Then they gave up and went to bed. I can’t believe it, but they did! How can they have been so foolish?” He wrung his hands. “They left the usual minimum guard on the battlements of course, but…The Welsh put up their scaling ladders and went straight in over the walls. The constable and his wife are captured with many others. A lot of men died. No one escaped. I can’t think how it happened. When the Welsh themselves warned them.” He sat there, shaking his head in distress, his narrow, lined face a picture of grief.
“Has someone sent messengers to Sir William? He must be warned in case they go on to find him at Dingestow.” Anguished, Matilda was standing in front of the old man, not noticing how her bedgown had fallen open to reveal her full breasts, half swathed in her long copper hair. The prior, swallowing, averted his eyes. “I will send my fastest horses, my lady.” He fingered the heavy silver cross that hung from a chain around his neck. “I feel sure he will have heard at once though. Dingestow is no more than a few miles from Abergavenny, but I will send, if you wish it.”
“Please do, Father, he must be warned.” Matilda shivered. “Is it known who led this raid?”
“The sons of Seisyll of Gwent, Lady Matilda. Two died at your husband’s orders, but others lived and they’re grown men now. They have waited a long time to avenge their father’s death. We in Ewias and Gwent have heard often of their vows for revenge in spite of Lord Rhys’s orders that peace is all-important. They only waited for their manhood and then-for de Braose.” He shrugged and again Matilda felt a shiver run across her shoulders.
When the prior had gone she paced up and down, nervously chewing her thumbnail. Then suddenly she made up her mind. “Dress,” she ordered Elen and the two women. “See that the horses are at the door at once,” she flung at the guard. “We ride to Hay now. The Welsh could have attacked it already. They could be on the way there now. Don’t wait for food, we must go.”
She fled into her little room and began to pull on her clothes, bundling up her hair with pins inside the hood of her mantle, pricking her fingers in her haste on the brooch at its shoulder.
The deep Honddu Valley still lay in darkness, and the morning light touched only the tops of the western slopes of the Black Mountains as they set off up the long climb through the thickly wooded valley toward the bleak, silent moors, past the tiny chapel on the border and so into Brycheiniog and up toward the high pass between the mountains. Their horses were still tired from the previous day’s ride but Matilda relentlessly pushed them on, her eyes fixed on the gap in the mountains ahead. Once there they paused for a moment to scan the countryside around them, bathed now in the warm russet of a watery dawn sun. Nothing moved in the bracken and grass. Even birds and sheep seemed to have deserted the high road. They pushed their gasping horses to a heavy gallop in the thick mud and began the long slow descent from the hills.
As the exhausted party trekked the last mile into Hay the sun disappeared and rain began once more to fall, a steady blanketing downpour that shut off the mountains and the valley and blinded the riders, soaking into their clothes and streaming from the horses’ manes. The town of Hay seemed deserted, only the flattened puffs of smoke escaping from the streaming cottage roofs showing where the women were sheltering inside their dwellings. The castle was quiet. The guards on the main gate in the curtain wall stood to attention as their lady walked her steaming horse into the outer bailey and drew to a halt. All was well. There had been no attack. She breathed a silent prayer that it had been the same at Dingestow.
22
The shadow on the bridge had moved. Jo stared at it, puzzled, then she looked around her. The riverside was deserted; the backs of the houses that overlooked it had changed subtly-gray stone relieved here and there by boxes of geraniums and trailing lobelia now deeply textured by brilliant sunlight. The heat haze had dissipated, leaving the air quite clear.
She moved cautiously, and winced. Her foot had gone to sleep. Bending to rub it gently, she found her feet were bare-her shoes lying several feet away on the pebbles at the edge of the river. She glanced at her watch, then, horrified, stared at it again. She had been sitting there for an hour.
Slowly she stood up and hobbled painfully over the stones to reach her shoes. She remembered nothing from the moment she had kicked them off to cool her feet in the swift-running, brown water. Had she dozed off as she sat on the wall, or had she once more gone back into the past? Her mind was a complete blank. Dazed, she made her way back up the narrow lane toward her car. Somewhere at the back of her consciousness something was nagging; a memory trying to get out, but a memory of what? Had an episode of Matilda’s life taken place in her dreams as she sat on the wall, just as it had at Hay-but if so, why could she not remember it? She felt a shiver of unease stir deep down inside her as she unlocked the MG and climbed in stiffly. Why should Matilda want to hide from her now? Biting her lip, she sat for a while, deep in thought, but nothing came, nothing but a vague feeling of unease.
Nick was waiting for her in her apartment.
He stood up as she came in. “Where have you been?”
“Away.”
“And you don’t intend to tell me where, I suppose,” he said wearily.
“No.”
“You missed your appointment, Jo.” His eyes narrowed. “You were supposed to see Bennet yesterday and you didn’t turn up.”
“I’ll call him and apologize.” She felt a quick flash of anger. “You didn’t have to wait to tell me that.”
“We lost the Desco contract this afternoon.”
“I’m sorry-that’s tough. But this is not the place to think out your future.”
Nick sat down on the Victorian chair by the fireplace and stretched out his legs in front of him. “I’ll go,” he said wearily, “when I’m ready. But I want some answers from you first.” He paused momentarily. “Have you been seeing Richard de Clare again?”
Jo froze, staring at him. “You’re out of your mind! You’re talking as if he’s a real man, which he isn’t. And even if he were, it would be none of your business! You and I are through, Nick. Finished. How many more times do I have to say it?” She flung herself toward the front door and dragged it as far open as it would go. “Please, will you go now?”
Nick did not move. “Have you seen him again?”
“You really are going mad!” She stared at him in frightened despair. “As you just pointed out, I missed my appointment with Carl, so of course I haven’t seen him. How could I?” There was no way she was going to tell Nick what had happened in Hay. “Look. If you won’t go, then I shall-”
She broke off with a little frightened cry as he moved toward her with astounding swiftness and, putting his hand against the front door, pushed it closed. He gave a tired smile. “Don’t worry, Jo, I’m not going to touch you.”
Staring up at him, she was overwhelmed suddenly by pity as she recognized the deep unhappiness in his eyes behind the closed, hard mask.
“Nick,” she said, trying to keep the ache of longing out of her voice. “What has happened to you? Where are you? You never used to be like this.”
“Maybe you weren’t two-timing me before.” He turned away from her and stood in the middle of the room, his back to her, his arms folded across his chest. “And maybe I hadn’t just lost my biggest client before. Losing that account could mean we fold. Desco more or less carried the firm.”
“I told you, I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But you’ll find other clients. Look, I’m tired out. Can we talk tomorrow perhaps? I could meet you for lunch or something.”
“I’ll take you out to dinner this evening. Please come, Jo.”
She hesitated, then shrugged. “Okay. Give me a few minutes to change.”
