Child of the Phoenix

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘You think I could stay with the man who murdered my babies?’ The pictures were returning. Flashes of violent, blood-soaked terror. Nesta, gentle, faithful Nesta, a sword through her belly, her eyes huge with agonised pleading. Michael, his dark blue gown scarlet from the gaping hole in his chest as he collapsed at her feet.

  ‘You will do as you are told!’ Malcolm’s patience snapped. ‘And you will remember that her grace is our guest at Falkland.’ He moved towards Eleyne threateningly.

  ‘Murderer!’ Eleyne screamed. ‘Her grace’s son will release me from this pretence of a marriage!’ She had begun to tremble violently as she backed away from him, her memories spinning in her mind, a blackened, bloody nightmare.

  The queen settled back to enjoy herself. ‘I don’t think so, my dear. Alexander was very pleased to hear of Malcolm’s marriage, very pleased. He has already given it his blessing.’

  Eleyne shook her head. ‘He would never do that. And nor will the King of England, my uncle, when he hears what has happened.’

  She was wrong.

  VI

  WESTMINSTER July

  ‘What do you mean, she’s alive?’ Henry thundered at the Earl of Winchester. ‘How can she still be alive?’

  Roger de Quincy took another few paces around the table. ‘She is alive and well. My steward has seen her with his own eyes. Word is in Scotland that she has run off with her lover! The whole thing was arranged. He came and burned the place to make it look as though she were dead and carried her off.’ He struck his fists together in fury. ‘She fooled me, the scheming Jezebel! She fooled us all. I believed her when she told us Robert mistreated her. We all believed her.’ The expansive sweep of his hand included the king, who flinched slightly. ‘She was just making sure that we got rid of Robert for her; God’s bones, but I was an idiot!’

  ‘And who is her latest lover, pray?’ After an initial moment of disbelief, Henry was recovering from the shock of Lord Winchester’s statement.

  ‘Lord Fife. He has taken her back to Scotland. He is even pretending she is his wife.’

  Henry raised an eyebrow. ‘So, she still sees herself as a Scots whore, no matter who the man.’ His anger had been slow in surfacing. ‘So be it, I’ll not raise another finger to help that woman, or save her reputation. I did enough when I sent Sir Robert to the Holy Land and played right into her hands. All right. She wants to be dead to her English friends and family, let her stay that way. As far as England is concerned, my niece died in that fire. Her lands and property are confiscated. They will be redistributed amongst the Chester heirs. See that the enquiries post mortem are set in train. Are her children alive then? For that at least we might be grateful.’

  Roger shook his head grimly. ‘My informers say they are not in Scotland. It looks as though they died. I cannot believe she meant that to happen, that she could be such an unnatural mother, but they were Robert’s children …’ His voice trailed away and he sighed. ‘And Robert?’ Roger asked at last. ‘What do I tell my brother?’

  The king sat down and beckoned his clerks. On the desk was Eleyne’s letter about Isabella. In his sorrow over Eleyne’s death he had been about to carry out her last wish and order that Isabella be released from her captivity at Godstow. He stared at the letter as if he had never seen it before, then tossed it to the nearest secretary. ‘Destroy this,’ he said curtly. ‘I never wish to hear Isabella de Braose’s name again.’ He turned back to Roger. ‘Tell your brother that his wife is dead,’ he said succinctly. ‘Otherwise he will probably kill her himself and imperil his immortal soul.’

  VII

  DUNFERMLINE CASTLE

  Eleyne looked at the twelve-year-old king, so agonisingly like his father, and her throat tightened. ‘You have to help me. You have to tell Lord Fife to let me go home.’ Her voice was shaking and she was painfully aware of the queen and Lord Fife standing immediately behind her. They had all ridden to Dunfermline that same afternoon.

  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.

  Her head began to spin, but it was not an unpleasant sensation. She sat back and arranged her skirts. As soon as the flames burned more brightly, the pictures would come.

  She saw the horseman first. He reined in slightly, his animal prancing, its flanks steaming in the rain. She could see the wind, the thrashing banner, his hands wet on the reins.

  Show me your face, please show me your face.

  She bent yet closer. Who was he, this broad-shouldered man, and what was he to her? Why did she keep seeing him? But he had turned away, urging his horse forward, and he was riding on, out of her sight
into the mists conjured from the flames.

  Eleyne cursed softly.

  Show me more, show me my future, mine!

  Her head was heavy now and she felt a little sick, but there were other pictures there, shifting, changing. A man – Alexander! Her Alexander. With a whimper she reached out and she saw him smile. He stretched out his hand to her and their fingers almost touched. Then he was gone.

  Her eyes were full of tears. The knowledge had been there all the time, had she been able to face the truth. Without the pendant she could not reach him and the phoenix, the precious link which held him to her, had gone, lost in the fire at Suckley.

  But there were other pictures now. Children. She could see children. Several of them, playing on the beach beyond the flames. She rubbed her eyes. There were two little girls, playing by the water, intent on gathering stones and tossing them into the ripples. Joanna? Hawisa?

  She half rose, a huge lump in her throat, holding out her arms. But they had gone. There was no one there, nothing but the empty sand. Tears ran down her cheeks again and she turned to look for the others. They were running away: five boys and two other girls, running, skipping towards the trees.

  Come back!

  She tried once more to rise to her feet but her legs were cramped and she stumbled. She could hear them laughing, the sound echoing amongst the trees. In a moment they would be out of sight. She sank back on the ground before the fire and stared at it again. But the flames were empty and dying.

  ‘Have you seen any children on the island?’ she asked that night.

  ‘Children, my lady?’ Her maid, Emmot, looked puzzled.

  ‘Did they come from the mainland?’

  ‘No boats came today, my lady, none at all.’

  Eleyne did not mention them again. She had not seen their faces; she had not really heard their voices. Only as shouts, mingled with the breeze, teasing the leaves on the trees.