Читать книгу Child of the Phoenix - Barbara Erskine - Страница 45

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.