Child of the Phoenix (120 page)

Rhonwen smiled. ‘Of course,
cariad
,’ she said. She glanced at the bed. There, safely hidden beneath the pillows and bolsters, the phoenix lay where she had left it. As long as it was there, Eleyne belonged to her king.

VIII

The first time Donald returned to his wife’s bed he was shy and tentative, like a stranger. He had watched her trace the circle of protection around their bed, seen her command Alexander to leave them alone. It seemed too easy; too simple a way to hold their fear at bay, but she believed the king had gone and she was hungry for Donald.

Laughing, she had to guide his hands to her hard flat belly, her soft breasts, but from that moment she had to guide him no longer. Their lovemaking, after so long an abstinence, was almost better than before.

IX
JEDBURGH
February 1267

Donald took her south to the king’s court when the snows turned to rain and the frozen ground began to thaw. He wanted to get her away from Kildrummy, away from his mother, away from the ghost which haunted them. The lively atmosphere of the court would distract her, and surely the dead king would not come near his son.

As he had hoped, the castle was crowded, noisy and full of good humour. The great hall rang with music and laughter. Troubadours and minstrels, acrobats and animal trainers vied with one another to amuse the king and queen in the frenzied run up to the austerities of Lent. It was a shock to discover that one of the reasons for the excitement was the visit of Prince Edward, the queen’s brother. He had arrived from Haddington, where he was recruiting troops to fight the rebels in England. At twenty-eight, Edward was a fine figure of a man; tall, handsome in a reserved manner, he had been married since he was fifteen years old. His first two daughters had died in infancy but now he had a son, John, just a year old, named for their grandfather. The antipathy Eleyne felt for her English cousin was, she knew, more than returned. They regarded one another with dislike, suspicion and resentment, something which had grown and developed over the years on the rare occasions when they had met. She wasn’t quite sure why, even from a child, he had marked her out for his spite. It didn’t occur to her that he sensed in her a rebellious spirit which he would never be able to tame and that as such he regarded her as a personal threat.

His presence cast a blight over the visit. Eleyne avoided the king and queen and their guest as much as she could; but she could not escape Edward’s attention entirely.

The lower tables had been removed and the guests had settled down to listen to the music of one of Prince Edward’s minstrels, or sleep away their heavy meal, when Edward addressed her directly for the first time.

‘So, our fair cousin is now wife to the heir to the Earl of Mar. I understand from my brother-in-law that there are five more earldoms in Scotland for you to collect.’ He inclined his head towards those within earshot, waiting for their laughter. When it came, dutifully, it was muted.

Eleyne tensed, but Donald’s hand was firm on her arm. He turned to Prince Edward. ‘My wife is so fair she merits a thousand earldoms, your highness,’ he said quietly.

A spot of colour appeared on Edward’s cheeks, then he gave a slight bow. ‘Your gallantry shames me, Lord Donald,’ he said. He smiled coldly, then he turned away.

Donald and Eleyne looked at one another as the minstrel tuned his lute. Both had felt a shadow hover over the hall before the music soared towards the high rafters. Eleyne shivered. The happiness of the visit was spoiled.

X

By the time they returned to Kildrummy she knew she was pregnant again.

Instinctively certain that her condition kept her safe from Alexander, she tried to hide it from Donald for as long as possible. When at last she told him, he was overjoyed, but in spite of his reassurances and her pleas he left her even sooner this time. The red-haired girl in the dairy was married to the castle baker and hugely pregnant herself, and he had sworn he would not look, ever, at another woman, but even so he found it necessary to ride south to join his father at Dunfermline and she was left alone.

Rhonwen confronted her at once. ‘So,
cariad
, he has left you again. Do you still swear that he loves you?’

Eleyne was sitting in the window embrasure, and did not turn round. ‘I wouldn’t blame him if he found me ugly. But it is his mother. He cannot argue with her. The church says it’s a sin to touch me while I am great with child.’ She wrapped her arms around herself miserably.

Rhonwen snorted. ‘The church says,’ she echoed mockingly. ‘Your bitter, twisted church.’ She bent close to Eleyne. ‘Lord Donald is not for you,
cariad
. Have you not seen that yet? Have you not seen who it is who truly loves you?’

Eleyne turned to look at her, almost afraid of what she would see. Her face was drawn as she met Rhonwen’s eyes. ‘No one loves me while I am pregnant,’ she said wearily. ‘Alexander has no use for me while I carry another man’s child.’

‘I can bring him to you,’ Rhonwen whispered. ‘Look.’ She produced her hand from behind her back. In it something sparkled, and as the enamelled jewel swung on its chain free of Rhonwen’s fingers, Eleyne caught her breath.

‘I hid that – ’

‘And he showed me where.’ Rhonwen dangled it in front of Eleyne’s eyes. ‘He guided me to it, he commanded me to bring it to you. It binds you to him. You cannot throw it away. You cannot hide it. It will always find you.’

Eleyne reached out but Rhonwen took a quick step backwards. ‘I’m going to take care of it,
cariad
. We cannot have it lost again, can we?’

Eleyne’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘You are meddling in matters which don’t concern you, Rhonwen. Give that to me!’

Rhonwen shook her head. Turning, she skipped out of reach with surprising agility, slipping the phoenix through the slit in her skirt and into the pocket she wore at the waist of her shift. ‘The king told me to guard it well,’ she said triumphantly.

‘He won’t come.’ Eleyne did not try to chase her. Aware of her dignity, she sat down and turned back to the window. ‘He will never come while I am carrying Donald’s child.’

XI

Day after day Eleyne found herself seated next to Elizabeth at the high table. They ate in a silence occasionally broken by the gallant chatter of Hugh Leslie, Father Gillespie the castle chaplain, and Sir Duncan Comyn, Elizabeth’s cousin and head of her personal household.

Elizabeth had grown very thin over the last twelve months. She kept more often to her rooms and sometimes failed to appear at meals at all, but when she did her tight-lipped dislike of Eleyne showed no respite.

Twice Elizabeth’s brother, the Earl of Buchan, had come to Mar and on both occasions he brought his wife. With Elizabeth de Quincy at Lady Mar’s side, Eleyne felt outnumbered.

‘They sit side by side and glare at me,’ she told Morna, taking little Mairi on her knee. ‘I don’t know which one of them hates me most.’

‘Poor lady.’ Morna laughed. ‘You threaten them. You are young – oh yes you are, compared with them – you are beautiful and above all you are fertile, whilst their wombs have shrivelled and died.’ Morna sat down on the grassy bank next to her. ‘And neither of them can forget that you are loved by a king.’

‘So, the story reaches even the glens of Mar.’ She shivered.

‘I need no gossips to know what happens to the people I love.’ Morna sounded reproachful. ‘I hear the news on the wind; I hear it in the rain and see it written in the clouds.’

‘And the fire,’ Eleyne said softly. ‘Do you ever see it in the fire?’ She touched Mairi’s face with her fingertip.

For a moment Morna said nothing, studying Eleyne. ‘No,’ she said at last, ‘I don’t see things in the fire.’

There was a long silence. ‘I hear things from the gossips as well, of course,’ Morna went on in a more energetic tone. ‘For instance they told me that your nephew Llywelyn has now been recognised as Prince of all Wales by Henry of England.’

Eleyne smiled. ‘It’s strange how the shadows from Yr Wyddfa stretch as far as the mountains of Scotland.’ She shivered. ‘I pray all goes well with him.’

‘But you see trouble for him in the future?’ Morna asked tentatively.

‘Perhaps. I don’t know what I see, except that destiny sits heavily on our family.’ Eleyne sighed. When the news had come only the week before of her sister Angharad’s death, she had wept bitterly. But it was so long since she had seen any of her sisters. Margaret, who had written to her to tell her the news, had herself been widowed for the second time only three years before and had been too ill to go to Angharad’s funeral.

Morna was watching her. ‘Destiny sits heavy on you, my friend, certainly.’ She smiled. ‘To be loved by two men at once is never easy. It’s even harder if you love them both in return.’

Eleyne looked up at her. ‘You know that Alexander has followed me to Mar?’

Morna shrugged. ‘As I said, I hear it in the wind and rain. One day you will have to make a choice.’

‘But not yet.’ It was a plea. Eleyne wrapped her arms around herself with a shiver. ‘He doesn’t come near me when I’m pregnant. It’s as though he never existed, as though he were just a dream. I find it hard to believe in him at all when he’s not there.’

‘Perhaps he is a dream.’

‘Perhaps I don’t exist for him. Perhaps I’m the dream.’ Eleyne put Mairi down and climbed restlessly to her feet. ‘Oh, Morna, why did Donald go away again? Do I cease to exist for him too when I’m with child?’

‘Perhaps.’ Morna pulled her daughter to her and dropped a kiss on the toddler’s head. ‘But you still exist for yourself and that’s the only true reality,’ she said enigmatically. ‘You are too much ruled by your passions, my dear.’

‘I can’t help it.’ Eleyne shook her head. ‘I love him so much.’

It was Donald she meant.

Elizabeth of Mar followed her on her next visit to Morna, her chestnut palfrey flanked by four mounted knights.

‘So, this is where you come. I thought perhaps there was a man.’ She snapped her fingers at one of her escorts. He dismounted and helped her down.

Little Mairi had fallen asleep in Eleyne’s arms. Carefully she laid the child on the ground without waking her and stood up, controlling her anger with difficulty. ‘How kind of you to be worried. As you see, I am not with a man, I am visiting a friend.’

‘A friend?’ The Countess of Mar looked down at Morna, who was sitting on the grass by the river, and raised a haughty eyebrow.

Morna smiled at her, unruffled. ‘I could be a friend to you too, Lady Mar, if you would let me.’ Her low voice halted Elizabeth in her tracks. ‘I can see the pain inside you and I could help you, if you would let me.’

Elizabeth stared at her. Her face was white, her thin, lined face drawn with the effort of the long ride. ‘Why? Are you some kind of leech?’ For a moment there was something like longing in her eyes, then it was gone.

‘No, but I know something of healing,’ Morna replied, ‘and I know of a holy well, the waters of which would help you and bless you with long life.’

‘Indeed.’ Elizabeth hesitated for only a fraction of a second, then she turned back to her horse. ‘Then I suggest you use your knowledge in the clachan, where no doubt it would be of some use. Eleyne, accompany me, please.’

‘I shall follow soon.’ Eleyne kept her voice even. ‘I had planned to return in time for the midday meal.’ She made no move towards her horse, which waited with those of the two men who had escorted her. They were sitting playing a lazy game of knucklebones at the far end of the glen, well out of earshot of Morna’s cottage. After a moment’s hesitation Elizabeth beckoned the knight forward to help her mount, and rode off without looking back.

XII

‘Why did you follow me?’ Eleyne went straight to Elizabeth’s chamber when she returned to the castle.

Her ladies, sitting around the broad table with their embroidery and their spindles, looked up in astonishment.

‘Your husband suspects you of being unfaithful,’ Elizabeth said.

‘No, that would never cross Donald’s mind. Not unless you suggested it to him, as you suggested to him that he leave my bed.’ Eleyne held Elizabeth’s gaze without wavering, and was gratified to see the countess look away first.