Lady of Hay (30 page)

“Well, he won’t get to hear of it,” said Matilda quietly, trying resolutely to keep her temper with the insensitive woman. Her heart went out to the little girl. She had a sudden vivid picture of her own betrothal to William. She too had been a child, not much older than this one. She who had dreamed of a tall, radiant, chivalrous knight had been informed by her father with excitement of the great honor that had been done his family, that she had been chosen by the stocky, ill-tempered baron whose reputation even then was marred by cruelty and viciousness. Her first reaction too had been to run away. But then she sat down on her favorite spot on the hill and thought about her duty and, at heart a realist, about what chance she had of ever having a better offer of marriage. She had come home, apologized to her frightened mother, wheedled her angry father, and resigned herself to making the most of it, comforting herself with the thought that she was to be a great lady. But could she persuade this child to see the sense in that? This little girl whose real world was still peopled by dolls and puppies and her snow-white pony.

“Please, nurse, will you leave us for a while?” She turned and forced herself to give the agitated woman her most brilliant smile. “I’d like a little talk with Isabella.”

The woman drew herself up to argue, but already Elen, who had followed close at her mistress’s heels, was pushing her out, and the two protesting maids with her. Then she stood, her back to the doorway, panting.

“Silly women,” she muttered. “Clucking like so many chickens, they are indeed. Poor
cariad bach.
”

Matilda knelt down in the rushes and held out her arms to the little girl. “Come here, Isabella, my love. Tell me what’s wrong. Why are you so unhappy?”

Whether it was the sympathy in her voice, or the sight of a stranger, she couldn’t tell, but Isabella, with another strangled sob, scrambled to her feet and rushed to her, throwing herself into Matilda’s outstretched arms.

“There, there, child. There, there.” Matilda rocked her gently for a while, touched by the feel of the tiny, frail body, so thin beneath the skimpy clothes. Then as the child’s sobbing grew less, she pushed back the fair hair from her hot face and smiled gently at her. “Come on, sweeting, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t want to be betrothed.” Isabella sniffed loudly. “I hate John. He’s a bad, wicked boy. I don’t want to be married to him, ever.”

“Why, Isabella? Why not? Why do you think he’s wicked?”

“He pulls the wings off sparrows.” The ready tears spilled over again as the little girl buried her head in Matilda’s shoulder. “He likes hurting things. He told me. And when I belong to him, he said he could hurt me. And he said he could make me cry.”

“Christ blast that boy!” Matilda swore under her breath. She exchanged glances with Elen over the child’s head. “Listen, Isabella. John only said that to tease. He would never hurt you. He couldn’t. After mass in the abbey there will be a lovely party, and then you are to stay with your mother and father until you’re grown up. John probably won’t come near you again. And when you marry him, years and years from now, you’ll be a princess. You’ll be the most beautiful princess there ever was.” She smiled down at the drawn, pale little face. “Come on, remember you’re a great lady. Ladies must never be afraid.” She dropped a kiss on the tangled hair. “Now, will you let your nurse comb you and wash you and get you ready?”

“But I saw him.” The little girl was shaking still. “He pulled the wings till the bird screamed.”

Matilda shivered. “I’ll ask my husband to tell the king. John should be whipped for such cruelty.”

“You promise?” Isabella rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.

“I promise.” Gently Matilda pushed her from her lap. “Now come on, there’s not much time.”

The nurse reappeared so swiftly it was obvious she had been listening outside the doorway. Half resentful of Matilda, half relieved that her charge had calmed down, she pushed her way to the child’s side.

“Would you credit that boy,” she muttered as she stripped the little girl and began rubbing the frail body with a cloth wrung out in a jug where the water had long since grown cold. “They sat there yesterday, side by side, when his grace the king brought them together, neat as two pins they were, both scrubbed and combed, and we saw John whispering to her. Then he took her by the hand and led her away. Lady Gloucester was that pleased, she was. Then the child comes racing in, screaming the place down. The earl was furious,
and
the king. Then young John came in all innocent. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what’s making her cry.’” She pulled a clean shift over the little girl’s head. Then the embroidered gown. Then she began to drag a brush through the delicate fair hair.

Outside in the solar the other women had been too preoccupied with the Countess of Gloucester’s grumblings to pay much attention to what was going on in the garderobe, so when Matilda emerged, holding Isabella, now neat and clean and dry-eyed, by the hand, there was a moment’s astonished silence.

“Well,” her mother said at last. “About time too.” Ignoring Matilda with calculated disdain, she went to take her daughter’s hand. But Isabella snatched it away, clinging to Matilda and dodging behind her out of her mother’s reach. Exasperated, the countess gave up without any further effort.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, you go with the child if she cares for you so much,” she snapped. “Stay with her and see she behaves. I want no more trouble.”

Her heart beating with excitement, Matilda took Isabella’s hand again and led the way out of the room. Outside she could hear the trumpet calls as the procession lined up to await the king.

St. Peter’s Abbey was packed. They walked slowly up the nave between the lofty columns that vanished into smoky darkness high overhead, where the painted colors were still blackened and tarnished by the disastrous fire that had swept the church fifty years earlier. Matilda caught her breath with excitement and unconsciously clutched Isabella’s hand even tighter. The abbey blazed with candles, and every light was reflected a dozen times in the finery of those who had crowded in to hear high mass. The air was giddy with incense.

The king was waiting for them in the choir with Prince John, splendidly dressed, beside him. With them was the tall figure of the king’s justiciar, Ranulf Glanville, who supervised John’s education, and the Earl of Gloucester, Isabella’s father, with the bishops and clergy ranked on either side. The boy, John, stood quietly, his eyes resting on the tomb of Robert, Duke of Normandy. He looked as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Never once did he raise his eyes to look at the trembling little girl who stood at his side as the blessing was pronounced. Nor did he look up as the choir burst into a joyful hymn of praise.

Once, though, he looked at Matilda. And she was surprised to see a direct challenge in his blue eyes. Amazed, she stared at him for a moment, not believing she had seen aright. The look had been so quickly veiled. I imagined it, she thought, bringing her attention sternly back to her charge and to the sacred mass, but somewhere a shadow had moved in the back of her mind, and she felt a flicker of warning.

The celebrations with endless hunting and feasting lasted several days, and then at last it was time once more to move on. Richard de Clare had not come after all, to Matilda’s intense disappointment.

She had seen the king only twice since the banquet that followed the betrothal formalities and the mass in St. Peter’s. On each occasion he was setting out in the cold dawn on a day’s hunting, surrounded by his barons and knights, William among them.

Once Prince John was at his side and again she felt the boy’s gaze on her. This time he was thoughtful, even calculating in his stare, and with a shiver she pulled her cloak around her and turned away to her tent. But not before she had seen that strange challenge again flickering in the depths of those cold blue eyes.

The next morning she was standing watching a ship being unloaded at the wharf, clutching her squirrel fur mantle around her against the icy wind from the Welsh mountains, when she heard her name called. She spun around. “Richard!” She let out a little cry of pleasure, hastily cut off as she glanced around her to see if anyone had heard. A few yards away Elen was bargaining with a packman in whose bundle she had spotted some bauble she wanted. “I had given up all hope of seeing you here!”

Richard glanced down at her. “How could I not come, knowing you would be here?” He was breathing deeply, trying to contain the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him as he stared at her, seeing her so much more beautiful, or so he thought, than when they had parted almost a year before. She had matured—turned from a coltish child into a lovely woman, her hair glossy beneath the fur hood, her cheeks whipped to color by the icy wind. He clenched his fist on the hilt of his sword.

“I hear you were delivered of a fine son, my lady,” he said slowly at last. “My congratulations.”

She smiled at him. She could think of nothing to say. Her heart was beating too quickly. She could hardly breathe. He had not touched her—not even kissed her glove—but she could feel his touch, feel the longing that stretched like a thong between them.

“There, my lady!” Elen returned triumphant with her purchase. “Shall we go on to the king’s hall?” She glared at the tall, fair-haired knight with the chevrons on his surcoat who was staring with such naked longing at her mistress, and she shivered. There was danger in that look.

“My lady.” She pulled at Matilda’s sleeve. “We should go on.”

“I’ll see you again?” Matilda could not take her eyes off Richard’s face.

He nodded helplessly, half reaching out toward her with his hand. It fell back without touching her and, with a curt bow, he turned away.

All day Matilda waited to see him again, but he did not come. Nor was he to be seen at the high table in the king’s great hall.

Disappointed and worn out with longing, she retired early, her head throbbing from the smoke and noise of the dinner, which had gone on for hours. She had unstoppered a vial of poppy syrup and was mixing a little with some wine when she looked up and caught sight of a movement against the tent wall. Her heart leapt.

“Richard?” she breathed. But only silence answered her, and after a moment she turned away. It was her overwrought imagination. He would never dare come to her tent. She picked up the cup and sipped the tincture, feeling it run soothing through her veins, and as she slipped quietly out of her gown she had already begun to feel drowsy. She was too tired to call Elen or one of the maids. All she wanted was to sink into the bed and sleep the pain in her head away. Then suddenly she saw a shadow, clearly, on the tent wall between the blowing hangings, silhouetted against a campfire outside. It paused and then moved silently toward the entrance flap. She caught her breath. That was not Richard. The shadow was too squat. Something about the stealth of the movement frightened her, and she sat up abruptly, pulling up the covers beneath her chin, holding her breath. There was a tiny
click
,
like two stones being rubbed together, and then silence.

The shadow moved quickly to the entrance and paused again, then it shrank strangely and thickened as the prowler, whoever it was, stopped momentarily as though dropping something. Then it vanished.

Matilda sat for a moment, her heart in her mouth, wondering whether to call the guard. Then she slipped out of bed and, pulling the coverlet around her shoulders, tiptoed to the entrance of the tent and looked out. There was no one there. A fine starlit sky lit the dark encampment where here and there a damped fire glowed red beneath its turves. She caught her breath in the cold air, looking left and right and then glancing down at the ground, which was already white with icy dew.

A bundle lay at her feet. Puzzled, she bent and picked it up, still thinking of Richard. It was heavy and already the frosty night had worked its way into the rough cloth, leaving it stiff and frozen. She carried it into the tent and, lighting a candle from the rushlight that burned before the portable prie-dieu, examined it more closely. The material was tied with a leather thong.

Curious, she pulled at the knot, working at the tight leather until it came free. She unwrapped the sacking, then pulled out another bundle of cloth. It was multicolored, in the flickering light half gray, half scarlet. She unwrapped it.

Lying in the folds before her, heavy and stiff, were three severed hands. The scarlet of the cloth was the blood that had soaked through it, dyeing it into a gaudy, cheerful mockery of color. She gazed at them in horror for fully a minute, her eyes unconsciously taking in the details of the grimy nails, the whitened fingers, the beaten copper ring on one of the knuckles, unable to comprehend the full horror of what she saw, and then she turned, retching, and ran for the entrance to the tent.

“Someone come! Help me! Help me!”

Her screams echoed in the frosty air and within seconds the camp watch was mustering and a knight had ducked into the tent beside her, his face white beneath his chain-mail hood as he unsheathed his heavy sword. Horrified, he stared down at the tent floor, then helplessly he touched Matilda’s arm.

“Hush, my lady, hush. There is no danger now. Look, my lady—your maids are here, and Sir William has been called.” He pulled an embroidered length of tapestry from a table and threw it over the bloodstained bundle, hiding it from sight. But she could not stop screaming. It was as if something inside her head had snapped. She was outside herself, watching herself standing there, barefoot, wrapped in a fur cloak in the streaming light of the torch that one of the watchmen carried. But she could not stop screaming.