The Devil's Diadem

  ‘Is it as terrible as the rumours say?’ she said. ‘I don’t truly know, Evelyn. I have only heard of it in the vaguest way. I know it is why Edmond has fled here, and why we head for Pengraic.’

  ‘The soldiers … the encampment. Is there treachery? Unrest?’

  ‘Unrest, I think, but I know little more.’

  ‘Sweet Mother of God,’ Evelyn muttered again.

  ‘We shall be safe in Pengraic Castle,’ I said, hoping it might be enough to comfort Evelyn.

  ‘Maybe. But I worry for my daughter.’

  ‘I am sure she shall be well, Evelyn. The plague is in the south-eastern counties, far, far away from de Tosny’s lands north of Glowecestre.’

  Evelyn nodded, but her face was tight, and I knew I had not eased her worry at all.

  I spent that day with Lady Adelie and Mistress Yvette in the countess’ chamber. The earl was nowhere to be seen. The day was uneventful save that shortly before our noon meal Ranulph Saint-Valery attended upon my lady.

  Me, rather.

  It was a somewhat awkward meeting. Saint-Valery had come to press his marriage suit and to discover how the land lay so far as I was concerned. I supposed he had not worried over this, as few might have foreseen me refusing such an outstanding offer.

  I was wrong. Saint-Valery was actually somewhat nervous.

  He entered and bowed to the countess, asking after her health and that of the child she carried.

  They exchanged pleasantries, then Saint-Valery greeted Mistress Yvette, then turned to me.

  ‘Mistress Maeb, I beg your forgiveness for this intrusion. I … ah … my lord earl tells me that he has informed you of my, um, offer.’

  From the corner of my eye I saw Lady Adelie look at me somewhat sharply.

  I inclined my head. ‘You do me much honour, my lord. Will you sit?’

  I moved a little along the bench on which I sat, to give him room, and he perched somewhat stiffly at the other end of the seat.

  There was a small silence.

  Saint-Valery gave a nervous smile. ‘Mistress Maeb. I doubt you could be more surprised over the suddenness of my offer than I was myself. You made a great impression on me that night at Rosseley. I have not been able to put you from my mind since.’

  ‘My lord, it was but a night — an hour or two, perhaps. Yes, it seems strange to me that on such short acquaintance, and with my complete lack of dowry, that you would make such a generous offer.’

  ‘You seem suspicious, mistress.’

  ‘I am,’ I said. Lady Adelie was back to glancing sharply at me. ‘I cannot think why you have made the offer, my lord. I have little to recommend me.’

  Saint-Valery’s eyes widened slightly. ‘You have a great deal to recommend you, Maeb. May I speak plainly, for I have little time before I ride out. The offer is genuine, Maeb. You may look for the courtly subterfuge, but there is none.’

  My face must clearly have registered my disbelief.

  ‘There is no other voice behind mine,’ Saint-Valery said. ‘No shadow overlaying mine. Discard whatever rumour you may have heard.’

  Both his eyes and voice were steady. I no longer knew what to think. I was still caught in the vision I’d had the day previously of the three men illumed in the shaft of sunlight, and I could not bring myself to believe Saint-Valery would play any significant role in my life. The knight, the earl and the king, yes, but not the poet.

  ‘I must leave court this afternoon to travel to the queen at Elesberie,’ he said. ‘You leave tomorrow for the Welsh Marches. All of our lives are uncertain now. Perhaps this winter, when all is settled and the plague passed, I may come and press my suit to you, Mistress Maeb. You shall need a good reason to say nay to me then, if you still wish to hesitate. I wish you well, Maeb, in the trials ahead.’

  He rose, and bowed toward the countess. ‘My lady, I beg your leave.’

  She half raised a hand. ‘Before you go, Saint-Valery. What news is there? I know that overnight rumours have throbbed about this palace, but as yet I’ve had no hard report.’

  ‘The news is bad, my lady. Many die, from Dovre to Meddastone, and moving ever further west. This plague is so vicious that fields are left untended and the sick are left to die alone. Towns burn. I know you have heard of how terribly the plague kills.’

  Lady Adelie gave a sharp nod.

  ‘People flee,’ Saint-Valery said, ‘seeking refuge elsewhere. Edmond fears that they will spread the sickness further. He has commanded that soldiers man the roads that lead into the south-east and turn all back who seek to flee. Cantuaberie is a catastrophe. Much of it has burned. There is unrest and brigandry where the plague strikes hardest. I … There are no good tidings, madam, I am sorry. Move west as fast as you can and as soon as you can. I pray God and his saints protect you.’

  We three women simply sat and stared at Saint-Valery.

  He looked us each in the eye, then he bowed and left us.

  I wondered if I would ever see him again.

  Chapter Eleven

  We left very early the next morning. I was glad, for the king’s palace and military encampment at Oxeneford had become an unsettling place. I wanted nothing more than to journey westward, all the way into the Welsh Marches, where surely the plague could not follow and life would not be so complicated. Between what I had heard in the solar, the news Saint-Valery had given us (as well as his marriage offer), the imp I had seen, and the earl’s warning about the dark flood, I simply wanted to get away. I was growing ever more frightened, and I was not afraid to admit it.

  I was not alone in my fright. I slept little on the night before we left, and I know Evelyn did not either. We lay side by side, wide awake, sometimes exchanging a word or two, but mostly lost in our thoughts as we contemplated the terror that had gripped the south-east of the country. When we rose, far earlier than we needed, it was to find that the countess and Mistress Yvette were also awake, dressed and pacing to and fro waiting for the horses to be saddled and harnessed and our escort to be ready.

  Evelyn, the nurse and I had the children down in the courtyard well before dawn. Early it might be, but the courtyard was a bustle of activity. Torches burned feverishly in their wall brackets, grooms and servants hurried this way and that. Horses, sensing everyone’s underlying unrest, were nervous and difficult to handle. We kept the children well out of the way, and were glad when the groom who drove the cart the Lady Adelie and they were to ride in brought the cart to us and we could pack our belongings and the children inside.

  ‘Mistresses. Good morn.’

  It was Stephen. He looked drawn and tired, and sterner than I had ever seen him. He wore a dark mantle about his shoulders against the chill, caught with a jewelled pin, but I was dismayed to see the glint of maille underneath and his coif folded down over the collar of the mantle. He was wearing his hauberk, and a sword and dagger besides. Nothing indicated the seriousness of our situation more than that he was armoured.

  ‘Are you ready to leave?’ he said. ‘Evelyn, are you riding or journeying in the cart?’

  ‘Riding, my lord,’ she said. ‘My back is well enough, and it will do me good to ride.’

  He nodded, then looked at me, the merest hint of a smile on his face. ‘Dulcette is saddled waiting for you, Maeb. I think she has missed you, for she is stamping her feet in impatience to be off.’

  I could see something of the man he would become in his face this morning, and it calmed me. ‘And I am anxious to see her, my lord, and set her head to the road.’

  He looked over my shoulder. ‘Ah, my lady mother and lord father.’ He walked over to them, helping his mother into the cart, then engaging in a conversation with his father.

  A groom came over, leading Dulcette along with Evelyn’s horse and he aided us both into the saddle. Dulcette was eager to go, jittery on her feet, skidding this way and that and tossing her head. I hoped we would leave soon, for it was proving difficult to keep her calm in this crowded courtyard. From the corner of my
eye I saw Stephen mount up, barking out an order to the column of men already mounted.

  I pulled Dulcette to one side, not wanting to get in the way. I was looking to the centre of the courtyard, watching Stephen and the mounted knights and soldiers, and jumped when someone grabbed Dulcette’s rein and pulled us closer to the wall.

  ‘Maeb.’ It was the earl. He stood close by Dulcette’s shoulder, looking up at me. ‘You will be safe at Pengraic.’

  ‘Yes, my lord. Thank you.’

  ‘Listen to Stephen. Do what he commands. Until you travel beyond Glowecestre you will not truly be safe.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  He hesitated, then moved very close and spoke quietly. ‘Remember your vow of silence about the imp, Maeb. Never speak of it to anyone: not Evelyn, not Stephen, not my wife, not any priest you may feel like confessing to, or impressing.’

  ‘I will not speak, my lord.’

  Again he looked at me searchingly. ‘I will not,’ I said. ‘I vow it.’

  ‘Very well. Make certain you keep that vow.’

  ‘My lord, what if another imp comes back? I worry —’

  ‘You will be safe enough, Maeb. You will not be troubled by such again.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘Truly. The imps are after other prey than you.’

  Something in the way he spoke made me relax. I believed him utterly. There would be no more imps. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

  He patted Dulcette’s neck and released her rein. ‘Go then, Maeb. May God and His saints travel with you.’

  He stepped away and vanished into a shadowy doorway. I looked a long moment, trying to find him again, but Stephen rode his courser near. ‘Maeb! Pull over here by the cart. And stay close to it. Do not wander to this side or the other. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  He was off, shouting to Evelyn and to his sister Alice to also keep close, then we were moving, the horses skittering and snorting, the carts rumbling, and on the road to Pengraic Castle.

  As we left the courtyard I twisted in the saddle, thinking to see the earl again, and perhaps even the king, for some small conceited part of me fancied he would come out to see us (me) off, but there was no sign of either man. I sighed, and looked to the front and the journey ahead.

  We were a goodly company. In addition to the cart which carried my lady, Mistress Yvette, the nurse, Rosamund and John, there were the twelve other carts carrying various household goods, including gold and silver plate and expensive hangings and cloths that were to return to Pengraic Castle. Myself, Evelyn, Alice and Emmette rode good palfreys; the twin boys, Ancel and Robert were no longer with us, for they had joined Summersete’s household at Walengefort.

  There were several senior house servants who rode with us, as well as a cleric who would be leaving us at Glowecestre, and two minstrels who wanted to travel westward to Cirecestre and had joined our company for the protection it afforded — their payment for this privilege was to keep us entertained in the evenings. Eight grooms led strings of spare horses and the war destriers that were not currently being ridden.

  To protect us came a large company of knights and horsed soldiers. There were two score knights, all heavily weaponed and all wearing their maille, and some fifty of the soldiers.

  I thought the entire assemblage almost a small army. While I felt safe, I wondered at the ease with which we would travel. Sweet Jesu, who would put us up? How would we manage on the roads?

  As it happened, I need not have worried. Stephen and his father had plotted out a journey that used the lesser travelled holloways and driftways that snaked through the countryside. While they were not the main roads, they were nonetheless well maintained and reasonably wide, for they were used for the droves of cattle and sheep that moved from market to market across the country. The holloways and driftways felt safe, having relatively little traffic on them (the majority of the droving traffic would not truly start until the autumn fairs), and they made for swift and easy travelling. They were exceedingly pleasant, for spring flowers covered their banks and they wound through some of the loveliest country I had yet seen.

  We did not travel as fast or as hard as we had on the two day journey from Rosseley to Oxeneford. Instead, we moved at a comfortable, steady pace which covered perhaps half the distance each day, sometimes a little more. It was easier on everyone — as well as the horses — and particularly on Lady Adelie, who found the journey more difficult than others.

  We met few people: a handful of pilgrims, some shepherds driving small flocks of sheep, one or two travelling friars, a pedlar or two, a few lines of pack animals and their drivers. There was no trouble on the roads, nor from any of the villages and manors we passed along the way. We did meet with people who asked us for news of what lay behind us, but Stephen was circumspect (as he instructed us to be) and so far as I know did not once mention the plague or the unrest further to the east. I know it was to protect us, but I often wondered what happened to those good folk we met going the other way.

  At night we stayed at either religious houses, some of the king’s own royal houses and estates along the way (Stephen carried the king’s seal, which granted us access whenever we needed it), as well as a few of the earl’s outlying manors.

  From Oxeneford we travelled to Badentone, and from there to Etherope. We arrived in Cirecestre on the fourth day of our travel, losing the minstrels, and there rested for a day before continuing to Brimesfelde. By this time Stephen had relaxed enough to allow the knights and soldiers to cease wearing their maille, for which I believe all were grateful, for the days grew much warmer as we moved into May and the chain had hung heavy and hot about them. The column grew immediately more cheerful and relaxed once the maille was set into the carts and the men could move more comfortably.

  Stephen rode close to the head of the column for the first few days, or back a little further with some of the knights, and I saw little of him during the day. In the evenings he gathered for a while with Lady Adelie, myself, Evelyn, Mistress Yvette and those children not in bed, listening for a while to our chatter, but he did not stay long, for he needed to organise the next day’s ride, and I know he spent some time at dicing with some of the knights.

  But from the day when he had ordered that the men need not don their hauberks, Stephen became more relaxed and often rode further back in the column. At first he rode next to the cart with his mother, chatting to her, but she grew tired easily, and soon he pulled his horse back to where Evelyn and I rode with Alice and Emmette.

  I admit that my heart turned over whenever he did this. The sight of his handsome face, and his easy, charming smile invariably tongue-tied me for long minutes and it was Evelyn who initially responded to his questions and conversation. But I would relax, and join in, and these long hours spent ambling down the back driftways of Glowecestrescire, laughing in easy conversation, were among the happiest of my life.

  Sometimes Rosamund, sitting in the cart with her mother, would cry to join us and make such a fuss that Lady Adelie would signal Stephen, who would ride close to the cart and lift the laughing girl into the saddle before him. After a while, she would beg to join me, and so Stephen pulled in close so he could lift Rosamund across to sit before me in the saddle, and I would warm with pleasure at the bumping of our legs and the graze of his warm hand against mine as he lifted her over.

  Rosamund was a sweet child and no bother (and Dulcette, too, was sweet, and did not mind the girl). Usually, after chatting and clapping her hands gleefully for a while, Rosamund would nod off, and I rode along, one arm about her soft, relaxed body leaning in against mine, and Stephen and I would talk as if we had known each other since infancy.

  Stephen fooled no one that his interest was chiefly in me. Generally at least one among Evelyn, Alice and Emmette rode with us, but occasionally all three would be riding elsewhere, or called to Lady Adelie’s side, or their horses would gradually drop back and they might be caught in a conversation with someone behind us. br />
  Then the conversation between Stephen and myself would veer to more intimate matters, and I found it so easy to talk to him that within a day or two I felt as if I could broach any subject I wanted.

  I asked him of the plague, of what he truly knew and what he had seen. ‘Sweet Jesu, Maeb,’ he said, ‘it is bad. More terrible than you can imagine. When we left Westminster, the plague had gripped almost all of the southeast in its terror.’

  ‘But London and Westminster were not infected?’

  ‘No. But …’ He hesitated. ‘You know we think that the plague infects long before it shows its hand. God help us if any of us came into contact with someone carrying the plague and yet who looked perfectly healthy.’

  I looked at him, shocked at what he was saying.

  ‘I need to tell you this, Maeb. I am sorry. I do not know if we have brought the plague with us or not. None of us are ill. I ask the knights each evening, I question the soldiers. They are in good health, or so they assure me. Dear God, they all look well enough, but …’

  ‘The sickness takes time to manifest itself.’

  ‘Yes. But it has been, what, a fortnight now, and we are all still well. I lie awake at night and worry my stomach into knots with it, but —’

  ‘The king and earl acted as fast as they could, my lord. At least this way, we may yet outrun it.’

  We rode a little way in silence, the sunshine a little duller for me now.

  Maybe Pengraic Castle was not going to be as impregnable as I had hoped.

  ‘I have heard that the south-east, particularly Dovre and Cantuaberie, are truly terrible, Maeb. Hell has both towns in its grip. People are dying … Jesu! Dying in such agony, the flames melting their flesh, from within and without. At Westminster one knight told me he had heard descriptions of people crouched on the sides of roads like dogs, vomiting forth gouts of sulphurous fungus … choking and retching at the same moment … oh dear saints in heaven, Maeb, why am I telling you this? I am sorry, I just needed …’

  To vomit it forth. Yes, I understood. But, oh sweet Mother Mary, what was this thing? My arm tightened about Rosamund, and I started, suddenly horrified that she may have heard her brother speak. I looked down, but she was fast asleep, her face peaceful.