Lady of Hay

from the stall beside the MG, she shrugged and grinned apologetically. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would be market day. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday, so I left the car here.”

The woman grinned back. “So. It’s not something you’ll do again, is it?” she said cheerfully, and she turned away.

Jo stuck out her tongue at the woman’s back. She threw her cases into the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. It would take some careful maneuvering to extricate herself from the crowded, noisy square.

Slowly she wound down the window and leaned forward to insert her key into the ignition. In front of her the castle walls rose high and gray against the brilliant blue of the sky. When had it been built? she wondered idly as she turned on the engine. Would she ever know now? Her eyes traversed the high walls with the empty gaping spaces where the stone arches of the windows had fallen. In one of them a white dove was bobbing to and fro in the sunlight, its throat puffed into a snowy lace cravat as it cooed. Without knowing why she found herself staring at it with total concentration as behind her the noise of the market died away. She shivered. The silence was uncanny in the midst of so many people. Uncanny and suddenly frightening.

***

William arrived unannounced one blustery autumn night. He appeared with his men and horses, exhausted, mud-splashed, and wet with rain, before the gates of Hay, angrily demanding entrance to the castle.

“The ford will soon be too deep to cross,” he growled as his wife came forward to greet him. “By Christ’s bones I’m glad to be here safe and sound. It’s not the weather for traveling.” He unclasped the brooch that held his cloak and flung the soaked garment to the floor. “How is the hunting, my lady?” His ruddy cheeks were a shade more deeply lined, she thought, and his paunch a trifle more pronounced, but he looked as fit and well as ever. “Will we kill tomorrow?”

She laughed. “So short a rest, my lord? Yes, the hunting’s good. But we have been warned out of Elfael.” She scrutinized his face closely. “Old feuds are remembered by the new prince.”

William threw back his head and laughed. “Are they indeed? Well, I’ve plans for that young man and his territory.” He threw a boisterous arm around Matilda’s shoulder, pulling her down to plant a smacking kiss on her cheek. “He splits my lands in two, does our Einion. If I held Elfael, I’d hold the middle March from Radnor to Abergavenny. But let be for now. King Henry wants peace with Rhys ap Gruffydd at present. I’m content to bide my time. There are more amusing things to do in winter than plan a mud campaign. Like hunting and bedding my beautiful wife.” He laughed again.

He was true to his word. By Yule the larders were hung with boar and venison, and Matilda knew herself to be pregnant once more. But it was not with William’s child. Her monthly courses had stopped before William came back to her bed.

Gritting her teeth in disgust and pain, she allowed him to maul her night after night, praying he would never suspect the truth. That Jeanne had guessed she was certain, but the old woman kept an enigmatic silence on the subject of her lady’s prematurely swelling belly. Of Richard she stubbornly allowed herself to think not at all. News had come that he was on his way to Ireland, and after that nothing.

Jeanne watched over her now with increasingly jealous care as the time passed, fending off even the faithful Elen, who had drawn apart, resentful and hurt, spitefully hinting that the old woman was a witch. Matilda was sure of it, and one day, bored with being kept indoors by the weather, she sought Jeanne out in the walled herb garden.

“Teach me some of your art, Jeanne,” she whispered as she caught the old woman, muffled in a fur cloak, scraping snow into a bowl with a muttered incantation.

Jeanne jumped guiltily, then she turned, a crafty smile on her lips. She had lost the last of her front teeth and it gave her an expression of cunning. Matilda caught her breath at the sight, but she steadied herself and smiled, excited.

“I should like to know. Please tell me some spells.”

Jeanne’s eyes shifted sideways. “I know no spells, Lady Matilda. ’Tis healing I practice, that’s all, with herbs and prayers. Those I’ll teach you gladly.”

Matilda nodded. “And I would gladly learn them, but the other things, Jeanne-” She looked the old woman in the eye. “What was it you whispered over my bed the night Lord Clare came to Hay?” Clutching her fists in her skirts, she was suddenly afraid as she waited for the answer.

Jeanne did not move for a moment, then slowly the hooded eyes fell to gaze at Matilda’s stomach. “My power was not strong enough to save you,” she murmured. “Now it is too late. Events are already in train. I can do nothing.”

Matilda shivered. “There is nothing to do, Jeanne. My husband will never guess,” she whispered. “We were discreet. We were never alone together again.”

Jeanne shrugged. “The truth has a way of finding daylight, ma p’tite. One day Sir William will know. One day Lord Clare must pay the price.”

“No!” Matilda clutched her arm. “No, I don’t believe you. How could William find out? No one knows. No one. You would not tell him-”

Jeanne shook her head. “Not me, ma p’tite , nor the prince of the Welsh who saw you in Lord Clare’s arms-” She ignored the look of terror that crossed Matilda’s face as she hobbled stiffly away from her, pulling her furs more closely around her. “It is the child herself who will betray your secret. I have seen it in my dreams. And all for nothing !” She turned suddenly, spitting with vehemence. “Lord Clare is not for you, Matilda! You belong to another!” She spread her knotted hands expressively, then she shook her head.

Matilda shuddered. “I know,” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the sighing of the wind. Snowflakes were beginning to drift down out of the sky, catching in the women’s furs.

Jeanne pursed her lips over her toothless gums. “You don’t know, ma p’tite ,” she said softly. “And I pray that I have seen falsely and you never will. It is not your husband I have seen.”

“Not my husband?” Matilda echoed. “Who then?” She ran after Jeanne, clutching at her arm. “What have you seen? Tell me!”

Jeanne stopped. “I saw a king,” she whispered, and she glanced nervously over her shoulder. “ He is your destiny. And I shall not be there to save you.”

Matilda stared at her. “What do you mean?” Her mouth had gone dry with fear. “You must tell me!” She almost shook the old woman in her impatience. “Tell me!” But Jeanne shook her head, holding her finger to her lips. “Perhaps, one day, ma p’tite ” was all she would say, and no matter how hard Matilda tried to persuade her she would not speak of the matter again. But she did take her mistress to her stillroom, and there she showed her the dried herbs and flowers, salves, and creams she kept locked in a chest. There were also stones, and branches of aromatic trees from faraway lands, and scraps of parchment covered with strange symbols. Those Jeanne whisked out of sight beneath a napkin, and when Matilda went again to look in the chest, they had gone. She had to be content with the arts Jeanne showed her, the simple spell of words to induce sleep in a fretful child, the way to consult the stars about the humors of the body, and how to prepare feverfew and gromel for when the labor pains came on her in the summer. But always she refused to speak more of what she had seen in her dreams.

Matilda was sitting one evening, listening idly to the singing of a wandering minstrel who had floundered in out of the snowdrifts, his gittern swathed in rags slung across his back, when she saw William poring over some parchments on the table, his forehead wrinkled with the effort of reading the close writing in the flickering light of the streaming candles. Outside the wind roared up the broad Wye Valley, slamming against the walls and rattling the loose wooden shutters. Once she thought she heard the howl of a wolf and she shivered.

He looked up at her suddenly, grinning. “A good haul today, my dear, eh?” He rubbed his leg, stiff from the saddle, and stood up slowly, coming to stand close to her chair. “There’s some of the best hunting I know around here and I like the Hay. I’ll be pleased when we have a more solid keep here, though. What do you say? Shall we pull it down and build in stone? That would make you feel safer, wouldn’t it?” He looked up at her, cocking an