Child of the Phoenix (133 page)

XIV
ROXBURGH CASTLE

She and Donald were at court a week later, and Eleyne lost no time in seeking a private audience with the king.

‘You have to do something; you must send my nephew help! Don’t you see how dangerous, how disastrous, it would be if Edward were to conquer Wales?’

Alexander shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I am deeply sorry for Llywelyn and I hope he manages to save the situation, but the matter is terribly delicate, Aunt Eleyne. So many of my vassals are also vassals of Edward of England. You know yourself how many Scots have English estates and vice versa. I should be asking them to choose between their allegiances for a matter which does not concern Scotland.’

‘It will,’ Eleyne flashed. ‘If Wales falls, where do you think Edward will look next for conquest?’

‘Not to Scotland, I assure you.’ Alexander folded his arms. ‘Edward and I have an understanding. We respect each other. Scotland’s sovereignty is safe.’

‘Is it?’ She met his eye. ‘You should not trust Edward Plantagenet. I know my cousin of old; ever since he was a boy he has been ambitious, devious, and vicious. Don’t put him to the test.’

‘I won’t.’ Alexander scowled. ‘Because, unlike you, I get on well with him and have no reason to cross him. And I am not going to make reason by taking arms with Wales, much as I might like to for sentiment’s sake.’

‘You made an alliance before, against Henry – ’

‘An informal alliance which is no longer valid. No, I’m sorry.’

Eleyne looked at him in despair. ‘I have seen pictures of war and disaster in the fire,’ she said quietly. ‘Your father would have listened to me.’

‘Then my father would have been listening to his heart, not his head,’ Alexander replied sharply. ‘Now, if you please, Aunt Eleyne, I have matters to attend to.’

Alexander, why don’t you show yourself to him … why don’t you tell
him of the danger … for Scotland’s sake?

She sighed. ‘Then listen at least to one other thing I have to say. When your advisers beg you to fix a date for your marriage, listen to them,’ she pleaded. ‘I know how much you miss Margaret, and I know how much you love Alexander and what a credit he is to you, but you must have other sons.’

His face darkened. ‘You are presuming too much, Aunt Eleyne.’

‘No, I’m taking a privilege allowed to old ladies!’ She raised an eyebrow imperiously and he laughed out loud.

‘Old? You? Never!’ He sighed. ‘I’m not a fool. I know I have to remarry. I even understand that if I die without a strong heir to succeed me that might give Edward an excuse to interfere in Scotland’s business.’ His voice was rueful. ‘I do not take unnecessary risks, I promise you. After all, I have banned grey horses from my stables and I never ride in storms.’

‘I’m glad.’ Taking his hand, she dropped a deep curtsey and raised his fingers to her lips. ‘Take care, my sovereign lord. I see black clouds everywhere, and it makes me afraid.’

XV
11 December 1282

Isabella had woven ribbon collars for the dogs. Seeing them brought a lump to Eleyne’s throat as she thought of the Midsummer’s Eve celebrations all those years ago. There had been no further word from Joanna since her letter at Christmas the year before. Eleyne moved closer to the fire, shivering violently.

‘What is it, mama? Aren’t you well?’ Isabella was knotting the plaited silk around the wolfhounds’ great, shaggy necks.

‘I don’t know.’ Eleyne closed her eyes. A wave of terrible cold had swept over her. She turned to the fire, overwhelmed by the strange despair which had swept away her happiness. ‘It’s as though a light has gone out. Someone is dead – ’

Isabella crossed herself nervously. ‘Who?’ she whispered. ‘Not papa?’ Her voice slid up into a frightened squeak; her father was once more with the king.

‘No, not papa.’

‘Why don’t you know?’ Isabella was used to her mother’s second sight. Though Sandy was the only one who showed signs of having inherited it, all her children accepted it as being part of the normal way of things, a short cut sometimes to the truth.

Eleyne shrugged in despair. ‘I don’t know. I can’t always see what I want to; the flames don’t answer my questions.’ She leaned closer to the fire. ‘I can’t see anything; I can’t hear anything but the howling of the wind in the hills.’

Isabella stared at her. ‘There’s no wind, mama, not here.’ She slid her arms unhappily around Saer’s neck and the dog turned and licked the girl’s face.

‘No.’ It was a whisper. ‘No, it’s a Welsh wind.’

XVI

Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, separated from his men as he directed an attack on Builth in central Wales, was killed by a lance wielded by a member of the Shropshire levy, a man called Stephen Frankton. He did not even realise whom he had killed.

By the time confirmation of the news reached Scotland, Llywelyn’s head was being paraded before Edward’s troops on Anglesey and his tiny orphaned daughter and heir, Gwenllian, was Edward’s prisoner. The child was to spend the rest of her life in a nunnery.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I
ROXBURGH CASTLE
1284

‘D
o I have to close my eyes and raise my arms above my head and go into a trance to convince you, sire?’ Eleyne, wrapped in a scarlet fur-lined cloak against the cold, addressed the king wearily.

She’s getting old after all
, he thought to himself.
She is still a beautiful
woman, but the tiredness which shows in her eyes is new, as is the despair
.

Behind them Master Elias, the king’s harper, played gently in the shadows, his sightless eyes fixed blankly on the wall. It had been Eleyne’s suggestion after Malcolm’s death that he leave Falkland and enter royal service, and his fame at court had spread far and wide. Apart from the harper they were alone.

The king stood up and took her hands in his. ‘No, you don’t have to do that. I know you foresee a dire future for Scotland and for me. And I know that now both my sons are dead, I can put it off no longer. I must take steps to meet it.’ His third child, too, had died in far-off Norway, leaving as the king’s only heir her small daughter, Margaret. ‘When all the arrangements have been made the chancellor will go to France to fetch Yolande.’

‘She is a wife of whom England approves?’ Eleyne raised an eyebrow.

‘She is.’

‘So you have bought us more peace.’

Wales had fallen to the English. Owain and Rhodri were dead and Dafydd was dead, beheaded by Edward of England, his sons captured. Gwynedd was a proud, independent principality no more.

‘I hope so.’ He turned away. ‘I have done what everyone wants, so why do I hear disapproval in your voice?’

‘Do you?’ She shrugged. ‘I see danger from England ahead. It’s no more than an instinct, but I know Edward.’

‘I thought it was more than an instinct; I thought it was foresight.’

She shrugged. ‘What use is foresight if I can see only faintly and not understand?’

‘You are able to warn people of what the stars intend and they can step away from fate,’ he answered.

‘But I saw nothing for Llywelyn. Could I not have foreseen his death and warned him?’

‘As you did mine? Perhaps he was too far away. Perhaps his was a fate which could not be avoided.’ The king put his arm around her shoulders kindly. ‘Go and celebrate Lord Fife’s good fortune in winning himself a beautiful wife, and stop worrying about me.’

When Duncan of Fife, twenty-one at last, inherited his father’s earldom, he had triumphantly announced his impending marriage to Joanna de Clare, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester and a niece of Robert of Annandale’s wife. Eleyne was very proud of him.

‘Are you coming to his wedding?’

He nodded. ‘Fife is one of the great earldoms of Scotland. How could I miss such a ceremony?’

‘You didn’t come to my wedding to his grandfather as I recall,’ she replied tartly, her voice heavy with irony.

He gave a sheepish shrug. ‘I was very young.’

‘Indeed you were, and under your mother’s thumb.’ She gathered her cloak around her. ‘May the gods bless you, Alexander of Scotland. I shall wait in turn for an invitation to
your
wedding!’

II
FIFE

Joanna de Clare was fair-haired and pretty, with large blue eyes, the daughter of one of England’s greatest earls and a close kinswoman of King Edward. Duncan was inordinately proud of her.

The wedding ceremony was held in St Andrews Cathedral, covered in wooden scaffolding still after the great storm which had brought down the whole west front a few years before. This was not a hasty ceremony in a side chapel lit by midnight candles but a full nuptial mass before the high altar in the presence of the king and all the greatest nobles in the land.

Among the guests were the Lord of Annandale and his wife, the bride’s aunt, and the Earl and Countess of Carrick and their eldest son and daughters, and it was here that Gratney met his bride-to-be, Christian Bruce, for the first time since they had been told of the plan for their betrothal.

‘I know she’s only eight years old,’ Eleyne said gently. ‘Remember, it will be a long time before you marry and if you don’t like each other when you’re grown up we can always change our minds.’

He scowled. ‘She’s just a baby!’

‘So she is, but in six years she will be of marriageable age.’

‘If we are betrothed, I can’t change my mind,’ he went on, determined to be awkward.

‘You can if you want it badly enough. But we won’t arrange a betrothal unless you are happy with the idea.’ Patiently, she gave him a little push. ‘Go on, greet her. She knows about the idea and she has always liked you.’

Smiling at Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, she stepped forward and the two women exchanged kisses. Behind her formidable mother Christian was tall for her age and slim with huge dark eyes and long ash-blonde hair held by a chaplet of gilded flowers. She was an extraordinarily pretty child.

Seeing Gratney, her brother Robert, youngest of the Robert Bruces, dug her in the ribs with his elbow. She blushed violently and Gratney found himself smiling. He liked all the Bruce children. Perhaps, after all, she wouldn’t make such a bad wife – one day.

III
1285

Isabella was the first to hear of Duncan’s and Joanna’s baby. The messenger was telling everyone as he dismounted in the outer courtyard. ‘It’s a girl! The Earl and Countess of Fife have a daughter! The Fifes have a daughter!’

‘My first great-grandchild.’ Eleyne clasped her hands. ‘I must go to see her.’

‘May I come, mama?’ Isabella at sixteen had turned into a beautiful young woman. She had inherited only a little of her mother’s colouring. Her hair was red-gold, but her eyes were grey and her skin almost transparent in its fairness. They had still not arranged a marriage for her. Donald had talked to several families, but no one was good enough for his Isabella.

Eleyne frowned. ‘No, darling, not this time.’