Eleyne was trembling. Suddenly she began to cry. ‘Rhonwen, where’s Rhonwen?’
‘She’s gone to see the princess, your mother,’ he said, and he found himself stepping back sharply as she pushed past him and ran out of the room.
Barefoot, she ran towards the ladies’ bower and her mother’s bedroom. She threw open the door into the solar and peered in. It was deserted. The fire had burned low and the candles were guttering. She stopped, panting. ‘Rhonwen?’ she whispered. Tears were streaming down her face. Then she heard the murmur of conversation from the bedchamber. Tiptoeing towards her mother’s door, she lifted the latch and pushed it open.
The fire in the hearth leaped up at the sudden draught, sending red-gold lights sliding up the walls and across the bed where the two naked bodies writhed together on the tumbled sheets. Eleyne stared. She saw her mother’s face contorted with some strange emotion, her back arching towards the man who knelt between her legs, his broad shoulders shiny with perspiration in the leaping firelight. They laughed exultantly and he bent forward to smother her face with kisses, his powerful hands kneading the full white flesh of her breasts. Totally wrapped in their pleasure, the two did not hear the door open or see the small figure in the doorway.
Frozen to the spot, Eleyne stared at them for several seconds before she backed out of the room and pulled the door closed.
Blindly she turned. She did not seem surprised to see Rhonwen and her companions standing behind her. The three women had heard the outer door open and run into the solar in time to see Eleyne creep white-faced from her mother’s room.
Eleyne stared from one to the other, wild-eyed. ‘Did you see?’ Her lips were stiff. She could barely speak.
Rhonwen nodded.
‘It was Sir William.’ Eleyne’s voice was tight and shrill. She felt utterly betrayed. How could he? How could he do that with her mother? Her mother who had looked ugly and wild and like a sweating, rutting animal.
‘Your father must be told,’ Rhonwen said quietly at her elbow. She was suddenly, secretly, exultant. Sir William and Princess Joan. The two people she hated most in the world, trapped by their own lust. She bit back her triumph, anguished by the raw pain on the child’s face. ‘He has to know, Eleyne. What you saw was treason.’
Eleyne stared at her for a moment, her lips pressed tightly together. ‘But he will kill them,’ she whispered.
Then she nodded.
XX
Prince Llywelyn had fallen asleep in his great chair by the fire on the dais in the main hall. A half-finished cup of wine stood near him. Most of the men around him lay sprawled asleep across the tables.
Eleyne flew across the great hall and threw herself at him in a storm of tears.
It took Llywelyn a minute or two to understand what his distraught daughter was saying, then, white-faced, he stood up. Striding between his followers, all now awake and staring, he seized a burning torch from one of the sconces and made his way out of the hall, dragging Eleyne with him by the wrist.
‘If you have made this up, I’ll have you whipped,’ he hissed at the terrified child. She had never seen her father like this. His eyes were huge and hooded, his mouth a thin line of pain. Frantically she cast around for Rhonwen, but there was no sign of her amongst the silent curious crowd pushing after them.
Llywelyn strode across the courtyard and into the ty hir. Climbing the stairs, he crossed the women’s bower in long strides and flung open his wife’s bedchamber door, holding the torch high.
Eleyne saw the two figures sit up in the bed, their faces rigid with shock; she saw Sir William snatch the bedcover and wrap it around his naked body as he leaped up, saw her mother’s white skin gleaming with sweat, flaccid, exhausted, before Joan too grabbed at a sheet and pulled it over her. Then she found herself spinning across the room as her father, with an animal howl of grief and anger, pushed her away and threw himself on to Sir William, reaching for his throat. For a moment the two men grappled together by the bed, before the prince’s men rushed forward and dragged Sir William aside. He had lost the sheet and for a moment he stood completely naked, his arms gripped by his captors, as he was dragged out of the room.
Llywelyn stood, panting, looking down at his wife. She stared back, rigid with fear, her beautiful hair matted with sweat.
‘Whore!’ Llywelyn shot the word at her with loathing. ‘Slut! Harlot! You will die for this!’
Eleyne let out a little sob. Scrambling to her feet from the corner where she had fallen, she stood not daring to move, staring at her mother who was rocking backwards and forwards on the bed, moaning with a strange, high-pitched wail.
In the doorway Marared and Ethil hovered, not daring to approach her. It was Ethil who beckoned the frightened child and pulled her from the room. ‘Go to your bed, princess, and don’t say a word to anyone,’ she whispered. ‘Quickly now.’
Of Rhonwen there was no sign.
Eleyne fled to the stables. For a long time she stood staring at Invictus as he nuzzled her empty hands, then she put her arms around his neck and wept.
Rhonwen found her asleep in the hay between his great hooves several hours later. One of the grooms carried the still-sleeping child to her bed.
XXI
The world to which Eleyne awakened had changed forever. The palace was in shock. Sir William and his followers had been imprisoned, as had the Princess Joan. The prince’s anger and grief had hardened into the need for revenge. Llywelyn’s wife and her lover were to die. He refused to see Eleyne; he refused to see Dafydd; he refused repeatedly Joan’s frenzied pleas for an audience. He closeted himself in an upstairs chamber of the new stone keep, admitting only Einion and his trusted friend and counsellor, Ednyfed Fychan.
Word of what had happened had spread like wildfire beyond Aber and across Wales. Already the crowds were gathering, baying for de Braose’s blood.
Eleyne’s mind refused to accept what had happened. She crept repeatedly back to the stables and at last Rhonwen, chilled by the expression on the child’s face, let her stay there to find what comfort she could amongst the horses.
Where others had failed, Rhonwen managed to gain audience with the prince. His face appalled her. He had aged twenty years in as many hours.
‘You must speak to Princess Eleyne,’ she said urgently. ‘The child is in torment.’
‘I am in torment, lady!’ the prince snapped back. ‘Would to God she had not told me!’
‘You would rather not have known your wife made a cuckold of you?’ Rhonwen was deliberately harsh. ‘When the whole court could see it? You had to find out.’
Llywelyn walked heavily across to the fire and threw himself into the chair that stood near it. ‘Then the whole court will see how I repay treachery. Sir William accepted my hospitality at the sacred time of Easter and he abused every law of home and hearth. He will pay for it with his life like a common criminal, with no honour, on the Gallows Marsh.’
Rhonwen suppressed a triumphant smile. ‘That’s only just, sir, but I must take Eleyne away. You must see that. She’s only a child.’
‘Then it’s time she grew up!’ Llywelyn’s face hardened. ‘She can watch him hang.’
‘No!’ Rhonwen paled. This was not what she had intended. ‘He befriended her – ’
‘Then she should learn to choose her friends with more care. It will be a valuable lesson.’
Rhonwen was silent for a moment. ‘And her mother?’ she whispered at last. ‘Must she watch her mother hang too?’
Llywelyn put his face in his hands. He rubbed his cheeks wearily and she heard the rasp of his beard against his palms. He shook his head. ‘I cannot hang her.’ His voice broke. He gave a painful sigh. ‘But she will spend the rest of her life in prison.’
There was a long silence broken only by the distant murmur of the crowds gathering outside the palace.
‘Perhaps I could take Eleyne back to Degannwy?’ Rhonwen persisted gently, ‘afterwards.’
‘Perhaps.’ He sto
od up. ‘Enough, woman. Leave me.’
Einion was waiting for her outside the door. He took Rhonwen’s arm and pulled her into a quiet corner. ‘I will take the little princess,’ he said, ‘she will be safe in my care.’
‘No.’ Rhonwen shook her head violently, her complacency turned to fear. ‘No, she is too young and you have frightened her. She will not go with you now. If you had but left it; treated her more gently …’
‘There was no time to treat her gently. She has grown into her full powers and she needs my guidance.’ He drew himself up. ‘This is a time of change for Gwynedd, lady, as you are well aware. The English princess and her compatriots are finished.’ He smiled grimly. ‘Under Prince Llywelyn’s rule Wales can become a great and independent nation at last. It is vital that Eleyne takes her place at her father’s side and, after him, at that of her brother, Gruffydd. She can help them. Guide them. We are agreed on that, I think.’
Rhonwen nodded unhappily. ‘It is a pity that Dafydd’s marriage to the little de Braose has not taken place yet. That would have spoiled his claim to be his father’s heir,’ she said with a sigh.
Einion gave a harsh smile. ‘There are other ways of discrediting Dafydd bach. He is his mother’s son, after all.’
‘You are forgetting that Eleyne has the same blood,’ Rhonwen reminded him, ruefully.
Einion smiled again. ‘Her Plantagenet blood lies dormant. It is her Welsh blood which rules.’ He put his hand heavily on Rhonwen’s shoulder. ‘Don’t fear for Eleyne, lady. I shall take care of her. Once de Braose is hanged, I shall speak to her father and take her back to Môn.’
XXII
ABER 2 May 1230
Eleyne was sitting alone, huddled behind the stable block, watching the grooms strap the horses. She was still numb. This was the day chosen for Sir William to die. The crowds were increasing hourly – people riding in from all over North Wales to watch the scion of the hated de Braose family hang. No one spoke in his defence. Even had they wished to, how could they? To take another man’s wife when you were a guest beneath his roof was a crime every man understood. Joan had already been sent away to her lonely prison.
Rhonwen found Eleyne at last in Invictus’s stall. ‘You have to come, Eleyne. It’s your father’s command.’
Eleyne’s eyes darkened with horror. ‘No.’
‘You must, cariad. I’m sorry.’
Eleyne backed away. Why?’ she whispered.
Rhonwen shrugged helplessly. ‘I don’t know.’ She was full of guilt. Why had she not told Llywelyn herself? Why in her haste to destroy Joan and de Braose had she sent the child to find her father?
‘You are a princess, Eleyne,’ she said softly, ‘you have to hold your head high and let no one see that you are crying inside.’
‘I’m not crying!’ Eleyne retorted unsteadily. ‘He deserves to die!’
Slowly, head erect, her shoulders defiantly squared, Eleyne walked with Rhonwen out of the palace and down the river to Gwern y Grog, the Gallows Marsh. There she stood beside her brother Dafydd and her father as Sir William de Braose was brought to the gallows. They halted him before the prince and he bowed slightly.
‘Your wife was innocent, your highness,’ he said softly. ‘I was the only one to blame.’ He scanned the crowd anxiously as though afraid Joan had been brought to watch him die.
Beyond the royal party a crowd of several hundred people spread out across the marshy field, its earlier noisy excitement hushed as Sir William appeared. He wore nothing but a short tunic and breeches. They had tied his hands, but he stood proudly before Llywelyn, relaxing imperceptibly when he saw Joan was not there. Then his gaze fell on Eleyne and there was pain in his eyes as he bowed again.
‘So, little princess, you come to watch my end. I should like you to have Invictus, sweetheart. My only bequest. With your father’s permission, he is yours.’ His eyes strayed to Rhonwen’s face as she stood behind the child and suddenly he remembered that far-off day in his beloved Hay when he had made an enemy of Eleyne’s nurse. With a wry inclination of his head he acknowledged her victory, then he turned and walked of his own accord towards the high gallows.
Eleyne closed her eyes, struggling to hold back her tears. She did not look as the hush from the crowd told her that they had put the noose around his neck, or when the deafening roar of cheers told her that it was done. She stared up at the brilliant blue sky and prayed she would not cry as she tried to control the panic which had swept over her. Her whole body had grown cold with horror for, now it was too late, she knew that she had seen this scene before. Sir William, the friend who had betrayed her as he had betrayed her father, was the man she had seen in her vision in the fire.
She could have saved him! She could have saved her mother and her father. And yet it was she who had told her father of Sir William’s treachery; she who had set the chain of events in motion. She had been given the chance to alter the course of history and she had not understood.
‘Eleyne, we can go now.’ Rhonwen came between her and the gallows and put her arm gently around her shoulders.
Eleyne was clinging desperately to her self-control. She pushed aside Rhonwen’s arm.
Why? Why had she not understood? She could have stopped it. She could have saved his life!
Trembling, she stood still, not seeing the crowds of people streaming past her, some with sympathetic glances for the child.
Rhonwen frowned unhappily. ‘Come back to your room, cariad,’ she whispered. ‘There’s nothing to stay for here.’
‘I saw it and I didn’t understand.’ Eleyne’s voice was husky. In the distance she could hear the whistling of the shore birds, feeding on the sands.
‘Didn’t understand what?’ Rhonwen ached to take her in her arms. She saw Llywelyn, his face a mask of pain and anger, walking slowly by. He did not glance at his white-faced daughter.
‘The hanging.’ Eleyne’s words were almost inaudible. ‘I saw it in the fire …’
Rhonwen closed her eyes and murmured a prayer.
‘I could have stopped it. If I had learned how to control the visions I could have saved him …’
‘No, sweetheart, no.’ Rhonwen hugged her now and this time Eleyne did not push her away.
‘But don’t you see? That’s why I was allowed to see it. I could have warned him. I could have.’ Suddenly the storm of tears broke. Sobbing, Eleyne clung to her. ‘I could have stopped it, I should have. That was why I saw it in the fire. And yet it was me who betrayed him. Me …’ Her voice broke and she choked on her sobs. ‘Why couldn’t I have saved him?’
Rhonwen frowned at the sky. ‘Perhaps that was because it was his destiny,’ she whispered.
XXIII
7 May 1230
Einion was with the prince when Llywelyn sent at last for his youngest daughter.
‘You cannot stay at Aber.’ Llywelyn looked down at the slight figure of the child with cold dislike.
‘Sir, now would be a good time for me to take her to Llanfaes.’ Einion stepped forward quickly. There had been no opportunity to speak to the child alone; he knew what she must be feeling; the fear, the uncertainty, the overwhelming guilt. He alone knew what she knew, had seen what she had seen in the fire. ‘I have already spoken to you of the little princess’s future at your side – ’
‘She has no future at my side,’ Llywelyn snapped. He closed his eyes bitterly. Every time in the last few days that he set eyes on Eleyne it was the same: she reminded him of the night when his world had crashed about his ears. His tender fondness for her had been eclipsed by anger and heartache. Now he almost hated her.
‘Then, sir, may I take her back to Degannwy, to Prince Gruffydd.’ Rhonwen stepped forward.
Llywelyn shook his head. ‘No.’ He stood up slowly. ‘My mind is made up. There is no longer a home for her in Wales. Eleyne, you will go to your husband; your place is at his side now.’
There was a stunned silence. Eleyne looked from her father’s closed face to Rhonwen, who
had gone white. She could not think clearly; her mind was numbed by her father’s words.
Einion’s eyes blazed with anger. ‘Sir, this cannot be. She is too young, and her place is here, in Gwynedd.’
‘She is not too young.’ Llywelyn looked from one to the other, grimly. ‘All is arranged. She leaves tomorrow. I do not wish to see my daughter again.’
BOOK TWO
1230–1241
CHAPTER FOUR
I
ABER May 1230
The prince’s guards were at Eleyne’s door; Princess Joan’s ladies – those who had not been dismissed or followed their mistress into captivity – crowded the nursery quarters packing great coffers full of clothes and bedding and gifts. Although he refused even to bid Eleyne farewell, Llywelyn had made sure that she would leave Aber with a train suitable for a princess and a bride.
Eleyne sat silently amidst all the activity, frozen with unhappiness, unable to bring herself to believe what was happening to her. It had been so sudden. She could eat no supper and that night she lay awake fighting her tears. She could not go to the stable. The rooms were guarded. Beside her Luned slept heavily, worn out with excitement, for she too was to go to Chester.
Eleyne groped for her pillow and hugged it to her miserably, her brain whirling. Her husband was a man; he would want to take her to his bed; he would want to do the things that William de Braose had done to her mother – William whose body was still hanging out there in the darkness, carrion for the crows. She clung to the pillow, feeling sick panic clutch at her stomach. She could have saved him. She could have saved herself. She bit her lip, pressing her small, thin body harder into the feather bed, unconsciously clamping her thighs together in the darkness.
The line of wagons and carts and the escort of armed men stretched for over a mile as the party made its way north-east along the coast road, across the Conwy and, following the old Roman road to St Asaphs, over Afon Clwyd, turned south at last on to the flat lands of Dee. Riding behind Eleyne and Rhonwen came Cenydd and Luned, Luned mounted on Cadi. Somewhere behind them one of the knights led Invictus. Llywelyn had decreed that the horse might be a suitable gift for his son-in-law.