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

relaxing as she ate a fresh crusty roll and a plate of Stilton salad, and sipped a glass of cider. Her panic was retreating. She had come, after all, to find Matilda. What had happened by the Wye and outside Hay Castle was no more than she had hoped might happen at Bramber or as she ran her hands across the ancient walls at Clare. Somehow she had triggered off some sort of trance and the place had done the rest.

So why had she been afraid? She leaned back in her chair, staring with half-closed eyes up at the underside of the striped umbrella that shaded her table. What she ought to do was face this strange talent she had found within herself and bend it to her will, summon it once more and with it discover whether Matilda had heeded Jeanne's warning.

Slowly she stood up and stretched catlike in the sun. Had Matilda ever come to Monmouth? she wondered. And if so, did she have the courage deliberately to try and find out?

Undecided, she walked slowly out of the garden and into the quiet road. She glanced with distaste at her car parked at the curbside; the thought of another four hours in the sweltering heat did not appeal to her, so she turned her back on it and walked on. The sun was now shrouded in haze, but it was still very hot as she followed a footpath between some old stone-built houses and made her way down to the Usk, where she sat down on a crumbling wall and watched a small lizard skitter over some dry moss and disappear into a crack in the stone.

After kicking off her shoes, she dabbled her feet in the icy water. A few minutes' rest was what she needed. Then she would decide whether to move on or wait to try to summon back the past.

The water was sucking at the moss-covered stones on the old bridge, combing tresses of brown weed into the streaming current. Now and then a stray glimmer of sunshine would escape the haze and turn the oily smooth surface into a sparkling pool that would shimmer and move and slide back into the brown oneness of the river.

Suddenly she found she was clutching her hands together, trying to force herself to look away as she felt a strange shimmer of unreality flicker before her eyes. She blinked and the scene steadied, then once again it seemed to move. She pulled her feet out of the river and made as if to scramble up the bank. "No, " she whispered. "No. I didn't mean it. Not yet. I'm not ready. I don't want it to happen again yet.... "

The nausea had returned. Wearily Matilda rested her head against the pillow and waited for it to pass. Gently Elen placed a cloth against her forehead after wringing it out in the pitcher of ice-cold water. The girl's fingers were blue but she uncomplainingly dipped the cloth in again, soothing her mistress's fevered trembling with gentle hands.

"You'll not be able to leave Monmouth today, my lady. You must tell Sir William. " She ran for the basin as Matilda began to retch again.

"No!" After pushing the bowl away, Matilda struggled to her feet. "I will go with Sir William. I have a feeling, a strange feeling here. " She pressed her hand to her stomach. "There is danger somewhere, Elen. I'm sure I'm needed at Hay. We should not have allowed the children to travel on with the household without us. "

"But, my lady, you're ill. " Elen's eyes were soft with sympathy.

"I am not ill, " Matilda snapped at her. "I told you. I am with child again. "

"But you never have morning sickness, madam. Never in all the years I've known you—" She stopped abruptly at the sight of Matilda's face.

"Well, I have now, so be quiet about it. " Matilda forced herself to climb out of the bed and reached for her gown. "Something's wrong, Elen. I can't explain it, but I have the feeling something awful is going to happen, and my feelings are always right. I must be with the children. I must—"

It had happened again the night before as she lay half waking in the firelight. A shadow hovering near her, something she could not grasp or see. "There's death here, Elen, " she whispered. "Death near us. " She doubled up again and Elen, her eyes enormous with fear, ran to hold her. For a moment the two women clung together. Then, slowly, Matilda straightened up, pushing tendrils of hair back from her damp forehead.

The realization that she was again pregnant had come as a bitter disappointment to Matilda. It was two years since she had given birth to her third son, Reginald, and she had dared to hope that God was sparing her the burden of further children.

Not realizing that this pregnancy would make her tired and ill within a few weeks, she had reluctantly agreed, while they were at Gloucester, to allow the children and their nurses and attendants to go with the main baggage train to Hereford and then on to the newly built castle of Hay, on its hill above the old site near St. Mary's, while she accompanied William on a tour of his castles in Gwent; and she had braced herself to visit Abergavenny once again, should he require it, although he had as yet made no mention of going there.

It was seven years since that terrible night, but she was certain that he too remembered it sometimes, with horror, in his dreams. And ever since they had waved the children away, she had been afraid. She pictured them. There was Will, tall and thin, riding very upright behind a groom, his delicate features solemn beneath the unruly mouse-color hair; Giles, so different from his brother, confident, with shiny copper-color hair, immaculately combed and brighter by far than her own. Then came Matilda, a