darkness.
The line of wagons and carts and the escort of armed men stretched for over a mile as the party made its way north-east along the coast road, across the Conwy and, following the old Roman road to St Asaphs, over Afon Clwyd, turned south at last on to the flat lands of Dee. Riding behind Eleyne and Rhonwen came Cenydd and Luned, Luned mounted on Cadi. Somewhere behind them one of the knights led Invictus. Llywelyn had decreed that the horse might be a suitable gift for his son-in-law.
Eleyne’s face was white and strained. There were dark rings beneath her eyes. ‘What is he like, can you remember?’ She rode closer to Rhonwen, her small hands steady on the gilded leather rein of her mother’s favourite cream-coloured mare, an outcast as she was from the purge at Aber. She was very afraid.
‘The Earl of Huntingdon?’ Rhonwen too was numb with shock. ‘He’s nephew to the great Earl of Chester, and a prince of Scotland. That’s all I know. And he is waiting at Chester Castle to meet us.’ She tightened her lips. How could Einion have let this happen? Why, when Eleyne had been given to the goddess, had he been unable to prevent it? She closed her eyes wearily and eased herself in the saddle.
Eleyne edged her mare even closer to Rhonwen’s, so that the two horses walked shoulder to shoulder. ‘Will he… will he want to…’ The question hovered on her lips. ‘Will he want to make me his wife properly at once?’ Miserably she blurted it out at last, and she saw Rhonwen’s answering frown.
‘It is his right,
Eleyne closed her eyes. Yet again she saw the picture she could not keep out of her mind: the writhing bodies on the bed; the man between her mother’s contorted thighs, thrusting at her; his great shout of triumph.
‘Does it hurt very much?’ she whispered. She wanted to reach across and hold Rhonwen’s hand for comfort. Instead she wound her fingers into the horse’s silky mane. She and Isabella had so often giggled and speculated about the consummation of their respective marriages, as had she and Luned. In the crowded uninhibited world in which they lived they knew what happened from an early age. Too often they had seen people in the shadows, beneath trees or against a wall, but always dressed, always shielded. Never frightening. Never before – never – had she seen a man and a woman coupling naked with such wild uninhibited lust. Never before had she seen a woman arch her back and thrust back at the man, seen the fingernails raking his back, heard a wild yell of triumph such as Sir William had given that fateful night. That act was now mixed inextricably in her mind with her vision of the man with the noose around his neck, the man whose body had jerked and grown limp and swung all day from the gallows tree on the marsh near Aber.
‘Of course it doesn’t hurt,
‘I think it’s only the men who enjoy it,’ Eleyne said quietly and again she thought of her mother’s raking fingernails.
Already in the distance they could see the great red castle of Chester, rising in the sharp angle of the river, and behind it the city huddled around the Abbey of St Werburgh. In a few hours she would meet her husband for the first time since their wedding day, when she had been a babe-in-arms and he a boy of sixteen.
II
John the Scot, Earl of Huntingdon, had been visiting his uncle, Ranulph, Earl of Chester, when the news came of the arrest of Sir William de Braose. The two men discussed the situation gravely but agreed, as men all over England were to agree, that Llywelyn’s death sentence was justified and not a resumption of the war with England.
More surprising was the news which followed only days later that the Prince of Gwynedd intended to proceed with the match between his recognised heir, Dafydd, and Sir William’s daughter, Isabella.
‘A realist, our neighbour Llywelyn.’ Ranulph reached for his goblet and sipped his wine. He was a small, stocky man in his late sixties, even now, dealing as he was with his correspondence, dressed for riding, his gloves and sword near him on the coffer. ‘He wants to keep the alliance.’
‘And no doubt the girl is now heir to at least a quarter of the de Braose estates,’ John said lazily. In his mid- twenties he was a complete contrast to his uncle. He was tall and painfully thin, his handsome face pale and haggard from the illness which had plagued him all the preceding winter. Even now, warm and gentle though the weather was, he was huddled in a fur-lined mantle.
He picked up another of the letters brought by the messenger from Gwynedd and began to unfold it. ‘That makes her a rich and influential young lady. It won’t only be Builth she brings to Llywelyn now, though I doubt there will be much love lost between her and her new husband’s family now they’ve hanged her father! No doubt she has the usual de Braose spirit – Holy Mother of God!’ He stopped suddenly. He had begun reading the letter in his hand.
His uncle looked up. ‘What is it?’
‘It appears Llywelyn is sending me my wife!’ John was silent for a moment, perusing the closely written parchment. ‘He feels Aber is not the place for her at the moment. I should think not,’ he interrupted himself, ‘with her mother in prison and her mother’s lover hanging on a gibbet – and he thinks it’s time she came to me.’
Lord Chester frowned. ‘With a large Welsh entourage, no doubt. So, Llywelyn feels this alliance needs strengthening too.’
John threw down the letter and, walking across to the window, stared out over the river towards the west. It was a glorious May day. From the keep he could see distant hedgerows covered in whitethorn blossom and the orchards beyond foaming with pink. The sun shone blindingly down on the broad river as it cut its way between low cliffs of sand towards the jetties where two galleys were unloading their cargoes.
‘She’s only a child still, uncle.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘She can’t be more than eleven! What on earth will I do with her?’
‘Send her followers packing for a start and take her off to show her your lands as far away as possible from here,’ Lord Chester said succinctly. ‘I want our friendship with that old fox kept firm, and I want the alliance kept watertight, but I would still rather keep him at arm’s length. And you would do well to do the same. Train her up to be the wife you want. Show her who is master and she’ll be an invaluable asset to you, my boy. When I’m gone, and you are Earl of Chester as well as Huntingdon, you will be one of the most powerful men in England. You will be allied to Wales, married to King Henry’s niece and, if Alexander stays childless, you may well be king of Scotland as well. There will be few to oppose you in Christendom.’ He grinned. ‘You’re a lucky man. I think Llywelyn is handing you a great prize.’ He frowned as John turned away with a paroxysm of coughing. ‘And you had better get a son or two on her as soon as she is capable, to safeguard your succession,’ he added a trifle grimly.
John grinned ruefully, wiping his mouth. ‘Perhaps she’ll know some wild Welsh cures for the cough and turn me into a soldier for you, uncle,’ he said quietly. He was well aware of the disappointment he was to his robust relative.
III
Eleyne was trembling by the time she rode beneath the huge archway into Chester Castle. She looked up at the standards flying above the tower and edged yet closer to Rhonwen. For a moment they sat without moving on their horses, then Eleyne saw a group of men appear in the doorway of the keep up a long imposing flight of wooden
