lady she claimed to have seen on the walls of the castle.
‘I don’t believe in her. You only say that to frighten me.’
Nearby, a door opened and three laughing servants ran across the courtyard, diving through a door in the lean- to kitchens at the far side. They took no notice of the little girls standing near the ruined tower.
When Eleyne looked back for her friend she had gone. ‘Bella?’ she called. There was no answer.
Eleyne peered into the rain nervously. Suddenly she did not feel quite so brave. The night was cold and the large courtyard once again deserted. The guards were there, of course, on the curtain walls, staring out into the night; and the horses in their stables against the walls. And something else. Someone else. Always there. Watching. She glanced around.
‘Are you there?’ she whispered.
There was no answer but the howling of the wind.
II
Inside the solar the fire was blazing and a dozen candles were lit against the darkness.
‘I think it’s time I took Eleyne home to Gwynedd, my lady.’
Rhonwen had cornered Gwladus, Eleyne’s eldest sister, second wife of Reginald de Braose, the Lord of Hay, in the newly finished west tower of the castle. ‘She and Isabella are bad for each other.’
Rhonwen, unusually tall for a woman, with a beautiful, aquiline face and fair hair – visible only in the colouring of her eyebrows as her head was meticulously covered by a white veil – was at nearly thirty strikingly good-looking. But she was not attractive. Gwladus glanced at her surreptitiously. There was a coldness there, an aloofness, which antagonised people. Only with Eleyne, her special charge, did she ever show any warmth or human emotion.
Gwladus was a complete contrast to Rhonwen. She was a tall, tempestuous, handsome woman with black hair, a sallow complexion and dark flashing eyes beneath heavy eyebrows: colouring which had earned her the soubriquet of Gwladus Ddu. Looking haughtily at Rhonwen, she raised an eyebrow.
‘If you mean Eleyne is bad for Isabella, I agree. However, it’s too soon. I haven’t completed my letters for father, and the emissaries who came with you are still talking with Reginald and William about the marriage agreement.’
She sat down on an elaborately carved chair near the fire and gestured Rhonwen to a stool nearby. ‘You do know why you’re here? It’s not so the girls can be playmates. My father wants Isabella as a wife for my brother. Why?’
‘Why, my lady?’ Rhonwen shifted uncomfortably on the stool. ‘Surely it would be a good match for Dafydd
The de Braose family had been brought low by King John eighteen years before, but Reginald and his brother, Giles, Bishop of Hereford, co-heirs to the estates of their dead parents, had managed to reclaim them before the king’s death in 1215, and the family was once again powerful in the Welsh borders.
‘Exactly.’ Gwladus pursed her lips. ‘That was why he married me to Reginald, after Gracia died. What I want to know is, why does he need another marriage between the families?’
Rhonwen looked down at her hands. Did the woman want an honest answer? Could she not see that her husband was dying? She shrugged diplomatically. ‘I am merely Eleyne’s nurse and teacher, Lady Gwladus. Your father does not include me in his confidences.’
‘No?’ The dark eyes beneath the heavy black brows were piercing. ‘How strange. I felt sure he would have.’
There was a long silence. Gwladus stood up restlessly and swept across to the window with a shiver. ‘I hate this place! I keep begging Reginald to let us live somewhere else. She’s still here, you know. His mother. She haunts the castle. She haunts the whole family!’ She crossed herself and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath. ‘If you are here merely as Eleyne’s companion you’d better go and look after her. And stop her upsetting Isabella!’
III
The children were not in their bedchamber. Rhonwen set her lips grimly.
‘Well?’ She shook one of the nursemaids who had been sleeping just inside the door. ‘Where are they?’
The frightened girl stared at the empty bed in the light of Rhonwen’s streaming candle. ‘I don’t know. They were here when we went to sleep.’
Both servants were awake now, scrambling from their straw pallets to gaze round the room with frightened eyes. They were much in awe of the tall Welsh guardian of the little girl who was the wife of a prince of Scotland and the daughter of a prince of Wales. Secretly, they sympathised with her; the girl was a tomboy, uncontrollable according to the Lady Eva, Gwladus’s daughter-in-law, constantly getting herself and her companion into scrapes.
Rhonwen strode across the room and glanced into the bedchamber beyond. The three small heads on the pillow showed that Isabella’s sisters had not been included in tonight’s escapade. She glanced at the shuttered window and sighed. Outside the wind and rain had increased threefold since darkness had set in. Whatever Eleyne had decided on, and she knew it was Eleyne, she hoped it was indoors.
IV
From her nest in the straw at the horse’s feet Eleyne reached up and stroked the muzzle of the great stallion belonging to Isabella’s father. It nuzzled her hair and blew at her companionably.
‘I wish they’d let me ride you,’ she murmured. ‘We’d fly like the wind, you and I.’
She glanced up sharply as she saw the horse’s ears prick. He raised his great head to stare into the darkness beyond her. A faint light appeared in the doorway and moments later a figure materialised out of the shadows. Thomas, the groom who had special care of his master’s best warhorse, was carrying a lantern as he patrolled down the line of stalls. Small and wizened, his face was as brown as a hazelnut beneath his wild white hair.
‘You again, my lady? I can’t keep you away, can I?’ He put the lantern down carefully, away from the straw, and leaned against the partition of the stall. Unsurprised by the appearance of the girl in the horse’s bed, he pulled a wisp of hay from the net slung by the manger and began to chew it. The horse nudged his tunic hopefully, looking for titbits.
‘You’re not safe down there, child. He might step on you.’
‘He wouldn’t hurt me.’ Eleyne hadn’t moved.
‘He wouldn’t even know he’d done it. Look at the size of his feet!’ Thomas ducked under the headrope and catching her arm swung her to her feet. ‘Up, my little one. You should be in your bed.’
Eleyne pulled a face. ‘Can’t I stay here? Please. I’m not sleepy. And Isabella snores.’ She flung her arms around the stallion’s muscular neck. ‘One day I’ll ride him.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Thomas with a wry smile, ‘but not without Sir William’s permission, you won’t. Now, away with you. I’m the one who’ll get into trouble if you’re caught here.’
Reluctantly she followed him out of the stable. ‘I’ll ask Sir William. I know he’ll let me -’ She stopped abruptly as a tall figure appeared out of the gloom in front of her.
‘And what, little princess, will you ask me?’ William de Braose, Isabella’s father, shook the rain from his mantle as he ducked under the thatched roof. He did not seem surprised to see the child in his horse’s stable so late at night.
