his hand from behind his back. In it was the belt. “Do you know where I found this?”

Sam stared at it. He gave a half smile. “The instrument of chastisement,” he said almost thoughtfully.

“The what?” Nick froze. He leaned across the desk and gripped the front of Sam’s shirt, half dragging him out of his chair. “What the hell are you trying to say, Sam? Have you gone crazy?”

Sam smiled. “Someone had to beat her, Nick. And it was less than she deserved. Many men would have killed their wife for what she did. She admitted it, you know, in the end, and she submitted to her punishment on her knees. She wanted it. It must have helped to ease her conscience.”

Nick let go of him abruptly. He was staring at his brother in complete horror. “You are crazy,” he whispered. “God in heaven, you are crazy! Where is she, man?” His blue eyes narrowed furiously. “If you’ve hurt her I swear to God I’ll kill you!”

Sam laughed. He pushed his chair back slightly and shifted in it sideways, draping his arm across its back, totally relaxed.

“John,” he said softly. “John, King of England. She betrayed you too. She scorned you. She mocked you publicly. Kings do not stand for treatment like that from anyone, never mind from the women they desire. You killed her before, brother mine, and you’ll kill her again.” He leaned forward suddenly. “Remember? You want her to suffer. And you want me to see her suffer. You are going to tell me what you intend to do to her, Nick, and you will beg me to come and watch you take your revenge.”

“Stop that crap, Sam! I know what you’re up to.” Nick clenched his fists till the nails bit into his palms. “You get out of this apartment. Get out and go back to Scotland, and leave us alone.” His voice had sunk to a hiss.

Sam stood up. “It’s too late, Nick. I began to plant the seeds in your brain the first day I realized who I was. I remembered that massacre at Abergavenny, you see. I remembered stabbing that Welsh quisling till his warm blood ran up my arm. I remembered I was William de Braose and Matilda was mine. Mine , Nick. And she’ll be mine again. This time I shall be ready when the trial comes.” He moved away from behind the desk. “I prepared the ground too well.” He laughed. “You are an arrogant fool. You played into my hands, trusting your mind to me.”

Nick kept an icy grip on his temper. “You are talking pure melodrama, Sam. What you’re implying is not possible and we both know it. Pack your things and get out.”

Sam stood still for a moment staring at him, his face alight with malicious amusement. “She slept with Heacham, you know,” he said suddenly. “In Wales. I recognized him at once. De Clare. He still has a hold over her, of course, but he knows he will lose her.” He laughed. “He’s weak. He was too weak to save her then, and he’s too weak now.” He picked a few books off the table and collected some loose change off the desk into his pocket. Then he looked up. “You don’t believe me, do you, Nick? But it’s true, you know. I really did regress you. You were-you are John Plantagenet,” he said.

Nick did not move. The sweat was standing out on his forehead as Sam left the room. He steadied himself with an effort, then with deliberate slow movements, as if he were in a dream, he went to the pile of phone books and reached for A-H.

“Tim?” His mouth was dry. “This is Nick Franklyn.”

“Hello, Nick.” Tim sounded subdued.

“I have reason to believe you may know where Jo is.” Nick controlled his voice with an effort. “She is not at her apartment.”

There was a moment’s silence. “She went to Wales. Bet Gunning talked her into doing an interview with some guy about organic farming.”

“About what?” Nick exploded.

“I know it sounds unlikely,” Tim responded. “It was obviously a ruse to get her back there. But I don’t think it’ll work. She wants to give it all up, you know. She tore up the contract to write the story for W I A. She has decided to have nothing more to do with Matilda or the past. Something frightened her very badly.” He hesitated, and Nick heard the tremor in his voice. “Have you spoken to your brother since you came back?”

“I have indeed.” Nick glanced at the door. He could hear the closets in the spare bedroom opening and closing as Sam took out his clothes and threw them on the bed. “I think you can take it that my brother will have no more say in Jo’s affairs,” he said grimly. “No more at all. And neither will you.”

The sun had broken through the haze early and its heat baked the ground. Jo pushed her typewriter away on the table outside the back door and stood up. Ann was dyeing wool, pressing the loose skeins into the onion-skin water again and again. She pushed her fair hair back from her face with the back of her wrist. “Finished the article?”

Jo smiled. “The first draft. I’d like you and Ben to read it and make suggestions.” She took a deep breath of the hot mountain air. “It’s so peaceful up here, I’m even amenable to criticism today!”

Ann laughed. She hooked a skein out of the water and began to wring it out. “If your piece is too sweet and nice, won’t your editor hurl it back at you and ask you to anoint it with vitriol?”

“You’ve obviously heard about me!” Jo sat down on the close-cropped grass and after a moment stretched out full length, her arms flopping above her head. “Don’t worry. I’m rude enough to upset you both quite a bit if you take it the wrong way.” She sat up again and shaded her eyes. “And I don’t want you to take it the wrong way, Ann. You’re living a pastoral idyll up here, but you just cannot claim it has any relevance to real life.”

Ann raised an eyebrow as she pegged the skein on the line to drip. “Says who? Why should real life be ‘down there’ and ‘up here’ be unreal?”

“Because real is what ninety-nine percent of the population have to live. Mass produced, mass packaged, and mass managed. It’s the only way for there to be progress. It’s sad, but it’s true.”

“So we should conform? Help to starve the land, poison the waterways, pollute the air? No, Jo. We are pioneers, prophets. Leading people back to common sense, health, and sanity.” Ann gave a gurgle of laughter suddenly. “Go on. Write that down, too.”

“What’s it like in winter?” Ignoring the comment, Jo wrapped her arms around her knees.

“Lonely. Hard. Sometimes frightening.”

“Like it was eight hundred years ago for everyone.” Jo’s voice was suddenly bleak. “The disease then. The squalor, the poverty of life! That is why we have to move on, Ann. To end all that. To make it less hard. You know, I…that is, Matilda, just accepted it. It made her unhappy-she was full of compassion and she used her medical knowledge such as it was, as best she could-but she never questioned. No one questioned anything. It was as God wished.”

“‘The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. God made the high and lowly, he ordered their estate,’” Ann recited quietly. “I can still remember singing that in church!”

“God!” Jo buried her head in her arms. “William did everything in the name of God.”

“It is man’s blessing that he does learn from his mistakes, Jo,” Ann said gently. “Not all of them, and not fast, but he does learn. And he progresses, as you say. Did Will de Braose have TB? From what you told me it sounds like it…We’ve learned to control that. And you talked about the plague in Aberhonddu. That doesn’t haunt the people there anymore. I’d be the first person to praise that kind of progress, but in some things man has been too clever. He has rejected good things as well as bad. Now he has to swallow his pride and retrace a few steps, that’s all. Learn to listen quietly to the beat of the universe as his ancestors did. Learn to listen to nature and take her in partnership, not try and make her a robot slave.”

Jo looked up, squinting in the sun. “I stand rebuked,” she said softly. “Write that down, Ann. I’ll print it.”

Ann grinned. “It’s a deal.” She turned to go into the house, then she stopped and glanced at Polly and Bill, who were playing in a sandpit near them. “If the kids have a sleep after lunch, Jo, I’ll take you back again if you like.”

Jo hesitated. “I think I’m going to have to go on, Ann,” she agreed at last. “On to the end of the story. That is the only way I’ll be free of her. And I’d like it to be with you there.”

Ann frowned. “You don’t mean you want to go on, until her death?”

“I think I have to.”

“Are you sure?” Ann was looking doubtful. “I know it’s often done, but you don’t know how she died. Death scenes can be pretty traumatic, even under deep hypnosis.”

“I do know how she died.”

“How?” Ann sat down at the table near Jo, her elbows spread, her chin propped on her hands, her eyes fixed on Jo’s face.

“John had her thrown into a dungeon and starved to death.”

“Sweet Jesus!” Ann caught her breath.

Jo smiled bleakly. “It’s knowing about it when she doesn’t that is so terrible. I watch her with part of myself, antagonizing John, antagonizing him almost deliberately, from the first day they met.” She clenched her fists suddenly. “He loved her, Ann. I really think he loved her, and she found him attractive once he had grown to manhood, and yet they never managed to communicate. They just seemed to knock sparks off each other all the time.”

“None of this was in that article you showed me.”

“Pete obviously doesn’t know his history. He just thought it would be fun linking the name of a king to the story of Matilda. Linking Nick’s name-” She bit her lip and turned abruptly away to study the view. “I just want to get it over with, Ann,” she said after a moment over her shoulder, “so I can get on with my own life. Matilda is an intrusion! A parasite, feeding off me, sucking my…not my blood, exactly, but something.”

“Your life force.” Ann stood up again. “I’ve had an idea. Come and help me prepare the salad, then later we’ll try a new approach. It may be that you’ve put your finger on something. I’d like to try an experiment. I’d like to see if Matilda really is a memory-or if she is a spirit, using you for some purpose. A spirit who is not at rest.”

Jo gasped. “You’re not serious? You mean I’m possessed?”

Ann laughed. “It’s always a possibility. Come on. Don’t worry about it. Later we’ll try to find out what this poor lady wants from you.”

Worn out by the heat, the two small children went to bed in their cool north-facing bedroom without their customary protest. Outside, Ben had moved the table into the shade of one of the ancient yew trees near the house. He sat down on the wooden chair and looked solemnly at his wife. “Take care, Annie. You are sure you know what you’re doing?”

Ann sat down opposite Jo. “I know,” she said. “You trust me, Jo, don’t you?”

Jo nodded, her eyes on Ann’s face.

Slowly Ann reached forward and put her cool hands over Jo’s. The shadow moved slightly and Jo felt the sudden blaze of the sun in her eyes. She closed them involuntarily, conscious only of the heavy scented silence of the early afternoon.

“Matilda.” Ann’s voice was gently insistent. “Matilda, I command you speak. Matilda, if you are a spirit from the world beyond, tell us what it is you want in our world. Your time is past, your story is finished, so why do you speak through Joanna?”

There was a long silence. Jo’s eyes remained closed, her whole body relaxed. Ann repeated her question twice more, then she glanced at Ben. “You were right. It’s not a spirit, or if it is, I can’t reach it. It just struck me that Jo could be a natural medium. But I don’t think it is that. If she is possessed, it is not in the way people usually mean when they talk of possession.”

“Bloody ridiculous, woman! Wake her up and let’s have some of that foul coffee.” Ben was looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“It’s too hot for coffee.” Ann stroked Jo’s hand gently. “Lady Matilda. Tell me more about your children. Whom did they marry?”

Jo opened her eyes slowly. She drew back a little into the shade, looking past Ann and Ben across the grass toward the steep slope where the garden began to fall away into the valley. Beyond lay the hazy mountains.

The day of Will’s wedding to Mattie de Clare dawned bright and showery. Bramber Castle was in high excitement, for not only was the eldest son of William de Braose at last being married, but the king himself was guest of honor.

Matilda stood staring out across the broad waters of the River Adur from the deserted solar, lost in thought. Below, her husband was with the king and the other guests, waiting while Mattie and her ladies made last-minute preparations for the ceremony.

Mattie had spent much time with Matilda over the past years, learning at her side the accomplishments of a great lady. She was a quiet, gentle girl who had shown signs of great beauty as, slowly, she began to turn into a mature young woman. Will had often been with them during that time, kept from the manly pursuits for which he longed, and from his father’s side, by the debilitating cough and weakness that still plagued him constantly, and Mattie had grown to regard him with an almost blind adoration which half embarrassed, half pleased him. Matilda was overjoyed to see them marry, but the arrangement hadn’t been without its problems. She thought suddenly of the scene when Reginald had first heard the news. “But I thought I was the one she would marry! You’ve always spoken of me being the one, Mother,” he had appealed to her wildly. “I know her and I know her father from when I was serving with them. It’s my right! It should be me!” But William, now Lord of the Three Castles in addition to his other titles, and deeper than ever in the king’s debt, had been adamant. He wanted Reginald to marry Gracia de Burgh. “She’s a red-blooded young woman. She needs a man. And now. Will is always ill. I doubt sometimes he’ll live out another winter,” he had said with outspoken brutality. “Mattie is too young to marry yet, so they can wait. If Will is strong enough when she is old enough, then they can marry. But I need the de Burgh alliance now.”

He needed, as they all knew, the de Burgh power behind him. But, in the event, the de Burgh marriage had been fraught with delay, and it had been only a short while before that Reginald had married his Irish heiress, with his brother Giles officiating at the ceremony.

Among the first favors John had granted after his accession had been the installation of Giles as Bishop of Hereford. She thought back to how William had watched so proudly his tall, copper-haired son, who now sported mitre and cross with much grave dignity. The young man’s calling unnerved William, and filled him with superstitious awe that annoyed and puzzled him, even as he bathed in the glory that his son’s position brought to him.

Matilda smiled quietly to herself. They had been so lucky, on the whole, in their children. Isobel and her husband, Roger Mortimer, had presented Matilda with two grandchildren. Margaret, married five years before, wrote long letters regularly from Ireland, where she now spent most of her time and she too seemed very happy, although the girl did have one sorrow, unskillfully hidden in her letters. This was that no child had as yet been born to her marriage with her beloved, handsome Walter, the Lord of Meath.

“I have vowed, Mother dear,” her latest letter had said, “to found a nunnery to the blessed memory of the Virgin Mary, if she grants my great desire to have a son. And Walter too has made the same vow. He has expressed the longing to found an abbey somewhere in the shadow of Pen y Beacon, perhaps at Craswall, where he holds tenure. Pray for me, Mother dear, that my own prayers may be answered. I hope we may return to Ludlow soon, so that I can see you-”

Only the thought of Tilda brought real sadness. Widowed now for four years, after Gruffydd had died of some sudden, virulent fever, she had helped bury him in his father’s abbey at Strata Florida, but when Matilda wrote to suggest she return to her family, she sent a snubbing reply that it was her intention to bring up her two boys as true sons of Wales and when that task was done she would be content to lie at the side of her husband. There had been no exchange of messages after that, and Matilda nursed her hurt in secret, showing that final letter to no one before she held the parchment in the flame of a candle and watched it blacken and curl in her fingers.

And now Will’s wedding had arrived and with it a new honor for William, for King John, the threat of invasion by Philip of France at last over, had agreed to attend the marriage.

Matilda bit her lip. So once more they shared the same roof together, the three men who so ruled her life: William, the king, and Richard de Clare.

She had been shocked by Richard’s appearance. He had grown thin and stooped since their last meeting, and his skin strangely sallow. His eyes were the same though-as searching and powerful in their hold over her as ever.

He had arrived alone at Bramber with Mattie and his son, Gilbert. It was five years since he had, at last, separated from the embittered Amicia, and she had chosen not to come to her daughter’s wedding feast, a fact that had caused Matilda to send up a prayer of thanks.

Behind her, one of her women appeared and cleared her throat loudly. “My lady, Sir William has asked for you again. His Grace is impatient to proceed.”

Slowly Matilda turned. She smiled. If her eldest son and Richard’s daughter could be happy together, then perhaps, after all, there would have been some point to their own impossible love story.

Too soon the ceremony was over. The chapel was hot and stuffy from the candles and incense and the press of people. As she knelt for the mass following the nuptials Matilda glanced sideways at Richard, who was beside her, and he turned at once, instantly conscious of her gaze. At the altar Giles was the celebrant, attended by his own chaplain from Hereford and the castle chaplain and the priests from the neighboring church at Steyning, all clustered around him like so many highly colored butterflies.

“Are we now brother and sister, my love?” She heard Richard’s whisper over the slow sound of the chanting. They were kneeling so close to one another she felt him stir and then his fingers feeling for hers hidden by the stiff folds of her kirtle.

A happy warmth filled her heart. “For always, Richard,” she murmured back, and for a moment they looked at each other again. On her other side William, unaware of anything but the mystery before him, knelt, his eyes fixed to the altar. In front, the newlyweds shared a faldstool together, solemn-faced, intent on the words their brother was uttering, while the king also knelt on the purple velvet of a cushion to one side of the sanctuary steps.

Matilda’s happiness was so complete it was a shock to find John’s gaze not on the mass but fixed on the place where an embroidered fold of damask hid her hand as it lay still gently clasped in Richard’s.

Slowly John raised his eyes to hers and she saw the hardness in them masked only by a slight speculative frown.