Child of the Phoenix

V

Horses had been part of Eleyne’s life ever since she could remember, and Rhonwen, who in all other matters was strict and even overprotective, never interfered unduly with her when she was in the stables. Horses adored the child; they trusted her; the stout Welsh ponies at her father’s court, the finer palfreys, the great warhorses, let her climb all over them.

‘Let her be.’ Einion Gweledydd had watched her from a distance and nodded his approval. ‘She has the hand of Epona. The animals sense it. They will never hurt her.’

The old man, one of the most revered bards at Llywelyn’s court, was one of those few survivors who, though he paid grudging lip service to the Christian church, in secret embraced the ancient beliefs which existed still in pockets in the mountains and forests of Britain. As a child Rhonwen had been taken to him by her fey, aristocratic mother and given to the great goddess. The rest of the family had disowned mother and child when they found out and later the heartbroken mother had died. Rhonwen was brought up by Llywelyn’s beautiful lady, Tangwystl, his eldest son Gruffydd’s mother. But Rhonwen had always remembered her destiny and remained faithful to her goddess – and obedient to Einion.

It was Einion who secretly supervised Eleyne’s education, although he never went near her himself. Ostensibly it was Rhonwen who taught her everything she knew. How to read and write in Welsh and French and English; how to count; how to sew and weave and how to sing and play the harp; and it was Rhonwen who told her the stories of her father’s principality, of the ancient kingdoms of Wales and the old gods and heroes who walked their mountains and forests. The child was bright and eager and learned quickly. Her father and Einion were both satisfied.

Princess Joan, Llywelyn’s wife, who had in many eyes usurped the position of Tangwystl, and whose son Dafydd was destined to take Gruffydd’s place as his father’s heir, showed no interest in Eleyne, her youngest child. The rest of her brood were grown; her maternal feelings had been exhausted by them. It was left to Llywelyn to show Eleyne parental affection and this he did often. He adored her. The fact that he had married her as a two-year-old baby to the heir of his powerful neighbour, the Earl of Chester, a young man who was also heir presumptive to the King of Scots, was almost forgotten. She would not go to her husband until she was fourteen. Until then she was his daughter and his delight.

Both the Prince of Aberffraw and Eleyne’s distant husband were happy to leave the child in Rhonwen’s care. She was competent and she was dedicated. Joan had been less happy with the choice of Rhonwen when she found out the young woman’s background, but she was quiet and she was dutiful and Joan had better things to think about. After a while she put her objections to Rhonwen out of her mind, although she never bothered to hide her dislike. Had she known Rhonwen’s feelings towards her and the nurse’s passionate attachment to Tangwystl’s son and the native Welsh cause, she would have been far more concerned. As both she and her husband would have been had they known that Rhonwen was still a follower of the ancient faith and that she and Einion Gweledydd had marked Eleyne for their own.

VI

Eleyne gave Rhonwen the slip the next morning, sensing, as old Thomas had, that she would not approve of the ride. Minutes later she was racing to the stables, praying Invictus was there and not out being exercised by one of the knights or a groom. Sir William was, she knew, in the great hall, seated with his father, Reginald, at one of the trestle tables. Reginald de Braose was better this morning. He appeared to have shaken off his fever and had come down to the hall to talk to his son. The two men were in deep discussion, a jug of wine on the table between them. With a quick evasive smile at them, Eleyne pulled her cloak around her and ducked out into the spring sunshine.

The heavy rain of the previous few days had stopped at last and the Wye Valley was brilliant in the clear air. Above her head she heard the hoarse call of a raven and she glanced up with narrowed eyes to watch it tumbling against the blue sky before it closed its wings and dived for the high ruined window of the tower. In daylight she could see the height of that window and she trembled at the thought that she and Isabella had been up there, so high above the ground. She turned away, the raven forgotten almost at once. Today she had a more important appointment.

Thomas saddled the charger, taller and rangier than the average battle horse, built for speed as much as weight, his dished head betraying the traces of Arabian blood amongst his ancestors, his huge dark eyes kind in the chestnut head. Thomas lifted her high on to the horse’s broad back, then swung himself on to one of the palfreys. They had nearly reached the castle gates when Eleyne heard Rhonwen’s cry.

‘What do you think you’re doing? Get that child off that horse!’ Rhonwen had seen her from the doorway to the tower.

Eleyne glanced at Thomas, tempted to kick Invictus into a gallop, but Thomas had put a steadying hand on her rein.

‘Sir William said I could,’ she said defiantly as Rhonwen ran towards them.

‘I don’t believe you.’ Rhonwen tightened her lips. ‘No one would give permission for a child to ride that animal. That horse must be seventeen hands.’

Eleyne smiled. ‘Yes, isn’t he gorgeous? And he’s as gentle as a lamb, really.’

‘Get off!’ Rhonwen’s eyes were flashing dangerously. ‘Get off him this minute. You are not going to ride him!’

‘Why not, pray?’ Behind her Sir William had appeared in the courtyard. As he strode towards them, they could see his father standing in the doorway in the distance watching them. Sir Reginald was leaning on a stick, his face grey with pain in the bright sunlight. ‘I gave her permission to ride Invictus, Lady Rhonwen. She’ll be safe with him.’

‘I don’t want her on that horse.’ Rhonwen stood in front of Sir William, her fists clenched. ‘Eleyne is my charge. If I forbid her to ride, she will not ride.’ She loathed this man with his easy arrogant charm, his assumption that every female near him, child or adult, would succumb to his smile.

‘Eleyne is my guest, madam.’ William’s eyes were suddenly hard. ‘And this is my castle. She will do as she pleases here.’

Eleyne caught her breath, looking from one to the other. Without even realising it, she had wound her fingers deep into the stallion’s mane. She was torn. She was passionately loyal to Rhonwen and she didn’t want to see her bested, but this was a battle she wanted Sir William to win.

Rhonwen’s eyes had narrowed. ‘You would risk the life of this child? Are you aware, Sir William, that this girl is the Countess of Huntingdon. She is a princess of Scotland. The alliance and friendship of three nations rests in her!’

Rhonwen had never looked more beautiful. Watching from the back of the stallion Eleyne viewed her with a sudden dispassionate pride. She was wonderful – her head erect, her fine features tightened by her anger, her colour high, the gold braids coiled around her head gleaming beneath her veil. Eleyne straightened her own shoulders imperceptibly. Sir William too, she noticed intuitively, was very aware of Rhonwen’s beauty. Nevertheless he frowned. ‘Lady Huntingdon,’ he emphasised her title mockingly, ‘is my guest, madam, I shall let nothing harm her under my roof.’

‘Lady Huntingdon,’ Rhonwen retorted, ‘is her sister’s guest, under your father’s roof.’

‘And her sister is my father’s wife.’ William’s voice was silky. ‘And does as he commands. Shall I fetch her, Lady Rhonwen, and ask her to confirm that the de Braoses give their permission for this ride?’ He held Rhonwen’s gaze.

She looked away first. ‘There is no need,’ she said, defeated. ‘If you’re sure the horse is safe.’ Her voice was heavy with resentment.

Eleyne found she had been holding her breath. She glanced at Thomas. He was waiting, his eyes on the ground, the perfect servant, seemingly not listening to the altercation, except that, she knew, it would be all round the castle within an hour of their return.

She looked at Rhonwen pleadingly, not wanting her to be hurt, but Rhonwen had turned away. Her head held high, she walked back across the courtyard and, passing Sir Reginald without even a nod of her head, disappeared into the west tower.

Sir William winked at Eleyne and smacked his horse lightly on its rump. ‘Have a nice ride, princess,’ he said cheerfully, ‘and for pity’s sake don’t fall off, or we’ll have three nations at each other’s throats.’

He watched as Eleyne and Thomas rode off, followed at a discreet distance by an escort of men-at-arms. He frowned; he had made an enemy of Rhonwen and the thought made him uneasy.

VII

Rhonwen stood for a moment inside the door at the bottom of the new tower, trying to control her anger. Leaning back against the wall, she took a deep breath, then another, feeling the rough newly lime-washed stone of the masonry digging into the back of her scalp. Only when she was completely calm did she make her way slowly up the winding stair towards the bedchambers high above. At this time of day they were deserted. She stood for a moment looking down at the bed the children shared, then she walked across to the window embrasure and sat down on the stone seat. The forested hills beyond the Wye were crystal clear in the cold brightness of the sun, but there was no sign of any rider.

She wasn’t afraid; Eleyne could ride any horse, however wild. She would cling along the animal’s neck, whispering in its ear, and the horse would seem to understand. What worried Rhonwen was Eleyne’s defiance, encouraged as it had been by de Braose.

She clenched her fists in her lap. She hated him as a man and she hated his family and all they stood for. To have to stay with them for however short a time, even though Gwladus, a daughter of the prince, lived here, was torture to her. They represented the loathed English who had insinuated themselves into the principalities over the last century and a half, and she could see no good coming of the prince’s desire to be allied to them. Her knuckles whitened. William had publicly challenged her; he had overruled her authority over Eleyne, an authority vested in her by the prince himself. For that, one day, she would make him pay. The de Braoses had fallen once from their power and influence in the March. Why should they not fall again?

VIII

It was many hours before Eleyne returned and when she did she was careful to avoid Rhonwen. Exhilarated, tired, her face streaked with mud thrown up by the thundering hooves, her hair tangled and her gown torn, she was happier than she had ever been. Leaving the stables with considerable reluctance, she looked around the courtyard. There was no sign of Isabella or her sisters. They had been there when Eleyne rode in so proudly at Thomas’s side, and they had swarmed around as Eleyne dismounted. Then a maid had come to fetch them. The Lady Eva, their mother, wanted them indoors.

As the shadows lengthened across the cobblestones she stood for a moment watching the builders swarming over the castle walls. Wisps of hay danced and spun in the wind; a rowan tree, heavy with fruit, tossed its branches near the smithy.

She was seeing everything with a strange intensity: she noticed every detail of the stones the hod carriers lifted up the walls; the flakes and holes in the rough porous surfaces, the old dried lichen. She noticed the details of the men’s faces, the different textures of their skins – some rough and weatherbeaten, one soft and downy as a child. She saw the clumps of primroses and cowslips, heartsease, the flowers intense purple and yellow, streaked with hair lines of black, and melissa with its glossy rumpled leaves, strays from the herb gardens, which had rooted at the foot of the walls.

Eleyne frowned. She was there again – the shadowy figure – watching the masons at their work. She was less distinct today, a wraith against the stone, fading, then gone.

Rhonwen was watching Eleyne from the shelter of the wall with its forest of scaffolding. She had watched the child ride in, and had forced herself not to run to the stable to meet her. She could see Eleyne’s face, read fifty paces away the child’s happiness, and she knew this was not the moment to go to her. This was a moment for Eleyne to treasure; a triumph she needed to savour alone, without the woman who had been her nurse. Time enough to speak to her later.

Rhonwen had thought about it often, dreading the moment when it would come, but this was what growing up would be from now on for this spirited and wayward girl. Steps to independence through defiance and even, sometimes, deceit. If she wanted to keep Eleyne’s love and trust, she must know when to accept rebellion however hard it proved to be. For she had come to realise over the years that keeping Eleyne’s love was something she had to do. The child was her whole life; without her she would be nothing.

She frowned. Eleyne was listening again, her head cocked at an angle, her whole body alert, the recent ride momentarily forgotten. Watching her, Rhonwen felt the small hairs on her arms and at the back of her neck rise in warning. She pulled her cloak around her and stepped out into the cold evening sunlight.

Eleyne looked up at Rhonwen and smiled. The warmth and love in the smile soothed and cajoled, even if her words made Rhonwen frown.

‘She’s here again. Can’t you feel her?’

‘You’re talking nonsense, my lady!’ But Rhonwen glanced around in spite of herself. Oh yes, she was there, the strange presence who watched over Hay Castle. Rhonwen could sense her too, but she had no intention of encouraging the child: not yet. There had been too many nightmares – mostly Isabella’s – already.

‘Where is Isabella, child? I thought she would have found you by now?’ Rhonwen straightened the girl’s gown and rubbed at a pale streak of mortar dust on the red wool. The tear would have to wait until later.

‘Their mother called them all inside.’ Eleyne went to elaborate lengths to avoid Rhonwen’s eye.

‘Why?’

Shrugging, Eleyne drew a line in the dust with the point of her shoe.

‘Had you been frightening them with ghost stories again?’

‘They’re not stories! All I said this morning was, look, she’s watching us, and Isabella screamed.’ Eleyne’s chin set firmly. ‘She was, Rhonwen. The Lady. She often watches us.’

‘I see.’ Rhonwen sat down on a piece of rough-hewn stone waiting its turn to be shaped and hauled up the scaffolding. Now was obviously not the time to talk about the ride. ‘So, tell me, what does she look like, this lady of yours?’

‘She’s very tall, and her hair is a deep dark red, a bit like mine, and her eyes are grey-green and gold and alive like river water in the sun.’

‘And do you know who she is, this lady?’ Rhonwen asked cautiously. She remembered suddenly Gwladus’s words, She’s still here, you know, Reginald’s mother. She haunts the castle…. Reginald’s mother, Matilda de Braose, the Lady of Hay, who had built this castle, some said with her own hands.

Eleyne shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I expect she lived here. She is someone who loved this place. Sometimes I see her up on the walls with the masons.’ She giggled. ‘If they could see her too, they’d fall off with fright!’

‘But she doesn’t frighten you?’ Rhonwen stared up at the high new curtain wall.

‘Oh, no. I think she likes me.’

‘How do you know?’ If it were Reginald’s mother, this ghost of Hay, would she, who had been so brutally murdered by King John, really like this child, in whose veins ran that tainted royal blood? She shuddered.

‘I just know,’ Eleyne said. ‘Otherwise she wouldn’t let me see her, would she?’ She stooped and pulled at Rhonwen’s hand. ‘Let’s go in. I must change my gown before we eat, and I’m starving!’

As the innocent words echoed around the courtyard, Rhonwen paled. Secretly she made the sign against evil, as she glanced into the shadows. ‘She doesn’t know,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Please forgive her, she doesn’t know how you died.’

As they walked towards the door they stopped at the sound of shouting coming from near the blacksmith’s shed. A man from Gwynedd had pulled a man from Hay by the nose, a knife had been drawn and within seconds a dozen men were fighting furiously on the muddy cobbles.

Rhonwen caught Eleyne’s arm and pulled her back hurriedly. ‘Inside,’ she said. ‘Quickly. There will be bloodshed if Sir William doesn’t stop it.’

‘Why do they hate each other so?’ Eleyne hung back, wanting to watch the fighting.

‘They come from different worlds, child, that’s why.’ Rhonwen compressed her lips. Her sympathies were with their own men. If she had been able, she would have been down there with them, tearing the eyes out of the hated English.

From the comparative safety of their position near the wall, they watched the fighting for a moment. Eleyne glanced up at her. ‘You don’t want Dafydd to marry Isabella, do you?’

‘I don’t care what Dafydd does.’ Rhonwen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just so long as he isn’t made your father’s heir. That position belongs to the eldest son by right, whether or not his mother was married to the prince under English laws. Gruffydd must have it. And Gruffydd is married to a Welsh wife.’

Eleyne sighed. ‘I wish Gruffydd and Dafydd didn’t quarrel all the time.’

‘That is your father’s fault. He should have stood up to your mother and made it clear that his eldest son would remain his heir.’

‘If Dafydd becomes papa’s heir instead of Gruffydd, Isabella will one day be the Princess of Aberffraw,’ Eleyne went on thoughtfully. ‘I hope she doesn’t get big-headed.’ She suppressed the treacherous thought quickly. ‘But it will be nice to have her living at Aber so I can see her all the time.’

Rhonwen frowned. Eleyne had forgotten, as she was always forgetting, her own marriage to the Earl of Huntingdon, the Scots prince who would one day be Earl of Chester, the greatest earl in England. The reality of her position – that she would not be living at Aber forever – meant nothing to her yet, and it was something Rhonwen preferred not to think about. It would be four years at least before Eleyne would have to go to her husband. All the time in the world. Anything could happen in four years. She took Eleyne’s hand. ‘Look, they’re fighting near the stables now. We must go in. If we go round by the herb gardens we won’t be anywhere near them.’ She dragged Eleyne away from the door and around the base of the tower towards the south side of the castle.