Читать книгу Child of the Phoenix - Barbara Erskine - Страница 105

Rhonwen woke with a start and peered around in terror. The chamber outside the bed curtains was completely dark. The fire had died. She could hear nothing at all, but she was shaking and could feel the perspiration cold on her body. The covers of her bed were tangled. She lay still, rigid with fear. A gentle snore came from the fireside where two of the serving girls lay, curled up on pallets, huddled into tight cold humps beneath their rugs. Across the room her companions were invisible behind the curtains of their bed. The room was full of people, and yet it was totally silent. She thought about the rush lights in their box near the pricket and the flint and tinder near it, but she couldn’t move.

‘Einion?’ She breathed the name into the silence.

He knew. He knew she had burned his letter and he was displeased. More than displeased: she could feel his anger whipping around her in the dark. She clutched a pillow in front of her, her eyes wide, huddling back into the wall, feeling the stone against her shoulder blades beneath the heavy embroidered hangings.

‘I did it for her.’ Even as she mouthed the words, she knew it was no excuse. He had commanded Eleyne to return and she, Rhonwen, had intercepted that command. With a little sob, she clutched the amulet she wore at her throat, but what could an amulet do to protect her when the gods themselves were angry?

With a groan, one of the girls by the fire sat up, shaking with cold. She looked around in the darkness and then, feeling in front of her, found the cold cinders at the edge of the fire. It was her job to keep the fire in. She groped through the litter in the hearth, her fingers floury with ashes, feeling for warmth, feeling for the tiny spark which could ignite new kindling. She found it, burning her hand suddenly on a hidden ember, and scrabbling the rubbish of twigs and leaves from the hearth’s edge to it she blew gently on the fragment of bark, watching as it glowed, seeing the reassuring wisp of smoke as the tinder ignited. In minutes the fire leaped to life once more.

Through the crack in her curtain Rhonwen saw the flame. She stared into the shadows and took a deep breath: he had gone and with him the anger and despair. She rested her damp forehead on her knees, feeling her hair fall forward around her shoulders. Perhaps it had been no more than a warning; perhaps she could still send a message to Eleyne to return to Wales. She closed her burning eyes, cutting out the shadows where the servant girl, the fire made up and banked to her satisfaction, had once more settled to sleep.

The next morning Chester Castle was buzzing with the news. The Queen of Scots had miscarried her child and the earl and countess were leaving for Scotland immediately without returning to Chester. They would be gone until the autumn.

Rhonwen listened tight-lipped. She had lain late, missing mass as was her custom, and taking no food. She had drunk only a cup of watered wine brought by one of the servants. So, Eleyne was moving north with no message to her; no summons for her to join the household. Her head throbbed. She gathered up some embroidery, used always to having her hands employed, and wearily made her way to the women’s bower. Outside the spring sunshine was warm after the chill of the night. From the city beyond the castle walls she could hear the noise of the new day: shouts, yells, laughter, music, the rumble of iron-bound wheels on cobbles, the bellowing of cattle penned out beyond St John’s waiting to be brought to the market. The other women had taken their work outside; she was alone. She sat in the embrasure and allowed the thin sunlight to fall on the fabric on her knee; reaching for her needle, she began to thread a length of madder silk.

Take her the message. The words were so loud in her head she thought someone had spoken. Tell her … Slowly she put down her sewing. She could feel her heart thumping unsteadily beneath her ribs.

‘Who’s there?’ Her voice sounded thin and reedy in the silence.

There was no reply.

She thought of Eleyne, perhaps already on the long ride north. She would not return now; no summons however urgent would call her back to Gwynedd. She shivered. Einion’s message had boded ill: did he have a warning for Eleyne? A message from the gods? She closed her eyes.

Tell her … The words were fading now, indistinct inside her head. Perhaps they had not been there at all.

‘She won’t come back! She can’t come back!’ she cried out loud into the shadows. ‘Don’t you see? She has to go with him. She doesn’t belong to us any more.’