Child of the Phoenix (75 page)

She had no herbs, no flint to light a fire. If he wanted to speak, he must come on her terms. He was the one who had lied.

‘Why?’ she called out loud. ‘Why did you tell me I should be a queen?’

Nearby she heard a wren singing in the undergrowth. The wind stirred the trees and Donnet growled quietly in his throat.

‘That was what you wanted me to know, wasn’t it? That you were wrong? That I had no destiny in Scotland?’ Her voice rang amongst the trees and further up the ride a hare stood up on its back legs before it bolted into the shadows. ‘Well, now I know! Your gods were wrong, Lord Einion. They had no great plan for me! How they must have laughed when they saw me with my dreams!’

But, as her voice echoed in the silence, she knew there was no one there to hear.

V

Eleyne went to see her father three days later.

She did not speak of Alexander, what was the point?

‘You cannot let Dafydd lock up his brother like this!’ She sat close beside him, knowing his eyes had grown weak. ‘Please, papa, you are still the prince!’ Her hand strayed to the head of the puppy at her side.

He shook his head. ‘You must speak to Dafydd, Eleyne. He rules Gwynedd now.’

‘And unjustly,’ she said heatedly.

He smiled. ‘Are you still as hotheaded as ever, child? No, he does not rule unjustly. He was the right choice.’

She went to Dafydd, risking Isabella’s acid tongue, and she went to Criccieth to see Gruffydd and Senena, but she could do nothing. Dafydd was adamant.

Gruffydd was a close prisoner in his castle on the Lleyn Peninsula. She could come and go by Dafydd’s order, with her white horse and her growing, adolescent hound, but her favourite elder brother could not go with her, and when the old prince died the following year Gruffydd was not allowed to leave the castle to attend his father’s funeral at Aberconwy.

Eleyne went with Dafydd and Isabella and her sisters and their husbands, and it seemed as though the whole of Wales was weeping. She had loved him and he was gone. She went back to Llanfaes, but she knew it would not be for long. She had seen Isabella’s face as they stood for the requiem mass.

VI
August 1240

‘The scheming bitch has persuaded King Henry to attack us!’ Isabella shouted. ‘She has begged him to free Gruffydd! So much for her claims to be a patriot!’ Her anger hid real fear, and her quarrel with Eleyne was for the moment forgotten. The news brought by the exhausted, dust-covered messenger had reduced her to panic.

Senena, it appeared, had left Criccieth secretly and ridden to Shrewsbury to meet the king.

The old prince had hardly grown cold in his grave before Wales had erupted into dispute. Quarrels, dissatisfaction and jealousies which no one had dared to voice whilst Llywelyn was alive had been whipped into life. Dafydd’s peaceful succession had disintegrated into chaos, and Henry as his overlord had summoned him to Shrewsbury to explain the situation. Furious, Dafydd had no choice but to agree to abide by the King of England’s arbitration; but when the appointed date arrived he did not go. Instead he had assembled his armies.

Far to the east, beyond the mountains, Henry, leaving his wife and year-old son Edward behind in the castle, left Shrewsbury for Rhuddlan, encouraged by Senena’s message, marching purposefully towards the heartland of North Wales. In front of him Dafydd, without allies and without friends, moved steadily back. At Degannwy he delayed to pull down the castle, so that Henry could not use it as a base, then he retreated into the heat haze which hung over the mountains.

‘Sweet Christ! I cannot fight him!’ He ran his fingers through his hair, looking from his wife to his sister and back. He had invited Eleyne to join them at Aber for safety, not really believing that Henry would invade Wales. ‘Even the weather is against me. He marched his army across the marshes as though they were hard ground! Nothing seems to delay him! He’ll be at the Conwy any moment.’

‘Go and negotiate,’ Isabella pleaded. ‘What else can you do? Do a deal with him. He doesn’t want to fight you. He’s making a point, that’s all. He wants you to recognise him as your overlord and submit, then he’ll help you put down the revolts against you. He’ll help you deal with Gruffydd and Senena. For God’s sake, Dafydd, you have to do it. Do you want him here at Aber?’

‘She’s right, Dafydd.’ Eleyne felt sorry for her brother. His allies had deserted out of jealousy, because Llywelyn had left him too strong and they were afraid. ‘Negotiate now before it’s too late.’

‘What you mean is surrender,’ Dafydd said.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘It’s that or lose Gwynedd,’ Eleyne murmured at last.

It was the advice Ednyfed Fychan, his father’s chief adviser, who was now his own, had given him too.

The night before Dafydd left Aber he called Eleyne to him in the small room which had been his father’s study. ‘There is something you should know. Isabella has written to your husband and told him you are here.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ It was as though every part of Eleyne had turned to ice.

‘I’m afraid it’s true, and I’m sorry. I’m only surprised she left it so long.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘She’s very loyal to me, Elly. I think, all things considered, it might be better if you left Gwynedd.’

Eleyne closed her eyes. Would Isabella never allow her any peace?

Dafydd gave her an escort of four men and two women to accompany her and Nesta away from Wales. He did not ask her where she was going and she did not volunteer the information. He kissed her gravely under Isabella’s watchful eye and gave her a little money. ‘Yours, under papa’s will,’ he said quietly. She blessed that money. It would give her something to live on for the immediate future without having to sell any more of Joanna’s jewels.

VII
LONDON
October 1240

Her men wore no insignia and, as she drew near the old Countess of Chester’s town house in Gracechurch Street with Donnet at her horse’s heels, she pulled her veil across her face. She wanted no one to recognise her.

The house was quiet, but there were servants to open the heavy gates and lead away the horses. Eleyne followed the old woman who had greeted her and found herself in a shadowy parlour on the first floor of the house, where she was left alone.

It was a long time before Rhonwen came. She stood in the doorway without a word, then ran to Eleyne and folded her in her arms, tears pouring down her face. ‘I’ve missed you so much,
cariad
, and I’ve been so afraid for you. Where have you been?’

Eleyne was crying too. ‘I’ve been at Llanfaes. I was with papa when he died, and Dafydd let me stay on. I couldn’t send for you, not to Gwynedd, you know that.’

‘I had thought you were still in Scotland.’ Rhonwen shook her head. ‘Have you seen your husband?’

‘Isabella told him that I had left Scotland, and he now knows that I no longer have Alexander’s protection.’ Eleyne found she could say it calmly, as if she did not care. ‘Isabella told him I was in Wales. That’s why I had to leave. That’s why I came here. I had nowhere else to go.’

Rhonwen sighed. ‘Your husband does not care for war, so the king left him here in London! He has been to this house a dozen times, swearing that he’ll hang me if he finds me.’

‘Then why are you still here?’ Eleyne was shocked.

‘I like it here. I’ve become a city dweller.’ Rhonwen smiled. ‘I like being my own mistress; old Lady Chester is a fine employer. She leaves me to run her house as I see fit. Robert de Quincy isn’t going to chase me away from here.’ She folded her arms. ‘Perhaps he’s ridden to Wales to find you. If he has, you’ll be safe here for now; I shall look after you. Don’t worry,
cariad
, we’ll think of something. That bastard is not going to find you, I swear it!’

VIII

As the months passed Eleyne hated London more and more. Rhonwen’s anger and sympathy when she found out at last about Eleyne’s dead child from Nesta strained her patience to the limit. And as time went on and there was still no sign of Robert, her fear of him was beginning to give way to anger and impatience.

‘Fotheringhay is my home, it’s part of my dower, and I should be allowed to live there. I’ll go and see the king now he is back at Westminster and ask him to forbid Robert to come near me.’

Rhonwen raised an eyebrow. ‘And you think he will agree?’

Eleyne sighed, pacing the floor like a caged animal. ‘I don’t know, but I can’t stay in hiding for the rest of my life, it would drive me insane! Besides, Robert will find me in the end.’

They both knew that if he found her he would take her back by force.

IX
WESTMINSTER
August 1241

King Henry granted her an audience almost at once. He was in jovial mood.

‘So, niece, how are you? I’m glad your brother decided to come to heel and that ridiculous business in Wales is over. You know he is coming here to London?’

Eleyne hid her surprise. She gazed at her uncle in some dislike. ‘I didn’t know, no.’ A survey of the great hall at Westminster had reassured her that neither of the de Quincy brothers was in attendance on the king.

He smiled. ‘Indeed he is, and I have brought Gruffydd and the Lady Senena to London as my guests at the Tower.’

Eleyne was almost speechless with horror. She had known nothing of this. ‘Your prisoners?’

‘My guests.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘I am glad to see you here at last. You’ve been too long in mourning for your father. We have missed you at court.’ There was a pause. ‘Your husband has been lost without you. He will be very glad to hear of your return.’

‘Your grace –’ She tried to interrupt, but he held up his hand. ‘He has told me how much he has missed you, and how much he looked forward to having you once again at his side. Wales is too far from Westminster, Eleyne, and so …’ his eyes were gimlets, boring into her skull, ‘is Scotland. Your place is at your husband’s side. Here, at court.’

The conversation was not going as she had planned. In panic she tried to speak, but he went on ruthlessly.

‘I remember …’ he smiled without warmth, ‘that you asked me to draw up a pardon for a woman of your household. The Lady Rhonwen, was it not?’ She stiffened with suspicion. ‘Your husband has spoken to me about the case and pleaded her cause. I think, Eleyne, it will be possible to give her that pardon.’ He smiled again. ‘Once you are back in Sir Robert’s bed, where you belong.’

It was all so neat. Robert had baited his trap and waited, and she had walked straight into it. She dropped her head in bleak despair as she left the king’s presence chamber. Robert had grown clever, she had to give him that. Clever and devious and patient. All he had had to do was wait and she had come as meekly as a lamb to the slaughter. She could not disobey the king’s direct command.

X
August 1241

‘I will return to your hall, and to your fireside.’ She confronted her husband in the panelled solar in the Earl of Winchester’s house. They were alone for the first time since he had left her at Aberdour more than two years before. ‘But I will not sleep in your bed.’