Child of the Phoenix

  She took a warm wrap into her hiding place and a cushion for the cold stone seat and smiled reassuringly at Meg as the girl pulled the heavy curtain across. It was bitterly cold in the embrasure in spite of the window glass, and the wind, with the scent of wood-smoke, the cold woods and marshes and the far distant sea, sneaked through a dozen cracks in the ill-fitting leads.

  It was late when Eleyne came at last to her chamber. She had been sitting in the great hall, listening to the music of their harper, Master Elias. The young man had been blind since birth, but the music his fingers stroked from the strings was like the voices of angels. He was, Eleyne was sure, the most accomplished harper she had ever heard, though as a patriotic Welsh woman she would never admit as much to her husband. Malcolm was at Dunfermline – or Roxburgh – or Edinburgh – she didn’t know which and she didn’t care. Undoubtedly he was with the king; as long as he was not at Falkland, she was content.

  She sat back in her chair, listening, her eyes closed, a goblet of wine in her hand, until long after the usual time she went to bed, and it was a long time before she realised that Elias was playing for her alone. Most of the men and women in the great hall had crept away and those who remained had long ago fallen asleep, the tables and benches removed, their cloaks wrapped around them for the night. She stood up and walked over to where the man sat, gently strumming the strings as though reluctant to silence the instrument for the night. She often asked one or other of the musicians to play for her and her ladies in the bedchamber before she retired for the night. It was restful there. She could close her eyes in the chair by the fire and let her thoughts roam as the women quietly prepared the room for the night.

  ‘Will you come upstairs and play for me?’

  ‘I will always play for you, my lady.’

  She smiled. ‘Tell your boy to bring your harp and come to my chamber.’ He was a handsome man; not tall, and with a slight build, but his arms were muscular and his fingers agile with the telltale calluses of the harper. When he stood up, he was a head shorter than she. ‘My music speaks to your soul, my lady?’ He looked directly at her as though he saw her clearly.

  She nodded and though he could not see the gesture he seemed content with her answer. He followed her, his stick in his hand, and behind him came his servant with the precious harp.

  After the heat of the great hall the courtyard was very cold. She hurried across it, her head lowered against the wind, followed by two of her ladies, and behind them Elias and his servant. The staircase in the Great Tower was broad and steep, lighted by the burning torches which had been left in the sconces on each landing. The one outside her bedchamber spluttered and spat, spilling resin on the floor.

  Meg was asleep in the chair by the fire when Eleyne walked in. The chamber was lit by a single candle. The girl jumped to her feet with a squeak of fright, glancing, in spite of herself, at the curtain across the embrasure. ‘My lady! I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right, child. I’m sorry I was so late. Go to bed. And Annabel and Hylde, you go too. Leave me with my music.’ She sat down on a stool and indicated that the harper should take her chair. His servant set down the instrument with great care and guided his master to the seat. Then he withdrew to sit silently in the shadows as Elias gently tweaked the strings back into tune before he began to play.

  V

  Behind the curtain Rhonwen too had fallen asleep. She awoke with a start as the door opened and Eleyne came into the room. She almost cried out in fright, but somehow she stifled the sound, remembering at once where she was. She heard the murmur of voices from beyond the curtain, and then the sound of the closing door. She held her breath. Was Eleyne alone, or was someone there with her? For the first time she realised that she was in the only obvious hiding place in the room; if anyone had been going to hide, to wait for Eleyne to be alone, this is where they would have secreted themselves.

  She shivered, half expecting to see the curtains twitch before her eyes and a figure slip between them. But nothing happened. She waited in the darkness, holding her breath, and then she heard the first tentative notes of the harp. She could hear no voices now, just the single notes, dropping into the silence as they were tuned, then the music. It was slow, gentle music; soothing, lilting, seductive. Rhonwen edged closer to the curtain and pulled it cautiously a fraction of an inch from the wall; she put her eye to the gap. The room was lit by a single candle and the soft glow from the fire. She saw Eleyne sitting peacefully on the stool, leaning on the table with her elbows. The candle flickered gently, throwing shadows across her face. The harper had his back half turned towards her, sitting near the fire, his fingers stroking the sounds from the strings. They appeared to be alone. There was no sign of Meg or of Annabel or Hylde. Rhonwen eased her position, aware of the cold seeping into her bones so that she was stiff and achy. The wind was moaning through a crack in the window behind her: a desolate, lonely sound. Was it the harper then, this lover who brought the glow to Eleyne’s cheeks? Rhonwen moved, trying to get a better view of his face, though she knew it was Elias. No one else could play like that. She listened, thinking over this new idea, and then shook her head in the darkness. She doubted if Elias was the man.

  She moved back from the curtain and sat down on the window seat. She was cold and stiff and she wanted to go to her bed, but she was trapped. She would have to stay there, in the window embrasure, until Eleyne had gone to sleep, and then hope that she could creep unnoticed from the room. She felt cheated and not a little angry.

  The sound of voices awakened her a second time. The music had stopped, and Elias was speaking. She crept towards the curtain again and listened.

  ‘The time has come for you to be alone, my lady,’ he said softly. ‘I shall play for you tomorrow.’

  Eleyne sat up straight, and Rhonwen saw the sudden suspicion on her face. ‘You know.’ Her voice was sharp in the silence.

  Elias smiled. ‘I know, my lady. I need no eyes to see, so I see things which others miss.’ He rose and his servant scrambled to his feet and hurried to his master’s side. Rhonwen was startled. She hadn’t even noticed the young man sitting against the wall by the door.

  Eleyne waited courteously as Elias moved towards the door, guided by his servant, and only when they had descended the stairs towards the lower floors of the Great Tower did she walk over to the door and bolt it behind them, then she turned back to the fire and threw on several logs. It flared a little in its bed of ash. Eleyne nodded, as though satisfied that it would burn steadily for the rest of the night. She blew out the candle on the table and moved towards her bed. She was obviously not going to call her maids.

  The room was almost dark. The warm firelight flickered up the walls and threw deep velvet shadows across the floor and Rhonwen realised that Eleyne was not, after all, alone. A man was standing near her, in the pool of deeper darkness near the bed. She caught her breath so painfully she was sure they would hear her gasp, but neither figure turned in her direction. Where had he been hiding? Had he been in the room when Rhonwen had come in? Unaware that the hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms were standing on end, Rhonwen pressed her eye closer to the curtain and watched as Eleyne moved towards him slowly, almost as though she were in a dream. Rhonwen saw the figure, scarcely more than a greater darkness against the darkness of the bed curtains, open his arms and enfold her.

  A log slipped in the hearth and Rhonwen jumped as a shower of sparks shot up the broad chimney, but neither Eleyne nor her lover moved. They were totally preoccupied with each other. Rhonwen watched, fascinated, half ashamed at her own prurient interest but unable to look away as she saw Eleyne turn at last from his embrace. Still moving in a dreamlike trance, Eleyne began to undress. The man made no move to help her. He had stepped away, and Rhonwen found she had to stare very hard to be sure he was still there. His shape merged with the curtains of the bed as he waited in the moving shadows. Eleyne’s gown fell to the floor, and Rhonwen saw the white glow of her arms as she raised
her hands to unbraid her hair. She shook it free and then pulled her shift over her head, stretching languidly upwards as she did so, flaunting her body sensuously as she dropped the garment in a tangled heap at her feet. Only then did he step forward again and Rhonwen saw that he too was naked. Her scalp prickled warningly. She had not seen him undress; she had not seen him move.

  Without warning, she was very afraid. Not once had she seen his face; she couldn’t even guess who he was and, she realised, she was shaking like a leaf, half from cold and half from terror.

  The room was growing darker as the fire burned low; she could barely see them now. They were still standing up, lost in one another’s arms, as if almost reluctant to fall on the bed and consummate their passion. Rhonwen’s throat had gone dry, and the room was so cold that her feet had gone numb. She looked longingly at the fire and, almost in response to her yearning for more heat, a log slipped from the sluggishly burning pile. A sheet of flame spurted up, throwing a swathe of clear amber light across the room. Rhonwen looked towards the bed and saw his face.

  For a moment her terror was so great she could not breathe; she stepped back, forgetting her hands were clutching the curtain, and as they swung inwards she stumbled and fell, pulling them open. With a moan, she crumpled in a heap between the two window seats and brought her arms around her head.

  Eleyne’s voice was sharp with anger: ‘What are you doing there? Get up!’

  Rhonwen raised her head, searching in wild terror for the dead king. He had gone. Eleyne stood in front of her, alone. She had pulled on her bed gown, and her face was white with fury. Rhonwen saw the gleam of the phoenix between her breasts.

  ‘How long have you been there?’

  Rhonwen was shaking so violently she could not stand. ‘I was asleep. I must have fallen asleep waiting for you –’ Her mind groped for excuses even as it flitted around the reality of what she had seen. ‘I’m sorry, cariad, I must have fallen off the seat. So silly.’ She was kneeling at Eleyne’s feet, and she realised that tears were pouring down her face. She raised her hands pathetically and Eleyne took them, her face softening.

  ‘You’ve been asleep all the time?’ She sounded relieved.

  Rhonwen nodded violently, unable to meet Eleyne’s eye. ‘I was dreaming, I dreamt I heard music, then I woke and found myself on the floor. I’m sorry, I must have given you such a fright.’ She was trying desperately to pull herself together; she had known that the king visited Eleyne, but to see him as real as another man, taking her in his arms … she was overcome with shock. He was still a man and he could still love Eleyne like a man. Grunting with the effort, Rhonwen stood and walked stiffly over to the fire.

  ‘This room is very cold, cariad,’ she said, her voice trembling.

  ‘That’s because it is the middle of the night,’ Eleyne said gently. ‘I’ll come with you to your room and make sure you get to bed.’ She bent and threw on another log. The fire was burning brightly now. Eleyne reached for the candle and thrust it into the flames. The light spread to the dark corners near the bed. There was no one there; nothing, not even a shadow.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I

  Three nights passed before Alexander returned. Watching Eleyne’s face, following her, waiting for her at every opportunity, Rhonwen knew when he had come back. From the shadow of the wall she could see the dreamy contentment in Eleyne’s eyes, feel the heavy sensuality of her body as she moved across the courtyard and towards the stables.

  Her lips set in a tight, straight line, Rhonwen hurried up the winding stairs towards Eleyne’s bedchamber. It was deserted, as she had known it would be. Sliding silently through the door, she closed it and slid the bolt. The fire had been banked up to smoulder quietly all day. The shutters were open and the heavy embrasure curtain drawn back. Rain was falling and a dull light filtered into the room. It strayed across the floor towards the bed, playing on the heavy bed hangings.

  Rhonwen looked towards the bed where she had seen the tall shadowy figure and she made herself walk towards it. It had been neatly made by the bed maids, who every morning smoothed the sheets and covers with the long sticks which enabled them to reach to the very middle of the broad high bed, and it was covered with a heavy embroidered coverlet. There was no sign now of Eleyne’s companion of the night.

  ‘Are you there?’ Rhonwen murmured aloud. She waited, half afraid, half relieved at the echoing emptiness and silence of the room. ‘Where are you?’ She listened again, peering around. ‘I’m on your side. I know how much you loved her, I’ve always known. She can still bear your child.’ She fell slowly to her knees. ‘I’ll help you, I’ll do anything you wish. Einion Gweledydd was right, wasn’t he? He was right all along. She belongs to you. She will bear your child. Your son will die without an heir and then you will need my Eleyne, my cariad. Then you will give her a child and I will take care of him. I take care of all my Eleyne’s babes. If I’d been there before, your little ones would not have died.’ The thin daylight lay in a flat wash across the floor. In the hearth the fire smoked. The bedchamber was empty.

  ‘Listen to me!’ she cried out again. ‘Please. Listen.’

  She scrambled to her feet and hurrying to the jewel casket on the table she threw back the lid. She rummaged through Eleyne’s jewels, her arthritic fingers clumsy with cold, and at last she found the phoenix. She clutched it with an exclamation of triumph and turned back to the bed. ‘You see, I have it! This is how she calls you, isn’t it? This is how you reach her. Your talisman. She doesn’t know I know. She thinks I’m a silly old woman, but I’m not.’ Her eyes narrowed craftily. ‘I see everything. And I wait. And I am your servant, most gracious prince.’ She was out of breath. Was that a movement at last, near the wall, behind the heavy columnar folds of the bed curtains? ‘I’ll do whatever you wish.’ Painfully she knelt, addressing the curtain. ‘I’ll get rid of the earl for you.’ Her voice dropped confidentially. ‘I know of poisons which no one will suspect; I’ve used them before, for her. She won’t know but she’ll be free. She’ll be yours absolutely.’ She looked down coquettishly at the enamelled phoenix. ‘My pretty bird. You’ll help us, won’t you? You’ll serve your king and his lady and bring them together.’ She put her head on one side. ‘But now I must put you away. We don’t want anyone to know our secret, do we?’ She climbed to her feet again. ‘No one but you and me and the king and my sweet, sweet lady.’

  Hylde pressed her eye closer to the keyhole of the door. She saw the woman clearly as she knelt near the bed, but she was too far away to be heard. Only once had she raised her voice. ‘Listen to me,’ she had cried, ‘please listen!’ She was pleading with someone. Hylde pressed closer to the door. Who was in there with her? She was deeply suspicious of Rhonwen. Meg had confided that the old woman had hidden in her lady’s chamber three nights before and Hylde had immediately begun to watch her. The mad old witch was up to something.

  She saw something glitter in Rhonwen’s hand as she raised it before her. She was holding it the way people would hold a crucifix or something holy, to ward off evil. Was there a crucifix among her lady’s jewels? She had never seen one, other than the carved cross she sometimes wore with her beads. Hylde crossed herself and wished she could see who Rhonwen was talking to. She found she was trembling and glanced behind her. The empty staircase wound out of sight, dimly lit from the doorway at the bottom. In the silence she heard the gentle moan of the wind.

  When Rhonwen at last left the chamber, Hylde was hidden in the darkness of the stairs above her. She waited until Rhonwen’s shuffling steps had died away into silence, then she tiptoed down. Only one person had left the room, so whoever had been talking to Rhonwen was still there.

  Not giving herself time to think, she threw open the door and sailed in. ‘What are you doing in my lady’s room –’ She stopped in her tracks and stared around. The room was empty, but there had been someone here with Rhonwen. The woman had not been alone, she was sure of it. Methodically she began to sea
rch – the garderobe, the coffers, the window embrasure, the gap behind the bed, the heavy bed hangings; she even stepped into the hearth and peered up through the smoke into the chimney. There was no one: the room was empty.

  The small hairs on her arms prickled with fear. She walked over to the jewel casket and pulled back the hasp – unlocked in spite of her warnings – then she threw back the lid and stared at the jumble of brooches and chains and earrings which lay there. At the bottom of the casket, wrapped in wisps of silk, lay two pendants. She had never seen the countess wear either, but she had unwrapped them once to show Hylde: a fabulous gleaming phoenix with jewelled eyes springing from a nest of flames and a beautiful prancing horse. Also wrapped in the bottom of the casket was a small engraved gold ring. As she had thought, there was no crucifix; no ring which contained a holy relic. She lowered the lid and pulled the hasp back across its loop. There was only one explanation left of what Rhonwen was doing: she was casting a spell.

  Hylde took her suspicions to Eleyne that evening, as Eleyne was changing for supper. She chased the countess’s other women away before confessing cheerfully to her eavesdropping, and informed her mistress that Rhonwen had hidden in her chamber three nights before as well. She waited for a reaction, and she was not disappointed. Anger and fear chased each other across Eleyne’s features before she controlled her emotions and smiled at Hylde who was holding her mantle ready.

  ‘You think she was casting a spell?’

  Hylde shrugged. ‘She was talking out loud, my lady, and holding something up before her like this.’ She held her hand out in front of her nose. ‘She sounded as if she were pleading with someone. I searched the room, but there was no one here.’ She looked around, conscious that once more her arms were covered in gooseflesh.

  Settling her mantle over her shoulders, Eleyne turned to her jewel casket. Hylde watched. If someone had been rummaging through them, would her lady notice? But Eleyne merely picked out a brooch to fasten her mantle and dropped the lid of the casket without a second glance.