‘As we planned before. I can give you money -’ Eleyne paused, realising that even that was no longer certain. ‘You must go where no one knows you and you can live under an assumed name. I know it will be hard, but you will be safe. I shall obtain a pardon for you somehow, I promise. One thing I know already: my husband longs to have a position in court. Secretly I think he delights in being married to the king’s niece, but he will have to take me to the king if he wants preferment.’
Countess Clemence helped her. She had swiftly formed a shrewd opinion of the young man who stood now at Eleyne’s side. He was obviously shallow, greedy and vicious and nothing Eleyne told her disabused her of this view. She nodded at once at Eleyne’s whispered, heavily censored tale, and said, ‘I shall give Rhonwen and Luned money. They can go to London, where I have houses. It is unthinkable that you should be threatened like this.’ She frowned, ‘Be careful, child. He is a spiteful young man.’
‘I’ll be careful.’ Eleyne took Clemence’s hands in hers. ‘You have been like a mother to me. I shall miss you so much when we leave Chester.’
Clemence smiled sadly. ‘And you have been the daughter I never had. You will always be in my prayers. I don’t know what will happen to the earldom of Chester now. I know your husband hopes he will get it through his marriage to you.’ She snorted derisively. ‘John de Lacy thinks he will be given it too, but I think the king will make the lack of a direct heir the excuse to take the earldom into his own hands. I shall have to move on of course. I’ll not stay under this roof with the king’s men in charge. I shall go to my own dower lands, and offer a home there to Lady Rhonwen and to your little Luned if they wish it. But in the meantime they will be safe in London.’
IV
The night after Rhonwen had left Eleyne countermanded her husband’s order about the fire.
‘Leave it,’ she ordered as the servant staggered in with the water to douse the flames. ‘We will keep a fire tonight.’
Robert frowned. ‘I said it should be put out.’
‘Not tonight.’ She spoke so forcefully that he hesitated and she seized the advantage. ‘You may go, take the bucket away. Sir Robert has changed his mind about sleeping in a cold room.’ She smiled at the boy, waiting to hear Robert’s shout of fury, but it didn’t come. He waited until the door had closed.
‘You will be sorry you did that,’ he said softly. ‘I do not expect my wife to defy me.’ Three parallel scratches flared angrily on his cheek.
Eleyne had been waiting for this moment, her fear eclipsed by her fury. ‘If you wish to sleep in the cold, sir, I suggest you go out to the stable. If you wish to sleep with me, you will behave as a knight and a gentleman. If not, the king shall hear of it. I have already written to him telling him that I am coming to see him. And do not think, sir, that I would be afraid to show the king my backside as evidence of your treatment to me. I will show him every inch of my body if I have to.’ The words echoed in the silence.
Robert looked uncertain. ‘Are you challenging me?’
‘I am telling you how this marriage will be conducted in future.’
‘A future without your nurse presumably.’ His eyes glittered.
She nodded. ‘A future free of your threats. Rhonwen has gone, so has Luned. There is no one here now that I care that much for – ’ She snapped her fingers beneath his nose. ‘If you wish to be a husband to me, sir, it will be on my terms if you hope for a career in the king’s service.’
He could of course lock her up and keep her from the king; he could, by law and custom, do anything he liked with her, except actually kill her, but she was fairly sure he wouldn’t. He wanted the king’s favour, and she was his only route to it.
V
When the time came to leave Chester the baggage train was shorter than anything Eleyne was used to. It included her horses, her belongings, her dower plate and bedding, the wedding gifts she had received including two silver basins and a jewelled chaplet from the Queen of Scotland and a tapestry from Arras from her uncle the king. There were only a few servants: Robert announced on the last day that he could afford no more. It was hardly an escort fit for the Countess of Chester.
At least to begin with they were to live at Fotheringhay. Eleyne took comfort from the familiar surroundings, which had seen so much of her marriage to John, but it was small compensation for the misery of her new life. She was trapped. Her dreams had come to nothing. Einion’s predictions were so much dust, blown and vanished on the wind. To keep herself sane, she allowed a tenuous thread of hope to remain deep inside her, that Alexander would hear of her plight and find the means to rescue her and declare her marriage invalid – but reality was too pressing and too unhappy to allow her time for dreams.
Robert had not mentioned the missing wedding ring. He had taken note of her threats and ceased his overt tormenting of her, often drinking himself insensible in the hall and sleeping there amongst his companions. But when he was sober enough to come to her room, he took every opportunity to assert his will, and in bed, where she had no choice but to obey him, he hurt her viciously and frequently, never enough to leave a mark, but enough to make her dread each day’s end. There was little to distract him save hunting: there was no earldom now, no great estates to administer. Eleyne’s dower lands were still the subject of royal enquiry; even the manor and castle of Fotheringhay might be taken from her, though now she had letters confirming that she could for the time being consider Fotheringhay, Nassington and Baddow as part of her inheritance to give her and Robert an income to live. Robert instructed bailiffs in her name to visit them and raise money.
When the chance came at last to ride to London, they both – for their own reasons – seized it with alacrity. The court was at Westminster and Robert’s brother, Lord Winchester, had suggested that they join him in the south as the February ice began to give way to the long-hoped-for thaw.
They were guests in a stone-built house in one of the new fashionable suburbs of London south of the River Thames at Southwark and there a letter came for Eleyne. She took it with a glance at her husband, hoping he had not seen it, but he had spotted it at once. The seal was blurred. She could not immediately recognise it.
‘A letter, madam,’ he said with the smooth smile which she had come to loathe. ‘Please, allow me to see it.’
‘It is addressed to me, sir,’ Eleyne retorted, her voice tight with anger. She saw the raised eyebrows of her husband’s family around them and forced herself to smile. ‘Come, you cannot ask to see my billets-doux. What would my lovers think!’
The message was from Rhonwen, she was sure of it. Dear God, how could the woman have been so foolish as to send it openly here? It was three months since Rhonwen and Luned had ridden out of Chester Castle into the icy winter’s night. They had not been heard of since.
Robert laughed heavily. ‘If that is a billet-doux, sweetheart, all the more reason for your husband to see it. I wish to know who your secret admirers are.’ Stepping forward he snatched the letter from her hand. She saw his brother’s frown of disapproval. The Earl of Winchester seemed to have little time, normally, for his youngest brother and she suspected that their invitation now was due solely to his curiosity about his new sister-in-law.
She glanced at Robert as he broke open the seal on the letter and watched his face nervously as he read the contents. It was several moments before he looked up. Far from registering fury he looked pleased.
‘This is from your aunt, the Queen of Scots. She has arrived in London and wishes you to call upon her.’
‘Aunt Joanna?’ Eleyne was quite unprepared for the jolt of shock and excitement which swept through her. ‘And the King of Scots? He is not in London?’ She realised it was impossible even as she said it. Her heart had started beating very fast. Terrified he might see the longing in her eyes she looked down at the floor.
‘Of course not.’ He tossed the letter on to the table. ‘The queen has been visiting the shrine of St Thomas at Canterbury, it seems. She is on her way back to Scotland.’
