I nodded, feeling a little more at ease. I liked Owain, despite his penchant for the old ways, and in that he was, truly, no different than most village priests.
Owain gave me a small smile. ‘I hope you will be happy here. Remember that if ever your soul needs a little comfort, then you can find me in the chapel, or the herb garden. Or in my little dispensary which is on the other side of the chapel. You should explore the castle more, mistress. Perhaps Lord Stephen … in a quiet moment … might like to show you its beauties? More of its surprises?’
Stephen looked a little oddly at Owain at that suggestion, and I was mortified, for I thought him irritated by Owain’s presumption.
‘I am sure Lord Stephen has many more important things to occupy his day,’ I said.
‘In a quiet moment, perhaps,’ Owain said again.
‘A quiet moment it shall be,’ Stephen said. ‘Maeb, you should look to my sister, for she is halfway up the rood screen.’
I muttered to myself, cross that I had forgot all about Rosamund, and hurried to rescue her, while Stephen murmured a farewell to Owain and left the chapel.
Chapter Two
Islept in the solar, for Mistress Yvette (who slept with the countess) wanted me close if our lady should go into labour.
I now slept alone, unusual for me, as I had shared a bed with either Evelyn or Rosamund since I had joined the Pengraic household.
I had never slept in such a large or grand chamber. Although the chamber was the centre for the family’s daily activities, there was a little bed for me tucked away behind a screen in one corner. Once the castle had quietened down for the night I used to like to fold the screen back and go to sleep watching the crackle of the coals in the enormous fireplace. Once I had become used to the isolation of having the entire chamber to myself at night, I luxuriated in its splendour, and sometimes imagined myself as mistress of the castle, sleeping in a grand curtained bed, as did Lady Adelie.
This night began like all others preceding. It was several days since Brother Owain had showed me about his strangely wooded chapel. Owain had visited the countess yesterday, talking with her for most of the afternoon and returning later in the day with some sweet smelling herbal possets he said would aid my lady’s cough.
I had seen Stephen only on the two occasions he had visited his mother, once eating his evening meal with her, but had passed no words with him, nor had his eyes sought me out while he was in his mother’s company.
On this night I slipped into sleep almost immediately on lying down. I was tired, as the night previous, Mistress Yvette had been worried about our lady and we had sat by her bed as she slept fitfully. I had eventually returned to my own bed, but had lost half the night’s sleep.
I woke deep into the night and to this day I do not know what it was that disturbed my sleep.
Fully awake, I sat up, clutching the bedclothes to my chest. The fire was almost dead and cast only a warm glow about the room, and I had to blink several times to accustom my eyes to the dark.
There was no one else in the chamber and all was as it should be.
Nonetheless, I had the most strange compulsion to rise and go to the stairwell. I tried to ignore it, but the sensation was persistent and only grew stronger.
I sighed and rose, slipping on my linen chemise and drawing a mantle about my shoulders against the night’s chill.
I walked a few steps toward the screen that hid the entrance to the stairwell. But I stopped, overcome with the need to have my shoes.
I padded back to the bed and slipped my feet into the shoes.
Then I walked over to the screen, hesitated, and stepped around it. Stephen stood there, leaning against the wall of the stairwell, arms folded, a small smile on his face.
‘The castle is quiet,’ he said. ‘Would you like to explore it a little?’
I was so dumbfounded I did not know what to say. What was Stephen doing here? It was deep night! I couldn’t just walk out and —
‘No one will see,’ he said. ‘All is quiet.’
‘I can’t —’
‘No one will see. All is quiet. Come now.’
He held out his hand, and I stood there like a fool and stared at it. ‘Maeb, come now.’
‘I cannot go with you. I cannot!’
He reached forward with his hand, taking mine in a gentle grip. He pulled slowly, but still I would not budge.
‘My lord, I cannot. I am as good as promised to Saint-Valery, and I will not! It would shame me to go with you now.’
His smiled broadened fractionally. ‘You are not promised to Saint-Valery. I heard that you were digging your heels in over that offer as stubbornly as you dig your heels in now. There is no shame in coming with me, Maeb. No one will know and I shall behave honourably. I just want to show you some of the castle’s secrets. It is a quiet moment. Maeb, no one will know. No one will wake.’
Still I hesitated, although perhaps he could see the uncertainty in my face, now.
‘Maeb, come with me. I will not take long and you will return to your bed long before any wake.’
‘There will be guards about. Night cooks in the kitchens. They will see. They will —’
‘Not tonight, Mae. Not tonight.’
His use of the diminutive disarmed me. ‘I will keep you safe,’ he said, and finally I relaxed enough that he could draw me into the stairwell.
We trod softly down. There were torches in the doorways at each level and that was enough to cast light through the well.
‘You have not been beyond the inner bailey, have you, Maeb?’
‘No.’
‘Then we will go to the northern keep — all full of sleeping knights and men who will not wake — and I will take you to its rooftop that I can show you the outer bailey. And then, Maeb, then I am going to show you what is so special about this castle. You will remember it all your life, and perhaps you will tell your grandchildren about it and I am sure they will never believe you.’
We were in the courtyard by the end of this long speech. Despite Stephen’s reassurances I was certain there would be movement here — horses, grooms, servants fetching to and fro. Even at this late hour there was always life in the castle.
Not tonight.
Stephen still had my hand, and now he pulled me a bit closer. ‘I have wanted so much to spend more time with you,’ he said, ‘but for you it was difficult, I know. I caused you some grief on our journey here with my ill-considered actions. I am sorry for that. But now that we’re here, we can —’
‘I have heard you are betrothed to a Norman heiress with lands and offices enough to make you a great man in this realm.’
Stephen pulled me to a halt just as we stepped under the keep’s gate that led to the inner bailey.
‘That pains you,’ he said, and to my distress my eyes welled with tears.
‘Oh, Mae,’ he said, ‘there is no straight path for either of us in this world or this life. I fear that neither of us will enjoy considerable happiness. There are such chasms between you and I, but on still nights like this, in such quiet moments as this, perhaps you and I can find a little peace. You and I will both, I think, have to snatch happiness where we can.’
‘That is a fine speech, my lord, and one in which I can hear the dread footfalls of my downfall.’
He let go my hand and stepped back. His face had closed down now, save for a glint of anger in his eyes.
‘Then go back to your bed if you have no courage within you, Mistress Maeb. Go back to your bed and wake in the morning and tell my lady mother that you will accept Saint-Valery’s offer. Your back will be straight and your pride intact, but how shall your soul fare, eh? Will you remember this night and, in your darkest moments, wish you had seen the sacredness of this place?’
It was his appeal to my lack of courage that undid my resolve. I had come this far, I would go further.
‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘I was just so afraid. I cannot afford to lose my place in this —’
‘There are damn more important things in this world and the next than your cursed place in this household!’
He was so angry, and I so upset with myself for causing such anger, that the tears which had for long minutes threatened to fall now spilled over.
‘Please do not be angry with me,’ I said. ‘You do not know what it is like to have such uncertainty as to your place.’
‘Oh, sweet God,’ he muttered, and he stepped forward, seized my face in his hands, and kissed me.
I froze. I did not know what to do. No man had ever kissed me before. One part of me demanded I should berate him fiercely, perhaps even slap his face for his temerity, but another begged me to submit and to lean in against his body.
Stephen stepped back, giving a short, breathless laugh. ‘I do beg your forgiveness for that, Maeb. I should not have done it, for I think that you shall give your heart to another and I do not begrudge it. But I have blackened my name with that kiss. I will not do it again. Please, can we walk on now? This moment will not last forever.’
I nodded, unable to speak, and he took my arm and together we walked through the inner bailey toward the northern keep. Where we might go did not bother me. I no longer cared if any should see us. All I could think about was that moment when he had kissed me, what it had felt like, and the closeness of him now.
Stephen could have demanded anything of me at that point, and I think I would have submitted. But I also knew that he would not, and that for some reason I was safer with him now than I had been when first we walked down that stairwell.
Nonetheless, I wondered … he thought I would give my heart to another. Saint-Valery? Surely not.
We entered the garrison.
As with the great keep, there was no one about.
Stephen led me to a stairwell and, my hand in his, he led me up, further and further, around a dizzying number of bends, passing several doorways into different levels as we went.
Finally, when I thought I would never breathe easily again, he led me through a doorway and onto the roof.
It was shingled, and very slightly curved from the centre so that rain drained off into gutters and downpipes, but there was a walkway about its rim and he led me along it to the northern part of the parapets.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘the outer bailey. See there, the kitchens for the garrisons. And the buildings all about the foot of the walls are the workshops for the castle: the blacksmiths, the maille-smiths, the arrowsmiths, the bladesmiths … and there, stables, and yet more buildings too numerous to rattle off.’
I had thought myself over any amazement at this castle, but now it had taken my breath away yet again. The outer bailey was huge, perhaps twice the size of the inner bailey.
‘It is the least defensible portion of the castle,’ Stephen went on. ‘The ground beyond the walls is far less steep than that around the garrison, inner bailey and the great keep. If we were attacked, by a good force of arms, this would be surrendered first and all within taken into the garrison and inner bailey.’
‘I cannot imagine any force being strong enough to take this castle! My lord, it is impregnable, surely?’
‘So we hope.’ He tapped his foot on the garrison roof. ‘The garrison harbours hundreds of men, and more still in the great keep. There are few armies who would be willing to take us on.’
He glanced up at the moon, now dipping below the western ridges of Pen Cerrig-calch. ‘We have not much time,’ he said. ‘Maeb, do you remember what I said about this castle? That the legends tell that this was a sacred spot for the Old People who lived here in ancient times?’
I nodded. ‘Well,’ he said, and took a deep breath, ‘it is told that once a mighty prince of the Old People held his dancing circle atop this rock. On nights like this you can surely believe it.’
He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Turn around now, and see.’
I turned … and cried out.
The great keep, all the castle, had entirely disappeared. Instead the flat top of the plateau where the castle stood was alive with torch-wielding people, their stature tall and willowy.
The Old People?
They danced in several interweaving circles, and in the middle of those circles stood a man atop the heartstone of the hill and on his head was a crown of light.
‘Look about,’ whispered Stephen, and I did so.
The hill and mountain tops were lined with tens of thousands of people, and all held torches so that the entire valley glimmered with life.
‘What is this?’ I said. ‘A dream,’ Stephen said, ‘of what once was here. I knew you would see it. I knew it.’
‘How …’
Stephen clapped his hands, and suddenly it all vanished, and all I could see was the solidity of the great keep, and the darkness falling over the mountains. ‘Some nights, they say, the Old People come back here to celebrate. On those nights, you can hear the wolves howling from the tops of the mountains.
‘And thus,’ Stephen finished softly, ‘the magic of Pengraic. Thus the reason I love it so. This is my home.’
I woke suddenly, jerking up so abruptly the bedclothes fell away from my body.
There was someone by the fire, and it took me a moment to realise it was the servant who habitually stoked the fires in the morning.
I grasped the bedclothes back to my breast. What had happened last night? Was it but a dream?
‘You’ll need to rise swiftly, mistress,’ the servant said as he straightened. ‘Your lady will be wondering where you are.’
By the time we broke our fast I had convinced myself that my night’s adventure had been but a dream.
When I rose from my bed I found that my linen chemise, kirtle, mantle and shoes all lay as I had left them when I went to bed.
By the time Lady Adelie had sat down in her favourite chair in the solar and taken up her stitching, Alice and Emmette by her side, I had all but brushed the memory away completely.
Then, as my back was turned, I heard Stephen enter the room and greet his mother.
My heart beating wildly, I turned about.
He did not so much as glance in my direction.
But then his mother spoke to him. ‘Stephen, you have such shadows under your eyes. Did you not sleep?’
‘Madam, it was a poor night for sleeping. Eventually I took myself to the top of the northern keep, where I could watch the moon rise and fall. Sometimes I imagine I can see such things in the soft, sweet moonlight as though the very mountaintops are afire.’
Then he raised his eyes and looked straight at me, and I knew that what had happened last night was no dream.
Chapter Three
There was no further chance for Stephen to return and walk me away into late-night magic again. The very next day Lady Adelie’s midwives arrived in preparation for her lying-in, and they shared the solar with me at night, so that they might be close to my lady.
Their names were Gilda and Jocea and they had travelled from further down the Usk Valley where they serviced the local women during their times of trial. They were both short, squat, taciturn women sharing thick, black eyebrows and narrow dark eyes (much later I discovered they were, in fact, sisters). They spoke hardly at all, not even to my lady, preferring to communicate with those about them in a series of barely audible grunts. The only words I heard them utter for the first few days of their residence were to each other; everyone else required only a grunt.
But Lady Adelie trusted them. Mistress Yvette told me the two midwives had attended the birth of Stephen, which birth had gone smoothly, while the midwives also often attended the womenfolk of Bergeveny, where their names were legend.
Thus Gilda and Jocea became my somewhat reluctant companions and filled my nights with their snortings and snufflings.
Mistress Yvette’s and my time was now largely consumed by assisting with the preparations for Lady Adelie’s lying-in. The birth of her child was close and Lady Adelie retired almost exclusively to her privy chamber.
This
chamber was now readied for the birth. Large heavy drapes were brought in and hung so that we might close off the light and draughts from the windows whenever needed. A birthing stool was placed in a corner, ready for that day when it should be needed.
At Yvette’s request, one of the serving men brought to my lady’s chamber a large chest, and Yvette and I unpacked it one day as the midwives sat uncommunicative by a window and our lady lay sleeping fitfully on her bed.
The chest contained all the items for my lady’s labour. Amulets and girdles, blessed at the shrine devoted to our blessed, most sweet Virgin Mary at Walsingaham, and at shrines devoted to the blessed Saint Margaret of Antioch. I handled these items with awe, for they carried within them the power of the blessed saints, and I marvelled that Lady Adelie had such powerful protectorship.
There were also linens within the chest for my lady and her infant, bowls and straps, vials of oils and unguents, charms and a brownish-bluish rough stone the size of a small chicken’s egg.
I raised my eyebrows in query at Yvette as I unpacked this.
‘It is an eaglestone,’ she said. ‘Powerful magic. They come from the nests of eagles … it is well known that eagles cannot be born without these stones present.’
‘Of course,’ I said, not wishing Yvette to realise I’d never heard of them. ‘I’d just not seen one before.’
‘Undoubtedly not,’ Yvette said, ‘for only the most wealthy and powerful can afford an eaglestone.’
I chose not to believe that was a small jibe at my own lack of rank and wealth. ‘Does my lady hold it in her hand as she labours? Does she rub it to invoke its magical aid?’
‘It will be tied to my lady’s thigh as she labours, thus encouraging the child to escape from her womb.’
I gazed on the stone in wonder, amazed at the charms the wealthy could summon to their aid. No wonder Lady Adelie had so many surviving babies!
I addressed Yvette again, voicing a worry that had gnawed at me for weeks.
‘Will my lady be safe, Mistress Yvette? She seems so weak and her colour is poor. At night sometimes I can hear her coughing.’