with sweat.
‘Whore!’ Llywelyn shot the word at her with loathing. ‘Slut! Harlot! You will die for this!’
Eleyne let out a little sob. Scrambling to her feet from the corner where she had fallen, she stood not daring to move, staring at her mother who was rocking backwards and forwards on the bed, moaning with a strange, high- pitched wail.
In the doorway Marared and Ethil hovered, not daring to approach her. It was Ethil who beckoned the frightened child and pulled her from the room. ‘Go to your bed, princess, and don’t say a word to anyone,’ she whispered. ‘Quickly now.’
Of Rhonwen there was no sign.
Eleyne fled to the stables. For a long time she stood staring at Invictus as he nuzzled her empty hands, then she put her arms around his neck and wept.
Rhonwen found her asleep in the hay between his great hooves several hours later. One of the grooms carried the still-sleeping child to her bed.
XXI
The world to which Eleyne awakened had changed forever. The palace was in shock. Sir William and his followers had been imprisoned, as had the Princess Joan. The prince’s anger and grief had hardened into the need for revenge. Llywelyn’s wife and her lover were to die. He refused to see Eleyne; he refused to see Dafydd; he refused repeatedly Joan’s frenzied pleas for an audience. He closeted himself in an upstairs chamber of the new stone keep, admitting only Einion and his trusted friend and counsellor, Ednyfed Fychan.
Word of what had happened had spread like wildfire beyond Aber and across Wales. Already the crowds were gathering, baying for de Braose’s blood.
Eleyne’s mind refused to accept what had happened. She crept repeatedly back to the stables and at last Rhonwen, chilled by the expression on the child’s face, let her stay there to find what comfort she could amongst the horses.
Where others had failed, Rhonwen managed to gain audience with the prince. His face appalled her. He had aged twenty years in as many hours.
‘You must speak to Princess Eleyne,’ she said urgently. ‘The child is in torment.’
‘I am in torment, lady!’ the prince snapped back. ‘Would to God she had not told me!’
‘You would rather not have known your wife made a cuckold of you?’ Rhonwen was deliberately harsh. ‘When the whole court could see it? You had to find out.’
Llywelyn walked heavily across to the fire and threw himself into the chair that stood near it. ‘Then the whole court will see how I repay treachery. Sir William accepted my hospitality at the sacred time of Easter and he abused every law of home and hearth. He will pay for it with his life like a common criminal, with no honour, on the Gallows Marsh.’
Rhonwen suppressed a triumphant smile. ‘That’s only just, sir, but I must take Eleyne away. You must see that. She’s only a child.’
‘Then it’s time she grew up!’ Llywelyn’s face hardened. ‘She can watch him hang.’
‘No!’ Rhonwen paled. This was not what she had intended. ‘He befriended her – ’
‘Then she should learn to choose her friends with more care. It will be a valuable lesson.’
Rhonwen was silent for a moment. ‘And her mother?’ she whispered at last. ‘Must she watch her mother hang too?’
Llywelyn put his face in his hands. He rubbed his cheeks wearily and she heard the rasp of his beard against his palms. He shook his head. ‘I cannot hang her.’ His voice broke. He gave a painful sigh. ‘But she will spend the rest of her life in prison.’
There was a long silence broken only by the distant murmur of the crowds gathering outside the palace.
‘Perhaps I could take Eleyne back to Degannwy?’ Rhonwen persisted gently, ‘afterwards.’
‘Perhaps.’ He stood up. ‘Enough, woman. Leave me.’
Einion was waiting for her outside the door. He took Rhonwen’s arm and pulled her into a quiet corner. ‘I will take the little princess,’ he said, ‘she will be safe in my care.’
‘No.’ Rhonwen shook her head violently, her complacency turned to fear. ‘No, she is too young and you have frightened her. She will not go with you now. If you had but left it; treated her more gently…’
‘There was no time to treat her gently. She has grown into her full powers and she needs my guidance.’ He drew himself up. ‘This is a time of change for Gwynedd, lady, as you are well aware. The English princess and her compatriots are finished.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Under Prince Llywelyn’s rule Wales can become a great and independent nation at last. It is vital that Eleyne takes her place at her father’s side and, after him, at that of her brother, Gruffydd. She can help them. Guide them. We are agreed on that, I think.’
Rhonwen nodded unhappily. ‘It is a pity that Dafydd’s marriage to the little de Braose has not taken place yet. That would have spoiled his claim to be his father’s heir,’ she said with a sigh.
Einion gave a harsh smile. ‘There are other ways of discrediting Dafydd
‘You are forgetting that Eleyne has the same blood,’ Rhonwen reminded him, ruefully.
Einion smiled again. ‘Her Plantagenet blood lies dormant. It is her Welsh blood which rules.’ He put his hand heavily on Rhonwen’s shoulder. ‘Don’t fear for Eleyne, lady. I shall take care of her. Once de Braose is hanged, I shall speak to her father and take her back to Mon.’
XXII
Eleyne was sitting alone, huddled behind the stable block, watching the grooms strap the horses. She was still numb. This was the day chosen for Sir William to die. The crowds were increasing hourly – people riding in from all over North Wales to watch the scion of the hated de Braose family hang. No one spoke in his defence. Even had they wished to, how could they? To take another man’s wife when you were a guest beneath his roof was a crime every man understood. Joan had already been sent away to her lonely prison.
Rhonwen found Eleyne at last in Invictus’s stall. ‘You have to come, Eleyne. It’s your father’s command.’
Eleyne’s eyes darkened with horror. ‘No.’
‘You must,
Eleyne backed away. Why?’ she whispered.
Rhonwen shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know.’ She was full of guilt. Why had she not told Llywelyn herself? Why in her haste to destroy Joan and de Braose had she sent the child to find her father?
‘You are a princess, Eleyne,’ she said softly, ‘you have to hold your head high and let no one see that you are crying inside.’
‘I’m not crying!’ Eleyne retorted unsteadily. ‘He deserves to die!’
Slowly, head erect, her shoulders defiantly squared, Eleyne walked with Rhonwen out of the palace and down the river to Gwern y Grog, the Gallows Marsh. There she stood beside her brother Dafydd and her father as Sir William de Braose was brought to the gallows. They halted him before the prince and he bowed slightly.
‘Your wife was innocent, your highness,’ he said softly. ‘I was the only one to blame.’ He scanned the crowd anxiously as though afraid Joan had been brought to watch him die.
Beyond the royal party a crowd of several hundred people spread out across the marshy field, its earlier noisy excitement hushed as Sir William appeared. He wore nothing but a short tunic and breeches. They had tied his hands, but he stood proudly before Llywelyn, relaxing imperceptibly when he saw Joan was not there. Then his gaze
