Child of the Phoenix (130 page)

She did not say how ill she was, nor did she mention her sister.

‘When will she come?’ Marjorie asked eagerly. Scrambling to her feet, she came and leaned against her mother’s knees and picking up the letter, she began to spell out some of the words. ‘How old is she? Her writing is difficult to read. Or did she use a clerk?’ The girl smiled. Her own writing had been condemned as execrable by the boys’ tutor who had remained at Kildrummy after his charges had gone so that twice a week he could give the girls a lesson in reading and writing.

‘She is grown up, my darling. I don’t know when she’ll come or if she’ll be able to travel so far,’ Eleyne said. ‘It may be that I shall ride south to see her.’

‘Then we won’t meet her!’ Isabella scowled. ‘I know! You can take us to see Cousin Llywelyn in Wales. We’ll meet her there and we can see Aber. Can we?’

It was a tempting idea. ‘We’ll see. I’ll speak to your father. I would like to go to Aber again.’ She sighed wistfully and stood up and stretched. Aber and Joanna. That would be perfect.

III

The heatwave which followed the rain broke in a massive storm. Lightning flashed across the mountains, turning heather and rock to blinding silver as the thunder reverberated over the moors and echoed around the corries.

Eleyne surveyed the women in her solar. They were restless, made uneasy by the thunder. At the table Isabella and Marjorie were squabbling quietly over a game of pick-a-sticks.

Eleyne went to stand in the window embrasure, flinching as a flash seemed to angle directly through the eighteen-foot-thick walls.

Donald and his father had still not returned to Mar. There had been no further word from them, and she was unsettled. Something was wrong. She closed her eyes; her head was throbbing dully and, in spite of the heat of the chamber, there was a strange coldness across her shoulders.

Eleyne
…

She caught her breath. The whisper had been in her head, inside her brain.

Her eyes flew open and she looked across the room. In spite of the heat, they had had to light candles to sew by. She could see the perspiration on the faces of the women, the dampness of the clinging wimples, dark stains spreading on thin silk. The rankness of their bodies was beginning to fill the room, overpowering the floral scents they used and the sweetness of the beeswax candles.

Eleyne spun around. A dozen faces turned towards her, then turned back to their work.

Eleyne
…

There it was again. Clearer this time, stronger.

She couldn’t breathe. ‘Blessed Virgin. Holy Mother of God.’ Soundlessly her lips framed the words. Another lightning flash illuminated the room and she saw Isabella flinch, her hand across her eyes. The child looked near to tears.

‘It’s all right.’ Her voice sounded distant and disembodied above the muted gabble of conversation. ‘It will pass over soon. Bethoc, where is your lute? Play for us. It will take our minds off the storm.’

She went back to the table, feeling the drag of her skirts intolerably hot and heavy against her legs, and she put her hand on Isabella’s for a moment as it hovered over the pile of cut rushes they were using for their game.

‘Mama!’ Marjorie’s protest was anguished. ‘Now you’ve spoiled it – ’

‘I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to.’ Eleyne smiled at her youngest daughter contritely.

He was there near her; unbelievably, he was there. The women, seated in groups around the candles or at the heavy oak trestle, had sensed nothing. The deep window embrasure was empty and yet she could feel him. For the first time in years she could feel him.

‘Why? Why have you come back?’ She mouthed the words silently over her daughters’ bent heads but she knew the answer.

She hadn’t called him, it was the phoenix.

Someone had found the phoenix.

IV

Eleyne put the idea of a visit to Wales to Donald as soon as he came home with his father two weeks later. It was the only way to escape, to be sure that Alexander would not follow.

‘That would give you real pleasure? To go back to Wales?’

‘You know it would.’

She was trying to hide her anxiety, her terror that Alexander had come back for her at last. She had to get away from Scotland and in Wales surely he couldn’t reach her.

‘I want to see Llywelyn again. And Aber. I’m getting old, Donald. Soon I won’t be able to contemplate the idea of such a long journey.’

He laughed. ‘You old? Never!’

At sixty-three she was as upright and slim as ever and as full of energy. She could still outride him, still sit up all night with a foaling mare, not trusting his horse masters, and be as alert at breakfast as the children. And she was still as desirable as ever. There were times – when she returned from her long lonely rides in the hills with only her two dogs, Lucy and Saer, the latest in the long line of Donnet’s descendants to guard her – when he wondered what magic she practised in secret beneath the moon. There was a glow to her skin and a gleam in her eye, a strange glamour over her, which bewitched him as strongly as when he had first met her.

He frowned. Out of nowhere the fear had returned, the suspicion, the secret dread, that on those lonely trips she met with Alexander’s ghost.

V
August 1281

William summoned Eleyne to his bedside soon after he and Donald returned. His face had thinned to the point of gauntness and his voice had weakened, but he had lost none of his acerbity when addressing his daughter-in-law.

‘I bring greetings from the king. He thanks you for your messages of condolence.’ Alexander’s second son, David, had died in June.

He groaned as he eased the pain in his joints. ‘You’ve heard no doubt that I was too ill to attend the finalising of the marriage settlement between young Margaret and the King of Norway. Donald was there, though. He’ll be a valuable adviser to the king when I’m gone, if you let him.’ He frowned through his bushy eyebrows. ‘You’re a powerful woman, Eleyne, and you still have my son exactly where you want him. Don’t stand in his way.’

Eleyne eyed him coolly. ‘I have never stood in his way.’

‘Oh yes you have. You keep him dangling here at Kildrummy when he should be with the king; you keep him on a leash like one of your damn dogs. And it’s not good for him. Let him go, woman.’ He shot his neck forward and glared at her. ‘I’ll be dead soon and he’ll be the earl. You’ve given him three sons and all credit to you for that.’ He paused thoughtfully, visibly wondering how she had done it. ‘You stay here and look after the earldom. You’re a good administrator. And let Donald go to court.’ He coughed feebly. ‘Are you afraid he’ll find himself another woman now you’re old?’ The glance he gave her out of the corner of his eye was pure malice.

She smiled. ‘No, I’m not afraid of that.’ She wasn’t, not any more.

‘Nor should you be.’ Grudgingly he smiled. ‘You’ve the looks of a woman half your age still, though, Blessed Margaret, I don’t know how you do it. One last point.’ His cough grew harsher. ‘I’m sending men from Mar as part of the army, keeping the peace in Wales. Wait –!’ He raised his hand as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘This is my duty, according to the agreements made between England and Scotland, and I abide by it, as Donald will be expected to do. You will not try to interfere. The politics of Wales are no longer your concern even if the king permits you to visit Llywelyn as you’ve asked. If there are Scotsmen helping Edward of England keep the peace, it is because your nephew was unable to do so himself. He lost the best part of Wales through his own weakness. Now, with Edward building castles all around him, he’ll be forced to abide by English rules, and there’s nothing you can do about it!’

Eleyne grimaced. He was right, but it hurt to think of foreign soldiers on Welsh soil.

So much had happened in Wales since she had been there last. Ever since Edward’s accession to the English throne, the working relationship which had existed between his father and Llywelyn had deteriorated, until in the face of Llywelyn’s persistent refusal to submit to his new English overlord, Edward had invaded Wales, accompanied by Llywelyn’s ever-rebellious and still jealous younger brother, Dafydd.

The combination of king and brother had inflicted a resounding defeat on Llywelyn, reducing the prince’s territory to the northern part of Gwynedd and forcing him to release his and Dafydd’s elder brother, Owain, whom Llywelyn, in his anxiety to keep him away from the centre of power, had kept so long a prisoner.

Edward had compromised in the interests of peace. He did not take away Llywelyn’s title of Prince of Wales and he had allowed him at long last to marry Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de Montfort, to whom he had been betrothed for so long, in a wonderful ceremony in Worcester Cathedral. That had been the last time Eleyne had seen her nephew. She and Donald had ridden south to attend the wedding, and she had been overjoyed to think that at last Wales would find some kind of peace.

The peace, however, had been an uneasy one.

Lord Mar shook his head grimly. ‘There was a time when I thought Wales and Scotland would unite to keep English ambition in check. It’s sad for Wales that that did not happen, for Edward is a very different man from his father.’ He fell silent, staring grumpily at his gnarled hands.

Eleyne took a deep breath. She was too old a hand at sparring with William to rise to most of the challenges he had flung at her. ‘Are you confident that Edward will not challenge Scottish supremacy one day?’ she asked mildly. She had never trusted Edward, from that day when as a boy he had stared at her with such hostile eyes at Woodstock. And she had sensed something in him – a cold-bloodedness – which set him apart even from his father.

‘He and Alexander get on well, they always have. There is no reason why Edward should threaten us. We are an independent kingdom with a strong king and an effective government.’ He frowned. ‘Though I could wish Prince David had not died. The king’s eldest son, Lord Alexander, is not a strong boy either. He is a fragile defence to have between the king and destiny, especially since the queen died and the king has not remarried.’

His words sparked off some strange warning bell inside Eleyne’s head. ‘But the king has chosen a wife,’ she said.

William nodded. ‘It’s not yet announced, but he has talked to the Count of Flanders about his daughter. There has been too much delay.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘He’s a strong, robust man; he needs a woman now, and a dozen new sons as soon as possible. In case.’

Eleyne frowned: her vision of Alexander on his horse had never returned. It was as if by telling him about it she had pre-empted fate. Certainly it was well known now that he would never ride a grey.

She stood up and dropped a dutiful kiss on her father-in-law’s head. ‘I must leave you now. You are tired.’

He scowled. ‘Yes, Goddamnit, I’m tired.’

Two weeks later William of Mar was dead.

VI
GWYNEDD
1281

The new Earl of Mar and Thane of Cabrach travelled to Wales with his wife in November. Their intention was to spend Christmas with Prince Llywelyn at Aber and meet at long last with Joanna.

On the way they stopped at King Edward’s great new castle of Rhuddlan, with its canal diversion of the River Clwyd. Solemnly they allowed themselves to be given a tour of the new building by King Edward’s castle builder, Master James of St George, admiring not only the provision for stables and granaries and workshops in the outer ward but also the king’s and queen’s halls with their painted timber walls and, already, the start of the queen’s garden and her little fish pond.

In their lavishly appointed guest chamber Donald turned to one of his coffers and brought out his writing materials. Within minutes he was deeply engrossed in a sketch of the lay-out of the castle.

Eleyne stood behind him, watching. ‘Are you going to show it to Llywelyn?’

He glanced up. ‘I doubt if there’s any secret about the strength of this place, my love. And it bodes ill for Llywelyn. No, I’m taking these drawings back with me to show to my stonemasons. We could gain some useful ideas for strengthening Kildrummy, with the king’s approval.’ He reached up and pulled her down to kiss her. ‘Are the children settled?’