Barbara Erskine 3-Book Collection: Lady of Hay, Time’s Legacy, Sands of Time. Barbara Erskine

up shrewdly under her heavy eyelids. ‘I wonder you didn’t meet the messengers we sent after Sir William. You’ll be mistress of your own, now, ma p’tite. I’m glad for you.’

      Secretly Matilda felt no sorrow for the domineering old woman, but she felt a moment’s regret for William, who had cared for his mother in an embarrassed way.

      William had left Gloucester with the King, taking with him most of his fighting men, save her escort, after a brief, futile enquiry into the murder of the three missing knights. It would be some time before he returned to Bramber.

      Matilda suppressed the smile of relief which kept wanting to come. It might not be seemly, but a great weight had been lifted from her mind. She had dreaded her meeting with Bertha. The old woman’s bitter tongue would not have spared her a lashing for her impropriety and disobedience in leaving Bramber the year before, nor would she have allowed Matilda to continue ordering her husband’s household. She glanced round at Bernard who was sitting slackly on his roan gelding behind her, apparently lost in thought. He would have lost all his respect for her if he’d heard Bertha. Now there was no danger. Bramber was hers. Breathing a silent prayer of gratitude she raised her arm in a signal and the tired procession of horses and waggons moved slowly under the gatehouse into the steeply cobbled bailey within.

      Dismounting once more, Matilda followed Jeanne into the cool dimness of the great hall and looked around with a quiet sigh of satisfaction at the beautiful arched windows, trimmed with delicately carved flintstone borders and the intricate carving which adorned pillars and doorways. Bramber was beautiful compared with Brecknock. Beautiful, civilised and safe.

      She forced herself to go at once to look at the recumbent body of her father-in-law. It was because he still lived that Bertha had remained mistress of Bramber. Had he died as God, she was sure, had intended, Bertha would have gone to her dower lands and left Matilda in charge of the castle. It was because he still lived too, that William was in such a strange position, a baron in all but title. She looked down at old William’s face. He had changed not at all since she had left Bramber. The skin was perhaps more shrunken, the eye sockets more hollow as his dimmed eyes still gazed sightlessly at the ceiling. The only sign of life was the clawed hand which grasped incessantly at the sheet drawn up over the old man’s chest. Dutifully she dropped a light kiss on the papery skin of his brown cheek. He gave no sign of recognition, and after a moment she left his bedside.

      In the privacy of her own solar she hugged Jeanne again, and taking Will from his nurse, unwrapped him herself and presented him for the old woman’s inspection. Jeanne examined the baby’s sleeping face. Then to Matilda’s relief she nodded and smiled. ‘A fine boy,’ she commented. ‘He does you credit, ma p’tite, but then I’d expect you to have bonny children.’ She glanced sideways at Matilda. ‘I can see you’re going to have another too. That is good. This time I shall be near to watch over you.’

      Matilda smiled. She had suspected that she was pregnant again, though outwardly her slim waist hadn’t thickened an inch, so she wondered how Jeanne could tell so easily. But she was happy. This time she would stay at Bramber. Nothing would induce her to travel after William as she had done before. There was to be no possibility of the evil eye being directed at her unborn child. She took Jeanne’s hands and kissed the old woman again on the cheek. The black mist-covered mountains of Wales and their unhappy memories seemed very far away.

      Giles, her second son, was born in April the following year, as the heavy-scented air of Sussex drifted like balm through the open windows of Bramber Castle, bringing with it the slight tang of salt from the hazy Channel, floating in from the saltings below, and from the fields and Downs, the heady perfume of apple blossom and bluebells. As the child was laid, sleeping peacefully, in its crib, Jeanne slipped silently to the glowing hearthstone and there laid wine and water and fresh towels for the fairies. With their blessing the child would grow strong and lucky. Matilda felt a sudden shiver of fear. There had been no such magic for baby Will. Dimly she remembered as a bad dream from the past the vision she had had at her eldest son’s birth and she crossed herself, afraid for him. Then, even as she tried to recall the meaning of the vision it blurred and slipped from her and she saw that Jeanne was watching her with strangely narrowed eyes. Matilda fought to look away but somehow she could not move. The memory grew dim and she saw only the reflection of the sunlight glinting on the ewer of water by the fire, and then again she slept.

      In her bed at Abergavenny Jo stirred in her sleep as the dream faded. The moonlight touched her face with cold fingers and she flung her arm across her closed eyes and shivered before lying still again.

      ‘I want you to listen to me carefully.’ Sam sat down on the edge of the coffee table in front of Nick, his eyes on his brother’s face. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’

      Imperceptibly Nick nodded.

      ‘Good. And you know I would do nothing to harm you – and I think it would harm you, Nick, to take you back into the past too soon. First I must prepare you. I must warn you who you were in that life, long ago …’ Sam paused, a flicker of grim humour straying across his face. ‘You were not Richard de Clare, Nick, and you have good reason to be jealous of him. He was your friend and your adviser. And he was your rival. You and he both loved Matilda de Braose. But Richard won her. It was to him that she turned. She despised you. She feared you and hated you. She was your enemy, Nick. Do you remember?’ He paused, watching Nick’s face closely as his brother shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his face sombre. His gaze had strayed from Sam towards the lamp once more, his eyes fixed on it, the pupils pin-sized in the brilliant blue of the flood-lit irises. Hanging down towards the carpet at his side, one of his hands twitched involuntarily as he clenched and unclenched his fist.

      Sam smiled, wondering for a brief second if what he was saying had a grain of possibility behind it. Where had the violence in his brother come from? One day he would find out for sure, but not today. Today he was setting the scene.

      ‘I think perhaps you do remember, Nick,’ he went on quietly. ‘You were a prince when you first saw her. She was beautiful and tall and charming. A lady. And you were a snotty boy. Do you remember? You were born too late. She was the first woman you ever desired and she was already another man’s wife and the mother of his child, and you were too young still even to screw the serving wenches you caught in the dark corners of the palace. You made do then with pinching their breasts and thrusting your hand up their skirts, but later it was different. Later you could have any woman you wanted. And you took them. Peasant or lady. Willing or not. Your reputation has echoed down through the centuries. You took them all. All save Lady de Braose. Her scorn unmanned you. When she looked at you, you knew she still saw you as a snivelling child. And your love began to sour. You determined to bring her to her knees, do you remember, Nick? You told her husband to control her better, but he was weak.’ His jaw tightened momentarily. ‘She needed William’s help and he failed her. When he should have whipped her and bridled her shrewish tongue, he let her speak. He let her walk into your trap, when he could have saved her.’ He stopped, unable to go on for a moment, sweat standing out on his forehead as he watched Nick’s face. ‘You hated her by then, and you determined she would pay for her scorn with her life.’

      He sat forward on the edge of the table, hooking his forefinger into the knot of his tie, and pulling it loose whilst behind him the sky was losing its colour, the sunset fading as the glare of street lights took over outside the open window.

      ‘And now, Nick,’ he went on after a pause, ‘you and she have been born in another century and in another world, and this time you are not a child. This time she sees you as a man, a man she finds attractive, a man to whom she has submitted. But you cannot trust her. Your hate remains. You have not forgotten, Nick. And you have not forgiven. You swore vengeance against Matilda de Braose eight hundred years ago and you are pursuing it still.’

      He stood up abruptly and turned away from his brother, tearing off his shirt and throwing it to the carpet. He was perspiring heavily as he stood at the window and took deep breaths of the cool evening air, consciously trying to slow his pulse rate as he felt the violence of his heart beating beneath his ribs. Suddenly he laughed out loud, throwing back his head exultantly.

      ‘And this