Isabella laughed. ‘You don’t look pregnant,’ she said unkindly. ‘Well, well. Lucky you!’ This time the tone was openly caustic. ‘But it won’t save you from the marriage market.’
‘Oh, indeed it will,’ Eleyne said firmly. ‘Believe me, papa will not marry me to anyone against my wishes, and nor will King Henry. I am quite sure about that. I never want to marry again!’
Isabella let out a peal of laughter. ‘Eleyne! I’m twenty! And you’re a year younger than me! You’ll have to marry. Won’t she, papa?’
Unnoticed by Eleyne, the prince had entered the hall and walked slowly towards the dais. He leaned heavily on a stick, but apart from that he seemed to have regained his former vigour.
‘Won’t she what?’ With a groan Llywelyn lowered himself into his chair. ‘How are you, sweetheart?’ He held out his hand to Eleyne.
‘Marry, she’ll have to remarry.’
He frowned. ‘In due course, perhaps. There is no hurry to decide. I am sure the king will allow Eleyne to do as she wishes. She is a rich and powerful young woman now. Her dower lands will be immense.’ He smiled at her fondly. ‘But before all else we must get some colour back into her cheeks and comfort her sorrow. I know what it is like to be lonely and there is no healer but time.’ He squeezed her hand again.
‘Or another man,’ Isabella murmured, not quite inaudibly.
Llywelyn smiled into his beard as Eleyne gritted her teeth. ‘Take no notice, child,’ he said softly. ‘Madame is as sharp-tongued as ever, as my son knows to his cost. And if you’re with child,’ he peered at her thoughtfully, ‘she’ll never forgive you.’
‘I think I am.’ She smiled, unable to restrain the temptation to place her hands protectively, just for a second, on her still-flat belly. A baby for John – an heir. How much he had longed for it and now he would never see it. Her eyes filled with tears, in spite of her vow never to give way to them in public, and she turned her back to Isabella. ‘I think I might go and rest, papa, if you will excuse me. I am so tired.’
‘Of course.’ Llywelyn rose to his feet stiffly. ‘Rest as much as you can, child.’ He put his hand on her shoulder and gently drew her into the crook of his arm. ‘I am glad you’ve come home.’ He led her away from the others towards the door at the far end of the hall. ‘Your nurse, the Lady Rhonwen,’ he said awkwardly, ‘she came between us so often. I must tell you that it is almost certain that she is dead, and I am glad of it.’ As he felt her stiffen, he pulled her closer: ‘I don’t know what happened to her, but had she remained in custody she would surely have paid the severest of penalties for what she did on the night of your mother’s funeral.’ He paused as they reached the door, staring out across the courtyard. ‘She was evil, Eleyne, a servant of the devil. I like to think that I am growing more devout in my old age, and I pray more than I used to. Perhaps that has made me see what I should have seen from the start. She was a bad influence on you. She came between you and your mother. She is better dead.’ He had not looked at her.
Eleyne had closed her eyes. Rhonwen had stayed at Chester with the dowager and her ladies. Her fists clenched in the folds of her black skirts, she said nothing. What was there to say?
III
Over the next two weeks Eleyne had little time for grieving. Day after day a string of messengers came to see her with condolences from the kings of England and Scotland and all the nobles of the land. Bailiffs and clerks came endlessly too as the vast inheritance of Chester and Huntingdon was surveyed, ready to be split amongst its heirs, and as Eleyne’s dower lands were apportioned.
One of them, the king’s clerk, Peter de Mungumery, stayed at Aber before setting off to Fotheringhay. There he was to list and value all the vast possessions of the Honour of Huntingdon in Northampton, Rutland, Bedford, Huntingdonshire and Middlesex, for if there were no direct heir, the earl’s three surviving sisters, Maud, who had never married, Isabel Bruce, the Lady of Annandale, and Ada, Lady de Hastings, together with Christian and Dervorguilla, the two daughters of John’s eldest sister, Margaret, Lady of Galloway, who had died the preceding year in Scotland, would inherit these vast estates. Already a legal battle had begun as Alexander of Scotland claimed seisin over the lands of the earldom of Huntingdon and Robert Fitzooth claimed the title.
If there was no direct heir… Peter was waiting to find out if there was a child. As each day passed, Eleyne prayed, her only comfort that maybe she would bear John’s child.
It was not to be. The symptoms her body had shown and over which she had watched so hopefully were not those of pregnancy. As the long July days slid by and her body rested, recovering from the shock of John’s death, her courses resumed naturally and she was forced to acknowledge that there would be no direct heir to the earldom of Chester. To have to make such a private moment so public, knowing that so many, from the king to the least servant of the earldom, were waiting and watching to see what happened, was humiliating enough, but the moment was made more devastating by Isabella’s obvious pleasure at her distress.
King Henry’s messenger had spent a long time closeted with Llywelyn, and Eleyne, used by now to such visitors, waited in the arbour at Aber for a summons to their presence, expecting more interminable, impersonal discussions of rents and tenancies and dower lands.
She was sitting on the turf bank, idly picking daisies as she watched her ladies playing with the baby of one of Isabella’s women, when she saw her father and his visitor walking towards her beneath the trees. She could see at once that something was wrong: Llywelyn’s face was grey with fatigue and his mouth was tight.
She rose to her feet, her throat constricting with fear, dimly aware that the ladies around her had scooped up the baby and withdrawn to the far side of the garden. Llywelyn stopped in front of her. ‘King Henry has commanded you to return to Chester,’ he said without preamble. ‘This gentleman is here to escort you.’
‘But why?’ Eleyne stared from her father to the stranger and back. The visitor bowed. He was a tall thin man, dressed as she was in black, a colour which drained any semblance of animation from his face and left it looking cadaverous.
‘Permit me to introduce myself, my lady. I am Stephen of Seagrave, former Justiciar of England, one of his grace’s officers. King Henry has ordered that I take charge of you and escort you back to Chester and that you be kept in honourable and fitting state there until certain enquiries have been completed concerning accusations made against you, that you procured your husband’s death by use of foul poisons.’
‘Those were lies!’ Eleyne exploded. ‘Terrible, cruel lies!’
Stephen gave a shrug. ‘I am sure that will be quickly established. Whatever the case the king wishes you to be held there until he decides what is best to do with you.’
‘To do with me?’ Eleyne echoed.
Stephen bowed. ‘Those were his grace’s words.’
‘He means to give you in marriage to one of his supporters,’ Llywelyn put in heavily.
‘No!’ Eleyne stared at him. ‘No, he can’t! I don’t want to remarry – ’
‘I am sorry, my lady, it is the king’s command,’ Stephen said crisply. She saw the glint of metal beneath his mantle and realised that he wore full mail under his robe. ‘His grace waited in case you were
‘And you are very rich and the king wants to secure the support of someone or other at his court, no doubt,’ Llywelyn added, his voice weary. ‘Would that I could spare you this, Eleyne, but there are reasons why I must agree to the king’s wishes.’
Eleyne tightened her lips. She was angry as she had never been angry in her life before. ‘You mean it is convenient for you – or perhaps for Dafydd! That’s it, isn’t it? It would be good for Dafydd if you were seen to be supporting King Henry at the moment. And no doubt Isabella has had her say!’
‘No, my darling, Isabella doesn’t even know…’
‘But Dafydd does.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Dafydd advised you to agree without argument…’
‘Yes, he did, but -’ Llywelyn’s temper was rising too.
‘And Gruffydd, does he know what’s going on? Does he know what’s planned for me?’
