Child of the Phoenix

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘And where does my path lead? Can you see?’ She stared into his face. His eyes were barely visible in the darkness; she could see nothing of his expression.

  Again the silence. She felt the energy flowing through his hands into hers, felt his eyes looking deep into her skull.

  ‘Your destiny lies in the far north,’ he said at last. ‘In the forests of Caledon, in the land of the Scots. It is there you will live the greater part of your life and there you will die.’

  The ice-cold needles of sleet penetrated her cloak, soaking through her gown, making her shiver.

  ‘And my husband will be king?’ She whispered the question but he heard her.

  ‘I see you at the king’s side. I see you as the mother of a line of kings. You will be the life of a king and you will be the death of a king. The Sight will be yours and it will be denied you.’ He stopped, his words snatched away into the darkness, and she felt the strength of his hands die away. He released her fingers and turned from her. ‘Tomorrow I return to Mô n. I have asked your father’s leave to end my service with him. I wish to spend the last of my days alone, preparing myself for the next life.’

  ‘Then who will I turn to for a guide?’ She felt a wave of panic as she tried to grasp the things he had told her.

  He smiled for the first time. ‘That I cannot see. But it will not be me. I shall be dead before the snows have melted on Yr Wyddfa in the spring.’

  ‘No!’ Her cry was anguished.

  ‘It is the will of the gods, child,’ he replied gently. ‘We cannot question their decisions. I have lived more than eighty summers in these hills. My business here is over. I waited only to speak to you and now that is done I shall rest in peace. Go now, back to your father’s hall.’

  ‘Will I see you again?’

  ‘I think not in this life.’ He smiled sadly. ‘My blessings on you, princess, and on all you love. Now go.’

  She raised her hand, but he had turned away. Huddled in his cloak, the hood pulled up over his hair, he was part of the shadows, part of the night. In a moment he had gone.

  ‘Lord Einion?’ Her voice was sharp and frightened. The wind howled around the spot where he had stood and the river hurled itself down between the boulders. She was alone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I

  ABER January 1233

  The ashes were glowing beneath her feet as she walked in the fire; in front of her, in the distance, she could see mountains, blue beneath the haze. A figure was waiting for her, beckoning. She moved on, slowly, floating just above the ground. He was calling her name and she could see him drawing away from her, holding out his arms, his red-gold hair gleaming in the flickering light. ‘Wait!’ She tried to call, but no sound came from her throat. ‘Wait …’ But he was growing smaller, shimmering behind the heat of the fire. She began to run; she had to reach him, to see his face. The heat hid him, separating them. She had to get through the fire. ‘Eleyne,’ he was calling more loudly now, ‘Eleyne.’

  ‘Eleyne!’

  Prince Llywelyn looked infinitely weary. Humping his fur-trimmed gown higher on his shoulders, he sighed. ‘I cannot allow you to remain here, daughter. I am sorry.’ He stood at the window of the solar, gazing out into the whirling snow. Eleyne sat alone, her eyes on the fire.

  ‘You must see how difficult it is, with Isabella’s illness. I’m told her megrims will pass and with them these tantrums, but meanwhile –’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘Dafydd will escort you to Chester. I am sure your husband will be pleased to have you back.’

  She made no response, her eyes fixed unblinkingly on the smouldering logs.

  ‘You and she will be friends again when she is with child once more,’ he went on uncomfortably. ‘This idea of hers, that it was your fault – no one believes it. It is no more than the raving of a mad woman, but then, women are like this sometimes, they tell me, when they have miscarried …’ His voice trailed away to silence.

  Again she gave no sign of having heard him. He moved closer. ‘Eleyne, did you hear me?’ He suppressed the wave of irritation which swept over him. He had come to Aber seeking peace; instead he had found himself surrounded by squabbling women. His daughter-in-law’s petulant voice and her uncontrolled sobbing rang day and night in his hall. Dafydd, in an effort to buy himself some quiet, nagged him constantly to get rid of Eleyne, whilst Joan could barely conceal her impatience with this girl her son had married, this daughter of the man who had been her lover. She kept begging Llywelyn to send Isabella and Dafydd to Dolbadarn or Dolwyddelan and allow Eleyne to stay at Aber. The servants and household gossiped about his youngest daughter endlessly; as for Rhonwen, if there were magic and evil in this palace, Rhonwen was the centre of it.

  Still Eleyne had not looked up; she gave no sign that she knew he was there. He scowled. Her eyes, clear as the silver-green dawn light on the sea, stared unblinkingly at the embers. She seemed to be a thousand miles away in her dreams.

  ‘Eleyne!’ His voice was sharp. ‘Eleyne, by the Holy Virgin, listen to me!’ He stepped towards her and, putting his hand on her shoulder, pulled her to face him.

  Her eyes were blank.

  A superstitious shudder of horror swept over him. She had gone, his little daughter, his Eleyne, his seventh child, and the beautiful face looking up at him blankly was that of a stranger – a stranger who had stepped out of those glowing ashes to speak to him from another world. ‘Eleyne, wake up!’ His voice was sharp with fear.

  Abruptly she was jerked to her feet. The picture in the fire vanished and she found herself staring into her father’s furious green eyes.

  ‘What’s the matter? Can’t you hear me?’ The fear in his voice was raw.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She tried to pull herself together, but her mind was far away, through the fire, seeking the man who had called her, the man to whom her soul clung.

  ‘Are your wits addled, girl? Have I been talking to you all this time and you have heard not a word?’ His moment of fear had made him doubly angry.

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in, papa. Forgive me – ’

  ‘Then listen now.’ He didn’t ask what she had been thinking about, where she had been. He thrust her away, ignoring his urge to take her into his arms as he used to do when she was little. ‘I said you have to go. And go now. Today. You are not wanted beneath this roof. Your place is with your husband.’

  ‘But, papa – ’

  This was the first time he had spoken to her alone since his return, and the first time he had really spoken to her at all. She felt a strange chill; once more she was the frightened child whom her father had sent away three years before.

  ‘Why? Why must I go? What have I done? I don’t understand.’ She tried to read the bleak, shuttered face. ‘I can’t go, papa. The weather …’ She looked over to the narrow window behind him, the only one which was still unshuttered, where the snowflakes whirled crazily. Some had drifted on to the exposed sill and sat there unmelted in the cold. ‘No one could ride in this; please let me stay at least until the storm clears.’ She heard her voice rise unsteadily. ‘Please, papa?’

  He stared at her coldly. ‘Dafydd will ride with you. There is no danger; the snow is not settling. You will leave as soon as you are packed. I am sorry, Eleyne. But you have to go. And take your woman with you.’

  ‘My woman?’ she echoed as the door crashed shut behind him.

  Rhonwen.

  II

  They sheltered that night in the guesthouse of the abbey at Conwy and rode on at first light, their faces muffled against the cold, their gloves rigid with caked ice on the reins of their horses. The snow whirled around them, settling in deep drifts in the sheltered gullies, torn and blown on the screaming west wind which as yet held no hard edge of ice. Dafydd had made no attempt to talk to her, to explain, but Rhonwen had known.

  ‘It’s the English bitch Dafydd took to wife,’ she whispered as she threw Eleyne’s clothes into her coffers. ‘She spreads lies, like poison, round the llys;
she screams and shouts and refuses to sleep until you’ve gone. She claims the child was lost because of you and that she won’t conceive again while you’re under the same roof.’ She glanced sideways at Eleyne. ‘Did you tell her what you told me? Did you tell her that there would be no other child, cariad?’

  Eleyne frowned. ‘Of course not! I have told her nothing. I haven’t been near her. She wouldn’t see me.’

  ‘That’s as well then. If you’d told her, she would have screamed sorcery and had you locked away for a thousand years.’ Rhonwen closed the lid of the chest and began to fill the next. ‘You’re best back with your husband, cariad, and that’s the truth.’ She looked at Eleyne’s bleak face, and knew without being told what Eleyne was thinking: What if he won’t have me back? What if he doesn’t want me as his wife …?

  III

  CHESTER CASTLE January 1233

  The Earl of Chester’s face was uncompromisingly stern. ‘I did not send for you,’ he said.

  Eleyne raised her chin a fraction. ‘I wanted to return.’ She had forgotten how handsome he was, this husband of hers. She felt excitement beneath her apprehension.

  Above her head the carved vaulted roof of the great hall of Chester Castle was lost in the shadows; after the comparatively small palace at Aber, it was a shock to remember the power of this great castle which was now her home.

  She was intensely aware that the crowds of men and women, ostensibly busy about their affairs or gathered around one or other of the fires at either end of the hall, were watching and, if they were close enough, listening to the conversation between husband and wife.

  Dafydd had exchanged only the briefest greetings with Lord Chester and then turned back into the storm, anxious to return to Wales before the snow closed the passes and locked the roads. He had offered no explanation for his sister’s unheralded return. Rhonwen had slipped away into the depths of the castle without a word, terrified that the earl would send her back with Dafydd. Eleyne was left to greet her husband alone and unattended.

  He looked stronger than she remembered him. Tall and good-looking, he was in the great hall surrounded by his friends and advisers when she was announced. They formed a laughing animated group which stood back in silence as she walked the length of the hall to the dais and stepped up to greet him. In the long weeks at Aber she had grown again; this time she was nearly as tall as he, and her eyes met his steadily for a moment before she dropped a deep curtsey before him, her heart thumping.

  ‘What made you decide to return?’ He dropped his voice so they could not be overheard.

  ‘My place is at your side, my lord.’

  ‘Did your lover reject you?’

  Her steady gaze belied the tightening of her throat, the quickness of her breath. She clenched her fists. ‘I told you before, my lord. I have no lover. You are the only husband I want.’

  ‘Because, no doubt, you have now obtained the assurance from your uncle the king that you may marry whom you will when I die.’ His eyes were watchful, his voice harsh.

  ‘I have not seen the king; nor have I written to him, my lord.’ It was becoming an effort to keep her eyes steady on his, but somehow she managed it, willing him to believe her.

  He folded his arms thoughtfully. ‘Your brother was in a great hurry to leave,’ he said abruptly.

  ‘The weather is bad, my lord. He didn’t want to bring me to Chester, but I insisted. I wanted to return before it got so bad I was forced to stay at Aber until the spring.’

  ‘I see.’ There was a flash of humour in his eyes. ‘And Aber was becoming untenable, was it? Or did your father send you packing?’ He broke off as a flood of scarlet washed her cheeks. ‘Aha! At last I have nailed the truth,’ he said softly. ‘You have been sent away a second time. What did you do on this occasion, wife?’

  Eleyne tried to keep her voice under control. ‘It was not my father, it was Isabella …’ She was fighting her tears. Abruptly, she turned away from him and went to stand in front of the huge stone fireplace with its burning logs, holding out her hands to the blaze. Her gaze sought the depths of the glowing heat, but there was no message for her, and she stepped back as her eyes began to smart. There was a long silence in the hall, broken only by the spitting of the fires and the low murmur of voices from below the dais.

  Then John was behind her, his hands on her shoulders. She felt herself grow tense.

  ‘Eleyne, may I present a kinsman to you.’ His voice was perceptibly more gentle. ‘Come, turn round. This is a cousin of my grandmother’s, Robert Fitzooth.’

  Swallowing hard, she faced them and forced herself to smile. The young man was as tall as John and as good-looking, with an irrepressible twinkle in his eye. He swept a low bow.

  ‘Lady Chester. I have heard so much about you and I had abandoned hope of seeing you before I left. Greetings, madam, and welcome home.’

  She found she was smiling at him, responding instantly to his warmth and charm, so unaffected and uncomplicated after her husband’s greeting. Almost without realising it, she allowed him to lift her heavy cloak from her shoulders and toss it over a bench, then he produced a cup of wine from a hovering page.

  ‘You lucky man,’ he called over his shoulder at the earl. ‘You never told me how beautiful she is; that the storm would pass and the snow melt and the sun come up inside the hall when she came home.’

  Eleyne laughed, and saw that John too was smiling, watching the two of them, arms folded with the tolerance an adult might show two children at play. ‘She likes you, Robin,’ he commented with a wry laugh. ‘Lucky man. Make the most of it.’

  After supper Robin organised games and dancing in the hall and led Eleyne into all the dances, leaving John in his chair by the fire. By bedtime Eleyne was exhausted.

  Robin looked at her and laughed at his cousin. ‘You will curse me for leaving your bride too tired for your private sport. Forgive me, my lord.’

  John gave a forced smile. ‘Eleyne has enjoyed herself. It’s good to see her happy.’ He stood up and, reaching across, took her hand. ‘Nevertheless, as you say, it is late. Time for us to retire.’

  They walked side by side from the hall, between ranks of bowing men and women, conscious that as soon as they had gone the dancing would start again.

  Beyond the hall, the castle was bitterly cold; the wind had veered at last into the north and with it came the stranglehold of ice on the snow. Feeling the bite of it in her bones as they climbed the broad winding stair to the lord’s bedchamber, Eleyne wondered briefly if Dafydd would reach home before the ice came. Dafydd and she had exchanged so few words on their ride to Chester; their mutual resentment was a physical barrier between them.

  Above her, at the angle of the curving stair, John stopped and looked down at her. His smile had gone. ‘You find my kinsman Robin attractive, I think.’ His voice was flat.

  She stopped too, raising her face to look up at him in the shadows, and her skin tingled with warning. ‘He is indeed an attractive man.’ She could hear the defiance in her voice.

  ‘More so, no doubt, than your husband.’

  Eleyne smiled sadly. ‘No one should be more attractive than a husband to a wife, my lord,’ she said softly. For a fleeting instant the image of William de Braose rose before her.

  ‘No, they should not.’ His mouth snapped shut on the words and he continued to climb.

  Eleyne followed him, holding her heavy skirts clear of the stone steps. ‘Are you at all pleased to see me, my lord?’ Her voice, tenta tive above the howl of the wind, barely reached him.

  ‘Of course.’ He did not stop.

  At the head of the stairs the gallery divided. To the east, it led to a small chapel and the lord’s private apartments; to the north, it led around the great square of the keep to the apartments reserved for visitors of state. Eleyne paused, then taking a deep breath she turned after her husband.

  At the door to his chamber he bowed to her courteously. ‘You may make this room your own, Eleyne. I have giv
en orders that your coffers and your servants be sent here. I myself will sleep elsewhere.’ He looked at her, thoughtfully. ‘Just until you are recovered from your journey.’

  ‘And then, my lord?’ She did not realise that her eyes were pleading.

  ‘And then we shall see.’ He reached out and touched her cheek. ‘I trust you did not bring the Lady Rhonwen back with you from Wales, Eleyne.’

  Eleyne froze, her eyes on his, unable to look away.

  ‘You know how I mistrusted that woman,’ he went on. ‘She was bad for you, keeping you a child, leading you into evil ways …’ He paused, noticing her stricken expression. He said nothing, then slowly he sighed. He pushed open the chamber door and walked in.

  Rhonwen was supervising the unpacking of Eleyne’s boxes, standing in the middle of the floor as some half-dozen maids scurried around her, depositing armloads of linen in carved and painted coffers and chests around the walls. The lights flickered in the draught of the open door and Rhonwen looked around. For a long moment she and Lord Chester surveyed one another, then quietly, somehow hopelessly, he laughed: ‘So that is the way of it.’

  ‘You never said she couldn’t return, my lord,’ Eleyne cried. ‘You never said she had to stay in Wales.’

  ‘Did I not?’ He looked at her coldly. ‘I had thought you would have understood my intentions.’

  That night Eleyne tossed and turned alone in the great bed, listening to the wind howling in the chimneys, and by morning she had reached a decision. After hearing mass in their private chapel at her husband’s side, she waited until the household had broken their fast and then followed him to the side chamber where he was sitting at his desk. His face was pale, his hands stiff with cold as he reached for the first letter. His clerks hovered nearby waiting to begin work. One of them, his nose red and swollen, sneezed dismally into the crook of his arm and wiped his nose on his sleeve.