Child of the Phoenix (46 page)

XIII
ABER
February 1237

In the bed which she had not left for many months, Joan grew weaker.

She had been lying there when Eleyne had arrived, exhausted and covered in mud from the long wet ride south from Scotland sixteen months before. The last few miles had been ridden by the light of flaring torches, hissing and spitting as the rain sizzled on the slow-burning resin, and Eleyne’s fear that her mother would be dead before they got there had grown with every mile as Aber drew closer.

In the event, Joan had been well enough to welcome her youngest daughter, and she had seemed stronger than they had dared hope.

They stayed only a few weeks, returning to Chester after Martinmas, and in the spring Eleyne was able to convey her messages to Alexander’s sisters at last. As she and John rode around England, they found themselves several times in King Henry’s presence, as the court moved from Westminster to Windsor, to Winchester and Northampton. It was at Nottingham that letters caught up with them, informing them that Joan had had a relapse, and they had ridden west once more. There had been two more visits as her health began to decline faster and now they had made the journey through hard-packed snow and icy winds to the princess’s bedside for the last time.

They were all there, Joan’s six children: Dafydd, with Isabella, Margaret, Gwenllian, Gwladus, Angharad and Eleyne, and the end was very near.

Rhonwen sat at the table, her nimble fingers sorting through the candles, counting under her breath. There were some missing. There had been a hundred in the candle box, enough for two days more at this, the darkest time of the year, and she had been about to order another gross to be sent up from the storeroom beneath the
ty hir
. Now there were enough for only one more day. She watched the boy walking round the room lifting the candle stumps from the prickets with his knife and tossing them into his leather bucket, and she frowned. The wax candle ends were a valuable perquisite of the household officials; stolen candles were another matter. The thief had to be found. Pursing her lips, she closed the lid of the box and stood up. There was no supervision in the
llys
; no order. Senena was at Criccieth with Gruffydd, and as for Isabella – she shook her head as she searched for the missing key to the candle box – Isabella was still a child, alternately spoiled and berated by her husband, disliked by the servants, as poisonous as a snake and as little use.

She found the key where it had obviously lain for many months, in the stale rushes beneath the coffer. Eleyne would have to give some orders to the servants or somehow shame Isabella into supervising the royal household.

It was strange, but Eleyne, the youngest by far of all the daughters, was the most composed now that Joan’s death was near. And that, Rhonwen had decided, was because her mind was elsewhere. It was still, as it had been for the last sixteen months, in Scotland.

The visit to Kinghorn had told her all she wanted to know. Listening and watching in the shadows, Rhonwen had seen it all. She loved him! Her child, her Eleyne, loved the King of Scots! It had been so obvious: the blushes, the stammering, the defiance, the interviews alone and unchaperoned, the stolen glances, the sleepless nights when Rhonwen in the truckle bed had heard her sigh and toss and turn. She had got it all wrong. It was not the Earl of Chester the girl loved at all. She had saved his life to no purpose. Rhonwen had spent a great deal of time thinking over the implications of her realisation, then slowly, over the long months, she began to plan.

XIV
ABER
February 1237

Joan died at last on Candlemas Day. Her husband and all her children were at her bedside. Llywelyn, the tears running down his face, was holding his wife’s hand. She smiled as, one by one, they came to the bedside and kissed her. She was too weak to speak or move her head, but they could read the message of blessing and farewell in her eyes. One by one, the men and women in the room sank to their knees in prayer. When the end came, it was so gentle that it was several moments before Llywelyn realised that the hand in his had fallen limp and that she had left them.

The funeral was lavish. The sons-in-law arrived and joined Llywelyn in following Joan’s body as it was carried in state over the Lafan sands and ferried across the strait to Llanfaes. It lay there one more night in the prince’s hall before it was interred in a ceremony conducted by Bishop Hugh of St Asaphs in the new burying ground especially prepared to receive it nearby.

Rhonwen did not go to the requiem mass or to the interment. In the solar she waited alone for the mourners to return. The room was dark; it was early yet so she had ordered no candles, but the lowering sky was heavy with more wet snow and the sea was like black slate. She shivered: Einion was here again; the air was heavy with anger and reproach.

Each time she had come with Eleyne to Gwynedd she had felt him. And so had Eleyne, she was sure of it; but the girl refused to acknowledge him, refused to allow him in, clutching at her crucifix and backing away from the shadows, never letting him come near her, never letting him give her his message. And each time his frustration and despair had grown. And so had Rhonwen’s; she was racked with guilt.

The moment they had set foot on the island of Mô n, as part of the funeral cortège, the plan had come to her. The mourners would be back soon from the burial ground and the feast would start; the place would be full of people. She would force Eleyne to come with her, now while she was here on the island, his home and his body’s resting place. Rhonwen smiled grimly. With the Englishwoman dead at last, and Eleyne too exhausted by grief and the cumulative strain of the long months of her mother’s illness to know what she was doing or to argue, it would be easy to take her to Einion and do what must be done. Then and only then would her conscience be clear.

She pounced on Eleyne as the girl appeared in the doorway, her eyes red with tears. ‘Quickly, now, before you take off your cloak!’ Rhonwen was almost hysterically insistent. ‘There is something we have to do. It won’t take long! I have horses waiting. No one will know we’ve gone. You will be back before they’ve missed you. All you have to do is come to where Einion is buried. You owe him that much! The rest of the night, the rest of your life you can grieve for your mother! But tomorrow you will leave the island. You may never come back. You have to come with me now. You have to.’

Eleyne was too tired and depressed to do more than shake her head. Slowly and heavily she sat down on the bed and began to pull off her embroidered gloves. ‘Don’t be foolish, Rhonwen. My place is here. I’ve told you a dozen times, I don’t want to see Einion’s grave!’

Rhonwen stood over her. ‘Have you never wondered,
cariad
, what he wanted to tell you so badly?’ she hissed. ‘Your destiny lies in Scotland, yet you bear Lord Chester no children. Why?’ She leaned so near, Eleyne could feel her breath on her cheek. ‘Supposing Einion can tell you? Supposing he was going to tell you about the King of Scots!’ Her eyes glittered with triumph as she saw the start of guilt and the rush of colour to the girl’s cheeks.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. You think I don’t see you count on your fingers every month in the hope that you have conceived. But nothing happens. Your milksop earl can’t father a child. He’s impotent! And Queen Joanna is barren!’ Rhonwen leaned even closer. ‘Ask Einion! Ask him what is to be. Now! With me!’ Her hand closed over Eleyne’s wrist.

Slowly, only half knowing what she was doing, Eleyne allowed Rhonwen to pull her to her feet. Still wearing her heavy furs, her hair and face swathed in a black veil, she followed Rhonwen to the side door in the wall. Behind them in the great timber hall the funeral feast was already in full swing. She had not been missed. People assumed she was prostrate with grief like her sisters Angharad and Margaret.

The doors to the hall had been pushed open to clear the smoky fetid air and the noise of the feast, subdued at first as always at funerals, had risen almost to the usual level, although there were no musicians. The only music the whole day had been the chanting of the monks and the slow dirge of the bards in the rain.

XV

Rhonwen had found the exact spot. Deep in the woods Einion lay in a grave marked by a slim upright stone. There was no carving on it, no name, no sigil – only a shadow of lichen which had been there long before the stone was raised. Who had found his body, sprawled across the dead ashes in his lonely cell, she did not know; nor who had buried him here, far from consecrated ground, blessed only by the rites of his own faith. All she knew was that he wanted Eleyne to come. Rhonwen dismounted before the grassy mound with its streaks of melting snow. The trees which interlaced their boughs above were stark against the cloud wrack. Behind the storm there was a full moon.

Eleyne did not move: her head was a whirling confusion of sorrow and exhaustion. Like her sisters, she had sat up for the last few nights at her mother’s bedside, and like them she had slept little since her mother’s death. The ride through the cold night had been numbing. It was farther than she had expected and as they rode deeper into the woods she grew more and more tense. Rhonwen was right. He was here beside them. He was in the trees, in the scattered, fleeting moonlight, in the howl of the wind.

And he wanted to speak of her destiny.

‘Get down, I’ll tether the horses.’ Rhonwen was at her stirrup, her hood blown back, her hair whipping around her face where it had been torn from her braids.

Eleyne did as she was bid. She stared at the grass mound and her mouth was dry with fear.

Rhonwen lit a fire in the small brazier which she had carried at her saddle bow and set it gently on the grave. She had a leather pouch at her girdle. In it, gathered the summer before for this specific purpose, were dried hemlock and poppy seed, dittander, mugwort, rowan and sallow bark. She handed it to Eleyne. ‘Scatter some on the flames,’ she instructed in a whisper. Eleyne put her hand into the pouch, feeling the crumbly brittle petals, smelling the bitter spicy aroma of the herbs. Taking a handful, she let them fall into the brazier. He was very close.

Rhonwen began a low keening chant, her voice so quiet it was almost lost in the moan of the wind in the branches above their heads. Mesmerised by the sound, Eleyne dug her cold fingers once more into the pouch and scattered a new handful of herbs. The wind caught them and whirled them away into the shadows.

Rhonwen’s eyes were fixed on the snow at their feet, almost invisible as the moon disappeared behind the clouds. Imperceptibly her keening grew louder and throwing back her head she raised her arms, staring at the sky behind the trees.

‘Come!’ she screamed. ‘From beyond the grave, I command thee, come. My lady awaits you!
Come!
’

XVI

John was seated beside Margaret, toying half-heartedly with the food on his platter. Several times he had left the table to search for Eleyne, but had failed to find her. Then Cenydd was at his elbow. ‘May I speak to you, my lord?’ The man’s face was creased with worry.

John threw down his napkin, rose and followed Cenydd out of the hall.

‘It’s my fault, my lord.’ Cenydd was furious with himself. ‘They gave me the slip. Rhonwen must have planned it. But I know where they’ve gone. I think we should follow them.’ He half guessed what his cousin planned to do and his skin crawled at the thought.