Lady of Hay The Final Chapter Part 2
‘You’re fighting it, Jo.’ Ann had tried twice to put Jo into a trance and each time her questions had been answered with long silences.
‘It used to be so easy.’
‘Too easy, if I remember right,’ Ann said wryly. ‘That was when Matilda wanted you to hear her story.’
‘But she wants me to hear her story now.’
Ann shook her head. ‘It’s not the same. I told you. Before, she was a part of you. Now it is different.’ She pulled her chair closer to Jo’s. They were in the little walled garden again, shaded by the trellis covered in clematis and honeysuckle. ‘I’ve been thinking about what is going on here. Dear old Ben used to talk about local legends and myths. He loved all that stuff about the Celts. They believed in the transmigration of souls – something much like reincarnation, except they believed one could shift into animal form as well as human in successive lives.’ She frowned, screwing up her eyes as she tried to think. ‘We were wondering what was happening to Matilda now. Well, in their belief system souls went into the Otherworld, Annwn, they call it in Wales, between lives. And from there they were free to travel back to this one to visit their families and friends. That used to happen at Samhain, of course, what we call Halloween, when, as the Celts say, the veil is thin.’ She picked a spray of honeysuckle and sniffed it. ‘But it could happen anywhere or anytime if the moment and the place were right. I think that theory might fit the bill here.’
‘So Matilda is between lives, in the Otherworld, and she has come back from there, to visit me.’
Ann nodded. ‘That’s my guess.’
‘And Harry?’
‘And Harry maybe. Perhaps William de Braose feels that as Harry is your son he is part of the pattern. Or maybe it is just Harry’s imagination – finding himself in that particular street could have been kind of freaky!’
Jo shook her head. ‘It would be too much of a coincidence for it to happen just now, when Matilda is here.’ She levered herself up out of the chair and wandered up and down on the flag stones. ‘I have to ask her what she wants.’
Ann nodded.
‘Perhaps I should go back to Suffolk. It was there she came closest. The family of the man she loved, Richard de Clare, came from the town of Clare which is only a few miles from where my grandmother lives. Maybe that’s more than a coincidence?’
‘But when she appeared to you there, your immediate reaction was to come straight here, to the place she had lived for most of her life. And it was here she hid her savings. The money that could have saved her life. One can understand why that would be an obsession for her. Stay here Jo. But you need space, that I can see. You need to be somewhere alone where she can come to you as she did in your grandmother’s garden.’
Jo nodded. ‘There is somewhere she came to me once before. Down by the river. Or I could drive up where we went last night. I could leave the car up by the standing stone, and walk off by myself into the hills.’
‘Do it, Jo. Don’t be afraid. I am sure she doesn’t mean you harm. Open yourself to her. Then come back and tell me what she says.’
Jo didn’t drive so far this time. Leaving the car in the parking area below Hay Bluff, Jo set off on foot up towards the great ridge which dominates the end of the Black Mountains above Hay. There were well trodden tracks leading up the steep hillside, but she veered off almost at once, and soon found herself alone, aware only of some distant sheep grazing amongst the gorse, and overhead, the whistle of the wind in the sail of a hang glider who had launched himself from the summit of the Bluff. She watched as he soared away, drawn by the thermals out across the broad Wye valley, and soon there was nothing to hear but the distant cry of a buzzard. From here she could see for miles, but immediately in front of her the ground dropped away into a rocky cwm and Jo followed an almost invisible track between the stones and fine mountain grass and bracken down towards a mountain brook which wound its way between high banks of close cropped turf. She scanned the skyline. This couldn’t have been the place. This was more open. The surrounding mountains were further away.
The cheerful chatter of the water tempted her to sit down on an outcrop of rock for a moment, recovering her breath, stretching out her legs in front of her as she listened to the song of a skylark. Narrowing her eyes she squinted upwards to try and spot the tiny bird high above her.
It was as she looked back down into the valley that she saw Matilda, standing some twenty feet away, barely visible in the shadow of a skeletal mountain thorn. Jo watched the figure for a moment, hardly daring to breathe, then slowly she stood up. ‘Talk to me,’ she said softly. ‘If there is something you need me to know, please talk to me. I’m listening.’ She paused. The figure was hazy. ‘Do you want to warn me about Nick?’ Jo went on. ‘About the king?’ She couldn’t see any reaction on the apparition’s face. It was too far away, too shadowy and ill defined. ‘Or is it Harry? My son? Is William haunting him now, instead of Sam. Oh please, you have to tell me. I can’t help if I don’t know what you are trying to say?’
But the figure was fading. In seconds the shadow was no more and all Jo could see was the small hawthorn tree, its wind-tortured branches shivering in some unseen breeze.
‘Damn!’ Jo sat down by the brook again. What had she done wrong? She felt a cold trickle of fear wash over her suddenly, a fear she hadn’t felt in the figure’s presence. She glanced over her shoulder and then up at the sky. There were no clouds, no sign of the glider, nor the buzzard. All was still and utterly silent. Even the skylark had disappeared.
She was reluctant to move. The place was compelling, enclosed and out of the wind. She closed her eyes, listening to the quiet incessant chatter of the water and tried to breathe slowly and regularly, counting softly under her breath.
She was woken by the soft whinny of a horse. She held her breath, not daring to open her eyes for a moment. Matilda was there, with her two henchmen. They were going to show her where the treasure was. Cautiously she eased herself round and opened her eyes. A wild pony was standing on the edge of the brook, pulling mouthfuls of grass from the cracks in the rock. It saw her move and in a flash it raised its head, its eyes rolling and with a scrabble of hooves bolted out of sight. In seconds she was alone again. She glanced at her watch. Whatever she had dreamed, if anything, it had fled with the horse. She remembered nothing.
4
The flight to New York had been delayed for several hours after Harry had dropped his father off at the airport. With a sigh Nick stared up yet again at the departure boards, then glanced at his watch as he headed at last for the check in. It was then that he had hesitated. Above the New York listing, the details of a flight to Heathrow flickered and changed. Passengers were instructed to head for the departure gates. It took only a fraction of a second for Nick to change his mind.
As they soared above Paris, circled and headed for London he sat back in his seat and closed his eyes, trying to justify his actions. He needed to see Jo. It was crazy to fly back the States without at least speaking to her. If it had been hard to change his ticket he might have had second thoughts but it had been easy; the plane was half empty. The fates had come down on the side of chance.
There was no sign of a car outside Ceecliff’s house in Long Melford and the windows were dark. Nick climbed out of his hired Peugeot and strolled slowly up to the front door. There was no point in ringing the bell, she was obviously out, but he did it anyway, hearing it echoing through the house. It was a glorious night, the garden scented with all the soft sweet nuances of the English countryside, roses, stock, newly mown grass. He wandered round towards the back garden. The conservatory was in darkness, the door locked. There was no one there. So where was Jo? Out for the evening? In Aldeburgh with Ceecliff or had she guessed he would come and fled? He frowned.
From down the garden he heard the anxious quacking of a duck in the darkness and he headed towards the sound. He remembered it all so well. The house, the walnut tree, the willows. He used to come here with Jo so often, thinking of Ceecliff as his own grandmother as much as she was Jo’s. He had blown all that. Or Sam had. Always Sam. In spite of the intervening years, and his new wife at home in Manhattan, he could never forget that last day in the South Audley street flat, when he had left Jo and his marriage forever.
He had had a restless night, fraught with nightmares, and getting up he had left Jo asleep to go and sit in their living room. He put on some music, quietly soothing and leaned back against the cushions, his eyes closed. John had returned out of nowhere. Arrogant, greedy, cruel, the king in his head had screamed at him to drag Jo from her bed and force her to her knees before him. Money. John needed money and she knew how to provide some. Once rashly she had said there was money hidden in the mountains near Hay. She had tried to bargain for her life with it. Beat it out of her, the voice said, hectoring and sarcastic. Go on, force her to comply. If she doesn’t she must die for her rebellion. You know that, don’t you. She has to die!
He had fought the demon in his skull, fought it and won, but the next day he had heard the voice again and this time he had fled, afraid even to be in the same room as Jo again. He flew to New York the following week to open a new permanent base for the firm there and had turned his back on England, on his beloved wife and, to his eternal misery, his son. He lifted his hands and rubbed them over his face as though trying to scrub out the memories which lurked there. He had kept in touch with Harry as best he could without returning to England and he had spoken to Jo often on the phone. Her bewildered hurt at his defection had been mitigated by her knowledge that he was right. He could not trust himself near her.
So, what was he doing here, in Suffolk, looking for her? He stood at the pond’s edge listening to the quiet noises of the night. The duck had settled, her ducklings near her somewhere on the far bank. There was the occasional quiet splash from a carp and once the sharp cry of an owl.
He slept in the car and was awakened early by an elderly man tapping on the window. Ceecliff’s neighbour proved to be the epitome of an English gentleman. Nick’s explanation of his presence was accepted without question, he was escorted back to the house next door, given the facilities to wash and shave, a slap up breakfast and best of all told where Jo had gone.
Hay.
He sat in the car, the engine idling, the map open on the seat beside him wondering what it was he was planning to do when he found her. His mobile rang once. He glanced at it. Harry. He switched it off and slowly set the car in motion, hearing the tyres crunching over the gravel. If he turned right at the gate he was going to be heading for the motorway and the long hike towards the Welsh borders. If he turned left it would be back towards London and Heathrow. Glancing in the mirror he saw his benefactor standing in the doorway watching him. He raised his hand in farewell and clicked the indicator, the decision made.
Several hours later he drew the car up in the main car park beside the Canolfan in Hay and strolled up into the town, staring up at the castle ahead of him. It dominated the place, the rugged ruined walls behind the curtain wall, here half hidden by a line of small shops. Hay: her domain, her refuge, the place where she had felt safe. He shook his head to try and rid himself of the thoughts which swirled round and round inside his brain. She was Jo, not Matilda. He was Nick. Was he to be cursed forever with this nightmare of shared identity? But here it was harder than ever to keep a grip on the present century with the castle rising above him in that imposing way, part ruined and medieval, part Jacobean and restored – wholly impressive.
His mobile rang and he reached for it automatically without checking the caller ID.
‘What’s going on, Nick?’ Julie-Ann did not sound happy. ‘Where the hell are you?’ Her voice seemed to echo shrilly from the castle wall behind him.
Christ! Had he really forgotten to tell her he had changed his ticket?
‘Something important came up, my darling,’ he said glancing round surreptitiously. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I can when I’ll be heading back.’ He ended the call before she had a chance to say anything else.
The pretty narrow streets were filling up with tourists and shoppers; glancing up and down he saw bookshops , an outdoor activity store, a baker, a butcher, dress shops, and there beneath the castle walls somewhere he could have a cup of coffee and think out his strategy.
It was there he rang Harry. ‘Has your mum still got the MX5?’
Harry hesitated, sounding oddly disconcerted by the question. ‘She got a new one last year. Newer model. Why?’
Nick fended off Harry’s enquiries about the journey, said the flight had been fine, and rang off. Bronze. Easy to spot. He grinned to himself.
He spent the next hour driving slowly round and round the narrow streets. There was no sign of her, or at least not of a bronzy orange MX5. Slowly he drove round again, pausing at the end of each narrow footway and pavement, peering into the shadowy declivities between houses, up steps and under trees.
He could feel himself growing angry and impatient. He should be able to summon her, click his fingers, send someone to find her. He drew to a halt at last in a pub car park a couple of miles or so outside Hay and put his head in his hands. He was thinking like King John again. He closed his eyes and took a few deep slow breaths. He would not give in. He would not get angry.
He reached for his phone. She didn’t answer and he waited for the answering service to kick in. ‘Hi Jo, It’s me. I need to talk to you about Harry. I think we ought to get together.’ He hesitated. ‘If I were to come over, could we meet up? Soon. It’s urgent.’
After dropping his father off at De Gaulle airport Harry, unaware of the flight delays or that his father was going to change his plans, had sat in the queue of traffic heading into central Paris, staring through the windscreen and listening to the roar of jet engines as yet another flight took off into the cloudless sky. He was smiling. With his father gone the way was clear. He would go home to England and once there he would speak to his mother himself. She would tell him what to do. As for King John – he felt a strange ticking sensation in his head as he drew up at the lights – John was no longer in the frame. Easing the car forward across an intersection and into another queue of stationary traffic he never paused to wonder why he was suddenly thinking of Jo, not as his mother, but as his wife.
He emerged into St Pancras Station the following morning, his only luggage a rucksack, and headed for the Underground. He had rung his mother several times and on each occasion she had ignored the call. He was beginning to get angry. The mews house was closed up, the curtains half drawn. Well, that was no surprise. At this time of year she almost always went to Suffolk for a few weeks. Except she wasn’t there either. He had rung great grandma’s house and there was no reply. Finally he had tried Ceecliff’s mobile. ‘She’s gone to Hay, dear. To see an old friend. Ann Clements. I’m afraid I don’t know her address. Try her mobile.’
Hay. He was astonished at the strange mix of emotions which the word evoked. His stomach turned over, his heart was hammering suddenly in his chest and he could feel the palms of his hands running with sweat. There was a vein throbbing in his neck. She was there for one reason and one reason only, the bitch!’
He halted the train of thought, horrified. Where had that come from? What was he thinking about, coming to England like this, and trying to hunt down his own mother? What was happening to him? He knew the answer. This was Sam. Sam, the elegant, enigmatic elder brother, his uncle, his nemesis. William de Braose.
Two hours later, almost in a trance, he found himself on a train to Hereford. There he hired a black Fiesta and arrived in Hay at around 3 p.m. He had brought his netbook in his rucksack and, out of curiosity, had googled Ann Clements on the train. To his surprise he found she was well known. She had, it seemed, written reams of articles on psychotherapy and hypnotherapy – he might have guessed – and several books, and there were a dozen mentions of the fact that she had moved to Hay after her husband, equally famous and prolific with the pen, and it seemed years older than her, had died. But there was no address. He frowned. Surely someone as famous as that would be well known locally. All he had to do was ask. He tried the post office. No luck. The health food deli. There the woman looked as though she might have known Ann Clements, but if so she wasn’t saying. Harry felt his dark mood deepen. Then he had a stroke of luck. He went into one of the second hand bookshops and asked if they stocked any of her books. The guy not only had one, but boasted that he knew her. It took Harry only minutes to wheedle the street out of him – he didn’t know the number – regretfully decline the book (‘I already have that one, I’m afraid,’) and he was rolling.
It was a pretty narrow street of two and three-storey stone-built houses, most with window boxes and tubs of flowers outside. There was no sign of Jo’s Mazda in any of the parking spaces and he wandered down it, gazing at the house fronts looking for a clue. There was no one around to ask, but he felt curiously pleased with himself. He had narrowed down his search. It was only a matter of time before he found his mother. Why he needed to see her so urgently was something he hadn’t asked himself. The part of him who was Harry needed her to advise him what to do. The part that was under the control of someone else was driving him inexorably towards some line of action which his brain refused even to contemplate.
Returning from her drive up to Hay Bluff, Jo parked the car next to Ann’s in the neighbours yard and began to walk slowly back towards the house. Harry was waiting for her on the corner of the street. ‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Harry!’ She stared at him in astonishment. ‘What in the world are you doing here?’
‘I came to find you.’
‘Obviously.’ She scanned his face anxiously. ‘Why? Why didn’t you let me know you were coming? Is something wrong?’ Her thoughts had flown immediately to Nick’s message. She hadn’t rung him back.
‘You don’t sound pleased to see me.’
‘I am. Of course I am. It’s just, it’s a shock. I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘Where are you staying?’
She hesitated.
‘I know you’ve come to see Ann Clements,’ he went on. There was a hardness about him which was altogether unlike him.
She was irritated suddenly. ‘It’s lovely to see you, Harry, but you should have warned me. I came here to – ‘ She broke off. She wasn’t going to tell him why she had come. She wasn’t going to tell him anything.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You came to do what, Mum?’ He gave a small wry smile. ‘To resurrect the dead, at a guess. It hasn’t gone away has it? All that stuff you tried to keep from me when I was a kid. Did dad tell you, I went to try and find the Abbey de St Victor, and the place where Sam died. There is no trace. Of either.’ He shrugged. ‘Both de Braose and my uncle, forgotten. Wiped from the map.’
‘Neither will ever be forgotten, Harry,’ Jo said. ‘William has his place in the history books, and Sam will always be remembered by his family.’
‘Oh sure. With loathing!’
‘Not with loathing, Harry. He did some cruel and horrible things, but we know he was not himself.’
‘No, he was William.’ Harry’s voice was harsh. ‘What happened to his ashes, by the way? I take it what remained of him was cremated?’
Jo nodded slowly. ‘Nick took them to Brecon. William had dreamed of being buried there one day, in the cathedral, and he thought as Sam identified with him so closely at the end, it might be what he would have wanted.’
‘In the cathedral?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Holy shit! Didn’t you understand anything? He was trying to be free of William!’
Jo stared at him. ‘How do you know?’
‘I know!’ Harry seemed to have aged twenty years before her eyes. ‘He wanted to be rid of him. It was the only way: to die! He regretted everything – what he had done to dad, to you, the fact that he had broken his promise, everything.’
‘What promise, Harry?’
‘The promise to go back, to make everything come out all right.’
‘William’s promise? To Matilda?’ The broken promise which Matilda had not forgotten or forgiven.
‘No! Yes! I don’t know! To pay the king for her freedom?’ The face was Harry’s again, young and bewildered. Suddenly he was near to tears.
She didn’t move. ‘Harry,’ she said gently. ‘Your Uncle Sam tried to make your dad do some terrible things. He hated him. He was jealous of him. He tried to persuade him to kill me. That is what happened. That is the reality. And we believe he might have been responsible for the death of someone else as well. A friend. A friend from the past and from the present. We will never know for sure.’ She paused and took a deep breath. ‘To this day I don’t know if Sam really believed he was the reincarnation of William de Braose, but I do know that his resentment of Nick was real. He had nurtured it since they were children – ’
‘Why have you come here, Mum?’ Harry broke in impatiently. ‘Why Hay? Why now?’
‘Because Matilda tried to contact me.’
‘Matilda!’ He stared at her.
Jo nodded. ‘I saw her ghost.’ She hesitated. ‘Something is happening, Harry. ‘There is a last chapter still to be written, and we three characters, you, your dad and me, we are still part of it.’
‘So this is Harry.’ Without doing as much as a double take, Ann held out her arms and gave Harry a hug. ‘Well, you don’t know how good it is to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you from your Mum.’ She gave a warm smile as she led them through the house and out once more to the garden.
As he took the chair she indicated she covertly studied Harry’s face. He was tense and, she thought, frightened, beneath the well practised English public school charm. A sidelong glance at Jo showed her she was not happy either. She looked drawn and very tired.
‘Shall I leave you two together?’ she said after a pause. ‘There must be things you want to discuss.’
‘Yes please.’ Harry said at once.
‘No!’ That was Jo. ‘Ann knows all about what has happened to us, Harry. We have no secrets from her. That is why I am here. To try and sort everything out. I need someone to talk it through with. Ann was there when it happened, all those years ago, both here in Wales, and,’ she hesitated for a moment, ‘at the end.’
‘When Matilda thought William would save her.’ Harry’s face was tense.
Jo nodded.
‘But he fled to France.’
‘Yes.’ Jo whispered.
‘And,’ Harry’s jaw tightened, ‘the king didn’t try to follow him?’
‘No.’
Jo’s mobile rang in the bag which she had dropped at her feet, she reached for it and peered at the screen. The call was from Nick. She glanced at Ann and Harry, talking , their heads together over the tray of glasses of Ann’s trademark cordial and she rose to her feet, heading into the kitchen.
‘Hello, Nick.’
‘Jo, listen. I need to tell you something. Please don’t hang up. It’s Harry . Sam is in his head. If he suggests coming to see you, dissuade him. Just for now. I truly think he’s dangerous, Jo.’
‘Dangerous?’ She glanced out of the window. ‘He’s here, Nick. With me. Now.’
‘That was your dad,’ she said a few minutes later as she walked thoughtfully back to join the others. ‘Warning me about you and Sam, Harry.’
She was not, could not, be afraid of her own son, but, seeing the expression of vicious anger which flashed crossed Harry’s face, she felt a frisson of fear. The look in his eyes was swiftly veiled.
Ann saw it too. ‘Harry,’ her voice became professional again suddenly. ‘You’d better tell us what has happened.’
‘Nick said Harry was dangerous,’ Jo repeated calmly.
‘No!’ Harry said wildly. ‘No, it’s the other way round. That is why dad went back to New York! He couldn’t trust himself. It’s all come back. He was having nightmares and hearing voices. He wanted to kill you! When he was in Paris with me he told me all about it!’ He clamped his fists under his armpits as though he didn’t trust his own hands. ‘Please, you must believe me. Uncle Sam tried to get into me. I felt him, in Paris. It was horrific, but he didn’t manage it. I could control it. Truly.’
Jo glanced at Ann, who shook her head slightly. ‘I am sure you can, Sam. I am sure you can control it,’ Ann said quietly – the professional was still in place – ‘but we must be sure.’
‘You can be,’ Harry reached for his glass. His hands were shaking. ‘I would never hurt Mum, you know I wouldn’t!’
‘Of course you wouldn’t, Harry,’ Jo’s voice was determined. ‘This is crazy. Let’s forget it. ‘ She refused to meet Ann’s eye. ‘We are going out again to try and find where Matilda hid her treasure before she was captured. Harry, you can help us.’
‘Jo!’ Ann interrupted, frowning. ‘That might not be what Matilda wants.’
‘No! I want Harry to be part of this.’ Jo glared at her. ‘I am sure he can prove to us that he has nothing whatsoever to do with Sam. Or William de Braose. If he helps us, it will make everything all right, don’t you see?’
It was as they were leaving that Jo’s phone rang again. She glanced at it and frowned, pressing the answer button. ‘Julie-Ann?’ She did not like Nick’s second wife.
‘Hi Jo.’ Julie-Ann’s voice was shrill. ‘Perhaps you can tell me where the fuck my husband is?’
Jo blanched. ‘How should I know, Julie-Ann? As far as I know he is in New York. I spoke to him just now on the phone.’
‘You might have spoken to him, but as sure as hell he’s not in New York. He’s in England, Jo. And if he’s not with you now, he soon will be. Why else would he change his ticket? And I am going to give you a message for him, Jo. If he doesn’t get his butt back here in two days flat he needn’t bother coming home, do you hear me? We’re finished. I don’t want him back. Ever.’
As she rang off Jo looked at the others. ‘Apparently your dad is on his way to find me. If he goes to Long Melford they will tell him where I am,’ she said to Harry. Her voice was numb with shock. She did not relay the rest of the message.
Harry went white. ‘Mum, you have to get away from here. You can’t stay. He’s deranged. He was saying all kinds of crap about me! But he’s the one who wants to kill you!’
In the end they took Ann’s car and headed once again up into the mountains while they decided what to do. They found a remote pub for a meal and then drove on, their minds partly on the place where Matilda’s treasure was buried, partly on Nick. Ann drove slowly and aimlessly as Jo peered through the windscreen, her mind still only half on the skyline of the passing landscape. The other half was now concentrated on her son, seated behind her, conscious of the fact that he was leaning forward, his hand on the back of her seat, his breath on her neck.
‘So, when do you want to head back?’ Ann asked at last. The silence in the car had grown uncomfortable. She drew up at a set of traffic lights, incongruous on the deserted narrow mountain road. Beyond a barrier a section of the roadway had fallen down the steep ravine above a narrow brook. A few disconsolate sheep eyed them for a moment then turned and made their way down the mountain side and out of sight. The road was empty and she engaged gear heading cautiously past the crumbling road edge and back onto the firm surface. A wheel barrow and a dusty spade and a heap of stones were the only sign that anyone had been working there. As Ann drew away from the lights Jo glanced over her shoulder. There was something about the angle of the ravine which rang a bell in her brain. Glancing up she saw the line of hills, black against the sky and there in silhouette the sharp form of a ‘w’ on the far side of the ridge. She was about to call out but she saw Harry’s eyes fixed on her face and she bit back her words. They would keep. ‘Let’s go home,’ she said softly. ‘We’ve driven around enough. If Nick comes, he comes.’
Harry wanted to sleep on Ann’s floor that night– but Ann persuaded him to go to a b & b run by a friend of hers further down the road. ‘We’ll meet tomorrow,’ she said firmly as she ushered him out of the door.
When he had gone she turned to Jo. ‘I have a bad feeling about that young man. I’m sorry Jo. I know he is your son, but there is something in him which is sinister.’
Jo nodded closely. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I saw. In the car. And before. Sam’s eyes, looking out.’ She put her head in her hands. ‘I can’t bear it, Ann. What can we do?’
‘And what do we do about Nick?’ Ann sucked in her cheeks thoughtfully.
For a moment both women were silent then Jo looked up. ‘I saw the place, Ann,’ she said wearily. When we stopped at the traffic light. Where the road had collapsed.’
Ann stared at her. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I think so. There was something about the line of hills; the shape of the silhouette against the sky. And you’re right. I don’t want Harry to know about this. Not yet, anyway. I should never have mentioned it in front of him.’
They left as it grew dark, keeping a weary eye open for Harry or his father. The street was deserted however as they climbed into Ann’s car, closed the doors as silently as they could, and set off into the night.
When they drew up on the empty road Jo found her hands were shaking as she climbed out of the car and stared round. Before them the traffic light changed eerily from red to green. There were no cars to edge past it; no sound save the gentle moan of the wind and somewhere out of sight the plaintive call of a lonely ewe.
‘Down here.’
There was nowhere to hide the car. Leaving it standing on the grass, safely away from the collapsing hillside Jo began to scramble down the steep scree. There was no sign of a path now, just a scattering of rock and shale.
Ann grabbed her torch from the car boot and followed Jo down, swearing under her breath as she lost her footing and slid for several feet. Below them they could hear the sound of a mountain stream. The water was gentle now, barely audible as it meandered round rocks and across gravel shallows. There were huge boulders there, however, once tossed in the valley bottom by winter storms. Arriving breathless at the edge of the water the two women stopped to catch their breath and look round. ‘Is this it?’ Ann whispered.
Jo nodded. ‘It could be.’ Ann handed her the torch and she swung it round, illuminating the rocks. There were trees now clinging in the crannies between them.
Deep shadows and curtains of fern made the whole area look unfamiliar. The only clue was that line on the hillside above. She glanced up and caught her breath. Just as on that previous occasion, she could see the moon. It was rising from behind the ridge and there in front of it was the deep cut ‘w’ of her dream.
‘Jo,’ Ann’s voice was almost indistinguishable from the sound of the water. ‘Look.’ Jo followed Ann’s glance and there, above them on an outcrop of rock stood a figure. She was faint against the background, her skirts blown by that endless invisible wind, her hair torn free of her hood and she was pointing. Without hesitation they moved towards her, squinting into the darkness.
‘Careful,’ Jo called. ‘The ground is slippery here. They were climbing again, scrambling amongst the fallen boulders. The torch beam wavered as Jo slipped, then strengthened again as she scrambled up onto an outcrop of rock. ‘Where is she?’ They should have been close to the figure now, but it had gone.
‘There!’ Ann was gasping for breath, holding her long skirt above her knees with one hand, pushing her hair out of her eyes with the other. At the far side of the ledge on which they were standing an area of deeper black showed where the rock face disappeared as it hollowed out into a small cave-like cavity beneath the overhanging roots of mountain thorn. ‘Is that it?’
‘I don’t know. ‘ Jo moved closer. ‘I don’t recognise anything. It’s too dark. In my dream they tucked the boxes at the back and hid them with rocks. ‘
They tiptoed towards the cave, ducking their heads as they entered it, feeling their feet now on a scatter of dry twigs and leaves. ‘I doubt if this has stayed above the water line for eight hundred years,’ Ann murmured. Look at the line on the rock there. The torch light picked out a water mark, and then on a ledge some scattered bones. ‘Something has eaten a rabbit or a hare here,’ she said. ‘See. A fox perhaps. That accounts for the rank smell.’ She wrinkled her nose. They moved on, the torchlight picking out the shadows. Rocks behind rocks. Then suddenly Jo called out, her voice rising with excitement. ‘Ann. Look.’ There at the very back she saw what looked like a curved band of metal. ‘There are the remains of a box of some sort here.’ They pulled at one of the smaller rocks and leapt back as several rolled towards them. Cautiously moving forward again Jo shone the torch into the gap behind. ‘This is it,’ she breathed. ‘Look.’
The two coffers had crumbled and splintered to near dust. A few pieces of wood and what looked like leather remained and beneath them a scattering of small black discs. Jo reached in. ‘They are coins,’ she whispered. ‘Wafer thin coins.’
‘Silver,’ Ann whispered back. ‘Silver goes black over time. And look, what is that?’ They both fell silent suddenly as a sound came from outside the cave. Jo switched off the torch and they held their breath, listening. Another slither and rattle of stones followed by the loud indignant bleat of a sheep. Both women smiled as they breathed again. Jo switched the torch on again and for a moment the beam was stronger. It caught a dull shine amongst the black. Jo reached forward and picked something up. She held it in front of the beam. ‘It’s a ring.’
Ann nodded. She stretched past Jo. ‘Look,’ she breathed. In the shadow of another rock she had spotted a dented cup. ‘Oh my God,’ in the beam of torchlight the glint was unmistakable. ‘That must be gold!’
‘What do we do with it?’ Ann asked after a while. The two mall coffers full of treasure had produced between them several handfuls of the thin black discs which were almost certainly silver coins, half a dozen gold rings, one with what looked like a ruby cabochon setting, some brooches and pins, half a dozen or so cups and goblets, a beautiful little golden crucifix attached to a rosary of dirt-encrusted golden and red and green beads, a free-standing black cross and two engraved candlesticks all probably silver. ‘From the chapel in the castle,’ Jo whispered. She held the cross with gentle hands and found her eyes filling with tears. ‘I can’t believe I am holding something so precious.’
‘And something which belonged to Matilda herself.’ Ann looked up suddenly. She was growing jumpy. She paused to listen again. ‘Why don’t we leave all this here. We can pile up the rocks again and come back in daylight.’
Jo shook her head. ‘Don’t you see. Matilda was anxious because she thought someone was going to find them. The coins might not be worth much, but these cups and the rosary must be incredibly valuable. Those road men. When they come back to mend the road they are bound to come down here to survey the hillside and see if it is going to slip any further. They could come back any time. Then it would be too late. We have to take it now. All of it. It’s not so much. We can manage.’
Both women were wearing sweaters. Pulling them off and knotting the arms they could improvise them into something like bags. Carefully they stacked the cups and goblets into one, the coins into the other. The crucifix and rosary they wrapped in Ann’s scarf and the rings Jo slipped into the pocket of her trousers. ‘Is that all?’ Jo whispered.’ They glanced round for one last time as the torch beam was beginning to fade. ‘This feels like stealing, but it’s not, is it. This belonged to Matilda. It’s what she wants us to do.’
Ann nodded. Again she was listening.
‘What is it?’ Finally Jo noticed.
‘I keep feeling there might be someone out there.’
‘Harry?’
Ann shrugged. ‘He could have followed us.’
Jo switched off the torch. The battery was failing and it was almost useless anyway. She crept towards the mouth of the cave and peered out. It was brighter now, the moon high in the clear night sky. ‘I can’t hear anything,’ she mouthed at Ann. There was a slight clank from Ann’s bundle and she giggled nervously. ‘I’ll go first,’ she murmured and carefully she made her way out onto the rocks outside. All they could hear below them was the sound of the water. Jo joined her and they both stood listening. ‘Come on,’ Jo said. She moved towards the bank down which they had made their way, climbing with difficulty as her sandals slipped on the rocks and dry grass. It took them a while but at last they emerged onto the relatively flat area where they had left the car.
There was no one there. Carefully they put their precious load into the boot and then climbed in. Ann locked the doors and sat for a moment, her head against the headrest, her eyes closed. ‘I am shaking like a leaf!’
Jo laughed. ‘Me too. I still feel like a thief!’
‘But we’re not stealing it. Matilda hid this and she showed us – she showed you – where it was.’
‘And what we do with it next, depends on her.’ Jo gave an exhausted smile.
