terrible?’
For a moment neither woman spoke, then slowly Rhonwen shook her head. ‘All that is important for me,
The narrow street was deserted as they made their way over the rough cobbles, searching the housefronts for the sign of the knifegrinder. They found it, set back in the shadows of the castle wall itself. A covered wagon pulled by two oxen was drawn up outside. The beasts, their heads buried in nosebags, dozed in the heat. The shopfront was closed and shuttered, and there was total silence in the house behind it. Rhonwen led the way down the side of the building. The evil-smelling close was dark, but Eleyne didn’t notice. She was too tied up with her own inner excitement. Her skin was tingling with anticipation, her stomach a fluttering hollow of longing. At the back of the close a small door stood half open.
‘This way,’ Rhonwen whispered. ‘Keep your head covered in case we meet someone.’ She pushed the door cautiously and led the way inside. A narrow inner stair led to an upper room where the closed shutters allowed only a dim light to filter through. It was enough to reveal four figures, swathed in black cloaks, waiting in the shadows.
Rhonwen whirled. ‘Run!’ she screamed, but it was too late. Another man had appeared at the bottom of the stairs behind Eleyne. There was a dirk in his hand.
‘Good afternoon, sweetheart.’ Stepping forward as he threw off his cloak, Robert bowed. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but this is one tender meeting his grace the king is not going to attend.’ He smiled. ‘But so that you don’t feel slighted, the queen has honoured us with her presence instead.’ He bowed at the figure standing to his left and she took a step forward, pushing back her hood.
‘Lady Chester,’ Marie smiled with a gracious nod. ‘I wanted to come myself, to be sure.’
‘To be sure?’ Eleyne echoed.
‘To be sure the rumour was true: that you would stoop to being my husband’s whore.’ She smiled again. ‘It was I who wrote the note and sealed it with his seal. Take your wife away, Sir Robert. We do not wish to see her at court again.’ The queen stood back, holding her skirts fastidiously off the dusty floor.
‘No.’ Eleyne took a step backwards down the stairs, but the man behind her had his foot on the bottom step, the dirk upright in his hand.
‘No,’ Eleyne repeated as Robert came towards her. She took another step away from him, straight into the arms of the man with the knife. He grabbed her from behind and as she screamed she felt his hand, rough and stinking of the oxen he had been tending, clamp over her mouth. It took only moments for them to tie her in her cloak, to push a gag of rags into her mouth and pull the hood down over her face, then she was carried unceremoniously down the stairs, through the front shop and thrown heavily into the wagon. A whip whistled, the wagon lurched into motion and, with much creaking and groaning, began to swing slowly down the steep hill towards the centre of the town.
Faint with fear and anger and half stifled by the gag and the hood of her cloak which they had pulled right down over her face, Eleyne found herself rolling helplessly from side to side in the bottom of the wagon. Her arms, pinioned to her sides, could not steady her and her ankles were strapped with a thong of hide. Her elbow struck something hard and she almost blacked out with pain. After that she was too dazed to know what was happening. She did not know if Rhonwen was with her. The only sounds were the creak and groan of the swaying vehicle and the occasional crack of the carter’s whip.
She lost all track of time. She didn’t know if it was minutes or hours before the sound of galloping horses blotted out the plodding gait of the oxen and they lurched to a stop. Robert leaped into the wagon and pulling her into a sitting position against the side, pushed back her hood and removed her gag. She noticed, dazedly, that he was for once completely sober. Rhonwen lay beside her, her trussed body inert.
‘Rhonwen?’ Eleyne forced her dry mouth to form the words. ‘Is she all right?’ She felt sick and dizzy and afraid, but above all she was angry. Furious with herself for being so easily tricked and furious with Robert.
Robert prodded Rhonwen viciously with his toe.
‘Move her gag, she can’t breathe.’
‘Good.’ Making no attempt to help Rhonwen, Robert perched on the backboard of the wagon, glaring at his wife. ‘Comfortable, sweetheart?’
‘You can see I’m not.’ She kept the anger out of her voice as she tried to shift into an easier position. Her arms were numb and her ankles had swollen painfully. She was desperately hot inside the heavy cloak. Her eyes kept returning to the still body on the straw-covered floor near her. ‘Where are you taking us?’
‘To stay with a friend. Somewhere the king will never find you.’
‘Aren’t you going to kill me?’
The defiance and scorn in her voice made him scowl, but he laughed harshly. ‘You are no use to me dead, wife. I would lose your income, wouldn’t I? But I don’t intend to be the laughing stock of Scotland, be sure of that. From now on you will be an obedient and faithful wife and you will never see your beloved Alexander again.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I
‘You are going to London?’ Isabella asked Dafydd, her eyes round with astonishment. ‘But why?’
‘It is the king’s command.’ Dafydd kicked angrily at a stool near him and it rocked sideways and fell to the floor. ‘He wants to consolidate the agreement we reached at Rhuddlan last August.’
‘Where you let him take Gruffydd as a prisoner to London.’ Isabella raised her eyebrow tartly. ‘Are you now going to beg for his release?’
‘I am not. Nevertheless, I don’t like Gruffydd being there. It isn’t right. Our quarrel is our own, it’s not Henry of England’s business.’
‘Then you should not have surrendered to him, should you?’ She could not resist the dig even though she saw the angry colour flood into her husband’s face.
‘I had no choice. You yourself urged it, if you remember, and my friends had deserted me.’
‘You had been too soft with them. It would not have happened to your father.’ She flounced over to the window. ‘I shall come to London with you. It will be wonderful to visit the big city.’
II
The court was all she had dreamed: noisy, rich, crowded, colourful, constantly exciting and full of gossip. And one of the first pieces of gossip she heard was about the strange disappearance of the Countess of Chester.
She heard it from Isabel Bruce, Eleyne’s sister-in-law, and Lady Winchester, both of whom had recently ridden south from Stirling.
Lady Winchester swept Isabella into her circle with a generous charm only partially motivated by curiosity as to what the little de Braose was like. She had always liked Eleyne and she detested her brother-in-law, Robert de
