Child of the Phoenix

to her chamber Eleyne turned and held out her hand for it. ‘Thank you, Agnes, I won’t need you again tonight.’

‘But my lady -’ Agnes protested, the deep moving shadows on her face accenting her prominent nose and eyes, ‘let me help you undress.’

‘No.’ Eleyne spoke sharply. ‘I can manage. Goodnight, Agnes.’ Taking the candle from her, she groped for the door handle and pushed open the heavy door. The room was completely dark. She closed the door and leaned against it. In the leaping shadows thrown by the single flame she could just see the great bed. The covers were smoothly drawn. It was empty.

Until that moment she had refused to let herself cry, but now the tears began to slide down her face. She stood there long after the candle in her hand had flickered, flared and died. Then she groped her way in total darkness to the bed and threw herself down on it.

She was awakened by a light shining in her eyes. Rhonwen was standing over her. ‘You’re cold, cariad,’ she said. ‘I called the boy to make up the fire. Come, let me help you into bed properly.’

‘No, I’m all right.’ Eleyne blinked, dazzled by Rhonwen’s fresh candles. ‘Please, let me sleep.’

‘When I’ve tucked you in. Look at you!’ Clucking and cajoling, Rhonwen pulled off Eleyne’s shoes, then dragged at the bedcovers, piling them over her. ‘I won’t have you crying, cariad, not ever again.’ Rhonwen’s face was grim. ‘Now, you go to sleep and I’ll look after everything.’

Eleyne buried her face in the pillows, welcoming the darkness as Rhonwen picked up the candles and carried them away, pulling the door shut behind her, taking the light.

Still enveloped in misery, she dozed for a while, then all of a sudden she was wide awake. Rhonwen’s words had echoed back into her mind with appalling clarity.

‘Donald!’ She sat bolt upright. ‘Sweet Blessed Virgin! Donald!’ Groping in the darkness she found a candlestick beside her bed, then ran to the fireplace, guided by the glow of the newly banked peats. Thrusting in the candle, she waited impatiently for the wick to catch, then she ran to the door.

Where was he? Where would he and his mistress go? Sobbing, she ran down the stairs, realising for the first time that she was barefoot.

Kildrummy was a huge castle. Five towers linked by stone passages, the great gatehouse, the chapel, the kitchens, the bakehouse, the smithy, the stables and storerooms and the great hall itself, all within the high wall. He could have taken her anywhere.

The doorward stared at her sleepily as she ran, candle streaming, across the store chamber towards him. Behind her the great square wellhead hid the black, still water. ‘Lady Rhonwen. Have you seen her?’ she shouted. ‘Quickly, man, she was here not long ago. Did she go outside again?’

‘No, my lady. No one has gone out.’ The man stared at her in bewilderment.

‘Open the door, let me see.’

Ignoring his protests, she waited impatiently as he pulled back the bolts and dragged the door open. A whirling wall of whiteness greeted them. She could see nothing. Her candle blew out instantly, as did his lantern, and they were left in the darkness. ‘No one could slip out past me, my lady,’ he called, his voice lost against the roar of the wind.

‘All right, shut it.’ She watched him put his shoulder to the door and heave it shut, bracing his back against it to catch the massive latch, and she waited, her heart beating with fear, as he groped for kindling and held it in the fire to relight his lantern and then her candle. ‘No one would go out on a night like this, lady,’ he repeated.

‘All right, thank you.’ She turned. They were still in the tower then, or in one of the curtain towers linked by narrow wall passages to the great hall.

‘Blessed Lady, help me! Let me be in time.’ She turned left and headed towards the stairs again and the passage which linked the Snow Tower with its neighbour. Used for visiting guests, the huge south-western tower, newly finished, was empty at this time of year – the servants and household preferring to huddle together by the fires in the great hall. The passages were deserted; the rush lamps which usually lit them had gone out; the corners were full of leaping shadows cast by her own candle.

‘Rhonwen!’ she screamed. She heard her voice echo dully against the stone and die below the shriek of the wind. ‘Donald!’ Frantically, she peered into an empty storeroom opening off the passage. It was deserted. Opposite it, another store was full, packed with great earthenware jars of mustard and honey, barrels of dried fish and salt beef, loaves of sugar, locked spice chests and sacks of grain. She held her candle high, trying to see into the depths of the room, then she hurried on, throwing open door after door, her feet icy on the cold grey flags. The lower floors of the tower were deserted. She brushed the tears from her eyes and hurried on. A sharp pain knifed through her side and she stopped to catch her breath. It was a stitch, that was all. There was nothing wrong with the baby. In despair, she stood at the foot of the spiral staircase and stared up into the darkness.

‘Donald!’ Her voice was thin. It would never carry. Perhaps she was already too late. Slowly she began to climb, feeling the dryness of panic catching at the back of her throat, and the constriction of her chest as her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps.

‘Donald!’ She paused and stared upwards, seeing the shadow of her candle flame slanting across the underside of the steps above her as the stair wound upwards.

‘Donald!’ He would never hear her. Wherever he was, he had no doubt shut the door and was by now fully distracted by his red-haired love. Her only hope was that he had bolted himself in somewhere where Rhonwen could not reach him.

The echo of a door slamming above her in the empty tower brought a sob to her throat. Frantically she began to climb again, tripping on her gown and nearly dropping her candle.

XI

Rhonwen held her candle high. Her soft leather shoes were silent on the stone flags, the whisper of her skirts lost in the howl of the wind. She crept on up the stairs. She had already searched the warden’s tower and the half- built carcass of stone at the southeastern corner of the walls. They weren’t there, nor were they in the warm bakehouse or in the kitchens. Only the south-western tower remained. She gripped the candlestick more tightly, feeling the warm wax dripping on to her fingers as she stumbled upwards. Pushed into her girdle was a newly sharpened knife.

She looked upwards. The door of the chamber on the top floor was closed. The candlelight veered wildly across the heavy oak. Pausing to catch her breath, she waited until the flame of her candle had steadied then she put her hand to the handle. The iron ring was ice-cold and heavy. With a silent curse she stooped and put down the candle, then she grasped the ring with both hands and began to turn it. The door was stiff. Holding her breath, she pushed. It creaked as it began to swing open, but the noise was lost in the roar of the wind from the unglazed lancets. Her candle went out.

She inched into the dark echoing chamber, silently taking the knife from her girdle, and stood looking at the scene before her.

Donald and his paramour were lying in each other’s arms on a pile of empty flour sacks. In the small circle of lamplight, Catriona’s pale body was indecently white against the flaming red of her hair, her eyes huge and terrified as she stared up at the old woman who stood over them with a naked dirk in her hand.

Behind her, the door banged in the draught.

XII

Her heart beating in her throat, Eleyne climbed the last flight of stairs. Her legs were trembling, and strange sharp pains were pulling at her chest. Desperately she sheltered the flame of her candle with her free hand, tripping on her skirts, her eyes blinded with tears.

‘Donald!’

Her breathless cry was lost in the night.