Child of the Phoenix (74 page)

‘Why did you leave it so long before you came back to me?’ She was leaning against the pillows, wrapped in a linen shift with a woollen cloak around her shoulders. She had grown very thin. ‘We could have been married. You could have had a son.’ Her voice broke, but there were no tears. There were no tears left.

‘You will have other children, Eleyne. You are very young.’

You. Not we.

‘You aren’t going to marry me. You never intended to marry me.’ It was a whisper.

‘You are already married, Eleyne. If you hadn’t had a husband … if you had been mine from the start.’ He paused. ‘We don’t even know for sure that the child was mine.’ His voice was gentle but firm.

She closed her eyes. Outside the wind was moaning again, stirring the waves as they whispered on the rocks below. There was a smell of snow in the air. ‘He was yours. He looked like you. He had your colour hair.’ Her voice wavered and she clenched her fists.

At last he spoke. ‘Eleyne, we cannot go on seeing each other. You know that, don’t you? There must be no more scandal. The wellbeing of Scotland must come before all else, even before our happiness. If I had been anyone but a king, anyone at all, no one would have kept you from me. No one.’

‘You are going to send me back to Robert?’ Her voice was toneless, and she did not look at him. There was going to be no punishment for her husband; no retribution for the murder of her baby.

‘You never left him,’ Alexander said gently. ‘You are his. That is God’s will.’

‘God’s will,’ she echoed. ‘No, that is not God’s will.’ Her voice rose. ‘It was God’s will that I bear you a child, that I be the mother of a line of kings! That was written in the stars. If you don’t marry me, you are defying God’s will!’

He shook his head. ‘No, lass, I’m sorry.’

‘You are not sending me away?’ It was as though she had only just realised what he was saying. ‘I can’t live without you. For pity’s sake!’ She threw herself from the bed and into his arms, sobbing wildly.

He closed his arms around her and held her for a long time in silence, listening to the gentle sigh of the sea in the distance. ‘I shall always love you, lass, always,’ was all he said at last. Reluctantly he pushed her away from him and turned towards the door.

She did not move. Ten minutes later, when Nesta put her head into the room, she was still sitting on the edge of the bed, staring blankly at the wall.

II
April 1239

The king was once more at Dunfermline. She rode Tam Lin slowly into the great courtyard below Malcolm’s Tower, well again physically, although she was still pale and very thin. She dismounted, unaware that her brilliant hair was the only touch of colour about her; her cloak of white furs, her white face, her milky horse, they all seemed fairylike against the light scattering of April snow; more than one man crossed himself as he saw her.

She was not expected and had no escort save for the faithful Nesta and Master Gillespie who had ridden with her, and no one sprang to welcome the Countess of Chester and escort her with ceremony into the king’s presence. She looked around ruefully and smiled at Nesta. ‘Is this how those who fall from favour are welcomed?’

Nesta bit her lip. She was afraid.

Eleyne walked towards the door. The guards stood to attention, their eyes carefully impersonal, and let her pass, as did the chamberlain who had been summoned to the hall. The king was with Lord Fife and Lord Mar in his private room, and they were attended by two of the king’s clerks.

He looked around as she appeared and she saw the sudden frown between his eyes. There was no message of hope there, no chance then that he would change his mind.

She walked towards him, very straight in her white cloak, and curtseyed deeply.

‘Sire.’

He took her hand and raised her to her feet. ‘Lady Chester.’

He waited courteously for her to speak and she was conscious of Malcolm of Fife’s eyes on her face. His expression was unreadable.

The king was not going to make it easy for her.

‘I have come to take my leave, sire.’ Her voice sounded loud in the silence of the room. Five pairs of eyes watched her covertly as she stood before him. She felt as if she were naked.

‘You are returning to Fotheringhay?’ His voice was husky.

‘No, I won’t go back there.’

‘Then where?’ He hated her quiet pride more than he had hated her pleading. It reminded him that she was of royal blood, a princess, and because of that he could not treat her as a common whore and drag her to his bed to assuage his lust and his terrible guilt. Suddenly he could stand it no longer. He snapped his fingers at his companions. ‘Leave us, I will speak to Lady Chester alone.’

She did not let herself hope. She had not seen any change of heart in his eyes.

‘You should not have come here,’ he said as soon as the door closed behind the last servant. ‘You are not making it easy for either of us.’

‘I did not come here to make it easy.’ She clenched her fists, fighting her need to run to him, forcing herself to remain where she was. ‘Have you decided whom you’re going to marry?’ Her voice was hard.

He sighed. ‘Don’t torment yourself, lass.’

‘Have you?’ Her eyes flashed dangerously. ‘Tell me. You owe me that much. Or do I have to wait to hear it from the gossips?’

He shook his head impatiently. ‘I am to marry a lady from France. Marie, the daughter of Baron de Couci. We will marry later in the spring.’

‘I see.’ It was the ghost of a whisper. ‘And then you will forget me.’

‘I shall never forget you, Eleyne.’ The agony in his voice was intense. ‘Sweet Jesus, I shall never forget you. How could I? You are a part of me!’ There was a long silence, then he was suddenly brisk. ‘You have the gifts I gave you? I want you to keep them. They will give you …’ he groped for the word, ‘security.’

Her lips tightened. She wanted to throw his gifts at his feet, but she couldn’t. He was right. They were all that stood between her and poverty unless she went back to Robert.

The king was finding it very difficult not to touch her. He wanted her so badly his loins ached. His heart ached. He had only to smile; to hold out his arms. But he owed her more than that, his beautiful Welsh princess. If she could not be his queen, he would not insult her by asking her to be his mistress. There was only one thing he could do for her now.

‘I shall give you letters for your father, Eleyne. If you would, deliver them for me, to Wales. As a royal messenger you will have an escort and my safe conduct to protect you, and it will give you a reason to go home.’

She gave a wistful smile. So she was to hide her hurt pride and her broken heart in Gwynedd. But at least Robert would not come to find her there, even if he heard where she had gone.

Alexander stepped forward and kissed her once, on the forehead, then he left her.

In the morning he had two letters for her, one for Llywelyn and one for Dafydd. Under his arm there was a small squirming wolfhound pup, which he put in her hands. ‘I know it won’t fill the gap in your heart, lass,’ he said softly, ‘nothing can do that, but he’ll serve you with his life. He’s the same line as old Gelert; Joanna’s father gave one pup to your father, one to us.’

Her arms closed around the dog; she felt its tongue, rough and eager, on her nose. Then she turned away, so he could not see her tears.

III
LLANFAES, ANGLESEY
May 1239

Llywelyn settled her in the manor at Llanfaes, where she did not need to see Isabella too often, but nevertheless Isabella came. She was smiling. Her pretty face had lost its puffiness again, her hair was wreathed in a coronet of twisted gold.

As she was shown into the hall, Eleyne felt her stomach clench warningly, but she rose and stretched out her hand with a smile. Isabella dimpled and sat down next to her with a rustle of silks. It was unseasonably hot outside, but it was cool in the hall.

‘Did you know that Dafydd has had to send Gruffydd and Owain back to Criccieth?’ Isabella asked at once.

Eleyne nodded. Llywelyn, tired and ill, had retired permanently at last to the Abbey of Aberconwy and donned the cowl of the monks to spend his last days in prayer, leaving Dafydd in full control of all his lands. She had been told of the trick by which Dafydd had immediately captured his brother, luring him into a trap with his eldest son and making them both prisoners. He did not mean to brook any opposition in his final bid to become Llywelyn’s only heir. Already Eleyne was planning a visit to her father on Gruffydd’s behalf.

Isabella smiled. Obviously this was not the purpose of her visit. Her next words revealed what it was. ‘Dafydd has had letters from Scotland.’ Her voice rose a little as she faced her sister-in-law under the curious gaze of their attendants. ‘I thought I should be the one to tell you.’

Eleyne already knew what Isabella was going to say; it had come to her in her dreams. Alexander was married. Another woman was his queen. She clenched her fists, tired of always having to show a brave face, tired of the pain, tired of the pleasure others seemed to take in her unhappiness, yet unable to fend off this new wave of grief.

‘You know, don’t you?’

She realised that she had risen from her chair and that Isabella was standing behind her. ‘Your lover has married – a baron’s daughter, from France.’

‘I know.’ Eleyne managed to keep her voice steady.

‘What will you do?’ The spite in Isabella’s tone had softened; in its place there was genuine curiosity.

‘I don’t know.’

‘What about your husband?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

‘You have to go back to him.’

‘No, I’ll never go back to him, never.’

IV

It was easy to be alone at Llanfaes. Dafydd and Isabella had spared her few servants, but she had not wanted more. Her body needed rest to heal. Her soul needed silence. She often walked alone and the servants respected her orders not to be disturbed. It was easy to extend that order to the long rides through the soft Anglesey countryside, with its rich corn fields and its woods, accompanied only by the pup. Alexander’s gift had become inseparable from her. She had called him Donnet. It meant ’given’.

There was something that she had to do: she had to summon Einion.

It was hard to find where he was buried. Rhonwen had led her there in the dark and so much had happened since that terrible night; a lifetime of happenings which had left them, for the time being at least, far apart. Rhonwen was still safe in London.

She began at the hermit’s cell which Einion had made his own. The roof had fallen in and weeds had grown through the floor. Tethering Tam Lin in the clearing and telling Donnet to stay with him, she walked slowly towards the collapsing stone walls and stared around.

In the distance a curlew called, a lonely cry which echoed in her ears. Her skin prickled with fear, but she forced herself to move on, stepping across the threshold and pushing her way through a tangle of nettles and willow herb to the centre of the hut.

His few possessions were still there on the rudimentary shelf. So great was the respect in which he had been held that no one had touched them. The little boxes of herbs and spices lay tumbled in a heap, the boxes swollen with damp and mildewed. Some of them had fallen to pieces and their contents had long disintegrated or rotted away. His books, his knives, the little cauldron he had used to infuse his herbs – they had been buried with him.

She looked around warily, but there was no feel of him. She was alone. Picking up one of the rotting boxes she sniffed it curiously. It smelt of the damp forest floor in autumn. There was no clue to what it had held, no clue to what Rhonwen had used to summon his spirit.

The sun beat down on the top of her head beneath her veil and she could feel her temples starting to throb. She stood for a while in the clearing. Beneath the trees she felt better. Taking the horse’s rein, she began to walk slowly into the trees with Donnet at her heels. The track was indistinct now, overgrown, but she remembered it from that single afternoon so many years before when Einion had led her into the forest and taught her about the birds.

His grave lay beneath an oak tree some yards off the track. She recognised it by the stone. She dismounted and tied Tam to a tree, then she called Donnet and put her hand on his head. ‘Stay close,’ she whispered, and the dog whined.