Виктория Холт - The Hammer of the Scots

The truth was he wanted to keep them with him. He was a loving father – and oddly enough although he craved for a son it was his daughters whom he loved.

Oh, if I could but give him a son! she thought.

Lying in her bed she thought of what had happened in this palace in the years gone by. It had stood here for many many years – in a different form perhaps, for it was natural that places such as this should be added to during the centuries. Here the Saxon kings had held their Wittenagemots. King Alfred had lived here and a more recent ancestor, Henry I, had set up his deer-fold into which he had introduced wild beasts for the amusement of all those who came to watch the behaviour of these creatures.

But it was the ghost of the fair Rosamund who haunted Woodstock more than any other. Legends had been created about the fair Rosamund, so beloved of the King, who had incurred the jealous fury of that virago Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Queen was not sure that she believed that that fierce lady had offered Rosamund the choice of a dagger or poison, but that was how the song went.

And in her bower, which Henry had built for his beautiful mistress, Rosamund had waited for the birth of her child which was the King’s also.

Had she too prayed for a boy?

And she had given the King boys – two strong ones. Poor Rosamund who had died in nearby Godstow Nunnery repenting her sins.

The Queen prayed for the soul of the Fair Rosamund.

When her daughters came to sit with her she talked to them of Woodstock. There were so many stories about the place. She did not wish to discuss that of the Fair Rosamund with her daughters, but they knew that their grandfather Henry III and their grandmother, who was so much a part of their lives, had once stayed at Woodstock and had wandered together from the palace and into Rosamund’s Bower. In this romantic spot they had spent the night. And this had proved to be providential. For that very night a mad priest had gone to the King’s bedchamber and in the darkness had thrust a knife into his bed again and again, thinking the King was there, which he would have been had he not been at Rosamund’s Bower.

‘Imagine if he had killed your grandparents,’ said the Queen. ‘Then your father would never have been born … so nor would you.’

Joanna was awestruck at the prospect. She could not imagine a world without Joanna of Acre.

The next day the Queen’s pains started.

It was, as usual, an easy confinement. It was, as she had thought before, the same pattern. The quick labour, the girl child … a weak one this time over whom the women shook their heads.

The children came to see their mother. Eleanor alert-eyed, Joanna curious, Alfonso frightened, Margaret bewildered.

‘Dear lady,’ said Eleanor, ‘how fare you? It is a girl, they tell us.’

‘Another girl,’ said the Queen. ‘She is very small.’

‘I want to see her,’ said Joanna.

They were taken to the cradle where she lay and stood silently looking down with amazement and dismay at the wizened little creature who was their new sister.

The Princess Eleanor came back to the bed.

‘Dearest Mother, you are not ill, are you?’

‘No, my child, I am well. Your father will be disappointed but the next one will be a boy.’

The Princess was worried. Her mother looked wan, and the thought had occurred to her that if the Queen died her father would marry again. He was a young, virile man. Suppose he married a young woman who could get boys?

Her mother misconstrued her looks of alarm.

‘You must not fret child. A woman is exhausted after an ordeal like this. I shall be well in a few days.’

The Princess knelt by the bed holding her mother’s hand.

‘Oh dear lady, get well, get well.’

The Queen touched her daughter’s hair and smiled at the others who had come back to the bed.

Edeline came in to lead them away.

‘The Queen needs rest,’ she said.

The Queen needed comfort too for within three days the puny baby was dead – and the long ordeal, the vigil of hope and prayer, was proved to be once again in vain.

Llewellyn had discovered peace and happiness in the stronghold of Snowdonia. His Demoiselle was all he had dreamed her to be. Loving, gentle and clever, she was his entirely. His welfare was her greatest concern. She watched over him, cared for him, and was capable of advising him. She taught him the delights of disinterested love. There had always been conflict in his family, brother against brother, and never being sure when the next piece of treachery would arise. Here at last was someone whom he could trust completely. It was a wonderful revelation. It had bemused him a little at first; he had not quite believed it to be true. But now that he had proved again and again that it was so, he settled into a sense of security which was near exaltation.

He had never dreamed such happiness was possible.

The Demoiselle, too, found contentment. Her only sadness came from her anxieties concerning her brothers. Almeric was still Edward’s prisoner in Corfe Castle and Guy was still in exile, wanted for the murder of Henry of Cornwall. If only they could be free; if they could be given the opportunity to start again, she could cease to worry about them and give herself up completely to the peace and contentment of her new life.

It was more than a year since Edward had given his permission for them to marry and each day when she awoke she thanked God for bringing her at last to peace.

She loved the mountains – rugged and beautiful, a menace to the enemy, security to themselves.

‘Our beloved mountains,’ she called them.

There were times when she fancied Llewellyn fretted over his loss of power. Then they would talk together and she would try to make him see how unworthily temporal glory compared with what they had discovered. She would feel delirious with happiness when she fancied he was realising this.

Then that for which they had longed came at last. The Demoiselle was with child.

This was the crowning of their love. Llewellyn was overcome by emotion. He liked to lie at her feet and make plans for the boy.

She laughed at him. ‘The boy. Always “the boy”! What if it should be a girl?’

‘If she is like her mother I ask nothing more.’

‘Welsh insincerity,’ she chided. ‘You are asking for a boy who looks like yourself.’

‘Well, which do you want?’

‘I shall want whatever I get.’

‘Oh, there speaks my wise Demoiselle.’

‘Since we have been together I have known so much happiness that I am content.’

‘If it is a boy we will call him Llewellyn. Why, he must be the one Merlin spoke of.’

She shook her head. ‘Nay. I do not want a warrior. I want my son to be the head of a happy family. I want him to have children who love and revere him – not subjects who fear him.’

‘Wise Demoiselle!’ he said, kissing her hand.

She was looking beyond him into the past, thinking, he knew, of her father – one of the greatest men of his age, they were beginning to say now. A man who had believed in the right and had for a time subdued a king. In time to come people would remember Simon de Montfort because he had lived and died violently. They would not remember the Demoiselle who had longed for peace and had brought happiness to a wild man of the mountains.

So they planned for the child to come.

One day Llewellyn’s brother Davydd called on them. Davydd had in truth come more satisfactorily out of the agreement with England than Llewellyn had. Because Davydd had gone over to Edward, the King had regarded him as an ally. Llewellyn had been the enemy.

Edward did not know Davydd. Davydd was a man who would fight on whichever side was the stronger.

There had been peace on the borders now for some time and Davydd was restless. He wanted to talk to his brother about the possibilities of regaining what had been lost.

The Demoiselle was uneasy when she greeted Davydd. She was sure his coming meant trouble. She did not want even the thought of war to be brought into their happy home.

Davydd sat long, talking with his brother.

‘Are you content then,’ he demanded, ‘to be the vassal of the English King? Where is your pride, Llewellyn?’

‘I have not been so happy before in the whole of my life.’

Davydd was sceptical. ‘A new husband. A new father-to-be. By the holy saints, Llewellyn, what will your son think of a father who was content to pass over his heritage to the English?’

Llewellyn was silent. When he was not with the Demoiselle he did sometimes think with shame of the peace he had made. What would his old grandfather have said? What of his father?

‘I was not strong enough against the English,’ he said. He frowned at Davydd. ‘I was surrounded by traitors.’

Davydd shrugged that aside. ‘If I had not gone to the English there would be nothing of Wales left to us.’

‘If you had stood beside me …’

‘It was not in me to be any man’s vassal … even my brother’s.’

‘Except of course the King of England’s.’

‘Not for long,’ said Davydd.

‘What mean you?’

‘I mean this: we should gather a force together and reclaim that which has been taken from us.’

Llewellyn thinking of the Demoiselle shook his head.

‘Have you forgotten the prophecy?’

‘It was clearly not meant for me.’

‘Certainly it was not for one who thrusts aside his opportunity of greatness. Llewellyn, you were meant to rule Wales … and, it may well be, England. Merlin may have meant that England was yours if you were bold enough to take it.’

There was a deep silence. That thought had more than once occurred to Llewellyn.

He said slowly: ‘I have never known such happiness as I have of late.’

Davydd was scornful. ‘You are newly married. You waited overlong. Your bride was snatched from you. Oh, it was so romantic. Dreams, dreams … and you are still in a dream. Think, Llewellyn. When you are an old man your children will say to you, “And what of Wales? What of your heritage? You threw it away for your romantic dreams.”’

‘It will be for them to go their ways, to learn life’s lessons for themselves, to ask what they would have – happiness such as I now enjoy, peace … joy … oh, I cannot explain to you. Davydd … that or war, bloodshed, misery, heartbreak.’

‘And the glory of Wales? Wales for the Welsh!’

‘You waste your time with me, Davydd.’

And at last Davydd saw that this was true.

He was thoughtful after Davydd had ridden away. The Demoiselle comforted him.

‘He thinks me a fool,’ he told her.

‘A wise fool,’ she answered. Then they talked of the baby to come and the beauty of the Welsh mountains.

Our mountains, she called them, and they with his happy marriage and his child to come were enough for him.

So they lived in their peaceful haven and the time grew near when the Demoiselle should be brought to her bed. The women came and shut her in away from him.

He sat outside her bedchamber and waited.

They had not reached the peak of their happiness yet. It would be different when the child came. She longed for the child, so did he.

A little boy. Llewellyn. That Llewellyn who was going to make Merlin’s prophecy come true. No, she would not want that. It would mean going out against Edward’s might. Perhaps Edward would be dead by the time this child grew up. Perhaps it would be Edward’s son whom the child would have to face.

Llewellyn smiled. That must be the answer. No man could stand against great Edward. It was something people knew instinctively. Even Merlin’s prophecy wilted and faded away in face of Edward.

The labour was long. The day faded. No sign yet. Is she suffering? That was more than he could bear. I should be with her. Oh no, my lord, they said. Better not. It would not be long now.

Oh, my Demoiselle, daughter of a great man and royal princess, what joy you have brought me. This cannot last. There must be no more children. You will say it is natural for a woman to bear children but I cannot endure this … torment.

He laughed at himself. His was the mental torment, hers the physical. The women were bustling back and forth. Grave faces and the perpetual cry: It will not be long now.

Then he heard the cry of a child.

He was at the door. ‘A girl, my lord. A lovely healthy little girl.’