Dervorguilla crossed herself. She stood up slowly and sighed. ‘Will you take them to London?’
‘No, I’ll leave them with you. Annie can look after them. I mean to find out who did it.’ Rhonwen’s face was bleak, her eyes devoid of expression. She put her hand on Lyulf ’s head. ‘I’ll find out his name and then I shall kill him.’
XI
She found them all on the island – mugwort, ash, apple, wormwood and skullcap. They burned slowly at first, smoky, acrid, the flames dull and sluggish. But they would clear.
She looked across the narrow strip of dry white sand where she had built her little fire, towards the grey walls of the castle. They couldn’t see her here and they wouldn’t come looking for her, not until dusk. Behind her the waters of the loch were a clear, bright blue. Small ripples played on the sand and sparkling lights danced around the island, teasing her eyes.
She had tried to escape from him so often that at last Malcolm, with a sigh, had brought her to Loch Leven Castle. ‘It’s only for a short time while I’m with the king,’ he said. ‘I have to go to Stirling, but when I return I shall bring you back to Falkland. By then, perhaps you will have learned to appreciate me more.’
At first she was pleased; it was a relief to be free of him, to call her body her own again, to have time to think; to watch the moon rise above the Bishop’s Hill and be able to plan her escape. She was allowed the run of the island and served with some state, but the men and women with her were all Malcolm’s trusted servants. Andrew and Janet, she discovered, had long ago gone to live with their son in Cupar. There was no way to reach the mainland. Bribery, cajolery, pleading and fury all failed. Her jailers were polite, even obsequious to Lady Fife, but all were adamant.
As time passed she thought she would go mad with frustration. There were no horses, no dogs, no entertainers, no gossips, no music. There were no books and no writing materials; nothing to do but eat and sleep and sit with her embroidery and mourn her children. It had been a moment of inspiration to look again into the fire and summon the visions.
She leaned closer to the flames, piling on another handful of herbs. They were too green. She should have dried them, but that would have taken days or weeks and there wasn’t time. She needed to see now. She needed to see why Alexander no longer came to her.
Her head began to spin, but it was not an unpleasant sensation. She sat back and arranged her skirts. As soon as the flames burned more brightly, the pictures would come.
She saw the horseman first. He reined in slightly, his animal prancing, its flanks steaming in the rain. She could see the wind, the thrashing banner, his hands wet on the reins.
She bent yet closer. Who was he, this broad-shouldered man, and what was he to her? Why did she keep seeing him? But he had turned away, urging his horse forward, and he was riding on, out of her sight into the mists conjured from the flames.
Eleyne cursed softly.
Her head was heavy now and she felt a little sick, but there were other pictures there, shifting, changing. A man – Alexander! Her Alexander. With a whimper she reached out and she saw him smile. He stretched out his hand to her and their fingers almost touched. Then he was gone.
Her eyes were full of tears. The knowledge had been there all the time, had she been able to face the truth. Without the pendant she could not reach him and the phoenix, the precious link which held him to her, had gone, lost in the fire at Suckley.
But there were other pictures now. Children. She could see children. Several of them, playing on the beach beyond the flames. She rubbed her eyes. There were two little girls, playing by the water, intent on gathering stones and tossing them into the ripples. Joanna? Hawisa?
She half rose, a huge lump in her throat, holding out her arms. But they had gone. There was no one there, nothing but the empty sand. Tears ran down her cheeks again and she turned to look for the others. They were running away: five boys and two other girls, running, skipping towards the trees.
She tried once more to rise to her feet but her legs were cramped and she stumbled. She could hear them laughing, the sound echoing amongst the trees. In a moment they would be out of sight. She sank back on the ground before the fire and stared at it again. But the flames were empty and dying.
‘Have you seen any children on the island?’ she asked that night.
‘Children, my lady?’ Her maid, Emmot, looked puzzled.
‘Did they come from the mainland?’
‘No boats came today, my lady, none at all.’
Eleyne did not mention them again. She had not seen their faces; she had not really heard their voices. Only as shouts, mingled with the breeze, teasing the leaves on the trees.
Two weeks later she knew that she was pregnant with Malcolm’s child.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I
It became easier each time. After a while she didn’t need the fire. As the muggy August days gave way to clear warm September she found she could see pictures in the water too. She watched the children playing in the depths of her earthenware bowl; she saw Tam Lin lying slaughtered on the ground and, through her tears, knew he had been killed quickly and mercifully because his leg was broken when he panicked in the fire. She saw the dogs gambolling in the sun and knew as she whispered their names that somehow they heard her. Sometimes she saw Joanna and Hawisa playing with them, but she could never know, never be sure, that they were alive.
Then Malcolm came. He rode from Dunfermline with gifts and wine. That night as he entered her chamber and dismissed her ladies he was eager for her, unfastening the neck of her shift and pushing it back from her shoulders with shaking hands. He saw the fullness of her breasts; slowly he raised his hands to them, cupping their heaviness in his palms.
‘You’re even more beautiful than I remembered,’ he breathed.
She woke to find him gazing at her naked body, his hand on the curve of her belly as he sat beside her on the bed. ‘You’re carrying my son.’ He sounded awed. When she nodded, he bent and kissed her stomach. ‘So soon! I shall take you back to Falkland. I want you at my side.’
He treated her as though she were made of precious glass. She wasn’t to lift a finger. He surrounded her with servants, plied her with new gowns and stayed with her every second that he could. When she asked for a Welsh harper he sent for one; when she asked for a garden to the south of the castle wall he had one dug and planted.
