Читать книгу Child of the Phoenix - Barbara Erskine - Страница 69

John’s illness terrified Eleyne. It had begun without warning and she was devastated to see him so weak and helpless. Watching over him made her realise how fond she had grown of him, and she was very afraid that he would die. It had been her idea to send for the king’s physician while he was at Northampton.

She was sitting at John’s bedside, stroking his forehead, when Rhonwen found her. For a moment she stared incredulously at the woman, unable to move, then she hurled herself into Rhonwen’s arms. But if Rhonwen had hoped to sit with Eleyne and watch John of Chester die, she was disappointed. It was obvious that Eleyne would do anything to save her husband’s life; she wept and begged Rhonwen to help, and Rhonwen, unable to deny her beloved child, found herself setting aside her antagonism and resentment and, working harder than she had ever worked, she strove to keep him alive.

It was Rhonwen who made the decoctions of herbs which brought down John’s fever; Rhonwen who spent hours in the stillroom making up soothing syrups for his cough. The physician was away, the messenger reported when at last he returned to Fotheringhay, but as soon as he returned to Northampton would be brought to Lord Huntingdon’s bedside.

Eleyne was nervous John would find out Rhonwen was back. After that first visit to his sickroom when he was too delirious to recognise her, she was kept well away in the stillroom and in Eleyne’s rooms in the tower on the far side of the courtyard. Eleyne brought the medicines in her own hands and watched with fearful eager hope as, slowly, he seemed to grow better.

When at last the king’s physician arrived Rhonwen’s medicines were swept scornfully away. The stout, white-haired man, with his huge bushy eyebrows and long black gown, bent over the earl and reached for his pulse, but the earl was already on the mend.