Princes of Ireland - Edward Rutherfurd [309]
For a moment, Margaret hesitated. While the groom had gone to the kitchen, it was normal enough in an old-fashioned house like this for a guest to sleep in the big hall. But upstairs in the one formal bedchamber, Margaret and her husband had a large and handsome canopied bed. It was the most valuable item in the house and Margaret was proud of it.
“Not at all,” she said. “You’ll come upstairs and sleep in the bed.”
It was a well-appointed chamber. Last year, William had received a fine tapestry hanging in lieu of payment for some work he had done, and this graced one of the walls. As Margaret put the candle on a table, the great oak bed gleamed softly and Joan Doyle remarked what a fine bed it was. As she always did, Margaret let down her hair and brushed it, while the Dublin woman sat on the bed and watched her. “You’ve wonderful hair,” she said. As Margaret got into one side of the bed, Joan Doyle undressed, and Margaret again noted with admiration that she had still kept her figure only a little plumper than it must have been when she was a young woman. Then she got into bed beside Margaret and laid her head down. It was strange, Margaret thought, to have this pretty woman lying so close. “You’ve excellent pillows,” Joan said, and closed her eyes. The sound of the falling rain came softly from the window, as Margaret closed her eyes, too.
The huge bang of the thunderclap in the middle of the night was so sudden and so loud that they both sat bolt upright together. Then Joan Doyle laughed.
“I wasn’t asleep. Were you?”
“Not really.”
“It was the wine. I drank too much wine. Will you listen to that storm?” The rain was falling in torrents now, in a steady roar. There was a blinding flash from outside; a crash of thunder seemed to shake the room. “I shan’t be able to sleep now,” sighed Joan Doyle.
They started to talk again. Perhaps it was the strange intimacy of the darkness, as the rain poured down and the thunder continued to crackle and rumble round the sky, but the conversation became quite personal. Joan spoke about her children and her hopes for them. She also described how she had been trying to help young Tidy and Cecily. “I tell you,” she declared, “I had to give that girl such a talking-to.” And so evident were her kindness and her good intentions, that Margaret wondered: was it possible that she had misjudged her in the past? Their quiet conversation continued almost another hour, and the Dublin woman became quite confidential. It seemed she was worried about her husband. She hated all the politics of the city, she told Margaret. “I don’t so much mind that the Fitzgeralds want to rule all our lives,” she said, “but why do they have to be so brutal?” The Talbot they had killed the previous year had been a good man of whom she was fond, she explained. Whether this was a gentle reproach for her earlier remark, Margaret wasn’t sure, but Joan went on. “Stay out of it all, I’m always begging my husband. You can’t imagine the hateful, ridiculous rumours. And they’re spread by busybodies who don’t know the harm they cause, or spies of the English king. Do you know the royal councillors suspect any man who visits Munster for any reason? All because Lord Desmond is suspected at present on account of some foolish business he had with the French. Can you believe it? My husband had to vouch for an innocent man only the other day.”
She paused and then patted Margaret’s arm. “You’re better off not to be involved in such things out here,” she said.
And it was then, perhaps because she decided that she could trust this Doyle woman after all, perhaps also