She opened them and gazed down at the jewel. Flecks of moss still clung beneath the creature’s claws.
Gently, she packed it into an intricately carved ivory box and wedged it with lambswool. She fitted the lid with care and made her way towards the chapel. She climbed the stairs which led up over the undercroft to the first floor and went into the shadowy body of the building.
Father Gillespie was kneeling before the altar. Crossing himself, he rose to his feet and turned as he heard her footsteps. He had lit the candles on the altar and before the statue of the Virgin.
‘Are you ready, father?’ Eleyne was tense with nerves.
‘I am.’ His face was deeply lined, his eyes narrowed and watery from years of peering at the crabbed writing in his missals and books of hours. Surreptitiously he looked at her face – his countess looked pale and strained. He knew a little of her torment from her confessions; he also suspected that she paid more than lip service to another, older god, but he did not pursue the matter. There were many gods in the mountains, and he was a tolerant man. He knew she liked him and respected him and he liked and respected her. She would have his compassion and she would have his prayers. The Blessed Christ and the Blessed Virgin would succour her in her hour of need. And was not the old king the great-great-grandson of the blessed St Margaret herself? ‘You have the object, my lady?’ He was staring at the box in her hand.
She nodded. ‘You will bless it, father, so that no one can… so no one can use it any more.’
‘I shall weave a prayer around it, my lady, and beg Our Sweet Lord and his mother and all the saints to guard it. I can do no more.’
She gave him a tight smile. ‘Thank you, father.’
There was a strange coldness in the chapel. She shivered. She could see where he meant to put it: he had raised some of the new, painted tiles on the step before the altar, and beneath them a board had been removed. A cavity yawned black between the floor joists.
The candle flames were flickering wildly. She saw him look at them anxiously and again she felt the cold.
‘Put the box on the altar, my lady.’ His voice was strained.
Her mouth dry, Eleyne stepped forward. He was here, in the chapel. She could feel him, feel the protest and the anger in the air around her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Father Gillespie cross himself twice in quick succession.
‘
She laid the box before the crucifix and crossed herself, then she knelt at her usual prayer desk and closed her eyes.
Father Gillespie had begun his prayers. As he became more confident, his voice strengthened.
The call was growing weaker.
‘
The call died away, and Eleyne felt tears burning on her cold cheeks.
Father Gillespie picked up the box and knelt on the step. He lowered the box into the darkness, then he fitted back the floorboard and replaced the tiles. He climbed to his feet and, strenuously rubbing the dirt from his hands on his chasuble, he smiled. ‘It is done, my lady.’
‘Thank you.’ She rose from her knees. ‘And you will tell no one, ever.’
‘My lips are sealed. I will have one of the masons come in and cement down the tiles. He will not know why they came loose.’
The candles burned steadily now in the silence. She and the priest were completely alone in the chapel.
All she had to do now was to leave another offering of gold at the holy spring where Elizabeth had died. Then she would be left in peace.
XIII
Eleyne put down Eleanor’s letter, smuggled out of Aber, and her eyes filled with tears. Her nephew Dafydd, Llywelyn’s younger brother, disenchanted at last with his treacherous adherence to King Edward, had launched the revolt against the English tyranny in Wales only weeks after Eleyne and Donald had left Aber. Within days the revolt had spread and all Wales was again in arms with Llywelyn at her head.
Gwynedd was far from Mar, but she did not need Llywelyn’s brief heartbroken note a week later to know that Eleanor was already dead, and that the longed-for heir to the Prince of Wales was a daughter. She had seen the woman’s agony in the candle flame and heard Wales’s sorrow in the wind on the moors.
XIV
She and Donald were at court a week later, and Eleyne lost no time in seeking a private audience with the king.
‘You have to do something; you must send my nephew help! Don’t you see how dangerous, how disastrous, it would be if Edward were to conquer Wales?’
Alexander shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I am deeply sorry for Llywelyn and I hope he manages to save the situation, but the matter is terribly delicate, Aunt Eleyne. So many of my vassals are also vassals of Edward of England. You know yourself how many Scots have English estates and vice versa. I should be asking them to choose between their allegiances for a matter which does not concern Scotland.’
‘It will,’ Eleyne flashed. ‘If Wales falls, where do you think Edward will look next for conquest?’
‘Not to Scotland, I assure you.’ Alexander folded his arms. ‘Edward and I have an understanding. We respect each other. Scotland’s sovereignty is safe.’
‘Is it?’ She met his eye. ‘You should not trust Edward Plantagenet. I know my cousin of old; ever since he was a boy he has been ambitious, devious, and vicious. Don’t put him to the test.’
‘I won’t.’ Alexander scowled. ‘Because, unlike you, I get on well with him and have no reason to cross him. And I am not going to make reason by taking arms with Wales, much as I might like to for sentiment’s sake.’
‘You made an alliance before, against Henry – ’
‘An informal alliance which is no longer valid. No, I’m sorry.’
Eleyne looked at him in despair. ‘I have seen pictures of war and disaster in the fire,’ she said quietly. ‘Your father would have listened to me.’
‘Then my father would have been listening to his heart, not his head,’ Alexander replied sharply. ‘Now, if you please, Aunt Eleyne, I have matters to attend to.’
