Child of the Phoenix (126 page)

There was a moment’s total silence as Rhonwen stepped back, a look of astonishment on her face. Her mouth opened. ‘You’ve killed me,
cariad
,’ she murmured. ‘Silly child. I was doing it for you – ’ She crumpled to her knees. A trickle of blood had appeared at the corner of her mouth. The dagger was embedded in her chest she fell backwards on to the piled sacks and lay still. Eleyne staggered and leaned against the wall gasping for breath, tears pouring down her face as Catriona grabbed her shift and fled from the room.

‘Is she dead?’ Eleyne whispered at last, her voice all but lost in the howl of the wind.

‘Yes.’ Donald bit his lip. ‘She’s dead.’ He stooped and, pulling out the dirk, he flung it on the ground.

He went to his wife and tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. ‘Don’t touch me!’

‘Eleyne!’ His hands dropped to his sides. ‘I know you’re upset, but – ’

‘But what?’ Her eyes were blazing. ‘I just found you making love to another woman and – ’

‘That didn’t mean anything.’

‘Of course it meant something! Why else would you have done it?’ She was almost hysterical. ‘I nearly lost my baby trying to follow Rhonwen to save you and now – and now –’ her eyes flooded with tears – ‘and now she is dead and I killed her.’

‘You saved my life, my darling.’

‘I killed her!’ Rhonwen lay sprawled on her back, her eyes wide open, gazing sightlessly upwards at the shadowy vaulted ceiling. ‘I killed her …’ She held out her hands in front of her, staring at them in revulsion.

‘And how many people has she killed in her life, Nel?’ Donald asked gently. He did not try to touch her again. ‘You told me that she admitted having killed Robert de Quincy. You told me you suspected there were other people she had poisoned: John of Chester, Alexander’s queen – even Malcolm himself perhaps! Sweet Christ, Eleyne! She nearly succeeded in killing me!’ He clamped his hand to his shoulder, where his gown was slowly turning red, and brought it away, his fingers sticky with blood. ‘Do you realise that woman might have been responsible for the deaths of all your husbands! Christ only knows why you kept her near you!’

For a moment they both stood staring down at Rhonwen’s body. Eleyne was shaking her head. ‘But she loved
me
!’ she whispered. ‘And I killed her!’

‘She was a dangerous, mad woman, Eleyne.’ Wearily Donald stooped and picking up a sack he threw it over Rhonwen’s face and shoulders. ‘Come away now.’

‘Someone will have to be with her.’

‘I’ll deal with it.’ He picked up the lantern. ‘How did you know where to come?’

‘I searched the whole tower.’

‘And you knew what she was going to do?’

Eleyne nodded. ‘It was something she said in Wales. That if you made me cry she would kill you.’

‘And I made you cry.’ Donald’s face was full of anguish.

‘It was tonight that I realised you had gone to that woman again and I knew this time you wouldn’t come back.’ She gave a helpless, angry shrug. ‘We both knew this would happen one day; that I would grow old.’

She knelt beside Rhonwen and gently pulled back the sack.

‘Old!’ Donald shook his head. ‘How could you be old? You are carrying my child!’

‘And it makes me unattractive to you.’ She shrugged, not looking at him. ‘I understand.’

She touched Rhonwen’s face with a gentle hand and closed the staring eyes. Then, summoning all her dignity, she stood up and turned towards the door. The shock was beginning to hit her afresh, and she could feel herself trembling. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

‘Eleyne.’ His voice stopped her. ‘I love you. That whore meant nothing. Nothing at all, I swear it.’

She smiled faintly. ‘Goodnight,’ she said.

He did not follow her. When she looked back from the door at the head of the stairway, he was standing looking down at Rhonwen’s body.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I
KILDRUMMY CASTLE
1269

E
leyne’s daughter, Isabella, was born at the end of May. To commemorate the occasion, Donald gave his wife a gold filigree chain. To his new daughter, for a christening present, he gave a silver casket.

Neither of them ever mentioned the events of Valentine’s Eve. Rhonwen was buried without the benefit of the Christian requiem, which she would have abhorred, in an unmarked grave in the woods far to the north of the castle. When at last the snows thawed, her embalmed body was lowered into the ground by four men from the village. It was left to Morna, at Eleyne’s request, to plant flowers on the spot and whisper prayers to the old gods for the comfort of her soul. Catriona and her husband were sent to Aberdeen with enough money to set themselves up as baxters to the burgesses there.

A few days after Rhonwen died, Bethoc brought a small wooden coffer to Eleyne’s chamber and put it on the table. ‘I’ve given all her clothes away as you asked, my lady,’ she said gently, ‘but there are more personal things. I thought …’ She hesitated, looking at Eleyne’s pale strained face, ‘I thought you might want them.’

She did not touch the coffer for a long time, then at last she moved across to it and laid her hand on the wood. It was heavily carved in the Welsh fashion. She remembered it from when she was a small child, following Rhonwen everywhere, from Aber to Llanfaes, from Caernarfon to Degannwy to Hay and later to Chester and Fotheringhay and London. Fighting her tears, she turned the key in the lock and pushed back the lid. There were pitifully few possessions – an ivory comb, a few enamelled buckles and a silver brooch, some beads and a silk kerchief. Eleyne’s hands strayed to the kerchief, then she took it out and unwrapped it.

The phoenix lay in her palm. She stared at it with a pang of longing. It was so beautiful, catching the thin morning sunlight which slanted through the lancet windows. Carrying it, she went to the window seat and sat down. Until her child was born there was nothing to fear. But then … Thoughtfully she weighed it in her hand. It was the link and she must get rid of it.

Donald did not return to Eleyne’s bed until Isabella was nearly three months old, but as far as she knew he did not seek comfort elsewhere. When he came back, they were both changed by what had happened: calmer, more reticent and sad. It was a complete surprise when he brought up the subject of Alexander again.

‘Rhonwen believed he had come back, didn’t she?’ he said as they rode side by side through the woods towards Glenbuchat Tower.

Eleyne’s hands tightened involuntarily on her palfrey’s reins and the horse threw up its head in resentment. ‘She believed in him, yes,’ she said quietly.

He examined her: her seat on a horse was still neat and beautiful, her head erect as she looked straight ahead between the horse’s ears. She was a princess, he reminded himself; perhaps she should have been a queen.

She went on without looking at him, her words painfully slow as she confronted her memories. ‘She thought she saw him once and she believed he was waiting for me and that only you stood in his way.’

‘We believe that too, don’t we?’ Donald put in. He didn’t give her a chance to reply. ‘How did she propose to give you back to him once I was dead?’

Eleyne was staring ahead towards the mountains. ‘I think in the end she would have killed me too.’

She thought for a minute. ‘It’s his love that brings him back, Donald. He doesn’t mean to frighten me and he would certainly not want to hurt me.’ It was hard for her to speak calmly about something she kept buried so deep. ‘I think perhaps it was my belief that first allowed his spirit to return. When I was married to Robert and then to Malcolm, I had to believe he was still there to keep my sanity and because I longed for him so much I allowed him to come to me.’

‘Through the pendant.’ Donald had reined in beside her.

She nodded. ‘It was as though he had planned it that way when he gave it to me all those years ago. I think he knew we would never be together in this life. He uses it as a link; a bridge of some kind. But I don’t think he needs it any more.’ He was still there, she was sure of it, even though the phoenix was no longer at Kildrummy. She glanced across at him, pain and something like fear in her eyes. ‘I think he’s growing stronger all the time. It’s love gone mad. Out of control. Even without the phoenix.’ She bit her lip. ‘He’s no longer a king, so he sees no reason for us to be apart. He doesn’t have to think about Scotland or what men like your father think. All he cares about is me.’ It was a relief to have voiced her fears at last.

Donald reached across and touched her hands. ‘But you can control him. He can’t cross your magic circle.’

‘No.’ It was a whisper. ‘He can’t cross it. He can’t come back without the phoenix. Not yet.’

‘And Rhonwen has gone.’

‘He didn’t need Rhonwen, Donald. He doesn’t need anyone. He doesn’t even see anyone else. Except you.’

Donald could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.

‘It was when I met you. I tried to turn my back on him and he knew. He knew that I loved you.’ She looked at him for the first time. ‘No ghost could compete with the love I felt for you.’

He blushed and she smiled. She loved the way he still coloured at her compliments, like a boy.

‘And do you still feel that way about me?’ he asked after they had ridden on some way.

‘I think I must …’

‘Even after I betrayed you?’

‘Even then.’

He stared at her. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. ‘I think you bewitched me the first time I met you, and I think you have kept me bewitched ever since.’

She laughed. ‘I sincerely hope so.’

‘I’m a very lucky man. Poor Alexander.’

The laughter died in her eyes. ‘We’re making him so unhappy. I’ve tried to tell him I hate to hurt him but he makes me afraid.’

His eyes sought hers. ‘Where is the phoenix now?’

‘Gone for good, where no one will find it.’

‘I see.’ He urged his horse on thoughtfully. ‘But you don’t think that will keep him at bay?’

Her eyes went back to the mountains in the distance. ‘I don’t know any more,’ she murmured. Then she went on, so quietly he didn’t hear her words, ‘I can only pray, because if he gets much stronger I shan’t be able to control him.’

II
KILDRUMMY CASTLE
January 1270