Matilda felt her heart sink, the tears rising unbidden behind her own lids. She swallowed hard. “Don’t talk such nonsense, Eleanor. Rhys is a good Christian prince. And he is a kind man. I should never let a child of mine go to him otherwise.” She dropped her voice suddenly. “I hope you didn’t let Tilda see you cry like that.”

“Of course not, my lady.” Eleanor sniffed indignantly. “I would never let her, she’s so happy about going.” She dissolved into tears again.

Matilda crossed to the bed, looking at the three sleeping heads: Tilda serene and pale; Margaret with her shock of copper hair tossed on the pillow, so like her mother in miniature; and little frail Isobel, no more than a baby, so happy to be promoted to her sisters’ bed, not realizing she had come so that Margaret should not suddenly be alone. Margaret had her arm protectively around the little girl’s shoulders. But Tilly slept apart, her back to the others. Matilda wondered if she even realized that tomorrow she was to leave them. She sank slowly to her knees beside the bed, swallowing hard, and, crossing herself quietly, she began to pray, suppressing the sudden treacherous thought that far away in Deheubarth Tilly would be able to betray neither her mother nor her true father.


***

The wedding ceremonies were over and the feast had already lasted an age. Matilda looked anxiously at her little daughter sitting in the place of honor next to her husband. Gruffydd was a good-looking young man, rather florid, with tightly curling golden hair. He drank often and deeply and ate hungrily from the platter he shared with his new wife. Tilly had touched almost nothing. She looked around her with unnaturally brilliant eyes, a deep flush on her usually pallid cheeks. The crystals at her throat gleamed and reflected from the candelabra on the table and the pure gold band in her hair glowed on the silk veil. She looked, among the solid men and robust women at the high table, like a delicate little fairy. Matilda eyed the Princess Gwenllian, Gruffydd’s mother, a raw-boned woman with eyes rather too close together over the high-bridged nose, with unease. But she saw the woman lean over and pat Tilda kindly on the shoulder, her eyes smiling, and she felt a little reassured.

The wedding celebrations continued for several days, and then at last came the morning when the Welsh party began to pack their tents and shelters. Matilda and William in Rhys’s great pavilion gravely kissed their solemn little daughter and her tall groom and watched as with Prince Rhys and his glittering throng of followers they mounted and prepared for the ride to Rhys’s palace of Llandovery in Cantref Bychan.

“So that seals the peace as long as King Henry lives, at least,” William commented tersely as they rode away.

Matilda turned to him, her heart growing suddenly cold at his tone. “And if the king should die, what then?”

William shrugged. “Who knows? We’ll pray he lives long and heartily. If he should die and Rhys and his sons do not acknowledge his heir, then I will have played my hand badly.” He frowned. “Tilda will be all right, whatever happens. They will keep her away from the fighting if there is any. But, by God, if they try to use her against me…” He left his threat unspoken.

Matilda found herself gazing at him in blank despair. Had he then washed his hands of the child the day she went to another man’s table? Was she nothing to him any longer other than a pawn that he might have carelessly let slip in a chess game of far more important pieces? She gazed into William’s eyes and shuddered. If his eldest daughter could look to no mercy from him, who could? She silently prayed that none of the rest of her children should find themselves dependent on his mercy one day; nor she herself.

Miserably she looked over her shoulder, back toward the west, where the sun was sinking in a blaze of gold behind Lord Rhys’s mountains. Somewhere there, Tilda was alone.


***

“Jo, don’t cry, love.” The voice was gentle. She felt an arm around her shoulders. Tim was bringing her back, but she didn’t want to come. Frantically she resisted him, fighting to regain the world from which he was dragging her. She could still see the countryside wrapped in forest below the castle wall on which she stood, while superimposed on it, like a shadow, were the ruined masses of another castle. The sky flickered with lightning and she felt the scene shift gear before her eyes. The wall beneath her hand had gone; she found she was clawing at the grass.

“I want to know how Tilly is,” she cried miserably. “I must know. I must find out what happened to her-”

“Jo, you will find out.” Tim pulled her against him gently. “But later. Not now. Get up, love. It’s beginning to rain. We’ll go back to the car and find somewhere to stay, all right?” Carefully he pulled her to her feet.

Still dazed, she clung to him as her knees threatened to give way. She had begun to shake violently.

Tim almost carried her back to her car, pushing her into the passenger seat as the rain began to fall in earnest, then he let himself in on the driver’s side. “I’ll find a hotel for us, shall I?” he said gently. “A hot bath and a good dinner is what you need.”

He glanced at her as he leaned forward to turn on the ignition. She was lying back in her seat, her eyes closed, her face pale with exhaustion. “No more, Jo,” he said softly. “It’s taking too much out of you.”

She smiled faintly. “I’ll be okay. After a good night’s sleep. I’m just so very, very tired.”

He drove for about twenty minutes through narrow lanes in the teeming rain before drawing up outside a long white-painted, stone-built inn. He peered through the windshield wipers at it and grinned. “It looks nice. I can almost smell that dinner.”

Jo smiled. “Lead on then,” she said. But it was with an effort that she climbed out of the car after him.

The landlord was a tall, florid man of about fifty, who greeted them like long-lost friends. “The best dinner in Gwent, I can give you,” he said to Tim with confidential modesty as Jo sank onto the settle in the dark hallway. “And I’ve a cellar here would make some of your London hotels green with envy, man. There’s only one problem. I’ve just got the one room free, see? A double it is. But just the one.”

Tim glanced at Jo. Then he nodded. “We’ll take it.”

She did not protest.

A hot bath and a change of clothes in the low-ceilinged whitewashed bedroom and Jo was beginning to feel herself again. She grinned at Tim. “I’ll toss you for that sofa thing later.”

He grimaced. “You won’t have to. I’ll do the gentlemanly thing and volunteer.”

They both looked at the small two-seater settle by the window with its worn toile de jouet cover. Jo laughed. “And you over six feet tall. Perhaps we can put a bolster down the bed in the best tradition.”

“No need. I shall take a temporary oath of abstinence. Anything that would be more comfortable than this bed of Procrustes.” He slapped the arm of the sofa.

“I’ll trust you then.” She laughed. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

The meal was all they had been promised and more. Looking around the small dining room, Tim let out a contented groan. “I shall recommend this place to Egon Ronay.”

Jo leaned forward to top up his wineglass. “Don’t. It will be swamped with horrible townees and spoiled. This must stay a secret. Just ours.” She yawned. “But, nice as it is, Tim, I think I’m going to have to go to bed. I’m completely exhausted.”

He nodded. “I think you should. You still look shattered. Go on up, Jo. As it’s stopped raining I shall go for a bit of a walk.”

Jo stumbled up the narrow twisting staircase to their room. Snapping on the light, she stared around it. There was little furniture. The large old-fashioned bed, with a candlewick bedspread, an Edwardian dressing table and chair, and the settee by the window. On the polished floor there was a rush mat. With a sigh she slipped off her clothes and put on her thin silk bathrobe. She brushed her hair slowly, then, after pulling one of the books from her tote bag, she flung herself down by the window.

The casement was open, looking out over a small back garden. Beyond the drystone wall the hillside stretched downward into the shadows of the valley. In the silence she thought she could hear the sound of a stream out of sight in the darkness. Slowly she opened the book, frowning as a moth dived in through the window and blundered toward the lamp at her elbow. The volume was a biography of King John. She looked at the picture of him on the cover. It showed an elegant stone effigy, wearing a crown. She turned slowly to the illustrations in the book, staring at statues, sketches, illuminations, even coins. One thing they all seemed to agree about. John had been a good-looking man. A straight nose, a firm mouth-frequently bearded-and deep-set arrogant eyes. She half closed her eyes with a shiver. This was the man who had ordered Matilda’s death.

She glanced up at the window again, staring at the raindrops as they fell, huge and wet, onto the sill. Then with an effort she tore her gaze away. She forced her eyes open as slowly the book slid from her hands to the floor. She did not try to pick it up. She stared around the room. The walls appeared to be moving slightly in the shadows; the floor rippled. She pushed herself up on the sofa, clutching at its back, and put her hands over her eyes, rubbing them violently, trying to swing her feet to the mat, but somehow they would not obey her. They felt heavy, as if they no longer belonged to her. Her head was hammering and once again she was conscious of a strange flickering behind her eyes. Exhausted, she fell back, her head on the shiny material of the sofa arm, and, defeated, she closed her eyes.