as I am sure they were at Aber.’
If he had hoped to comfort her, his words seemed to have the opposite effect. She stood as if paralysed, her eyes riveted on his face.
‘If it is to do with -’ He hesitated, at a loss how to put it. He had seen the way she shrank from his touch, sensed her physical fear of him as a man. ‘If it is to do with becoming my wife, Eleyne, there is nothing to fear.’ This was not the kind of thing a man discussed, but her helpless frailty touched him deeply. ‘We shall wait to be man and wife properly until you are ready.’ He smiled again, reassuringly.
She stared at him for a moment, her eyes on his, the relief at the implication of his words mixed with something else, something immediately veiled. ‘Not until I am ready, my lord?’ she repeated. ‘But Rhonwen said I must give myself to you whenever you require it, when you are well again.’ The view of the household, scarcely concealed, was that it was his uncertain health which kept their earl from his child bride’s bed.
He shook his head. ‘I am content to wait, Eleyne. We shall go to bed together when we both feel you are ready. Until then I shall not make that kind of demand on you.’ He sat down stiffly. How could he even contemplate taking this child, this baby with her flat, boyish figure, her face still with the unformed features of a child? He was no baby-snatcher; the women he found attractive were mature, intelligent; he fell in love with their minds before he allowed himself to touch their bodies. That he was unusual, if not unique, in this, he knew to be true, but he could not help it. He was not attracted by the animal, by the scent of musk, the voluptuous curves and reddened mouths of the court ladies with whom he mixed, and he had not for a long time lusted after one of the farm girls or serving maids.
He was dragged back from his thoughts by the sight of the woebegone small face before him. He had so few opportunities to speak to the child alone, away from the ever attentive Lady Rhonwen who, however much she might have insisted to Eleyne that she must give herself to her husband when required, had nevertheless seen to it with malevolent care that they had no time together alone.
‘Is there something else bothering you?’ His voice was gentle, coaxing, as it would have been to a small animal. ‘You can and should tell your husband everything, Eleyne. It is what he is there for.’ He said it quietly with a wry inward smile at the quizzical eyebrow a more experienced wife would raise at the comment. ‘Please. I should like to help you.’
She closed her eyes miserably, visibly struggling with herself.
‘Come here.’ He held out a hand to her and reluctantly she went to him. Resisting the urge to pull her on to his knee, he put his arm gently around her. ‘Tell me. Once you have told someone your nightmares will stop.’
Suddenly she couldn’t stop herself. Her voice punctuated by sobs, she told him everything: the visions, the dreams, the strange half-memories of the man with red hair, the meetings with Einion and that first harsh day of instruction in the smoke-filled hut where she had seen Sir William with the rope around his neck and not recognised him.
Christ and His Holy Mother! He could not bring himself to believe all he had heard. Eleyne had never tried to avoid attending mass with him every day in the castle chapel. She had never seemed, as far as he could tell, less than devout, and he had watched her carefully. Yet the child was a pagan, a witch, a sorceress and a seer! And still the words tumbled on. It was she who had caught Sir William in her mother’s bed, and who had told her father.
‘And why did you tell him, sweetheart? Why did you not keep it a secret?’ At last he had a glimmering of the source of her terrible guilt.
‘Because I hated him!’ She stamped her foot, her voice anguished. ‘He was my friend; he was Isabella’s father. He had let me ride Invictus.’ Huge wet tears were rolling down her cheeks and soaking into the soft gold velvet of her surcoat. ‘And I hated my mother. She stole him from me.’ She did not add that she had always hated her mother. That thought too brought anguish.
‘You hated them so much you wanted them to die?’ He was probing very gently.
‘Yes! No! I don’t know.’ Her voice was so husky it was almost a whisper. She rested her head desolately against his shoulder in a movement so trusting and so intimate he found himself unbearably moved.
‘Was anyone there with you when you saw them?’ He had to try very hard to keep his own voice steady.
‘Only Rhonwen.’
‘Ah, Rhonwen,’ he said drily. He paused. ‘And what did she say?’
Again the almost inaudible whisper. ‘She said it was treason.’
‘Which it was. A wife must not ever betray her husband, Eleyne. Your mother not only defiled her marriage bed, but did so with a man who had been her husband’s enemy and was subsequently his guest. She was guilty three times over.’
‘But I shouldn’t have told papa,’ she persisted.
‘If you hadn’t, someone else would have done so. And rightly. He had to know.’
‘Then why was he so angry with me?’ she cried. ‘Why did he send me away? Why did he blame me?’
The desolation in her voice was absolute. He tightened his arm around her, trying to comfort her, and noticed that she no longer shrank away from him. ‘It was just a reaction, sweetheart. He was hurt and angry and some of it rubbed off on you. It will pass.’
‘Will it?’ She eyed him doubtfully.
‘Of course it will. Prince Llywelyn is renowned for the love he bears his children.’
‘And the dreams? Will they stop now?’
‘I am sure they will.’ He tried to sound confident. Dear God, surely a child her age should be occupying herself with dolls, not this nightmare tangle of love and hate and death!
‘Have you had any strange dreams since?’ He tried to make the question sound casual. ‘Any more visions?’
‘No. No more visions.’
‘Your father’s seer was wrong to teach you those things, Eleyne. You know that, don’t you?’ He was feeling his way carefully. ‘They are absolutely contrary to the teachings of Holy Mother Church.’
She shrugged miserably. ‘Einion does not go to mass.’
‘No, I don’t suppose he does. But I thought your father was a good Christian, Eleyne.’
‘He is.’ She coloured defensively.
‘Then why does he allow this worship of ancient gods and spirits in his lands?’
‘I don’t think he knows.’
‘Who told Einion that you could see the future, Eleyne?’
‘Rhonwen.’ It was scarcely more than a whisper.
XIII
‘I should like you to return to Wales, madam.’ John’s lips were tight.
Rhonwen stared at him, her body growing cold. ‘Why, my lord? Have I displeased you in some way?’ Her eyes were challenging.
‘I consider you to be an unwholesome influence, Lady Rhonwen, on my wife.’ Humping his cloak higher on his shoulders, John paced up and down behind the long table. ‘You have deliberately introduced her to practices contrary to our Christian faith.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Heretical practices which I will not condone under my roof.’
‘No.’ Rhonwen refused to meet his eye. ‘That is not true.’
He swung to face her. ‘Are you saying that my wife is a liar?’
‘What did she say?’ Rhonwen looked at him defiantly. She was pleating her fingers into the rich blue silk of her skirt. She could feel the perspiration cold between her shoulder blades.
‘She said you encouraged her to go to this bard of her father’s, Einion Gweledydd, who -’ he stammered in his anger – ‘who initiated her in some way – ’
‘He was helping her, did she tell you that?’ Swiftly her courage returned. She leaned forward and put her hands flat on the table between them. ‘Did she tell you about her dreams? Did she tell you about the visions which possess her? Did she tell you how they tear her apart?’ She waited, her eyes on his.
