Child of the Phoenix (25 page)

John had rubbed his cheek thoughtfully. ‘Have you seen her do this before?’

Cenydd shook his head. ‘Luned knows about her visions, my lord,’ he said slowly. For the child’s sake it was better if it were all out in the open.

Luned was white-faced: ‘It was a fantasy. The storm; the lightning. What she saw was the lightning strike a tree – ’

‘She saw a castle burning, child! You and I have heard her describe it again and again in her illness. She saw men and she saw a river. This was no ordinary dream.’ He paced up and down the floor. ‘She was warning us. Warning us of some attack. But where? Here?’ He swung round and paced back towards the empty hearth. He was cursing himself roundly. He believed it! He, a man of education and sense, believed she was seeing the future and he was worried about it! He was as gullible as the lye-spattered women in the wash-houses beyond the walls. He turned back to Luned. ‘I don’t want anyone to hear about this,’ he said repressively. ‘No word, no word must get out, do you understand? If the servants heard her talk, it was her delirium speaking, that is all. And now, thank the Blessed Virgin, she is better and there will be no more talk of burning castles!’

Eleyne looked around the room. ‘Where’s Rhonwen?’ she asked.

John sat down on the bed and took her hands in his. ‘I’ve sent her back to Wales, my darling. I couldn’t let her stay. She’s all right. She’s gone back to her own people.’

He saw her eyes fill with tears and he cursed silently. ‘Luned and Marared and Ethil are still here to keep you company. And me.’ He smiled. ‘And Isabel is coming to stay and bringing young Robert. You have to get better soon so you can ride with him. You’ll enjoy that.’ He reached for the physic the doctor had left and helping her sit up held it to her lips. ‘And your sister Margaret has sent you a gift from Sussex. She wants you to go and see her when you’re better. She’s sent you a beautiful necklace of pearls.’

Eleyne had grown while she was ill. He was astonished to find her now, thin as a reed, up to his shoulder. Her head still ached sometimes, so he would read to her in the evenings if there were no travelling minstrels or storytellers or guests. And he would talk to her of the future.

‘Would you like to be a queen, little one?’

‘In Scotland?’

He nodded. Great-grandson of King David I of Scotland, John, the only son of the elder John of Huntingdon and Maud, heiress to the Earl of Chester, was heir presumptive to the as yet childless King Alexander II.

Her eyes shone. ‘What is Scotland like?’

‘Beautiful. It has mountains bigger even than your great Snowdon, and lochs, great lochs as deep as the sea. One day soon we’ll go there. Your mother’s sister, Joanna, is married to my cousin the king, so we are both near the throne.’ He saw her frown. ‘Your mother is well, Eleyne. Sad in her prison, but well. You must not go on blaming yourself for her imprisonment. It was she who sinned.’ He looked at her. ‘No more bad dreams, I hope?’

She shook her head. The man with the auburn hair was forgotten again, part of the whirling blackness of her fever.

‘And no more burning castles.’ He smiled. ‘I keep wondering whether to stand to a bucket chain in case.’ The violence of her descriptions was still in the forefront of his mind.

‘It wasn’t any of your castles,’ she said, anxious to reassure him.

‘Then where was it?’ he asked softly.

‘It was Sir William’s castle. At Hay.’

There was a long silence.

‘I understand Hubert de Burgh, the king’s justiciar, has custody of Hay Castle,’ he said at last. ‘It must have been the past you saw, sweetheart. Your grandfather, King John, burned Hay after he destroyed Sir William’s grandmother and grandfather twenty years ago.’

He saw her knuckles whiten.

‘It’s all over now. And best forgotten, Eleyne.’

‘I know.’ It was a whisper.

IV

The visitor did not realise the importance of the news he brought. He had been given fresh water to wash and food and wine in the great hall and then, as courtesy demanded, he repaid the hospitality with news of the country through which he had ridden. He had been in Hereford when he had heard of the sack of Hay Castle and the latest round of battles which raged in Wales.

‘I hear they were still rebuilding the castle from the last time when the attack came. The women tried to hide in the church with their children, but that was burned too. The whole place has been razed to the ground, so I heard.’

John stared at him. Beside him Eleyne was as white as a sheet.

‘Who has done such a thing?’ John put out his hand and rested it over his wife’s on the table.

‘The Prince of Aberffraw. Your father, my lady. He burned Hay Castle.’

Letters came some time later from Llywelyn to John. He had done it, he said, to reduce the de Burgh influence in the march, and to remind the King of England not to encroach too far into Wales.

‘That’s not true,’ Eleyne said huskily, the letter in her hand. ‘He burned Hay for revenge. Because Sir William loved it there.’ She took a deep unsteady breath, fighting back her tears. ‘Poor Isabella. I wonder how she is enjoying life at Aber.’

She had written three times to her friend; there had been no reply.

‘She’ll be fine.’ John tried to comfort her. ‘Your brother Dafydd is a good man. He’ll look after her.’

He did not mention the fire again and neither did she. She could not have saved Hay Castle from her father any more than she could have saved Sir William from the noose. She realised now, their destinies had been written in the stars. But how had she been allowed to see the future? And why?

V

The Earl and Countess of Huntingdon were summoned to Westminster within weeks of the burning of Hay Castle. John guessed that Llywelyn’s motive must be of great importance to the king, and he warned Eleyne that the king would ask her about it.

‘You won’t tell him that I saw it all?’ She looked at him anxiously.

‘Of course not. Do you think I want the whole world knowing that my wife has visions of the future?’

She sat down at the great oak table where he had been writing, and picked up one of his quills. ‘I do not do it on purpose.’

‘I know.’ Contrite, he squeezed her shoulder. ‘But we cannot – must not – let it happen again. It’s dangerous. And it makes you unhappy. The king will ask you about your father’s motives. All you have to say is that you don’t know. Tell him all your father’s letters are addressed to me.’ This was true.

King Henry III stood facing his niece, a quizzical smile on his face. ‘Your father is thumbing his nose at me again, I think, my lady.’

Eleyne felt her face colouring. ‘No, sire, that is not true.’

‘My wife feels sure that the burning of Hay, at least, was a personal grudge, your grace.’ John put a protective hand on her arm. ‘A last gesture against the de Braoses.’

‘Ah, the lustful Sir William who managed to win my half-sister’s heart.’ Henry smiled. ‘The man must have been either a fool or so mad for love it made him so.’ He looked around for approval for his joke.

At twenty-four Henry Plantagenet was an elegant, handsome young man with an artistic eye, amply demonstrated in his love of clothes and luxurious furnishings and in the extravagant plans he was drawing up for the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey. As yet unmarried, he was a pious, shrewd and sometimes obstinate man.

For a long moment he eyed Eleyne, then he turned away. She was still a child. Later, when she had more influence with her husband, would be the time to make use of her.

VI

The Huntingdons were at home in their house in the Strand, a sprawling new suburb between London and Westminster, when news came that the Prince of Aberffraw had finally taken pity on his erring wife and forgiven her. After two years of imprisonment she had at last been allowed to return to her husband’s side and was reinstated in his favour. Eleyne gave the messenger a silver penny, overjoyed with the news, and went to find her husband.

‘I can go home! If papa has forgiven her, he will have forgiven me, won’t he, my lord? Oh, please. Can I go home?’ Not once in the last two years had they gone to the west.

John looked at her in astonishment and took the letter. It was the first she had ever received from Aber, and it came from Rhonwen.

‘Home? To Gwynedd you mean?’

She nodded in excitement. ‘Please?’ Noticing his expression she stopped uncomfortably. ‘I know I am your wife, I know I must come back to you when I am fourteen, but until then I could go home to Rhonwen. Back to Wales. Back to see Isabella –’ Her voice died away. They stood looking at each other for a long moment, and slowly her face fell.

‘I am sorry, sweetheart.’ John shook his head. ‘You must stay with me. Your home is with me now.’

‘My home is in Gwynedd.’ It was almost a sob.

‘Not now, Eleyne. You are the Countess of Huntingdon. Wales is no longer your home. It never will be again.’

‘But it must be!’ Huge tears welled up in her eyes. ‘It will always be my home. I love Wales. I hate it here!’ The angry sweep of her arm encompassed not only the heavily oak-beamed room of the house with the endless rattle of carts and wagons outside and the hot, fetid smell of the crowded streets of London so close, but the whole of eastern England and her husband’s domains.

‘Then you must learn to like it, Eleyne.’ His voice was unusually stern. He had not realised she still expected to go back to her father. He had thought she was happy with him. The wild ride of the night of the storm had not been repeated, and even before it she had appeared content to spend more and more time at his side, learning the intricate, sometimes tedious task of running the huge and complex administration. ‘There is no question of going back.’

‘Not ever?’ The look she gave him was stricken.

He took a deep breath. ‘No doubt a visit can be arranged at some point. When we go back to Chester we can consider it if your father wishes it. But at the moment he has made no mention of it. Neither, if you read your letter carefully,’ he handed it back to her, ‘does the Lady Rhonwen.’

Luned stared at Eleyne. ‘We can’t go back? Ever?’

Eleyne shook her head, biting back her tears. The brightly painted room with its terracotta walls and ornate gilded plasterwork between the beams was cool and shady compared with the street beyond the high gates. The small-paned windows let in a strange greenish light which cast ripples and shadows across the floor. The bitter smell of dry strewn herbs rose and tickled her throat as she moved.

‘Then what?’ Luned sat down heavily on the edge of a coffer.

‘We go on as before. England is our home now.’ Eleyne’s voice was flat. ‘Or Scotland, one day perhaps.’ Scotland was a fairy tale; part of a dream of a queen with a golden crown. ‘But we can visit Aber only if papa asks us. Luned,’ she went and sat down next to her, taking her hand, ‘I am going to write to Rhonwen. And to Isabella. I’ll ask them to speak to papa. Bella would want me there. Aber won’t be much fun on her own. There were so many things we were going to do together; so many adventures I had planned. She’ll persuade them to let me come back, I know she will.’

The bleak reality of John’s glimpse of the future was pushed aside. She could not, would not, believe it possible that she would never live in North Wales again.

VII

This time Isabella wrote back. Eleyne stared at the letter in disbelief, frozen with horror, oblivious of her husband’s worried eyes on her. ‘What is it, Eleyne?’ The letter had been with his as usual courteous note from Llywelyn about march business.

Eleyne shook her head bleakly.

Leaning forward, John took the letter from her limp fingers and scanned the loose childish handwriting. Seconds later he had thrown it on the fire.

‘Forget her.’ His words were curt.

‘But she is – was – my friend.’ Eleyne was bewildered.

‘I fear you have been made a scapegoat, sweetheart. Your brother has, it seems, blamed you for her father’s death. You can see why they have done it. Life would be intolerable if she blamed your father. You are not there. It was the pragmatic answer.’

‘But she was my friend,’ Eleyne repeated. She could not believe such betrayal.

‘Obviously not.’ She had to learn the lesson now, hard though it was. ‘A true friend would have believed in you.’

‘I’ll never go back home now …’ The shock was wearing off and the full significance of the letter began to dawn. ‘If she blames me, everyone else will be doing the same. My mother – ’

John frowned. ‘That may well be so, sweetheart.’

She stood up slowly and walked over to the low window. Through the dim glass she could see the altercation between two wagoners just outside the gates below. The wheels of their vehicles had become locked in the narrow street and, strain as they might, the oxen pulling in opposite directions could not extricate them. The fracas ended only when one of the wheels was wrenched off and the wagon tipped its load of heavy sacks into the filthy road.

VIII

The visit to London ended. John took Eleyne once again on the progress around the Huntingdon estates. Away from the city her spirits rose a little. She was happy to be riding again and, in spite of herself, she was becoming increasingly interested in the complexities of running the great earldom. John encouraged her, enjoying the blossoming confidence, the shrewd native intelligence, the occasional wry humour. He also enjoyed talking to her of deeper things: persuading her to tell him the stories of the old gods of the Welsh hills and in return showing her the gentle meekness of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Often he took her alone with him into the chapels and churches on his estates, to listen to the singing of the liturgy or to see the beauty of the gold and silver, the alabaster, the glass; above all, to feel the peace to be found at the feet of the Mother of God. Eleyne had more or less forgotten Einion and now she found that she could put Rhonwen too at the back of her mind. Her nurse was safe and happy at Aber, and her husband must now become the centre of her life. She would see Rhonwen soon, of that she was certain.