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.
“
“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 upright, 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
