Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine (reading an ebook TXT) 📕

sat staring up at it in awe. In front of her, to the left, was a cluster of ancient ruins, while at the right-hand end of the edifice was a portion that looked far more recent and appeared to be in the midst of rebuilding and restoration. That part looked as if it might have been recently inhabited. She climbed out of the car feeling strangely disoriented; this time yesterday she had been standing in the London apartment, phoning Janet Pugh. Now she was standing within a stone's throw of the building Matilda had built. She took a deep breath and made herself turn away toward the crowded streets behind her. First she must find a guidebook.

Bookshops throng the narrow streets of Hay-on-Wye. Shelves overflow onto the pavements. Fivepenny paperbacks rub shoulders with priceless esoterica and antiquarian treasures. Fascinated, Jo wandered around, resisting the urge to stop and browse, drawn constantly back to the brooding gray ruin. She bought her guide, a history of the town, and a little street map, then, with a pasty, an apple, and a can of lager she walked slowly down the hill toward the Wye, away from the castle. It was too soon to look at the castle. First she wanted to get her bearings.

Beyond the high modern bridge that spanned the river she found a footpath leading down through the trees to a shingle bank at the edge of the broad expanse of peat-stained water, carpeted so thickly in places with the tiny white flowers of water crowfoot that the water was almost hidden. She stood for a moment staring down at the river as it rippled swiftly eastward toward Herefordshire, pouring over the smoothed, sculpted boulders and rocks through flat water meadows and away from the mountains; then she found a deserted piece of sun-baked shingle and sat down. Opening the lager, she propped her back against a bent birch tree as she watched the water. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of jeweled colors and recognized her first sight of a kingfisher. Enchanted, she stared after it, but it had vanished as quickly as it had come.

She rummaged in her bag for her books and sat eating as she looked through them, every now and then glancing up at the town beyond the river to glimpse the castle at its center or the church nestling beyond the bridge in the trees. Each time she found her gaze drawn back to the water, watching it as ripples formed patterns and swirls in the reflections of the clouds. A feather danced past, curled white in the sun, and far out in the middle of the current a fish jumped, silver-bellied, and plunged back in a circle of ripples.

The afternoon was very hot and still. Jo nodded, and her book fell into her lap. Forcing her eyes open, she made herself stare at the water again, trying to concentrate on staying awake, but the reflections danced in her eyes, dazzling, forcing her to close them again, and slowly, imperceptibly, the sound of the water dulled and grew muffled. It was only after a long while that she realized she could hear the sound of horses' hooves.

England lay beneath a pall of dust. The summer sun burning down beneath a coppery sky smelled acrid and the hot breeze that occasionally fanned the travelers' faces was dust-laden and gritty.

Wearily Matilda pulled up her horse at last. The groom who had been walking at its head raised his hand and the whole tired procession halted. Behind them the forests and rolling hills of Herefordshire shimmered in a haze. The Border March, a vast, wild area of forest and mountain and desolate moorland, lay before them to the west. At their feet they could see at last the River Wye, which had shrunk in places to a narrow ribbon of water flowing between broad strips of whitened stones. There were deep pools, shadowed from the beating overhead sunlight by the crowding alders and hazels, which in places overhung the water, and by great black rocks brought down by the spring floods. They alone were cool and green, the last refuge of salmon and grayling.

William was once again in attendance on the king, this time in Normandy. Matilda had received a message from him shortly before she left Bramber. The household had stayed there too long, overtaxing the facilities, running its supplies down to nothing, but still she had been reluctant to obey William's instructions to set off once more for Wales. He planned to join her there, the message said, by Martinmas, so that he could enjoy some of the late season's hunting in the Hay forest.

One by one the horses and men picked their way almost dryshod across the silvery shallows. Before them lay the small township of Hay. It clustered around the church of St. Mary and the neighboring wooden castle on its mound securely surrounded by a thick high hawthorn hedge, trailing with honeysuckle and brambles. Outside the hedge the small fields, red-gold with brittle wheat, showed up in the heavy green of the encroaching forest. Somewhere nearby were the black brooding mountains, but they had withdrawn beneath a haze that hid all but the lowest wooded slopes of the foothills.

They rode slowly through the gap in the hedge and turned up the beaten earth track toward the castle. It was little more than a wooden tower, built upon a motte thrown up on the bank overlooking the river. Below it lay the still, deep waters of the church pool, the surface streaked with fronds of green weed. To the west of the castle flowed the Login Brook, shallow and stagnant in the heat of the sun.

Matilda halted the procession again just outside the castle wall and looked wearily around. The steward of the manor was waiting for her beside the church and, next to him, sunburned in homespun, the vicar and the castellan. She tried to smile at