Child of the Phoenix (49 page)

VIII
FOTHERINGHAY
March 1237

The flames were burning more clearly now, licking the back of the chimney, embracing the logs, devouring the dry twigs as Eleyne fed them slowly into the blaze. A log cracked loudly and she glanced over her shoulder, nervous that someone might have heard. The door was closed and she had turned the key in the lock. She was alone. The candles had long since burned down and the room was dark. She threw on the last stick and knelt for a while, holding her bed gown tightly around her shoulders, listening to the sound of the rain pouring outside. John had ridden with most of the officers of his household to Northampton to see the king. It had been her choice to remain at Fotheringhay, her wish that now, at last, she should be alone, and he had left her, believing that she was unwell, hoping that she might at last be pregnant.

She had collected the herbs from the stillroom over the past few weeks, hiding them in a small coffer, to which she alone had the key. Luned thought it contained letters. It was the night of the full moon – the most propitious time for what she had in mind. No moon would pierce the clouds tonight, but she could feel the power of it, up there, above the rain; feel its magic, its pull.

It had taken a while to pluck up the courage to do it, but her guilt at Rhonwen’s death (if indeed she was dead at all) and her increasing anger with John had festered. She missed Cenydd’s quiet presence and she was very sad about his death, but it had after all been John’s fault! If he and Cenydd hadn’t spied on them, none of it would have happened.

Something had changed between her and John. Perhaps it had changed before, when she was riding to and fro between Scotland and Wales, but she was no longer a child in any sense. She felt herself his equal now, and her independence had begun to assert itself. The night he had beaten her, he had awakened a sense of rebellion, and with her rebellion had returned her longing to ride alone. Now there was no faithful Cenydd to follow her.

She rose to her feet and let the bed gown slip to the floor. Away from the fire the room was cold and she felt the gooseflesh stir on her skin as she unlocked the coffer and took out a small silver dish and spoon and the packages of herbs. She mixed them carefully in the dish, then took it to the window, where earlier she had opened the shutters. Standing by the sill, she offered the mixture to the sky, feeling spots of icy rain on her cold skin, then, not giving herself time to think, she threw the mixture on the fire. Thick pungent smoke filled the hearth and spilled into the room, and she found herself spluttering and coughing as she knelt waiting for it to clear. At last she could look deep into the flame and with her voice low but determined, she called Einion to come to her.

The flames shrank and hissed and she heard the wind moan in the stairwell outside her door. The draught rattled the hinges and lifted the tapestries from the wall and she realised that there was a picture in the fire. She leaned forward, straining her eyes, feeling the heat searing her eyelids: there was a figure lying on a bed, and around it other figures, indistinct, fading. Who was it? Einion had died alone. Surely it was not John? Dear God, it could not be John.

‘Einion,’ she called, her voice sharp with fear, ‘Einion, come to me.’ But the picture was dissolving; it had gone. She slumped on her heels with a scowl of frustration. In spite of all her careful preparations, she had failed. Her questions were still unanswered.

The fire settled and her eyes flew open again. ‘Please,’ she knelt up, and held out her hands in supplication, ‘please come.’ There was another picture; she saw a horse, cantering proudly, its eyes huge and staring in the thunder, its saddle slippery with rain, its hooves sliding in the mud. The rider leaned forward, urging it on, the thunder of hoofbeats filled her ears, then the horse was screaming, its feet scrabbling for a foothold, and she saw the rider flying through the air. As fast as it had come, the picture was gone.

She sat back on her heels again, trembling. Who was it? Who did she keep seeing, riding to what death? Not John, of that she was certain. The seat in the saddle was too sure, the shoulders too broad, but always the billowing cloak hid the face from her.

‘Oh please, show me his face,’ she whispered. ‘And show me Rhonwen. Tell me if she is truly dead, or if she is my father’s prisoner. Show me what has happened to her.’ She knelt forward for a third time, her head swimming from the fumes, straining her eyes into the heart of the flame. She saw the bed again. It was at Aber, and she could see the bedchamber clearly. ‘Papa!’ she whispered, ‘it’s papa.’ She rubbed her eyes, her heart pounding with fright. But there was nothing there. The pictures had gone.

Dragging on her gown, Eleyne went back to the window and leaned out as far as the grilles would allow, letting the cold rain pour in on her face, battering her eyelids, soaking her hair. She was shivering violently. ‘Papa,’ she whispered to the night. ‘Papa.’ Behind her the fire burned low, but the pungent smell of herbs remained.

High above, the cloud grew thin for a moment and shone with a pearlised glow where it veiled the cold spring moon. Then it thickened and the night was once again dark.

IX
NORTHAMPTON CASTLE

John looked down at the letter in his hand. It was from his brother-in-law, Dafydd. The old prince had had a seizure and lay unconscious at Aber. He begged the Earl of Chester to inform King Henry and reaffirm his own loyalty to the king, and he also begged John not to tell Eleyne:
Sadly, she will not be welcome here, unless, of course,
father should die, in which case you would both be expected at his funeral
.

The words, formal and penned by a scribe, were cold and unfilial. He wondered how Gruffydd was feeling about the situation.

King Henry was listening to a seemingly endless list of petitions when John approached him. The king signalled for the clerks to wave the patient crowds back.

‘So, my Lord Chester, have you come to rescue me from my duties?’ Henry gave a cold half-smile. As always he was richly dressed, today in a parti-coloured gown, stitched with gold, and a scarlet cloak with a border sewn with gems. Eleanor, his young wife of a year, was beside him on the dais. Only fourteen years old, her face was set with boredom.

‘Sad news, sire.’ John bowed. ‘I have a letter from Dafydd ap Llywelyn. He bids me tell you that his father is ill and may be dying.’

Henry frowned. ‘That is black news indeed. North Wales has been well ruled by Llywelyn.’ He stood up with a sigh and threw the silken sweep of his mantle over his left shoulder. ‘I can’t say I am surprised though. I had been told that he lost the will to live when my half-sister died. May I see the letter?’ His sharp eyes had spotted the folded parchment still clutched in John’s hand.

John handed it over reluctantly and watched as the king read it. Henry looked up at last. There was quizzical amusement in his eyes. ‘Your wife has been a thorn in Llywelyn’s flesh on more than one occasion if I remember right. Where is she? We have missed her here at Northampton.’

‘She is at Fotheringhay, sire.’

‘And will you be able to keep her there, do you think?’ Henry’s smile was almost mocking. The rumours of Eleyne’s wild rides had reached court.

John felt a rush of heat to his face. ‘Oh, I shall keep her there, make no mistake, sire. Although it will break her heart that her father does not want her.’

‘It sounds as if Llywelyn is past knowing what he wants,’ Henry retorted. ‘We can both guess who is behind that remark by Dafydd ap Llywelyn. And it bodes ill for Llywelyn’s inheritance if the heir, good man though he is, is led by the nose by that she-cat he married. The de Braose family have always been trouble.’ He sighed and was about to beckon back his clerks. Then he paused. ‘Eleyne visited her aunt in Scotland again several times last year, I hear?’

John tensed. ‘Your sister, the Queen of Scots, was unwell, sire. She seems to have taken a great liking to her niece.’

‘As you have to the idea of a kingdom of your own, no doubt.’ Henry smiled coldly. ‘Just so long as you remember where your first loyalty lies, as Earl of Chester and, even if the time should come, as King of Scots.’

John bowed slightly; the gesture allowed him to avoid the king’s eye. He murmured something which could have been taken for agreement and was much relieved to see that it had been taken for one of farewell by the men waiting to catch the king’s attention. With another bow John turned away. He did not like the turn the conversation had taken. It was time to return to Fotheringhay to break the news of her father’s illness to Eleyne.

X
CRICCIETH CASTLE
April 1237

‘I will not have that woman under this roof!’ Senena faced her husband, her eyes blazing.

Gruffydd glared at her. ‘God’s bones, woman! I won’t be spoken to like that. If I say she stays, she stays!’

Beyond the narrow windows of the keep of Criccieth Castle the sea crashed against the cliffs, the rollers creaming in from the southwest, piling into the bay and hiding the sands in clouds of spume. Rain streamed before the wind and the red lion flag high above the newly built keep stood out stiffly, pointing towards Eryri and the grey mass of cloud which hid the mountains.

‘Oh no!’ Senena shook her head. ‘I obey you in most things, my lord and husband, but in this never!’ She swept away from him, her woollen gown bulky around a figure still thickened from bearing her last baby. She was a tall woman, as tall as her husband, and when roused, as now, her temper was as formidable as his. ‘You get her out of here! Get her right out of Gwynedd; out of Wales, you hear me?’

Gruffydd sat down and put his elbows on his knees. He glared at her, supporting his chin on linked fingers. ‘And what do you suggest I do with her?’

‘Send her away! Send her back to your sister. That’s where she wants to be.’

Gruffydd frowned. ‘She can’t go to Eleyne. Lord Chester would arrest her. She can’t go to her family; they have never recognised her anyway, and they have sworn the bloody vengeance of the
galanas
on her for killing Cenydd.’

Senena shuddered. ‘An eye for an eye; a life for a life. It is just. Why did you have her brought here?’

‘For Einion’s sake; she served him faithfully.’

Senena shook her head. ‘That is where you are wrong. It is Eleyne she serves. Whatever she did that night, she did it in her own twisted mind for Eleyne, and Eleyne alone.’

Gruffydd raised an eyebrow. ‘I should have thought such loyalty was to be commended.’

‘Maybe,’ Senena said, ‘but not when she is living beneath our roof and Eleyne is hundreds of miles away. Her loyalty is too violent and too partisan! I want her out!’

Gruffydd rubbed his face in his hands. ‘And who is to tell her this, pray?’

‘You.’ Senena snapped her mouth shut on the word like a trap.

‘And what if she curses us as she cursed John of Chester?’

Senena was silent. She could feel the throb of the wind against the stone walls, for all their thickness. Far away, above the howl of it, she heard the yelping cry of a gull. She shivered. There was an omen there, she was sure. She straightened her shoulders. ‘Then we will spit on her curse and throw her into the sea.’

Gruffydd paled: ‘Blessed Bride! Are you mad, woman?’ He stood up. ‘I forbid you to say a word to her. I shall tell her myself.’ He swung around as the door behind him opened. ‘Did I send for anyone?’ He stopped in mid-sentence. Rhonwen stood in the doorway, wrapped in a thick plaid cloak, her hair covered by a heavy white veil in the manner of the Welsh mountain women. Her face was pale and drawn.