Child of the Phoenix (97 page)

Alexander glanced at his mother and then at Alan Durward, who was at his side. ‘Lord Fife is our trusted friend,’ he said solemnly, his high voice clear against the murmur of voices in the vaulted audience chamber. ‘Mama says I must not offend him.’

‘And me? Am I not your friend?’ She held out her hands to him and, startled, the boy stepped towards her and took them in his own.

‘Yes, of course you are.’

‘Then, please.’ Clutching his hot fingers, she sank to her knees. ‘Please help me.’

He was distressed. ‘I don’t want you to be unhappy – ’

‘Then don’t interfere. Sir.’ Malcolm added the last word as an afterthought. ‘Leave my wife to me.’

Marie de Couci smiled reassuringly at her son. ‘Lady Fife is still feeling strange in our country, but I am sure she will settle soon. And until she does, Malcolm must keep her at Falkland. We do not want her upsetting the king.’

On the ride back to Falkland Castle Eleyne was silent. Malcolm’s men surrounded her and he rode close at her side, looking from time to time at her closed face.

‘Do you like the horse you are riding?’ he asked at last as they splashed through the shallow water of the River Leven. They had left the misty waters of the loch to their left, the castle barely visible on its island. Eleyne had not even glanced at it. Now before them the Lomond Hills rose, folded and dark against the sky. Eleyne nodded mutely. Even through her anger and misery she had taken unconscious note of the delicate white palfrey she rode. ‘He is half-brother to your Tam Lin,’ Malcolm went on, ‘and he’s yours.’

She stared down at the horse’s neck. Her slim brown hands were steady on the soft leather reins; on her hand Malcolm’s ring still clung to her finger. Why had she not thrown it away as she had thrown away Robert’s ring sixteen years before?

‘You cannot buy me, Malcolm,’ she said quietly. ‘No amount of horses will make me want to stay with you.’

He grinned at her amicably. ‘Just so long as you do stay.’

That night she slipped from his bed as he lay flat on his back, snoring, exhausted by his passionate lovemaking. Gritting her teeth in impatience, she dressed in the darkness of the bedchamber and crept towards the door. The latch creaked as she opened it, but he did not stir. Outside the passage was empty and the narrow newel stair in darkness. Her shoes in her hand, she groped her way to the stair and crept down it, the only sound the slight rustle of her skirts on the stone steps. A smell of old woodsmoke drifted up, and the air grew cold as she crept down towards the lower chamber.

Half a dozen men were asleep there, wrapped in their cloaks in the dim light of a guttering tallow candle. She surveyed the round room. The door on the far side was closed and a guard dozed beside it, slumped on his heels, his chin on his chest, his hand fallen from the sword which lay at his side. The only way out of the tower was past him.

‘Do you plan a midnight ride, perhaps?’ Malcolm’s voice was light and friendly as he stood in the doorway behind her. There was a candle in his hand. Her eyes went to it automatically and she felt her throat tighten.

‘I felt restless, I thought I would walk in the courtyard.’ She held his eye in the dim, flickering light.

‘Good, then we’ll walk together.’ He sighed. ‘You shan’t escape me, Eleyne. No one can leave the castle without my knowledge, and this tower is guarded at all times.’ Beside the door on the far side of the chamber the guard was now standing to attention, the sword held menacingly across his chest. ‘Don’t make me lock you up, lass.’

The sleepers on the floor had stirred at the sound of his voice. One sat up, hugging his knees, and viewed with every sign of enjoyment his lord and his new lady engaged in combat.

The castle had seethed with gossip since Malcolm had brought Eleyne home, and now the answer to the question so many had asked for so long – why had the Earl of Fife remained so long unmarried – was answered at last. He had loved Eleyne, daughter of Llywelyn of Wales, since the day he had first set eyes on her eighteen years before and from that day he had meant to have her for his own. There wasn’t a man, woman or child in Falkland Castle, if not the whole of Fife, who did not wish their earl well of her.

The onlookers waited to see what would happen. She hesitated as though wondering whether to go on and walk in the dark of the courtyard with her husband, but she moved past him, back to the stairs.

VIII

Four days later she escaped. She slipped past the guards at dawn, swathed in the dark cloak of one of her maids. The man on duty at the gate, which was open for the first wagons of flour being brought in from the mill, did not look at her face or question her. Two hours later he paid for his carelessness with his life.

She did not get far: Malcolm’s dogs tracked her down when she was only two miles from the castle. Instinctively she had turned towards the dark shoulder of the Lomond, seeking safety in the mountain, but it was no use. She turned at bay, like a trapped animal, mad with grief and anger.

‘I will not come back with you. You have to let me go! How can I live with the man who killed my children, who killed my friends!’ It haunted her every moment, waking and sleeping, the picture of the two little girls – so happy on St John’s Eve, longing to wear their new gowns, plaiting ribbon collars for the two dogs – and superimposed was the memory of Nesta and of Michael, dear gentle Michael who had never hurt anyone in his life, spitted on a sword like an animal as he tried to come to her aid. She could feel the cold agony of the sword in her children’s flesh, hear their screams echoing in her ears, see their little hands outstretched towards her, begging her to save them.

‘I did not kill your children.’ He faced her, leaning on his sword. She had lost her veil and her hair was down; her gown was grass-stained and torn and her face and hands were burned by the sun as she faced him, proud and furious as a wild cat. His facc softened. He could not restrain a smile. She was all he had dreamed of, this beautiful Welsh princess. And at last she was his.

She did not see his smile. ‘Someone killed them! The queen said so – ’

‘The queen wanted to hurt you, Eleyne. She has never forgiven you for stealing her husband. My men did not kill your children. I gave specific orders to that effect. Little girls are no danger to me. Sons might have been different, but you had no sons. I left them to the de Quincys, where they belong. And you must forget them. Think instead of the sons you will bear me.

‘No, never.’

He smiled tolerantly. ‘You will. You will do exactly as I wish, my dear.’

IX
FOTHERINGHAY CASTLE
July 1253

The castle slept in the early sunshine. The gates were still closed, but smoke rose from the bakehouse chimneys. Rhonwen stood at the bend in the track and peered at the walls. She was exhausted, but her anger and despair drove her on. Beside her Annie stood in the middle of the road with the two small children, all three bemused with sleep, their bare feet dusty, their clothes in rags. Beside them sat the two great dogs.

‘Will mama be here?’ Joanna’s small hand slid into Rhonwen’s.

Rhonwen tried to hide her grief. ‘No,
cariad
, she won’t be here.’

She had crept back and seen the smoking ruins, the butchered servants, the corpses burned beyond recognition. Clinging to the remnants of her sanity, she had searched for Eleyne’s body. She had not found her, but she knew in her heart that her beloved child was dead. Their attackers, whoever they had been, had been too thorough, too sudden. No one could have escaped that conflagration. Heartbroken, she clawed through the still-hot ashes and in the burned-out ruins of the solar she had found the phoenix pendant on the charred table where Eleyne had dropped it on Midsummer’s Eve. Somehow it had escaped the looters who had followed the fire. Rhonwen had rubbed it clean of the cloying soot and, tears pouring down her cheeks, she kissed it and tucked it into her purse. Then she had clambered out of the building, gone to the courtyard and picked her way amongst slaughtered horses. Some had gone, but Tam Lin was there, his leg broken, his head smashed in with a spike. Rhonwen stared at the flyblown remains of the beautiful horse, her stomach heaving with disgust. At last she had turned away.

X

Dervorguilla Balliol had arrived at Fotheringhay the day before, unaware that since it was no longer part of Eleyne’s dower lands, the great castle and its property would soon revert to her as part of her inheritance from her uncle, John the Scot.

On her way from London to Scotland, this daughter of John’s sister Margaret and the Lord of Galloway was taking the news of Eleyne’s death to her husband, John Balliol. It had seemed fitting to stop overnight at Fotheringhay, where Eleyne had spent so much of her life.

When the arrivals were announced, she looked up in disbelief. ‘Lady Rhonwen? And the children?’ She almost ran down the hall. ‘Eleyne? Where is Aunt Eleyne? Oh thank Sweet Blessed Christ you are all all right.’ On her knees she hugged the two little girls to her.

Rhonwen’s silence made her look up at last. ‘Aunt Eleyne?’ she repeated in a whisper.

Wordlessly, Rhonwen shook her head.

Dervorguilla crossed herself. She stood up slowly and sighed. ‘Will you take them to London?’

‘No, I’ll leave them with you. Annie can look after them. I mean to find out who did it.’ Rhonwen’s face was bleak, her eyes devoid of expression. She put her hand on Lyulf ’s head. ‘I’ll find out his name and then I shall kill him.’

XI
LOCH LEVEN CASTLE
August 1253

She found them all on the island – mugwort, ash, apple, wormwood and skullcap. They burned slowly at first, smoky, acrid, the flames dull and sluggish. But they would clear.

She looked across the narrow strip of dry white sand where she had built her little fire, towards the grey walls of the castle. They couldn’t see her here and they wouldn’t come looking for her, not until dusk. Behind her the waters of the loch were a clear, bright blue. Small ripples played on the sand and sparkling lights danced around the island, teasing her eyes.

She had tried to escape from him so often that at last Malcolm, with a sigh, had brought her to Loch Leven Castle. ‘It’s only for a short time while I’m with the king,’ he said. ‘I have to go to Stirling, but when I return I shall bring you back to Falkland. By then, perhaps you will have learned to appreciate me more.’

At first she was pleased; it was a relief to be free of him, to call her body her own again, to have time to think; to watch the moon rise above the Bishop’s Hill and be able to plan her escape. She was allowed the run of the island and served with some state, but the men and women with her were all Malcolm’s trusted servants. Andrew and Janet, she discovered, had long ago gone to live with their son in Cupar. There was no way to reach the mainland. Bribery, cajolery, pleading and fury all failed. Her jailers were polite, even obsequious to Lady Fife, but all were adamant.

As time passed she thought she would go mad with frustration. There were no horses, no dogs, no entertainers, no gossips, no music. There were no books and no writing materials; nothing to do but eat and sleep and sit with her embroidery and mourn her children. It had been a moment of inspiration to look again into the fire and summon the visions.

She leaned closer to the flames, piling on another handful of herbs. They were too green. She should have dried them, but that would have taken days or weeks and there wasn’t time. She needed to see now. She needed to see why Alexander no longer came to her.