well.’ He lashed his reins across the horse’s neck. ‘I shall tell him how I was quietly riding, minding my own business, from home in Tonbridge to Gloucester when I met his baggage of a wife, completely unescorted except for one trembling female, hell-bent on riding the breadth of England to his side in mid-winter. I shall tell him that I saw it as my chivalrous duty to escort you myself. And I shall tell him that any man who leaves a young, beautiful, newly wed bride alone in Sussex with her mother-in-law, while he travels to his furthest lands, is a mutton-headed goat.’ He managed a wry grin, ducking the wet slap of a low-hanging branch in his path. If Matilda had been his wife he would not have left her. He clenched the reins fiercely; no one would accuse Richard de Clare of lusting after another man’s wife. He admired her daring and her humour and her spirit, so unusual in a woman, no more than that. He glanced across at her and saw that she was smiling. ‘Why did you choose to come to Wales?’ he asked suddenly.
She looked down at her hands. ‘Because I have nowhere else to go, but to my husband,’ she said simply. ‘With him I am a baron’s lady, mistress of a dozen castles, a woman of some importance.’ Her mouth twitched imperceptibly. ‘At Bramber with his mother I am merely another female with the sole distinction of being hated by her twice as much as anyone else. Besides,’ she added disarmingly, ‘it’s boring there.’
He stared at her in disbelief. William de Braose was a vicious ill-bred man at least twice her age, with a reputation which few men would envy. Even the thought of the brute’s hands touching her made the blood pound in Richard’s temples. ‘And you would prefer your husband’s company to being bored?’ he echoed incredulously.
She raised her chin a fraction, a mannerism he was beginning to know well. ‘I did not ask your opinion of him, just as I did not ask you to escort me to him.’
‘No, I offered.’ He took a deep breath. ‘So – I shall tell him also,’ he went on, ‘that an invitation to this Christmas banquet we hear he is to give for Prince Seisyll tomorrow is the only reward I shall ask for all my trouble. I shall wave aside the gold and jewels he is bound to press on me for my services in escorting you. I shall nobly ignore his passionate outpourings of gratitude and praise.’
Matilda made a small grimace, all too well aware of her husband’s reputation for tight-fistedness. She frowned, glancing at Richard sideways. ‘Supposing he’s furious with me for coming?’
‘So you have considered that possibility at last!’ Richard squinted into the wind. ‘He’ll probably beat you and send you back to Bramber. It’s what you deserve.’
A racing shadow in the trees distracted him for a moment. He scanned the surrounding forest, his face set. They were passing through a clump of junipers, thick and impenetrable; the ideal hiding place for an ambush. Secretly he suspected that his men, however well-armed, would be no match for the leaping, yelling Welsh should they choose to attack. He had heard that they could sweep down, cut a throat, rip open a horse’s belly and be away again before a man even had the chance to draw his sword. He shuddered every time he thought of the dangers on the route which Matilda had so confidently decided that she and Nell could ride on their own.
‘Is that what you’d do to your wife?’ She peered at him, wiping the rain from her eyes as they trotted on again, side by side.
‘What?’
‘Beat her and send her home.’
‘Of course. Especially if she turned up with a good-looking fellow like me.’ He forced a smile, his eyes still narrowed as he gazed through the icy sleet.
Matilda glanced at him, then changed the subject, turning in her saddle. ‘Poor Nell. She’s still keeping up.’ The girl was white-faced and rode slumped in the saddle, her eyes fixed determinedly on her shiny knuckles as they clutched the cold wet reins. She was obviously near to tears, oblivious to the half-hearted banter of the knights around her or the tired baggage animals who jostled her horse constantly with their cumbersome packs. Matilda grimaced ruefully. ‘She started this adventure so well with me, but she’s regretting every step now. Ever since we crossed out of Sussex, even with you there to protect us, she’s been scared and weepy. Seeing that poor man will be the last straw. She’ll spend the night having the vapours.’
‘Don’t tease her.’ Richard leaned forward to slap his horse’s steaming neck. ‘She had a lot of courage to come with you. You didn’t feel so brave yourself when you saw that corpse. And don’t forget no one else would come with you at all.’
She frowned, and dug her mare indignantly with her heels, making it leap forward so that she had to cling to the saddle. ‘Most of the others were Lady Bertha’s women anyway, not mine,’ she said defensively. ‘I didn’t want them to come. I shall ask William for my own attendants as soon as we get to Abergavenny.’
Richard suppressed a smile. ‘That’s a good idea. Go and ride with Nell now. I’m going to scout ahead and check all is quiet.’ He did not give her the chance to argue, spurring his horse to a gallop.
The very stillness of the forest worried him. Where were the woodsmen, the charcoal burners, the swineherds, the usual people of the woods? And if not theirs then whose were the eyes he could feel watching him from the undergrowth?
Sulkily Matilda reined in and waited for Nell to draw level. The girl’s china-blue eyes were red-rimmed from the cold. ‘Are we nearly there, my lady?’ She made an effort at smiling. ‘My hands are aching so from the cold, I’m drenched through to my shift, and I’m so exhausted. I never imagined it would be so many days’ ride from Bramber.’ Her voice had taken on an unaccustomed whining note which immediately irritated her mistress.
‘We’re almost there, Nell.’ Matilda made no effort to hide her impatience. She was straining her eyes ahead up the track after Richard as the trees thinned and they found themselves crossing a windswept ridge covered in sodden bracken, flattened by the rain. There was a movement in some holly bushes on the hillside to the right of them and she peered at them trying to see through the glossy greenery. Her heart began to pound. Something was hidden there, waiting.
Two deer burst out of the thicket and raced away out of sight up the hill. Richard cantered back to her side. He was smiling, but there was a drawn sword in his hand. ‘I thought we were in for trouble for a moment,’ he called. ‘Did you see? Shall I send a couple of men after them? Then we can make our own contribution to the feast.’
They plunged into the thickness of the forest again, their horses’ feet padding in the soft wet leaf-mould beneath the bare trunks of ash and beech. From time to time the cold waters of the Usk appeared in the distance on their left, pitted grey with raindrops. Sometimes the track ran straight, keeping to the line of the old Roman road, then it would wander away over the curving contours which followed, amongst the trees, the gently sloping hills. Slowly dusk was coming on them through the trees, up from the river valley, and with it came menace.
The escort closed more tightly round them and, at a command from Richard, the men drew their swords. Matilda saw his face was concentrated and grim and she felt a sudden shiver of fear.
They rode on in silence through the darkening forest until at last in the distance through the trees they glimpsed the tall white keep of Abergavenny Castle, swimming in the mist which had gathered over the river.
Richard’s face grew more taut as he saw it. The castle meant sanctuary from the threatening forest. But it also meant facing de Braose and relinquishing to his care the beautiful child-woman who was his wife.
They rode as fast as they could through the half light across the deserted fields which clustered around a small township, past the church, and up the track which led to the drawbridge and the high curtain walls of the castle. It seemed that they were expected, for the drawbridge was down and the guard stood to attention, allowing them to clatter through into the castle ward unchallenged. There, shadowed by the towering walls, darkness had already come and torches flared in high sconces, lighting the faces of the men of the garrison with a warm unreal glow.
As soon as they were across it the drawbridge began to move, the cumbersome clank of the rolling chains signalling