Child of the Phoenix. Barbara Erskine

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ shocked, had firmly suppressed the rumour, but the gossip had stuck fast. Rhonwen and Einion had known it would and, each for their own reason, it had pleased them both.

      ‘My back hurts.’ Isabella’s voice was peevish.

      ‘The child is lying awkwardly,’ Rhonwen said. ‘If you wish I can give you a salve which can be rubbed on your back to ease the ache. Princess Joan used such a mixture when she carried her children and it helped her greatly.’ She smiled at Isabella’s ladies who had paused some feet away. ‘One of your damsels can rub it in for you, or I will if you wish it.’

      ‘You did it for Princess Joan?’ Isabella pulled her cloak around her, emphasising her prominent stomach.

      ‘I did indeed.’ It wasn’t a lie. Once, when Joan’s handmaids had been busy elsewhere, Rhonwen had indeed stroked the scented ointment into the princess’s taut, agonised back only days before Eleyne was born.

      ‘Then you do it. They won’t know how.’ With a dismissive gesture to her ladies, Isabella turned towards the palace. ‘Fetch it now. I ache so much I can’t stand it another minute!’

      ‘Spoilt little madam!’ Rhonwen’s muttered comment was lost on the retreating back as Isabella, followed by her attendants, swept out of sight.

      She had a pot of salve in her coffer. For a moment as she rummaged beneath her belongings, she debated whether to add some irritant to the mixture, pounding it into the soft sweet-smelling salve, but she thought better of it. If she was to help Eleyne, she had to win the trust of this plump spoiled princess who had once been Eleyne’s friend.

      Assisted by her attendants Isabella had removed her gown and kirtle and been wrapped in a silk and velvet bed robe. She was sitting on the great bed eating sugared violets and marchpane flowers rolled in cinnamon when Rhonwen arrived with her jar of precious ointment. When her plump white body was stretched out at last on the bedcovers, discreetly covered by rugs, Rhonwen exposed the girl’s lower back and rounded bottom. She resisted the urge to give her patient a sharp slap on the backside and instead dug her hand deep into the jar of salve.

      Isabella groaned with pleasure as Rhonwen’s strong hands began to knead her cramped muscles.

      ‘You’re too tense, child,’ Rhonwen murmured. ‘Relax. Try to sleep while I work. Then the baby will lie more easily.’

      ‘Why did Eleyne send you away?’ Her head cradled on her arms, Isabella did not see the tightening of Rhonwen’s face.

      ‘She didn’t send me. It was him – Lord Huntingdon. Now they’ll be going to Chester, they’ll summon me back.’

      ‘Do you really believe that?’ The muffled voice was just sufficiently short of incredulity not to be insolent.

      ‘Yes, I believe it.’ Rhonwen scooped more salve into her cupped fingers. Looking down at it, she felt the emptiness threatening to rise again and she fought it down. There had to be a way of going back, and if there wasn’t then she had to see that Eleyne came back to her. And this spoiled girl was the key.

      ‘No.’ Isabella looked mutinously at the floor. ‘I don’t want her here. She killed my father!’

      ‘No, princess. Your father killed himself.’ Rhonwen kept her voice even. ‘It is cruel to blame Eleyne, who loved you like a sister. Please, for her sake. Speak to your husband. Surely, now she is Countess of Chester, Prince Llywelyn would want to keep a dialogue between her husband and Gwynedd. And Dafydd bach can persuade him. He would do anything if you asked him to.’

      Isabella was pouting. ‘I haven’t even seen Dafydd for two weeks.’ It was a sore point; even when he had visited Rhosyr, on the other side of the island a few days before, he had sent no message; the ladies in the palace near the harbour at Cemaes were feeling ignored.

      ‘It would give you an excuse to bring him to your side, princess.’ Rhonwen’s voice was low and confidential. ‘And impress him with your grasp of the political scene. Tell him you have heard Lord and Lady Chester have taken up residence at Chester Castle and you think it would be a tactful moment for the Prince of Aberffraw to write to his son-in-law and invite him to Aber. Tell him that it will enhance his position with his father and with the King of England if he can repair this rift.’

      VI

       ABER December 1232

      The early winter was mild. The gales blew themselves out and late roses budded and came to bruised, torn flower. The roads remained in good condition, and so, at last, Eleyne came to Aber in the second week of December.

      The last month had been bitterly unhappy. John had withdrawn from her completely. Since their quarrel over Margaret’s letter he had remained angry and cold, refusing to believe her tearful insistence that she had not intended to ask the king about remarriage. Perversely, his health had improved. He had put on weight and he rode and hunted regularly now, a more robust colour animating his face, but he had made no further attempt to touch her. Their reading too had stopped. He was too busy, he said, with the administration of the additional huge earldom of Chester.

      When the prince’s letter had come, asking him and his wife to Aber for Yule, John had written back excusing himself, but Eleyne could go and welcome. She was ecstatic when he told her. She could go home; she could see Rhonwen; she could see her father. She closed off John’s rejection in one corner of her mind and concentrated on preparing for the journey to the place she still thought of as home. She did not think about her mother or Einion at all. Nothing must be allowed to spoil her return.

      John spoke to her once, on the eve of her departure, at her request.

      ‘You are packed and ready?’ He looked up from his desk without a smile.

      She nodded. ‘We leave at first light, my lord.’

      ‘Good. Carry my greetings to your father and mother.’

      ‘When shall I come back, my lord?’ The excitement she felt at returning home could not fill the strange gap his withdrawal had left. She longed to run to him, to touch him, to feel him hold her protectively in his arms.

      ‘I will summon you back when I want you, Eleyne. If I want you,’ he said slowly. He laid down his pen. ‘Do not return until you have heard from me. I’m not sure I still want you for a wife. I’m not sure at all. It is not too late to annul this marriage. It is not consummated in the eyes of God.’ He turned back to his letters and did not look up again. She turned slowly, fighting her tears, and walked from the room.

      VII

      Rhonwen was waiting for her in a guest chamber at Aber. Never again would the beloved nursery wing in the ty hir be hers. It was already being refurbished for Isabella’s coming child.

      ‘Cariad! but look at you! how you’ve grown.’ For a moment neither of them moved, then Eleyne flew across the room and into the other woman’s arms.

      ‘Of course I’ve grown, Rhonwen. I’m grown up now!’

      ‘You are indeed! A countess twice over, with a train of followers bigger than your father’s!’ Rhonwen held her away for a moment surveying СКАЧАТЬ