III
Now that she had allowed herself to think about Alexander, Eleyne could think of nothing else. Her whole being ached with longing. Some part of her which had been walled off in misery had come alive again.
‘So, at last you have come to your senses,’ Rhonwen remarked. ‘How I bless the Lord Gruffydd for talking some sense into you.’
‘Do you think Alexander will still want me?’ Eleyne wavered and her hand went unconsciously to her temple, where the worst of her scars still showed beneath the soft loops of her hair. Was that her real reason for not facing him again? Her terror of what he would say when he saw her scars?
‘Of course he will want you,’ Rhonwen said. ‘I guarantee it. The love he has for you is something very special. I have never seen a man so in love.’
‘Then why didn’t he come after me?’ Eleyne moved to the mirror, studying her face, something she very rarely did. She touched her forehead with her fingertips. The scars had faded: in the evening, in the candlelight they hardly showed at all. Did they make her look ugly? She tried to view them dispassionately, as a man would, assessing them in a way she had not brought herself to do before… but she could not judge. The scars which hurt were inside her.
Would he still want her? She stared into her own eyes seeking an answer, and found none. Instinctively she glanced across at the fire. But there was no answer there either.
‘He didn’t follow you because he respects you too much. He wanted what you wanted, even if it destroyed him to wait,’ Rhonwen said softly. ‘But he has waited, and he has never given up hope.’
‘How do you know?’ Eleyne turned from the mirror and looked at her.
‘I just know.’ Rhonwen smiled enigmatically, her eyes still with that strange feral blankness which had lurked in them since her experience in the loch. ‘Alexander of Scotland is one of the few men I have ever admired unreservedly; the only man I have ever met who deserves my Eleyne. Unlike that filth who is your husband.’
Eleyne smiled. ‘I wonder if you like Alexander because he is a king.’
Rhonwen grinned. For a moment she focused totally on Eleyne’s face and Eleyne felt something of her old warmth. ‘It helps,’ she said candidly. ‘But above all he is a man of honour. He will be waiting for you if you have the courage to go to him – and you have the courage.’
‘Yes, I think I do at last.’
‘And to win your brother’s bet we must go soon.’
‘I think I can afford to lose sixpence…’
But Rhonwen was shaking her head. ‘No, no, we must go at once. Don’t you see, he might try to stop you!’
‘Gruffydd?’
‘No, not Gruffydd, de Quincy!’ Rhonwen’s voice hardened. ‘He has seen you again. You have spoken to him. He has remembered you and he has the king’s ear. Don’t trust him,
For a moment Eleyne was silent, then she nodded. What was there to wait for? She wanted Alexander, she wanted him so badly she could not imagine how she had lived without him all this time.
IV
Gruffydd peered at the courtyard three storeys below. In the soft moonlight the cobbles looked like beaten earth, the shadows black holes in the wall. It was at night that the animals in the king’s menagerie grew restless; in the silence he could hear the snarling of a leopard. It was at night too that the fetid air from the moat and the cold mud smell of the river merged with the cooler winds and sometimes, through the high window, he imagined he could smell the cold clean winds of Yr Wyddfa.
He turned to look at his companions as they sat before the fire, the chessboard between them: two Welsh men, Ion and Emrys, who had loyally volunteered with so many others to share his exile and his imprisonment and with them his eldest son, Owain.
Eleyne’s visit had made him restless. When she had gone he had stood a long time looking down out of this same window, to see if he could catch a glimpse of her as she left the Tower. Had he ever intended to try to keep his part of the wager, or had he done it to goad her into going after some happiness in a bleak world? He wasn’t sure. He had hated to see her so unhappy, and he had guessed that one of the real reasons for her reluctance to go back to Scotland was her fear of Alexander seeing her scars. But they were nothing. Court beauties he had seen in Henry’s apartments had worse disfigurements by far than the marks he had seen on her face. They added, if anything, to the quirky nature of his spirited sister’s beauty. He did not know if Alexander still loved her, but she had to find out and, if she wanted him, fight for him!
He sighed. He used to be a fighter, but the mood had gone. There was so much against him: his father’s wishes, Dafydd’s success, and now the combination of Dafydd and Henry of England. His fate seemed inescapable.
He sighed and leaned forward, his elbows on the broad sill. He had never really thought about escape. Everyone knew it was impossible to escape from the Tower unless one had friends and money, and even then it wasn’t easy. Yet now, looking down into the inner ward far below, a plan began slowly to form. Once down there it would not be hard to hide in those dense black shadows until daylight came; then, when the heavy gates opened to admit the supply carts from the city, he only had to find an empty one ready to leave, climb in, lost in the milling crowds, and crouch under some empty sacks. He doubted if the security was tight. What had Londoners to fear? Certainly not one fat, middle-aged Welshman who had lodged in the Tower for two and a half years without making the slightest attempt to escape. Eleyne was right. Why hadn’t he done it years ago?
He leaned further into the window. The problem was reaching the ground. The doors were locked and there were guards at every cross landing on the main stairs in the great keep. He had seen them when he had been summoned to King Henry’s apartments on the floor below his. He had not considered the window until Eleyne’s remark about there being no bars; her challenge. He inched forward and peered down. It was a long way down from the great double stone lancets, but as a youth he would have thought nothing of shinning down a rope from a window higher than this!
Perhaps, after all, all bets were on. He smiled to himself. Why delay? St David’s Day was perfect. What better day to set off on his journey home?
‘Ion. Emrys. Owain. A word.’ He turned towards the chess players.
There were plenty of sheets to knot together. The three men leaned out in turn and made the calculation, then they compared notes. They were within two sheets of one another in their guesses. They would wait until the darkest hour of the night, just before the guard changed, when the sentries were cold and tired and huddled around their braziers. Then they would go.
Ion cast a wary eye up at the brightness of the moon. ‘By then it will be around the side of the keep and this window will be in deep shadow.’ He grinned. They were all excited now, Gruffydd’s mood deeply infectious.
They piled pillows in the prince’s bed and covered them with blankets, then did the same for the other beds. The guards seldom checked on their prisoners, and breakfast was always brought late in the knowledge that a long night’s drinking was not conducive to early rising. But they could afford to take no chances. The longer start they had on their pursuers the better.
‘I’ll go first.’ Ion slapped the prince on the shoulder. ‘It’s time.’ They had enlisted the help of one of their most
