Child of the Phoenix (66 page)

Eleyne refrained from mentioning that her husband’s mantle was also new, the third she had seen since they had arrived in London, and that the money for it came from her coffers.

‘It was a gift, sir,’ she said with a cold smile, ‘from the Queen of Scots.’

‘Indeed. In that case I suppose we must be thankful for her generosity.’ He scowled with bad grace and was still scowling when they arrived at the Palace of Westminster.

This time he could not speak to the king alone, and she was acutely conscious of Robert at her shoulder when she asked her question. ‘The matter we spoke of last week, your grace. Do you have it for me?’

Henry looked at her, his expression puzzled. ‘What matter, niece?’

‘The pardon, sire.’

‘The pardon?’ He rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Ah, yes, the pardon. I have had no chance to think about it, ask me again next week.’

‘But your grace – ’

‘Next week!’ He squinted up at her. ‘I have not decided yet whether I am going to grant the woman a pardon at all. I have to make enquiries …’

Eleyne was speechless for a few seconds. ‘But you promised – ’

‘I did not promise anything, Lady Chester.’ He emphasised the formal address. ‘I shall think about it. Next week.’

Out of the corner of her eye Eleyne saw that Robert was frowning, his mouth tight with anger. ‘But, my lord king, uncle, please listen – ’

‘Leave us!’ Henry snapped so loudly that men and women below the dais fell silent and stared up at the group of figures around the king’s high seat. He turned to a messenger who had just come in. ‘Well, what is it, man?’

Eleyne was dismissed. She drew breath, stunned by his betrayal, but the gasped message of the man who had dropped to his knees in front of the king stopped her short as she turned away.

‘It is the Queen of Scots, sire. She is dying!’

Henry rose. ‘What did you say?’

‘Your sister is dying, sire! She was to have left for Scotland today, but she was taken ill in the night. This morning she went into a convulsion and now she lies near to death.’

‘No.’ Eleyne’s whispered protest went unheard.

The king looked at the messenger as if he could not understand what the man was saying. ‘My sister?’ he repeated under his breath, ‘Near to death? But how? She was well. She came to bid me farewell only two days ago. She was to take messages from me to the King of Scots. I gave her gifts –’ He shook his head, trying to absorb what the man had said. ‘Are there physicians with her?’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘And don’t they know what is wrong? Can’t they help her, for Sweet Christ’s sake!’

‘They say she is beyond help, your grace. Only divine intervention can save her now.’ The messenger crossed himself, and the king and those around him followed suit.

‘I must go to her.’ Eleyne was one of the first to recover from the shock. ‘Please, uncle, let me go to her now.’

He nodded vaguely. ‘And I. The queen and I shall go to her bedside. Poor Joanna – ’

At a run Eleyne threaded her way down through the crowded hall to the door, leaving Robert standing at the king’s side.

The huge courtyard was milling with people and there was no sign of the de Quincy horses. She saw two knights riding in through the main gateway, both mounted on high-stepping horses, fresh from their stables. Gathering her new scarlet skirts above the mud, she ran towards them.

‘Please, sirs, will one of you lend me your horse and the other ride with me to the Tower? It is a matter of life and death.’ Her hand was already on the bridle of the horse nearest to her.

The man gaped at her, then his face broke into a grin. He didn’t know this vision in scarlet, but the huge green eyes and beautiful face were enough. ‘Of course, my lady. For you, anything!’ He slid from the horse and handed her up into the high saddle. ‘Escort the lady wherever she wants to go, Edmund,’ he called to his companion. ‘If she wants to ride to furthest Cathay itself, take her there with my blessing!’ He swept a low bow.

Eleyne touched her hand to her lips, automatically reacting to his handsome good humour, but already she was kicking the horse out past the king’s guard towards the bridge over the Tyburn away from Westminster, towards the City of London. Edmund cantered at her side. ‘Sir Edmund de Merton, at your service, my lady,’ he called. ‘May I ask what quest we ride on so frantically?’

‘The Queen of Scots is dying,’ Eleyne cried. ‘She is my aunt and I love her.’

Sir Edmund kicked his horse to keep up with her, but she had drawn away from him, urging her mount through the traffic of wagons and carts which thronged the road. He found it hard to keep up, but when at last they reached the Tower he was still at her side. Eleyne threw herself from the horse. ‘Thank you.’ The smile she turned on Edmund as she flung the reins of the borrowed animal at him was so full of sadness that he stood still, stunned. Then she was gone.

Joanna lay in the darkened room, surrounded by her servants. She was completely still, seeming barely able to breathe beneath the velvet bedcoverings. The men and women around her stood back as Eleyne approached the bed on tiptoe and took Joanna’s hand. It was cold.

‘She cannot hear you, my lady,’ Auda whispered through her tears as Eleyne breathed Joanna’s name. ‘She is sinking fast.’

‘But how? Why? How can she be dying?’

An old man in the black robe and carrying the staff of a physician stepped forward.

‘The queen has been ill often, my lady. She has a fever in her womb. It was that condition that deprived her of children and it was to cure it that she made her pilgrimage to Canterbury. It seems,’ he crossed himself, ‘that it was too late even for St Thomas’s intervention.’

‘But she was better, she told me she was better.’

‘She told you what she hoped, my lady. She could not accept the truth.’

Joanna died as the early dusk fell across the city beyond the high walls of the great castle. The king, her brother, Queen Eleanor and Eleyne were at her bedside, with her entire household ranged behind them. Most were crying softly, but Joanna knew nothing of it. Her life slipped away so gently that for a while no one realised she had gone.

On the table beside the bed stood a small empty box. The length of green silk which had tied it lay beside it, in a dust of sugared crumbs.

XIV
SOUTHWARK

‘You deceived me!’ Robert lifted his hand again and struck her across the face. He had come to her room soon after their return from Joanna’s deathbed. ‘Running to the king and begging for a pardon for that woman! How dare you defy me! Do you wish to make me a laughing stock?’ He raised his hand again.

Eleyne faced him, her eyes blazing. ‘Rhonwen is my servant. My nurse. If I chose to speak to the king about her it is none of your business.’

She broke off as with a sharp slap his hand connected once again with her cheekbone. ‘I will not have her in my house,’ he said through gritted teeth.

‘May I remind you that the houses we live in are none of them yours, sir.’ She moved out of range, her back ramrod stiff. If he hit her again, she knew she would hit back. ‘This house is your brother’s. Fotheringhay is part of my dower. You married me with nothing but a wagonload of goods and four servants. The church, even the king, may give you nominal rule over me, husband, but God sees what you do. He judges!’ She put the length of the oak table between them. ‘You abuse your power over me, you squander my dower and now you dare to question my dealings with my uncle, the king. The king you hope to serve!’ She leaned forward, her fists on the table. ‘I have only to say to the king that you are unfit for royal service and he will send you to the farthest ends of his kingdom.’

Robert paled, but he managed a thin smile. ‘If he does, you will come with me, wife.’

‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure. I love the wild places, remember? The forests and the mountains are my home. The gods of those places protect me.’ To her great satisfaction, his face grew whiter still. ‘If we are tied together for eternity in hell, husband, it is I who will thrive,’ she went on relentlessly. ‘I love the fire and I love the ice! Wherever hell is it will be my home and your downfall!’

Outside the door Nesta and two serving boys stood, their ears to the thick oak panelling. Nesta held her breath, waiting for his retort. None came. Robert tried to shrug nonchalantly as he threw himself down in a carved chair.

‘I wonder if the king knows he married me to a she-devil,’ he commented at last.

‘Oh, he knows.’ Eleyne pressed her advantage home. Her hands were shaking and she kept them on the table to steady them. Her eyes were emerald green in the candlelight. ‘And he hears every time you strike me, every time you squander my inheritance, every time you abuse my servants, and he waits.’

‘He won’t dare to harm me. He needs my brother – ’

‘And he is afraid that your brother’s allegiance may go to Alexander of Scotland.’ Eleyne hid the wave of grief which threatened to make her voice waver. ‘Which it may. Do you think marrying you to me has had any effect on Roger’s allegiance either way? Give your brother more credit than that.’

‘Ssh!’ Robert looked helplessly towards the door.

‘I won’t ssh! Not now, and not when I next see the king. Not if you persist in your foul treatment.’ Eleyne left the table and walked towards him. In her scarlet gown, over which she had thrown a black mantle as a symbol of mourning for her aunt, she looked very determined and very beautiful. She stopped near him. ‘And don’t think you can stop me seeing the king. He will ask for me if I do not go to the palace.’

‘I wasn’t going to.’

‘If you want to succeed at court, husband,’ she went on without pausing, ‘you have to keep me content, or I swear I will bring you down.’

‘And if I keep you content?’ His eyes narrowed, and there was a sarcastic edge to his voice.

‘Then maybe you will find your fortune at King Henry’s court.’

XV

The body of the Queen of Scotland was taken to the abbey at Tarrant, to which she had bequeathed it in her will, and there laid to rest with great ceremony beneath a marble tomb made in haste by Master Elias of Derham at Salisbury. Two days after her death two prisoners were released for the sake of her soul, by her brother, King Henry. On 13 March sixteen silk cloths of Arras were delivered to offer with the body of the king’s beloved sister, together with silk and gold clothes worth thirty-five shillings each. Wax candles were to burn before her tomb forever. Her husband, the King of Scotland, did not come south for the funeral.

XVI
Lady Day 1238

‘The king still has not given me the pardon!’ Eleyne, swathed in her sable mantle, had fought her way out of the gale and was standing in the hall of Rhonwen’s house. ‘I have asked him a dozen times, but he claims he is too grief-stricken by Joanna’s death to conduct any but the most urgent business!’ She threw down her cloak and walked over to the fire. ‘It makes me so angry. He has but to tell a clerk to write it and affix his seal. It would take him no more time than it takes to draw breath.’

Rhonwen stood near the hearth, her hands pushed into the sleeves of her mantle.

‘And you,
cariad
? Are you too grief-stricken by Joanna’s death to do anything?’

‘I am upset, of course I am. You know how fond I was of her …’

‘But not so fond as you are of her husband. Why deny it? Your aunt is dead. He is no longer your uncle. There are no blood ties now to make your love a sin.’

Eleyne was shocked. ‘You shouldn’t say such things. Suppose someone heard you?’

‘There is no one to hear, nothing but the wind rattling in the hangings. Your destiny lies in Scotland. Remember Einion’s words. Your future does not lie with that spoiled brat who is your husband; it lies with kings.’

Eleyne stared down at the fire. There was no denying the tight knot of excitement in her stomach. ‘If I could go to him …’

Rhonwen asked, ‘Who better to take the king’s condolences to his brother-in-law?’

‘But Robert would come with me.’

‘You would need him there,
cariad
, to avoid a scandal. Once there he can be distracted – or disposed of.’

Unbidden the image of a trailing length of green ribbon came to Eleyne’s mind, the ribbon at the bedside of the dying queen. After it flashed the image of the earth-green medicine which had stood beside John’s bed as he too died. Her eyes on Rhonwen’s, she tried to read the woman’s mind. Was she capable of such cold-blooded murder? She was deeply afraid as she stared at her nurse’s face. Rhonwen met her gaze and held it steadily. Her expression was impenetrable but there was a pitilessness there which repelled Eleyne. But it wasn’t true, Rhonwen would never do such a thing; she couldn’t. A picture of Cenydd floated into her mind; quickly, she suppressed it. That had been a terrible accident; they had struggled in the heat of the moment. It was not calculated, it could never have been calculated. Even to think it was a vicious calumny and a projection of her own secret wish for Robert’s death.

She watched as Rhonwen took the chair opposite her, arranging her skirts with meticulous care. The moment had passed.