Читать книгу Child of the Phoenix - Barbara Erskine - Страница 62

It took many days for the huge household to ride across England, and as they did so Rhonwen grew more and more depressed. The country was heavily forested, dull beneath lowering wet skies, even though around them hawthorn erupted in the hedges and the trees were full of birdsong as they crossed broad, shallow, slow-moving rivers and threaded their way across the flat central spine of England. From time to time they climbed hills and rode between small neat fields, the strips of crops showing green beneath the rain, but they had left the great mountains of Wales far behind and with them any hope of reprieve. No word had come from Einion, no ray of hope or explanation how his plans for Eleyne could have gone so far astray. She looked often at Eleyne, riding the cream mare some paces behind her husband, huddled in her cloak against the driving rain, and wondered what the child was thinking.

With every step their journey took them farther and farther from the land of their birth towards a new, strange life, but Eleyne was silent, her eyes only now and then flicking to left or right to note some aspect of the scenery they passed. The sense of desolation, which had swiftly replaced her initial excitement when they had set out on their journey, was overwhelming. The long days in the saddle, moving slowly but inexorably south and east, weighed on her, and it gave her time to think. There was no way now of avoiding the pictures which kept returning to her mind of the gallows; of her mother’s bed and of Sir William’s handsome face, and his rueful smile as he walked towards his death. Had he known? Had he known who it was who had betrayed him?

Again and again she tried to close her mind to the horror, tried to fight the guilt and remorse which threatened to overwhelm her. And again and again she failed. Hourly, or so it seemed to Rhonwen, her face grew more pinched and white and the shadows darker beneath her eyes.