long time at the mite in the heavy wooden cradle, then he looked up at Eleyne. ‘Another girl?’
‘That was God’s will.’
‘Was it? Or did you use charms and potions to ensure it?’ His expression was flat and hard.
Eleyne shrugged. ‘It did not matter to me what sex the child was. She is healthy and baptised.’
‘So caring a mother!’ He bent over the cradle and lifted out the swaddled bundle. ‘At least it’s obvious that she is mine.’ The baby’s hair was thick and dark, her eyes set close above the small nose. ‘Where is Joanna?’ When he had come to Fotheringhay the sum mer before, he had not once asked to see his daughter.
Eleyne tensed. ‘Somewhere with her nurses,’ she said guardedly.
‘Don’t you know?’ His tone was half accusing, half mocking.
‘Of course I know. She’s safe with them.’ Eleyne was suddenly afraid. She did not want him to see her beautiful daughter; did not want him to have any claim over the child at all.
‘I hope so.’ He put the baby down.
She dreaded his appearance at her bedside that night, but he did not come. She lay awake, afraid to close her eyes, but her night was undisturbed.
When Rhonwen came to her in the morning, her eyes were glittering with hatred. ‘He has taken the little one.’
‘Taken?’ Though still half asleep, the word slammed into Eleyne’s brain. She pushed herself upright in the bed and peered into the cradle.
‘Not the baby,
‘Sweet Mother of God!’ At Eleyne’s desperate cry, Hawisa began to sob, but her mother ignored her. Flinging her cloak around her shoulders, she was halfway to the door before Rhonwen stopped her. ‘It’s no use; they’re long gone. He took her in the night. Little Sarah Curthose tried to stop him and had her face beaten to pulp for her pains.’
‘He’ll have taken Joanna to London.’ Eleyne’s breasts ached as the baby cried. Scooping Hawisa into the crook of her arm, she opened the front of her shift and felt the usual sharp wince of pain as the small mouth clamped on to her nipple. ‘We’ll go after him. Now, as soon as the horses are made ready.’ Her face was bleak. ‘See to it for me, Rhonwen.’
Encumbered by servants and the baby, they did not reach London until noon the following day. Within two hours Eleyne, in her finest gown, was riding towards the Palace of Westminster. She could barely stay on her horse; tired to the point of collapse, her body still weak from giving birth, she nevertheless rode to the door and slid from Tam Lin’s back. As a groom ran to take the horse’s bridle, she staggered slightly.
The great hall was crowded, but she could see the king surrounded as usual by noblemen and servants. He appeared to be studying a huge book as Eleyne pushed her way towards the dais. He looked up as she approached and frowned. ‘Niece, I did not give you leave to come to court.’
Eleyne managed a deep curtsey. ‘My child was safely delivered, your grace, and I am churched, but my husband has returned to London. I need to see him urgently and hoped to find him near you.’
Henry smiled coldly. ‘He has been here, but not, I think, today. If you and he are once more together, that pleases me.’ He leaned forward and looked into her face. ‘You are well, niece?’
‘Well enough, sire, thank you.’ She saw sympathy in his eyes. For what? The heartache and loneliness now that Alexander was dead? Henry had never condoned her love, never admitted he knew about it save in that one interview three years before.
She took a step forward, afraid that he was going to wave her away. ‘Robert has taken our little girl, and I’m afraid for her.’ She could not hold back the words. ‘You must help me to find her. Please.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘She doesn’t know him. He was drunk. He nearly killed her nurse…’ Oblivious of the people around her she caught his hand and sank to her knees. ‘Please help me. Please.’
Henry frowned down at her. ‘You are talking about his daughter.’
‘I am talking about a little girl who would not even recognise him.’
‘A common enough occurrence.’
‘What is not common, sire, is for a man to take away a child without so much as a nursemaid to take care of her.’
‘But why should he do such a thing?’ Henry looked puzzled. He had not tried to release his hand from her grip.
‘Because he knew it would hurt me. He has always enjoyed hurting me.’ She held his gaze until the king looked away uncomfortably.
‘Very well. I will send men to find him for you,’ he mumbled. ‘I will send to you when we have found her.’
The king watched as she made her way back down the hall. She had been so beautiful once, his niece, so spirited. Now it was as if her vital flame had dimmed. He had long ago stopped reproaching himself for marrying her to de Quincy to teach that old fox, her father, a lesson, but now his conscience pricked him again. He snapped to his secretary, ‘See that Robert de Quincy is found without delay and that his daughter is recovered and returned to her mother.’
But Robert de Quincy and Joanna were nowhere to be found.
XV
Isabella was sitting in the sun in the garden sewing when the nun came to fetch her to the abbess’s parlour. She was thin and pale and her eyes were dull with boredom. Her contrition and fear after the earthquake, like that of her companions, had lasted several months, but as the convent returned to normal and the end of the world did not come her piety faded.
She had begun to write letters again: to the king; to her de Braose relatives; to her nephews in Wales, long pathetic letters begging for her release. She hated the convent. Like the other rich ladies who lived there, for one reason or another out of society, she once again had servants to wait on her, her habits were of the richest silk, her food appetising and plentiful, with only the merest nod towards fasting, and she had the best wine with every meal. But she was still a prisoner. She could never leave the convent walls.
Abbess Flandrina had died two years before, to be succeeded by the tall, elegant Emma Bloet, a kind sincere woman who was deeply sympathetic to her unwilling charge, had Isabella but realised it. She entered the abbess’s parlour with a scowl. No doubt the abbess was about to administer further penance for yet another of her small transgressions.
It was only as she raised her eyes after kneeling to kiss her superior’s ring that she saw the tall young man in the livery of the King of England. Her heart turned over with excitement. At last the king had taken pity on her; he had seen the pointlessness of shutting her away. Dafydd was dead. She was not Welsh. At last he was going to free her.
She could feel herself expanding and glowing beneath the young man’s eyes like a wilted flower which has been put into water. ‘At last you have come to take me to court!’ Even her voice had sparkle in it as she turned to the young man, but it was the abbess who answered for him.
‘No, sister, he has not come to take you anywhere.’ Her tone was a mixture of exasperation and sympathy. ‘Sir John is here to make enquiries about the whereabouts of your sister-in-law Lady Chester’s child.’
Isabella didn’t understand. Her hope had been so high, the moment of excitement and relief so intense that the truth was incomprehensible.
‘Lady Chester’s child?’ she echoed blankly.
‘The child’s father has abducted her and it is believed he will have sequestered her somewhere in the country,’ Sir John volunteered awkwardly. He had seen the hunger in the eyes of the Princess of Aberffraw and he pitied her. She must have been pretty once, though now she was faded and her features were hard. ‘The king thought of you immediately, as Lady Chester’s sister-in-law.’
