Child of the Phoenix

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Is she dead?’ Eleyne whispered at last, her voice all but lost in the howl of the wind.

  ‘Yes.’ Donald bit his lip. ‘She’s dead.’ He stooped and, pulling out the dirk, he flung it on the ground.

  He went to his wife and tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away. ‘Don’t touch me!’

  ‘Eleyne!’ His hands dropped to his sides. ‘I know you’re upset, but – ’

  ‘But what?’ Her eyes were blazing. ‘I just found you making love to another woman and – ’

  ‘That didn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Of course it meant something! Why else would you have done it?’ She was almost hysterical. ‘I nearly lost my baby trying to follow Rhonwen to save you and now – and now –’ her eyes flooded with tears – ‘and now she is dead and I killed her.’

  ‘You saved my life, my darling.’

  ‘I killed her!’ Rhonwen lay sprawled on her back, her eyes wide open, gazing sightlessly upwards at the shadowy vaulted ceiling. ‘I killed her …’ She held out her hands in front of her, staring at them in revulsion.

  ‘And how many people has she killed in her life, Nel?’ Donald asked gently. He did not try to touch her again. ‘You told me that she admitted having killed Robert de Quincy. You told me you suspected there were other people she had poisoned: John of Chester, Alexander’s queen – even Malcolm himself perhaps! Sweet Christ, Eleyne! She nearly succeeded in killing me!’ He clamped his hand to his shoulder, where his gown was slowly turning red, and brought it away, his fingers sticky with blood. ‘Do you realise that woman might have been responsible for the deaths of all your husbands! Christ only knows why you kept her near you!’

  For a moment they both stood staring down at Rhonwen’s body. Eleyne was shaking her head. ‘But she loved me!’ she whispered. ‘And I killed her!’

  ‘She was a dangerous, mad woman, Eleyne.’ Wearily Donald stooped and picking up a sack he threw it over Rhonwen’s face and shoulders. ‘Come away now.’

  ‘Someone will have to be with her.’

  ‘I’ll deal with it.’ He picked up the lantern. ‘How did you know where to come?’

  ‘I searched the whole tower.’

  ‘And you knew what she was going to do?’

  Eleyne nodded. ‘It was something she said in Wales. That if you made me cry she would kill you.’

  ‘And I made you cry.’ Donald’s face was full of anguish.

  ‘It was tonight that I realised you had gone to that woman again and I knew this time you wouldn’t come back.’ She gave a helpless, angry shrug. ‘We both knew this would happen one day; that I would grow old.’

  She knelt beside Rhonwen and gently pulled back the sack.

  ‘Old!’ Donald shook his head. ‘How could you be old? You are carrying my child!’

  ‘And it makes me unattractive to you.’ She shrugged, not looking at him. ‘I understand.’

  She touched Rhonwen’s face with a gentle hand and closed the staring eyes. Then, summoning all her dignity, she stood up and turned towards the door. The shock was beginning to hit her afresh, and she could feel herself trembling. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

  ‘Eleyne.’ His voice stopped her. ‘I love you. That whore meant nothing. Nothing at all, I swear it.’

  She smiled faintly. ‘Goodnight,’ she said.

  He did not follow her. When she looked back from the door at the head of the stairway, he was standing looking down at Rhonwen’s body.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I

  KILDRUMMY CASTLE 1269

  Eleyne’s daughter, Isabella, was born at the end of May. To commemorate the occasion, Donald gave his wife a gold filigree chain. To his new daughter, for a christening present, he gave a silver casket.

  Neither of them ever mentioned the events of Valentine’s Eve. Rhonwen was buried without the benefit of the Christian requiem, which she would have abhorred, in an unmarked grave in the woods far to the north of the castle. When at last the snows thawed, her embalmed body was lowered into the ground by four men from the village. It was left to Morna, at Eleyne’s request, to plant flowers on the spot and whisper prayers to the old gods for the comfort of her soul. Catriona and her husband were sent to Aberdeen with enough money to set themselves up as baxters to the burgesses there.

  A few days after Rhonwen died, Bethoc brought a small wooden coffer to Eleyne’s chamber and put it on the table. ‘I’ve given all her clothes away as you asked, my lady,’ she said gently, ‘but there are more personal things. I thought …’ She hesitated, looking at Eleyne’s pale strained face, ‘I thought you might want them.’

  She did not touch the coffer for a long time, then at last she moved across to it and laid her hand on the wood. It was heavily carved in the Welsh fashion. She remembered it from when she was a small child, following Rhonwen everywhere, from Aber to Llanfaes, from Caernarfon to Degannwy to Hay and later to Chester and Fotheringhay and London. Fighting her tears, she turned the key in the lock and pushed back the lid. There were pitifully few possessions – an ivory comb, a few enamelled buckles and a silver brooch, some beads and a silk kerchief. Eleyne’s hands strayed to the kerchief, then she took it out and unwrapped it.

  The phoenix lay in her palm. She stared at it with a pang of longing. It was so beautiful, catching the thin morning sunlight which slanted through the lancet windows. Carrying it, she went to the window seat and sat down. Until her child was born there was nothing to fear. But then … Thoughtfully she weighed it in her hand. It was the link and she must get rid of it.

  Donald did not return to Eleyne’s bed until Isabella was nearly three months old, but as far as she knew he did not seek comfort elsewhere. When he came back, they were both changed by what had happened: calmer, more reticent and sad. It was a complete surprise when he brought up the subject of Alexander again.

  ‘Rhonwen believed he had come back, didn’t she?’ he said as they rode side by side through the woods towards Glenbuchat Tower.

  Eleyne’s hands tightened involuntarily on her palfrey’s reins and the horse threw up its head in resentment. ‘She believed in him, yes,’ she said quietly.

  He examined her: her seat on a horse was still neat and beautiful, her head erect as she looked straight ahead between the horse’s ears. She was a princess, he reminded himself; perhaps she should have been a queen.

  She went on without looking at him, her words painfully slow as she confronted her memories. ‘She thought she saw him once and she believed he was waiting for me and that only you stood in his way.’

  ‘We believe that too, don’t we?’ Donald put in. He didn’t give her a chance to reply. ‘How did she propose to give you back to him once I was dead?’

  Eleyne was staring ahead towards the mountains. ‘I think in the end she would have killed me too.’

  She thought for a minute. ‘It’s his love that brings him back, Donald. He doesn’t mean to frighten me and he would certainly not want to hurt me.’ It was hard for her to speak calmly about something she kept buried so deep. ‘I think perhaps it was my belief that first allowed his spirit to return. When I was married to Robert and then to Malcolm, I had to believe he was still there to keep my sanity and because I longed for him so much I allowed him to come to me.’

  ‘Through the pendant.’ Donald had reined in beside her.

  She nodded. ‘It was as though he had planned it that way when he gave it to me all those years ago. I think he knew we would never be together in this life. He uses it as a link; a bridge of some kind. But I don’t think he needs it any more.’ He was still there, she was sure of it, even though the phoenix was no longer at Kildrummy. She glanced across at him, pain and something like fear in her eyes. ‘I think he’s growing stronger all the time. It’s love gone mad. Out of control. Even without the phoenix.’ She bit her lip. ‘He’s no longer a king, so he sees no reason for us to be apart. He doesn’t have to think about Scotland or what men like your father think. All he cares abou
t is me.’ It was a relief to have voiced her fears at last.

  Donald reached across and touched her hands. ‘But you can control him. He can’t cross your magic circle.’

  ‘No.’ It was a whisper. ‘He can’t cross it. He can’t come back without the phoenix. Not yet.’

  ‘And Rhonwen has gone.’

  ‘He didn’t need Rhonwen, Donald. He doesn’t need anyone. He doesn’t even see anyone else. Except you.’

  Donald could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.

  ‘It was when I met you. I tried to turn my back on him and he knew. He knew that I loved you.’ She looked at him for the first time. ‘No ghost could compete with the love I felt for you.’

  He blushed and she smiled. She loved the way he still coloured at her compliments, like a boy.

  ‘And do you still feel that way about me?’ he asked after they had ridden on some way.

  ‘I think I must …’

  ‘Even after I betrayed you?’

  ‘Even then.’

  He stared at her. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. ‘I think you bewitched me the first time I met you, and I think you have kept me bewitched ever since.’

  She laughed. ‘I sincerely hope so.’

  ‘I’m a very lucky man. Poor Alexander.’

  The laughter died in her eyes. ‘We’re making him so unhappy. I’ve tried to tell him I hate to hurt him but he makes me afraid.’

  His eyes sought hers. ‘Where is the phoenix now?’

  ‘Gone for good, where no one will find it.’

  ‘I see.’ He urged his horse on thoughtfully. ‘But you don’t think that will keep him at bay?’

  Her eyes went back to the mountains in the distance. ‘I don’t know any more,’ she murmured. Then she went on, so quietly he didn’t hear her words, ‘I can only pray, because if he gets much stronger I shan’t be able to control him.’

  II

  KILDRUMMY CASTLE January 1270

  She adored the children unreservedly. Gratney at three was a chubby, mischievous child, into everything, already a determined rider, hanging on to the mane of the tiny fat pony she had found for him at the horse fair in Aberdeen. His twin brothers seemed equally extrovert and equally determined to succeed, tumbling over one another like the puppies they played with, and the three children were noisy favourites throughout the castle.

  Secretly Donald watched the twins as they played, searching for signs of differences between them, searching in spite of himself for the clues or mannerisms which would identify one of the children as the son of another man, a man who had been dead for twenty years, but it was impossible. As they chuckled and wrestled and climbed over him on his visits to the nursery, he found himself responding with equal delight and love to all the smothering eager little bodies which hung around his neck. As did his wife. Never once did he catch Eleyne making any difference in her treatment of the children. Kisses for Duncan matched kisses for Alexander and so did slaps. There was no sign that she considered any of her sons to be of different blood.

  When she found she was pregnant again in her fifty-second year, Eleyne cried. She was bouncing with health. She felt no sickness or aches or pains. Her hair was glossier and thicker than ever and Donald had been, if anything, more attentive than at any time in the last four years. This time she told him at once. He stared at her. Then he laughed. Then he kissed her. ‘My lovely fruitful wife!’

  ‘You will stay with me, Donald?’ She could not keep the fear out of her voice.

  ‘I promise.’ He kissed her again.

  III

  KILDRUMMY March 1270

  She had no premonition of disaster, no seeing in the flames. When Donald came to her in the stillroom, he found her with an apron over her gown poring over an old book of recipes.

  ‘Nel –’ Curtly he dismissed the servants and, with one look at his face, they all obeyed immediately.

  ‘What is it?’ Guiltily she slid a box of dried orris over the parchment page. The recipe was one for ensuring the fidelity of one’s husband.

  Donald hesitated. How could he tell her? His mouth was dry. He didn’t know what to say. He should have brought the letter to her, shown her that.

  She was suddenly full of misgivings. ‘What is it? What has happened?’

  ‘It’s Colban.’

  ‘Colban? What’s wrong with Colban?’

  ‘He’s dead, Eleyne.’

  ‘Dead?’ Her face drained of colour. ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘His horse fell. I’m sorry.’ He was doing it all wrong, but he didn’t know how else to break the news.

  She stood, stunned, the pestle she had been using still in her hand.

  ‘No.’ Her whisper was pitiful. ‘I would have known. It can’t be true. It can’t.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, my darling.’ He put out his arms and blindly she went to him.

  ‘I must go to him.’

  He frowned. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’

  ‘Of course it’s wise!’ she flashed. ‘I have to go to him! I have to be there. Don’t you see?’ Her voice was broken. ‘I have to see him.’

  IV

  FALKLAND CASTLE

  ‘I’m sorry, my lady.’ John Keith looked unhappy and embarrassed. ‘Lady Fife will not receive you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Exhausted after the precipitous ride from Mar, Eleyne had ridden to the door of the great hall at Falkland with all the confidence of long ownership. It had not crossed her mind that she would be denied entry.

  ‘I think there is some mistake, Sir John,’ Donald said sharply. ‘My wife has come to be with Lady Fife and her son at this terrible time.’

  ‘I know.’ Keith shrugged miserably. ‘She has told me not to let you in.’

  ‘Where is my son’s body?’ Eleyne’s voice was very tight.

  ‘In the chapel, my lady.’

  ‘I take it Lady Fife does not object to my going there.’ She did not wait for an answer. Riding to the chapel door – the scene of her first marriage to Malcolm, the place where both her eldest sons had been baptised – she slid from her horse and went into the cool darkness.

  His body lay on a bier before the altar, his sword clasped between his hands. Candles burned at his head and his feet. Eleyne walked slowly to his side and stood staring down at him, ignoring the monks who prayed near him. Colban looked younger than when she had last seen him the year before. His face was serene, boyish, happy. He was seventeen years old.

  Closing her eyes, she felt a wave of dizziness sweep over her. She did not cry – she hadn’t cried since the news had come. Leaning over, she kissed him gently on the forehead and then went to kneel on the faldstool at his feet.

  Behind her Sir Alan Durward had come into the chapel. He stood beside Donald for a moment without speaking, gazing at Eleyne.

  ‘I’m sorry that Anna was so cruel,’ he said quietly at last to Donald. The two men eyed each other with hostility, the long court case between Sir Alan and Donald’s father over the earldom of Mar as always in both their minds when they met. Simultaneously they made the decision to ignore it for Eleyne’s sake. ‘Anna is beside herself with grief. Of course you are both welcome here. It’s unthinkable that you should not be at the funeral.’

  His sympathy was not endorsed by his wife or daughter. Neither Margaret nor Anna would speak to Eleyne and, to her fathomless grief, they refused to let her see her grandson, Duncan.

  ‘I’m sorry, mama,’ Macduff was red-eyed and pale, ‘Anna doesn’t want you to go near him.’ He didn’t know how to say that his sister-in-law thought his mother possessed the evil eye.

  ‘Why?’ Eleyne was bewildered and hurt.

  He shrugged. ‘Give her time. She’ll get over it.’ He grinned wanly. ‘I had a little chat with Duncan, uncle to nephew, you know, and he sends you his love.’

  ‘Does he realise what has happened?’ Eleyne asked Macduff. He was like his brother in many ways, though she had to admit a sturdier
and more reliable version. Her heart went out to him as she watched him fighting his tears.

  ‘He knows his father is dead. He knows he is the new earl, or will be one day.’ Macduff grinned ruefully. ‘It’s a shame a brother no longer seems to have a claim to inherit. This fashion for primogeniture is a disaster for the Earls of Fife. I’d have made a good earl.’

  Eleyne gave a wistful smile. ‘Yes, you would.’ She put her arm around the boy and hugged him.

  ‘You told me once I’d be a great soldier, that you had seen it in the stars. Did you see this for Colban? Did you know he was going to die?’ he asked, biting his lip.

  Eleyne shook her head. ‘It wasn’t me. It was Adam, the wizard, who saw your futures. He never told me what he saw for Colban, so perhaps I should have guessed.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Why did it happen?’

  He shook his head. ‘Why does anything happen? Bad luck. A bird went up under his horse’s feet. He wasn’t paying attention. He was never as good a rider as me –’ He stopped guiltily at the sound of his own boasting – it had come so automatically – and she smiled reassuringly.

  ‘It’s true, you always were the better horseman, even when you were both small.’

  He grimaced. ‘The earldom has been in a minority for four years already. Do you realise they will have to wait now until Duncan is twenty-one before there is someone in Fife who can administer the earldom personally? In the meantime, no doubt, the king will take the revenues again.’ The king was already taking the revenues on the few lands left directly to Macduff by his father.

  Eleyne nodded thoughtfully. ‘When you are twenty-one, I will speak to the king for you. I’m sure he will make you one of the earldom’s guardians and give you some of its revenue so that you can set up your own household.’ She smiled fondly. ‘Fife will need you, my darling,’ she said gently. ‘For the sake of your father’s people you must be patient.’