window.
‘Please go away,’ she called softly. ‘Please, my lord; my love. Give me time with Donald and with his son. Please, if you love me, go away.’
Donald held his breath. He realised his hands were shaking and he clasped them together over the hilt of his dagger.
‘Please, don’t take me now.’ Eleyne’s voice was pleading and there were tears in her eyes. ‘Please, not yet.’
‘Sweet Christ!’ Donald whispered. ‘What do you mean, not yet?’ He threw himself towards the bed, enveloping Eleyne and the baby in his arms, and buried his face in her neck. ‘What do you mean?’ he repeated in anguish.
Eleyne was trembling. ‘I… I don’t know.’ She swallowed. ‘I suppose that one day I’ll grow old. I’ll grow old long before you, Donald…’
‘Don’t talk like that!’ His eyes blazed with anger. ‘I forbid you to talk like that! It’s obscene! He’s not getting you, not ever, do you hear me? I’ve already told you -’ he was shaking his head like a wounded animal – ‘I’ve already told you that I will fight him in hell itself if I have to. You are not going to him, Nel, not ever. You are mine. Do you hear me? You are mine!’
He realised suddenly that she was crying and, trapped between them, Gratney let out a thin wail, his little face screwed up with misery. Eleyne kissed him gently then she looked up at Donald and smiled through her tears.
‘We’ll fight him together,’ she said softly. ‘Somehow we’ll fight him. It will be all right, I promise.’
VII
Rhonwen’s eyes were unfathomably hard. ‘I don’t know what you mean,
‘He hasn’t grown bored,’ Eleyne retorted. ‘He’ll come back to my bed as soon as I am churched.’
‘I am glad to hear it. Just as long as you are happy with him. It’s when you’re unhappy the other will come to claim you.’
‘He’ll have to kill me first, Rhonwen,’ Eleyne said slowly. ‘Don’t you realise that?’
‘No.’ Rhonwen shook her head. ‘You’ve to bear his child.’
‘No!’ Eleyne grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘No, I’ll never bear his child. Can’t you get that into your head? Never!’
She was angry to find she was trembling like a leaf. Stooping over the cradle, she scooped Gratney into her arms and hugged him. The women of the castle were afraid of Rhonwen, she knew; there were whispers that the old woman with her cold eyes and her fanatical concern for Eleyne was mad. Eleyne had heard them and sometimes she felt the doubt creeping back. ‘I want no more babies, Rhonwen, no more at all. But if I must have them, they will be my husband’s.’
Rhonwen smiled. ‘Of course,
VIII
The first time Donald returned to his wife’s bed he was shy and tentative, like a stranger. He had watched her trace the circle of protection around their bed, seen her command Alexander to leave them alone. It seemed too easy; too simple a way to hold their fear at bay, but she believed the king had gone and she was hungry for Donald.
Laughing, she had to guide his hands to her hard flat belly, her soft breasts, but from that moment she had to guide him no longer. Their lovemaking, after so long an abstinence, was almost better than before.
IX
Donald took her south to the king’s court when the snows turned to rain and the frozen ground began to thaw. He wanted to get her away from Kildrummy, away from his mother, away from the ghost which haunted them. The lively atmosphere of the court would distract her, and surely the dead king would not come near his son.
As he had hoped, the castle was crowded, noisy and full of good humour. The great hall rang with music and laughter. Troubadours and minstrels, acrobats and animal trainers vied with one another to amuse the king and queen in the frenzied run up to the austerities of Lent. It was a shock to discover that one of the reasons for the excitement was the visit of Prince Edward, the queen’s brother. He had arrived from Haddington, where he was recruiting troops to fight the rebels in England. At twenty-eight, Edward was a fine figure of a man; tall, handsome in a reserved manner, he had been married since he was fifteen years old. His first two daughters had died in infancy but now he had a son, John, just a year old, named for their grandfather. The antipathy Eleyne felt for her English cousin was, she knew, more than returned. They regarded one another with dislike, suspicion and resentment, something which had grown and developed over the years on the rare occasions when they had met. She wasn’t quite sure why, even from a child, he had marked her out for his spite. It didn’t occur to her that he sensed in her a rebellious spirit which he would never be able to tame and that as such he regarded her as a personal threat.
His presence cast a blight over the visit. Eleyne avoided the king and queen and their guest as much as she could; but she could not escape Edward’s attention entirely.
The lower tables had been removed and the guests had settled down to listen to the music of one of Prince Edward’s minstrels, or sleep away their heavy meal, when Edward addressed her directly for the first time.
‘So, our fair cousin is now wife to the heir to the Earl of Mar. I understand from my brother-in-law that there are five more earldoms in Scotland for you to collect.’ He inclined his head towards those within earshot, waiting for their laughter. When it came, dutifully, it was muted.
Eleyne tensed, but Donald’s hand was firm on her arm. He turned to Prince Edward. ‘My wife is so fair she merits a thousand earldoms, your highness,’ he said quietly.
A spot of colour appeared on Edward’s cheeks, then he gave a slight bow. ‘Your gallantry shames me, Lord Donald,’ he said. He smiled coldly, then he turned away.
Donald and Eleyne looked at one another as the minstrel tuned his lute. Both had felt a shadow hover over the hall before the music soared towards the high rafters. Eleyne shivered. The happiness of the visit was spoiled.
X
By the time they returned to Kildrummy she knew she was pregnant again.
Instinctively certain that her condition kept her safe from Alexander, she tried to hide it from Donald for as long as possible. When at last she told him, he was overjoyed, but in spite of his reassurances and her pleas he left her even sooner this time. The red-haired girl in the dairy was married to the castle baker and hugely pregnant herself, and he had sworn he would not look, ever, at another woman, but even so he found it necessary to ride south to
