strangled. That’s what I would have done in his shoes. Now, finish getting ready, it’s time for your confession. I want to leave for Chester after mass.’
VII
Isabella grimaced. She hated Lent. The diet of salt fish and bread left her feeling lethargic and turned her complexion pasty. Dafydd had not come near her for weeks, and she had amused herself by reorganising her father-in-law’s household at Aber. Now that she had put her mind to it, she found she rather enjoyed it. She especially enjoyed pensioning off Princess Joan’s ladies and despatching them to various local nunneries. She let it be known that she would welcome the services of some young, lively maidens from the families of Dafydd’s supporters, and she made it clear that Senena, her three sons and the new baby, were no longer welcome at the prince’s court. About Gruffydd she could do nothing. She smiled grimly: Dafydd would see to his brother in good time, if Gruffydd did not disgrace himself first with his father yet again. The man seemed incapable of holding his temper or his thoughts in check.
‘So, daughter-in-law, you run my home with great efficiency.’ Llywelyn smiled indulgently; he had begun to think he was mistaken in his assessment of the girl. She had steadied and grown into her responsibilities, and she had slimmed down, her face thinner and more becoming. She had always been pretty but now, as the poets of his court had not failed to notice, she was becoming beautiful. He was pleased. He missed his own daughters who had all returned to their homes and husbands, and as Dafydd took over more and more the running of affairs in the principality he enjoyed sitting by the fire and being waited on by the pretty, lively ladies of his daughter-in-law’s household.
He missed Joan. Oh, how he missed Joan. More and more now he thought about death. His own robust frame had shrunk; his will for life had gone. With Dafydd there to take his place, it was time to turn his thoughts to God.
He sighed as he sat by the fire in the solar he had appropriated as his private office. How he longed for the spring; winter had been too long. It had left him trapped between his sons. They were quarrelling again – Dafydd the reasonable, the systematic, his choice for heir, and Gruffydd the romantic hothead, fighting with his neighbours, fighting with his brother and his brothers-in-law. Gruffydd drove him to despair, but he loved his eldest son. He could see a lot of his younger ambitious self in Gruffydd, and he adored his four grandsons. Owain, serious, quiet, much like his mother; Llywelyn, the boisterous, clever, outgoing one; Rhodri, already a dreamy, musical child; and now the baby, Dafydd, named, Llywelyn suspected, as a half-hearted gesture of appeasement to his brother. It was time he saw them again; perhaps in a day or two he would feel well enough to ride.
He rose and walked stiffly to the desk where a pile of letters awaited him. One, he could see at once, bore the great seal of Chester. He frowned. Yet again Eleyne had disrupted his life; she had disrupted the court and Joan’s funeral and tainted the memory of that sacred occasion.
He had decided to found a Franciscan friary over Joan’s grave. The brothers would pray in perpetuity for her soul, sanctify and wipe away the desecration of that night. Even the thought of it made him angry. How could she? How could Eleyne have contemplated visiting another grave; how could she have allowed that woman to perform who knew what ceremonies over it to raise the dead? Agitated, he drummed his fingers on the table. Eleyne had not known what was going on, of course.
Did he really believe that? Lord Chester had assured him that his daughter was innocent of any complicity, and yet…
Now they would never know. Rhonwen had disappeared unpunished, claimed, so his courtiers whispered, by the devil she worshipped. He could feel the frustrated anger rising in him yet again, the throbbing inside his head. He turned sharply to the page who was waiting in the corner of the room: ‘Bring me a drink, boy,
VIII
The flames were burning more clearly now, licking the back of the chimney, embracing the logs, devouring the dry twigs as Eleyne fed them slowly into the blaze. A log cracked loudly and she glanced over her shoulder, nervous that someone might have heard. The door was closed and she had turned the key in the lock. She was alone. The candles had long since burned down and the room was dark. She threw on the last stick and knelt for a while, holding her bed gown tightly around her shoulders, listening to the sound of the rain pouring outside. John had ridden with most of the officers of his household to Northampton to see the king. It had been her choice to remain at Fotheringhay, her wish that now, at last, she should be alone, and he had left her, believing that she was unwell, hoping that she might at last be pregnant.
She had collected the herbs from the stillroom over the past few weeks, hiding them in a small coffer, to which she alone had the key. Luned thought it contained letters. It was the night of the full moon – the most propitious time for what she had in mind. No moon would pierce the clouds tonight, but she could feel the power of it, up there, above the rain; feel its magic, its pull.
It had taken a while to pluck up the courage to do it, but her guilt at Rhonwen’s death (if indeed she was dead at all) and her increasing anger with John had festered. She missed Cenydd’s quiet presence and she was very sad about his death, but it had after all been John’s fault! If he and Cenydd hadn’t spied on them, none of it would have happened.
Something had changed between her and John. Perhaps it had changed before, when she was riding to and fro between Scotland and Wales, but she was no longer a child in any sense. She felt herself his equal now, and her independence had begun to assert itself. The night he had beaten her, he had awakened a sense of rebellion, and with her rebellion had returned her longing to ride alone. Now there was no faithful Cenydd to follow her.
She rose to her feet and let the bed gown slip to the floor. Away from the fire the room was cold and she felt the gooseflesh stir on her skin as she unlocked the coffer and took out a small silver dish and spoon and the packages of herbs. She mixed them carefully in the dish, then took it to the window, where earlier she had opened the shutters. Standing by the sill, she offered the mixture to the sky, feeling spots of icy rain on her cold skin, then, not giving herself time to think, she threw the mixture on the fire. Thick pungent smoke filled the hearth and spilled into the room, and she found herself spluttering and coughing as she knelt waiting for it to clear. At last she could look deep into the flame and with her voice low but determined, she called Einion to come to her.
The flames shrank and hissed and she heard the wind moan in the stairwell outside her door. The draught rattled the hinges and lifted the tapestries from the wall and she realised that there was a picture in the fire. She leaned forward, straining her eyes, feeling the heat searing her eyelids: there was a figure lying on a bed, and around it other figures, indistinct, fading. Who was it? Einion had died alone. Surely it was not John? Dear God, it could not be John.
