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

"So you don't think they've been reincarnated too?"

She shrugged. "I think it's unlikely. I haven't met them, so I can't form an opinion as to how genuine they are. But I still hold by my advice. Ignore them if you can. And work out your own destiny. And leave them to work out theirs. "

"But supposing my dreams aren't real either!" Jo stood up restlessly. "This is where all my doubts come back. Supposing Nick's brother has implanted King John in Nick's mind. Supposing he has done the same to me with Matilda. " She shook her head wearily. "There's something almost evil about Sam these days. Something strange. He's very clever, Ann. He frightens me. "

"Is he clever enough to have taught you ancient Welsh in three easy lessons?"

Jo looked down into her coffee mug. "I don't see how he could have. "

"Neither do I. " Ann relaxed back into her chair. "I believe you have tapped into another life somehow. Maybe this Sam Franklyn is trying to manipulate you and his brother for some reason of his own, but if he is, he's working on something that is already there, at least as far as you're concerned, believe me. " She sat forward suddenly. "Can you hear the geese chattering? They've seen Ben. We'll talk about this some more after lunch, okay?"

Jo had all the notes she needed on Ann by four o'clock. They had walked the smallholding again, taken more pictures, and Jo had tried her hand at milking. It was in the cowshed that Ann turned to her, leaning against the angular rump of the pretty Jersey cow.

"Would you allow me to try some regression techniques on you later, when the kids are in bed?"

Jo hesitated. "I don't know. I think I'd be embarrassed—"

She glanced at Ben, who was gently rubbing some ointment into the eye of one of his calves.

"No need. You are concerned to find out about Matilda's children and grandchildren. You need to see some of the happy side of her life, if she had any, poor lady. Why not let me try and lead you there? Better than going back to Hay and violently hallucinating in the parking lot all alone. "

Jo made a face. "Put like that—"

"You can't refuse. Good. Listen, go and call your landlady and tell her you are staying here tonight. We'd love to have you, and that way it won't matter if it gets late. We'll keep it happy and loose, I promise. "

They drank homemade wine while Ann prepared the quiche for supper, then, when they had eaten, she led Jo to the sofa and sat her down.

Ben perched himself uncomfortably in the corner, his eyes on his wife's face as she talked Jo back into a trance.

"Hell, Annie, I didn't know you could do that, " he murmured as Jo obediently raised her arm and held it suspended over her head.

Ann took off her glasses. "I have a lot of talents you don't know about, Benjamin, " she retorted. "Now, to work. " She knelt at Jo's feet. "Matilda de Braose, I want you to listen to me. I want you to talk to me about your son. Your eldest son, Will, the child who gave you so much pain at his birth. He is grown up now. Tell me about him.... "

"Will had been ill all winter again. " Jo shook her head sadly. "So ill. He wanted to go with his father to fight with the king and Prince John against the French, but he had to stay with me at Bramber. Then, at the end of May, it happened. John came back to us. "

Matilda was waiting in the great hall, arrayed in her finest gown, her hair netted in a filet of silver, with Will, gaunt still, but stronger, at her right hand, when a flurry of activity at the door announced the arrival of their new king.

King Richard had died on 6 April in the Limousin, to be succeeded, not by Arthur, his elder brother's child, the true heir, some said, by strict right of primogeniture, but by his younger brother, John. John, the grown man the country needed for its king.

William had been among the first to kneel to declare his allegiance before the new king set off for England, and Bramber had been their first stop on the road to Westminster after landing at Shoreham.

Staring at the doorway, Matilda felt a slight constriction in her throat as John appeared, surrounded by his followers; but with every ounce of courage she possessed, she stepped forward to greet him, curtsying to the ground over the hand that he held to be kissed.

His blue eyes, as she glanced up, were inscrutable, but he retained her fingers in his for a moment longer than necessary. "I trust you remember, my lady, that I invited you, many years ago, to be at my coronation. "

"Thank you, Your Grace, I shall be there. " Her glance shifted to William, who was beaming at the king's side. Behind him, the king's retinue were crowding into the great hall: nobles, officers, captains of his guard, all travel-stained and weary after the Channel crossing, but eager for the refreshment that Matilda's cooks and butlers had been preparing since dawn.

With the king ensconced on the high seat of honor, reaching out for the goblet of wine that Will, on one knee, passed him, Matilda gave a little sigh. This should have been a moment of great pride and happiness, with her husband so obviously high in the favor of the new king, so why was she uneasy? She glanced at John and found he was watching her over the rim of the goblet. In spite of herself she felt the heat rising in her face and she looked away again.

Then he was speaking and she knew that, over the hubbub of talk and the intervening crowds who fawned and crowded around him, John was