Child of the Phoenix Read online

  He doesn’t know! Suddenly Rhonwen realised the truth – Einion was not all-seeing. He didn’t know that Eleyne had already gone. She felt weak with relief.

  Before Einion had a chance to reply Joan stood up abruptly. Her dislike of her husband’s most senior bard was obvious. ‘It is not your concern, Lord Einion, where our daughter goes, or why,’ she said coldly, and with a sharp imperious nod to Rhonwen she turned away. The matter was closed.

  X

  The mountains on both sides of the road were shrouded in mist. The horses’ hooves were muffled in mud. Looking behind her nervously for the tenth time, Rhonwen narrowed her eyes, searching the track for signs of pursuit. Surely Einion had seen her go? She had managed to arrange an escort and leave without the prince demanding to see Eleyne before she left, and she had been no more than two hours behind her charge when she turned east into the mountains. She rode fast, anxious to catch up, terrified even now that Einion would find a way to bring her back. In front of her, on the old Roman roadway, patches of mist drifted and swam, blocking out the view more than a hundred feet or so ahead. Trees vanished and reappeared, and in the silence she could hear, above the creak of the harness and the thud of the horses’ hooves, the sound of the river. Then that too faded as the road turned away from its banks and across the hills.

  It was early evening before Rhonwen came to the great river near the Abbey of Aberconwy which Eleyne’s father had founded thirty years earlier, and caught up at last with Eleyne and Cenydd as they waited for a boat to take them across the water to Degannwy. To reach the castle they had to cross the river where it narrowed before the broad estuary opened out to the north, and then from the jetty on the far side make their way on foot up to the great castle, built around the twin scree-covered peaks of the Vardre.

  There was no sign of pursuit. The road behind them was empty, shrouded in mist, and the water at their feet lapped dankly on the rocks with the rising tide. Rhonwen touched Eleyne’s shoulder. ‘The escort must take Invictus back to Aber. We’ll be safe now.’

  Eleyne hesitated. ‘You’re sure? You haven’t told him where I am?’ She gazed at Rhonwen: ‘You have. You’ve told him!’ Her voice rose in terror.

  ‘Your mother told him, not me,’ Rhonwen said. ‘There was nothing I could do. But he cannot reach you here, cariad. You’ll be safe here.’

  XI

  DEGANNWY CASTLE October 1228

  Gruffydd and Senena were waiting for them in the prince’s solar. Eleyne hurled herself into her half-brother’s arms and he swung her high off the floor.

  ‘Oh, Gruffydd, I’m so pleased to be safe here with you.’ She clung to him.

  He frowned. ‘What is it, little sister?’ He had never seen her afraid. ‘Sweetheart! you’re trembling.’ Setting her down, he glared at Rhonwen. ‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’

  Eleyne collected herself. She drew herself up, walked away from her brother and stood in front of the fire, her hands to the flames, her back turned squarely towards him. ‘Nothing has happened. I’m trembling because I’m cold.’ She changed the subject hastily. ‘Why do you keep making papa so angry, Gruffydd? You play right into Dafydd’s hands every time you do it!’

  ‘I know, sweetheart, I know.’ Gruffydd grimaced ruefully. ‘I curse myself and my stupid temper twenty times a day.’

  ‘And I curse him another twenty!’ Senena put in. She kissed Eleyne on the top of her head.

  ‘So, little sister.’ Gruffydd looked at her thoughtfully. ‘What have you done to be sent to this prison? It seems a fearful sentence for one so young.’

  ‘The Lady Eleyne is here to visit you, sir,’ Rhonwen put in. ‘She is not a prisoner.’

  ‘No?’ Gruffydd laughed bitterly. ‘Are you sure? The children of Llywelyn are only sent here when they are in disgrace. Near enough to Aber for papa to keep an eye on us, but far enough away to forget us too!’

  ‘Even so, sir, Eleyne is no prisoner,’ Rhonwen insisted.

  ‘No. I ran away,’ Eleyne put in softly. ‘I was afraid.’ She was about to say more when she caught Rhonwen’s eye and bit her lip.

  ‘The Princess Joan was angry when we came back uninvited from Llanfaes,’ Rhonwen explained. ‘She would not forgive Eleyne for that.’

  ‘Mother never likes me to be at Aber,’ Eleyne went on. ‘And Sir William de Braose likes me. That made her even angrier.’ She said it wistfully. ‘I think she likes him herself. So when I said I’d like to come here she agreed at once.’

  Rhonwen and Gruffydd exchanged glances and Gruffydd let out a soft whistle. ‘So, can the iron-willed Princess Joan be susceptible to mere human frailty after all? He is attractive to the ladies, is he, this Sir William?’

  ‘Indeed he is!’ Senena put in, teasing.

  ‘And you like him too, do you, sweetheart?’ Gruffydd chucked his sister under the chin.

  Eleyne blushed. ‘I like his horse.’

  Gruffydd let out a roar of laughter. ‘His horse, is it! Oh, sweet Eleyne! You’ve a little growing up to do, yet, I see.’

  XII

  Eleyne was playing with her little nephew, Owain, in the courtyard. He had set up a line of roughly carved wooden horses and was systematically knocking them down with his ball. Near them, taking advantage of the late autumn sunshine, the wetnurse was cradling the sleeping baby, Llywelyn, to her breast. Rhonwen was in the solar with Senena and her ladies, busy with her embroidery. Eleyne glanced up at the narrow window of the tower behind her and felt a stab of guilt. She should have been up there with them, but she was already feeling the restrictions of being incarcerated behind these high curtain walls. They made her feel safe from Einion, but she felt trapped, even though from the top of the tower she could see the mountains stretching away towards the east and south, to the west the estuary of the Conwy and beyond it the low misty hills of Anglesey.

  She had no premonition of danger as she looked idly at a group of travellers who appeared through the gates. Then she grew cold. That tall spare figure in the centre of the group, even with the hood of his travelling cloak pulled up, would be unmistakable anywhere. For a moment she was paralysed with fear, then scrambling to her feet she looked around desperately for somewhere to hide – somewhere to escape those all-seeing eyes. She thrust Owain’s ball into his hands and dived around the corner of the kitchens which were built up against the base of the western wall. Quickly she made her way down the path between the dairy and the back of the farrier’s. Lost, there, in the constant coming and going of the castle servants, she could hide until Einion had gone in to see Gruffydd. But she was the one he wanted. Of that she had no doubt. And he would find her. Imprisoned in the castle, she had nowhere to run. Her heart hammering, she peered round the corner of the dairy.

  ‘Eleyne!’

  The small voice at her elbow made her jump nearly out of her skin. Looking down, she found Owain had followed her. The sturdy small child grinned up from a grubby face. ‘Play hide and seek, Eleyne?’

  She glared at him. ‘Go back to your nurse!’

  ‘No. Owain play hide and seek!’ The shrill voice persisted. His hand crept into hers.

  Eleyne peered around the corner once more. The party of visitors was moving towards the keep and the wooden staircase to the door of the great hall. Near them she could see the nurses. With Llywelyn clutched beneath the arm of one, they were hunting frantically for their lost charge.

  ‘Go to your nurse, Owain, now.’ Eleyne gave him a sharp push.

  Owain let out a piercing wail and she saw Einion stop. Unerringly he looked towards her and she drew back into the shadows. ‘Be quiet, Owain, please,’ she murmured under her breath, but the child was now crying in earnest. Other heads were turning. The nurse was coming, clucking like an old hen. Einion had moved away.

  With a little sob of relief, Eleyne saw him climb the stairs after his companions and disappear inside the shadowed door to the keep.

  He was waiting for her as the household assembled that evening for supper.<
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  ‘Come.’ He held out his hand to her. ‘I have messages from your father.’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head and backed away, her heart thumping with terror.

  ‘You needn’t fear me, Eleyne, I am your friend.’ He rummaged in his leather scrip and brought out a sealed letter. ‘I brought others for the Lord Gruffydd.’

  She took her letter warily.

  He smiled. ‘You have had no more dreams and visions, child?’

  She shook her head vehemently, feeling his eyes on her face.

  ‘If you do, I want you to send for me. Don’t try to bear them alone. I understand.’ His voice was gentle, reassuring. ‘You are greatly blessed, Eleyne. Don’t fight your gift.’

  That was all he said. He made no attempt to speak to her alone again.

  XIII

  DEGANNWY December 1229

  Time had passed and weeks had turned to months, soothing Eleyne’s fear; reassuring her; allowing her to feel secure. When the vision came back, it was unsought and unexpected. The first snows of winter had fallen and melted almost as soon as they had settled, and a light cold rain drifted in from the estuary, soaking the cold ground and turning the ice to mud. Most of the inhabitants of the castle were huddled around the huge fires in the great hall. In the nurseries Rhonwen and Eleyne were helping the children’s nurses stitch clothes for the swiftly growing boys. Tired, Eleyne put down her needle and stood up, chilled after hours of sitting still. She went to stand before the fire, looking down into the glowing embers as she felt its warmth begin to reach her aching bones.

  The stones of the hearth were all at once so clearly defined that she could see the grain of the stone; she could hear the crack and hiss of the slivers of blackened bark as they peeled from the logs and shrivelled into ash. She put out her hand towards the fire, half intrigued, half repelled, but already she could see him, deep in the heart of the flame.

  The man was standing, turned away from her. She could see his shoulders beneath a white shirt, the rope twisted around his wrists, and the other rope, the hempen noose, around his neck. She strained forward, trying to see his face, but already the picture was fading.

  Rhonwen looked up. The child had let out a small despairing whimper. ‘Eleyne?’ she said sharply. ‘What is it?’

  Eleyne clenched her fists, fighting a wave of dizziness and nausea. ‘Nothing. It was just the heat, that’s all …’ She turned and walked back to the others. She would not tell Rhonwen in case she told Einion. She would not tell anyone, ever again, when the pictures came.

  XIV

  When the snows had blanketed the countryside and the roads were closed, Eleyne grew less afraid that Einion would return.

  Once she nearly confided in her brother. They were standing together on the walls one evening, watching the sun set in a bank of mist. Around them the encircling mountains and the distant hump of the Anglesey heartland were disappearing in the deep opal haze.

  ‘Do you like Einion Gweledydd?’ she asked. She did not take her eyes off the distant view.

  ‘He’s one of our father’s most senior bards. He has been at court a long time.’ Gruffydd blew into his cupped hands to warm his fingers.

  ‘But do you like him?’ she persisted.

  Gruffydd considered for a moment. ‘He’s not the sort of man you can like,’ he said with caution. ‘He’s too austere. There is a rumour that he holds to the old religion of the mountains and men are afraid of him for that reason. They believe he has magical powers.’

  Eleyne’s hand gripped the stone parapet. ‘And do you believe it?’

  Gruffydd laughed. ‘I suppose everyone deep down believes in magic; but not in the old religion. Christ has vanquished that. Why do you ask, sweetheart? Has he been frightening you?’ He gave her a searching look.

  ‘No, of course not. I just wondered when he came here. He seemed so stern.’ She bit her lip. ‘What did papa say to you in the letter Einion brought?’ she said, changing the subject. In all the long months since Einion’s visit, Gruffydd had never mentioned the letter in her presence.

  ‘Ah yes, the letter,’ he said heavily. ‘He said he loves me, but that he and Dafydd think it best I should stay here for a while longer. As if Dafydd would say anything else!’

  Eleyne looked up at him miserably. ‘I wish you and he could be friends, Gruffydd.’

  He gave a grim smile. ‘I am afraid that is not possible. Not as long as Dafydd usurps my place as father’s successor.’ His bitterness was savage.

  She walked away from him and leaned on the stone battlements, gazing at the hazed glow in the mountains, all that was left of the setting sun. Aberconwy Abbey on the far side of the river, its tower surmounted by the cross of Christ, was a black blur in the deep lengthening shadows. She pulled her fur mantle around her tightly. ‘How long can I stay here?’

  Again, the grim smile. ‘As long as father allows it, I suppose. I think he hopes that Senena can turn you into a lady.’ He managed a wry grin.

  Eleyne ignored it. ‘It’s strange that you want to leave and I want to stay.’

  It was a world apart here: safe, cocooned. Far from Einion and from Aber; far from the thought of marriage. The only world she was not safe from was the world of her dreams. There had been one dream over the last few months which had come again and again. A dream she had had since childhood, but which had condensed and clarified until she could remember every detail. A dream of a man who was tall and red-haired with blue-green eyes and a warm smile. A man she knew and yet whom she could not name. A man as old as her father yet for whom she felt as no child should towards a parent. A dream which she welcomed guiltily and gloated over night after night in the privacy of the darkness, as she slept back to back with Luned in their tower bedchamber.

  ‘It’s terrible to have no freedom, Eleyne,’ Gruffydd said. ‘It’s different for you. You are a woman. You will never have much freedom, sweetheart. Always a father or a husband to rule you. But for a man it’s different. A man must be free.’ He could not disguise the anguish in his voice.

  Never to have freedom; always to be ruled by someone else. Put like that, starkly, life for a woman was indeed a frightening prospect. It was something Eleyne had never even considered, and now she pushed the thought aside. It belonged to that dark area of the distant future which she had walled off in a corner of her mind – that part of her future which concerned her husband, the Earl of Huntingdon.

  ‘Sir William de Braose would know what I mean.’ Gruffydd sighed, not noticing his sister’s sudden silence. ‘He knows he is a prisoner even if he is treated as father’s guest.’

  Eleyne seized on the change of subject gratefully. Every time she thought about Sir William she felt warm and special. She liked to say his name, and she sensed her brother’s secret admiration for the man. Once or twice she had dreamed about him, adding his face gloatingly to that other face she dreamed about, the face about which she had told no one, not even Rhonwen, the face which she hoped belonged to the Earl of Huntingdon, but which in her heart of hearts she knew did not. The sixteen-year-old youth who had held her so awkwardly in his arms for a few brief moments after their wedding had fair hair and light blue eyes. If she remembered him at all, it was not as the man in her dream.

  ‘Freedom is everything, Eleyne,’ Gruffydd went on, his voice tight with frustration. ‘To be held behind walls, however comfortable the surroundings, is a torment for someone who wants to leave. It is better than a dungeon, of course, but you are not your own master. I can’t leave here until father agrees; Sir William can’t leave Aber until he has paid his ransom and father gives him his freedom in exchange.’

  ‘And when he has done that he can go home and then he will agree to Isabella marrying Dafydd.’ Eleyne smiled with relief. ‘I wonder if Dafydd is pleased.’

  Gruffydd gave a rueful grin. When and if the wedding took place, Eleyne would be summoned back to Aber and he would lose his small companion. He glanced at her thoughtfully. She was pleased about the
wedding, but would she be pleased to go back to Aber? She was afraid of something there. Mortally afraid. If only she would tell him what it was.

  XV

  DEGANNWY Easter 1230

  ‘I don’t want to go!’ Tearfully Eleyne caught Gruffydd’s hand. The letter she had dreaded had arrived at last.

  ‘I know, sweetheart, but father has sent for you. There’s nothing you can do. You have to obey him. You can’t stay here forever.’ Her hands were ice-cold in Gruffydd’s and he could see the fear in her eyes. ‘What is it, Eleyne? What are you afraid of?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She met his gaze, half defiant, half pleading, before she turned away. ‘Nothing at all.’

  After tearful goodbyes to Gruffydd and Senena and her small cousins who had to remain in their prison, Eleyne, Luned and Rhonwen, escorted by Cenydd and his hand-picked band of guards and by Llywelyn’s messengers, embarked once more across the Conwy and set off west towards Aber. Tucked into Eleyne’s baggage were several letters from Gruffydd to his father begging forgiveness; begging for leave to come to his side.

  Eleyne rode upright, her face pinched with cold, her fear buried deep inside her. She could not tell Senena or Gruffydd, she would not tell Rhonwen, that she was still afraid. Instead she clung to the thought that Isabella would be at Aber waiting for her. Sir William had, it appeared, long ago paid his ransom and gone. The wedding arrangements had been made. It should be a lovely spring.

  Above them in the mountains great swathes of snow still lay unmelted in the shadowy crevices and valleys, and over the peaks the crisp whiteness shone like caps of beaten egg-white. Wild daffodils, small tight spikes in the cold wind, only here and there showed a yellow trumpet. The wind cut like a sword. The mountain route west was impassable, so they took the road along the coast.