tears.
‘It’s all right.’ Her voice sounded distant and disembodied above the muted gabble of conversation. ‘It will pass over soon. Bethoc, where is your lute? Play for us. It will take our minds off the storm.’
She went back to the table, feeling the drag of her skirts intolerably hot and heavy against her legs, and she put her hand on Isabella’s for a moment as it hovered over the pile of cut rushes they were using for their game.
‘Mama!’ Marjorie’s protest was anguished. ‘Now you’ve spoiled it – ’
‘I’m sorry, darling, I didn’t mean to.’ Eleyne smiled at her youngest daughter contritely.
He was there near her; unbelievably, he was there. The women, seated in groups around the candles or at the heavy oak trestle, had sensed nothing. The deep window embrasure was empty and yet she could feel him. For the first time in years she could feel him.
‘Why? Why have you come back?’ She mouthed the words silently over her daughters’ bent heads but she knew the answer.
She hadn’t called him, it was the phoenix.
Someone had found the phoenix.
IV
Eleyne put the idea of a visit to Wales to Donald as soon as he came home with his father two weeks later. It was the only way to escape, to be sure that Alexander would not follow.
‘That would give you real pleasure? To go back to Wales?’
‘You know it would.’
She was trying to hide her anxiety, her terror that Alexander had come back for her at last. She had to get away from Scotland and in Wales surely he couldn’t reach her.
‘I want to see Llywelyn again. And Aber. I’m getting old, Donald. Soon I won’t be able to contemplate the idea of such a long journey.’
He laughed. ‘You old? Never!’
At sixty-three she was as upright and slim as ever and as full of energy. She could still outride him, still sit up all night with a foaling mare, not trusting his horse masters, and be as alert at breakfast as the children. And she was still as desirable as ever. There were times – when she returned from her long lonely rides in the hills with only her two dogs, Lucy and Saer, the latest in the long line of Donnet’s descendants to guard her – when he wondered what magic she practised in secret beneath the moon. There was a glow to her skin and a gleam in her eye, a strange glamour over her, which bewitched him as strongly as when he had first met her.
He frowned. Out of nowhere the fear had returned, the suspicion, the secret dread, that on those lonely trips she met with Alexander’s ghost.
V
William summoned Eleyne to his bedside soon after he and Donald returned. His face had thinned to the point of gauntness and his voice had weakened, but he had lost none of his acerbity when addressing his daughter-in- law.
‘I bring greetings from the king. He thanks you for your messages of condolence.’ Alexander’s second son, David, had died in June.
He groaned as he eased the pain in his joints. ‘You’ve heard no doubt that I was too ill to attend the finalising of the marriage settlement between young Margaret and the King of Norway. Donald was there, though. He’ll be a valuable adviser to the king when I’m gone, if you let him.’ He frowned through his bushy eyebrows. ‘You’re a powerful woman, Eleyne, and you still have my son exactly where you want him. Don’t stand in his way.’
Eleyne eyed him coolly. ‘I have never stood in his way.’
‘Oh yes you have. You keep him dangling here at Kildrummy when he should be with the king; you keep him on a leash like one of your damn dogs. And it’s not good for him. Let him go, woman.’ He shot his neck forward and glared at her. ‘I’ll be dead soon and he’ll be the earl. You’ve given him three sons and all credit to you for that.’ He paused thoughtfully, visibly wondering how she had done it. ‘You stay here and look after the earldom. You’re a good administrator. And let Donald go to court.’ He coughed feebly. ‘Are you afraid he’ll find himself another woman now you’re old?’ The glance he gave her out of the corner of his eye was pure malice.
She smiled. ‘No, I’m not afraid of that.’ She wasn’t, not any more.
‘Nor should you be.’ Grudgingly he smiled. ‘You’ve the looks of a woman half your age still, though, Blessed Margaret, I don’t know how you do it. One last point.’ His cough grew harsher. ‘I’m sending men from Mar as part of the army, keeping the peace in Wales. Wait -!’ He raised his hand as she opened her mouth to speak. ‘This is my duty, according to the agreements made between England and Scotland, and I abide by it, as Donald will be expected to do. You will not try to interfere. The politics of Wales are no longer your concern even if the king permits you to visit Llywelyn as you’ve asked. If there are Scotsmen helping Edward of England keep the peace, it is because your nephew was unable to do so himself. He lost the best part of Wales through his own weakness. Now, with Edward building castles all around him, he’ll be forced to abide by English rules, and there’s nothing you can do about it!’
Eleyne grimaced. He was right, but it hurt to think of foreign soldiers on Welsh soil.
So much had happened in Wales since she had been there last. Ever since Edward’s accession to the English throne, the working relationship which had existed between his father and Llywelyn had deteriorated, until in the face of Llywelyn’s persistent refusal to submit to his new English overlord, Edward had invaded Wales, accompanied by Llywelyn’s ever-rebellious and still jealous younger brother, Dafydd.
The combination of king and brother had inflicted a resounding defeat on Llywelyn, reducing the prince’s territory to the northern part of Gwynedd and forcing him to release his and Dafydd’s elder brother, Owain, whom Llywelyn, in his anxiety to keep him away from the centre of power, had kept so long a prisoner.
Edward had compromised in the interests of peace. He did not take away Llywelyn’s title of Prince of Wales and he had allowed him at long last to marry Eleanor, the daughter of Simon de Montfort, to whom he had been betrothed for so long, in a wonderful ceremony in Worcester Cathedral. That had been the last time Eleyne had seen her nephew. She and Donald had ridden south to attend the wedding, and she had been overjoyed to think that at last Wales would find some kind of peace.
The peace, however, had been an uneasy one.
Lord Mar shook his head grimly. ‘There was a time when I thought Wales and Scotland would unite to keep English ambition in check. It’s sad for Wales that that did not happen, for Edward is a very different man from his father.’ He fell silent, staring grumpily at his gnarled hands.
Eleyne took a deep breath. She was too old a hand at sparring with William to rise to most of the challenges he had flung at her. ‘Are you confident that Edward will not challenge Scottish supremacy one day?’ she asked mildly. She had never trusted Edward, from that day when as a boy he had stared at her with such hostile eyes at Woodstock. And she had sensed something in him – a cold-bloodedness – which set him apart even from his father.
‘He and Alexander get on well, they always have. There is no reason why Edward should threaten us. We are an independent kingdom with a strong king and an effective government.’ He frowned. ‘Though I could wish Prince David had not died. The king’s eldest son, Lord Alexander, is not a strong boy either. He is a fragile defence to have between the king and destiny, especially since the queen died and the king has not remarried.’
His words sparked off some strange warning bell inside Eleyne’s head. ‘But the king has chosen a wife,’ she said.
William nodded. ‘It’s not yet announced, but he has talked to the Count of Flanders about his daughter. There has been too much delay.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘He’s a strong, robust man; he needs a woman now, and a
