Child of the Phoenix

by Barbara Erskine

  Ducking her head to kiss the baby’s small nose she allowed herself to glance up. What she read in his eyes made her catch her breath.

  It was as if they were alone in the world, she and the king and the small child in her arms. Then it was over. The baby began to cry again. Clucking, the wetnurse hurried forward to take him, the voices of others in the room intruded again and the king was surrounded by his attendants.

  She didn’t mind. He would find a way – somehow.

  XIII

  It was three days before he did. Rhonwen had arranged it.

  Swathed in heavy cloaks, the two women slipped from the postern gate and into the teaming burgh outside the walls. Rhonwen led her down a narrow wynd and into a small court. An outside staircase led up above the baker’s shop and Eleyne followed her into a small room, full of the scent of new bread. Outside the high narrow window the River Tweed ran low and slow down the centre of its stony bed. It was full of rubbish, tossed from the town.

  ‘Lock the door after me,’ Rhonwen whispered. ‘Open to no one unless they knock six times like this.’ She rapped with her knuckle on the frame of the window. ‘There’s wine and pasties here in the basket, if loving makes you both hungry.’ She winked. ‘The bed’s not over-clean, but if it’s fit for a king it’s good enough for you!’ Chuckling, she punched the coverlet and they wrinkled their noses as a cloud of dust flew up. Rhonwen stared round the room once more and then she let herself silently out of the door.

  Eleyne walked to the window: a thick unpleasant smell of mud and rubbish wafted from the river, and the room was airless and very hot. She longed to throw off her clothes but she did not dare. Not yet, not until she knew what he wanted from her. Rhonwen had been so sure, but was it possible after all that had come between them that he still loved her?

  She paced up and down. In the distance the bells from Kelso Abbey called the monks to nones. Her skirts stirred small eddies of dust from the bare boards and she heard voices from the shop downstairs as the women of the town brought their dough to the baker’s great oven. A dog barked endlessly, tied to the door across the narrow street; wheels rattled on the cobbles of the main road towards the castle.

  Shouts and the sound of splashing took her back to the rear window, and she stood watching as three small boys stripped and leaped laughing in the river, drenching one another with the near-stagnant water. She stood for a long time watching them, then she went and sat on the bed, lying back, her arm across her eyes. She must have dozed, for when she went back to the window some time later the sun had moved behind the houses and the boys had long since disappeared. Downstairs the shop was silent now, and even the street noises had died away.

  He’s not coming.

  Her mouth was dry, her stomach was no longer tense with anticipation. A heavy resignation began to swamp her. She lifted the cloth from Rhonwen’s basket and peered inside. The wine would be welcome and at the sight of the food her stomach gave a growl of hunger.

  She was sitting cross-legged on the bed with a cup of wine in one hand and a pasty in the other when she heard footsteps in the wynd outside. They stopped. She held her breath, listening. She heard someone on the wooden staircase, mounting two at a time. Her knuckles whitened on the cup as she saw the doorlatch jiggle up and down. Outside someone swore under their breath. There was a pause, then a quick rapping on the doorframe.

  One two three four five six.

  Alexander had come at last. Setting down her cup so quickly she spilled some of the wine, she scrambled to her feet and brushing crumbs of pastry from her gown she ran to the door and fumbled with shaking hands for the bolt.

  He was wrapped, as she had been, in a heavy homespun cloak, a hood over his red-gold hair. He slammed the door shut behind him with his foot in the same movement as he pulled her into his arms.

  ‘Eleyne, sweet Eleyne, did you think I’d never come? Dear God, lass, but I’ve missed you!’ He pulled her to him so hard she gasped for breath. ‘My Eleyne, what have I done? You should have been Alex’s mother! You should have been my queen! Sweet Christ, how could I have been so stupid? When you are away from me, it’s as though a piece of me is missing!’ His face was in her hair. ‘I don’t think I can ever let you go again.’ He held her at arm’s length, his eyes on hers. ‘How can our destinies keep us apart like this?’ It was a cry of anguish.

  She clung to him. ‘You are a king. Your destiny is not yours to direct,’ she said bleakly. She looked up, her eyes on his, shaken by the passion and anger in his words. Why, if he felt like this, had he turned his back on her? Why had he married Marie?

  Reading her thoughts with ease he groaned. ‘You are right. My destiny must be ordered by my duty, by my country. If I had married you it would have brought disaster, and yet I know now that I can’t live without you!’ He was rocking her back and forth in his arms. ‘Oh, what are we to do, lass?’

  ‘Make love,’ she whispered gently. ‘If our love was made by the gods, it doesn’t need the blessing of church or man.’

  For a single breathless moment they were drowning in each other’s eyes, then his lips were on hers, then on her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, and his hands were already busy with the laces at the back of her gown. He continued to kiss her as he undressed her until he was holding her naked in his arms.

  ‘Aren’t you going to undress?’ She freed her hands from his embrace long enough to unfasten the golden brooch at his shoulder.

  ‘In a minute. I want to see you first.’ He stood back, his eyes caressing her body with such love she could feel the touch of his gaze on her skin, stroking, inflaming her, and she found herself breathing heavily and deeply as if he were already inside her.

  ‘Unbraid your hair, lass.’ His voice was husky. At last he was pulling off his tunic. She undid it with shaking hands and shook her head so the tangled curls flew in a cloud around her face.

  He smiled. ‘You’re too thin. Why don’t you finish your pasty?’ He had noticed the remnants of her meal lying on the napkin on the bed.

  ‘I couldn’t eat anything now.’

  ‘Later then.’ He stepped towards her.

  It was much later. It was dark when they sat up and ate and drank together in the bright starlight which filtered through the open window.

  Eleyne giggled, leaning against his shoulder. ‘I’m covered in crumbs.’

  ‘I’ll lick up every one. Here, my love, have some more wine.’ The jug clicked against her cup and she felt the velvety wetness splash on her breast.

  ‘Do we have to go?’

  ‘You know we do. And separately.’ He sighed. ‘We’ll both have been missed. I hope the Lady Rhonwen has a story to tell your husband as to where you are.’

  ‘She will.’ Eleyne didn’t want to know what Rhonwen told Robert; she didn’t care as long as she was in Alexander’s arms. ‘Can we come here again?’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m sure we can.’ His voice was grim. ‘Somehow.’

  It was nearly dawn when he dressed at last and let himself quietly from the room. ‘Don’t come to the castle until the main gate is open,’ he commanded, ‘then come in with the first townspeople. You won’t be noticed in the crowds.’ And he was gone.

  XIV

  They met three more times in the room above the bakehouse before Alexander and his court prepared to ride north to Stirling. No one appeared to have noticed their rendezvous and, that first night, the only occasion when Eleyne was absent all night, Robert had been drunk and insensible in the great hall of the castle. Each day she dreaded the row there would be when Robert said they had to go back, but he seemed content to wait for his brother.

  There was no sign of Roger.

  XV

  STIRLING CASTLE October

  Two weeks after their arrival at Stirling Rhonwen hustled Eleyne once more into her heavy cloak.

  ‘Hurry. It’s not so easy to get out unobserved here. I have a note from the king that you are to meet him at the house of the knifegrinder at the foot of Castle
Hill. Sir Robert has ridden out with his brother, I saw them leave myself and the queen is, as always, with the child. There should be no trouble.’ She tweaked Eleyne’s cloak into place. ‘You are happy, cariad?’

  Eleyne nodded. ‘I love him so much, I can’t live without him.’

  ‘Even though you can never be his queen?’

  ‘Even though.’ Eleyne smiled. ‘Einion was wrong. We must accept that; or the gods have changed their minds.’

  ‘You haven’t seen the future again?’

  ‘No.’ Eleyne gave a crestfallen Donnet the order that he must once again stay behind. ‘I don’t want to see the future, Rhonwen. I want the present, that’s all, with Robert out of my bed and the king in it. Is that so very terrible?’

  For a moment neither woman spoke, then slowly Rhonwen shook her head. ‘All that is important for me, cariad, is that you are happy.’

  The narrow street was deserted as they made their way over the rough cobbles, searching the housefronts for the sign of the knifegrinder. They found it, set back in the shadows of the castle wall itself. A covered wagon pulled by two oxen was drawn up outside. The beasts, their heads buried in nosebags, dozed in the heat. The shopfront was closed and shuttered, and there was total silence in the house behind it. Rhonwen led the way down the side of the building. The evil-smelling close was dark, but Eleyne didn’t notice. She was too tied up with her own inner excitement. Her skin was tingling with anticipation, her stomach a fluttering hollow of longing. At the back of the close a small door stood half open.

  ‘This way,’ Rhonwen whispered. ‘Keep your head covered in case we meet someone.’ She pushed the door cautiously and led the way inside. A narrow inner stair led to an upper room where the closed shutters allowed only a dim light to filter through. It was enough to reveal four figures, swathed in black cloaks, waiting in the shadows.

  Rhonwen whirled. ‘Run!’ she screamed, but it was too late. Another man had appeared at the bottom of the stairs behind Eleyne. There was a dirk in his hand.

  ‘Good afternoon, sweetheart.’ Stepping forward as he threw off his cloak, Robert bowed. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is one tender meeting his grace the king is not going to attend.’ He smiled. ‘But so that you don’t feel slighted, the queen has honoured us with her presence instead.’ He bowed at the figure standing to his left and she took a step forward, pushing back her hood.

  ‘Lady Chester,’ Marie smiled with a gracious nod. ‘I wanted to come myself, to be sure.’

  ‘To be sure?’ Eleyne echoed.

  ‘To be sure the rumour was true: that you would stoop to being my husband’s whore.’ She smiled again. ‘It was I who wrote the note and sealed it with his seal. Take your wife away, Sir Robert. We do not wish to see her at court again.’ The queen stood back, holding her skirts fastidiously off the dusty floor.

  ‘No.’ Eleyne took a step backwards down the stairs, but the man behind her had his foot on the bottom step, the dirk upright in his hand.

  ‘No,’ Eleyne repeated as Robert came towards her. She took another step away from him, straight into the arms of the man with the knife. He grabbed her from behind and as she screamed she felt his hand, rough and stinking of the oxen he had been tending, clamp over her mouth. It took only moments for them to tie her in her cloak, to push a gag of rags into her mouth and pull the hood down over her face, then she was carried unceremoniously down the stairs, through the front shop and thrown heavily into the wagon. A whip whistled, the wagon lurched into motion and, with much creaking and groaning, began to swing slowly down the steep hill towards the centre of the town.

  Faint with fear and anger and half stifled by the gag and the hood of her cloak which they had pulled right down over her face, Eleyne found herself rolling helplessly from side to side in the bottom of the wagon. Her arms, pinioned to her sides, could not steady her and her ankles were strapped with a thong of hide. Her elbow struck something hard and she almost blacked out with pain. After that she was too dazed to know what was happening. She did not know if Rhonwen was with her. The only sounds were the creak and groan of the swaying vehicle and the occasional crack of the carter’s whip.

  She lost all track of time. She didn’t know if it was minutes or hours before the sound of galloping horses blotted out the plodding gait of the oxen and they lurched to a stop. Robert leaped into the wagon and pulling her into a sitting position against the side, pushed back her hood and removed her gag. She noticed, dazedly, that he was for once completely sober. Rhonwen lay beside her, her trussed body inert.

  ‘Rhonwen?’ Eleyne forced her dry mouth to form the words. ‘Is she all right?’ She felt sick and dizzy and afraid, but above all she was angry. Furious with herself for being so easily tricked and furious with Robert.

  Robert prodded Rhonwen viciously with his toe.

  ‘Move her gag, she can’t breathe.’

  ‘Good.’ Making no attempt to help Rhonwen, Robert perched on the backboard of the wagon, glaring at his wife. ‘Comfortable, sweetheart?’

  ‘You can see I’m not.’ She kept the anger out of her voice as she tried to shift into an easier position. Her arms were numb and her ankles had swollen painfully. She was desperately hot inside the heavy cloak. Her eyes kept returning to the still body on the straw-covered floor near her. ‘Where are you taking us?’

  ‘To stay with a friend. Somewhere the king will never find you.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to kill me?’

  The defiance and scorn in her voice made him scowl, but he laughed harshly. ‘You are no use to me dead, wife. I would lose your income, wouldn’t I? But I don’t intend to be the laughing stock of Scotland, be sure of that. From now on you will be an obedient and faithful wife and you will never see your beloved Alexander again.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I

  CAERNARFON September 1241

  ‘You 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 t
heir 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.