Child of the Phoenix

I

‘Don’t look down!’ Balanced precariously on the wooden walkway at the top of the scaffolding which nestled against the high wall, the child turned and peered into the darkness. ‘Tuck your skirts up in your girdle,’ she called imperiously. ‘No one’s going to see your bottom in the dark!’ Her giggle was lost in the wail of the wind. ‘We’re nearly there. Come on!’

Far below the dangerous perch the courtyard of Hay Castle lay in darkness. A fine mist of rain had driven in across the Black Mountains and slicked the wooden scaffold poles and the newly dressed stone. Beneath their leather slippers the planks grew slippery.

Isabella de Braose let out a whimper of fear. ‘I want to go back.’

‘No, look! Three more paces and we’re there.’ Eleyne, the youngest daughter of Llywelyn, Prince of Aberffraw, and his wife, the Princess Joan, was ten, a year her friend’s junior. By a strange quirk of marriage and remarriage she was also Isabella’s step-great-aunt, a fact which caused the girls renewed giggles whenever they thought about it.

Eleyne gripped Isabella firmly by the wrist and coaxed her forward step by step. They were aiming for the gaping window of the gutted tower to which the new wall abutted. In another week or so the masons would be starting work on renovating it so that it could once again become the focal point of the castle, but as yet it was a deserted, mysterious place, the doors at the bottom boarded up to stop anyone going in amongst the tumbled masonry and charred beams.

‘Why do you want to see it?’ Isabella wailed. She was clinging to the flimsy handrail, her fingers cold and slippery with rain.

‘Because they don’t want us to see what is in there,’ Eleyne replied. ‘Besides, I think there’s a raven’s nest inside the walls.’ Letting go of the other girl’s wrist, she ran along the last few feet of planking and reached the wall of the old tower. Exhilarated by the wind and by the sting of the cold rain on her face, she could hardly contain her excitement. She felt no fear of heights. It had not crossed her mind that she might fall.

‘Come on, it’s easy.’ Peering over her shoulder she narrowed her eyes against the rain. Below, the roofs of Hay huddled around the castle, with here and there a wisp of rain-flattened blue smoke swirling in the darkness. She was very conscious suddenly of the brooding silence beyond the town where the great mass of black mountains stretched on either side of the broad Wye Valley into the heartland of Wales.

‘I can’t do it.’

‘Of course you can. Here.’ Forgetting the mountains, Eleyne ran back to her. ‘I’ll help you. Hold my hand. See. It’s easy.’

When they were at last perched side by side in the broad stone window embrasure, both girls were silent for a moment, catching their breath. They peered into the black interior of the tower. The ground, four storeys below, was lost in the dark.

‘It must have been an incredible fire,’ Eleyne murmured, awed, her eyes picking out, cat-like, the blackened stumps of beam ends in the wall. ‘Were you here when it happened?’

Isabella swallowed and shook her head. ‘It was before I was born. Let’s go back, Elly. I don’t like it.’

‘There was a fire when I was born,’ Eleyne went on dreamily. ‘Rhonwen told me. It destroyed the hall at Llanfaes. There was nothing but ash by morning when my father came.’

‘This was burned by King John.’ Isabella glanced down into the darkness, closed her eyes hastily and shuddered. ‘There’s no nest here, Elly. Please, let’s go.’

Eleyne was silent. She frowned: King John. Her mother’s father, descendant, so it was claimed, of Satan himself. In her mind she chalked up another black mark against her mother’s hated family. Hastily she put the unpleasant thought aside and turned back to the problem in hand. ‘The nest must be on a ledge somewhere on the walls inside. I’ve watched them flying in and out.’ She stretched her hands out into the darkness as far as she dared. ‘I’ll have to come back in daylight. Rhonwen says the raven is a sacred bird and I want a feather for luck.’

‘The masons will never let you in.’

‘We could come at dawn, before they start work.’

‘No.’ Determinedly, Isabella started edging back on the sill, feeling with her foot for the wooden planks. ‘I’m going back. If you don’t want to come, you can stay here alone.’

‘Please. Wait.’ Eleyne was reluctant to move. She loved the cold rush of the wind, the darkness, the loneliness of their eyrie. And she was very wide awake. She had no desire to return to the room where they shared a bed, or to face the questions of Isabella’s three sisters as to where they had been. They had left Eleanor, Matilda and Eva in the nursery – supposedly asleep but in reality agog to know where the other two were going. ‘If you stay, I’ll tell you what it’s like to be married.’

‘You’re not really married,’ Isabella retorted scornfully. ‘You’ve never even met your husband.’ Nevertheless she settled back into her corner of the window arch, tucking her cold feet up under her wet skirt.

‘I have.’ Eleyne was indignant. ‘He was at the wedding.’ She laughed. ‘Rhonwen told me. My father carried me, and he handed me to my husband and he went all pink and nearly dropped me!’

‘Men don’t like babies,’ Isabella commented with dogmatic certainty.

Eleyne nodded gloomily. ‘Of course, John was only a boy then. He was sixteen.’ She paused. ‘Shall you like being married to my brother, do you think?’

Isabella was to be married to Dafydd ap Llywelyn once all the formalities had been arranged between the two families.

Isabella shrugged. ‘Is he like you?’

Eleyne thought for a moment, then shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’m like either of my brothers; and certainly I’m not like my sisters. Think of Gwladus!’ Both girls giggled. Eleyne’s eldest sister, fifteen years older than she, and married to Isabella’s grandfather, Reginald, was a serious, devout young woman who had assumed assiduously a mantle of age to match her fifty-year-old husband. Her other sisters were also much older than Eleyne and they were all married; Margaret to another de Braose, Reginald’s nephew, John, who lived far away in Sussex; Gwenllian to William de Lacy, and Angharad to Maelgwn Fychan, a prince of South Wales.

‘Gwladus would be angry if she knew where we were,’ Isabella commented anxiously. She resisted the urge to glance over her shoulder.

‘But not half as furious as your mother.’ Eleyne had good reason to regret the occasions she had aroused Eva de Braose’s fury on this short visit. Unfortunately, it had happened with regrettable frequency. She paused, realising she had not given Isabella any reassurance about her brother. ‘You’ll like Dafydd. He’s nice.’

Isabella laughed. ‘You think everyone’s nice.’

‘Do I?’ Eleyne pondered. ‘Well, most people are.’

‘They’re not, you know.’ Isabella sounded wise beyond her years. ‘You wait till you want to do something they don’t want you to do. Then you’ll find out.’

Eleyne frowned. There was one person she didn’t like. But that was her secret, and one that filled her with shame and guilt. ‘Perhaps. Anyway at the moment all I want is for you to be my sister. We all want that, including our fathers. We’ll have so much fun when you come to Aber!’ She linked her arm through Isabella’s. ‘How soon do you think they’ll settle everything?’

Isabella shrugged. ‘They always take ages to work it out because of all the dowries and lands and treaties about this and that. Come on, I’m cold.’ Once again she began to edge off the window ledge on to the slippery scaffolding.

For a moment, lost in her dreams, Eleyne didn’t move, then reluctantly she began to follow, feeling the wet stone cold beneath her bare buttocks as the wool of her gown caught on the rough window ledge.

It did not take them long to regain the ground. Once she was heading for safety, Isabella recovered her confidence and shinned down as agilely as her friend. At the bottom they looked at each other in the darkness and once more burst into smothered laughter.

‘No one saw.’ Eleyne was triumphant.

‘You can’t be sure.’ Releasing her skirts so they swung down to warm her legs, Isabella shivered ostentatiously. ‘I want to go to bed.’

‘Not yet.’ Eleyne kicked out at a pile of shaped stones, left at the foot of the wall. ‘Let’s go and see the horses.’

‘No, Elly, I’m tired and cold. I want to go to bed.’

‘Go then.’ Suddenly Eleyne was impatient. ‘But watch the Lady doesn’t get you!’ She issued her warning in a sing-song voice, dancing out from the shelter of the scaffolding into the teeming rain.

Isabella paled. For days Eleyne had been regaling the de Braose sisters with gruesome stories of the phantom lady she claimed to have seen on the walls of the castle.

‘I don’t believe in her. You only say that to frighten me.’

Nearby, a door opened and three laughing servants ran across the courtyard, diving through a door in the lean-to kitchens at the far side. They took no notice of the little girls standing near the ruined tower.

When Eleyne looked back for her friend she had gone. ‘Bella?’ she called. There was no answer.

Eleyne peered into the rain nervously. Suddenly she did not feel quite so brave. The night was cold and the large courtyard once again deserted. The guards were there, of course, on the curtain walls, staring out into the night; and the horses in their stables against the walls. And something else. Someone else. Always there. Watching. She glanced around.

‘Are you there?’ she whispered.

There was no answer but the howling of the wind.

II

Inside the solar the fire was blazing and a dozen candles were lit against the darkness.

‘I think it’s time I took Eleyne home to Gwynedd, my lady.’

Rhonwen had cornered Gwladus, Eleyne’s eldest sister, second wife of Reginald de Braose, the Lord of Hay, in the newly finished west tower of the castle. ‘She and Isabella are bad for each other.’

Rhonwen, unusually tall for a woman, with a beautiful, aquiline face and fair hair – visible only in the colouring of her eyebrows as her head was meticulously covered by a white veil – was at nearly thirty strikingly good-looking. But she was not attractive. Gwladus glanced at her surreptitiously. There was a coldness there, an aloofness, which antagonised people. Only with Eleyne, her special charge, did she ever show any warmth or human emotion.

Gwladus was a complete contrast to Rhonwen. She was a tall, tempestuous, handsome woman with black hair, a sallow complexion and dark flashing eyes beneath heavy eyebrows: colouring which had earned her the soubriquet of Gwladus Ddu. Looking haughtily at Rhonwen, she raised an eyebrow.

‘If you mean Eleyne is bad for Isabella, I agree. However, it’s too soon. I haven’t completed my letters for father, and the emissaries who came with you are still talking with Reginald and William about the marriage agreement.’

She sat down on an elaborately carved chair near the fire and gestured Rhonwen to a stool nearby. ‘You do know why you’re here? It’s not so the girls can be playmates. My father wants Isabella as a wife for my brother. Why?’

‘Why, my lady?’ Rhonwen shifted uncomfortably on the stool. ‘Surely it would be a good match for Dafydd bach. Isabella is young and strong, and pretty as a picture.’ She allowed herself a tight smile. ‘And she’s your husband’s grand-daughter. The de Braose alliance is still very important to Prince Llywelyn.’

The de Braose family had been brought low by King John eighteen years before, but Reginald and his brother, Giles, Bishop of Hereford, co-heirs to the estates of their dead parents, had managed to reclaim them before the king’s death in 1215, and the family was once again powerful in the Welsh borders.

‘Exactly.’ Gwladus pursed her lips. ‘That was why he married me to Reginald, after Gracia died. What I want to know is, why does he need another marriage between the families?’

Rhonwen looked down at her hands. Did the woman want an honest answer? Could she not see that her husband was dying? She shrugged diplomatically. ‘I am merely Eleyne’s nurse and teacher, Lady Gwladus. Your father does not include me in his confidences.’

‘No?’ The dark eyes beneath the heavy black brows were piercing. ‘How strange. I felt sure he would have.’

There was a long silence. Gwladus stood up restlessly and swept across to the window with a shiver. ‘I hate this place! I keep begging Reginald to let us live somewhere else. She’s still here, you know. His mother. She haunts the castle. She haunts the whole family!’ She crossed herself and, closing her eyes, took a deep breath. ‘If you are here merely as Eleyne’s companion you’d better go and look after her. And stop her upsetting Isabella!’

III

The children were not in their bedchamber. Rhonwen set her lips grimly.

‘Well?’ She shook one of the nursemaids who had been sleeping just inside the door. ‘Where are they?’

The frightened girl stared at the empty bed in the light of Rhonwen’s streaming candle. ‘I don’t know. They were here when we went to sleep.’

Both servants were awake now, scrambling from their straw pallets to gaze round the room with frightened eyes. They were much in awe of the tall Welsh guardian of the little girl who was the wife of a prince of Scotland and the daughter of a prince of Wales. Secretly, they sympathised with her; the girl was a tomboy, uncontrollable according to the Lady Eva, Gwladus’s daughter-in-law, constantly getting herself and her companion into scrapes.

Rhonwen strode across the room and glanced into the bedchamber beyond. The three small heads on the pillow showed that Isabella’s sisters had not been included in tonight’s escapade. She glanced at the shuttered window and sighed. Outside the wind and rain had increased threefold since darkness had set in. Whatever Eleyne had decided on, and she knew it was Eleyne, she hoped it was indoors.

IV

From her nest in the straw at the horse’s feet Eleyne reached up and stroked the muzzle of the great stallion belonging to Isabella’s father. It nuzzled her hair and blew at her companionably.

‘I wish they’d let me ride you,’ she murmured. ‘We’d fly like the wind, you and I.’

She glanced up sharply as she saw the horse’s ears prick. He raised his great head to stare into the darkness beyond her. A faint light appeared in the doorway and moments later a figure materialised out of the shadows. Thomas, the groom who had special care of his master’s best warhorse, was carrying a lantern as he patrolled down the line of stalls. Small and wizened, his face was as brown as a hazelnut beneath his wild white hair.

‘You again, my lady? I can’t keep you away, can I?’ He put the lantern down carefully, away from the straw, and leaned against the partition of the stall. Unsurprised by the appearance of the girl in the horse’s bed, he pulled a wisp of hay from the net slung by the manger and began to chew it. The horse nudged his tunic hopefully, looking for titbits.

‘You’re not safe down there, child. He might step on you.’

‘He wouldn’t hurt me.’ Eleyne hadn’t moved.

‘He wouldn’t even know he’d done it. Look at the size of his feet!’ Thomas ducked under the headrope and catching her arm swung her to her feet. ‘Up, my little one. You should be in your bed.’

Eleyne pulled a face. ‘Can’t I stay here? Please. I’m not sleepy. And Isabella snores.’ She flung her arms around the stallion’s muscular neck. ‘One day I’ll ride him.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Thomas with a wry smile, ‘but not without Sir William’s permission, you won’t. Now, away with you. I’m the one who’ll get into trouble if you’re caught here.’

Reluctantly she followed him out of the stable. ‘I’ll ask Sir William. I know he’ll let me -’ She stopped abruptly as a tall figure appeared out of the gloom in front of her.

‘And what, little princess, will you ask me?’ William de Braose, Isabella’s father, shook the rain from his mantle as he ducked under the thatched roof. He did not seem surprised to see the child in his horse’s stable so late at night.

Eleyne took a deep breath. ‘I want to ride Invictus. Oh please, I know I could.’ She caught his hand and looked up at him, her large green eyes pleading. He was the tallest man she had ever seen, his handsome features framed by wavy chestnut hair, darkened by the rain. His eyes, narrowed in the lantern light, were warm, alight with amusement.

He laughed. ‘Why not? Tomorrow, princess, if the ground has dried a little, you shall take him for a gallop, if you dare. See to it, Thomas.’

‘But, sir -’ Thomas looked far from happy. ‘The Lady Rhonwen would never let her – ’

‘Then we won’t tell the Lady Rhonwen.’ Sir William glared at him impatiently. ‘This child has the heart of a boy, let her enjoy herself while she can. Would that I had a son with half as much courage!’

Thomas watched him thoughtfully as he strode away. ‘Would that he had a son at all,’ he said softly. ‘Four girls, poor man. That bodes ill for the succession to the lordship. Still, there’s time yet, God willing.’

‘My brother will be his son if Bella marries him,’ Eleyne said. She felt, inexplicably, that she had to provide some words of comfort.

‘Aye, God help us all, for the Welsh alliance will only lead to trouble. It always does.’ Thomas frowned, then he shook his head. ‘Forget I said that, little one.’ He began to walk slowly back towards his quarters at the end of the stable lines.

Eleyne followed him. ‘When can I ride Invictus?’

‘When you can escape the Lady Rhonwen. Don’t you come to me with her in tow.’ He gave an exaggerated shudder. Ducking inside he pulled off the sack he had draped over his shoulders against the rain and threw it into the corner. The other grooms and stable hands who shared the room were absent: probably playing knucklebones in the kitchens, he thought with a chuckle. Well and good, he’d have some peace for once. A small fire burned in one corner. Throwing on a branch, he held out his hands to the warmth with a groan of pleasure.

Eleyne had followed him in. She stood warily, staring at the flames. ‘If I came early. At first light. Will that be all right?’ She did not think that Rhonwen was going to be a problem.

‘Whatever you want. Just so long as you come alone.’ He studied her in the flickering light of the flames. She was a tall, thin child, with a fair complexion and deep red-gold hair – so unlike her sister it was hard to think they came from the same parents. He frowned. Lady de Braose – Gwladus Ddu – Black Gwladus – was the crow amongst the golden brood of Llywelyn ap Iorwerth of Gwynedd. He saw Eleyne shiver and he said, ‘Here, come close to the fire and get yourself warm, then you must go.’

Eleyne stayed where she was, but held out her hands to the heat, staring at the fire. ‘Do you ever see pictures in the flames, Thomas?’

‘Of course. Everyone does.’ He grinned. ‘And if you listen to a fire, you’ll hear the logs singing. Can you hear them? Listen.’ He held up his hand. ‘Trees memorise the song of every bird that sings in their branches,’ he went on thoughtfully. ‘When the wood is burned it remembers the songs and sings them in turn as it dies.’ He rubbed his gnarled hands together.

Eleyne’s eyes widened. ‘That’s beautiful. But so sad -’ She drew a step nearer the flames. ‘I can see a house. Look! With flames licking out of its windows and up its walls -’ She was gazing unblinking into its depths.

Thomas gave a superstitious shiver. ‘Enough of that, my girl. Of course there are flames. You’re looking at a fire! Off you go now, and get some sleep. If you’re tired you won’t have the strength to hold that horse when you do ride him.’

Eleyne tore her eyes away from the fire with an effort. ‘I shan’t have to hold him,’ she said after a moment’s dreamy silence. ‘I’ll whisper to him and he’ll do whatever I want!’

Thomas stood deep in thought for a long time after she had gone, a frown on his face. At last he shrugged. He kicked the door closed and settled down beside the fire with a sigh. With a bit of luck he’d get some sleep before the others came back with their winnings.

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.

The sun was setting behind the distant peak of Cadair Arthur, Arthur’s Seat, the greatest of the great beacons, sending long shadows from the walls across the ground. It was almost dark in the comparative peace of the little herb garden. Eleyne stooped and picked the heavy golden head of a dandelion and twirled it in her fingers. ‘When will we go home, Rhonwen?’

‘Soon, child. Don’t you like it here?’ In the small oasis of silence away from the fighting Rhonwen found herself glancing round suddenly and she shivered. Was she here too, that unseen presence whom Eleyne saw all too clearly, the woman who had laid out these herb gardens so many years before? She turned a speculative eye on Eleyne. The child was sensitive, but how much could she really see, and how much was due to an overactive imagination?

From the moment of Eleyne’s birth she had watched and waited for the signs of Bride’s hand on the child. Sometimes she thought it was there – the Sight – other times she wasn’t sure.

‘I love it here with Isabella,’ Eleyne went on dreamily, ‘but I miss the sea. And there is something here, something I don’t like.’ She frowned, holding the fluffy golden flower head against her cheek. ‘I sometimes feel strange, as if I’m watching the world from outside, and I’m not really part of it.’ She gave an embarrassed smile. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

Rhonwen looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, but all she said was, ‘It sounds to me as if you don’t go to bed early enough, young lady.’

Eleyne laughed. She tossed away the flower. If she had been going to confide further in Rhonwen, she changed her mind. The strange feelings troubled her. They set her apart, made her feel distant sometimes, as if she were waiting for something to happen, something which never did. It made her restless and uneasy. She had mentioned them guardedly to Isabella, but her friend had laughed and Eleyne had never spoken about them again.

Eleyne moved into the shadow of the wall where it was already dark, and turned to look back through the archway towards the courtyard where sunlight still played across the cobbles. It was happening again now. She could hear the shouts of the men fighting in the distance; she could see Rhonwen standing near her, the blue of her gown vivid, very vivid, against the grey stone wall. Suddenly she could hear so clearly that the least sound hurt her ears. The birds’ singing deafened her; the rush of feathers as a robin flew down near Rhonwen’s feet; the crackle of dead leaves, the chiming of a raindrop as it fell to the ground from the lip of a gargoyle high on the old tower. She stared up to see where it had come from and felt her heart stop with fear. There were flames licking from the top window: the window where she and Isabella had sat in the darkness. For a moment she could not believe her eyes. Then she saw smoke pouring from the roofless walls.

‘Rhonwen! Look! Fire!’

Terrified, she pointed. Figures were running in all directions. The flames were spreading as she watched. The old keep was already engulfed and beyond it the stables against the walls. She could hear the screams of the trapped horses.

‘Sweet Christ!’ She pressed her hands against her ears. ‘Why don’t they do something, Rhonwen? The horses! For Bride’s sake, save the horses! Invictus! Where is Sir William?’

A flame ran along the top of the wall, where the wooden scaffolding had rested, and shot across the archway to the door of the main hall.

Eleyne was rooted to the spot, sobbing with shock. ‘Rhonwen, do something! Where are Isabella and the others? Rhonwen!’

She felt Rhonwen put her arms around her, restraining her, and she pulled away violently. Her nose and mouth were full of smoke, her eyes streaming. ‘Help them. We have to help them!’

‘Eleyne, listen to me!’

She was aware that Rhonwen was shaking her by the shoulders.

‘Eleyne! There is no fire!’ Rhonwen slapped her face hard.

The shock pulled Eleyne up short. Trembling violently, she stared round. The fire had gone. The spring evening was as it had been; the robin still sat on a pile of earth near the bed of knitbone, and as she stared at the bird it began to sing its thin sweet trill into the clear air.

‘What happened?’ Eleyne swallowed hard. She was shaking uncontrollably as she stared round her. ‘There was fire everywhere – ’

‘You had a nightmare.’ Briskly Rhonwen pulled off her cloak and wrapped it around Eleyne’s shoulders. ‘You dozed off for a moment and you had some sort of a bad dream, that’s all. It is all over now. There is nothing to be afraid of.’

‘But I wasn’t asleep – ’

‘You were asleep, cariad!’ In her agitation Rhonwen spoke harshly. She put her arms around the child again. ‘You were so tired you fell asleep where you stood. It is what I told you before. Too much running around the castle at night and not enough rest. You come now, to bed. Do you understand? Then I shall find you some broth in the kitchens and I’ll put some valerian in it to make you sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning and tomorrow I’ll speak to the Lady Gwladus again about going home.’

She gave Eleyne no time to argue. Hustling her inside, she propelled her up the winding stair to the high bedchamber. There she pulled off the girl’s shoes and pushed her, fully dressed, into the bed. Pulling the covers over her, she sat down for a moment beside her, chafing Eleyne’s hands in her own. ‘Don’t think about your nightmare, child. Think about something nice. Think about the horse. He’s well and safe and nothing will happen to him. Perhaps tomorrow you can ride him again.’

Eleyne looked up at her with frightened eyes. The concession alarmed her. ‘You are sure the dream won’t come back?’

‘Quite sure!’ Rhonwen spoke emphatically. At last it had happened, the thing she had dreaded for so many years. A cold breath of icy wind had reached out and touched the child she thought of as her daughter: the kiss of Bride’s fingers. She closed her eyes, holding Eleyne’s hand. When Einion found out she would lose her to him and what would she do then?

‘Rhonwen?’ Eleyne’s voice was still hoarse from her screams. ‘I’m cold.’

Rhonwen pulled another coverlet over her. ‘Wait. I’ll build up the fire, then I’ll go down and get you something hot to drink.’

Reaching into the basket, she threw a couple of logs on to the fire, then with a glance over her shoulder towards the bed, let herself out of the room.

Eleyne lay still for a moment, then she sat up and, pulling the coverlet around her shoulders, she crept out of the bed. She stopped several feet from the fire and stood staring down at it. The damp bark threw off a thick aromatic smoke. She could smell the different woods – the sweetness of apple, the spiciness of oak, the sharp resin of pine; see the red and blue flames licking over the fissures in the bark, just as they had licked up the walls of the tower. She shivered violently. Whatever Rhonwen said, she had not had a dream. She had been awake and she knew what had happened. At last the strange other world, which before she had only glimpsed, had broken through the fragile barrier of her mind.

I

‘You cannot prevent me from seeing my father!’

Gruffydd ap Llywelyn smashed his fist down on to the table. ‘Where is he?’

‘He is not here!’ His half-brother Dafydd looked at him coldly. ‘Here’ was the ty hir, the long stone-built house which formed the royal family’s private living quarters in the palace or llys at Aber on the northern edge of Gwynedd, nestling on its hillside on the edge of the mountains of Eryri, overlooking the sea and the Isle of Anglesey.

‘You are lying!’

Gruffydd swung round to face his small sister who was standing miserably between them. ‘Where is he, cariad?’

‘He’s not here – Dafydd’s telling the truth.’ Eleyne looked from one brother to the other unhappily. Their father had ridden towards Shrewsbury to meet his wife who had gone three weeks before to try to intervene in the quarrels between her husband and the King of England. In the continuing problems over the Welsh borders between Llywelyn and her half-brother, King Henry III, Princess Joan had proved herself an able and intelligent ambassador. That her efforts were all intended to ensure her son Dafydd’s succession over Gruffydd’s had not endeared her to the latter, nor to his followers.

‘And in Shrewsbury she has tried yet again to interfere on Gwynedd’s behalf with the English king, I suppose!’ Gruffydd turned away in exasperation. ‘Dear God in heaven! Can father not see what she is doing?’

‘She is working for peace, Gruffydd,’ Dafydd put in smoothly. ‘By negotiating with her brother.’

‘Her brother!’ Gruffyd exploded into anger. ‘King Henry recognises her as his sister now it suits him. Not so long ago she was just another of King John’s bastards!’

‘How dare you!’ Dafydd had his hand on his dagger. ‘My mother was declared legitimate by Pope Honorious III. And at least she’s married to our father.’ He laughed harshly. ‘You are the bastard here, brother, and father can’t wait to disown you, from all I see.’

Gruffydd let out an oath. ‘That is not true!’ he shouted. ‘My father respects and honours me as he honoured my mother under Welsh law.’

‘Does he?’ Dafydd smiled. ‘We shall see. If I were you, I should leave Aber now. Father knows what you have been up to – abusing his trust – working against him and against me, and he has sworn to clip your wings.’

Gruffydd’s face was white with anger. Controlling himself with an effort, he turned his back on Dafydd and smiled grimly at Eleyne. ‘When will father return? I need to see him.’

She shrugged. ‘Soon.’ She wanted to reach out and touch his hand, soothe his anger, just as much as she wanted to leap at Dafydd and scratch his eyes. She did neither. She was learning, slowly, not to become involved in her brothers’ quarrels. As Dafydd had grown to manhood it became harder to pass their hatred off as jealousy and sibling rivalry. Llywelyn’s determination to put his younger son first in everything had sown a deadly seed; instinctively Eleyne knew this was a quarrel which neither could win and where she should try not to take sides.

‘Is it true that Sir William de Braose has taken the field against father?’ she asked, trying to change the subject. She bit her lip. Since his championship of her wish to ride his charger at Hay six months before, she had retained a secret fondness for Isabella’s father.

‘It is.’ Gruffydd laughed harshly. ‘The father of the bride! How embarrassing for you, Dafydd bach. How do you feel about your prospective wife now?’

Eleyne stared unhappily from one brother to the other. Gruffydd, older by some six years, was a short fiery-headed man with brilliant angry eyes. His broad shoulders and muscular build made him seem larger than Dafydd, though they were of roughly the same height. Dafydd, his pale gold hair cut long on his neck, his eyes green like his sister’s, was the more handsome of the two. And the calmer. He had long ago perfected the art of goading his brother to fury and standing back to watch the results.

Now he was looking grim. ‘There will be other ladies for me to marry. Isabella de Braose is no great loss.’

‘But you must marry Isabella!’ Eleyne cried. She saw her cherished plans vanishing before her eyes. ‘It’s not her fault that Sir William has to fight for King Henry. Once you are married, he won’t fight any more.’

‘Oh sweet naive sister!’ Dafydd was exasperated. ‘You don’t understand anything. You’re just a child!’

‘I do understand!’ She stamped her foot. ‘He must still want Isabella to marry you. Gwladus won’t be a de Braose any more now Sir Reginald is dead and he needs the marriage to keep the alliance. Besides, you are a prince.’

‘But not the true heir,’ Gruffydd put in quietly. ‘No doubt he has noticed that fact. What a shame for de Braose that the true heir to Gwynedd is already married.’ Gruffydd’s wife, Senena, had recently given birth to their second son, who had promptly and tactfully been named Llywelyn after his grandfather.

‘You are not, and never will be, his heir!’ Dafydd put in, through gritted teeth. ‘The eldest you may be, but bastards can’t inherit!’

‘I am the heir by Welsh law and custom!’ Gruffydd hit the table with his fist.

Dafydd smiled. ‘But I have been acknowledged heir by father; by King Henry, by the pope, and by the people. That doesn’t leave much doubt, does it? Welsh custom has been dropped and feudal rules of tenure accepted. Now we all know where we stand! And you, brother, don’t stand anywhere.’ He picked up his cloak which had been lying across the table, and swinging it over his shoulders he walked out of the room.

Gruffydd closed his eyes in an effort to control his temper. ‘He won’t win, Eleyne. He can’t take my inheritance from me! I have the support of the people, whatever he thinks.’

‘And you and papa have been getting on better, haven’t you?’ Eleyne said cautiously. It was not altogether true, she knew. She hitched herself up on to the table, and put her arms around her knees. The atmosphere in the room had relaxed the moment Dafydd walked out. ‘Papa will listen to you, I know he will.’ She smiled hopefully.

Gruffydd leaned across and ruffled her hair affectionately. ‘You have always been on my side, little sister, haven’t you? Bless you for that.’

Eleyne bit her lip uncomfortably. ‘You are the eldest. Rhonwen says you are the rightful heir.’

‘And, by God, I’ll win father’s recognition of the fact, if I have to fight English-boy David for the rest of my life!’ Princess Joan always called her son David.

Gruffydd smiled down at his little sister, winding her long, wildly curling hair gently into his hand. ‘So, where is my champion, Rhonwen? It’s not like her to leave you alone. Shouldn’t you be at your lessons?’

Eleyne smiled. ‘I’ve had my lessons today. Later we’re going across to the island. We’re to wait for my mother at Llanfaes.’

My mother, Gruffydd noticed, never mama.

‘You don’t want to greet her here, at Aber?’ he said gently.

She shrugged. ‘She’ll have enough to talk about with papa and Dafydd – and you of course,’ she added hastily. ‘She won’t want to see me, or Rhonwen.’

Gruffydd’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s not true.’ He hesitated. ‘Your mother and Rhonwen are still enemies, then?’

‘It isn’t Rhonwen’s fault – ’

‘I know, I know. If anything, it’s mine. Rhonwen served my mother; Princess Joan could never forgive her that. I am sorry you should be so torn between them, little one.’

Eleyne tossed her head. ‘I am not torn. Papa gave me to Rhonwen the day I was born. My mother had forgotten me! She would have left me to die in the fire if Rhonwen had not rescued me -’ She did not try to hide the bitterness in her voice.

‘Your mother was in no state to remember you, Eleyne. She was probably half dead; she was certainly unconscious – ’

‘She forgot me.’ Eleyne closed her lips tightly. Rhonwen had told her the story many times. She turned away at the sound of the watchman’s horn, glad of the excuse to avoid Gruffydd’s scrutiny. She did not want anyone to know, ever, how much she hated her mother.

‘Perhaps that is them, back already.’ Gruffydd went to the first-floor window and looked down into the courtyard. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the armed men milling around the house. His father’s standard flew jauntily above them, and nearby he saw that of his father’s wife.

Llywelyn had already dismounted near the door to the great hall and had turned to help Joan from her saddle when Dafydd appeared at the head of the flight of steps. Running down two at a time, he bowed low to his father and kissed his mother.

Gruffydd frowned. ‘Look how he runs to them. I knew it! He has told father I’m here. Already he is spreading poison.’ Below them all three had turned to look up at the solar window. Eleyne, running to Gruffydd’s side, saw Dafydd’s face, politely inscrutable; saw her mother’s smile vanishing, to be replaced by a frown, and her father’s tired expression blackening to a scowl. She was suddenly afraid for the man at her side.

‘Gruffydd, I think you should go.’ She tugged at the sleeve of his tunic. ‘Come back when papa has rested and is in a better mood.’ She looked out of the window again. Her parents and her brother were already mounting the steps to the solar. She saw her father swing around with a curt word to his followers, who fell back and turned away. ‘Please, don’t wait for them.’

Hide, she wanted to shout. Hide, run away. She wasn’t sure why. It was the strange feeling she got sometimes; the feeling that she knew absolutely what was going to happen. But what was the use? She knew he wouldn’t listen.

They could hear clearly now the sound of spurs on the slate slabs of the floor as Llywelyn and his son came through the storeroom below, and then their heavy tread as they mounted the wooden stair to the solar. Eleyne slid off the table and slipped across to the window seat, leaving her brother standing alone in the centre of the room. If her mother saw her, she would send her away.

Llywelyn stopped by the door and stared round. He looked very angry. ‘So, Gruffydd, I do not remember giving you permission to come to Aber.’ At fifty-five Llywelyn ap Iorwerth, Prince of Aberffraw, broad-shouldered and of powerful build, had the figure of a man in his prime. Though his hair and beard were grizzled, they showed still the signs of the red gold which had been his glory as a young man. He wore a corselet of steel over his gown and his sword was still at his waist.

‘I wanted to see you, father.’ Gruffydd went to him and knelt down on one knee. ‘Alone.’ He had seen his half-brother waiting in the shadows at the top of the stairs.

Eleyne pressed herself back into the window embrasure out of sight, but neither of them looked at her.

‘There’s nothing you can say to me which can’t be said in front of Dafydd,’ Llywelyn said stiffly. ‘I hope there’s to be no more nonsense about your claim, my son. All that is done with.’

His voice sounded very weary. Eleyne frowned, as always sensitive to her father’s every mood. He was not well – she could see it at once – and Gruffydd was going to make him worse. Llywelyn might normally look far younger than his years but today, as he unbuckled his sword and laid it on the table, he was stooped as if in pain.

Behind him his wife had entered the room. She was petite and dark, a contrast in every way to her husband. ‘So, Gruffydd, have you come to plague us again?’ Stripping off her embroidered gloves, Joan sat down in the chair at the head of the table. As always Llywelyn’s face softened as he looked at her. Even when he was at his angriest, Joan could soothe him.

Gruffydd managed a graceful bow in her direction. ‘I haven’t come to bother anyone, princess. May I ask how your negotiations fared with the king, your brother?’

Joan gave a tight smile. ‘They went well. I brought back letters from Henry accepting your father’s apology for interfering in England’s affairs.’

‘And you think that will stop a war?’ Gruffydd could not keep the scorn from his voice. ‘How could you bring yourself to grovel before Henry of England, father? Henry has ordered de Braose and the others to Montgomery to his standard. He has vowed to subdue you and all the Welsh with you. He is not going to withdraw, surely you can see that? If he invades Welsh territory again you will have to fight!’

‘What do you want here, Gruffydd?’ Llywelyn interrupted wearily. ‘I am sure you have not come to tell me of the inevitability of war in Wales.’

‘No.’ Gruffydd glanced at Joan. ‘I should like to talk to you alone.’

‘Are you afraid of talking in front of me?’ Joan’s tone was mocking. ‘Are you about to put some new hare-brained scheme to your father? He won’t listen, you know. You have tried his patience too far!’

‘Father!’ Gruffydd exploded. ‘Does this woman speak for you now?’

‘Silence!’ Llywelyn stood up stiffly. ‘I will hear no word against your step-mother. Ever. Do you understand? I want you to leave Aber now. We can have nothing else to discuss.’

‘We have to talk, father!’ Gruffydd leaned forward threateningly. ‘My God, if you don’t listen to me here, I’ll make you, later. You’ll regret the day you turned me from your door!’

In the window embrasure Eleyne put her hands over her ears miserably. Why did it always have to be like this? Why couldn’t Dafydd and Gruffydd be friends? It was her fault. Joan. Her mother. Eleyne’s eyes went to her mother’s face, noting the intent, hard expression, beautiful and youthful still in spite of Joan’s forty-one years, the firm, uncompromising mouth, the steady blue eyes, so like, did Eleyne but know it, her mother’s father, King John.

As if feeling Eleyne’s gaze upon her, Joan’s attention flicked briefly towards the window and mother and daughter exchanged hostile glances. To Eleyne’s surprise, however, Joan, distracted, said nothing and her gaze returned thoughtfully to her husband.

‘Enough, Gruffydd,’ Llywelyn said slowly. ‘If you threaten me, I shall have to take steps to contain you.’

Eleyne caught her breath, horrified by the threat implicit in the words.

‘I do not threaten you, father – ’

‘You threaten the peace of this country.’

‘No, it’s Dafydd who does that. You have set him against me! You set the people against me! This is my land, father. This was my mother’s land -’ there was no mistaking the emphasis in the words as he glared across his father towards Joan ‘ – and if it came to a choice between Dafydd and myself the people would choose me.’

‘The people have already chosen, Gruffydd. Two years ago, the princes and lords of Wales recognised Dafydd as my heir – ’

‘No, not the people!’ Gruffydd shouted. ‘The people support me.’

‘No, Gruffydd – ’

‘Do you want me to prove it to you?’

There was a long moment of silence. When Llywelyn spoke at last his voice was hard with anger. ‘What you are suggesting is treason, my son.’

‘Why do you let him talk to you like this, father?’ Dafydd interrupted at last, abandoning his position by the door. ‘This confirms everything I’ve told you. Gruffydd is a hotheaded fool. He’s a danger to everything you and I believe in – ’

He broke off as his brother hurled himself across the room and grabbed him, groping for his throat. As the two young men reeled across the floor, Llywelyn closed his eyes in bleak despair. When he opened them, his face was calm and resolved.

‘Guards!’ There was no trace now of fatigue in his voice. ‘Guards – ’

‘No. Stop! Please -’ Eleyne catapulted herself from the window seat and threw herself at her brothers. ‘Gruffydd, don’t! Please stop!’

But the guards were already there, leaping up the stairs two at a time, pulling the princes apart, as Llywelyn himself dragged Eleyne away from them. It took three of them to hold Gruffydd and as he struggled furiously to throw them off Dafydd retired to the far side of the room, mopping a cut lip on the sleeve of his tunic.

‘Take him away and lock him up,’ Llywelyn commanded.

‘No, papa, you can’t! Gruffydd is your son!’ Eleyne clung to his arm. ‘Please, he didn’t mean it – ’

‘What is this child doing here?’ Llywelyn shook her off.

‘I gave orders she should be sent away before we got back,’ Joan put in quietly. ‘The Lady Rhonwen has seen fit to disobey me.’

‘She has not!’ Eleyne turned on her furiously. ‘We all knew you had no time for me, so we were leaving this afternoon. You came back too soon.’

‘That is enough, Eleyne! How dare you speak to your mother like that! She loves you, as she loves us all!’ Angry, Llywelyn watched as his guards dragged Gruffydd from the room. They could hear the young man’s curses echoing down the staircase until they were out of earshot. For a moment Llywelyn stood gazing at the empty doorway, then he turned his attention back to Eleyne, looking thoughtfully down at the child with her long untidy hair and her rumpled pale blue gown. His face softened. ‘Go. Go and find Lady Rhonwen and tell her you are to leave at once. Where is she to go?’ He turned to his wife, half regretfully. As a rule he enjoyed the company of his youngest daughter.

‘They can go to Llanfaes. Eleyne needs to concentrate on her lessons. There is no room here at Aber and there are too many distractions.’ Joan sounded irritable.

Llywelyn put his arm round Eleyne and, pulling her to him, dropped a kiss on her unruly curls. ‘So, go to Rhonwen, little one, and tell her you must go now.’

‘Yes, papa.’ Eleyne shot a baleful look at her mother and then at her brother. ‘You won’t hurt Gruffydd – ’

‘Of course I won’t hurt him. He must cool his heels for a while, that’s all.’ Llywelyn smiled gravely. ‘Go now, Eleyne – ’

II

The prince’s hall of Tindaethwy at Llanfaes had been rebuilt soon after the fire when Eleyne was born. Situated at the south-eastern corner of the island of Anglesey, it faced across the strait towards the great northern shoulder of the Welsh mainland. Rhonwen and Eleyne, with their attendants and guards, rode from Aber that afternoon across the meadows and marshland and over the sands to where the boats waited to take them to the small busy port at Llanfaes. It was a glorious September day, the sun gilding the water, the sands and the mountains as the horses cantered towards the sea.

Eleyne’s cheeks glowed as they always did when she rode. She smiled across at her companion, Luned, who rode at her side. ‘Race you to the boats!’ Already she had kicked her pony into a gallop. Luned rode gamely after her, screwing up her eyes as the muddy sand, rough with worm casts, flew up in clots from the pony’s hooves.

Rhonwen, following more slowly, sighed, thinking of the great war horse on which Eleyne had ridden at Hay. The Princess Joan had decreed that a rough-haired mountain pony was good enough for her youngest daughter. Eleyne, strangely, had accepted the dun pony and hugged it, and had not as far as she knew once gone to her father and asked for something larger or faster or with prettier markings. She had christened the animal Cadi and they had become more or less inseparable.

Now at the edge of the water Eleyne reined Cadi in, laughing, and slipped from the saddle. She looked up at Rhonwen who had followed more sedately. ‘Are we going to spend long at Llanfaes?’

Rhonwen frowned. ‘We must stay as long as your mother commands it.’

‘Or my father. He may call me back.’

‘I’m sure he will – if not at once, then certainly when the court moves to Rhosyr.’ Rhonwen smiled.

Eleyne sighed. That sounded like a typical adult attempt to avoid the truth. She pulled the reins over Cadi’s head and rubbed the pony’s chin. ‘What will happen to Gruffydd?’

Rhonwen frowned. She had made it her business to find that out before they had left Aber. ‘He is being taken under escort to Degannwy. Your father has ordered that he be held in the castle there for a while.’

‘Held there a prisoner?’ Degannwy, a great castle built of stone in the Norman fashion like the newest parts of Aber, stood on the northern bank of the Conwy River on the eastern side of Llywelyn’s lands. Beyond it, behind the mountains, lay the great earldom of Chester and beyond that the hinterland of England.

‘That’s what it sounds like.’

‘So he’ll be out of the way, while Dafydd is at father’s side the whole time?’

Rhonwen nodded.

‘That’s not fair.’

‘Life is never fair, cariad. But Gruffydd will find a way to make your father trust him again. You’ll see.’ Rhonwen smiled. ‘Go on. Are you going to lead Cadi on to the boat? If she goes, the others will follow.’

The narrow strait was warm and flat calm. Sitting in the leading boat, Eleyne stared at the receding shore, her eyes following the foothills up towards the distant mountains, hazy in the light of the golden afternoon. Wisps of cloud hung around the invisible shoulders of Yr Wyddfa, drifting into the high cwms where already the shadows were gathering. Her father’s land, the country of her birth – she trembled with suppressed excitement. Eleyne loved the mountains and she loved the sea and here she had both. She leaned over the side of the boat and stared into the glittering water, watching the whirling patterns made by the boatmen’s oars, then she looked at Luned who was sitting beside her and she smiled. Her companion had, as usual, gone slightly green the moment the ferry pushed away from the sand.

Luned had been introduced into Eleyne’s nursery by Rhonwen when the two girls were three years old. In a family where the nearest sister to her in age, Margaret, was ten years her senior, Eleyne would have had a lonely childhood without her. Now the two girls were friends. Later, Luned, an orphan from birth, would become Eleyne’s maid. Both understood and accepted the situation happily. For both the future seemed very far away.

Eleyne turned back towards the far shore, trying to pick out the cluster of stone and wooden buildings low on the hillside which made up the great llys of Aber, but before she could make them out she was distracted by a flotilla of small ships which had appeared on the sea between them and the mainland. She watched, her eyes screwed up against the glare, seeing them wallow in the heavy swell which had developed near the shore.

‘We’re nearly there.’ Luned’s voice at her elbow startled her. ‘I can see Cenydd with the others waiting on the quay!’

Cenydd was Rhonwen’s cousin, the only one of her relatives to have kept in touch with her after the scandal of her mother’s defection from Christianity and the lonely woman’s death. He was seneschal at Llanfaes. Both little girls adored him.

Distracted from the boats, Eleyne studied the low shoreline ahead, where a group of figures stood waiting on one of the busy quays. A shadow had fallen across the glittering sea, and she shivered. The boats had vanished in the glare.

Impatiently Eleyne waited, listening to the laughing cry of the gulls and the shouts of the ferrymen as the horses were unloaded down the long ramps. As soon as Cadi was led on to the quay she ran to her. The horse whickered at her jauntily and within seconds Eleyne had jumped into the saddle.

Rhonwen and Luned watched in astonishment as pony and rider galloped up the track away from the port and along the shore towards the east. Rhonwen frowned and turned to Cenydd who had been waiting for them. ‘You see?’

He smiled, accepting naturally the continuation, as if it had not been interrupted, of a conversation he and Rhonwen had commenced weeks before.

‘She is wild still, certainly – and much loved for it. Shall I go after her?’

‘She is a danger to herself, Cenydd. I am less and less able to control her. And now -’ She broke off abruptly at the sight of Luned’s eager face at her elbow.

‘Now?’ prompted Cenydd. He looked at her curiously. ‘Is it as you feared?’

‘Later.’ Rhonwen glared at her kinsman, irritated at his lack of tact. ‘You take the others up to the manor and settle them in. I shall go after her.’ She mounted her own mare quickly and neatly and, kicking her into a hand canter, set off after Eleyne.

She was relaxed. There was no danger on this rich, gentle island, the heart of Llywelyn’s principality, populated by loyal and true men and women, and yet it was wrong for Eleyne to ride off like that. It looked as if she had deliberately abandoned Luned and thumbed her nose at her escort and her companions. Rhonwen frowned. Almost certainly it hadn’t been like that at all. She suspected that Eleyne had merely forgotten that the others existed. And that was where the problem lay. She should not have forgotten.

Cadi’s hooves had cut deep holes in the sand, and already they were filling with water. At the shore’s edge the oystercatchers and sanderlings, only momentarily disturbed, had returned to their patrolling. Inland from the low hill behind her came the whistling of a curlew.

Long gold streaks stained the tide race now. Ahead, in the distance, the huge hunched shadow of Pen y Gogarth lay, a sleeping giant in the sea. Somewhere on the shadowed lee of its shoulder lay Degannwy where tonight Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, the eldest son of the Prince of Aberffraw, would spend his first night as his father’s prisoner.

Rhonwen scowled, reining in her horse to a walk. If Gruffydd were going to succeed his father as prince, he was going to have to learn to curb his temper.

She scanned the beach ahead. It was deserted. But still the hoof prints led on. Anxious suddenly, she kicked her horse on. A flight of gulls skimmed up the water beside her, easily overtaking the trotting horse, then she saw Cadi, riderless, her rein trailing. The pony was nibbling at the short salt-grass above the tide line.

Rhonwen felt a tremor of fear. ‘Eleyne!’ Her shout was lost in the empty air. ‘Eleyne!’

She reined in and stared around. Then she saw her. Eleyne was standing at the sea’s edge, her thin leather slippers in the water where the slowly rising tide had touched them. Her skirt, usually tucked up into her girdle, had fallen to its full length into the water and floated around her, a swirl of red. Eleyne was looking across the strait.

Rhonwen dismounted. Leaving her own horse to graze with Cadi, she walked towards the sea.

III

Eleyne had slowed her first wild gallop as soon as she was out of sight of the crowds and houses around the harbour. The strange need to be alone had come upon her quite suddenly, as it always did, and unthinking and unquestioning she had obeyed it.

She walked Cadi gently up the tide line, listening to the cries of the curlew – the messenger of death, the emissary of warning – and again she shivered. It was several minutes before she noticed the boats again. They had drawn nearer, out of the lee of the land, and were heading through the mist towards the island. She frowned. The mist had come suddenly, unnoticed, drifting over the water. The boats were crowded with men. She could see them clearly now – unnaturally clearly. They wore breast plates, gilded armour, helms. Spears glinted where the evening sun pierced the mist. There were more ships now – ten or fifteen abreast – and between the boats there were horsemen, hundreds of horsemen swimming their mounts towards the shore where she stood. Somewhere from across the water she could hear the beat of a drum, low and threatening in the echoing silence.

Suddenly afraid Eleyne turned, wishing that she hadn’t ridden off alone. She gathered her reins more firmly as Cadi laid back her ears and side-stepped away from the sea. She must ride back. She looked over her shoulder, her mouth dry with fear, and to her relief she saw that she was no longer alone. Two women stood near her and beyond them a group of men. She frowned at their strange garb. Both men and women wore black robes, and all had long dishevelled hair. The woman nearest her wore a gold circlet around her arm, another around her throat. In her hand was a sword. Beyond her were crowds of others; the shore was thick with people now, all armed, all keening threateningly in their throats. They were staring beyond her towards the sea. The drumbeat filled Eleyne’s ears. She felt the hairs on her arms rising in fear. She wasn’t aware that she had dismounted, but then she was standing shoulder to shoulder with the women at the edge of the sea and all around them there were others, women, men, even children.

She looked for Rhonwen, for Cenydd, for some of the men of her escort, but she recognised no one. The crowd was growing and with it the noise. The sound of a hundred, perhaps a thousand voices raised in menace as, from the sea, she heard the soft shush of keels on sand as boat after boat beached and the armed men began to jump into the water.

She whirled around, wanting to run, trying to get away, but hundreds of people surrounded her, wielding weapons, and with a terrifying clash of metal they were fighting hand-to-hand. She felt the warm slipperiness of blood on the sand, heard their screams, smelt their fear and hatred. She couldn’t breathe. They were being driven back, back from the shore. She found herself backing with them, stepping over the bleeding body of a woman. She spun round, panic-stricken, retreating with them towards the dark woods on the ridge behind them. The leaves of the oaks were russet and golden in the misty sunshine as the people broke and ran towards the trees and she knew, as they knew, that if they reached them they would be safe.

Then she saw the smoke.

The invaders from the sea were firing the trees, turning the ancient oaks into flaming torches and with them the people who were sheltering between them. She heard their screams, the crackle of flames as the air turned thick and opaque. Desperately she stretched out her hands, trying to reach a woman near her. If she could reach her, take her hand, she could guide her out of the smoke. Sobbing piteously, she reached forward but her hand passed through that of the woman as though it were a breath of air. Again she tried and at last she clutched it…

‘Eleyne! Eleyne! Wake up! What’s the matter with you!’ She felt a stinging slap on both cheeks and a shower of cold sea water caught her full in the face.

Stunned, Eleyne opened her eyes and stared around her. She was on the lonely beach with Rhonwen. There was no one in sight. No ships; no soldiers; no men and women and children, dying in their blood on the shore. Fearfully she gazed up the beach to where the oak forest had stood. There was nothing there now but scrub and a few stunted thorn trees.

She found she was gripping Rhonwen’s arm with every ounce of strength she possessed. She released it quietly. ‘I’m sorry, I hurt you.’ Her voice was shaky.

‘Yes, you did.’ Rhonwen sounded calm. She rubbed her arm. Beneath the cream wool of her sleeve, her flesh would later show ten livid bruises, the marks of Eleyne’s fingers.

‘Tell me what you saw.’ She put her arm around Eleyne and hugged her close. ‘Tell me what you saw, cariad.’

‘An army attacking Mô n; the men and women on the shore; then the fire, up there -’ She waved her arm. ‘Fire, everywhere.’

‘You were thinking of the fire when you were born – ’

‘No!’ Eleyne shook her head emphatically. ‘No, this wasn’t a hall. It was the trees. There on the ridge. A great grove of trees stood there, and they set fire to them with all the people sheltering there. The soldiers herded them there to burn – even women, even children, like me…’

‘It was a dream, Eleyne.’ Rhonwen was gazing over her head at the empty sea. She was completely cold. ‘A dream, nothing more.’

‘Am I going mad, Rhonwen?’ Eleyne clung to her.

‘No, no, of course not.’ Rhonwen pulled her closer. ‘I don’t know why it happened. Too much excitement this morning perhaps. Come, let’s catch the ponies and go back to the others. The wind is getting chill.’

Behind them a line of cats’ paws ran down the channel and high on the misty peaks the dying sun brought darkness to the high gullies.

IV

‘You are sure she has the Sight?’ Cenydd leaned forward and refilled Rhonwen’s wine goblet. He frowned down at the fire which burned between them. Behind them in the body of the hall men and women busied themselves at their various tasks. The children had retired to their sleeping chamber and Rhonwen had just returned from seeing that Eleyne was all right. She and Luned lay cuddled in each other’s arms, dead to the world. Rhonwen had stared down at them for several minutes in the light of her candle before she turned away and returned to the hall.

‘What else can it be? I don’t know what to do, Cenydd.’

‘Why must you do anything?’

‘Because if she has this gift from the gods, she has to be trained. I have to tell Einion that she is ready.’

‘No!’ Cenydd slammed his goblet down on the table at his elbow. ‘You are not to give her to those murdering meddlers in magic. Her father would never allow it.’

‘Sssh!’ Rhonwen said. ‘Her father would never know. Listen, if it is her destiny, who are we to deny it? Do you think I haven’t been praying this wouldn’t happen again?’

‘It’s happened before?’

‘When we were at Hay. She saw the destruction of the castle.’

‘Does she realise -?’

‘I told her it was a dream. The first time I think she believed me. This time, no. She knows in her heart it was no dream, at least no ordinary dream.’

‘Did she see past or future?’

Rhonwen shrugged. ‘I didn’t like to question her too far. That’s for the seer. He’ll know what to do.’

She had struggled with her conscience for months, ever since the vision at Hay. If Eleyne had powers, they had to be trained, for the sake of her country and its cause under Gruffydd of freedom from England; she knew that. But once the seers and bards heard of Eleyne’s gift Rhonwen would lose her to them and to her destiny.

‘You’re a fool if you tell him. He’ll never let her go.’ Cenydd reached for the flagon of wine. ‘You wouldn’t bring him here?’

‘I must. I dare not defy the princess again. Anyway, there’s too much unrest and unhappiness at Aber. Later – I don’t know. It will be for him to speak to the prince if he thinks she has been chosen.’

‘And her husband? What of the child’s husband? He will surely not approve of his wife being dragged into paganism and heresy; I hear the Earl of Huntingdon is a devout follower of the church.’

‘The marriage can be annulled.’ Rhonwen dismissed the Earl of Huntingdon as she always dismissed him, with as little thought as possible. She groped surreptitiously for the amulet she wore around her neck beneath her gown. ‘Everything can be arranged if it is the wish of the goddess, Cenydd.’

He frowned. He saw his cousin’s passionate faith as alternately amusingly harmless and extremely dangerous. He did not like the idea of that pretty, vivacious child being turned into a black-draped, sinister servant of the moon. On the other hand, he shuddered superstitiously, if she had the Sight, then perhaps she was already chosen.

V

Eleyne was sitting at her embroidery lesson three days later when a servant brought the message that Rhonwen wanted to see her. She threw down her silks with alacrity. Although already a neat, accurate sempstress, with a flair for setting the colours on the pale linen, she soon grew bored with the lack of activity when she was sewing. Any variation of the routine was to be seized with enthusiasm.

Rhonwen sat at the table in the solar with an old man. There was no sign of Cenydd. Disappointed, Eleyne closed the door and went to stand near them.

‘Eleyne, this is Einion Gweledydd. As you know, he is one of your father’s bards,’ Rhonwen said.

Eleyne dropped a small respectful curtsey but her curiosity already had the better of her. She loved the bards with their constant supply of stories and music, their recitations of history and the tales of her ancestors. She peered at him, not immediately recognising him. He was a tall, thin-faced, ascetic man, with brilliant intelligent eyes. His long hair was grizzled, as was his beard, and he wore a heavy, richly embroidered gown of the deepest blue.

He held out his hand to her, and hesitating she went to him.

‘So, child. The Lady Rhonwen tells me you have had some strange dreams.’ His hand was cold as marble. It grasped her hot fingers tightly. Frightened, she pulled away. ‘Tell me about them,’ he went on. He had not smiled and she felt a tremor of fear.

‘They were nothing – just silly dreams.’

This time he did give an austere smile, visibly reminding himself that this was a child. ‘Tell me all the same. I like dreams.’

She told him haltingly, her shyness slowly evaporating as she realised that he was listening with flattering concentration to every word she said. By the end of her story he was nodding.

‘What you saw, child, was something which happened here more than a thousand years ago, when the Roman legions marched across our land. Their leader, Suetonius, gave orders that the Druids were to be killed. The Romans came here, to Anglesey, which was, as it still is, a sacred island. At first they were too afraid to cross the strait and attack, for they saw the Druids waiting on the shore. Do you know who the Druids were, child?’ He waited a second, then seeing her nod, he went on. ‘Even their women were there, ready to fight with their men, and the sight terrified the Romans. But at last they embarked across Traeth Lafan, just as you did when you first saw their ships, and they killed all the Druid people, burning the survivors of that battle in their sacred oak groves. They went on and destroyed every oak tree on the island.’

He was watching Eleyne closely. She had gone pale, her eyes fixed on his. It was several seconds before she whispered, enrapt, ‘Was no one left at all?’

‘Very few.’

‘Why did the Romans do it?’

‘Because they were afraid. The Druids were wise and fierce and brave and they did not want the Romans in Wales.’

Still she had not questioned the fact that she had seen these things.

Breaking eye contact with him with an effort, Eleyne walked across to the narrow window. She could see across the pasture to the shore where it had happened and from there across the strait. The mountains of Eryri were shrouded in cloud today; the tide high, the water the colour of black slate.

‘Are you not curious, Eleyne, as to why you saw these things?’ he asked gently.

Rhonwen sat watching them both, her fingers twisting nervously in her lap.

‘It’s because I walked in the place where it happened,’ Eleyne answered simply.

‘But why did you see it, and not the Lady Rhonwen?’ he persisted.

She turned to face him and at last he saw a puzzled frown come to her face. ‘Perhaps she wasn’t looking.’

‘And you were looking?’

‘No. But sometimes I know things are there to see if I want to. I always thought it was the same for everyone, only no one talked about it, but now… now, I’m not sure.’ She looked unhappy.

It had never happened to Isabella. When Eleyne had told her friend about her strange feelings at Hay, Isabella had laughed. She had never dared tell anyone else. Save Rhonwen.

‘It’s not the same for everyone, Eleyne. You have a precious gift.’ He smiled again. ‘I too can see into the past and into the future.’

‘You can?’ Her relief was obvious.

‘It’s a gift of our race. We are descended, you and I, from the survivors of those Druids you saw. Some of them escaped. Some of them lived to lead the opposition to Rome which finally chased out the legions. Your father descends from the ancient kings of Britain, and I from the Druid priests. And you, amongst all the children of your father, have been chosen for the gift of the Sight, for you are his seventh child.’

Eleyne’s mouth had gone dry. Suddenly she wanted to run away. His seriousness oppressed her. The room was airless and hot. She glanced past Rhonwen to the driftwood fire which smouldered low in the hearth. The flames flickered up: red-blue fingers, beckoning, licking the wood they consumed. The smoke was acrid – salt from the old plank remnants of a boat thrown up by the gales.

‘Can I go back to my embroidery now?’ She directed the question urgently at Rhonwen. Her skin was icy with fear.

Rhonwen said nothing. She was staring helplessly at Einion.

It is my fault, she was repeating to herself, I needn’t have told him. Now he will never let her go.

Once again he smiled. ‘Of course you may return to your embroidery. But we shall see each other again soon. I am going to come here to Llanfaes to give you lessons myself.’

‘What sort of lessons?’ Eleyne asked suspiciously.

‘Interesting lessons. You will enjoy them.’ Again the smile. ‘There is only one thing you must promise me. That you will keep our meetings a secret. Can you keep a secret, Eleyne?’

‘Of course I can.’

‘Good. No one must know I come here, save you and the Lady Rhonwen and I. Not even your little friend, Luned. Do you think you can keep a secret from her?’

‘Easily.’ She was scornful. ‘I have lots of secrets from her.’

‘Good.’ He stood up. He was tall, lean, not stooped. Eleyne looked up at him in awe.

‘I shall return in three days.’ He turned to Rhonwen as he picked up his long wooden staff. ‘By then I shall have chosen somewhere safe to meet. See that you have a story to cover her absence all day from the prince’s hall. You did well, my daughter, to tell me about her.’

VI

‘I don’t want to go!’ Two days later Eleyne was confronting Rhonwen with clenched fists. ‘I didn’t like him. What can he teach me? You teach me all I need to know.’

Rhonwen took a deep breath. ‘You have to go – ’

‘I don’t. My father doesn’t know about it, does he? He would not approve. Nor my mother.’ She pursed her lips primly. For two days she had pondered why Einion’s lessons had to be secret. This seemed to be the only explanation.

Rhonwen took another deep breath. ‘Eleyne, they are for your own good.’

‘Why? What is he going to teach me?’

‘I don’t know exactly – ’

‘Then how do you know it will be good for me?’

‘I just know. They are secret things, Eleyne. Even I may not know them. But you are special, as Einion told you. You are the descendant of the ancient kings. You have the Sight.’

‘And he is going to teach me about what I saw? About the history of long ago?’

Rhonwen shrugged. ‘I suppose that may be part of it.’

Eleyne paused. At last her curiosity was beginning to overcome her inexplicable feeling of dread. ‘You will come with me, won’t you?’

‘I don’t know.’ Rhonwen looked away evasively.

‘You must go with her.’ Cenydd had appeared silently, pushing through the curtained doorway and pausing in the shadows, a frown on his face. ‘You cannot let her go alone.’

Rhonwen went white. ‘You don’t know what we’re talking about.’

‘You are talking about Einion Gweledydd. I warned you, Rhonwen!’ he sighed. ‘I told you not to do it.’

Eleyne looked from one to the other, confused. ‘Rhonwen?’

‘Take no notice, cariad. Cenydd is jealous. He wanted to teach you himself.’

‘And so I shall!’ Cenydd smiled at her fondly. ‘As soon as I return. I am summoned to Aber,’ he added to Rhonwen in a low voice. ‘There has been renewed fighting in the border march.’

‘And Gruffydd?’

‘He is still at Degannwy. Prince Llywelyn has sent Senena and the boys to join him there and he has kept Dafydd at his side.’

Rhonwen swore softly. ‘So, Dafydd consolidates his position! We have to do something to help Gruffydd – ’

‘Dafydd has a new embarrassment on his hands which could help.’ Cenydd smiled. ‘It seems that the prince has captured de Braose.’

Eleyne’s attention was caught by the name. ‘Isabella’s father?’

‘Exactly.’ Cenydd laughed out loud. ‘It will be interesting to see how the negotiators handle that one. I suspect Llywelyn still hankers after the de Braose alliance. It neutralises Sir William, for all he rides with the king at the moment, and with the marriage formalised Prince Llywelyn will have an ally in mid-Wales.’

‘What will happen to Gwladus now that Sir Reginald is dead?’ Eleyne asked suddenly. ‘Will she come home?’

‘She will marry again, cariad,’ Rhonwen said gently. ‘Don’t look to see her here. I doubt if she would want anyway to come back beneath her mother’s roof.’

‘And she’ll want a younger man this time, I’ll warrant!’ Cenydd laughed quietly.

‘Then I shall pray for her sake she gets one. But we will not discuss that now.’ Rhonwen scowled at him.

‘Will they bring Sir William to Aber?’ Eleyne had missed the interchange. ‘I would love it if he came with Invictus.’

‘I don’t know, child,’ Rhonwen frowned again. ‘I doubt if they’ll bring him north. He will probably buy himself his freedom before we know it. We shall have to wait and see.’

VII

Einion had picked a deserted hermit’s cell in the woods behind Penmon.

Rhonwen dismounted, staring at the closed door of the stone-built shack. A haze of smoke was escaping through the holes in the turf roof. Eleyne remained in her saddle, her fingers firmly wound into Cadi’s mane. ‘You won’t leave me.’

‘I must if Einion orders it.’ Rhonwen approached the door and after a slight hesitation she knocked. For several moments nothing happened, then slowly it opened. Einion was wearing a long black mantle over his embroidered tunic. In the shadowy doorway it made him look wraithlike, almost invisible.

‘So, you are here. Where’s the child?’ He peered beyond Rhonwen into the trees where Eleyne waited. It was raining heavily, the raindrops drumming on the leaves, tearing them from the trees. The trunks glistened with moisture and the ground was a morass of mud beneath their horses’ hooves.

Eleyne dismounted. She was wrapped in a heavy woollen cloak against the rain, and it dragged on the ground as she walked unhappily towards him.

‘Good. You may come back for her at dusk.’

‘No.’ Eleyne turned and ran back to Rhonwen, clinging to her arm. ‘No, I want her to stay!’

The old man studied her. ‘Strange, I had not marked you for a coward, princess.’

‘I am not a coward!’ Stung, Eleyne straightened her shoulders.

‘Good. Then you will do well. Come in.’ He stood back, motioning her into the hut. As she stepped hesitantly into the darkness he glared over his shoulder at Rhonwen who hesitated in the rain. ‘Dusk!’ he said brusquely. ‘And not a moment sooner.’

Eleyne peered around the dim interior, her heart thumping with fear as he shut the door. As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she saw the cell was empty save for a table placed against the wall. On it a rush light burned with a feeble flame. In the middle of the floor a small circular fire had been lit in the centre of a ring of stones. It smoked fitfully, and her eyes burned with the acrid smoke.

She glanced fearfully at Einion. In the faint light his tall figure cast a huge shadow on the wall as he moved slowly to the table and shuffled various small boxes around on it.

‘Sit down, child.’ He spoke softly now, his voice more gentle. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

She looked for something to sit on and saw nothing in the semidarkness save a folded blanket on the floor. After a moment’s hesitation she sat down on it, putting the fire between herself and the man who stood with his back to her. Straining her ears in the silence, she heard him taking the lid off something and the rattle of some object inside a box.

‘Listen.’ He held up his hand. ‘Tell me what you hear.’

Eleyne held her breath. The hut was full of sounds. The crackling and spitting of the fire as drops of water found their way through the roof, the rain outside on the trees, the heavy breathing of the man – but she could hear nothing else.

‘I can’t hear anything,’ she whispered.

‘Nothing?’ He swung round to face her. ‘Listen again.’

She swallowed. ‘There is the rain,’ she stammered, ‘and the fire.’

‘Good.’

‘And our breathing.’

‘Good. Listen now. And watch.’

He threw whatever he had in his hand into the fire. For a moment nothing happened, then there was a burst of clear bright flame and a hum from the burning wood.

Eleyne watched, enchanted. ‘A man told me once the burning logs remember the songs of birds,’ she whispered.

Einion smiled. ‘So they do. And more. Much more. Look. Look close into the flames. Tell me what you see.’

Kneeling up, she peered into the heart of the flames. The heat burned her face and her eyes grew sore. ‘Just the fire. The red centre of the fire.’

‘And now.’ He poured a scoop of some powdered herbs and another of juniper berries on to the logs. At once the fire died and threw off a bitter thick smoke. Eleyne shrank back, coughing, her eyes streaming. She was terrified.

‘There is mugwort and wormwood and yarrow to help you to see. And sandalwood from the east and cedar. Look, look hard.’ His voice was persistent. ‘Tell me what you see.’

‘I can’t see anything – ’

‘Look, look harder.’

‘It’s all black.’

‘Look.’

She stared as hard as she could, her eyes smarting. Now the heart of the fire was burning a deep clear red. She leaned forward, pushing her hair back from her hot face, then she reached out her hands.

‘Look,’ he whispered, ‘look.’

‘I can see -’ She hesitated. ‘I can see a sort of face…’

‘Yes!’ It was a hiss of triumph.

‘A man’s face, in the shadows.’

‘Whose face?’

‘I don’t know. It’s not clear.’ Suddenly she was crying. The picture was fading. Desperately she tried to hold it, screwing up her eyes. Her head was aching and she felt sick.

‘Enough.’ Walking over to her, he put a cool hand on her forehead. ‘Close your eyes. Let the pain go.’ He left his hand on her head for a few moments. She felt the pain lessen. Slowly she relaxed. When she opened her eyes, the pain had gone. He walked over to the door and threw it open, letting the cold woodland air into the hut.

Nervously she looked at the fire. It smoked gently on its bed of ash.

‘Throw on some twigs. The pile is behind you, in the corner.’ He was like a man trying to train a child not to be afraid of a wild beast. ‘There, see how it takes the fuel from your hand. It’s an ordinary fire again. There’s nothing to fear. Now, for another lesson. Something less arduous.’

‘That was a lesson?’ Eleyne was still staring at the fire.

‘Oh yes, child. You have to learn to command the visions. They must never rule you. That way leads to madness. You must learn to be their mistress. Now, how would you like to learn about the birds?’

‘The birds?’ She looked up hopefully.

‘Legends about the birds; the omens of which they speak. The messages they bring us.’

‘The curlews were there, crying of death when the Romans came in my dream.’ She scrambled to her feet and went to the door. ‘Where do all the birds go in the rain?’

‘They find shelter when the weather is hard, but usually they go about their business. There’s an oil on their feathers which casts off the rain.’

Now that he was speaking quietly, she found her fear had left her. She listened eagerly as the morning progressed. By midday the rain had stopped and a fitful sunshine slid between the branches of the trees. They walked for a long time in the woods, and he pointed out bird after bird which she had failed to see, telling her their names and the messages their appearance foretold. The sun slowly dropped in the sky. Her stomach growled with hunger but he talked on, pausing now and then to fire questions at her to check she was still attentive.

Twice she begged him to stop so they could eat or drink. He refused. ‘You must learn to rule your body, princess. You do not run because it wants meat. You must tell it to wait.’

He knew exactly the moment when she began to grow light-headed and once more he took her to the hut and closed the door. He motioned her to sit again before the fire and once more he threw on a scoop of powder.

She put her hands over her eyes. ‘No more, I’m tired.’

‘Look.’ He leaned over and tore her fingers away from her face. ‘Look. Look into the fire.’

This time the picture was there, cold and clear. She stared at it in wonder. ‘I see people standing about waiting for something to happen; crowds of people. The sky is blue and the sun is still low in the east behind the hills near Aber. It must be dawn. They are talking – now they are shouting. Someone is coming. A man. I see a man and they are putting a noose around his neck. They are – no! No!’ Suddenly she was sobbing. She scrambled to her feet and pushed past him to the door. Scrabbling frantically at the sneck she pulled it open as, behind her, the acrid smoke cleared, and ran outside.

It was nearly dark and it took a few moments before her stinging eyes could make out the figure of Rhonwen waiting beneath the trees. The two horses were tethered behind her.

‘Take me home!’ She ran to Rhonwen and clung to her. ‘Take me home. Please.’

Rhonwen looked over her head at the darkened doorway. It was some time before Einion appeared. He seemed unmoved by the child’s tears. ‘She did well. Bring her to me again in three days.’

‘Who was it?’ Eleyne spun round. ‘Who did I see?’

He shrugged. ‘You did not hold the vision. That takes time to learn. Maybe when you come again we shall understand what you saw and read the warning, if there is one.’

‘No. I don’t want to see it again. It was horrible.’ She pulled her cloak around her with a shudder. ‘And I don’t want to come again.’

Einion smiled coldly. He turned back to the hut. ‘Bring her,’ he called over his shoulder, ‘in three days.’

VIII

‘NO!’ The next morning, having eaten and slept well, Eleyne’s courage had returned. ‘I will not go back, Rhonwen. I don’t want to go to him. What he’s doing is evil.’

‘It’s not evil!’ Rhonwen was shocked into temper. ‘Don’t ever say such a thing. And you will go, if I have to carry you!’

‘I won’t. I refuse.’ Eleyne’s eyes were as defiant as her own.

‘You will.’

‘I shall run away.’

‘Nonsense.’ Rhonwen forced herself to speak calmly. ‘Where can you go? I should find you anywhere on the island!’

‘Then I shall leave the island and go to papa. If I tell him what you made me do, he’ll put you in prison!’ Her fists clenched, Eleyne was close to tears. The events in Einion’s cell had frightened her badly. Under no circumstances was she going to return there, and instinctively she knew her father would be her ally in this. He had no idea, she was sure, that the stories and songs which Rhonwen had told her night after night since she was a baby were but a frame for a more sinister purpose. ‘I don’t want to learn from him, Rhonwen. I don’t, and I won’t. I’m going back to Aber. Now.’ She turned and ran from the room.

‘Eleyne!’ Rhonwen shouted after her. ‘Eleyne, stop! No boatman will take you without my orders. You cannot go. Don’t be so foolish!’

Eleyne raced across the great hall and out into the courtyard towards the stables.

‘Eleyne!’

She heard Rhonwen close behind her, but she did not stop. Hurtling into Cadi’s stall, she untied the pony’s halter and backed her out. She had just managed to leap on to the pony’s back when Rhonwen stormed into the stables. Nearly knocking her down, Eleyne kicked Cadi past her at a gallop, careering across the yard, scattering the manor servants as she fled out of the gates, down towards the shore.

There were no boats moored against the quayside in the harbour. Slowing Cadi, Eleyne bit her lip with frustration. Her pride would not permit her to go back. Rhonwen must not be allowed to win this quarrel.

She heard a shout behind her. Three riders were galloping after her, and glancing around she recognised Rhonwen’s head-dress. There were two men with her.

Digging her knees into Cadi’s sides, she put her at a gallop out of the small port and up the beach. There might be a fisherman mending his nets on the sands who would take her across the strait for a fee. She groped at her neck and was relieved to find her gold chain safely in place. That would no doubt buy her a trip to the ends of the earth if she should wish to go there.

There were no fishermen; as far as she could see round the ragged coastline the beaches were empty. The tide was midway, the water sparkling cheerfully in the light breeze.

The other, larger horses were gaining on her and she felt a surge of anger. Just because she was small they could force her to do what they wanted. It was unfair – unfair and wrong! She looked once more across the water towards the farther shore and the safety which was Aber. Almost without realising it, she began to steer Cadi with knees and halter towards the water. She had seen the Roman soldiers swim the strait. Why not Cadi? The tide was not too high, the water calm.

The pony’s hooves splashed in the bright clear ripples. In two strides the water was up to her fetlocks. In two more to her knees. Eleyne heard the cries behind her grow more urgent.

Her own feet were in the water now. It was bitterly cold and she caught her breath. She felt Cadi hesitate. ‘Come on, my darling. Courage. You can do it,’ she whispered, urging the pony on. ‘Come on. It’s not so far.’

As if understanding what her young mistress wanted, the pony began to swim.

I

The water was icy. As it rose up her body, Eleyne began to tremble with cold. She leaned forward, throwing her arms around the pony’s neck, feeling the sturdy pull of Cadi’s legs as she struck out into the waves. She could hear nothing now of the shouts behind her; her ears were full of the rush of the sea. She clung desperately to Cadi, feeling the water pulling her away from the pony’s back.

‘Come on, my darling, come on, it’s not far,’ she whispered again, and the pony’s ears flicked back at the sound of her voice.

On the shore Cenydd hurled himself from his horse. Tearing off his gown and mantle he ran for the sea, clad only in his drawers. Running through the waves, he dived into the deeper water and began swimming fast. The pony, hampered by the drag of her rider, swam slowly and doggedly. It was only a matter of moments before he was drawing near them. He did not waste his breath shouting; only when he was within easy earshot did he call out.

‘Princess!’ He saw the girl’s head turn, saw her white, frightened face.

‘Turn her head round, gently. Turn her now, or she’ll drown.’ With two more strokes, he was at the pony’s side. He put his hand into the headband and began to pull the pony round, trying to avoid the flailing hooves.

‘Hold on, princess, hold on.’ He managed an encouraging smile. The pony was responding. He suspected that it too had reached the conclusion that the swim was too far and the tide too strong.

Slowly they made their way back, the man and the horse tired now, the child clinging between them. It seemed an eternity before the thrashing hooves found the sand and Eleyne threw herself into Rhonwen’s arms, to be enveloped in the warmth of her cloak. It was Rhonwen who was sobbing as she hugged the shivering child to her.

II

‘You should give her a damn good thrashing!’ Cenydd was halfway down his second horn of wine.

‘I have never beaten her!’ Rhonwen retorted. She had put Eleyne to bed with a hot stone wrapped in flannel at her feet, and a whispered promise that there would be no more visits to Einion in his cell in the woods.

‘That’s the trouble. She’s never known any discipline! She could have drowned, woman!’

‘I know.’ Rhonwen sat down, pulling her cloak around her. ‘It was my fault. I wouldn’t listen. I said she had to go back.’

Cenydd laughed bitterly. ‘I told you no good would come of that. You are a fool, cousin, and Einion will not let go. I’ve heard stories about him. He uses his powers to get his way, even with the prince.’

‘No, he would not bewitch the prince!’ She shook her head. ‘He cares for Gwynedd above all else – for the whole of Wales. All he does is for the good of Wales.’

Cenydd raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘By which I suppose you mean that he supports Gruffydd’s claim as heir to the principality?’

Rhonwen looked nervously over her shoulder. ‘For pity’s sake, lower your voice! Of course he does. So does anyone of any sense. I had thought you were no supporter of the English party, Cenydd, or you would not be my friend.’ She paused to take another drink of wine. ‘I shall take her back to Aber. I can leave a message for Einion that the prince has sent for her. Even he cannot argue with that.’

‘And when you get there? How will you confront the Princess Joan?’

Rhonwen shrugged. ‘I shall tell her there was an accident. Tell her that Eleyne needed to be with her mother…’

Cenydd laughed. ‘You imagine she would believe that?’

III

‘So, Eleyne, you tried to swim the Menai Strait on a pony.’ Llywelyn sat in his chair by the fire in the great hall at Aber. Near him Sir William de Braose lifted a goblet of wine. Both men were carefully concealing their admiration for the child. ‘What made you think you could do such a thing?’

‘The Romans did it, papa.’

‘The Romans did it.’ Llywelyn leaned back in his chair. ‘But the Romans waited until low tide, Eleyne, as the drovers do, and they had a reason.’

‘I had a reason.’ She coloured indignantly.

‘And what was that?’

How could she tell him that it was because here at her father’s court she would be safe from Einion? Rhonwen had assured her that he would be told they had been summoned back to Aber, and that he would be content to wait. But wait for what? She was afraid. She had tried to wall off in some remote corner of her mind the strange vision she had seen in the depths of his fire, but it haunted her. It had not been a dream; it had come from outside. And she, under his instruction, had summoned it. But why? Why had she seen a man with a noose around his neck? A man being led to the gallows? Why, and who was he? Why had she not seen his face?

She met her father’s eyes as calmly as she could. However much she disliked Einion and feared him, he had sworn her to secrecy and she would keep his secret. ‘I was bored at Llanfaes,’ she improvised bravely. ‘I am too old for children’s lessons. And I heard Sir William was here. I thought perhaps Isabella had come with him.’

Sir William smiled. ‘I am not here voluntarily, little princess. Have you not heard? I was captured in battle. I am your father’s prisoner.’ He did not seem to be too upset by the situation, nor too uncomfortable, as he sat beside Llywelyn’s fire, drinking his captor’s wine. ‘Isabella is not with me.’

‘But she is still going to marry Dafydd?’ Eleyne glanced from one man to the other anxiously, all her eager plans threatening to crumble before her eyes.

‘That is one of the matters we are discussing, Eleyne.’ Her father stood up. ‘You may safely leave it to us. Now, what am I going to do with you?’ He turned to look into the corner of the room where Sir William’s guards stood to attention by the door. ‘One of you, send to Princess Joan and ask her if she would grace us with her presence for a few minutes.’

‘Did you bring Invictus?’ Firmly ignoring the knot of unease in her stomach at the thought of her mother’s presence, Eleyne sat down on a stool near Sir William.

He smiled. ‘In a manner of speaking. He brought me.’

‘Can I go and see him?’ She found herself responding to his smile with a warm glow of happiness, and edged closer to him.

‘That is for your father to say, little princess. Sadly, I am not allowed near him in case I escape.’ His smile deepened.

‘Then who is exercising him?’ Eleyne’s eyes were bright with excitement.

‘Oh no, I’m not walking into that one.’ Sir William laughed. ‘You must ask your father.’ The child was irresistible, with her beauty and her charm. Already she knew how to twist a man around her little finger.

‘Could I, papa? Please, could I ride Invictus? He knows me. He likes me. I’ve ridden him before, at Hay. And,’ she added ingenuously, ‘Cadi is still so tired after her swim.’

‘I take it that Invictus is that great chestnut brute you rode at Montgomery.’ Llywelyn beckoned a page forward and jerked a thumb towards his empty goblet. ‘No horse for a child, I should have said.’

‘No ordinary child, no.’ Sir William winked at Eleyne. ‘Your daughter, your highness, is a witch with horses. Invictus would do anything for her. As I suspect any animal would.’

‘Indeed?’ Llywelyn looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Why did you not tell me this before, Eleyne?’

‘Because I forbade her to waste your time.’ Princess Joan appeared at her husband’s elbow. Both men rose. She was looking exquisitely beautiful in a gown of rose silk trimmed with silver thread and a mantle of deepest green velvet.

Eleyne saw Sir William’s eyes light up with appreciation, and she felt a treacherous surge of jealousy as Joan greeted the two men calmly and took Sir William’s proffered seat.

‘What are we going to do with Eleyne, my dear?’ Llywelyn put his arm around his daughter and pulled her against him fondly. Studying her mother, Eleyne was aware for the first time in her life of her own clothes. Her blue gown was too short at the wrists and showed her ankles. She had never before realised what an attractive woman her mother was.

‘Why is she here?’ Joan gave Eleyne a cursory glance and turned away.

‘Because she grew bored at Llanfaes.’

‘Bored!’ Joan snapped. She did not hide her irritation. ‘Has she completed her lessons then? Can she read and write and sew and sing and play the harp?’

‘Yes, mother.’

‘And she can ride like the wind,’ Sir William put in softly.

Joan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Then perhaps we should teach her to ride like a lady.’

‘She could not help but be that, your highness, being your daughter,’ Sir William smiled. ‘You must help me to persuade Prince Llywelyn to allow the little princess to ride Invictus for me. It’s time he learned to carry a lady.’

Joan met his gaze, and gave a quick half-smile. Watching, Eleyne sensed a lightning spark of excitement flicker between them, but her father appeared to have noticed nothing. Suddenly she wanted to run away again. She did not want to stay in this claustrophobic palace with the adults; she wanted to be out under the sky, on a horse, with the wind in her hair and one of her father’s great wolfhounds striding out at her side.

Her mother’s smile had disappeared and was replaced by a scowl. ‘No, it will not do. She must go back to Llanfaes,’ Joan said crisply. ‘I will not have my orders flouted in this way, and if the Lady Rhonwen cannot obey me she will be dismissed and someone who will obey me will take her place. This child is out of control. She must have discipline.’

‘No.’ Eleyne had gone white at her words, all her fear of Einion returning. ‘No, I don’t want to go back.’

Her father frowned. ‘That’s enough for now. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.’

‘Papa, please.’ Eleyne flung herself at her father and put her arms around his neck. ‘Don’t send me back to Llanfaes. I don’t like it there.’

He looked down at her thoughtfully. ‘You’re happy with the Lady Rhonwen?’ His scrutiny of his daughter’s face had uncovered something far deeper than boredom in her eyes.

‘Yes, I love Rhonwen.’

‘Then what is wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘There is something.’

‘No, papa. Only I should like to stay here with you.’

He frowned. ‘As to that, sweetheart, your mother and I will have to discuss it.’ The smile he directed at his wife was warm. Then he turned back to Eleyne and scowled. ‘I understand Cenydd saved your life when you tried to swim the strait.’

Eleyne looked down at her feet and nodded. ‘He saved Cadi too.’

Llywelyn smiled. He pulled her on to his knee. ‘I want you to promise me that you will take him with you wherever you go from now on. He is a brave man. I have already spoken to him and he’s willing to be your personal escort and bodyguard. Later, when you are older, he shall be your steward. As a princess of Wales and Countess of Huntingdon you need more protection than I have hitherto given you. If there’s anything frightening you, Eleyne, you must tell me, and you must tell him. He will be there to protect you. And,’ he paused, ‘your mother is right. You must try to behave a little more like a lady. A lady would not swim the Menai Strait.’ He put his hand to his mouth to hide a smile of pride.

Eleyne looked down again. ‘I’m sorry, papa.’

Gently he pushed her down from his knee. ‘Good. Now go to your rooms. Your mother and I will discuss what to do with you later.’

IV

Einion stood patiently in the shadow of the wall, his arms folded, his eyes closed. He would know when she was near. He had long ago schooled himself in the absolute control of his emotions. Until he needed them, until he wanted to act he was relaxed, to an outsider indifferent, even asleep as the russet evening sun pierced the boughs of a mountain ash tree near the doorway to the great hall at Aber and warmed the rusty black of his mantle. In the silence he could hear the chuckling water in the river below as it tumbled over its rocky bed.

When Rhonwen walked around the corner, he opened his eyes and put out a hand to grasp her wrist.

‘Where is she?’

Rhonwen caught her breath with fear. ‘I left you a message. There was nothing I could do.’

‘Where is she?’

‘With her father.’ The low sun was shining directly into her eyes.

‘You must send her to me.’

‘She won’t come.’

‘She must.’ He tightened his grip. ‘I have to see her again. I have to have her oath, child though she is.’ His eyes were deep and expressionless like still lake water. ‘I do not want to lose her; the gods, my gods, want her for their own. It must be soon or she will slip from me. And without me, without them, she will not know how to control her visions and will live in torment for the rest of her life.’ He paused. ‘You brought her here to avoid me.’

Faced with that cool all-seeing gaze, Rhonwen did not dare to deny it. ‘She was so frightened,’ she heard herself pleading. ‘Besides, I could not stop her. She tried to swim… she’s so young – ’

‘It’s because she is young that she needs me so much.’ He released her suddenly. ‘She’s too young to understand the powers she has been given. She needs strength and guidance.’

‘She doesn’t want to see you again. Please, Lord Einion. Wait a little; just until she is older.’ Rhonwen despised herself for her weakness, but she could not help herself.

He took a deep breath. ‘That is not possible, my lady. I have to see her again. Now, today. Bring her to me.’

‘What if she won’t come?’

‘She will come. Tell her that her father has commanded her to visit the hermit of the woods.’ He smiled cynically. ‘Tell her there is a horse for her to see. Tell her there are blackberries to pick. I am sure you can think of something. Bring her to me, Lady Rhonwen. You begged me to see to it that her marriage is annulled, but I will not do that until she has been initiated and blessed. Only after that shall I see that she belongs to no man. Bring her to me – now. I shall wait by the river beyond the village.’

Rhonwen stared after him. He had not waited for her agreement; he merely turned and walked away from the wall, beneath the gatehouse and down the hill towards the village with its mill and forge and church and the huddle of houses where the harp maker, the silversmith, the potter and the tradesmen and craftsmen lived, side by side with the twenty-four families who farmed the Aber land. He raised his hand in greeting and blessing to the men and women he passed.

Rhonwen swallowed hard. She did not dare to disobey him.

V

Eleyne was playing cats’ cradles with Luned in the window embrasure, where the last of the sunlight lit their entwined hands. In another moment the sun would drop below the mountains and the llys would be in shadow.

‘Is it nearly time for supper, Lady Rhonwen?’ Luned asked.

‘No, it’s not that late.’ Rhonwen was flustered as she came in. ‘Please, Eleyne, come with me, your father has sent for you!’

‘Me too?’ Distracted, Luned let the string slip from her thumb and the intricate net of knots collapsed. Eleyne threw it down. Standing up, she gave Luned a gentle push. ‘No, not you. You’ve got to untie the cradle.’

Luned’s face fell, but she sat down obediently with the tangled string.

Rhonwen breathed a quiet prayer of thanks. Catching Eleyne’s hand, she led her down the stairs and out of the ty hir into the courtyard. They hurried across it to the gatehouse. ‘Down by the river.’ She had to think of some reason for the walk, so that the meeting with Einion would seem an accident. If not, Eleyne would never trust her again. ‘Your father wanted you to see some wild ponies on the hill beyond the village.’

Eleyne stopped. Her eyes were shining, but she looked puzzled. ‘Why? Why especially tonight?’

Rhonwen shrugged. ‘Perhaps he wants to catch one for you before they move away over the mountains now he knows how much you love horses. Perhaps he’s noticed how you’re growing. Soon you’ll be too big for Cadi.’ She hustled Eleyne down the track.

She did not want Einion to have Eleyne, but if the goddess had chosen the child who was she to fight her? Besides, it was better Eleyne stay here in the hills than go to a foreign husband – a man neither of them knew; a man fourteen years the child’s senior. And it would happen. In four years’ time John the Scot, the Earl of Huntingdon, would demand his bride. Rhonwen trembled at the thought of a man touching her child, her baby, mauling her, frightening her, hurting her, using her any way he wished. Almost as much she dreaded the thought that he might seduce her with sweet talk and gentleness, and steal away her loyalty and love. No, that must never happen. Better she be given to the goddess. That way she would remain a virgin; cold, chaste, pure as the silver moon. It was for Eleyne’s good.

She had never lain with a man herself. Dimly in the far-off recesses of her memory before she and her mother had come to the house of Tangwystl, there had been a man; a man who had pawed and hurt her mother and made her cry before he had turned his attention to the little girl. Rhonwen’s mind had blocked out the rest of what had happened, but it had left her with a loathing and horror of men which she seldom bothered to hide.

Holding their skirts off the muddy path as they moved out of sight of the llys and through the village, they ducked beneath the tangled trees which grew down the deserted hillsides to where the river ran swiftly over the rocks. The sun had long gone from the deep valley and the air was cold and sharp. Old trees had fallen, rotting, across the river. The air was full of the rich scent of decay. They could feel the chill striking up from the wet boulders in the icy water. Everywhere carpets of moss and lichen clung to tree trunks, to the rocks, and even to the path beneath their feet.

Eleyne paused and looked round. ‘Rhonwen, we shouldn’t come here. It’s too far from the hall – ’

‘I thought you loved the woods and the darkness,’ Rhonwen retorted. ‘I know you manage to slip out sometimes when you think I’m not looking. Besides, what danger could there be?’ She was picking her way over the slippery stones, resisting the urge to take the girl’s hand and pull her on.

‘I don’t know.’ The skin at the back of Eleyne’s neck was prickling. ‘There’s something wrong here. Please, Rhonwen, let’s go back. We can come and look at the ponies tomorrow. It’s getting too dark to see them anyway.’

‘Only a little further.’ Rhonwen walked on doggedly, praying that Eleyne would follow. The track was soft leafmould here, where the trees grew closer together by the water: alder and birch; hazel, ash and ancient oak, linking branches across the stream.

Einion was waiting by a bend in the river where the water hurtled over a small waterfall. Wrapped in his black mantle neither of them saw him until they were within a few feet of him. Rhonwen let out a small scream of fright, the sound all but drowned by the rush of water.

Eleyne stared at the tall man, paralysed with fear as he rose to his feet in front of her.

‘Your next lesson, princess, will have to be here, as you are no longer at Llanfaes.’ He held out his hand to her and she took it, unable to stop herself.

‘Go.’ He looked over her head at Rhonwen. ‘I shall return her safely at dawn.’

‘Dawn -’ Rhonwen was scandalised.

‘Dawn.’ He nodded. ‘Go.’

VI

They seemed to have walked for hours. At first the woods were thick and the sound of water filled her ears, then they turned away from the river on to the open hillside and the noise of the water receded into the distance. Then they were near it again. Eleyne could see little in the darkness, but the man ahead of her must have had the eyes of a cat as he threaded his way onwards, sure-footed however steep and difficult the climb. When they stopped at last at the head of the valley, she was panting; he was calm, his breathing quiet and even. They had reached, she knew, the great waterfall which hurled itself down the cliffs below Bera Mawr.

‘Here,’ he called exultantly above the roar of the water. He released her hand. ‘The spirits are come to greet you and make you theirs.’

Eleyne stepped back frightened. Her eyes strained into the darkness. In the starlight she saw the luminous flash of water as it hurtled from the falls high above them; felt the sudden cold striking at them from the cliffs.

‘Take off your shoes.’ She heard his voice dimly as he shouted against the noise of the water. She saw he was removing his own, so she followed suit, unable to defy him; still unable to run. He smiled. ‘You’re not afraid?’

Stoutly she shook her head, although she was, desperately afraid.

‘Come.’ He took her hand again and began to lead her nearer the foot of the falls. She could feel the spray; feel the ground shaking. ‘Here, princess, drink this.’ He produced a flask from beneath his cloak. ‘It will warm you.’

She took the flask and, hesitating, sipped: it was mead. She drank eagerly, feeling the sweet warmth in her mouth and in her veins. Then she frowned. There was another taste in the mead beyond the sweetness of the honey. Malt and wine and bitter herbs. She spat some out, but it was too late. She had swallowed enough for the draught, whatever it was, to do its work.

‘Is it poison?’ she heard herself ask him. Her head was spinning. The roar of the water was all around her and inside her head and part of her.

He shook his head. ‘Not poison. Nothing to harm you, princess. Herbs from the cauldron of Ceridwen and water from the everlasting snows. Come.’ Again he took her hand. They seemed to be walking out into the deep pool at the foot of the falls. Stepping from stone to stone with bare cold feet, she felt their rounded smoothness, slippery with moss. He let go of her hand and as he moved away from her she saw him raise his arms. She heard him calling – calling the spirits and gods of the river and of the mountain, the incantation rising and falling with the roar of the water.

She stood still, her feet aching as the icy mountain water splashed over them, feeling her skirts grow wet, her hair soaked with spray. Her head was thick and woolly; she could not think or move and yet she could see. She could see as if it were daylight.

The moon was rising above the falls, its clear light falling through the spray, down the rock face on to the man and the child. She saw the moonlight touch his fingertips, his hands, his arms where the sleeves of his mantle had fallen back. It stroked silver into his hair and touched his face with cold lights. She felt the silver light touch her own skin and wonderingly she raised her hands to it and felt it warm.

As if in a dream she found herself wading deeper into the icy water. Her gown had gone. She was naked, but the water was warm. She felt it lap her body like milk. Then she was on the turf bank and amongst the trees, floating, her feet off the ground; flying up the waterfall, spinning like thistledown in the spray before she found herself again amongst the trees, her back against an old oak. She could feel its bark like soft velvet against her skin. She could not move; her limbs would not obey her. The tree was enfolding her, the moonlight in her eyes.

She saw the man in front of her, naked as she was. He carried water from the falls in a wooden bowl. He raised it to the moon and then dipped his hand in it and traced the secret sign upon her forehead and upon her chest where the small unawakened nipples stirred; then on her stomach and lightly, barely touching her, between her legs.

Then he was gone and she was alone. She tried to move, but the tree held her; the moonlight filled her eyes and she saw the gods of the forest dancing by the waterfall, their bodies half hidden in the spray.

VII

‘Eleyne, for the love of the Holy Virgin, wake up!’ Luned was shaking her shoulder. ‘Come on, Rhonwen has been calling you for hours!’

Eleyne opened her eyes. She was in her own bed in the small chamber in the ty hir which she shared with Luned and Rhonwen. Luned was fully dressed and sunshine poured through the window and across the floor.

‘Come on!’ Luned pulled the covers from her. ‘Have you forgotten you are going to ride Invictus today?’

Eleyne climbed slowly to her feet. She was still enfolded in her dream, still bemused by the roar of water and the numbing cold of her limbs.

There had been faces in her dream: men, women, children, people she had known through aeons of time. There had been love and death and fear and blood. Whirling pictures; laughter and tears; the crash of thunder and splinters of lightning in the black pall which had darkened the sky.

How had she come home? She remembered nothing of the journey back. She raised her arms above her head and lifted her tangled hair off her neck wearily. Her head ached and she felt far away.

She was standing naked in front of the window staring out at the hillside of Maes-y-Gaer, where the russet and gold of the bracken caught the morning sun, when Rhonwen appeared, a heap of green fabric over her arm.

‘Eleyne, what are you doing? You’ll catch your death!’ she exclaimed, shocked at the blatant nakedness. ‘Here. The sempstresses sat up all night to make you a new gown.’ It had helped to pass the time while Eleyne was away; helped to quiet her conscience; and she too had noticed the previous day Eleyne’s shabbiness as the child stood next to her mother.

Chivvying her impatiently, she dressed her charge in a new shift and slipped the gown over the girl’s head.

‘Say nothing to her,’ Einion had said, the unconscious girl still in his arms. ‘She will think it all a dream. The gods have marked her. She’s theirs. In due time they will claim her for their own.’

‘And you will make her father annul the marriage?’

Einion had nodded and smiled. ‘Have no fear. I shall speak to him when she is of an age to choose a man. Then she will take whoever she wishes amongst the Druids. She will belong to no man and to any man as the goddess directs.’

‘No!’ Rhonwen pleaded. ‘She must remain a virgin – ’

‘Virginity is for the daughters of Christ, Lady Rhonwen, for the nuns. The followers of the old gods worship as they have always worshipped, with their bodies.’ He looked at her with piercing eyes and for a moment his gaze softened. ‘If you have kept yourself a virgin, Lady Rhonwen, it was to assuage your own fears, not to please the Lady you serve. Do not wish the same fate on this child.’

Less than an hour of the night remained when Rhonwen tucked Eleyne, still deeply drugged, into her bed, her ice-cold body rigid next to Luned’s warm relaxed form. Looking down at the two girls as Luned turned and put her arm over her friend, Rhonwen felt her tears begin to fall.

It was as Rhonwen was brushing her hair that Eleyne remembered. ‘You knew he would be there, didn’t you!’ She jerked her head away from Rhonwen’s hands and stood up. ‘You knew, and you took me to him!’ Behind her Luned, who had been sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on her stockings, looked astonished at the sudden vehemence. ‘How could you! I thought you loved me, I thought you cared. You betrayed me!’

Eleyne had thought she was safe at Aber. She had thought he would not dare to follow her. She stood up, pushing Rhonwen aside: ‘What did he do to me?’

‘He gave you to the goddess.’

‘Father Peter and the bishop would not like that.’ Father Peter was one of the chaplains at Aber.

‘You mustn’t tell them. You mustn’t tell anyone, ever.’

Rhonwen had realised that Luned was all ears. She turned towards her. ‘Nor you, Luned. No one must ever know, no one.’

‘What will happen to me now?’ Eleyne still had her back to them. Her hands were gripping the stone sill of the window as she tried to clamp down on the horror and fear which had broken through the barriers and flooded through her. She was shaking.

‘It means you can stay here in Gwynedd. When you are old enough Einion will tell your father what has happened.’ Rhonwen’s voice was calm and soothing.

‘I won’t have to go and live with Lord Huntingdon?’

‘No.’

No, you will be given to the Druids; who will use your body for worship; for a temple; or for their plaything. Oh, great goddess, have I done right? Would she have been happier married to Huntingdon, living far away…?

‘I don’t want to see the future, Rhonwen.’ Eleyne was looking out at the russet hillside. There the old gods lived; the stones of their temple lay there still, tumbled on the hillside.

‘You have no choice, child. You have the gift.’

‘Einion would never have known if you hadn’t told him.’

‘I had to, Eleyne,’ Rhonwen said guiltily. ‘It would have destroyed you. Don’t you see? He will tell you how to use your powers for good. To help your father, to help Gruffydd and perhaps Owain and little Llywelyn after him. For Wales. Besides, don’t you see? I have saved you from marriage. I have saved you from going to a stranger like your sisters.’

There was a long silence. Then Eleyne turned back to her. ‘I am not going to stay here. I never want to see him again.’

‘Eleyne! You have no choice, cariad. You belong to him now.’

‘No!’

‘There is nothing to be afraid of – ’

‘No!’ Eleyne was silent, then she turned back to the window. ‘I will never belong to Einion. Never. You should not have allowed him to give me to the gods. My father is a devout follower of holy church, Rhonwen. I know he favours the canons of Ynys Lannog, who follow the way of the old anchorites, and he welcomes the friars and the Knights Hospitaller to Wales. Many feel he is too broad-minded, but he will not want me to turn back to the old faith.’ She said it quietly and with absolute certainty.

Rhonwen felt a clutch of fear. The child had grown up overnight. Far from being more docile, there was a confidence in Eleyne’s voice which brooked no argument. ‘Nonsense,’ she said uncertainly, ‘he reveres the old ways in private.’

‘No, Rhonwen. He respects them and he listens to the bards and the wizards of the mountains, but he had me baptised in the Cathedral of St Deiniol at Bangor. It was you who told me that.’ Eleyne gave a tight little smile. ‘And he will want my marriage to go on. The alliance with the Earl of Chester is vital. I heard him tell my mother. Lord Huntingdon will be Earl of Chester when his uncle dies. Father wants no more wars with Chester.’

‘The days when Gwynedd and Chester were at war are over, Eleyne.’

‘Exactly! And to seal that peace, father married me to Lord Huntingdon. He will not put that treaty at risk because Einion wants me for the old faith. Einion won’t be allowed to take me.’

Rhonwen closed her eyes. ‘It’s too late, Eleyne. He already has you, cariad. You are his.’

Eleyne spun round. ‘Never, I told you, never!’ Suddenly she was a child again. She stamped her foot, then ran across the room and pulled the door open. ‘And if you won’t save me from him,’ she sobbed, ‘I must save myself!’

VIII

Rhonwen caught Eleyne in the stables as she was watching Sir William’s groom throw the saddle up on to Invictus.

‘Where are you going?’

‘To Degannwy. I shall be safe there with Gruffydd.’ The tears had gone. The girl’s face was set and determined.

‘You can’t go without your father’s permission.’

‘Then you must get his permission, Rhonwen. Now. Quickly. I’m not going to stay here.’ Eleyne’s hands had started to shake and she clutched them together, waiting impatiently as the groom fitted the sharp bit between the stallion’s teeth and settled the elaborate reins over his neck.

They both jumped as Cenydd appeared from the shadows. He was frowning as he saw the preparations for the ride. ‘I gave your father my word that I would guard you, my lady. I must come with you if you are going out.’

Eleyne smiled uncertainly. ‘Just as long as you don’t try to stop me. My father gave me permission to ride Invictus.’

‘I’ll not try to stop you.’ Cenydd threw a glance at Rhonwen. ‘Is the Lady Rhonwen coming too?’

‘No.’ Eleyne scowled.

‘Eleyne, please, cariad, wait,’ Rhonwen cried. ‘You can’t go to Degannwy. You will only get Gruffydd into more trouble.’

Eleyne paused. ‘Very well then, you go and ask papa if I can go. But I am going to ride on ahead. Now.’ Any moment, she was sure, Einion would appear and manage to stop her.

Rhonwen had put her hand on Invictus’s bridle. ‘Lord Einion would want you to stay,’ she whispered.

‘No.’ Eleyne shook her head.

Cenydd raised an eyebrow. ‘I told you, Rhonwen. You were a fool to meddle. You had best make a clean breast of all this to his highness. Then at least the prince will thank you for saving his daughter for her husband.’

‘But I am not. I don’t want her to marry – ’

‘I am married, Rhonwen.’ Eleyne stamped her foot again. ‘Nothing can change that.’

‘But it can, don’t you see? The marriage is not consummated. It can be annulled. It must be annulled!’

‘Don’t be a fool, Rhonwen! The prince would never allow it.’ Cenydd stepped forward, narrowing his eyes against the cold wind which whistled across the courtyard and into the stables. ‘Accept the facts, woman.’ He drew Rhonwen aside, his face angry. ‘You didn’t just do this to give her to your gods; or to save her from marriage. You did it to keep her for yourself, didn’t you? But you won’t keep her. The seer will get her unless you help her.’

Eleyne was staring at Rhonwen, her face white and pinched. ‘Is that true?’

‘No, of course it’s not true.’ Rhonwen held out her hands in anguish. ‘I love you, Eleyne. I want only what is best for you.’

‘Then you’ll help me go to Degannwy.’ At Degannwy she would be with Gruffydd and Senena whom she loved and the two little boys she adored. She signalled the groom to lift her on to the horse. ‘I shall be safe with Gruffydd,’ she said firmly, ‘he won’t let anything happen to me.’

Cenydd and Rhonwen looked at each other. Gruffydd was in no position to help her, but neither of them reminded her of the fact. Rhonwen reached up and touched her hand. ‘Very well then, cariad. But wait. Wait for your father’s permission. Otherwise you’ll be in more trouble.’

Eleyne’s face grew mutinous. ‘I shall write to papa. He will understand.’ She turned the horse, still terrified that Einion would be lying in wait for her in the shadows outside the gate.

The valley beyond the village lay in silence, sheltered from the wind and still bathed in mist as Invictus trotted on to the track which curved beside the river. Cenydd rode a few paces to the rear, his hand upon his sword; behind him were two of the prince’s grooms, hastily beckoned from their work.

In the stable yard, Rhonwen, her heart in her mouth, turned to find the prince.

IX

Llywelyn frowned. ‘You want to take her to Degannwy?’

Joan smiled. ‘A good idea. Why not? She can stay with Gruffydd and Senena.’ Her face betrayed the unfinished end to her sentence: three trouble-makers together, out of harm’s way.

Rhonwen nodded, deciding to make the most of her unexpected ally. ‘She can continue her studies there as Lord Gruffydd already has tutors for little Owain. They could help her.’ Behind her a figure had entered the hall and was walking towards them. Her heart turned over with dread. She did not need to turn to know that it was Einion. She looked beseechingly at the prince, cold sweat suddenly filming her palms. ‘May I go, your highness?’ she whispered.

Llywelyn frowned. ‘I see no reason why not. In fact, I shall give you a letter for Gruffydd. I don’t want the boy to think I have forgotten him entirely.’

Joan’s eyes narrowed. ‘Surely that will merely encourage him to make more trouble.’

‘He is my son.’ Llywelyn silenced her firmly. He turned to Einion. ‘Good morning, Sir Bard. You are welcome.’

Einion, leaning heavily on his staff, bowed before the prince but he was studying Rhonwen’s face with narrowed black eyes. ‘How is the princess, your charge, this morning?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ Rhonwen murmured. Her mouth had gone dry.

‘We have decided to let her go to Degannwy,’ Joan put in, pulling her cloak more tightly against the cold of the hall. She eyed Einion with dislike.

Einion frowned. ‘No, she must not leave Aber.’

Rhonwen felt her cheeks grow pale.

‘Why not, pray?’ Llywelyn frowned.

‘Her place is with you, sir. At your side. It would be unwise to let her go to her brother at this stage.’ Einion spoke with authority. He looked again at Rhonwen and it seemed to her that his eyes were sharp with suspicion.

‘Why, my friend?’ Llywelyn asked again.

Rhonwen held her breath. As the two men looked at each other Rhonwen felt the power of the older man’s mind reaching out to his prince, trying to sway him. Llywelyn shook his head slightly as if feeling the pressure as a physical pain.

He doesn’t know! Suddenly Rhonwen realised the truth – Einion was not all-seeing. He didn’t know that Eleyne had already gone. She felt weak with relief.

Before Einion had a chance to reply Joan stood up abruptly. Her dislike of her husband’s most senior bard was obvious. ‘It is not your concern, Lord Einion, where our daughter goes, or why,’ she said coldly, and with a sharp imperious nod to Rhonwen she turned away. The matter was closed.

X

The mountains on both sides of the road were shrouded in mist. The horses’ hooves were muffled in mud. Looking behind her nervously for the tenth time, Rhonwen narrowed her eyes, searching the track for signs of pursuit. Surely Einion had seen her go? She had managed to arrange an escort and leave without the prince demanding to see Eleyne before she left, and she had been no more than two hours behind her charge when she turned east into the mountains. She rode fast, anxious to catch up, terrified even now that Einion would find a way to bring her back. In front of her, on the old Roman roadway, patches of mist drifted and swam, blocking out the view more than a hundred feet or so ahead. Trees vanished and reappeared, and in the silence she could hear, above the creak of the harness and the thud of the horses’ hooves, the sound of the river. Then that too faded as the road turned away from its banks and across the hills.

It was early evening before Rhonwen came to the great river near the Abbey of Aberconwy which Eleyne’s father had founded thirty years earlier, and caught up at last with Eleyne and Cenydd as they waited for a boat to take them across the water to Degannwy. To reach the castle they had to cross the river where it narrowed before the broad estuary opened out to the north, and then from the jetty on the far side make their way on foot up to the great castle, built around the twin scree-covered peaks of the Vardre.

There was no sign of pursuit. The road behind them was empty, shrouded in mist, and the water at their feet lapped dankly on the rocks with the rising tide. Rhonwen touched Eleyne’s shoulder. ‘The escort must take Invictus back to Aber. We’ll be safe now.’

Eleyne hesitated. ‘You’re sure? You haven’t told him where I am?’ She gazed at Rhonwen: ‘You have. You’ve told him!’ Her voice rose in terror.

‘Your mother told him, not me,’ Rhonwen said. ‘There was nothing I could do. But he cannot reach you here, cariad. You’ll be safe here.’

XI

Gruffydd and Senena were waiting for them in the prince’s solar. Eleyne hurled herself into her half-brother’s arms and he swung her high off the floor.

‘Oh, Gruffydd, I’m so pleased to be safe here with you.’ She clung to him.

He frowned. ‘What is it, little sister?’ He had never seen her afraid. ‘Sweetheart! you’re trembling.’ Setting her down, he glared at Rhonwen. ‘What’s happened? Why are you here?’

Eleyne collected herself. She drew herself up, walked away from her brother and stood in front of the fire, her hands to the flames, her back turned squarely towards him. ‘Nothing has happened. I’m trembling because I’m cold.’ She changed the subject hastily. ‘Why do you keep making papa so angry, Gruffydd? You play right into Dafydd’s hands every time you do it!’

‘I know, sweetheart, I know.’ Gruffydd grimaced ruefully. ‘I curse myself and my stupid temper twenty times a day.’

‘And I curse him another twenty!’ Senena put in. She kissed Eleyne on the top of her head.

‘So, little sister.’ Gruffydd looked at her thoughtfully. ‘What have you done to be sent to this prison? It seems a fearful sentence for one so young.’

‘The Lady Eleyne is here to visit you, sir,’ Rhonwen put in. ‘She is not a prisoner.’

‘No?’ Gruffydd laughed bitterly. ‘Are you sure? The children of Llywelyn are only sent here when they are in disgrace. Near enough to Aber for papa to keep an eye on us, but far enough away to forget us too!’

‘Even so, sir, Eleyne is no prisoner,’ Rhonwen insisted.

‘No. I ran away,’ Eleyne put in softly. ‘I was afraid.’ She was about to say more when she caught Rhonwen’s eye and bit her lip.

‘The Princess Joan was angry when we came back uninvited from Llanfaes,’ Rhonwen explained. ‘She would not forgive Eleyne for that.’

‘Mother never likes me to be at Aber,’ Eleyne went on. ‘And Sir William de Braose likes me. That made her even angrier.’ She said it wistfully. ‘I think she likes him herself. So when I said I’d like to come here she agreed at once.’

Rhonwen and Gruffydd exchanged glances and Gruffydd let out a soft whistle. ‘So, can the iron-willed Princess Joan be susceptible to mere human frailty after all? He is attractive to the ladies, is he, this Sir William?’

‘Indeed he is!’ Senena put in, teasing.

‘And you like him too, do you, sweetheart?’ Gruffydd chucked his sister under the chin.

Eleyne blushed. ‘I like his horse.’

Gruffydd let out a roar of laughter. ‘His horse, is it! Oh, sweet Eleyne! You’ve a little growing up to do, yet, I see.’

XII

Eleyne was playing with her little nephew, Owain, in the courtyard. He had set up a line of roughly carved wooden horses and was systematically knocking them down with his ball. Near them, taking advantage of the late autumn sunshine, the wetnurse was cradling the sleeping baby, Llywelyn, to her breast. Rhonwen was in the solar with Senena and her ladies, busy with her embroidery. Eleyne glanced up at the narrow window of the tower behind her and felt a stab of guilt. She should have been up there with them, but she was already feeling the restrictions of being incarcerated behind these high curtain walls. They made her feel safe from Einion, but she felt trapped, even though from the top of the tower she could see the mountains stretching away towards the east and south, to the west the estuary of the Conwy and beyond it the low misty hills of Anglesey.

She had no premonition of danger as she looked idly at a group of travellers who appeared through the gates. Then she grew cold. That tall spare figure in the centre of the group, even with the hood of his travelling cloak pulled up, would be unmistakable anywhere. For a moment she was paralysed with fear, then scrambling to her feet she looked around desperately for somewhere to hide – somewhere to escape those all-seeing eyes. She thrust Owain’s ball into his hands and dived around the corner of the kitchens which were built up against the base of the western wall. Quickly she made her way down the path between the dairy and the back of the farrier’s. Lost, there, in the constant coming and going of the castle servants, she could hide until Einion had gone in to see Gruffydd. But she was the one he wanted. Of that she had no doubt. And he would find her. Imprisoned in the castle, she had nowhere to run. Her heart hammering, she peered round the corner of the dairy.

‘Eleyne!’

The small voice at her elbow made her jump nearly out of her skin. Looking down, she found Owain had followed her. The sturdy small child grinned up from a grubby face. ‘Play hide and seek, Eleyne?’

She glared at him. ‘Go back to your nurse!’

‘No. Owain play hide and seek!’ The shrill voice persisted. His hand crept into hers.

Eleyne peered around the corner once more. The party of visitors was moving towards the keep and the wooden staircase to the door of the great hall. Near them she could see the nurses. With Llywelyn clutched beneath the arm of one, they were hunting frantically for their lost charge.

‘Go to your nurse, Owain, now.’ Eleyne gave him a sharp push.

Owain let out a piercing wail and she saw Einion stop. Unerringly he looked towards her and she drew back into the shadows. ‘Be quiet, Owain, please,’ she murmured under her breath, but the child was now crying in earnest. Other heads were turning. The nurse was coming, clucking like an old hen. Einion had moved away.

With a little sob of relief, Eleyne saw him climb the stairs after his companions and disappear inside the shadowed door to the keep.

He was waiting for her as the household assembled that evening for supper.

‘Come.’ He held out his hand to her. ‘I have messages from your father.’

‘No.’ She shook her head and backed away, her heart thumping with terror.

‘You needn’t fear me, Eleyne, I am your friend.’ He rummaged in his leather scrip and brought out a sealed letter. ‘I brought others for the Lord Gruffydd.’

She took her letter warily.

He smiled. ‘You have had no more dreams and visions, child?’

She shook her head vehemently, feeling his eyes on her face.

‘If you do, I want you to send for me. Don’t try to bear them alone. I understand.’ His voice was gentle, reassuring. ‘You are greatly blessed, Eleyne. Don’t fight your gift.’

That was all he said. He made no attempt to speak to her alone again.

XIII

Time had passed and weeks had turned to months, soothing Eleyne’s fear; reassuring her; allowing her to feel secure. When the vision came back, it was unsought and unexpected. The first snows of winter had fallen and melted almost as soon as they had settled, and a light cold rain drifted in from the estuary, soaking the cold ground and turning the ice to mud. Most of the inhabitants of the castle were huddled around the huge fires in the great hall. In the nurseries Rhonwen and Eleyne were helping the children’s nurses stitch clothes for the swiftly growing boys. Tired, Eleyne put down her needle and stood up, chilled after hours of sitting still. She went to stand before the fire, looking down into the glowing embers as she felt its warmth begin to reach her aching bones.

The stones of the hearth were all at once so clearly defined that she could see the grain of the stone; she could hear the crack and hiss of the slivers of blackened bark as they peeled from the logs and shrivelled into ash. She put out her hand towards the fire, half intrigued, half repelled, but already she could see him, deep in the heart of the flame.

The man was standing, turned away from her. She could see his shoulders beneath a white shirt, the rope twisted around his wrists, and the other rope, the hempen noose, around his neck. She strained forward, trying to see his face, but already the picture was fading.

Rhonwen looked up. The child had let out a small despairing whimper. ‘Eleyne?’ she said sharply. ‘What is it?’

Eleyne clenched her fists, fighting a wave of dizziness and nausea. ‘Nothing. It was just the heat, that’s all…’ She turned and walked back to the others. She would not tell Rhonwen in case she told Einion. She would not tell anyone, ever again, when the pictures came.

XIV

When the snows had blanketed the countryside and the roads were closed, Eleyne grew less afraid that Einion would return.

Once she nearly confided in her brother. They were standing together on the walls one evening, watching the sun set in a bank of mist. Around them the encircling mountains and the distant hump of the Anglesey heartland were disappearing in the deep opal haze.

‘Do you like Einion Gweledydd?’ she asked. She did not take her eyes off the distant view.

‘He’s one of our father’s most senior bards. He has been at court a long time.’ Gruffydd blew into his cupped hands to warm his fingers.

‘But do you like him?’ she persisted.

Gruffydd considered for a moment. ‘He’s not the sort of man you can like,’ he said with caution. ‘He’s too austere. There is a rumour that he holds to the old religion of the mountains and men are afraid of him for that reason. They believe he has magical powers.’

Eleyne’s hand gripped the stone parapet. ‘And do you believe it?’

Gruffydd laughed. ‘I suppose everyone deep down believes in magic; but not in the old religion. Christ has vanquished that. Why do you ask, sweetheart? Has he been frightening you?’ He gave her a searching look.

‘No, of course not. I just wondered when he came here. He seemed so stern.’ She bit her lip. ‘What did papa say to you in the letter Einion brought?’ she said, changing the subject. In all the long months since Einion’s visit, Gruffydd had never mentioned the letter in her presence.

‘Ah yes, the letter,’ he said heavily. ‘He said he loves me, but that he and Dafydd think it best I should stay here for a while longer. As if Dafydd would say anything else!’

Eleyne looked up at him miserably. ‘I wish you and he could be friends, Gruffydd.’

He gave a grim smile. ‘I am afraid that is not possible. Not as long as Dafydd usurps my place as father’s successor.’ His bitterness was savage.

She walked away from him and leaned on the stone battlements, gazing at the hazed glow in the mountains, all that was left of the setting sun. Aberconwy Abbey on the far side of the river, its tower surmounted by the cross of Christ, was a black blur in the deep lengthening shadows. She pulled her fur mantle around her tightly. ‘How long can I stay here?’

Again, the grim smile. ‘As long as father allows it, I suppose. I think he hopes that Senena can turn you into a lady.’ He managed a wry grin.

Eleyne ignored it. ‘It’s strange that you want to leave and I want to stay.’

It was a world apart here: safe, cocooned. Far from Einion and from Aber; far from the thought of marriage. The only world she was not safe from was the world of her dreams. There had been one dream over the last few months which had come again and again. A dream she had had since childhood, but which had condensed and clarified until she could remember every detail. A dream of a man who was tall and red-haired with blue-green eyes and a warm smile. A man she knew and yet whom she could not name. A man as old as her father yet for whom she felt as no child should towards a parent. A dream which she welcomed guiltily and gloated over night after night in the privacy of the darkness, as she slept back to back with Luned in their tower bedchamber.

‘It’s terrible to have no freedom, Eleyne,’ Gruffydd said. ‘It’s different for you. You are a woman. You will never have much freedom, sweetheart. Always a father or a husband to rule you. But for a man it’s different. A man must be free.’ He could not disguise the anguish in his voice.

Never to have freedom; always to be ruled by someone else. Put like that, starkly, life for a woman was indeed a frightening prospect. It was something Eleyne had never even considered, and now she pushed the thought aside. It belonged to that dark area of the distant future which she had walled off in a corner of her mind – that part of her future which concerned her husband, the Earl of Huntingdon.

‘Sir William de Braose would know what I mean.’ Gruffydd sighed, not noticing his sister’s sudden silence. ‘He knows he is a prisoner even if he is treated as father’s guest.’

Eleyne seized on the change of subject gratefully. Every time she thought about Sir William she felt warm and special. She liked to say his name, and she sensed her brother’s secret admiration for the man. Once or twice she had dreamed about him, adding his face gloatingly to that other face she dreamed about, the face about which she had told no one, not even Rhonwen, the face which she hoped belonged to the Earl of Huntingdon, but which in her heart of hearts she knew did not. The sixteen-year-old youth who had held her so awkwardly in his arms for a few brief moments after their wedding had fair hair and light blue eyes. If she remembered him at all, it was not as the man in her dream.

‘Freedom is everything, Eleyne,’ Gruffydd went on, his voice tight with frustration. ‘To be held behind walls, however comfortable the surroundings, is a torment for someone who wants to leave. It is better than a dungeon, of course, but you are not your own master. I can’t leave here until father agrees; Sir William can’t leave Aber until he has paid his ransom and father gives him his freedom in exchange.’

‘And when he has done that he can go home and then he will agree to Isabella marrying Dafydd.’ Eleyne smiled with relief. ‘I wonder if Dafydd is pleased.’

Gruffydd gave a rueful grin. When and if the wedding took place, Eleyne would be summoned back to Aber and he would lose his small companion. He glanced at her thoughtfully. She was pleased about the wedding, but would she be pleased to go back to Aber? She was afraid of something there. Mortally afraid. If only she would tell him what it was.

XV

‘I don’t want to go!’ Tearfully Eleyne caught Gruffydd’s hand. The letter she had dreaded had arrived at last.

‘I know, sweetheart, but father has sent for you. There’s nothing you can do. You have to obey him. You can’t stay here forever.’ Her hands were ice-cold in Gruffydd’s and he could see the fear in her eyes. ‘What is it, Eleyne? What are you afraid of?’

‘Nothing.’ She met his gaze, half defiant, half pleading, before she turned away. ‘Nothing at all.’

After tearful goodbyes to Gruffydd and Senena and her small cousins who had to remain in their prison, Eleyne, Luned and Rhonwen, escorted by Cenydd and his hand-picked band of guards and by Llywelyn’s messengers, embarked once more across the Conwy and set off west towards Aber. Tucked into Eleyne’s baggage were several letters from Gruffydd to his father begging forgiveness; begging for leave to come to his side.

Eleyne rode upright, her face pinched with cold, her fear buried deep inside her. She could not tell Senena or Gruffydd, she would not tell Rhonwen, that she was still afraid. Instead she clung to the thought that Isabella would be at Aber waiting for her. Sir William had, it appeared, long ago paid his ransom and gone. The wedding arrangements had been made. It should be a lovely spring.

Above them in the mountains great swathes of snow still lay unmelted in the shadowy crevices and valleys, and over the peaks the crisp whiteness shone like caps of beaten egg-white. Wild daffodils, small tight spikes in the cold wind, only here and there showed a yellow trumpet. The wind cut like a sword. The mountain route west was impassable, so they took the road along the coast.

As Eleyne entered the crowded, noisy hall of the llys, still swathed in her furs after the ride, Einion was the first person she saw, standing behind her father’s chair. She stopped in her tracks, shielded by the crowd of people around her. Behind her, Rhonwen too saw him and grew pale.

Einion spotted them at once, his eyes going unerringly to Rhonwen and then to the child at her side, and they saw him stoop and whisper into the prince’s ear.

‘No!’ Eleyne turned away, trying to fight her way back through the crowd. Her heart was thumping with terror and she felt sick.

‘You have to go on.’ Rhonwen caught her arm. ‘You have to greet your father. You have to give him Gruffydd’s letters and plead for your brother’s release.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ Rhonwen insisted. Now she was near him, her own fear of Einion had returned and she was torn between her protective love for Eleyne and her duty and obedience to the seer. ‘You are a princess, Eleyne! You are never afraid!’ she whispered harshly. ‘He’s just an old man! He can’t hurt you!’ She crossed her fingers, afraid that he would know what she had said, then remembered, comforted, that he was not all-seeing. There were things he did not know.

Eleyne was rooted to the spot with fear, but somehow Rhonwen’s words penetrated her terror. She clenched her fists, goaded by her nurse’s tone. He was just a tired old man. He was nothing like the wild-eyed wizard of her nightmares. Besides, her father was there. She forced herself to walk on, her eyes avoiding those of the bard.

It was only when she drew near the dais where her father sat that Eleyne saw her mother. Joan was seated on the far side of the roaring fire, dressed in a gown of scarlet, stitched with gold thread. Over her shoulders was her mantle trimmed with fox furs. At her side, deep in conversation with her, sat Sir William de Braose. Eleyne felt her heart jump with happiness and surprise at the sight of him, and relief that beneath her heavy cloak she was wearing one of the new gowns Senena and Rhonwen had made her during the long winter days. It was a deep moss green, heavily stitched and embroidered, showing her colouring to perfection and every bit as beautiful, in her own eyes, as her mother’s.

As she curtseyed to her father she glanced half defiantly at Einion. His expression was unreadable. He looked at her and then once more at the prince. ‘Your daughter has been away too long, sir. Aber has missed her.’

‘Indeed we have,’ Llywelyn agreed heartily. ‘Greet your mother, child, and take off your cloak. We are to have a recital.’ He indicated the harp standing near them.

Eleyne curtseyed dutifully to her mother and then more animatedly to Sir William. There was no sign of Isabella.

Sir William smiled. ‘So, do you want to ride Invictus again? I’ll toss you for it tomorrow. My imprisonment is over, but it seems that I can’t keep away!’ His smile deepened. ‘I have come back as a guest this time to make the final arrangements for Bella’s wedding, so we can ride together. With your mother’s permission.’

Eleyne’s pleasure and excitement were strangely dampened by his glance at Joan. There was more warmth there than he had shown her; more intimacy. She felt a sudden sense of loss as if she had been excluded from something private and special.

‘Eleyne, come here and sit by me.’ The prince indicated a stool near his feet, but his eyes were on his wife’s face and Eleyne, sympathetic, knew he felt the same as she. Instinctively she reached up and touched her father’s hand. Llywelyn smiled and pressed her shoulder gently. At least he would never have cause to doubt his daughter’s love and loyalty as he had begun, Christ forgive him, to doubt his wife’s. He turned and nodded to the bard.

XVI

Rhonwen woke suddenly, every sense alert and straining, holding her breath as her eyes peered wildly around the silent chamber. The night was completely dark. Outside the narrow windows the valley was blanketed with mist; there were no stars; no moonlight pierced the gloom.

The tall figure was standing in the deeper darkness of the shadowed corner near her bed. Arms folded, he stared down at her.

‘Where is the child?’

Rhonwen sat up slowly, holding the bedclothes tightly beneath her chin. ‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’ She was terrified.

He ignored her question. ‘Where is the child?’

Swallowing, Rhonwen could not stop herself looking across at the corner of the room where Eleyne’s bed was invisible in the darkness. Without going near it, she could sense that only Luned lay there, fast asleep.

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know where she is. She often wanders around at night.’

‘Find her. The lessons must continue.’

Rhonwen swallowed. ‘She’s afraid. Could you not leave it until she is older? Please…’

‘It will be too late when she is older. Find her. I shall wait by the alders as before.’

Rhonwen closed her eyes. ‘Please -’ Her plea met with silence.

He had vanished. Climbing out of bed, she groped with shaking hands for the candle on the coffer near the door and thrust it into the fire. The light sent the shadows leaping and cavorting up the walls, running up the bed hangings and across the ceiling, racing across the floor and towards the door. The room was empty. She pulled open the door. The short spiral stair leading down into the darkness was deserted. The rush light in its holder at the first curved angle of the wall burned with a steady flame. No one’s passing had caused it to flicker.

Closing the door, she went back to the bed and sat down, shivering. Had it been a dream or had Einion slipped through the walls, his body a wraith without substance as he sought the child? She glanced at Eleyne’s bed again. Where was she and what was she doing?

XVII

Eleyne was in the stables. A small slim figure, wrapped in a thick dark cloak, she had slipped past the grooms unnoticed, ducking into Invictus’s stall. He whickered a greeting, nuzzling her hands for titbits, and she gave him the crusts of wastel bread saved especially from the kitchens. She settled at his feet in the deep hay. Einion would not find her here.

She too had woken suddenly, aware of the questing mind of the bard seeking hers. She had sat up in the darkness, hearing the steady breathing of Luned and Rhonwen, feeling the warm solid weight of Luned’s sleeping form in the bed with her. Hugging her knees miserably, she tried to blank off her mind, fighting him, shaking her head, pressing her hands against her ears, then she snatched her clothes, threw them on and tiptoed out of the room. In the stables, she knew instinctively, she would be safe.

‘Well, well, what have we here!’ The voice, loud, attractive, pulled her unwillingly out of sleep. ‘Do you claim the ride because you were here first, little princess?’ Sir William de Braose stepped into the stallion’s stall and stood looking down at her, amused. The early morning sun blazed into the courtyard.

Eleyne stretched her cramped legs and yawned as the great horse lowered his head and nuzzled her hair, blowing companionably in her ear. She kissed his soft nose and then climbed sheepishly to her feet. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night. I often come to see the horses when I am -’ She stopped. She had been about to say ‘frightened’ but that would never do. In daylight, with the palace bustling with activity, she would not admit even to herself her fear of Einion. ‘When I can’t sleep. I love it out here at night.’ She smiled at him shyly. That at least was true. She never found the darkness frightening. The cool still magic time of night when everyone else was asleep and the halls and castles were silent, patrolled only by the night guard, was very special to her.

‘So, are you ready for our ride?’ As one of the grooms hefted in the heavy wooden saddle, Sir William stood back and put his arm around her shoulders companionably. He glanced down at the glowing, tangled red-gold hair and again found himself wishing he could have had a son with half her spirit.

Eleyne’s eyes were shining. ‘Are we going to toss for who rides Invictus?’ She could not disguise the wistful longing in her voice.

He shook his head with a smile. ‘No, there’s a horse of your father’s I’m keen to try.’ He had decided the night before there must be no risk of disappointing her. ‘You may take Invictus.’

It was as they mounted in the courtyard that the Princess Joan appeared, in a flurry of silks and furs, with two of her women attendants.

‘I have decided to go with you, Sir William,’ she called. She gestured at a groom to fetch her horse. ‘I want to see this daughter of mine ride. I had no idea she was such a fine horsewoman!’

Eleyne looked at her in dismay. Her mother, beautiful, charming, her lovely eyes fixed on Sir William’s face, had not once glanced at her. Already Eleyne knew the ride was spoiled, and she became conscious suddenly of her old, torn gown, snatched on anyhow in the dark, and stuck through with stems of hay from her night in the stable. Her mother’s gown was new: a flattering gold, stitched with crimson silk.

Sir William leaped off his bay stallion and bowed to Joan. ‘She’s worth watching, your highness,’ he said with a humorous glance across at the scowling child. ‘And we shall both be honoured to have you with us.’

The two gazed at each other and Eleyne felt a shaft of jealousy knife through her. It was a reflex action to kick Invictus forward in a great bound and turn him for the gates. She did not look back. She knew the guards would follow her. So, in their own time, no doubt, would her mother and Sir William. Except that now Sir William would have no more eyes for her. He would, she knew, ride beside her mother.

‘What’s the matter, little princess?’

As they stopped to take breakfast after two hours’ riding, Sir William walked across to Eleyne and sat beside her on the ground. Behind them the woods were pale green with new, reluctant leaves of birch and alder.

She stared down into the cup of ale which she had been given. ‘Nothing’s the matter.’

‘Nothing?’ He smiled. ‘You didn’t want your mother to come, did you?’ He was watching her closely.

‘She spoils everything.’ Eleyne frowned. ‘We have to go slowly because of her.’

‘She loves you very much, you know.’ Sir William was not aware that his expression softened as he glanced across at Joan, seated decorously on a fallen log between her ladies, a white napkin on her knees.

‘She doesn’t love me at all.’ Eleyne was practical and unsentimental. ‘And she’s not interested in how I ride. She wanted an excuse to be with you.’ She scowled.

Sir William did not deny it. ‘I’ll have a race with you, after you’ve drunk your ale,’ he whispered. ‘I bet you five silver pennies Invictus can’t beat your father’s new stallion.’

Eleyne looked up, her eyes sparkling. ‘Of course he can.’

Sir William rose to his feet. ‘We’ll see.’

She won the race easily and, flushed and out of breath, claimed her prize. Then, contentedly, she agreed to lead the way back to Aber, steadying the prancing, excited horse with gentle hands – too preoccupied to think about Sir William and her mother riding side by side once more.

XVIII

The palace was silent. In the hearth the banked-up fire ticked and settled gently into the deep bed of ashes. Rhonwen leaned closer to her sewing and sighed. Her head ached and her eyes refused to focus on the tiny intricate stitches she was inserting into the green velvet gown she had promised to finish for Eleyne. She was well aware why Eleyne wanted the new gown so badly. The child wanted to impress de Braose. She smiled grimly. Well, let her try. At least it would take her mind off Einion.

Eleyne lay huddled beneath her blankets next to Luned, deeply and dreamlessly asleep. Excited by his race, Invictus had given her an exhausting, exhilarating ride and Sir William, when they had returned, gave her an affectionate hug and rumpled her hair, beneath the seemingly approving eyes of her mother, and promised her another ride tomorrow. Happy, excited and tired, she had not given Einion a thought. Nor Rhonwen. She had not noticed the cold stare Rhonwen threw at the hated de Braose, or the icy politeness with which she greeted Princess Joan.

Wearily Rhonwen put down her sewing, climbed to her feet and pulled her cloak around her. There had been no sign of Einion at Aber that evening, either in the great hall or in the outer courts and gardens. It would be safe to leave the sleeping children for a while. Folding the heavy velvet into her basket, she picked it up. She tiptoed down the stairs and beckoned one of the guards from the outer door. ‘I have to go to Princess Joan’s bower. Wait outside the Lady Eleyne’s chamber until I return. Let no one in. No one, do you understand?’

She took a deep breath. Had Einion come to the chamber up the stairs and through the door, or had he floated, ghostlike, through the window? She shuddered.

Pulling her cloak around her she threaded her way towards Princess Joan’s apartments in the tower at the west end of the ty hir. They were small, sumptuously appointed rooms hung with tapestries and furnished with richly carved and painted furniture. As she had suspected, there was no sign of Princess Joan. There were only two women in the ladies’ bower, huddled over the fire, talking softly, and they greeted Rhonwen with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

‘You shouldn’t be here, Lady Rhonwen!’ Marared, the daughter of Madoc, jumped to her feet, agitated. ‘Princess Joan gave specific orders.’

Rhonwen frowned. ‘Orders that I should not be admitted?’ She found herself a joint stool and setting it in front of the fire sat down firmly and produced her basket. ‘Be that as it may, I’ve promised little Eleyne this gown would be finished for the feast tomorrow and I need some more pairs of hands,’ she said firmly. ‘All I want is a little help. I’ll not stay long.’

Marared glanced unhappily at her companion, Ethil, who had not moved from her own seat, her toes in the hearth.

Ethil shrugged. ‘She just gave orders that she shouldn’t be disturbed. And we can all guess why that is. Rhonwen can turn a blind eye as well as we can!’ she commented tartly.

Marared knew of Rhonwen’s antipathy towards Princess Joan, but she had already given in. ‘I think we should all go through to the solar. The fire there is still hot and I can mull some wine,’ she coaxed.

Ethil looked up, about to suggest that Marared bring the wine to her where she sat, but something in her companion’s face changed her mind. She stood up. ‘Good idea. Come, Lady Rhonwen, we’ll be more private in the solar. I should hate our talking to disturb the princess. I don’t want another tongue-lashing tonight!’ They glanced at the door to the princess’s chamber in the far wall – firmly closed. Rhonwen followed their gaze. ‘I thought the princess would still be in the hall flirting with Sir William,’ she said acidly. ‘She didn’t look to me as though she intended to go to bed early.’

There was a horrified silence. She looked from one to the other, then back at the door, and her eyes narrowed. For the first time she noticed the heavy cloak lying across a stool. ‘So,’ she whispered, ‘she went to bed early after all. But not alone.’

Ethil seized her arm. ‘For the love of the Sweet Blessed Virgin don’t say anything! The prince would kill us all!’ She dragged Rhonwen towards the small solar. ‘Please, Lady Rhonwen, come through here. We’ll do your sewing for you, and we’ll have some wine. And you must forget whatever it is you are thinking!’

‘How long has this been going on?’ Rhonwen allowed herself to be pushed into the best seat and accepted some wine as Marared closed the door.

Ethil shrugged. ‘It started when he was here before. When he was a prisoner. I don’t think the prince ever suspected.’ She closed her eyes miserably. ‘When he went away I was so relieved, but then he came back…’

‘So.’ Rhonwen smiled. She bent to take the folded gown out of her basket and handed it to Ethil. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘your secret is safe with me.’

XIX

Eleyne sat up, staring into the darkness, her heart thumping with fear. Was he there again, his mind seeking hers, trying to lure her from her bed and down to the river? But no, the room was empty. She could hear the wind moaning in the roof timbers, swaying the trees in the valley below the palace. She shivered. Luned was fast asleep, burrowed like a small animal into the soft sheets. There was no sound from the other bed.

‘Rhonwen?’ she whispered.

She knew already that Rhonwen was not there and neither was the nearly finished gown which had been hung from a bracket near her bed so she could see it as she went to sleep.

Slipping silently from the bed, she pulled her fur-trimmed bed gown over her bare shoulders and padded over to the fire. The room was cold. She bent and pulled the turf off the banked coals and reached for a log. The fire hissed and a blue flame ran across the wood. She flinched, then, unable to look away, stared down into it.

She could see the gallows; see the crowds standing around its foot. The people were excited, rowdy, in the mood to be entertained; as she watched, unable to tear her eyes away, she saw them surge forward, shouting. He was there in their midst, surrounded by guards, his short tunic open at the neck, and already he wore the noose. She could see the rope against the softness of his skin, see the artery in his throat beating, throbbing with life. He half turned towards her and she strained forward, trying to see his face, but the crowds seethed round him cutting off her view.

‘Wait! please wait!’ she cried out loud. ‘Oh, please…’

Behind her the door opened and the guard peered into the door.

‘Dew!’ He hurled himself across the floor as Eleyne sprawled forward into the fireplace, clawing at the burning logs. She was crying.

‘Please, come back! I can’t see you! Please!’

She let out a scream as the man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. Behind them, Luned sat up in bed, frightened.

‘What are you doing, princess?’

The man-at-arms half shook her, slapping in panic at her bed gown, which was covered in ash. ‘Dew! You nearly set yourself on fire! Did you drop something?’

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 stood 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

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

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.’