staying?’
Joanna shook her head. ‘Coming here was something I had to do, for both our sakes. But having done it I must go home. My life is there, and my loyalty.’ She returned Eleyne’s look and her face was sad. ‘We are of different worlds; different nations. We have nothing to join us together save a tenuous thread of blood.’ She stood up and putting her goblet down she came to stand by Eleyne’s chair. ‘My marriage lasted so short a time. Humphrey died of his wounds after the battle of Evesham. Did you know,’ she asked, ‘that Humphrey’s first wife was a sister of Isabella de Braose? He said she used to talk about you.’ She was rueful. ‘After Humphrey’s death, the king decided that I was no more use to him in the marriage market. I had little dower, and my child was dead.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Most of my life I have given to the Lincolns who looked after me when -’ She stopped abruptly. ‘Cousin Margaret was good to me. Hawisa and I were happy there. And we had Rhonwen for a while to provide the link with our old lives. What happened to Rhonwen?’
‘She died.’ Eleyne did not elaborate further and after a moment Joanna shrugged. She went back to her chair and held out her hand to Donnet who went and sat beside her, leaning against her knees. ‘I missed these dogs so much,’ she said after a minute. ‘But I never kept a wolfhound of my own. It reminded me too much…’ Her voice tailed away and she fell silent again.
‘I am sorry.’ Eleyne shook her head, feeling the weight of her sorrow as almost intolerable. ‘So very, very sorry.’
Joanna looked up again. ‘Do we… I mean, do I have any sisters?’
Eleyne nodded. ‘Marjorie. She is married to Lord Atholl. My eldest daughter, Isabella, died.’
‘I’m your eldest daughter, mother,’ Joanna said softly.
‘Oh, my dear.’ For a moment Eleyne was aghast, then she held out her hands. ‘Oh, Joanna.’
Joanna came to her, then almost shyly she took her hands and, bending, kissed the knotted old fingers. ‘I’m glad I came,’ she whispered. ‘For a long time I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see you again, ever. Once, when I was going to come to you at Aber I changed my mind. I couldn’t face it. I hated you for leaving us, and I hated you because Hawisa died without knowing you. She couldn’t even remember you. Cousin Margaret was the only mother she ever knew. And Annie. And Rhonwen. She loved Rhonwen.’ She noticed again the way her mother’s face hardened at the mention of Rhonwen’s name and she sighed. There was so much she would never know, now, about this enigmatic old woman.
As if sensing that somewhere, somehow a line had been drawn, Eleyne slowly withdrew her hands and reached for her stick. Unsteadily she pushed herself to her feet and walked towards the table in the centre of the room. ‘My dear, I’m so pleased you came,’ she said, ‘but you are right. It would be better if you did not stay here.’ She stood where she was, looking at the soft dark shine on the old oak table, her narrow shoulders squared defensively as if she expected Joanna to protest. ‘Scotland is at war. Kildrummy supports her present constable, who is now Scotland’s king. If you are a subject of King Edward, you cannot remain here without being compromised.’ She looked Joanna squarely in the eye. ‘The countryside is already overrun by soldiers. It may already be unsafe for you to travel, but if you stay here – ’
‘I don’t want to stay, mother.’ Joanna’s voice was firm and unemotional. ‘There’s no place for me here. Whatever your allegiance, whatever country you belong to now, my father was an Englishman.’
‘Indeed he was,’ Eleyne replied at last, drily.
‘And as you say, there are soldiers everywhere further south. I shall go as soon as I can – tomorrow.’
‘So. We shall have only one night together.’ Eleyne bit her lip. ‘I wish I could have known you; I wish I had seen you both grow up.’ She smiled sadly. ‘We won’t see each other again,’ Joanna was looking down at her hands, trying to resist the sudden stupid bitter tears which had flooded into her eyes, ‘but I shall treasure this meeting in my heart. Perhaps in another lifetime we’ll be permitted to know each other better.’
‘Another lifetime?’ Joanna looked shocked. She laughed uncomfortably. ‘In heaven, you mean?’
Eleyne shook her head. ‘Who knows what I mean? I just feel there will be a time, a place where we’ll see the people we’ve loved. There has to be. It can’t all just end.’
‘Mother – ’
‘No, my dear, don’t say any more. Please call one of the pages to take Donnet into the courtyard while I change. My gown is soiled from travelling and we must go down to the great hall for dinner. I want to show you off -’ She managed a smile.
It was Joanna who took Donnet down to the courtyard, anxious to have a few moments to herself to compose her thoughts. She stood looking up at the luminous night sky with its myriads of stars, breathing the cool freshness after the smoky heat of the solar.
From the battlements she heard the measured tread of one of the few remaining men-at-arms as he patrolled the curtain wall. She could smell the mountains; the rich, acid tang of peat and heather and thyme carried by the wind; the acrid scent of smoke from the dozens of smokeholes and chimneys in the huge castle and, beneath it, the ever present sick odour of effluence from the ditches and open drains which carried away the castle’s waste.
Donnet whined and looked up at her face. She patted his head. ‘If you knew how I loved Ancret and Lyulf,’ she whispered, ‘I missed them so much when Rhonwen took them away…’
IX
‘I want you to take him.’ Eleyne had put the leash into Joanna’s hands. ‘He will protect you on your ride home. He’s a young dog, barely more than a puppy, for all he’s so huge, and I’m too old for him. I always have to ask others to give him exercise and he seems to have become very attached to you already.’
‘Mother!’ Joanna protested, ‘you can’t mean it. You wouldn’t part with one of your dogs!’
Eleyne nodded. ‘I’ll have no more dogs, Joanna,’ she said sadly. ‘Once I would sooner have parted with an arm or a leg than one of my beauties.’ She put her hands on either side of Donnet’s head and kissed his nose. ‘But no more. I shall be dead before he is even fullgrown – oh yes,’ she hurried on as Joanna tried to protest, ‘I’m quite realistic about it. It would put my mind at rest to know he has gone with someone who will love him as much as I do. It is the most precious gift I have to give you, my darling. Please take him, with my blessings and my love.’
She walked to the drawbridge after Joanna had gone and gazed for a long time after the riders as they wound their way down the strath and into the distance, the rangy grey form of the dog, as large as a small pony already, loping beside Joanna’s dun mare in front of her small escort – a maid and two squires.
When she turned back into the outer bailey her face was wet with tears.
X
The garrison left at Kildrummy was small and many of the men were elderly. Most of the men of Mar were with their king. Only those unfit for active service or too young or too old remained to hold the castles and work the farms and crofts of the mountains. Eleyne called her steward, Alan Gordon, and her remaining knights together that very afternoon, trying in her own determined fashion to forget the lonely figure of her daughter disappearing into the distance at the beginning of her long dangerous ride south.
It was the start of several frenzied days of activity. The castle was to be made ready for a possible siege.
Gordon frowned. ‘My lady, the fighting is all to the south. The English king will never besiege Kildrummy. Our King Robert will never let him get this far, God bless him.’
‘The English king was here in person not three years ago,’ Eleyne retorted. ‘And five years before that, when I had to give him the keys on my knees. Never, never will I do that again. If all does not go well with King Robert, this will be one of the castles where he can find support and refuge – and look at us!’ She waved her hand energetically towards the high walls. ‘The underbrush comes so close to the ditch, ten armies could hide there and we wouldn’t know it.’
She was tireless in her supervision of her household over the next days, not admitting even to herself how much she missed the presence of her dog beside her as she watched the undergrowth hacked and scythed back, checking herself the lists of provisions in the storerooms, sending out for more from markets as far away as Huntly
