had laid siege to Painscastle in his turn with a huge force of men. In a last attempt at mediation their son-in-law, Gruffydd, had, at Matilda’s suggestion, been brought back to Hay from his imprisonment at Corfe. But his surly attempts as a peacemaker failed and on 13 August, the feast of Holy Hippolytas, hostilities had culminated in a major pitched battle in the hills behind Trehearne’s home at Clyro, as the barons fought desperately to retain their ascendancy in the borders. They won, but with a terrible toll of Welsh lives.
Another flash of lightning ripped across the sky, followed by a distant rumble of thunder. Putting her dismal thoughts firmly behind her, she raised her whip and urged her horse into a gallop, her veil streaming in the wind, tendrils of hair tearing themselves loose from her wimple and whipping across her eyes.
She raced up the hill into Hay, scattering children and poultry, oblivious of the shaken heads and secret smiles of men and women who saw her pass into the great gates in the walls of her castle. The guards came to attention smartly and Matilda reined in her horse to a rearing, sweating halt. With a glance up at the huge, swollen clouds, she turned to claim her wager from the disheveled, unhappy lady who had tried to keep up with her ahead of their bodyguard, when all thoughts of it were driven suddenly from her head by the sight of a figure coming toward her across the bailey.
Dropping her horse’s rein, she gave a short gasp, not daring to believe her eyes.
“Tilda?” she whispered at last as she slipped from the high wooden saddle. “Tilda, is it really you?” The girl had grown as tall as her mother, slim, with silver hair and a complexion as fair as the ivory of a carved crucifix.
“I hope you are well, Mother dear.” Tilda smiled and curtsied formally before submitting coolly to her mother’s ecstatic kiss. “I have come to be with Gruffydd.”
“And your baby, Tilda? Did you bring him?” Matilda held the girl’s two hands in her own, gazing into her face. There was so much of Richard there-and so little.
Tilda lowered her lashes. “I have two children now, mother. Rhys who is two, and Owain. He is only seven months. They-” She hesitated, glancing away. “That is, we thought it better that they should remain with Gruffydd’s mother and their nurses. I have come alone.”
“You mean they wouldn’t let you bring the children with you?” Matilda seized on the fact hotly. “The Welsh have kept them as hostages, two small babies!”
“No, Mother, do be calm. It wasn’t safe or suitable to bring them, that’s all. They are safe and happy where they are. I wouldn’t have left them otherwise.” Tilda glanced up as the first heavy drops of rain began. “Come, let’s go in, Mother. I don’t want to tell you my news in front of your entire escort, in a thunderstorm!”
She led the way to the door of the hall, her figure slim and erect like her mother’s. But there the similarity ended. Where Matilda was auburn and high-colored, Tilda was pale and ethereal. The mother belonged to the sun, the daughter to the moon.
Since Margaret had gone at last, only a month before, to marry her Walter, the castle had seemed quiet. Of all her children Margaret was the most like her mother, and Matilda missed her support and companionship sorely and dreaded the fact that at any moment Walter would take her away to his earldom across the Irish Sea, in Meath. Isobel was soon to go too, to Roger Mortimer at Wigmore, whose first wife had died in the plague and whose eager suit William had indulgently agreed, so it was a double joy to have her eldest daughter home.
But Tilda proved a hurtful disappointment. She showed little warmth to her mother, answering her excited questions in a bored tone that effectively dampened Matilda’s enthusiasm. She went to sit obediently at Gruffydd’s side as soon as he returned with William to the castle and reduced Isobel to tears with her cutting, icy criticism.
Matilda, who had been going to beg her to come with her to Bramber for the Christmas celebration, bit back the invitation. “You’ve changed, Tilda. You used to be gentle and obedient to your family,” she reproached her sadly.
Tilda drew a quick breath and turned on her mother, her eyes flashing. “I owe you no obedience, Mother. My duty is to my husband! And it is hard to be gentle when my father is called an ogre and a murderer throughout the principalities. He is known for his treachery and his double-dealing. And as for you.” The girl paused, her nostrils pinched suddenly. “They call you a sorceress,” she hissed. “I hear stories being told to my children of Mallt the witch who will come for them if they don’t sleep, and it’s their own grandmother who is being talked of!” Her voice had risen to a cry of anguish.
Matilda looked at her in horrified silence for a moment. “Why don’t you stop them?” She turned away, not wanting the girl to see the indignant tears that threatened to come suddenly to her eyes.
“Because for all I know, it’s true.” There was no mistaking the hard note of dislike in Tilda’s voice. “I remember you muttering spells when I was a child, you and that old nurse of yours. I remember the smoking concoctions you would brew up in your still room. And there are other things. They say you talk to spirits, that you called up a hundred thousand devils at Dinas, that you ride with the storm-as you did”-her eyes suddenly flashed-“the day I came here, Mother.”
Matilda sat down on a carved joint stool and gazed into the glowing embers of the fire. “If you believe all that of me, Tilly, why did you come back to us?”
“I came to see Gruffydd. I didn’t know if he would be allowed to come home. I had to come here.”
“I see.” Matilda’s voice was flat. “Well, my dear. You’d better go to him, then.” She shifted slightly on her stool, turning her back to Tilda, and sat in silence.
Her daughter stood for a moment, hesitating, half regretting her outburst, then with one backward glance at her mother’s hunched figure she swept past her out of the door.
Matilda saw to it that they were never alone together after that, and although she spoke kindly to Tilda and treated her with every consideration, it was with relief that she saw her leave Hay at last with Gruffydd.
William, his elbows firmly spread upon the table, commented at the meal that evening. “That was a good marriage. I’ve had my doubts about the politics of it often enough: the link wasn’t strong enough to hold old Rhys, but Gruffydd is a good enough man, for a Welshman. I could wish he were stronger, but I reckon he’s made our daughter a good husband. She looked well and happy.” He glanced at her, grinning. “I know you were never content to see her off into the Welsh hinterland, Moll. I hope this visit has at last put your worries at rest.” All Matilda could do was lower her eyes and nod.
“No! That’s wrong!” Jo was shaking her head. “William knew! He knew she was not his daughter! He would not have said that! He would not have cared…”
She staggered slightly, her hand against the cold, shadowed castle wall; her head was spinning and her mouth was dry. She felt slightly sick. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles trying desperately to clear her head. “He would not have called her ‘our’ daughter. He knew. He knew about Richard by then. He had forced me to tell him…”
But did he know? She could feel her heart beginning to pump uncomfortably beneath her ribs. Was it William who had questioned her about her unfaithfulness with Richard, or had it been Sam? Sam pursuing her into the past. A Sam who had taken upon himself the face of William de Braose. A Sam who had forced her to strip and then whipped her-something the real William had never dared to do.
She closed her eyes, breathing hard.
When she opened them again she was conscious suddenly that a man was staring at her. He had parked a Land Rover in the shadow of the wall near her, watching her closely as he climbed out and locked it. She smiled uncomfortably at him and forced herself to walk on slowly, aware suddenly that he probably thought she was drunk.
She stumbled again, and as her hand shot out to steady herself, she stared at her fingers braced against the stone. Make notes. That was the thing to do. With a pencil in her hand she felt real; she could fight Sam and William and the past and everything they threw at her.
Determinedly she groped in her bag for her notebook, trying to fend off the strange dislocation that still lingered as she stared up toward Pen y Beacon and the pearly mist that clung about its summit.
Three-quarters of the way across England, at Clare, Tim Heacham, a page meticulously cut from a newspaper
