Child of the Phoenix (39 page)

Malcolm Fife laughed exultantly. ‘They scent blood, lady. Come!’ He wheeled his horse and plunged into the wood. Without hesitation Eleyne followed, her long skirts, trailing from the saddle, catching in bushes and trees as the horses thundered on. Excitedly she kicked Invictus on, only half aware that the riders behind them, including Isabel Bruce and Lord Annandale and Robert, had not followed them but galloped straight up the main ride.

‘We’ll be up with the king in seconds!’ Malcolm called over his shoulder. He reined his horse over hard, plunging up an even narrower overgrown track. ‘Does your husband never hunt, my lady?’ he shouted.

‘Never!’ she called back. It wasn’t true, but Lord Fife’s mood had affected her; his high spirits, his daring. She didn’t want to think about John, sitting with his books in the dark rooms of the abbey guesthouse as he nursed a heavy summer cold. To do so made her feel guilty. She should be with him, not hunting with the king.

Gritting her teeth, she urged Invictus on, stung by the earl’s arrogant assumption that his horse would lead. On three occasions now he had challenged her: twice she had won and once his horse had been in at the kill at the king’s side as the huntsmen crowded round to cut the throat of the stag the dogs had brought down. Today, she had vowed she would be at Alexander’s side, she and she alone, above all his followers. With a shout to Invictus, she brought the loop of the rein down on his sweat-streaked rump and felt the surge of power as the stallion shot forward.

The ravine had opened before either of them saw it. Both horses stopped in their tracks, rearing, their hooves slipping in the crumbling earth.

‘God’s bones!’ Malcolm’s face had gone white as he clung to his plunging horse. ‘Are you all right?’

Eleyne nodded, aware that her legs were shaking violently as she peered down through the trees which clung to a deep cleft in the rocks, disappearing almost vertically below them. Somewhere in the distance they could hear the rush of water from the burn which coursed through the glen at the bottom.

Not giving herself time to think, Eleyne wheeled Invictus around. ‘This way! I can still hear the horn!’ But the other horse barred her way. There was no room to pass and the earl was dismounting. He was a stocky young man, fresh-faced and good-looking with a shock of dark unruly hair. ‘I think he’s lame. Hold a moment, my lady.’ Ducking beneath his mount’s head, he ran a hand down the horse’s foreleg.

Eleyne trembled with impatience: ‘We’ll lose the king – ’

‘Do we need the king?’ Before she knew what he was doing, he had straightened. His hands were on her waist and he had pulled her from her saddle. She did not react, too surprised to resist, then his hands were on her breasts.

Eleyne froze. ‘My lord – ’

Pulling her to him, he crushed her lips with his own, bending her backwards over his arm as he devoured her mouth, one hand greedily groping inside her gown. She struggled furiously, but his strength was enormous. She could feel herself losing her balance, feel the soft earth at the edge of the ravine crumble beneath her feet. Clawing at his face, she heard him swear as her gloved finger caught his eye. His grip slackened and she broke away from him, staggering towards Invictus, feeling the tightly braided coils of her hair slipping from beneath her head-dress. Pulling herself into the high saddle, she wheeled the horse and pushed him into a gallop back up the track the way they had come.

The king was standing among his followers staring down at a magnificent stag. He looked at her quizzically as she rode up: ‘I thought you vowed to be at the kill, my lady,’ he called, teasing. She saw him eyeing her torn gown and dishevelled hair.

‘It looks to me as though a little hunting has been done away from the main chase.’ His smile was forced. Beside him Lord Annandale frowned.

Eleyne felt her face going crimson. ‘One of your lords, your grace, seems to know little of the code of chivalry,’ she retorted. ‘He tried to dishonour me – and my husband …’

‘Oh come.’ The king walked across to her. ‘Hardly that, I’m sure. Most ladies take it as a compliment if a man shows them his admiration.’ He reached up and put his hand over hers. If he could feel them shaking he made no sign. His eyes became serious, holding hers. ‘Lord Fife is a hothead, lass, and he’s made no secret of his admiration for you,’ he said with quiet urgency. ‘It was he, I take it?’ He searched for the missing earl among the crowded courtiers. ‘The two have made him a little over-eager for a kiss, that’s all. Least said, the better, don’t you think?’ He was smiling, but she could hear the command in his voice.

‘But your grace – ’

‘Enough, Eleyne.’ His fingers tightened. He was holding both her hands over the pommel of the saddle, crushing them in his grip. ‘I’ll have a word with Lord Fife.’ His words could be heard by her alone. ‘I’ll tell him to flirt less and remind him you’re a married lady, for all you’re so fresh and young and enticing.’

Oh, he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, this King of the Scots, with his golden hair and beard and his fierce commanding eyes, but he frightened her! She felt the strength in the hand which so easily held hers imprisoned, sensed the power of his will as he looked up at her. Suddenly shy, she looked away, and at once he released her hands. ‘Enough,’ he said softly, ‘I don’t think any more need be said.’

She watched as he strode away, once more absorbed in the crowd of huntsmen and courtiers, noblemen and servants who surrounded him, heard the talk and laughter, saw the carcass of the stag being trussed and slung between poles, and she felt terribly alone.

VI

‘Did you enjoy the hunt?’ John asked wearily. His eyes were sore from reading and his head ached.

‘Not very much.’ Eleyne tossed her head. ‘I don’t think I like it here, my lord.’ Her pride was still stung by the king’s rebuke and her temper dangerously high.

John frowned. ‘You have not annoyed the king or his henchmen, Eleyne? You know how important it is for them to like me.’

‘Do you not think to ask if they might have annoyed me?’ she flung back at him.

John stood up, and threw down his pen. ‘What happened?’

‘The Earl of Fife forced me to kiss him; he tried to touch me, to force me – ’

‘Oh, surely not. The Earl of Fife is one of the most influential men in the kingdom – ’

‘And he tried to force your wife!’ she repeated. ‘When my father found another man in bed with my mother, he hanged him like a common thief!’

‘De Braose was your father’s enemy, when all is said and done, Eleyne. The cases are not the same. And Lord Fife was not in bed with you. He snatched a kiss, that’s all.’

‘And you don’t mind?’

‘Yes, I mind.’ He folded his arms beneath his cloak. ‘But I am not going to be foolish about it. No harm was done. He paid you a compliment. Just make sure you are not alone with him in future.’

‘And that is all you are going to say?’ She was almost speechless with indignation. Her cool, stern husband was not even ruffled by her news. ‘You are like the king. You think it a joke! The great Earl of Fife tried to kiss Lady Chester in the woods. Oh, she’s not dishonoured, she’s not even supposed to be angry! She is supposed to laugh it off and consider herself flattered!’

‘You told the king?’ John frowned. ‘Eleyne, I don’t want him to think you are going to cause trouble among his followers.’

‘Cause trouble!’ Eleyne was incensed. ‘Perhaps, my lord and husband, if you had been there, hunting with everyone else, it would not have happened! Perhaps if you were in the great hall more often after supper it would not happen – ’

‘That is enough!’ he exclaimed angrily. ‘May I remind you that neither would it have happened if you had remained here with me! In future you will stay here, at my side, and behave like a dutiful wife. Then men will remember that is what you are.’

That night he slept with his back to her, a bed cloak wrapped around his thin shoulders against the damp and cold of the rain which had swept north across the Forth in the darkness and which seeped in through the very stones of the building. At dawn he began to cough again.

VII

The great castle of Edinburgh was black on its rain-soaked rock. Staring up at it, Rhonwen felt her heart clench with fear. Was this where Eleyne would spend the rest of her days? Her carefree, bright child a prisoner in this cold northern land. She huddled into her cloak and looked around intently. Her servants and horses were as tired as she was after the long ride north, and now they were disappointed. The court, they had been told, had been in Dunfermline across the broad River Forth for many weeks. They had farther yet to go.

It was already growing late. They had to find somewhere to sleep in Edinburgh and in the morning go on to find the Queen’s Ferry which, they had been told, would take them on their journey. They were fighting their way down the busy high street with its market crowds, and Rhonwen was mentally counting out the last of her precious hoard of silver coins. Were there enough left to buy bread and meat and sleep tonight in a clean bed with a minimum of others to share it? And then to pay for a guide and the ferry in the morning?

She watched wearily as one of her servants stopped a tall, thin-faced man with high cheekbones and dark hooded eyes, asking him for somewhere to stay. She saw the puzzled looks on both their faces as they struggled to understand one another’s tongues, then the Welshman turned, nodding. He waved ahead down the street. ‘We are to go out of the town by the Nether Bow Port and on through the canon’s burgh, then we’ll find a guesthouse at the Abbey of the Holy Rood on the edge of the forest,’ he called. ‘It’s not far to the ferry in the morning.’

Rhonwen kicked her horse on down the steep road through the thronging market crowds. Now that she was so close to Eleyne, she was beginning to feel nervous; what would Eleyne say when she saw her and when she heard, as she must, that Rhonwen had burned Einion’s letter with all its urgency, and – the fact which had terrified Rhonwen into starting her frantic journey north – that the old man was dead and with him the message which had been so important it needed Eleyne’s immediate return to Mô n?

VIII
DUNFERMLINE

That night Eleyne dreamed again about the king. She awoke, her husband’s implacable back turned towards her in the darkness, aware that her body was alive with longing, that her skin was warm and eager beneath the sheets, her nipples hard, her thighs flaccid and welcoming. It was the third time she had dreamed of Alexander in as many nights, and each time she had buried her face, hot with shame, in the pillows. What kind of wanton was she that she dreamed of her husband’s cousin – her aunt’s husband – in such brazen detail? She stroked her hand surreptitiously across her flat belly and up to her breasts, feeling them tense beneath her fingers. Outside she could hear the heavy summer rain pouring endlessly on to the lead roofs of the guesthouse and gurgling from the gutters. The rich smell of the earth, newly drenched, rose through the open windows and filled the room. Beyond the bed curtains she heard a movement from one of the truckle beds which lined the room, then a whisper and the creak of wood followed by a stifled giggle.

She turned over, staring towards the heavy tester over the bed. Beside her was John’s deep regular breathing. Cautiously she reached out and touched his back, running her fingers down the length of his spine. He moved slightly and groaned, then he slept again. Beyond the curtains the room had grown silent.

IX

‘Lady Chester!’

Sometimes the king addressed her formally; sometimes he called her Eleyne and sometimes he addressed her, as he addressed his wife, as ‘lass’. She never knew which was coming or, when she looked into his face, if he were serious or teasing.

‘We have a visitor who will interest you.’

Beside him on the dais Joanna was sitting near the smouldering fire, attended by Robert Bruce, Eleyne’s nephew, newly raised from page to squire in the queen’s household and celebrating the fact by sticking his tongue out at Eleyne when he thought no one else was looking. The queen’s face was pale and she had grown even thinner over the last few weeks, but her eyes were calm now, and no longer red with weeping. Robert alone was sometimes able to make her smile.

The visitor, as Eleyne made her way across the hall beside her husband, was a tall man, dressed in a black gown and mantle, his white hair and beard moving silver in the light of the flickering candles. He’s a bard, she thought, like Einion. Perhaps he’s a seer – and she was afraid.

She walked towards the dais at John’s side, aware that many eyes had followed her from the moment she entered the hall, aware that she was being gossiped about, her name linked with the Earl of Fife even though she had never been alone with him again or hunted since that fateful day. And even though she slept every night with her husband and seldom left his side at all, by his decree.

She raised her eyes and met those of the queen, who smiled at her. The two had become friends after a fashion during the long weeks of their stay, Joanna’s resentment tempered by Eleyne’s warmth and open friendliness, so different from the bitchy, manoeuvring ladies of the court. Reaching the dais, Eleyne curtseyed to the king and queen. Near them the tall man rose. He bowed. His eyes were clear quicksilver in his face; depthless, swift-moving, all-seeing.