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

shall not let her down again. I have waited for the chance to make amends, and now at last I have it. Now at last we are all once more on the stage together.’ He turned. ‘You will love the role I’ve given you, Nick. You always were a conceited little bastard – so self-assured. So clever. So sure every woman will fall for you. And they all do, don’t they? But Jo is beginning to see through you. She has tasted your violence now. She no longer trusts you.’ He walked back towards Nick and pushed him back on the seat with a contemptuous hand. ‘When she rejects you you will be angry. You will hit her again, Nick, and this time she will come to me. She will always come to me, I shall see to that. And I shall comfort her. She’ll return to you for more because there is something of the masochist in Jo. Violence excites her. She may even tempt you to kill her, Nick. But I shall be there.’ He smiled evenly. ‘And this time I shall be the one in charge. This time I shall have men to help me. And you will crawl away, my liege.’ His voice was heavy with sarcasm and there were little bubbles of spittle on his lips. ‘You will lick your wounds and beg for forgiveness as William did to his King, and I shall have you sent away, not to hide in France to die a whimpering shameful death like William had to, no, I shall have you committed, brother mine, to an asylum. The sort of place they put people who live in a world of make believe and pretend that they are kings. And Jo will come to me. Jo will be mine. She will repent that she slighted me and beg for forgiveness and I will console her as a husband should.’

      He walked towards the tray and poured himself half a tumbler of whisky. He drank it down at a gulp and then poured another.

      ‘Have you been listening to me, Nick?’ He turned slowly.

      For a moment Nick gave no sign of having heard, then slowly he nodded.

      ‘And have you understood what I have told you?’

      Nick licked his lips. ‘I understand,’ he said at last.

      Sam smiled. ‘Good,’ he said softly. ‘So, tell me what your name was, Nicholas, in this past life of yours.’

      ‘John.’ Nick looked at Sam with alarming directness.

      ‘And you know what you must do?’

      Nick shifted in his chair. He was still staring at Sam but there was a clouded, puzzled look on his face.

      Sam frowned. He put down his glass. ‘Enough now,’ he said slowly. ‘You are tired. I am going to wake you soon. You must ask me to hypnotise you again, little brother. You find that hypnosis is soothing. It makes you feel good. You are going to forget all that I have told you today with your conscious mind, but underneath, slowly, you will remember, so that when you are next with Jo you will know how to act. Do you understand me?’ His tone was peremptory.

      Nick nodded.

      ‘And one other thing.’ Sam picked up his shirt and began carefully to straighten the sleeves. ‘A favour for a friend. Before Jo comes back you must go and see Miss Curzon. Make your peace with her, Nick. You like Judy, remember? She’s good in bed. She makes you feel calm and happy. Not like Jo, who makes you angry. Go and see Judy, Nick. Soon.’ He smiled. ‘Now, I want you to relax. You are feeling happy now and at ease. You are feeling rested. That’s good. Now, slowly, I want you to count from one to ten. When you reach ten you will awake.’

      He threw himself down on the chair, his head back against the cushion and watched with a mocking grin as, slowly, Nick began to count.

      ‘Abergavenny, Crickhowell, Tretower,’ Jo murmured as she swung the MG onto the A40 next morning. She glanced up at the line of hills and then at the gleam of the broad Usk on her left, and she shivered, remembering the icy feel of the water, the snow beneath her bare feet and the silence of the hills. Thankfully she concentrated as a tractor swung out onto the narrow road ahead of her. She leaned forward and turned on the car radio. She could not look at the hills now, not as well as hold the car on the road. She turned the station up loudly and, hooting at the tractor, tore past him north towards Hay, refusing to let herself think about the vast empty area of moor and mountain far away on her right.

      The approach from Talgarth was along the foot of the small foothills which hid the huge shoulders of Pen y Beacon and Twmpa – the Black Mountains which David had showed her on his map – but she could smell them through the open roof of the car, the sweet indefinable smell of the mountains of Wales, which she remembered from her dream.

      The town of Hay, nestling in a curve of the Wye, was a maze of little narrow streets, crowded and busy, which clustered around the gaunt, imposing half ruin which was the castle. Drawing into a parking space in the market square immediately below the castle, Jo sat staring up at it in awe. In front of her, to the left, was a cluster of ancient ruins, whilst at the right-hand end of the edifice was a portion which looked far more recent and appeared to be in the course of rebuilding and restoration. That part looked as if it might have been recently inhabited. She climbed out of the car feeling strangely disorientated; this time yesterday she had been standing in the London flat, phoning Janet Pugh. Now she was standing within a stone’s throw of the building which Matilda had built. She took a deep breath and made herself turn away towards the crowded streets behind her. First she must find a guide book.

      Bookshops throng the narrow streets of Hay-on-Wye. Shelves overflow onto the pavements. Fivepenny paperbacks rub shoulders with priceless esoterica and antiquarian treasures. Fascinated, Jo wandered around, resisting the urge to stop and browse, drawn constantly back to the brooding grey ruin. She bought her guide, a history of the town and a little street map, then, with a pasty, an apple and a can of lager she walked slowly down the hill towards the Wye, away from the castle. It was too soon to look at the castle. First she wanted to get her bearings.

      Beyond the high modern bridge which spanned the river she found a footpath leading down through the trees to a shingle bank at the edge of the broad expanse of peat-stained water, carpeted so thickly in places with the tiny white flowers of water crowsfoot that the water was almost hidden. She stood for a moment staring down at the river as it rippled swiftly eastwards towards Herefordshire, pouring over the smoothed, sculpted boulders and rocks through flat watermeadows and away from the mountains, then she found a deserted piece of sun-baked shingle and sat down. Opening the lager, she propped her back against a bent birch tree, watching the water. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of jewelled colours and recognised her first sight of a kingfisher. Enchanted, she stared after it, but it had vanished as quickly as it had come.

      She rummaged in her bag for her books, and sat eating as she looked through them, every now and then glancing up at the town beyond the river to glimpse the castle at its centre, or the church nestling beyond the bridge in the trees. Each time she found her gaze drawn back to the water, watching it as ripples formed patterns and swirls in the reflections of the clouds. A feather danced past, curled white in the sun, and far out in the middle of the current a fish jumped, silver-bellied, and plunged back in a circle of ripples.

      The afternoon was very hot and still. Jo nodded, and her book fell into her lap. Forcing her eyes open she made herself stare at the water again, trying to concentrate on staying awake, but the reflections danced in her eyes, dazzling, forcing her to close them again, and slowly, imperceptibly, the sound of the water dulled and grew muffled. It was only after a long while that she realised she could hear the sound of horses’ hooves.

      England lay beneath a pall of dust. The summer sun burning down beneath a coppery sky smelled acrid and the hot breeze which occasionally fanned the travellers’ faces was dust-laden and gritty.

      Wearily Matilda pulled up her horse at last. The groom who had been walking at its head raised his hand and the whole tired procession halted. Behind them the forests and rolling hills of Herefordshire shimmered in a haze. The Border March, a vast, wild area of forest and mountain and desolate moorland, lay before them to the west. At their feet they could see at last the River Wye, which had shrunk in places to a narrow ribbon of water flowing between broad strips of whitened shingle. There were deep pools, shadowed from the beating overhead sunlight by the crowding alders and hazels, which in places overhung the water, and by great black rocks brought down by the spring floods. They alone were cool and green, the last refuge of salmon and grayling.

      William