Child of the Phoenix Read Online Free PDF Page A

Rhonwen sat down on a piece of rough-hewn stone waiting its turn to be shaped and hauled up the scaffolding. Now was obviously not the time to talk about the ride. ‘So, tell me, what does she look like, this lady of yours?’
    ‘She’s very tall, and her hair is a deep dark red, a bit like mine, and her eyes are grey-green and gold and alive like river water in the sun.’
    ‘And do you know who she is, this lady?’ Rhonwen asked cautiously. She remembered suddenly Gwladus’s words, She’s still here, you know, Reginald’s mother. She haunts the castle …. Reginald’s mother, Matilda de Braose, the Lady of Hay, who had built this castle, some said with her own hands.
    Eleyne shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I expect she lived here. She is someone who loved this place. Sometimes I see her up on the walls with the masons.’ She giggled. ‘If they could see her too, they’d fall off with fright!’
    ‘But she doesn’t frighten you?’ Rhonwen stared up at the high new curtain wall.
    ‘Oh, no. I think she likes me.’
    ‘How do you know?’ If it were Reginald’s mother, this ghost of Hay, would she, who had been so brutally murdered by King John, really like this child, in whose veins ran that tainted royal blood? She shuddered.
    ‘I just know,’ Eleyne said. ‘Otherwise she wouldn’t let me see her, would she?’ She stooped and pulled at Rhonwen’s hand. ‘Let’s go in. I must change my gown before we eat, and I’m starving!’
    As the innocent words echoed around the courtyard, Rhonwen paled. Secretly she made the sign against evil, as she glanced into the shadows. ‘She doesn’t know,’ she whispered under her breath. ‘Please forgive her, she doesn’t know how you died.’
    As they walked towards the door they stopped at the sound of shouting coming from near the blacksmith’s shed. A man from Gwynedd had pulled a man from Hay by the nose, a knife had been drawn and within seconds a dozen men were fighting furiously on the muddy cobbles.
    Rhonwen caught Eleyne’s arm and pulled her back hurriedly. ‘Inside,’ she said. ‘Quickly. There will be bloodshed if Sir William doesn’t stop it.’
    ‘Why do they hate each other so?’ Eleyne hung back, wanting to watch the fighting.
    ‘They come from different worlds, child, that’s why.’ Rhonwen compressed her lips. Her sympathies were with their own men. If she had been able, she would have been down there with them, tearing the eyes out of the hated English.
    From the comparative safety of their position near the wall, they watched the fighting for a moment. Eleyne glanced up at her. ‘You don’t want Dafydd to marry Isabella, do you?’
    ‘I don’t care what Dafydd does.’ Rhonwen’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just so long as he isn’t made your father’s heir. That position belongs to the eldest son by right, whether or not his mother was married to the prince under English laws. Gruffydd must have it. And Gruffydd is married to a Welsh wife.’
    Eleyne sighed. ‘I wish Gruffydd and Dafydd didn’t quarrel all the time.’
    ‘That is your father’s fault. He should have stood up to your mother and made it clear that his eldest son would remain his heir.’
    ‘If Dafydd becomes papa’s heir instead of Gruffydd, Isabella will one day be the Princess of Aberffraw,’ Eleyne went on thoughtfully. ‘I hope she doesn’t get big-headed.’ She suppressed the treacherous thought quickly. ‘But it will be nice to have her living at Aber so I can see her all the time.’
    Rhonwen frowned. Eleyne had forgotten, as she was always forgetting, her own marriage to the Earl of Huntingdon, the Scots prince who would one day be Earl of Chester, the greatest earl in England. The reality of her position – that she would not be living at Aber forever – meant nothing to her yet, and it was something Rhonwen preferred not to think about. It would be four years at least before Eleyne would have to go to her husband. All the time in the world. Anything