Child of the Phoenix (79 page)

She walked past him to a stool and sat down, then she burst into tears.

Dafydd frowned uncomfortably. ‘If I make Eleyne lift this curse, if it exists – ’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ She lifted her head, her eyes glittering with tears.

‘No, no, of course not.’ He frowned with irritation. ‘For the love of the Virgin, Isabella, why didn’t you say all this when Eleyne was at Llanfaes? If you really believe it, why wait until now when she is in Scotland?’

‘Because now it is urgent. And she isn’t in Scotland. Robert de Quincy says she’s at Fotheringhay.’

‘Then we’ll go back that way.’ Dafydd gave an inward sigh of relief.

‘And if she isn’t there?’ Isabella dabbed her eyes. She had not passed on to Dafydd the gossip that his sister was missing.

‘If she isn’t there,’ Dafydd replied in exasperation, ‘I shall find her.’

VI
LOCH LEVEN CASTLE
February 1242

Days of heavy ceaseless rain and cold gusty winds had turned the small bedchamber into a damp, dismal prison.

Huddled over the fire, Rhonwen turned to the window, where Eleyne was staring out across the black waters of the loch. ‘For pity’s sake, put up the shutters,
cariad
. What is there to see out there, anyway? Let’s at least keep out the cold.’

The side of her face was still swollen from the massive bruise she had sustained when one of Robert’s henchmen had hit her with a wooden club three months before. It had been a full day before she had regained consciousness when they had reached their destination.

The two women had been transferred from the oxcart to a light, horse-drawn wagon and for the last few miles they had been thrown across two sumpter horses like so much baggage. When the horses came to a halt at the edge of this great wild loch, they had been thrown into the bottom of a boat and rowed across the water to the lonely castle on its island.

Stiff, bruised and frightened, still thinking that Rhonwen was dead, Eleyne was dragged to the castle’s bedchamber and Robert allowed his frustrated anger its full rein. When he left the castle at last in the stern of the rowing boat which had brought them, his wife lay insensible across the bed.

The castle had a garrison of three and as many servants. Eleyne and Rhonwen were allowed wherever they liked on the small island. Where was there for them to go? There were no boats. Supplies came every few weeks from the shore; the rest of the time they were cut off from the world. Slowly Eleyne nursed Rhonwen back to health, and slowly she too recovered from her bruises, learning from Rhonwen how to find healing herbs on the tiny island and how to make them into potions and medicines she had never dreamed existed.

In her loneliness Eleyne found an unexpected companion on the silent island. A woman in a black gown and stiff lace ruff was often there, standing in the shadows. Eleyne caught sight of her as she walked alone through the twilight by the high barmkin wall and she stopped, staring. ‘You?’ She rubbed her eyes. It was the woman she had seen at Fotheringhay: the black, shadowy apparition who haunted the upper floors of the keep in faraway Northamptonshire. Yet how could that be? The two women looked at each other, silent, both locked in their own misery. Eleyne saw recognition in the other’s eyes, then darkness fell, the shadows grew black and the woman disappeared. Eleyne could feel her heart thudding uncertainly beneath her ribs. She stepped forward, peering into the darkness. ‘Where are you?’ she called softly. ‘Who are you? Why do you come to haunt me?’ She knew already there would be no answer. The woman was from another world.

It was a long time before Eleyne realised she was pregnant.

‘It’s the king’s child?’ Rhonwen kissed her gently and took her hand.

‘Of course it’s the king’s child. Robert hasn’t – hadn’t –’ she changed the word with a shudder – ‘been near me in months.’ She was standing looking across the black waters towards the low hills which divided her from Alexander.

‘Then perhaps the prophecy was true after all,’ Rhonwen whispered under her breath. ‘Perhaps that child, in your belly, will one day be a king.’

When Robert came back, her pregnancy was already showing. Outside, the winter gales roared across the loch, churning the shallow water to waves, hurling spume against the walls of the keep. He threw off his cloak in the tower room below her bedchamber and turned to look at her, his dark hair sleek with rain. The expression on his face turned first to thoughtful calculation and then to cold anger as his eye travelled slowly down her figure.

‘Your lover’s child, I take it – not mine, certainly.’

Eleyne pulled her cloak around her defensively. The chamber was cold in spite of the fire which burned in the hearth.

‘The king’s child.’ She raised her chin. ‘And this time you will not dare to lay a hand on me.’

‘No?’ He spoke with deceptive mildness.

She swallowed. The baby kicked her sharply and she brought her arms involuntarily around herself to protect it. ‘He knows,’ she said desperately. ‘He knows about the baby. If anything happens – ’

‘He doesn’t know,’ Robert smiled. ‘He believes you to be safely at Fotheringhay, whence you were summoned by your uncle. Your other uncle.’ He looked around the room. Rhonwen was seated unobtrusively in the shadows, and the other two women squatted near the fire, their eyes on the couple in the centre of the shadowy room. Of the lady who haunted the shadows there was no sign. There were no candles alight, though indoors it was nearly dark. Outside the February afternoon was as colourless as the leaden water of the loch.

‘What a merry household!’ Robert shouted suddenly. ‘I come back to see my wife and all I see is gloom. Wine! Fetch me some wine! And lights and food. God’s bones, what kind of welcome is this?’

No one moved. Robert scowled. In three paces he was beside Rhonwen. He grabbed her arm and, swinging her to her feet, flung her towards the door. ‘You heard me, woman! Wine!’

‘There is very little wine, Robert, and candles are short. So is the firewood.’ Eleyne’s voice was weary. ‘The storms have been so bad the boat has not been able to get here.’

‘I got here!’ His eyes blazed angrily.

‘Then you should have brought supplies with you.’ Eleyne moved away from him to Rhonwen’s chair and sat down. ‘You are not welcome here, Robert.’

‘So I gather,’ he said. ‘And you will be glad to hear that I don’t intend to stay long. Not long at all.’

He stayed barely two days and during that time he did not touch her; instead he finished the last cask of wine in the cellar. He was very drunk when he summoned Eleyne from her bedchamber.

‘I’m going back to England.’ His words were slurred, his eyes bleary. ‘I am going back to England,’ he repeated carefully, ‘and I am leaving you here to rot. You and your bastard.’ He slumped against the wall, his legs braced in front of him. ‘It’s a very easy place to forget, Loch Leven Castle.’ He pronounced the words with enormous care. ‘Very easy.’ He gave a sudden high-pitched giggle. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if I forgot you forever.’

‘I hope you do.’ Eleyne’s voice was cold.

‘You want to be forgotten?’

‘By you, yes.’

Robert giggled again. ‘And by the king, oh yes, by the king. I went to see him at Roxburgh on my way here. I sent him your greetings and told him you were well and happy. You are well and happy, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ He pushed himself away from the wall and gave a small hiccup. ‘Though I can’t imagine how you can stand being cooped up here with that woman.’ He made an obscene gesture at Rhonwen. ‘In fact, I think I shall do you one last kindness. I shall relieve you of her company.’

‘That is not necessary, Robert.’ Eleyne’s voice was steady, though her stomach had turned over with fear. Sensing it, the baby kicked feebly beneath her ribs and she flinched.

‘Oh, but it is.’ He lunged towards Rhonwen and caught her wrist. ‘Peter!’ he shouted. ‘Peter! Some rubbish to dispose of on the way to the shore.’

‘No!’ Eleyne screamed. ‘No, you can’t.’ She clawed at his arm desperately, but he pushed her away.

‘Yes, sweet wife. Take her.’ He pushed Rhonwen towards his manservant, who had appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘Put her in a sack and take her to the boat.’

‘No!’ Both women were screaming now. Rhonwen was kicking frantically as the tall young man dragged her from the room. Sobbing, Eleyne ran towards the stairs after him, but Robert caught her. He slapped her face. ‘Do you want to risk your precious royal bastard?’ he shouted. ‘Leave her!’

‘Why? Why are you doing this? For pity’s sake, Robert.’

‘For pity’s sake,’ he echoed, high-pitched. ‘Think about it, my dear, just think what you have done to me and think well. Perhaps this is your real punishment.’ He ran down the stairs and out of sight.

Eleyne followed him, but at the narrow door in the undercroft she was stopped by the old castellan. ‘Please, Andrew – ’

‘I’m sorry, my lady, there’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing any of us can do.’ He braced his arm across the doorway. Behind him the small courtyard was already empty, and she could hear nothing but the plaintive murmuring cry of overwintering geese echoing from the bleak shores beyond the loch.

That night she called for a fire in her room. Andrew piled the kindling high, though there was little left on the island, and lit it with a sidelong look at the countess. She was rocking herself back and forth, her arms around her belly, her tears long dry, but her face so drawn in misery that even his unsentimental old heart was touched. He had liked the Lady Rhonwen – for all her tart tongue, she had been fair with him.

‘Shall I ask my wife to come and sit with you, my lady?’ he ventured when the fire was drawing to his satisfaction. His Janet was a kind soul whose views on Sir Robert had been so outspoken he’d had to slap her face for fear she would be overheard by de Quincy or one of his men. It was Sir Robert, after all, who was paying them to look after the countess and keep her on the island, and paying him more than he had ever dreamed of.

Eleyne shook her head dumbly.

‘I’ll leave you then, my lady.’ He didn’t like the look of her at all, but what could he do? He was now the senior member left in the household. Household! He snorted to himself as with a bow he shuffled towards the door. There was him and Janet, Annie, the cook, and three men to mind the walls.

Eleyne sat a long time without moving after he had gone, then slowly she stood up. The fire had settled to a friendly blaze, smoking from the damp in the wood. The night beyond the narrow window was starless, the waters of the loch black and forbidding, as she stood staring out. She felt empty and afraid and lonely as the slow tears began once more to slip from beneath her lids. Of her ghostly companion in imprisonment there was no sign.

For a long time she stayed there, feeling that just by looking at the water she still had some link left with the woman she had loved. At last, frozen and stiff, she turned from the window and went to the fire. She bent awkwardly to throw on another log and caught her breath. There was a picture in the flame. Falling to her knees in the dusty ashes at the edge of the small hearth, her heart thumping with fear, she stared into the heart of the fire.

He was there, the horseman, filling her head, filling the scene in the fire, riding away from her to who knew what fate. But who was he and what had he to do with her? Still she did not know.

Alexander, where are you? Come to me, please
.

The position she was kneeling in was uncomfortable. Her back ached and the baby kicked resentfully beneath her ribs. Please. She was talking to the fire as though it were alive and slowly she reached out towards the flames. This time, as they began to lick playfully towards her fingertips, there was no one to pull her back.

VII

De Quincy’s men had bound Rhonwen with a single rope around her body, pinioning her arms before pulling the big flour sack over her head and tying its neck around her ankles. Half fainting with fear, and choking from the flour dust still clinging to the hessian, Rhonwen felt herself lifted by the two men and hauled roughly over the ground. Twice she was knocked against something, then at last she was dropped, doubled up, on the bottom boards of the boat.

Frantically she struggled inside the sack as the men walked back up to the castle from the small landing stage, their voices growing fainter, then from the silence she guessed that she was for the time being alone. All she could hear was the gentle lapping of the water and the beating of her own heart. The rope around her body had been carelessly tied; almost at once she felt it loosen as she fought against the stifling folds of sacking, but the rope around her ankles was tight, knotting the neck of the sack. She flailed out with her arms and, humping over, tried to reach her feet, tearing her fingers on the rough material. She was concentrating so hard that she didn’t hear the men returning. The sudden dip and buck of the boat as one by one they jumped aboard, and a sharp agonising blow in the breast as someone kicked out at the sack, was the first she knew of their return.