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

had been preoccupied during much of the ride with dark thoughts of the events that had followed Trehearne's murder. His death had served, inevitably, as an excuse for more fighting in the hills and the intervention of his kinsman, the increasingly powerful Prince Gwenwynwyn, who had laid siege to Pains-castle in his turn with a huge force of men. In a last attempt at mediation their son-in-law, Gruffydd, had, at Matilda's suggestion, been brought back to Hay from his imprisonment at Corfe. But his surly attempts as a peacemaker failed and on 13 August, the feast of Holy Hippolytas, hostilities had culminated in a major pitched battle in the hills behind Trehearne's home at Clyro, as the barons fought desperately to retain their ascendancy in the borders. They won, but with a terrible toll of Welsh lives.

Another flash of lightning ripped across the sky, followed by a distant rumble of thunder. Putting her dismal thoughts firmly behind her, she raised her whip and urged her horse into a gallop, her veil streaming in the wind, tendrils of hair tearing themselves loose from her wimple and whipping across her eyes.

She raced up the hill into Hay, scattering children and poultry, oblivious of the shaken heads and secret smiles of men and women who saw her pass into the great gates in the walls of her castle. The guards came to attention smartly and Matilda reined in her horse to a rearing, sweating halt. With a glance up at the huge, swollen clouds, she turned to claim her wager from the disheveled, unhappy lady who had tried to keep up with her ahead of their bodyguard, when all thoughts of it were driven suddenly from her head by the sight of a figure coming toward her across the bailey.

Dropping her horse's rein, she gave a short gasp, not daring to believe her eyes.

"Tilda?" she whispered at last as she slipped from the high wooden saddle. "Tilda, is it really you?" The girl had grown as tall as her mother, slim, with silver hair and a complexion as fair as the ivory of a carved crucifix.

"I hope you are well, Mother dear. " Tilda smiled and curtsied formally before submitting coolly to her mother's ecstatic kiss. "I have come to be with Gruffydd. "

"And your baby, Tilda? Did you bring him?" Matilda held the girl's two hands in her own, gazing into her face. There was so much of Richard there—and so little.

Tilda lowered her lashes. "I have two children now, mother. Rhys who is two, and Owain. He is only seven months. They—" She hesitated, glancing away. "That is, we thought it better that they should remain with Gruffydd's mother and their nurses. I have come alone. "

"You mean they wouldn't let you bring the children with you?" Matilda seized on the fact hotly. "The Welsh have kept them as hostages, two small babies!"

"No, Mother, do be calm. It wasn't safe or suitable to bring them, that's all. They are safe and happy where they are. I wouldn't have left them otherwise. " Tilda glanced up as the first heavy drops of rain began. "Come, let's go in, Mother. I don't want to tell you my news in front of your entire escort, in a thunderstorm!"

She led the way to the door of the hall, her figure slim and erect like her mother's. But there the similarity ended. Where Matilda was auburn and high-colored, Tilda was pale and ethereal. The mother belonged to the sun, the daughter to the moon.

Since Margaret had gone at last, only a month before, to marry her Walter, the castle had seemed quiet. Of all her children Margaret was the most like her mother, and Matilda missed her support and companionship sorely and dreaded the fact that at any moment Walter would take her away to his earldom across the Irish Sea, in Meath. Isobel was soon to go too, to Roger Mortimer at Wigmore, whose first wife had died in the plague and whose eager suit William had indulgently agreed, so it was a double joy to have her eldest daughter home.

But Tilda proved a hurtful disappointment. She showed little warmth to her mother, answering her excited questions in a bored tone that effectively dampened Matilda's enthusiasm.

She went to sit obediently at Gruffydd's side as soon as he returned with William to the castle and reduced Isobel to tears with her cutting, icy criticism.

Matilda, who had been going to beg her to come with her to Bramber for the Christmas celebration, bit back the invitation. "You've changed, Tilda. You used to be gentle and obedient to your family, " she reproached her sadly.

Tilda drew a quick breath and turned on her mother, her eyes flashing. "I owe you no obedience, Mother. My duty is to my husband! And it is hard to be gentle when my father is called an ogre and a murderer throughout the principalities. He is known for his treachery and his double-dealing. And as for you. " The girl paused, her nostrils pinched suddenly. "They call you a sorceress, " she hissed. "I hear stories being told to my children of Mailt the witch who will come for them if they don't sleep, and it's their own grandmother who is being talked of!" Her voice had risen to a cry of anguish.

Matilda looked at her in horrified silence for a moment. "Why don't you stop them?" She turned away, not wanting the girl to see the indignant tears that threatened to come suddenly to her eyes.

"Because for all I know, it's true. " There was no mistaking the hard note of dislike in Tilda's voice. "I remember you muttering spells when I was a child, you and that old nurse of yours. I remember the smoking concoctions you would brew up in your still room. And there are other things. They say you talk to spirits, that you called up a hundred thousand devils at Dinas, that you ride with the storm—as