She sighed. ‘Then listen at least to one other thing I have to say. When your advisers beg you to fix a date for your marriage, listen to them,’ she pleaded. ‘I know how much you miss Margaret, and I know how much you love Alexander and what a credit he is to you, but you must have other sons.’
His face darkened. ‘You are presuming too much, Aunt Eleyne.’
‘No, I’m taking a privilege allowed to old ladies!’ She raised an eyebrow imperiously and he laughed out loud.
‘Old? You? Never!’ He sighed. ‘I’m not a fool. I know I have to remarry. I even understand that if I die without a strong heir to succeed me that might give Edward an excuse to interfere in Scotland’s business.’ His voice was rueful. ‘I do not take unnecessary risks, I promise you. After all, I have banned grey horses from my stables and I never ride in storms.’
‘I’m glad.’ Taking his hand, she dropped a deep curtsey and raised his fingers to her lips. ‘Take care, my sovereign lord. I see black clouds everywhere, and it makes me afraid.’
XV
Isabella had woven ribbon collars for the dogs. Seeing them brought a lump to Eleyne’s throat as she thought of the Midsummer’s Eve celebrations all those years ago. There had been no further word from Joanna since her letter at Christmas the year before. Eleyne moved closer to the fire, shivering violently.
‘What is it, mama? Aren’t you well?’ Isabella was knotting the plaited silk around the wolfhounds’ great, shaggy necks.
‘I don’t know.’ Eleyne closed her eyes. A wave of terrible cold had swept over her. She turned to the fire, overwhelmed by the strange despair which had swept away her happiness. ‘It’s as though a light has gone out. Someone is dead – ’
Isabella crossed herself nervously. ‘Who?’ she whispered. ‘Not papa?’ Her voice slid up into a frightened squeak; her father was once more with the king.
‘No, not papa.’
‘Why don’t you know?’ Isabella was used to her mother’s second sight. Though Sandy was the only one who showed signs of having inherited it, all her children accepted it as being part of the normal way of things, a short cut sometimes to the truth.
Eleyne shrugged in despair. ‘I don’t know. I can’t always see what I want to; the flames don’t answer my questions.’ She leaned closer to the fire. ‘I can’t see anything; I can’t hear anything but the howling of the wind in the hills.’
Isabella stared at her. ‘There’s no wind, mama, not here.’ She slid her arms unhappily around Saer’s neck and the dog turned and licked the girl’s face.
‘No.’ It was a whisper. ‘No, it’s a Welsh wind.’
XVI
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, separated from his men as he directed an attack on Builth in central Wales, was killed by a lance wielded by a member of the Shropshire levy, a man called Stephen Frankton. He did not even realise whom he had killed.
By the time confirmation of the news reached Scotland, Llywelyn’s head was being paraded before Edward’s troops on Anglesey and his tiny orphaned daughter and heir, Gwenllian, was Edward’s prisoner. The child was to spend the rest of her life in a nunnery.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
I
‘Do I have to close my eyes and raise my arms above my head and go into a trance to convince you, sire?’ Eleyne, wrapped in a scarlet fur-lined cloak against the cold, addressed the king wearily.
Behind them Master Elias, the king’s harper, played gently in the shadows, his sightless eyes fixed blankly on the wall. It had been Eleyne’s suggestion after Malcolm’s death that he leave Falkland and enter royal service, and his fame at court had spread far and wide. Apart from the harper they were alone.
The king stood up and took her hands in his. ‘No, you don’t have to do that. I know you foresee a dire future for Scotland and for me. And I know that now both my sons are dead, I can put it off no longer. I must take steps to meet it.’ His third child, too, had died in far-off Norway, leaving as the king’s only heir her small daughter, Margaret. ‘When all the arrangements have been made the chancellor will go to France to fetch Yolande.’
‘She is a wife of whom England approves?’ Eleyne raised an eyebrow.
‘She is.’
‘So you have bought us more peace.’
Wales had fallen to the English. Owain and Rhodri were dead and Dafydd was dead, beheaded by Edward of England, his sons captured. Gwynedd was a proud, independent principality no more.
‘I hope so.’ He turned away. ‘I have done what everyone wants, so why do I hear disapproval in your voice?’
‘Do you?’ She shrugged. ‘I see danger from England ahead. It’s no more than an instinct, but I know Edward.’
‘I thought it was more than an instinct; I thought it was foresight.’
She shrugged. ‘What use is foresight if I can see only faintly and not understand?’
‘You are able to warn people of what the stars intend and they can step away from fate,’ he answered.
‘But I saw nothing for Llywelyn. Could I not have foreseen his death and warned him?’
‘As you did mine? Perhaps he was too far away. Perhaps his was a fate which could not be avoided.’ The king put his arm around her shoulders kindly. ‘Go and celebrate Lord Fife’s good fortune in winning himself a beautiful wife, and stop worrying about me.’
When Duncan of Fife, twenty-one at last, inherited his father’s earldom, he had triumphantly announced his impending marriage to Joanna de Clare, daughter of the Earl of Gloucester and a niece of Robert of Annandale’s wife. Eleyne was very proud of him.
‘Are you coming to his wedding?’
He nodded. ‘Fife is one of the great earldoms of Scotland. How could I miss such a ceremony?’
‘You didn’t come to my wedding to his grandfather as I recall,’ she replied tartly, her voice heavy with irony.
He gave a sheepish shrug. ‘I was very young.’
