Lady of Hay

Epilogue One

10 October 1216

Margaret de Lacy pushed back her hood and carefully straightened her gown, shaking off the rain. The roars of merriment from inside the dining hall showed the people of Lynn were enjoying the feast they had prepared for the king as he progressed through the eastern counties of his realm. She took a deep breath and nodded to the page at the door, who, having bitten her coin, had pocketed it cheerfully. He pushed it open with a flourish and winked at her. The hall was packed with people and noisy, but determinedly Margaret pushed her way toward the high table where the king was eating.

He did not notice her at first, raising his goblet to toast the fat sheriff. There had been supplicants on and off all evening and he was disposed to be benevolent. Then he turned and saw the woman who waited at his elbow, her green eyes fixed quietly on his face. Slowly his smile faded and he lowered his goblet. Sweat stood out on his brow and he wiped it with the back of his hand. Rising to his feet, he pushed back his chair with sudden violence. Silence fell over the table as curious faces watched on every side.

John crossed himself, and she saw his lips move, questing, toying with a name.

She curtsied to the ground. “I am Margaret, sire. Her daughter.”

She heard the whispers running down the hall and saw the excitement and puzzlement on the faces near the king. He had grown pale as he watched her and his expression was guarded.

“I have come to beg a grant of land, Your Grace. To build a convent to my mother’s memory. I hoped you would do that much for her-now.” She looked down, not wanting, suddenly, to see the pain in his eyes.

“Of course.” She hardly heard the words, but she saw his lips move. “Where?”

“In the Marches that she loved, sire.”

He saw her eyes through a swimming haze, green and beautiful, flecked with gold; the eyes of another woman.

Suddenly the king doubled over, racked with a spasm of pain. He clutched his stomach, retching, and the silence around him turned to cries of concern, but he waved help away. “Bring me pen and ink.” He gasped. “Quickly. You shall have your convent, Margaret de Lacy. For her sake.”

The clerk took down the record of the king’s grant of land in the royal forest of Aconbury, south of Hereford, and the royal seal was appended to it, there in the hall at King’s Lynn, before he allowed himself to be helped, groaning, to his bed. In the chaos that surrounded his illness Margaret slipped away, clutching her parchment.

Eight days later John Plantagenet was dead.