Matilda, who had been going to beg her to come with her to Bramber for the Christmas celebration, bit back the invitation. “You’ve changed, Tilda. You used to be gentle and obedient to your family,” she reproached her sadly.

Tilda drew a quick breath and turned on her mother, her eyes flashing. “I owe you no obedience, Mother. My duty is to my husband! And it is hard to be gentle when my father is called an ogre and a murderer throughout the principalities. He is known for his treachery and his double-dealing. And as for you.” The girl paused, her nostrils pinched suddenly. “They call you a sorceress,” she hissed. “I hear stories being told to my children of Mallt the witch who will come for them if they don’t sleep, and it’s their own grandmother who is being talked of!” Her voice had risen to a cry of anguish.

Matilda looked at her in horrified silence for a moment. “Why don’t you stop them?” She turned away, not wanting the girl to see the indignant tears that threatened to come suddenly to her eyes.

“Because for all I know, it’s true.” There was no mistaking the hard note of dislike in Tilda’s voice. “I remember you muttering spells when I was a child, you and that old nurse of yours. I remember the smoking concoctions you would brew up in your still room. And there are other things. They say you talk to spirits, that you called up a hundred thousand devils at Dinas, that you ride with the storm-as you did”-her eyes suddenly flashed-“the day I came here, Mother.”

Matilda sat down on a carved joint stool and gazed into the glowing embers of the fire. “If you believe all that of me, Tilly, why did you come back to us?”

“I came to see Gruffydd. I didn’t know if he would be allowed to come home. I had to come here.”

“I see.” Matilda’s voice was flat. “Well, my dear. You’d better go to him, then.” She shifted slightly on her stool, turning her back to Tilda, and sat in silence.

Her daughter stood for a moment, hesitating, half regretting her outburst, then with one backward glance at her mother’s hunched figure she swept past her out of the door.

Matilda saw to it that they were never alone together after that, and although she spoke kindly to Tilda and treated her with every consideration, it was with relief that she saw her leave Hay at last with Gruffydd.

William, his elbows firmly spread upon the table, commented at the meal that evening. “That was a good marriage. I’ve had my doubts about the politics of it often enough: the link wasn’t strong enough to hold old Rhys, but Gruffydd is a good enough man, for a Welshman. I could wish he were stronger, but I reckon he’s made our daughter a good husband. She looked well and happy.” He glanced at her, grinning. “I know you were never content to see her off into the Welsh hinterland, Moll. I hope this visit has at last put your worries at rest.” All Matilda could do was lower her eyes and nod.


***

“No! That’s wrong!” Jo was shaking her head. “William knew! He knew she was not his daughter! He would not have said that! He would not have cared…”

She staggered slightly, her hand against the cold, shadowed castle wall; her head was spinning and her mouth was dry. She felt slightly sick. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles trying desperately to clear her head. “He would not have called her ‘our’ daughter. He knew. He knew about Richard by then. He had forced me to tell him…”

But did he know? She could feel her heart beginning to pump uncomfortably beneath her ribs. Was it William who had questioned her about her unfaithfulness with Richard, or had it been Sam? Sam pursuing her into the past. A Sam who had taken upon himself the face of William de Braose. A Sam who had forced her to strip and then whipped her-something the real William had never dared to do.

She closed her eyes, breathing hard.

When she opened them again she was conscious suddenly that a man was staring at her. He had parked a Land Rover in the shadow of the wall near her, watching her closely as he climbed out and locked it. She smiled uncomfortably at him and forced herself to walk on slowly, aware suddenly that he probably thought she was drunk.

She stumbled again, and as her hand shot out to steady herself, she stared at her fingers braced against the stone. Make notes. That was the thing to do. With a pencil in her hand she felt real; she could fight Sam and William and the past and everything they threw at her.

Determinedly she groped in her bag for her notebook, trying to fend off the strange dislocation that still lingered as she stared up toward Pen y Beacon and the pearly mist that clung about its summit.


***

Three-quarters of the way across England, at Clare, Tim Heacham, a page meticulously cut from a newspaper in his pocket, was standing by the walls of what had once been a mighty castle. The taxi that had brought him out from Colchester had gone. He was alone. Slowly he walked over the grass, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground a few yards in front of him. There had to be something he could do, but his mind was a blank.

Nick and Sam Franklyn. He should have known. He should have trusted his instincts. He should have warned Jo while there was still time. Now it was too late. Whatever was to happen was already in train, and there was nothing he could do. Nothing.

He looked up at the sky. “Oh, God, Jo, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m so very sorry.”

31

Ann Clements was fifteen years younger than her husband, a plump, very blond woman with large teeth and a warm, irrepressible smile. She kissed Jo as if she had known her for years.

“Are you going to interview me or shall I interview you?” she said cheerfully as they picked their way into the house over the two small toddlers, a vast quantity of scattered Legos, and a large white rabbit with pink eyes.

Jo laughed as she patted one of the children on the head. “Perhaps we’d better toss for it.”

“All right.” Ann smiled at her. “That is Polly you’re stroking. The other one is Bill and the rabbit is called Xerxes. Sit down. I’ll make us some coffee. Once Ben comes in I’ll start lunch.” She turned to an immense heap of unwashed dishes, searching for two mugs. “Ben told me all about you, of course. Put that down, Polly.” She had not turned around and Jo concluded with a grin that she had eyes in the back of her head as the little girl with her mop of blond curls guiltily put down the milk jug. “I’ve seen people being regressed back home in the States-it’s practically a minor industry there-but your case sounds absolutely amazing. Ben tells me you intended to write a book about it.”

Jo nodded.

“But you changed your mind?”

Jo shrugged. “I thought I had when I saw Ben. Now I’m undecided again. I went straight from here to Brecon on Tuesday after I’d seen him. I regressed there, and once again yesterday in Hay. Both times deliberately. But I just don’t know what to think anymore. If it were just me, I’d go on. It is all so real to me, and someone has proved I was speaking real old Welsh, and that clinched it for me, but then some rather unpleasant things happened.”

“And you found other people muscling in?” Ann rinsed out the two mugs.

“I found that, after all, the whole thing could have been orchestrated by someone else.” Jo bit her lip “And if that’s true, his motives terrify me.”

Ann glanced up at her. “Can you tell me about it?”

Jo shrugged. “It’s all so involved. There’s one friend…a colleague really. Tim Heacham. He has been regressed-quite independently. He was one of the people in Matilda’s story.”

Ann raised an eyebrow. “Could be true, you know. Or it could be strong autosuggestion. Has he gone into the detail you were able to?”

Jo shrugged again. “I don’t think so. The experience seems to have been very different for him, but he’s afraid of getting any more involved. He wants nothing to do with it. And now I’ve found out there is someone else-a man I’m very fond of. He seems to have been regressed as well.”

“Sounds as if the habit’s catching.” The dry comment was all but drowned by screams from Bill as his sister tugged a great handful of his hair. Ann calmly picked up a child under each arm.

“If you were to ask my advice I should say leave your friends out of this. Let them all work out their own problems. And you concentrate on yours.”

“And go on doing it?”

Ann straightened, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “Do you think you can stop?”

Jo rescued the box of coffee filter papers from Bill, ruffled his hair absently, and handed the box to his mother. “No, I don’t think I can.” She gave a half-embarrassed smile.

“Then you must go on with the book idea.” Ann put the pot on the stove. “It’s a good way of approaching it. Writing is one of the best therapies there is, you must know that. And it gives you a justification for following the story on without being afraid it is becoming an obsession. It kind of justifies your actions, forces you to stop and analyze them, and gives you an excuse for doing it all in one. It also gives you a natural cutting-off point at the end.” She looked at Jo closely. “That’s kind of a safety valve. It’s something I think you must have. But there are other precautions you must take-I’m surprised your therapist hasn’t made them clear to you. You must stop either trying or allowing yourself to regress when you are alone. For two reasons. The brain enjoys excursions of this sort. They take on an almost narcotic compulsion and become easier and easier to do, and from what Ben tells me, you are finding that already. All you need now is some sort of trigger-a place, an association even, or, as you told Ben, an electrical storm to stimulate the brain cells. You don’t want to end up finding the past is more compelling than the present! The other reason is self-evident. You are alone and unmonitored. That could be dangerous.” She glanced at Jo and smiled. “If you go into a trance in the middle of the M4 you just might get run over!”