Lady of Hay

by Barbara Erskine

  “Hostages!” Matilda repeated indignantly. “Why hostages? Is our word not good enough?”

  “William’s isn’t.” He threw the remark over his shoulder as he returned to his chair and lowered himself into it.

  “Then mine, my lord. There should be no need of hostages.”

  “Oh, come, Matilda, it is customary. Are you afraid I might demand your own fair self?” He smiled. “I’m sure we can take someone you won’t miss too much! Tell your husband to come to me the day after tomorrow at Hereford. I will hear his excuses then. But never again. This is his last chance to convince me he can work something out. His last chance.”

  With a gesture he dismissed her. Then as she curtsied and turned toward the door he called out. “By the way, my lady. I have no doubt you have heard that following the papal interdict I am confiscating all church property for the use of the crown. I understand there are substantial properties waiting for me in Hereford. Episcopal properties.”

  Matilda swallowed, nervously holding her breath.

  “You must admit, my lady”—his voice was as smooth as a cat’s purr—“that I have grounds for scenting treachery within the de Braose family. Very good grounds.”

  When William returned to the Hay from his meeting with the king three days later, it seemed that all had gone well. He strode into the hall, where most of the household were gathered for the noonday meal. At his side were two of the king’s officers.

  Matilda laid down her napkin and rose to her feet, anxiously scanning her husband’s face for signs of worry or anger. He met her eyes and then glanced down, swallowing nervously.

  “Father, what happened? What did the king say?” Will was around the table and off the dais in a moment, confronting his father. There was silence in the great hall. At the high table all eyes were fixed on William and at the lower tables where other members of his household ate; men and women alike waited with bated breath for their lord to speak. The only sound came from the fires, where logs hissed and crackled between the great iron dogs and from behind the serving screens at the back of the hall, where a hastily suppressed giggle rang out in the silence.

  “We have reached an agreement.” William spoke at last. Matilda saw him swallow again and she felt a tremor of unease. Silently they waited for him to go on.

  “The king has agreed that I can spread the payments of my debts over several years,” he continued, and then, as if conscious for the first time of the watching eyes from the depths of the hall, he stepped onto the dais, lowering his voice. “The king has requested one or two guarantees that I will pay.” He glanced over his shoulder at the waiting officers and then turned back, refusing to meet Matilda’s gaze. Full of misgivings, she slowly seated herself once more, forcing herself to stay calm.

  “What guarantee does the king demand, William?” She reached slowly for her goblet, keeping her voice slow and steady with an effort.

  “I have agreed that he take all my Welsh lands and castles into the royal holding, just until I pay. He has already sent constables to take them over—all but Hay, which he said was more yours.” He frowned. “And then…” Once more he looked at the floor, his voice trailing away uncertainly as a gasp of horror went around the high table.

  “And, William?” Matilda could feel Reginald beside her holding his breath. She put her hand gently over his on the table. Before them the plate of meat congealed in a pool of cooling fat.

  “And I agreed that we should give him hostages, Moll. Many, many other families have been asked to do the same. It’s not just us.” He hesitated. “He wants Will, and our two grandsons, little John, and Isobel’s son, baby Ralph—”

  “No!” Will sprang to face his father, his face white with fury. “You would dare to hand babes over to the king! Ralph is only three days old, for God’s sake! How did the king know Isobel had come here from Wigmore? How did he know Ralph even existed?” He turned and glared accusingly at his mother, but William interrupted.

  “No, Will, not your mother. I told him. I had to offer more surety. He would not give me the time to pay otherwise. I had to have time. I thought he was going to arrest me.” His eyes were fixed at last on his wife’s face.

  Slowly she stood up. So John had been mocking her all along, lying when he said he would demand no one of importance to her. After pushing back her chair, she walked behind the others seated at the table and came around to the edge of the dais. Her eyes were hard as she turned to the king’s officers standing side by side below the step. “If the king requires hostages he shall have them,” she stated flatly. “I will give myself if necessary, but I would deliver none—none of my sons to the king, you can tell him that. If he asks why, remind him of his promise to me and tell him that perhaps he should think of the honorable way he treated his brother’s child, his own nephew Arthur, then he will know why I would not trust him with my sons!”

  “Matilda!” William broke in, scandalized. “You mustn’t mention that. It is not supposed to be known! I swore to keep it a secret!”

  Matilda turned her blazing eyes on her husband. “I think it is as well that the king should know that his people realize what has been going on. I wouldn’t trust him with any of my family. He let me believe he would ask for no hostages of importance and then he does this.”

  William hastily stepped from the dais. He put his hand on the shoulder of one of the king’s officers. “Tell the king I’m sorry. Tell him I’m still ready to make good.” He hesitated. “But without hostages. I’ll go before his court and whichever barons he chooses…Make no mention of anything my wife said. Please. She was overwrought.”

  The king was told, however, word for word, what Matilda had said.

  He reacted with an outbreak of unprecedented fury, followed by the issue of orders that William and Matilda and their entire family should be arrested without delay. Appalled, Matilda listened to the breathless, garbled warnings as she stood with Earl Ferrers in the bailey at Hay as a messenger from Hereford flung himself off his lathered horse at her feet, gesticulating wildly behind him, tripping over his words in his haste.

  Matilda went cold with terror as she understood at last that the king was sending men to arrest them. “You must leave,” she said to the young earl urgently. “Leave quickly. This is our quarrel. You’re not involved and there’s no need for you to get on the wrong side of the king.”

  Ferrers had gone quite pale. He scrambled hastily onto the horse that his esquire had brought him ready for a hawking trip, and sat for a moment looking down at Matilda. “If there’s anything I can do, I will. You know that.”

  “I know.” She smiled tautly. “Now ride quickly. I want those gates closed.”

  She watched with a frown as the young man galloped out, not pausing even to summon his attendants, save for the astonished esquire who had time only to throw himself across his own unsaddled gelding and pelt after his young master. Then slowly—too slowly, it seemed to Matilda—the great gates swung to behind him. With a hammering heart she beckoned the messenger and sent to find her husband.

  “What shall we do?” William looked from one to the other of his sons. “It’s all your fault, you stupid woman.” He turned on Matilda. “Why could you not have kept your mouth shut? Now the king will never forgive us! We are all doomed. It is the end.”

  “She did right, Father.” Reginald’s was the only calm voice among them. “You should not have allowed the king to demand our children. If you had failed to pay, he might have—” Seeing Mattie’s face as she held little John in her arms, he broke off abruptly. The whole family was congregated around the fire in the solar. Will stood behind his wife, his hands gently on her shoulders. Only Isobel was missing, still in bed after the birth of her baby. No one had told her that her little Ralph had been demanded as hostage.

  “There’s nothing left for it but to fight him.” Reginald spoke again. “You’ve nothing to lose, Father, and a lot to gain if you win. That way you could demand exemption from the debt altogether,
or at least time to pay on your own terms.”

  “No, Reginald!” Adam de Porter’s quiet voice cut him short. “You must not fight the king. Your father must demand a fair hearing and I think your mother should ask the king’s pardon for her rash remark. You must all throw yourselves on the king’s mercy. To fight him would be treason.”

  It was Matilda’s turn to be furious. She faced him. “Never. Never will we throw ourselves on John’s mercy, nor appeal to his honor. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word.”

  “Reginald is right, you know, Father.” Will spoke at last. “We should fight. Things have gone too far now. You reclaim your rights and territories and repay the debt as and when you can and then the king will have no more complaint against you. And Mother must never apologize to the king. That would be unthinkable.” His eyes strayed to his mother’s face and for a moment they held one another’s gaze. Matilda looked away first.

  There was a knock outside. The door opened before anyone answered and Stephen the steward appeared, a worried frown on his lined face. “The king’s men are at the gates, my lord, demanding entry. They have warrants.”

  “They are not to come in.” William slammed his fist on the table. “Pour some slops on their heads if they dare to try. Tell them to go back to the king and tell him that William de Braose will fight him first.”

  “No! William!” Adam put his hand on his brother-in-law’s arm but William shook it off angrily.

  “Yes! I have had enough of going in fear, begging and cringing. Tell them that, steward. De Braose will fight!”

  The king’s messengers rode away without much argument, but it was obvious they would soon return with reinforcements.

  Adam left as soon as the coast was clear. “I cannot agree with what you’re doing, William. It’s treason,” he said before he rode away. “You must ask the king’s pardon and submit to him.” But William would not listen. The days of fear and pleading were over. With his family behind him at last, he felt confident he could repair his self-esteem. When a detachment of the king’s troops arrived at Hay to try to carry out the arrests, he repelled them with something like a grim good humor, hurling insults after them when three days later they rode away to the east.

  ***

  Nick jerked upright in his chair. So they thought they could fight him, the fools! How could de Braose be so arrogant; how could she be so proud, so stubborn…

  He stared around, disoriented. The others were sitting in silence, each deep in his own thoughts, Jo gazing blankly out into the darkness.

  “Are you all right, Nick?” Ben leaned forward and touched his arm.

  Nick forced himself to smile. On the table, the candle had burned so low the wick floated in a small pool of liquid wax. “Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I must have been asleep. I’m a bit jet-lagged, I suppose.”

  “And tired. It is midnight, after all. Come on.” Ben stood up. “I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

  Nick rose to his feet unsteadily, still grasping for reality. He hesitated for a moment then he dropped a kiss on Jo’s forehead. “Good night,” he murmured.

  Jo and Ann watched him follow Ben into the house. Then Ann got up.

  “We’re putting him in the apple loft, Jo. It makes a lovely bedroom in the summer. Unless you want to sleep together?”

  ***

  Sitting down on the edge of his bed, Ben wearily pulled off his socks. “I’ll never be able to get up for milking.” He groaned.

  Ann grinned. “Go on. You always say you only need two hours’ sleep.”

  “I do. But they’ve got to be the right two hours, and that’s about ten o’clock.” He stood up and began to take off his trousers. “What do you make of the boyfriend?”

  Ann had been brushing her hair. Her hand stopped in midstroke. “He frightens me.”

  “Frightens you?” Ben repeated incredulously. “I thought he was a decent sort. Very decent. And they obviously love each other. Once they’ve got this peculiar business settled, they’ll be fine.”

  Ann shook her head slowly. “It’s not as easy as that, Ben. I told Nick there was no way he could have been given posthypnotic suggestions to make him hurt Jo or do anything he didn’t want to, but that wasn’t strictly true. If his brother is anything like as clever as I think he is, he will have found a way around Nick’s natural inhibitions easily. Nick and Jo have reason to be afraid, Ben. I think he has planted posthypnotic suggestions in both their minds. I think he is playing them against each other for some reason I cannot even begin to guess, and he’s so sure they’ll work he can brag about them to Nick.” She shivered suddenly. “The awful thing is, I think they might work all too well, whatever they are.”

  Ann couldn’t sleep. For more than an hour she tossed and turned beside Ben, who always slept at once, flat on his back, relaxed and seemingly dreamless, then she got up. She pulled on a silk kimono over her cotton nightgown and tiptoed out of the room. The children were sleeping soundlessly in their bedroom beneath the sloping roof. Bill, who still slept like a baby, on his back, his arms above his head; Polly curled in the fetal position, her thumb firmly plugged into her mouth, the two golden heads still and angelic. She crept out of the room and closed the door silently.

  The kitchen was still hot from the woodburning stove. She lit a lamp then opened the door of the firebox quietly and threw in a log. It would be nice to have hot water for the morning. Often in the summer she didn’t bother…

  “There wouldn’t be a chance of a cup of tea, would there?” The voice from the end of the dark sitting room made her jump nearly out of her skin.

  Nick rose from the shadows and came toward her.

  “Of course.” She glanced at him curiously. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans. His top was bare, as were his feet.

  “Sorry if I frightened you. I think I’m too tired to sleep. My brain is whirling in ever-decreasing circles.” He perched on a stool at the edge of the lamplight. “I took off my watch. Do you know what time it is?”

  “After three.” Ann filled the kettle and put it on the stove. “It’ll take a while to boil. The fire was nearly down.”

  “I want you to hypnotize me, Ann.” Nick leaned forward suddenly. He reached out a hand toward her. “I must find out the truth. Please.”

  “Are you sure you want to know the truth?” She surveyed him solemnly. Then almost without knowing she had done it she took his hand. She squeezed it lightly and then drew away.

  He nodded. “If Sam has planted any ideas in my head I want you to find out what they are and kill them, do you understand?”

  “Nick.” She began to pace up and down the floor slowly, her arms folded, her bare feet kicking the silk of the kimono into a rhythmic billowing pattern over the stone flags. “There are things you must understand. Posthypnotic suggestion—if that is what we are discussing—is a strange and inexact science. I don’t know what your brother might have suggested. Neither do I know what safeguards and conditions he may have imposed.”

  “He has suggested that I was King John of England in a previous life. He has suggested that as John I was in love with Matilda de Braose. I think he has suggested that I killed her—or ordered her death—because she rejected me, and I think he has suggested I kill Jo as some sort of crazy revenge.” He took a deep breath. “Did Jo tell you that I have already hurt her? Twice.”

  Ann sucked in her breath. “No, she didn’t tell me that.” She stared at him: at the handsome, strong face, the determined chin, the firm blue eyes beneath straight brows, the broad muscular shoulders of a sportsman, strong arms, slim hips. She closed her eyes. He was unquestionably a strong man. A man who could easily overpower any woman if he chose. And he was an attractive man. Very attractive…She saw the slight smile on his lips and dragged her eyes away from him quickly. Christ! She was supposed to be the hypnotist! She shivered again.

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Yes,” she said, “I’ll try.”

  ***

>   Quietly Sam let himself back into Nick’s apartment. He put his bag down in the hall and stood still, listening. There was no sound. Even the noise of traffic was silent at this hour, the occasional cars in Park Lane muffled by the closed windows. He walked quietly forward and peered into Nick’s bedroom. It was empty, as he had known it would be. A quiet check on the other rooms proved Nick wasn’t there either. Smiling to himself, he switched on the lamp in the living room and walked over to the windows. For a moment he stood still, staring at his own dark reflection in the glass, thrown into relief by the single bulb, then he reached up and drew the curtains together with a sharp rattle. He turned and looked around.

  It was a large rectangular room, the polished wood floor carpeted with brightly colored rugs. The walls were covered with paintings and drawings—one of them a sketch of Jo. Sam stood in front of it for a moment, considering it. It wasn’t good. It did not do her justice.

  Behind him the phone rang. He turned and looked at it, then he glanced at his watch. It was four in the morning.

  He picked up the receiver.

  “Nick? Thank God, I thought you might have gone away for the weekend.” Sam said nothing. He was smiling faintly.

  “Nick? Nick, are you there?” Judy’s voice rose hysterically. “Nick, did you find Jo? Pete and I have just been over at Tim Heacham’s and he was saying the craziest things. He was doped up to the eyeballs, but he said Jo really was going to die and none of us could do anything about it—Nick!”

  “Nick isn’t here, my sweet.” Sam sat down on the deep armchair and cradled the receiver against his left ear. “I’m sorry. You must have missed him.”

  There was a breathless silence. Then she whispered, “Sam?”

  “The very same. How are you, Judith?”

  “Where is Nick?” She ignored his question.

  “I have no idea. I am not, as someone once said, my brother’s keeper.” He rested his feet on the coffee table.