Child of the Phoenix (78 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I
CAERNARFON
September 1241

‘Y
ou are going to London?’ Isabella asked Dafydd, her eyes round with astonishment. ‘But why?’

‘It is the king’s command.’ Dafydd kicked angrily at a stool near him and it rocked sideways and fell to the floor. ‘He wants to consolidate the agreement we reached at Rhuddlan last August.’

‘Where you let him take Gruffydd as a prisoner to London.’ Isabella raised her eyebrow tartly. ‘Are you now going to beg for his release?’

‘I am not. Nevertheless, I don’t like Gruffydd being there. It isn’t right. Our quarrel is our own, it’s not Henry of England’s business.’

‘Then you should not have surrendered to him, should you?’ She could not resist the dig even though she saw the angry colour flood into her husband’s face.

‘I had no choice. You yourself urged it, if you remember, and my friends had deserted me.’

‘You had been too soft with them. It would not have happened to your father.’ She flounced over to the window. ‘I shall come to London with you. It will be wonderful to visit the big city.’

II
LONDON
Michaelmas

The court was all she had dreamed: noisy, rich, crowded, colourful, constantly exciting and full of gossip. And one of the first pieces of gossip she heard was about the strange disappearance of the Countess of Chester.

She heard it from Isabel Bruce, Eleyne’s sister-in-law, and Lady Winchester, both of whom had recently ridden south from Stirling.

Lady Winchester swept Isabella into her circle with a generous charm only partially motivated by curiosity as to what the little de Braose was like. She had always liked Eleyne and she detested her brother-in-law, Robert de Quincy.

Her real concern for Eleyne was mixed with lively speculation. ‘You know they say she is Alexander’s mistress!’

‘That was when she hoped to marry him.’ Isabella had quickly realised that she had acquired a certain notoriety as the missing countess’s sister-in-law.

Lady Winchester smiled. ‘But they resumed their affair after Eleyne returned to Scotland. Didn’t you know? Isabel Bruce told me she and the king could not keep their eyes off one another!’

‘Then perhaps he has spirited her away to a love nest in the distant mountains.’ Isabella’s crisp sarcasm could not quite hide a wistful note.

‘I don’t think so.’ Lady Winchester was thoughtful. ‘I hear the king is seriously worried about her, though he tries to hide it. My brother-in-law, Robert, told him she was safe at Fotheringhay, but she isn’t there! And if she had intended to go there, why did she not take her dog? She adores that creature. Nothing would induce her to be separated from it.’

The three women looked at one another in silence.

‘Do you think something terrible has happened to her?’ Lady Winchester whispered at last.

III
STIRLING
October 1241

Alexander threw the letter down on the table in front of him with an exclamation of impatience. ‘Does the man really think I’d believe this!’

At his feet Donnet stirred and pricked his ears, his eyes reproachfully on the king’s face. He had accepted grudgingly that this man was for some strange reason his new master, but he still pined every second of the day for Eleyne.

Queen Marie glanced at the letter, eyebrow raised. ‘Sir Robert has written again?’

‘From Fotheringhay. He tells me his wife is well. He tells me she no longer wants the dog.’ He thumped the table with both fists. ‘Sweet Christ, does he think I’m a fool?’ He swung round on his wife. ‘You know more about this than you’d care to admit, madam. Do you think I don’t know?’ His eyes blazed. ‘If anything has happened to her – ’

‘I’m sure it hasn’t.’ Marie’s voice was irritatingly patronising. ‘Husband, can you not accept that the woman grew bored with you? She’s a whore. She likes a frequent change of lover. It adds piquancy, no doubt, to her jaded appetites.’ She smiled, as aware of the furious clenching of her husband’s knuckles and of her own immunity from his fury as she was of the search parties he had sent to quarter the length and breadth of his kingdom. She stood up.

‘Please. Throw that dog out into the yard where it belongs. It smells.’ She gathered her embroidered mantle around her and swept haughtily from the room.

IV
THE TOWER OF LONDON
October 1241

King Henry had been at prayer in his private chapel when Dafydd and Isabella arrived for their final audience at the king’s apartments in the Tower.

‘You have visited your brother?’ Henry threw himself into his high-backed chair and gestured them to smaller seats near him.

‘We have indeed, your grace,’ Dafydd replied. He was glum. Gruffydd had been bitter and scornful and Senena’s tongue had been at its most vitriolic when he and Isabella had been ushered into the spacious chamber, one of the three Gruffydd and his wife had been allocated in their honourable, not to say comfortable, imprisonment.

‘The Lady Senena constantly reproaches me for not honouring some agreement she thinks I made to place Gruffydd in your shoes.’ Henry leaned back, his eyes half lidded. ‘I should imagine it is to your advantage to have Gruffydd out of your way.’

Dafydd gave a slight bow. ‘I do not like to see any Welshman in an English prison, sire,’ he said firmly.

‘Quite.’ Henry beamed at him. ‘And Welsh women? I should be more than happy for you to take the Lady Senena with you when you leave London.’

Dafydd hid a smile. ‘That is for the lady herself to decide, sire. At the moment she is resolved to stay with her husband. I think she feels she is of more use here, where she hopes to be able to persuade you to release him.’

‘I see.’ Henry’s face was impassive as he rose to his feet and, walking across to the window, stood looking down into the courtyard below. Two ravens were squabbling over a pile of rubbish in the corner, tearing at the carcass of some dead animal. ‘She is content not to see her youngest children for so long?’

‘They are well looked after at Criccieth, sir.’

Henry scratched at part of the glass’s leaded frame with his finger-nail. ‘I have been thinking about the question of the succession,’ he went on after a short pause during which Dafydd and Isabella watched him in silence. ‘Your succession.’ He looked first at Dafydd and then at Isabella. ‘You are still childless, I understand.’ His tone was impersonal.

Colour flooded Isabella’s face. ‘We hope all the time for a baby, sire – ’

‘I am sure you do.’ Henry brushed aside her anguished interruption smoothly. ‘And I am sure you will soon be blessed, but until then I am not happy, as I am sure you are not happy, with the idea of your half-brother or his children succeeding to any of the principalities of North Wales.’

When Dafydd spoke at last, his voice was heavy with suspicion. ‘What are you saying, sire?’

‘I have drawn up an agreement.’ The king gestured to the table where a document lay next to the inkwell and pens. ‘I think it would be advisable as an interim measure for you to appoint me as your heir.’

‘No!’ Dafydd smashed his fist on the table, making the quills jump.

‘No?’ Henry repeated mildly. ‘I think you will find, if you think about it,’ he paused, ‘that it is an excellent suggestion.’

V

‘Now see what you have done!’ Dafydd had scarcely waited until the door of their room was shut before he turned on Isabella. ‘If we had children …’

‘It’s not my fault that we have no children.’ Isabella’s voice rose hysterically. ‘You know I can have children. Did I not prove it to you? Did you not see the baby I gave you – ’

‘That was not a baby, Isabella! Whatever it was,’ he shuddered, ‘it was dead.’ He crossed himself. ‘And you have not quickened since.’

‘And you know why!’ She leaned forward, her eyes glittering. ‘Because your sister cursed me.’

‘No, Isabella –’ It was a long time since she had brought up that particular grievance.

‘Yes! She cursed me. She made me barren, she and that servant of the devil who was her nurse.’ Little flecks of spittle appeared at the corner of her lips and Dafydd regarded them with fascinated distaste. ‘If you want an heir, Dafydd ap Llywelyn,’ she rushed on not giving him time to speak, ‘you find your sister and make her lift her curse! Until you do that, I will never have a baby, and when you die, Gwynedd will be handed on a plate to your Uncle Henry or little Prince Edward, with your signature to speed its going! And God help you, husband, when the people of Wales find out what you have done.’