Child of the Phoenix

  Eleyne smiled. ‘Subtlety was never your strong point, Robbie.’

  Carrick threw back his head and laughed. ‘No, I’ll leave that to my father and my son. Subtlety and the Lochaber Axe, that’s about their mark. An unbeatable combination! But seriously, keep us in mind when you think of a match for Gratney. That’s one of the things we came to say. I think we could negotiate something which would please us all.’

  Eleyne could not keep the happiness out of her eyes. ‘That would be wonderful,’ she said softly, ‘absolutely wonderful.’

  ‘And now that we’ve settled that,’ Robert of Annandale remarked, ‘on to the subject of the king’s remarriage. Does anyone yet know whom he has in mind?’

  ‘I do.’ Eleyne answered, though Robert had been looking at her husband. ‘It is to be Yolande de Dreux, the daughter of the Count of Flanders.’ She laughed at the thunderstruck faces of the three men.

  ‘Who told you?’ Robert asked.

  ‘The king, who else? He has made his mind up who to marry, but it’s when that he cannot decide. It’s not easy for him so soon after one son’s death to acknowledge that his eldest son is far from strong and may not live. But he will do what he must.’

  Without realising it, her eyes had moved to the fire. The flames were intensifying, curdling over the peats, licking and sparking along the pine logs filling the chamber with their bitter scent.

  There were pictures there, part of the flames: she saw the horseman, the storm clouds massing round him, but in a flash he had gone and there was nothing but the orange glow, like the living centre of the sun, searing her eyeballs.

  The hands on her shoulders jerked her back to reality. ‘Eleyne,’ asked Donald, ‘are you all right?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘What did you see?’ Robert of Carrick whispered, awestruck.

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

  XI

  Morna took Eleyne’s hand and led her to the window embrasure, drawing the curtain across the alcove to give them privacy. Behind them in the solar a wall painter was meticulously working on the last corner of the room, sketching in the outlines of two figures with sinopia before he began to colour the dry plaster. Near him, his apprentice stencilled a pattern of rosettes on the green wall. The room already glowed with colour.

  ‘I must know what you want me to do. If you wish, I will return it to the sacred spring.’ Eddie’s wife was improving. Obviously the gods had forgiven the man’s intrusion. ‘Or I can keep it at my house.’ Morna paused. ‘Or I can bring it here.’

  Eleyne sat down. Her heart was beating very fast. ‘I knew it had been found,’ she said. She took a deep shaky breath.

  ‘Has he come back?’ Morna studied her face sympathetically.

  Eleyne nodded. ‘Nothing frightening, not yet, but he’s here.’ She kneaded her hands together nervously in her lap. ‘He’s growing impatient.’ She stood up, every movement betraying her fear. ‘What shall I do, Morna?’

  Morna was doubtful. ‘His power is growing. However much you beg him not to come he can reach you now the pendant is out of the water, even though it’s not here in the castle.’

  ‘I draw a circle round our bed,’ Eleyne said sadly, ‘and he has never crossed the line. And I draw a circle here in my solar and another around the castle walls.’

  Morna raised an eyebrow. ‘You believe that will keep him away?’

  ‘A powerful wizard told me how to do it. But one day,’ Eleyne clutched at Morna’s hands, ‘one day he’ll come when I’m outside the circle. And then he’ll take me from Donald.’

  ‘Has anyone else seen him?’ Morna murmured.

  ‘Yes,’ Eleyne said, ‘Sandy.’

  XII

  Eleyne held the phoenix in her cupped hands. She felt its power; felt the colours vibrating beneath her fingers. She opened them and gazed down at the jewel. Flecks of moss still clung beneath the creature’s claws.

  Gently, she packed it into an intricately carved ivory box and wedged it with lambswool. She fitted the lid with care and made her way towards the chapel. She climbed the stairs which led up over the undercroft to the first floor and went into the shadowy body of the building.

  Father Gillespie was kneeling before the altar. Crossing himself, he rose to his feet and turned as he heard her footsteps. He had lit the candles on the altar and before the statue of the Virgin.

  ‘Are you ready, father?’ Eleyne was tense with nerves.

  ‘I am.’ His face was deeply lined, his eyes narrowed and watery from years of peering at the crabbed writing in his missals and books of hours. Surreptitiously he looked at her face – his countess looked pale and strained. He knew a little of her torment from her confessions; he also suspected that she paid more than lip service to another, older god, but he did not pursue the matter. There were many gods in the mountains, and he was a tolerant man. He knew she liked him and respected him and he liked and respected her. She would have his compassion and she would have his prayers. The Blessed Christ and the Blessed Virgin would succour her in her hour of need. And was not the old king the great-great-grandson of the blessed St Margaret herself? ‘You have the object, my lady?’ He was staring at the box in her hand.

  She nodded. ‘You will bless it, father, so that no one can … so no one can use it any more.’

  ‘I shall weave a prayer around it, my lady, and beg Our Sweet Lord and his mother and all the saints to guard it. I can do no more.’

  She gave him a tight smile. ‘Thank you, father.’

  There was a strange coldness in the chapel. She shivered. She could see where he meant to put it: he had raised some of the new, painted tiles on the step before the altar, and beneath them a board had been removed. A cavity yawned black between the floor joists.

  The candle flames were flickering wildly. She saw him look at them anxiously and again she felt the cold.

  ‘Put the box on the altar, my lady.’ His voice was strained.

  Her mouth dry, Eleyne stepped forward. He was here, in the chapel. She could feel him, feel the protest and the anger in the air around her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Father Gillespie cross himself twice in quick succession.

  Eleyne …

  ‘Ave Maria, gratia plena, intercede pro nobis …’ The words John of Chester had repeated so often at her side filled her head. ‘Pray for me now and in the hour of my need…’

  Eleyne …

  She laid the box before the crucifix and crossed herself, then she knelt at her usual prayer desk and closed her eyes.

  Eleyne …

  Father Gillespie had begun his prayers. As he became more confident, his voice strengthened.

  Eleyne …

  The call was growing weaker.

  ‘Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine …’ The priest’s voice filled the high vault of the chapel. ‘Requiescat in pace … in pace … in pace …’

  The call died away, and Eleyne felt tears burning on her cold cheeks.

  Father Gillespie picked up the box and knelt on the step. He lowered the box into the darkness, then he fitted back the floorboard and replaced the tiles. He climbed to his feet and, strenuously rubbing the dirt from his hands on his chasuble, he smiled. ‘It is done, my lady.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She rose from her knees. ‘And you will tell no one, ever.’

  ‘My lips are sealed. I will have one of the masons come in and cement down the tiles. He will not know why they came loose.’

  The candles burned steadily now in the silence. She and the priest were completely alone in the chapel.

  All she had to do now was to leave another offering of gold at the holy spring where Elizabeth had died. Then she would be left in peace.

  XIII

  May 1282

  We are surrounded on all sides. By sea, Edward attacks Anglesey. He is trying to establish a blockade around Eryri. But he won’t succeed. Llywelyn knows his people and his mountains too well, and he has even ordered the digging of a secret tunnel from the palace
to the valley so we can flee in safety if Edward traps us here. Would that I could help him more, but my time is near, and he has to leave valuable men here at Aber to guard me and our son when he is born. Pray for us, dear Eleyne, and if you have the King of Scots’ ear, beg him to send us help. If Wales falls to this tyrant ambition, who knows but that Scotland might be next …

  Eleyne put down Eleanor’s letter, smuggled out of Aber, and her eyes filled with tears. Her nephew Dafydd, Llywelyn’s younger brother, disenchanted at last with his treacherous adherence to King Edward, had launched the revolt against the English tyranny in Wales only weeks after Eleyne and Donald had left Aber. Within days the revolt had spread and all Wales was again in arms with Llywelyn at her head.

  Gwynedd was far from Mar, but she did not need Llywelyn’s brief heartbroken note a week later to know that Eleanor was already dead, and that the longed-for heir to the Prince of Wales was a daughter. She had seen the woman’s agony in the candle flame and heard Wales’s sorrow in the wind on the moors.

  XIV

  ROXBURGH CASTLE

  She and Donald were at court a week later, and Eleyne lost no time in seeking a private audience with the king.

  ‘You have to do something; you must send my nephew help! Don’t you see how dangerous, how disastrous, it would be if Edward were to conquer Wales?’

  Alexander shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I am deeply sorry for Llywelyn and I hope he manages to save the situation, but the matter is terribly delicate, Aunt Eleyne. So many of my vassals are also vassals of Edward of England. You know yourself how many Scots have English estates and vice versa. I should be asking them to choose between their allegiances for a matter which does not concern Scotland.’

  ‘It will,’ Eleyne flashed. ‘If Wales falls, where do you think Edward will look next for conquest?’

  ‘Not to Scotland, I assure you.’ Alexander folded his arms. ‘Edward and I have an understanding. We respect each other. Scotland’s sovereignty is safe.’

  ‘Is it?’ She met his eye. ‘You should not trust Edward Plantagenet. I know my cousin of old; ever since he was a boy he has been ambitious, devious, and vicious. Don’t put him to the test.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Alexander scowled. ‘Because, unlike you, I get on well with him and have no reason to cross him. And I am not going to make reason by taking arms with Wales, much as I might like to for sentiment’s sake.’

  ‘You made an alliance before, against Henry – ’

  ‘An informal alliance which is no longer valid. No, I’m sorry.’

  Eleyne looked at him in despair. ‘I have seen pictures of war and disaster in the fire,’ she said quietly. ‘Your father would have listened to me.’

  ‘Then my father would have been listening to his heart, not his head,’ Alexander replied sharply. ‘Now, if you please, Aunt Eleyne, I have matters to attend to.’

  Alexander, why don’t you show yourself to him … why don’t you tell him of the danger … for Scotland’s sake?

  She sighed. ‘Then listen at least to one other thing I have to say. When your advisers beg you to fix a date for your marriage, listen to them,’ she pleaded. ‘I know how much you miss Margaret, and I know how much you love Alexander and what a credit he is to you, but you must have other sons.’

  His face darkened. ‘You are presuming too much, Aunt Eleyne.’

  ‘No, I’m taking a privilege allowed to old ladies!’ She raised an eyebrow imperiously and he laughed out loud.

  ‘Old? You? Never!’ He sighed. ‘I’m not a fool. I know I have to remarry. I even understand that if I die without a strong heir to succeed me that might give Edward an excuse to interfere in Scotland’s business.’ His voice was rueful. ‘I do not take unnecessary risks, I promise you. After all, I have banned grey horses from my stables and I never ride in storms.’

  ‘I’m glad.’ Taking his hand, she dropped a deep curtsey and raised his fingers to her lips. ‘Take care, my sovereign lord. I see black clouds everywhere, and it makes me afraid.’

  XV

  11 December 1282

  Isabella had woven ribbon collars for the dogs. Seeing them brought a lump to Eleyne’s throat as she thought of the Midsummer’s Eve celebrations all those years ago. There had been no further word from Joanna since her letter at Christmas the year before. Eleyne moved closer to the fire, shivering violently.

  ‘What is it, mama? Aren’t you well?’ Isabella was knotting the plaited silk around the wolfhounds’ great, shaggy necks.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Eleyne closed her eyes. A wave of terrible cold had swept over her. She turned to the fire, overwhelmed by the strange despair which had swept away her happiness. ‘It’s as though a light has gone out. Someone is dead – ’

  Isabella crossed herself nervously. ‘Who?’ she whispered. ‘Not papa?’ Her voice slid up into a frightened squeak; her father was once more with the king.

  ‘No, not papa.’

  ‘Why don’t you know?’ Isabella was used to her mother’s second sight. Though Sandy was the only one who showed signs of having inherited it, all her children accepted it as being part of the normal way of things, a short cut sometimes to the truth.

  Eleyne shrugged in despair. ‘I don’t know. I can’t always see what I want to; the flames don’t answer my questions.’ She leaned closer to the fire. ‘I can’t see anything; I can’t hear anything but the howling of the wind in the hills.’

  Isabella stared at her. ‘There’s no wind, mama, not here.’ She slid her arms unhappily around Saer’s neck and the dog turned and licked the girl’s face.

  ‘No.’ It was a whisper. ‘No, it’s a Welsh wind.’

  XVI

  Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, separated from his men as he directed an attack on Builth in central Wales, was killed by a lance wielded by a member of the Shropshire levy, a man called Stephen Frankton. He did not even realise whom he had killed.

  By the time confirmation of the news reached Scotland, Llywelyn’s head was being paraded before Edward’s troops on Anglesey and his tiny orphaned daughter and heir, Gwenllian, was Edward’s prisoner. The child was to spend the rest of her life in a nunnery.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  I

  ROXBURGH CASTLE 1284

  ‘Do I have to close my eyes and raise my arms above my head and go into a trance to convince you, sire?’ Eleyne, wrapped in a scarlet fur-lined cloak against the cold, addressed the king wearily.

  She’s getting old after all, he thought to himself. She is still a beautiful woman, but the tiredness which shows in her eyes is new, as is the despair.

  Behind them Master Elias, the king’s harper, played gently in the shadows, his sightless eyes fixed blankly on the wall. It had been Eleyne’s suggestion after Malcolm’s death that he leave Falkland and enter royal service, and his fame at court had spread far and wide. Apart from the harper they were alone.

  The king stood up and took her hands in his. ‘No, you don’t have to do that. I know you foresee a dire future for Scotland and for me. And I know that now both my sons are dead, I can put it off no longer. I must take steps to meet it.’ His third child, too, had died in far-off Norway, leaving as the king’s only heir her small daughter, Margaret. ‘When all the arrangements have been made the chancellor will go to France to fetch Yolande.’

  ‘She is a wife of whom England approves?’ Eleyne raised an eyebrow.

  ‘She is.’

  ‘So you have bought us more peace.’

  Wales had fallen to the English. Owain and Rhodri were dead and Dafydd was dead, beheaded by Edward of England, his sons captured. Gwynedd was a proud, independent principality no more.

  ‘I hope so.’ He turned away. ‘I have done what everyone wants, so why do I hear disapproval in your voice?’

  ‘Do you?’ She shrugged. ‘I see danger from England ahead. It’s no more than an instinct, but I know Edward.’

  ‘I thought it was more than an instinct; I thought it was foresight.’

  She
shrugged. ‘What use is foresight if I can see only faintly and not understand?’

  ‘You are able to warn people of what the stars intend and they can step away from fate,’ he answered.

  ‘But I saw nothing for Llywelyn. Could I not have foreseen his death and warned him?’

  ‘As you did mine? Perhaps he was too far away. Perhaps his was a fate which could not be avoided.’ The king put his arm around her shoulders kindly. ‘Go and celebrate Lord Fife’s good fortune in winning himself a beautiful wife, and stop worrying about me.’

  When Duncan of Fife, twenty-one at last, inherited his father’s earldom, he had triumphantly announced his impending marriage to Joanna de Clare, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester and a niece of Robert of Annandale’s wife. Eleyne was very proud of him.

  ‘Are you coming to his wedding?’

  He nodded. ‘Fife is one of the great earldoms of Scotland. How could I miss such a ceremony?’

  ‘You didn’t come to my wedding to his grandfather as I recall,’ she replied tartly, her voice heavy with irony.

  He gave a sheepish shrug. ‘I was very young.’

  ‘Indeed you were, and under your mother’s thumb.’ She gathered her cloak around her. ‘May the gods bless you, Alexander of Scotland. I shall wait in turn for an invitation to your wedding!’

  II

  FIFE

  Joanna de Clare was fair-haired and pretty, with large blue eyes, the daughter of one of England’s greatest earls and a close kinswoman of King Edward. Duncan was inordinately proud of her.

  The wedding ceremony was held in St Andrews Cathedral, covered in wooden scaffolding still after the great storm which had brought down the whole west front a few years before. This was not a hasty ceremony in a side chapel lit by midnight candles but a full nuptial mass before the high altar in the presence of the king and all the greatest nobles in the land.