Free Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine Page A

draw his sword. He shuddered every time he thought of the dangers on the route that Matilda had so confidently decided 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 halfhearted 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 vapors.”
    “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 that 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 crossed 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 mold 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 gray 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 that followed, among the trees, the gently sloping hills. Slowly dusk was