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

"We look forward to our coronation and to services from our loyal and devoted subjects, as we know you all to be. We know there can be no treachery among those of you who stay our friends. " He rose and flourished the cup and William, delighted, responded pledge for pledge.

Matilda thought of the coronation to come at Westminster Abbey, lit with a thousand candles, thick with incense, and then of the ceremonies that would follow, and tried to put her worries out of her mind. John was king now. He would almost at once, Will assured her, be returning to France. With William so high in favor the next years should be good. Forcing herself to be calm and to share the excitement and good humor of the gathering, she at last took up her own cup and held it out to be filled.

"That's good, " Ann put in softly, almost afraid to speak as the silence stretched out in the room. "But I don't want you to think about the king too much. Tell me about your

children. About their marriages. Talk about Reginald and Giles and Will. Talk about the good times, if you can.... "

For a moment Jo stayed silent and Ben shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes leaving her face at last to stare out of the window to where the last pale-green reflections of the sunset were slowly merging into true darkness. From the hillside he could hear the occasional contented exchange between his grazing sheep, and involuntarily he felt himself clutching at the arms of his chair as if to reassure himself of its solidity.

The Christmas celebrations had already begun when, in a flurry of lathered, muddy horses, William arrived at Hay and greeted his wife. He was in a high good mood as he kissed her. And, uncharacteristically, he had brought her a gift, a milk-white mare with a mane and tail like pure watered silk, trapped out in gilded harness.

"It's a horse such as the infidels ride in the Holy Land, " he claimed proudly as he led Matilda out into the windswept bailey to see. "See how she carries her head, and the set of her tail? She will make a queen of you, my dear. "

The mare nuzzled Matilda's hands, blowing gently as she stroked it and Matilda bent to kiss the silky nose. Her heart had sunk, as always, when her husband returned. But, for the horse, she felt instant and unqualified love.

William called for mulled wine to be sent up to their chamber that night. As his wife sat clad only in her loose, fur-lined bedgown, William, still dressed, perched on the high bed, sipping the steaming drink. He watched as she sent away her women and she herself started to unbraid the long copper hair. Now there were silver streaks in the tresses that reached to the floor.

Favor with King John had brought yet more power to William, and Matilda, as so often, found herself looking secretly at him as he sat preening himself, wondering apprehensively at the pride and confidence he displayed.

He was becoming increasingly unpopular in the country, and part of this unpopularity was, she knew, due to jealousy. The king had favored him, a border baron, above many another man of far higher birth and better claim to the monarch's favor, and she often asked herself secretly why John gave William so much trust. He had favored him from their first meetings when the king was but a boy, seeming to prefer the bluff, stocky baron to the more effete of his earls, and yet she wondered sometimes whether John really liked him at all. She had seen those intense blue eyes studying William as the older man grew drunk and incautious at banquets and festivals; it was always after that that the cold gaze would stray to her and she would look quickly away, refusing to meet John eye to eye.

Shortly after his coronation, at which Isabella of Gloucester had not appeared, John had had his marriage annulled on the pretext that as he and his wife were second cousins and he had never had the papal dispensation required to marry her, the marriage was invalid. Matilda had at first been angry beyond all reason, but quickly she realized that such an end to the marriage could only bring relief and happiness to the poor, scared child. She had ridden to Cardiff to see Isabella, putting her arm around the girl, who had become as thin as a skeleton and was wearing a robe of penitential sackcloth. "Poor darling, " she murmured. "The king has dishonored you most horribly. You should be our queen. "

But Isabella shook her head. "I am happy now. It's what I always prayed might happen. That or the release of death. " She lowered her eyes, toying with the rosary beads that hung at her girdle. "Be pleased for me. Pity the new wife, whoever she may be. "

She, as it turned out, was another Isabella, Isabella of Angouleme, a lady well able to cope with John and his rages.

When John heard of Matilda's visit to Cardiff he was irrationally angry. "Your wife, Sir William, " he hissed at the trembling baron, ignoring Matilda, who was standing calmly beside her husband, "takes it into her head to meddle in matters that do not concern her. " His face was white with anger and his eyes glittering slits in the mask of his face. "The lady to whom I was formerly associated does not require her attentions. "

"Isabella was and is my friend, Your Grace, " Matilda interrupted before William could mumble an embarrassed apology. "I like to visit my friends when they are in need of comfort. "

"And you found, I am sure, that she needed no comfort. " John's voice dropped a fraction lower.

Matilda smiled. "Indeed she didn't. She was happy at last, Your Grace. Happier than she had been since the