Child of the Phoenix (90 page)

She made her way to the door and pulled it open – there was no sign of the watchman.

The stone steps down from the keep were ice-cold and wet with dew, but she scarcely felt them as she ran down and over the high slippery cobbles of the courtyard past the great hall towards the gatehouse. The moat lay black and still in the shadow of the stone wall, a veil of white mist over the water. The drawbridge was up and there was no sign of life from the guardroom. As Eleyne ran in, the guards leaped to their feet.

‘I heard the horn sound,’ she cried. ‘There is a messenger.’

The captain of the guard stepped forward sheepishly jerking his tunic into place. ‘There was no alarm, my lady.’ He looked sharply at his men. ‘There has been no one on the road since dusk.’

‘But I heard it!’ She knew how she must look. The long white shift, bare feet, the silk shawl, her hair loose, without her veil.

‘Not from here, lady.’ His garments straightened to his satisfaction, the captain felt more confident.

‘Then I dreamt it.’ She sounded puzzled. Her shoulders slumped and her voice lost its sharpness. ‘I’m sorry.’ As they watched her go, the captain crossed himself fervently.

At dawn the dream, if dream it were, returned. She heard the horn, jumped from the bed in a panic and ran to the window. The weather was breaking. The dawn was hot and thundery and the sweet scent of the earth mingled with the cool green smell of the river.

The touch on her shoulder was featherlight. For a moment she ignored it, then she swung around. There was no one there. A draught had stirred the wall hangings, that was all. Her jewellery box lay open on the table, she was certain she had closed it. She went to it and picked up the phoenix again, staring at it in the dim light of the dawn. She slipped the chain from its loop and dropped it back into the casket, then she threaded the pendant on to a black silk ribbon and hung it around her neck, feeling the hard bright enamel cold as death between her breasts.

It had been a long time since she had looked into the fire. Kneeling before the hearth, she pushed aside the turves and blew on the embers. She was trembling violently and the cold dread which filled her had nothing to do with dreams.

Alexander!

She leaned towards the flames. Her eyes were blurred. She could see nothing and suddenly she realised she was crying.

Alexander!

The door rattled on its hinges as the wall hangings billowed. Ash blew towards her across the hearth and a log cracked from end to end in a shower of sparks.

There were no pictures in the flames, only the sound of weeping.

XI

Robert de Quincy’s horse was soaked with sweat and he was alone. Eleyne was sitting in the great hall with the entire household as he swaggered in. She knew at once that he was very drunk. It was the first time she had seen him in over two years.

She watched, taut with apprehension as he made his way towards the high table on the dais, where she sat with Rhonwen and some of the senior members of the household.

‘You know, of course, what I am here to tell you.’ He stood, hands on hips, one leg thrust forward, his elegant surcoat mud-spattered and torn, his tunic stained with sweat.

‘Indeed not.’ She tried to keep her voice neutral.

‘What? No pyromancy to tell your fortune in the flames?’ He was speaking deliberately loudly, ensuring silence in the hall.

Eleyne heard the priest next to her draw in his breath sharply and she clenched her fists. ‘What is it you have to tell me?’

Robert laughed. ‘So, you don’t know! How strange. You’re happy, yet in a few minutes you’re going to be devastated.’ He looked at her almost clinically, with total detachment. ‘I’m about to break your heart!’

Eleyne could feel the fear building inside her. ‘Do you intend to make a public spectacle of this announcement?’ she asked coldly. ‘If so, you should hurry before the horn sounds for supper.’

Turn away, keep your back to him, keep your back to the hall. Don’t
give him the pleasure of seeing it hurt, whatever it is
.

But she knew. She had known for a whole week. And her heart was already breaking.

Robert was giggling now, quietly. He stepped towards the dais, missed his footing and decided to sit on the edge of the step instead. So he was facing down the great hall when at last he spoke, tears of laughter running down his face.

‘He’s dead, sweetheart. Your king is dead! I was with King Henry when the messengers brought the news from Scotland. We thought it only seemly to bring you the news at once …’

His voice had faded into a mist. It swirled and eddied around her, muffling her ears, enveloping her head, blinding her eyes. She took a step forward, and felt an arm around her. Rhonwen’s. Her back was straight; she was not crying. With Rhonwen at her side, she stepped slowly off the dais past her giggling husband and walked the length of the hall to the door.

She went into the chapel and knelt on the ornate tiles before the altar, aware that Rhonwen had waited at the door. Beeswax candles glowed before a statue of the Virgin; she did not see them. She saw nothing. Her mind was a spinning emptiness; a whirl of nameless pain.

Robert came for her a long time later. He had eaten and drunk more, but now he was steadier on his feet. He strode into the chapel and found her still on her knees, her eyes closed, her face transparent with exhaustion and unhappiness.

He pulled her to her feet. ‘Enough of prayer! Now perhaps you will pay some attention to your husband.’

Wearily she looked at him. ‘I do not have a husband who merits my attention.’

‘No?’ His lips twisted into a sneer. ‘Then perhaps this will encourage it.’ The blow from his ringed hand tore open her cheek and the blood trickled like warm tears down her face.

‘You hit me in the presence of Our Lady?’ Eleyne backed towards the niche with its candlelit statue. Neither of them noticed that the door had banged shut. The air around them was full of anger.

‘I shall hit you where I please!’

She could not fight him and no one in the household would stand against him as he dragged her across the inner courtyard up the steep steps into the gatehouse, past crowds of openly staring men and women and on up towards the bedchambers. She did not sleep in the lord’s chamber, the room which had been John’s, but that was where he took her now. The great bed stood without hangings in the darkness, the deep feather mattress musty and full of mice, the flagstone floor swept bare of strewing herbs.

She did not even try to fight him. She submitted as he dragged off her clothes and tied her hands; she knelt like a frozen statue as he swaggered towards her and commanded that she open her mouth and later as she lay back painfully on her bound hands on the bare mattress, and let him thrust again and again inside her, her mind shut off entirely from the degradation of her body and allowed her to drift away.

Her wrists were still bound when Rhonwen found her at daybreak. Robert had slept for a few hours, sprawled across her inert body, then he had woken and staggered off in search of more wine. He had not returned.

‘Do you still forbid me to kill him?’ Tight-lipped, Rhonwen slid the blade of her small knife into the thongs around Eleyne’s wrists.

‘What good would his death achieve now?’ Eleyne’s fingers were white and lifeless and she watched, strangely detached still, as Rhonwen began gently to rub them.

‘It would free you of him for good.’

XII

A week later Eleyne received a letter from Malcolm of Fife. Robert was out riding when the messenger arrived for which she was thankful because the letter made her cry. It was courteous and restrained, and gave her the facts.

Alexander had been struck down by a sudden fever while his fleet was at anchor in Oban Bay. He struggled on, insisting on being rowed ashore to the island of Kerrera to complete their business there and there he had died. His body had been taken for interment to Melrose Abbey, as he had long ago specified in his will. His eight-year-old son had been crowned five days after he died, at Scone, elevated on the sacred stone by Malcolm himself, following the ancient tradition that the Earls of Fife alone had that right. But already, it appeared, there was quarrelling amongst the magnates. The king’s closest henchman, Sir Alan Durward, and Lord Menteith were locked in conflict over who should have power during the young king’s minority. At the end of his letter Malcolm gave her the crumb of comfort she so desperately needed. ‘I am assured, my lady, that in his last delirium the king mentioned your name several times and begged that you pray for his soul’s eternal rest.’ As the tears flooded her eyes, she threw down the letter. It was not until a long time later that she read the closing sentence. ‘Please be assured, my lady, of my lasting devotion and my service, which shall be yours as long as I draw breath.’

XIII

By the beginning of November she knew she was once again with child. Robert had stayed only a few days at Fotheringhay then, bored with tormenting her and afraid, though he would not admit it even to himself, of the cold, considered hatred which seemed to emanate from the very stones of the castle and from the air around him, he had finally obtained the king’s permission to return to court. That same day she had made them take out the bed on which, though she did not yet know it, her child had been conceived and burn it in the outer court.

It seemed strange that life went on as usual once he had gone. She oversaw the stud farm and rode regularly about the manor. She ate and slept and sewed and talked and waited indifferently as her belly began to grow. It would be a girl. Robert would father no sons, of that she was certain.

Her dreams were at an end. Her love was dead; her heart a lead weight inside her. She had no place in history. Her sons would never be kings. Einion had been a charlatan, her own visions the demon-inspired ramblings of a fevered brain. She would not return to Scotland where her godson was now king, firmly tied to his mother’s apron strings whilst Alan Durward governed as justiciar. Scotland was a place of dreams and memories; a place of broken destiny.

The ghostly woman who haunted the deserted rooms of the castle gave her little comfort. Their mutual unhappiness was part of the fabric of history. It entwined and encircled them and held them together in a web of eternity from which neither could break free.

XIV
FOTHERINGHAY

Hawisa was born on St George’s Da`y 1250, and two weeks after her birth Robert returned. He stared for a long time at the mite in the heavy wooden cradle, then he looked up at Eleyne. ‘Another girl?’

‘That was God’s will.’

‘Was it? Or did you use charms and potions to ensure it?’ His expression was flat and hard.

Eleyne shrugged. ‘It did not matter to me what sex the child was. She is healthy and baptised.’

‘So caring a mother!’ He bent over the cradle and lifted out the swaddled bundle. ‘At least it’s obvious that she is mine.’ The baby’s hair was thick and dark, her eyes set close above the small nose. ‘Where is Joanna?’ When he had come to Fotheringhay the sum mer before, he had not once asked to see his daughter.

Eleyne tensed. ‘Somewhere with her nurses,’ she said guardedly.

‘Don’t you know?’ His tone was half accusing, half mocking.

‘Of course I know. She’s safe with them.’ Eleyne was suddenly afraid. She did not want him to see her beautiful daughter; did not want him to have any claim over the child at all.

‘I hope so.’ He put the baby down.

She dreaded his appearance at her bedside that night, but he did not come. She lay awake, afraid to close her eyes, but her night was undisturbed.

When Rhonwen came to her in the morning, her eyes were glittering with hatred. ‘He has taken the little one.’

‘Taken?’ Though still half asleep, the word slammed into Eleyne’s brain. She pushed herself upright in the bed and peered into the cradle.

‘Not the baby,
cariad
, Joanna. He has taken Joanna.’ Rhonwen’s voice broke.

‘Sweet Mother of God!’ At Eleyne’s desperate cry, Hawisa began to sob, but her mother ignored her. Flinging her cloak around her shoulders, she was halfway to the door before Rhonwen stopped her. ‘It’s no use; they’re long gone. He took her in the night. Little Sarah Curthose tried to stop him and had her face beaten to pulp for her pains.’

‘He’ll have taken Joanna to London.’ Eleyne’s breasts ached as the baby cried. Scooping Hawisa into the crook of her arm, she opened the front of her shift and felt the usual sharp wince of pain as the small mouth clamped on to her nipple. ‘We’ll go after him. Now, as soon as the horses are made ready.’ Her face was bleak. ‘See to it for me, Rhonwen.’

Encumbered by servants and the baby, they did not reach London until noon the following day. Within two hours Eleyne, in her finest gown, was riding towards the Palace of Westminster. She could barely stay on her horse; tired to the point of collapse, her body still weak from giving birth, she nevertheless rode to the door and slid from Tam Lin’s back. As a groom ran to take the horse’s bridle, she staggered slightly.

The great hall was crowded, but she could see the king surrounded as usual by noblemen and servants. He appeared to be studying a huge book as Eleyne pushed her way towards the dais. He looked up as she approached and frowned. ‘Niece, I did not give you leave to come to court.’