Lady of Hay (29 page)

They found him in one of the upper rooms of the palace, seated at a large table on which were unrolled several maps. Beside him stood William Fitzherbert, Earl of Gloucester, who had arrived from his castle at Cardiff only two days previously, escorting his wife and small daughter, and several other nobles. Wine goblets had been used to hold maps flat as together they pored over the rough-drawn lines in the light of a cluster of great wax candles. There was no sign of Richard de Clare, she saw at a glance as she curtsied low before the king, her heart thumping nervously. She had so desperately hoped he would be there.

“Glad to see you made it, Sir William.” Henry acknowledged his bow. “My son is to be your neighbor in the Marches if our plans work out and we get a dispensation for this marriage.” He peered at Matilda, half hidden behind her husband. “Your wife, Sir William? She can wait on young Isabella tomorrow. See if she can stop the wench blubbering.” He snorted, holding his hand out to Matilda, who came forward eagerly.

“Your Grace,” she murmured, bowing low. She glanced up at the heavy lined face and wiry red hair dusted with white, and found the king surveying her closely with brilliant blue eyes. She sensed at once the appreciation in his gaze and uncertainly drew closer to her husband.

“Your father, Sir Reginald, was a good man, my dear.” The king held on to her hand. “The best steward I’ve had to attend me. And you’ve the look of him about you.” He grinned at William. “Lucky man. She’s a lovely girl.”

Matilda blushed and stepped back as the king released his grasp, glancing nervously up at him from lowered eyes, but already his attention was on the maps before him once more. William was drawn immediately into the discussion around the table, so she moved quietly to the hearth, where the king’s two great sable dogs lay basking in the heat, and she stood gazing down into the flames, wondering whether she should withdraw.

A moment later a door near her was flung open and a boy came striding into the room. He stopped short and looked her up and down arrogantly.

“I saw you this afternoon with Sir William’s party,” he announced, coming to stand near her. His sandy hair was disarrayed and damp from riding in the rain. “Your mare was lame. You should have dismounted and led her.”

“I beg your pardon.” Matilda blushed hotly. “She was
not
lame.”

“She was.” He made a face at her. “I saw her. She was stumbling badly.”

“She was tired.” Matilda was furiously indignant. “There was nothing whatsoever wrong with her. I should never have ridden her if there was.” She looked at the boy with dislike, noting his torn tunic and the scuffed shoes. “Anyway, it’s got nothing to do with you. You’ve no business to tell me what I should or should not do.” Her voice had risen slightly and she was conscious suddenly of a silence at the table behind her.

She turned, embarrassed, and met the king’s cool gaze as he surveyed her, one eyebrow raised, over the maps.

“I hope my son is not being a nuisance, Lady de Braose,” he commented quietly. And then, louder: “Come here, John.”

Matilda gasped and, blushing, looked back at the prince, but already he had turned his back on her and gone to stand beside his father. From the safety of his position at the king’s side he stuck out his tongue defiantly.

His father may not have seen, but one or two of the others at the table certainly had, including William. She saw him glare sharply at the boy, raising his hand as if he wanted to clout him, then, obviously remembering where he was, he too bent once again to the map before him. The king, suppressing with difficulty the amusement in his face, bowed slightly toward Matilda and once more lowered his own eyes. Her cheeks flaming, she turned back to the fire, wishing she could run from the room.

“He’s an odious, precocious little prig,” she burst out later to Elen when she was at last back in her tent. She turned so that the woman could begin to unlace her gown. “Heaven help that poor child Isabella if they are to be wed. The boy needs a thrashing.”

“Hush!” Elen, frightened, glanced around. “You can’t tell who might be listening out there, my lady. It would do no good to speak ill of the prince. No good at all.”

“Prince!” Matilda snorted, beginning to tug at the braid in her hair. “He behaves more like a stableboy, except that he knows nothing about horses. Nothing!”

“He rides very well though, so I’ve heard.” Elen gathered up the rich folds of material as her mistress stepped out of the dress. “He’s as daring as any of his brothers, although they’re so much older.”

“Daring may be.” Matilda was not to be placated. The hidden smiles of the men at the table still rankled, as did the look of amusement in the cold eyes of Henry himself. “He has no business to accuse me of riding a lame horse and making me look a fool in front of William and the king.” There was a suspicious prickling behind her eyes, and she rubbed them fretfully with the back of her hand. “It’s humiliating.”

“Hush, my lady, he’s only a boy.” Elen opened a coffer and rummaged through the contents, looking for a comb. “Forget it. Think about tomorrow instead, and the lovely ceremonies and the banquet after. It’ll all be so beautiful, indeed it will. I’ve never seen so many people and so much grandeur in all my life.”

Matilda threw her a fond smile in spite of her vexation and sat down abruptly on one of the folding chairs so that Elen could reach to comb her hair. The pink cheeks of the Welsh girl glowed with excitement in the cold air of the dimly lit tent, and she remembered suddenly that for her too tomorrow was to be a great day. It was the first time she had attended court, and it was foolish to let the boy’s deliberate taunts spoil what was to be such an exciting day—even if that boy was also the king’s youngest son, the afterthought child of Henry and his formidable queen, Eleanor. And if the boy was to be the hero of that day, well, as William pointed out, it was probably the most exciting day he would ever have, except for the wedding itself, as the center of attention. What chance had he of shining in his own right with three splendid and magnificent brothers so much older than himself?

Dismissing Elen at last, she stepped wearily out of her shift, gasping at the cold, and leaving it lying where it fell, she climbed naked into the low bed and curled up beneath the heap of furs, listening to the shouts and noise of the vast encampment. It was nearly the hour of curfew when the fires would be damped, and it would grow colder still. She longed to call Elen into her bed for warmth, but she did not dare. Her husband’s lust had been roused by the king’s obvious admiration for her, and his crude fumblings and explicit leers at the banqueting board had made it clear that she was to expect him in her bed again that night.

Sure enough, the fires were barely doused when William came stamping into the tent, already beginning to unfasten his mantle.

“The moon’s riding in a ring tonight,” he exclaimed loudly, unclasping his cloak. “It’ll blow before morning.” He waved his esquire away and sat down to pull off his boots himself. “Well, my lady, you certainly impressed his grace the king.” He chortled. “Not many stand up to that spoiled brat of his, I gather, and come away to tell the tale without having their hair pulled.”

He saw his wife’s eyes flash angrily in the light of the dim rushlight and stopped hastily. “I’m glad you’re to attend Isabella tomorrow, my dear.” He tried to appease her gruffly. “That’s a great honor. You’ll be right in the forefront of everything.”

He pulled off the other boot with a grunt and threw it to the floor. “By Christ, Matilda, the king was in a fine mood today. He plans a great hunt the day after tomorrow and I for one shall be there with him. There’s good sport to be had in the forests around here at the moment. We shall have a fine day.” He threw off the rest of his clothes and, blowing out the rushlight, turned toward the bed.

She gritted her teeth as he fell on her, and she felt his hands closing on her breasts, his knee forcing her thighs apart in the dark. “The king liked you, Matilda,” he murmured, his face nuzzling into her neck. “He said I was a lucky man and he knows a thing or two about women, does King Henry. I’ll have to watch you, won’t I?” And he laughed exultantly as he thrust his way inside her.

***

The morning dawned frosty and bright, and the wisps of mist that had drifted upriver from the estuary were soon spirited away by the sun.

Matilda stood in the chilly tent and allowed Elen and Nell to dress her. First the pleated shift, then the undertunic of blue-green, and last, over it, her gown of scarlet cloth, embroidered at the hem with gold stitching and crystals. Around her slim hips the girls placed the beautifully worked girdle that was saved for state occasions. She bade Elen pin up her long braids under her veil and then she surveyed herself critically in the polished metal hand mirror Nell held for her. She saw herself pale, her auburn hair neat beneath the snowy veil, the gilt fillet that held it in place sparkling from a ray of sun which escaped the tent flap and strayed through the shadows to where she stood.

There was no hint on her face of the raw ache between her legs, nor the vicious marks on her breasts. She had been too proud to cry, but she had prayed for hours in the dark after William had at last fallen asleep that tonight he would be too drunk to leave the banqueting hall and that his grace the king would never look in her direction again.

The rooms occupied by the Countess of Gloucester were on the far side of the palace. Without William, who had left early to attend the king and the Earl of Gloucester for the signing of the formal betrothal documents, Matilda was lost. She stood in the center of the courtyard around which lay a huddle of buildings, surrounded by noise and bustle, feeling bewildered. Behind her, Elen stood wide-eyed, barely able in her excitement and nervousness to refrain from stretching out to catch her mistress’s sleeve.

Eventually they had to find a boy to guide them to the countess’s rooms. They followed him through a cluster of stone and wooden buildings, some new built, some already derelict, into the palace itself, and through dark passages and up stairs until at last they came to a heavy door hung with tapestry.

“She be in there, my lady.” The boy jerked his thumb at the door. He sidled up to Elen and held out his hand. “I’ve brought ’e like ’e asked, mistress.”

Elen looked at him, puzzled.

“He wants you to give him a coin, Elen,” Matilda commented abruptly, scarcely noticing as Elen, blushing, groped in the purse at her girdle for a quarter penny. She took a deep breath and, holding aside the hangings, opened the door.

The large solar behind it was full of women. Hawise Fitzherbert, Countess of Gloucester, large and florid, was surrounded by her tiring women, her voice, shrill with impatience and ill-humor, clearly floating above the subdued chatter around her. She turned as Matilda came in and, catching sight of her, raised her narrowly plucked eyebrows till they almost vanished into her hairline.

“Not another one. Has every woman in the country been sent to attend us?” She pursed her mouth sourly.

“The king, Lady Gloucester, asked me to attend your daughter today.” Matilda, her cheeks burning, bobbed a small curtsy, conscious of the eyes that were all focused on her.

The woman snorted. “You and who else? Well, madam, and who might you be?”

“Matilda de Braose, Countess.” Matilda took a deep breath, determined not to be put out.

“Never heard of you.” The woman seemed determined to be ill-natured. She turned to take a brooch from an attendant and then paused as another lady stepped from the throng.

“Lady de Braose is the wife of Sir William, Countess, Lord of Brecknock in the middle March. It is a great honor that she should wait upon the little lady during her betrothal to Prince John.” She spoke in a stage whisper, designed to be heard by everyone in the room, and Matilda saw the countess pause and frown, looking at her again, and she blessed her unknown champion.

She drew herself up. “Where is the Lady Isabella? May I offer her my greetings?”

The countess held herself upright, holding in her stomach as her gown was laced up, and then held out her arms for her girdle. “You can try,” she said grudgingly. “She’s sniveling in the garderobe.”

With a swift glance at Elen, Matilda strode across the room. The women stepped back to let her pass and she could feel their eyes uncomfortably on her back, but her attention was fixed on the little side room from where she could hear the sound of heartbroken sobs.

In the corner, huddling on the floor beneath a rail of hanging clothes, a little girl was weeping as though her heart would break, clutching a rag doll. A large plump-faced nurse bent over her, coaxing, and behind, two maids hovered, clutching a selection of gowns and little mantles with which they were obviously hoping to dress her.

“What’s the matter?” Matilda demanded, looking down at the child. She was horrified to see the little girl dirty and unkempt. Her hair was tangled with grass and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes.

“She tried to run away, madam, that’s what’s the matter.” The nurse gave up coaxing and stood, her hands on her hips, looking down at the child in exasperation. “Here we are, with everyone nearly ready to go to the abbey, and the child refuses to dress. She says she wants none of the king’s son. Imagine! How dare she, the little minx. You wait till her father gets wind of this. He’ll take the strap to her buttocks until they’re raw.”

The little girl gave another sob and clutched her doll more tightly.