he wanted from her. Rhonwen had been so sure, but was it possible after all that had come between them that he still loved her?
She paced up and down. In the distance the bells from Kelso Abbey called the monks to nones. Her skirts stirred small eddies of dust from the bare boards and she heard voices from the shop downstairs as the women of the town brought their dough to the baker’s great oven. A dog barked endlessly, tied to the door across the narrow street; wheels rattled on the cobbles of the main road towards the castle.
Shouts and the sound of splashing took her back to the rear window, and she stood watching as three small boys stripped and leaped laughing in the river, drenching one another with the near-stagnant water. She stood for a long time watching them, then she went and sat on the bed, lying back, her arm across her eyes. She must have dozed, for when she went back to the window some time later the sun had moved behind the houses and the boys had long since disappeared. Downstairs the shop was silent now, and even the street noises had died away.
He’s not coming.
Her mouth was dry, her stomach was no longer tense with anticipation. A heavy resignation began to swamp her. She lifted the cloth from Rhonwen’s basket and peered inside. The wine would be welcome and at the sight of the food her stomach gave a growl of hunger.
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed with a cup of wine in one hand and a pasty in the other when she heard footsteps in the wynd outside. They stopped. She held her breath, listening. She heard someone on the wooden staircase, mounting two at a time. Her knuckles whitened on the cup as she saw the doorlatch jiggle up and down. Outside someone swore under their breath. There was a pause, then a quick rapping on the doorframe.
Alexander had come at last. Setting down her cup so quickly she spilled some of the wine, she scrambled to her feet and brushing crumbs of pastry from her gown she ran to the door and fumbled with shaking hands for the bolt.
He was wrapped, as she had been, in a heavy homespun cloak, a hood over his red-gold hair. He slammed the door shut behind him with his foot in the same movement as he pulled her into his arms.
‘Eleyne, sweet Eleyne, did you think I’d never come? Dear God, lass, but I’ve missed you!’ He pulled her to him so hard she gasped for breath. ‘My Eleyne, what have I done? You should have been Alex’s mother! You should have been my queen! Sweet Christ, how could I have been so stupid? When you are away from me, it’s as though a piece of me is missing!’ His face was in her hair. ‘I don’t think I can ever let you go again.’ He held her at arm’s length, his eyes on hers. ‘How can our destinies keep us apart like this?’ It was a cry of anguish.
She clung to him. ‘You are a king. Your destiny is not yours to direct,’ she said bleakly. She looked up, her eyes on his, shaken by the passion and anger in his words. Why, if he felt like this, had he turned his back on her? Why had he married Marie?
Reading her thoughts with ease he groaned. ‘You are right. My destiny must be ordered by my duty, by my country. If I had married you it would have brought disaster, and yet I know now that I can’t live without you!’ He was rocking her back and forth in his arms. ‘Oh, what are we to do, lass?’
‘Make love,’ she whispered gently. ‘If our love was made by the gods, it doesn’t need the blessing of church or man.’
For a single breathless moment they were drowning in each other’s eyes, then his lips were on hers, then on her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, and his hands were already busy with the laces at the back of her gown. He continued to kiss her as he undressed her until he was holding her naked in his arms.
‘Aren’t you going to undress?’ She freed her hands from his embrace long enough to unfasten the golden brooch at his shoulder.
‘In a minute. I want to see you first.’ He stood back, his eyes caressing her body with such love she could feel the touch of his gaze on her skin, stroking, inflaming her, and she found herself breathing heavily and deeply as if he were already inside her.
‘Unbraid your hair, lass.’ His voice was husky. At last he was pulling off his tunic. She undid it with shaking hands and shook her head so the tangled curls flew in a cloud around her face.
He smiled. ‘You’re too thin. Why don’t you finish your pasty?’ He had noticed the remnants of her meal lying on the napkin on the bed.
‘I couldn’t eat anything now.’
‘Later then.’ He stepped towards her.
It was much later. It was dark when they sat up and ate and drank together in the bright starlight which filtered through the open window.
Eleyne giggled, leaning against his shoulder. ‘I’m covered in crumbs.’
‘I’ll lick up every one. Here, my love, have some more wine.’ The jug clicked against her cup and she felt the velvety wetness splash on her breast.
‘Do we have to go?’
‘You know we do. And separately.’ He sighed. ‘We’ll both have been missed. I hope the Lady Rhonwen has a story to tell your husband as to where you are.’
‘She will.’ Eleyne didn’t want to know what Rhonwen told Robert; she didn’t care as long as she was in Alexander’s arms. ‘Can we come here again?’ she whispered.
‘I’m sure we can.’ His voice was grim. ‘Somehow.’
It was nearly dawn when he dressed at last and let himself quietly from the room. ‘Don’t come to the castle until the main gate is open,’ he commanded, ‘then come in with the first townspeople. You won’t be noticed in the crowds.’ And he was gone.
XIV
They met three more times in the room above the bakehouse before Alexander and his court prepared to ride north to Stirling. No one appeared to have noticed their rendezvous and, that first night, the only occasion when Eleyne was absent all night, Robert had been drunk and insensible in the great hall of the castle. Each day she dreaded the row there would be when Robert said they had to go back, but he seemed content to wait for his brother.
There was no sign of Roger.
XV
Two weeks after their arrival at Stirling Rhonwen hustled Eleyne once more into her heavy cloak.
‘Hurry. It’s not so easy to get out unobserved here. I have a note from the king that you are to meet him at the house of the knifegrinder at the foot of Castle Hill. Sir Robert has ridden out with his brother, I saw them leave myself and the queen is, as always, with the child. There should be no trouble.’ She tweaked Eleyne’s cloak into place. ‘You are happy,
Eleyne nodded. ‘I love him so much, I can’t live without him.’
‘Even though you can never be his queen?’
‘Even though.’ Eleyne smiled. ‘Einion was wrong. We must accept that; or the gods have changed their minds.’
‘You haven’t seen the future again?’
‘No.’ Eleyne gave a crestfallen Donnet the order that he must once again stay behind. ‘I don’t want to see the future, Rhonwen. I want the present, that’s all, with Robert out of my bed and the king in it. Is that so very
