IX
King Henry granted her an audience almost at once. He was in jovial mood.
‘So, niece, how are you? I’m glad your brother decided to come to heel and that ridiculous business in Wales is over. You know he is coming here to London?’
Eleyne hid her surprise. She gazed at her uncle in some dislike. ‘I didn’t know, no.’ A survey of the great hall at Westminster had reassured her that neither of the de Quincy brothers was in attendance on the king.
He smiled. ‘Indeed he is, and I have brought Gruffydd and the Lady Senena to London as my guests at the Tower.’
Eleyne was almost speechless with horror. She had known nothing of this. ‘Your prisoners?’
‘My guests.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘I am glad to see you here at last. You’ve been too long in mourning for your father. We have missed you at court.’ There was a pause. ‘Your husband has been lost without you. He will be very glad to hear of your return.’
‘Your grace -’ She tried to interrupt, but he held up his hand. ‘He has told me how much he has missed you, and how much he looked forward to having you once again at his side. Wales is too far from Westminster, Eleyne, and so…’ his eyes were gimlets, boring into her skull, ‘is Scotland. Your place is at your husband’s side. Here, at court.’
The conversation was not going as she had planned. In panic she tried to speak, but he went on ruthlessly.
‘I remember…’ he smiled without warmth, ‘that you asked me to draw up a pardon for a woman of your household. The Lady Rhonwen, was it not?’ She stiffened with suspicion. ‘Your husband has spoken to me about the case and pleaded her cause. I think, Eleyne, it will be possible to give her that pardon.’ He smiled again. ‘Once you are back in Sir Robert’s bed, where you belong.’
It was all so neat. Robert had baited his trap and waited, and she had walked straight into it. She dropped her head in bleak despair as she left the king’s presence chamber. Robert had grown clever, she had to give him that. Clever and devious and patient. All he had had to do was wait and she had come as meekly as a lamb to the slaughter. She could not disobey the king’s direct command.
X
‘I will return to your hall, and to your fireside.’ She confronted her husband in the panelled solar in the Earl of Winchester’s house. They were alone for the first time since he had left her at Aberdour more than two years before. ‘But I will not sleep in your bed.’
‘Then you can sleep on the floor.’ His tone was mild, though his face was hard.
‘Willingly.’ The silence which followed her retort was broken by the rattle of wheels on the cobbles outside the window.
‘Hardly the spirit to earn a pardon for your viperous nurse.’ Robert curled his lip.
‘Before the world I shall be your wife again. Is that not enough to appease your vanity?’ She took a step towards him and involuntarily he shrank back. She had grown very thin, her face almost austere in its gravity, and there was a coldness about her which repelled him. He had been looking forward to taking her back, looking forward to the excitement her anger and disdain always raised in him; above all, he had been looking forward to dominating her, but now, looking into those chilling eyes, he felt his confidence waver.
‘Do you want your pardon or not?’ he asked sulkily. His voice was still arrogant, but he had turned away from her. Pulling his dagger from the ornate sheath at his belt, he began to pare his nails with exaggerated casualness.
‘Yes, I want the pardon.’
He wasn’t sure if it was resignation which flattened her voice or hatred. Either way it gave him no pleasure.
‘Then I shall go to the king and get it for you.’ He sheathed his dagger and stood up. ‘I shall stay with you in Gracechurch Street as long as the court sits at Westminster. I am sure Countess Clemence will not object. Then we can ride to Fotheringhay.’
XI
The summer had been one of soaring temperatures and devastating drought. The corn shrivelled in the fields and throughout the land men and women searched the skies for some sign of rain. Autumn brought no relief.
Eleyne watched anxiously over her horses, to which she gave more and more of her time, seeing the grazing disappearing and knowing there was little hay for the winter. When Robert wasn’t pursuing the succession of obsessive legal battles he had undertaken to consolidate Eleyne’s claim to her dower lands, he had taken to drinking outside, carrying his wine to the shade of the woods where two local girls amused him in the time- honoured way. He did not sleep in Eleyne’s bed.
They had left Rhonwen in London with her pardon. Tacitly the two women had agreed that for the present this was best. If Eleyne needed her, Rhonwen would come, and Eleyne found that she had parted from Rhonwen with something like relief. Fond though she was of her nurse, there was something about Rhonwen which made her more and more uneasy; a cold core to the woman’s soul even when she smiled.
Her sleeves rolled up, her head shaded by a broad-brimmed straw hat, Eleyne was with the farrier examining a wound on the hock of one of her mares when Robert found her. Donnet, as always, was nearby, asleep in the shade. Robert stood watching her, displeased by the sight of her tanned arms and roughened hands, then he remembered why he was there. He felt in his pouch for the letter.
She watched him cautiously as he approached. He had been drinking heavily already, although it was not yet noon, but his hand was perfectly steady as he unfolded the crackling parchment.
‘A letter, sweetheart, from my brother in Scotland.’
She took off her hat and rubbed her arm across her forehead. It left a small dusty streak which for some reason pleased him greatly. ‘He thought we would like to know: the Queen of Scots is safely delivered of a son at Roxburgh.’
She was completely unprepared. He saw the pain and shock in her eyes as though he had dealt her a physical blow. At last he had penetrated her defences. He refolded the letter. It would be so easy to turn the knife in the wound, to watch her wriggle and suffer like a lizard skewered on a dagger. ‘I think we should go north, don’t you? To pay our respects to the little prince,’ he went on. ‘Roger says the king has commanded your attendance on him. I expect he wants to show off his son to you.’
