Child of the Phoenix (111 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I

T
hree nights passed before Alexander returned. Watching Eleyne’s face, following her, waiting for her at every opportunity, Rhonwen knew when he had come back. From the shadow of the wall she could see the dreamy contentment in Eleyne’s eyes, feel the heavy sensuality of her body as she moved across the courtyard and towards the stables.

Her lips set in a tight, straight line, Rhonwen hurried up the winding stairs towards Eleyne’s bedchamber. It was deserted, as she had known it would be. Sliding silently through the door, she closed it and slid the bolt. The fire had been banked up to smoulder quietly all day. The shutters were open and the heavy embrasure curtain drawn back. Rain was falling and a dull light filtered into the room. It strayed across the floor towards the bed, playing on the heavy bed hangings.

Rhonwen looked towards the bed where she had seen the tall shadowy figure and she made herself walk towards it. It had been neatly made by the bed maids, who every morning smoothed the sheets and covers with the long sticks which enabled them to reach to the very middle of the broad high bed, and it was covered with a heavy embroidered coverlet. There was no sign now of Eleyne’s companion of the night.

‘Are you there?’ Rhonwen murmured aloud. She waited, half afraid, half relieved at the echoing emptiness and silence of the room. ‘Where are you?’ She listened again, peering around. ‘I’m on your side. I know how much you loved her, I’ve always known. She can still bear your child.’ She fell slowly to her knees. ‘I’ll help you, I’ll do anything you wish. Einion Gweledydd was right, wasn’t he? He was right all along. She belongs to you. She will bear your child. Your son will die without an heir and then you will need my Eleyne, my
cariad
. Then you will give her a child and I will take care of him. I take care of all my Eleyne’s babes. If I’d been there before, your little ones would not have died.’ The thin daylight lay in a flat wash across the floor. In the hearth the fire smoked. The bedchamber was empty.

‘Listen to me!’ she cried out again. ‘Please. Listen.’

She scrambled to her feet and hurrying to the jewel casket on the table she threw back the lid. She rummaged through Eleyne’s jewels, her arthritic fingers clumsy with cold, and at last she found the phoenix. She clutched it with an exclamation of triumph and turned back to the bed. ‘You see, I have it! This is how she calls you, isn’t it? This is how you reach her. Your talisman. She doesn’t know I know. She thinks I’m a silly old woman, but I’m not.’ Her eyes narrowed craftily. ‘I see everything. And I wait. And I am your servant, most gracious prince.’ She was out of breath. Was that a movement at last, near the wall, behind the heavy columnar folds of the bed curtains? ‘I’ll do whatever you wish.’ Painfully she knelt, addressing the curtain. ‘I’ll get rid of the earl for you.’ Her voice dropped confidentially. ‘I know of poisons which no one will suspect; I’ve used them before, for her. She won’t know but she’ll be free. She’ll be yours absolutely.’ She looked down coquettishly at the enamelled phoenix. ‘My pretty bird. You’ll help us, won’t you? You’ll serve your king and his lady and bring them together.’ She put her head on one side. ‘But now I must put you away. We don’t want anyone to know our secret, do we?’ She climbed to her feet again. ‘No one but you and me and the king and my sweet, sweet lady.’

Hylde pressed her eye closer to the keyhole of the door. She saw the woman clearly as she knelt near the bed, but she was too far away to be heard. Only once had she raised her voice. ‘Listen to me,’ she had cried, ‘please listen!’ She was pleading with someone. Hylde pressed closer to the door. Who was in there with her? She was deeply suspicious of Rhonwen. Meg had confided that the old woman had hidden in her lady’s chamber three nights before and Hylde had immediately begun to watch her. The mad old witch was up to something.

She saw something glitter in Rhonwen’s hand as she raised it before her. She was holding it the way people would hold a crucifix or something holy, to ward off evil. Was there a crucifix among her lady’s jewels? She had never seen one, other than the carved cross she sometimes wore with her beads. Hylde crossed herself and wished she could see who Rhonwen was talking to. She found she was trembling and glanced behind her. The empty staircase wound out of sight, dimly lit from the doorway at the bottom. In the silence she heard the gentle moan of the wind.

When Rhonwen at last left the chamber, Hylde was hidden in the darkness of the stairs above her. She waited until Rhonwen’s shuffling steps had died away into silence, then she tiptoed down. Only one person had left the room, so whoever had been talking to Rhonwen was still there.

Not giving herself time to think, she threw open the door and sailed in. ‘What are you doing in my lady’s room –’ She stopped in her tracks and stared around. The room was empty, but there had been someone here with Rhonwen. The woman had not been alone, she was sure of it. Methodically she began to search – the garderobe, the coffers, the window embrasure, the gap behind the bed, the heavy bed hangings; she even stepped into the hearth and peered up through the smoke into the chimney. There was no one: the room was empty.

The small hairs on her arms prickled with fear. She walked over to the jewel casket and pulled back the hasp – unlocked in spite of her warnings – then she threw back the lid and stared at the jumble of brooches and chains and earrings which lay there. At the bottom of the casket, wrapped in wisps of silk, lay two pendants. She had never seen the countess wear either, but she had unwrapped them once to show Hylde: a fabulous gleaming phoenix with jewelled eyes springing from a nest of flames and a beautiful prancing horse. Also wrapped in the bottom of the casket was a small engraved gold ring. As she had thought, there was no crucifix; no ring which contained a holy relic. She lowered the lid and pulled the hasp back across its loop. There was only one explanation left of what Rhonwen was doing: she was casting a spell.

Hylde took her suspicions to Eleyne that evening, as Eleyne was changing for supper. She chased the countess’s other women away before confessing cheerfully to her eavesdropping, and informed her mistress that Rhonwen had hidden in her chamber three nights before as well. She waited for a reaction, and she was not disappointed. Anger and fear chased each other across Eleyne’s features before she controlled her emotions and smiled at Hylde who was holding her mantle ready.

‘You think she was casting a spell?’

Hylde shrugged. ‘She was talking out loud, my lady, and holding something up before her like this.’ She held her hand out in front of her nose. ‘She sounded as if she were pleading with someone. I searched the room, but there was no one here.’ She looked around, conscious that once more her arms were covered in gooseflesh.

Settling her mantle over her shoulders, Eleyne turned to her jewel casket. Hylde watched. If someone had been rummaging through them, would her lady notice? But Eleyne merely picked out a brooch to fasten her mantle and dropped the lid of the casket without a second glance.

‘Don’t say anything to anyone,’ she said to Hylde. ‘I’ll talk to her. If she’s casting spells to make me bear a child, at my age, I shall be very cross.’ She smiled. ‘I love my children dearly, but if Our Lady has seen fit to make me barren at last, then so be it. I shall not complain!’

And with that Hylde had to be content.

II

Eleyne summoned Rhonwen to her chamber that very evening when supper was finished. Dismissing her other ladies, she turned on the old woman as soon as they were alone.

‘I hear you have been spying on me. Why?’ Her eyes were hard. She was afraid. Rhonwen was the one person she could not deceive.

Rhonwen sat down slowly by the fire and looked at Eleyne. ‘I know.’

‘You know what?’

‘I saw him.’

There was a long silence as Eleyne gazed steadily at her, trying to gauge what she meant. ‘Who exactly did you see?’ she asked.

‘The king.’ Rhonwen spoke in a whisper. ‘Don’t worry,
cariad
, your secret is safe with me. You have been chosen for great things, and I can help you.’ She smiled confidently. ‘I spoke to him, you see. I told him I would help you – ’

‘You spoke to him!’ Eleyne was as white as a sheet. ‘You saw him?’

Rhonwen nodded emphatically. ‘You will bear his child,
cariad
. A child who will be a king – just as Einion Gweledydd foretold. He spoke the truth, all those years ago. You see? It has all come right in the end.’

‘I will bear the king’s child?’ Eleyne stared at her incredulously. ‘No, you don’t understand, it’s not like that. He’s not real.’ She twisted her fingers together unhappily. ‘You should not have spied on me, Rhonwen. That was wrong, and you know it.’

Rhonwen shook her head. ‘He was pleased. He needs my help to get rid of Lord Fife. We have to get rid of Lord Fife,
cariad.
He’s in the way now – ’

‘No!’ Eleyne squatted beside her and took her hands in her own. Rhonwen had begun to look like an old woman, but her eyes had the cold steadiness of the fanatic. Looking at them, Eleyne was afraid. ‘Rhonwen, you must not harm Lord Fife. I am sure the king did not tell you to. You haven’t done anything yet, have you?’

Rhonwen shook her head. ‘With the earl away – ’

‘He is coming back soon. And I do not want him harmed, do you understand?’ Eleyne clasped her hands tightly. She was frightened, not of Rhonwen knowing, but of what she might do; terrified even of acknowledging her fears of what Rhonwen was capable of doing. ‘He did not take me from Alexander, that was Robert. Malcolm is the father of my children, and if,
if
I should ever bear another child, before the whole world Malcolm would be its father. What would happen if I had a child and I was a widow? Think, Rhonwen, think what would be said!’

‘But the king – ’

‘Leave the king to me, my dear.’ Eleyne dropped a light kiss on the older woman’s head. ‘Now, go to bed and leave me. I want to hear no more about this, do you understand?’

Rhonwen stood up slowly. ‘If you need me – ’

‘If I need your help, I will call on you, I promise.’

Eleyne sat for a long time after Rhonwen had gone. Not once did she stare into the shadows. She shivered and sat closer to the fire. If Rhonwen had really seen him, he was growing stronger, and she was suddenly very afraid.

III
October 1263

The news Malcolm brought on his return put all other thoughts out of Eleyne’s head.

‘You can’t do it!’ She looked at her husband in horror. ‘There can be no question of a marriage alliance with the Durwards!’

Malcolm scowled. ‘It’s all arranged!’

‘Then you must unarrange it. My son will not marry a child of that ambitious, lying, cheating, jumped-up nobody!’

‘I told you, Eleyne, it’s done.’ Malcolm’s face darkened with anger. ‘The match pleases me.’

‘Well, it doesn’t please me!’ she retorted. ‘Think, Malcolm, think who they are.’

‘Little Anna is the grand-daughter of the late king,’ Malcolm said with deceptive mildness. His eyes gleamed. ‘That should please you.’

‘Please me!’ Eleyne wondered for a moment if he had forgotten or if he were being deliberately obtuse. ‘That her mother was King Alexander’s bastard?’ She paused, afraid suddenly even to be saying his name out loud. ‘And perhaps it should also please me that Durward has been pursuing the earldom of Mar through the Vatican courts in a pathetic attempt to cheat himself into the noble blood he does not possess – a claim he was quick to drop when his own legitimacy was questioned!’ She was white with rage.

‘You are strangely defensive about the earldom of Mar, my dear.’ Malcolm took her wrist and pulled her towards him sharply. ‘I had thought that business with Donald of Mar finished. Can it be that I was wrong? Why should you care a jot for the earldom of Mar and who holds it?’

‘I don’t care!’ Eleyne rounded on him in fury. ‘I don’t care at all except that it proves the lengths to which Durward will go, to try to win himself position and influence in one of the ancient earldoms of this land. Don’t you see? He failed to get himself the earldom of Mar. Now he wants Fife!’

‘And his daughter shall have it,’ Malcolm growled, ‘with my blessing!’

IV

Later he sat staring glumly at the empty flagon of wine on the table. His belly ached and he felt sick and old. He looked around dazedly and gave a painful belch. His sons had gone out riding with their hawks after Eleyne had stormed out and he found himself feeling lonely. He sighed. Not so very long ago he would have worried that perhaps she still dangled after the Mar boy. Boy! He checked himself. Donald was in his twenties now. But Lady Rhonwen had put his mind at rest on that subject years ago. Donald of Mar’s infatuation had waned as quickly as it had begun. There was nothing to fear there. Eleyne had been kind to the boy, no more, and yet, sometimes, he had wondered. He had caught sight of her face at an unguarded moment, seen the secret dreaminess in her eyes and, just occasionally, he thought she had the look of a woman who had a lover.

He had given orders that she be watched, but Donald of Mar was far away, and no other man had been seen in her company. She had remained a good and faithful wife. And beautiful. It was a pity there had been no more children, but he was very proud of his two sons.