Child of the Phoenix. Barbara Erskine

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СКАЧАТЬ it in your eyes; see it in the thinness of you. What’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing’s wrong.’ Eleyne turned from the sharp scrutiny. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. There is always so much to do at Chester, so many people to talk to.’ The dowager had helped, staying on at the castle at Eleyne’s frantic entreaty, but even so she had found herself busy at all hours, even when it was only the business of being entertained. Without John’s support it had been a nightmare of strain and tension. ‘My father, Rhonwen. When will I see him?’

      ‘Soon, cariad.’ Isabella had done her part; Dafydd had persuaded Llywelyn to issue the invitation, but that was as far as it had gone. ‘I have no wish to see your sister,’ he had said to his son firmly, and the day before Eleyne’s arrival he had left Aber with a large contingent of followers to ride south.

      Joan was there however, and only an hour after Eleyne’s arrival she summoned her youngest daughter to her solar. Dry-mouthed, Eleyne stood before her, sharply conscious that she was now taller than her mother and far more richly dressed, for Joan was wearing a black gown and cloak – much to her husband’s irritation, her habitual dress since her return from exile. But her eyes were the same, fiercely critical, as she looked her daughter up and down.

      ‘So. You have become a beauty.’

      Taken aback, Eleyne blushed. She still felt antagonistic towards her mother, but her fear had gone – and her respect. But for this woman and her betrayal of her husband, Aber would still be her home and she would still be sure of her father’s love. Her disappointment at not finding him at Aber had been intense.

      ‘Why have you come?’ The directness of Joan’s question shocked her.

      ‘My father invited us,’ Eleyne replied. She raised her head defiantly. ‘And I wanted to come. I have missed you all.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Her mother’s voice was dry. ‘But your husband has not come with you.’

      ‘He is too busy.’ Eleyne answered too quickly.

      ‘And you are not too busy,’ her mother echoed quietly. ‘You are not breeding yet, I see.’ Her eye skimmed critically down Eleyne’s slim figure. ‘Your friend Isabella is six months gone.’

      ‘Is she?’ Eleyne turned away, but not quickly enough to hide her unhappiness from her mother’s sharp eyes. Joan’s expression softened slightly. ‘You and your husband are content, Eleyne?’

      ‘Yes, mama.’

      ‘And he has made you his wife?’ She paused. ‘You do know what I mean?’

      There was only the slightest hesitation, but it was enough. Joan frowned. Unexpectedly, and for the first time in the child’s life, she felt a wave of tenderness for this wayward, fey daughter of hers. Her own unhappiness and loneliness over the last three years had made her more thoughtful, more understanding. Her attitude to other people had, she realised, changed.

      She had been dreading seeing Eleyne again, well aware that it was Eleyne who had seen her that fearful, fateful night, but now, with her daughter sitting on the stool near her, gazing unhappily into the fire, she could feel her loneliness and misery as a tangible cloak around her. She responded to it with an unlooked-for wave of sympathy.

      ‘Is it his illness?’ she asked, her voice more gentle.

      Eleyne shrugged. ‘At first he said I was too young; then he was ill. Then, when I thought he wanted me at last … we quarrelled.’ Her eyes were fixed on the soft swathes of smoke drifting across the fire as the flame licked at the damp logs. The air smelt sweet and spicy from the gnarled, lichen-covered apple.

      ‘You must make up your quarrel.’ Joan picked up her embroidery frame and selected a new length of silk for her needle. ‘You have been lonely, I think.’

      Eleyne nodded.

      Joan squinted at the branch of candles, holding her needle up to the light. ‘It was the same for me when I first came here. I was English and a stranger in your father’s court. I was lonely and afraid.’

      ‘You?’ Eleyne turned to stare at her.

      ‘Why not?’ Her tone was defensive. ‘I was young – oh not as young as you – and just as vulnerable and without the loving family behind me which you had.’ She paused, unaware that her use of the past tense had brought tears to her daughter’s eyes. ‘I barely knew my father. He and my mother were together such a short time and yet here I was branded –’ her voice grew heavy with bitterness – ‘branded as the bastard daughter of King John. Not a princess, even though I had been declared legitimate, but the child of a woman of the night and a butcher!’

      ‘Was he really so evil?’ Eleyne’s voice was quiet. Her grandfather had died four years before she was born, but she too had grown up in the shadow of the hate his name still roused.

      ‘He did some bad things. He was a king,’ Joan went on after a long pause. ‘Kings and princes must sometimes be cruel if they are to rule effectively.’ There was another silence.

      Was she thinking of her own imprisonment, Eleyne wondered, and she realised with a shock that she had stopped thinking of her mother with hostility. This, the first real conversation they had ever had, had revealed a vulnerable, sensitive woman beneath the tough, unsentimental exterior, and Eleyne warmed to her.

      Her needle threaded at last, Joan put the silver thimble on her finger and began inserting minute stitches into the linen in her frame. ‘Why did he dismiss Rhonwen?’

      The question dropped into the silence, then Eleyne shrugged. ‘He doesn’t like her.’

      ‘Will you take her back with you?’

      Again Eleyne shrugged. ‘I love Rhonwen, but I don’t want to make him angry.’

      ‘Then leave her here. The woman plots and schemes like an alley cat. She will only complicate your life at Chester. You must learn one thing, Eleyne, and that is that there is no one you can rely on in this world but yourself. No one.’

      VIII

      Isabella could not hide her resentment and Eleyne felt it as soon as she walked into the room. The girl’s look was hard and full of enmity in the streaming light of the torches; her dark eyes were calculating. ‘So, you came back on your own.’

      A gale had risen, screaming across the sea from the north-west, pounding the waves against the shore, rattling the window screens in the palace. Isabella clutched her wrap around her bulky body and sat in the chair nearest the hearth. Around her, her ladies, shivering too in the draughty hall, gathered as close as they could to the fire. Eleyne stood alone in the centre of the floor and felt the wave of hostility crest and topple towards her like one of the fat breakers on the beach below. Her heart sank. How could she have thought that she and Isabella could still be friends?

      ‘My husband was too busy to leave Chester at the moment,’ she said calmly.

      ‘I heard he couldn’t wait to get rid of you,’ Isabella retorted pertly. ‘Little princess icicle they call you, did you know? One of my ladies said the pages were betting long odds you would still be a virgin when you were twenty!’

      Eleyne СКАЧАТЬ