The Devil’s Diadem

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 south-east 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.

I glanced at Stephen, then nodded at Rosamund.

‘Oh, I am sorry, Maeb. I did not think. I will not speak of it again. Not until we are alone.’

Despite my fear at his words, I felt a thrill down my spine at his words. Alone?

‘My lord, talk to me of Pengraic Castle. Your lady mother spoke once of it to me, but only in dark words. What is it like?’

To my utter relief, his easy grin was back. ‘Pengraic Castle … dark? Ah, that is my mother for you. She has never liked it, and so thus our yearly travels to Rosseley. Do you know that I alone of all her babes was born at Pengraic Castle? All the others at Rosseley. Now another babe she will birth at Pengraic and thus maybe he, too, shall love the place. But of the castle … Maeb, I am only happy when I am there.’

He was smiling, looking ahead, introspective.

‘But your lady mother, she said …’

‘No doubt she said it was inhabited by imps and ghouls,’ he said, and I suppressed a jump at the ‘imps’.

‘But no,’ Stephen continued, ‘Pengraic is a place of such beauty, such peace … it is a place, Maeb, where you can almost reach into a different world …’

‘What world?’

He glanced sideways at me then, as if assessing. Then he shrugged. ‘I will show you, when we are there. But know this, Maeb. You have not seen, nor shall you ever see, a place as majestic as Pengraic. It is the greatest castle in England, bar none.’

I would have asked more, but just then Rosamund woke and grizzled, and Stephen rode close and took her from me. Once she was safely in the hands of her nurse, Stephen glanced back at me, then rode forward to talk with several of the knights leading the column.

That evening, as I aided Mistress Yvette to disrobe Lady Adelie for the night, the countess spoke to me.

‘My son spends much of the day riding with you, Maeb.’

‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Nothing can come of this. You know it.’

‘I know, my lady. I know it, as does he, and in some strange way …’

‘Yes?’

‘In some strange way, it draws us closer. I think he finds me a confidante, and nothing else.’

And yet he had said, not until we are alone …

She considered this. ‘Very well, Maeb. But nothing must come of this.’

‘It will not, my lady. I would not allow anything to threaten my place in this household.’

Lady Adelie nodded at that, apparently satisfied, although I wondered if her weariness made her pass over a subject she might normally have spent more time on.

She appeared exhausted tonight. There were dark shadows under her eyes, her skin was very sallow and her hands trembled slightly when I handed over her nightly posset.

‘My lady? Are you unwell?’

‘Ah, it is nothing, Maeb. I am always weary when I grow heavy with child, and this is no worse than previous.’ She grew waspish. ‘Do not fret at me so, for that is even more wearisome than the child!’

‘I am sorry, my lady.’ I withdrew, allowing her words to comfort me. In truth, my mind was so full of Stephen, I did not think to question what she had said.

CHAPTER TWELVE

If Lady Adelie had been too tired to pursue me, then Evelyn had plenty of energy. As usual we shared a bed, this night in the female dormitory of a Benedictine lodging house just beyond Brimesfelde. As there were others present, Evelyn had to keep her voice low.

‘You need to be careful, Maeb. It is nothing to Lord Stephen. He amuses himself and thinks little of it. You bask in his smile and risk your entire future.’

I sighed. I, too, was weary and wished to sleep.

‘By the Virgin, Maeb! Until you are safe wed you live your life at the edge of a precipice. Your place in this household is your only safeguard between you and the roads.’

‘Stephen is —’

‘Lord Stephen is to be betrothed to an heiress from Normandy. They will formalise the betrothal at Christmastide this year. You are only a pleasing dalliance, Maeb. Nothing else!’

I’d had no idea — all I had heard was the rumour about a princess, and that I had discounted. I felt a wave of black jealousy wash over me and that was the first indication I had that what I felt for Stephen was a little more than simple admiration. I also felt a gut-wrenching fear, an awareness of what such ignorance of my emotions might have meant to my security.

‘I should have been careful to ride with you more often,’ Evelyn said. ‘Maeb, I press this point now because we are close to Glowecestre.’

‘Yes?’ I was still battling my emotions and to me she made no sense.

‘I talked with Lady Adelie today, and she has given me her leave to withdraw from this company there and travel to my daughter’s home. I worry about her so. I need to know she is well.’

‘Oh no, Evelyn! I shall miss you!’ I would, too. Badly. Evelyn had become my closest companion and friend in the Pengraic household. I did not know who I would be able to confide in once she left.

‘Maeb, I need you to understand how it is with Stephen. He is promised to a woman of wealth and alliances. He would not in any circumstance forgo that marriage for one to you. Neither would he be allowed to do so. You would only ever be a casual dalliance for Stephen. What might be a summer enjoyment for him would have disastrous consequences for your life. Saint-Valery would withdraw his offer, and you would get none other.’

I remembered that moment in Oxeneford when Stephen, Pengraic and Edmond all stood momentarily bound by that ray of light and I had thought that my life would be bound by all three. But that moment was long past, and my conviction in my intuition had eroded. Evelyn was right. I should not be disdainful of Saint-Valery’s offer at all. Lord knows that, had I received it three months past, I would have been delighted beyond measure.

‘Be careful where you step,’ Evelyn said, ‘for our path through life is littered with chasms leading straight to hell.’

We travelled into the town of Glowecestre the next day. Here we were to stay three days at a house owned by the earl, just beyond the town’s limits. Here also the cleric would leave us, and Evelyn would travel north to her daughter.

I cried softly when she packed, and carried her small bundle of possessions out to the courtyard where a horse waited. Stephen had detailed three soldiers to accompany her, but there was only I and Mistress Yvette come to say goodbye.

Evelyn kissed me, then hugged me tight. ‘I will come to Pengraic once I know my daughter is safe,’ she said. ‘Until then, you be well, Maeb.’

She turned to Mistress Yvette. ‘I will miss my lady, Yvette. I am sorry to have to leave her this abruptly … but I will be home to Pengraic soon. Before the child is born, I hope.’

They kissed, then one of the soldiers helped Evelyn to mount, and she was gone, clattering out of the courtyard on a raw-boned brown horse.

Glowecestre was the point at which it struck home that Lady Adelie’s fatigue might be more serious than she said. We stayed in the earl’s town house for three days, days of complete rest, yet my lady’s fatigue did not lift at all. For the first time since I’d been in her household Lady Adelie did not rise for early prayers, instead leaving it until mid-morning, when the world was already well on its way, before she rose from her bed. She did not venture far, staying in a chair by the fire until it was time to go back to bed. She ate little and her face remained pale and drawn, the dark circles under her eyes growing stronger. She appeared to have caught a chill, for she coughed occasionally, but said it was nothing.

I did not question her for I knew she would only snap at me, but took as great care of her as I might. I fetched whatever she wanted, sought out a minstrel from the town that she might be entertained, and carried tender morsels from the kitchen to tempt her appetite. Mistress Yvette and I sat with her and kept her company, Mistress Yvette reading from the book of devotion, or the pair of us chattering away in an effort to cheer her.

Stephen came to visit several times each day. I took care to fade away when he came to his mother, avoiding his eye, standing back in the shadow that I might not disturb them … and that I might not catch his regard. I had done much thinking since Evelyn’s talk to me, and I realised that I had allowed myself to slip into an affection for Stephen that could lead nowhere but disaster for me. I did need to be careful, for my future was not assured. No matter his charm and warmth, Stephen could do little but threaten that future, while Saint-Valery might assure it. I should not disregard Saint-Valery’s offer in preference for certain disaster with Stephen.

So I faded into the shadows, and hardened my heart against him.

To be truthful, Stephen did not appear to come to the chamber merely to hope for a glimpse of me. It was clear his mother’s fatigue concerned him deeply. He spent some time on our second day in Glowecestre in deep conversation with Mistress Yvette. I did not hear what they said, nor did Mistress Yvette later confide in me, but from the occasional worried glance they threw toward Lady Adelie it was clear what they discussed.

On the third day — the day before we were to depart for the final push to Pengraic — Stephen again came to his mother. This day he voiced his concern openly.

He sat on a stool by her knee, almost like a little boy come to beg his mother’s favour, and took her hand between his.

‘My lady,’ he said, his voice gentle, ‘you are not well, and this journey has done you no favours. I grow worried for you and wonder if we should not rest here a little longer that you may regain your strength.’

‘We will be safer at Pengraic, Stephen,’ Lady Adelie said. ‘We will depart tomorrow morn.’

He smiled, and despite myself I felt my heart turn over in my breast. I was chastened by my failure to harden my heart against him completely, and I would have faded further into the shadows if I could, or even quietly left the chamber, but I wanted to know what the outcome of this conversation would be: if we stayed here for the moment, or journeyed on to Pengraic.

‘What news of the plague, Stephen?’ Lady Adelie said. ‘Have you news?’

Stephen hesitated, then gave a small nod. ‘A messenger arrived from my lord father this morning. He has taken a large force and moved south to secure the Cinque Ports, madam, but he is well and sends you his loving greetings.’

‘Praise sweet Jesu he continues well,’ Lady Adelie said, ‘although I fear for him moving toward the Cinque Ports for apparently it is there that the plague rages strongest. I pray sweet Jesu and all saints watch over him and continue to keep him safe.’

She closed her eyes and muttered a small prayer before continuing. ‘But the plague, Stephen. How far has it ravaged?’

‘It continues to move westward, madam,’ he said.

I could see that Stephen squeezed his mother’s hand softly. ‘But for the moment, you are safe. We can afford a few more days’ rest here. You are more important than —’

‘No, no,’ she said, ‘you are important, Stephen. This plague has not yet passed us by. I can feel it in my bones. Last night … last night I dreamed …’

She stopped, and did not continue for a long moment.

‘I dreamed such dark things, and thus we will resume our journey on the morrow, Stephen. It is better we reach Pengraic Castle as soon as we may. This child … I worry about this child. How long, do you think, before we reach Pengraic?’

‘Travelling at a comfortable pace? And yes, madam, it will be comfortable, for I will not risk you by hurrying. Maybe five days. Two to Monemude, then a day to Ragheian, yet another to Bergeveny, and then it is but a pleasant morning’s ride home.’

Five days. Five days and then we would be at Pengraic Castle.

Stephen rose from his mother, but before he turned to leave the chamber he sought out my eyes.

There was no laughter or warmth there, only soberness and worry.

Once we left Glowecestre we were truly leaving the security of England and moving ever toward the frontier territory of the Welsh Marches. We travelled through winding roads and gentle valleys and forested hills. Sometimes, when we were high enough, I caught a glimpse of mountains to the west. Alice spoke, noticing the direction of my gaze.

‘The Black Mountains,’ she said. ‘Pengraic Castle sits at one of the southern spurs of those mountains, overlooking the Usk Valley.’

I nodded, not moving my eyes from the mountains. As the clouds shifted, so pools of sunlight raced across them. They looked wild and untamed, and a shiver went down my spine.

There lay Pengraic.

We came upon Pengraic on the fifth day, as Stephen had predicted. We’d reached the small town of Bergeveny at mid-afternoon the previous day, the mountains now so close it felt as though I only needed reach out my hand to touch them. I was in a state of part excitement, part dread. Stephen had spoken well of Pengraic, but almost everyone else appeared to have sunk ever further into themselves as we drew close. The past few days I’d barely had more than two words of conversation with anyone. During the day Lady Adelie slipped into a deep reverie as she rocked back and forth in her cart, Mistress Yvette always close by her side; at night she said little as she ate sparingly and then went to her bed.

The girls, Alice and Emmette, hardly talked to me once we’d passed Monemude. It was if, this close to home, they had retreated to a distance befitting nobility, for they no longer rode with me and instead preferred to ride with their brother further ahead in the column.

I was left to trail Lady Adelie’s cart on Dulcette by myself, with no company save for the greetings of a passing soldier or knight as he moved up and down the column.

Without Evelyn I felt very alone.

Stephen also no longer came back to talk to me. He did ride back to check on his mother many times during the day, and on these occasions he would nod a greeting to me, but he did not speak.

I wondered if his mother had spoken to him, as well.

Even Rosamund, who had so often enjoyed riding with me, now appeared to disdain the very idea and shrieked if I rode Dulcette to the side of the cart, as if she thought I was about to snatch her from its comforts.

Thus, by the time we left Bergeveny for the morning’s journey to Pengraic Castle, I felt quite alone in the world.

That last day we rode swiftly, for no doubt everyone just wanted to be out of the saddle, or the deep discomfort of the tray of a cart. We rode toward a gap in the mountains — the Usk Valley, one of the soldiers told me when I asked. We splashed through many streams and rivulets, across fields and meadows and, close to noon, we entered the valley.

It was wide and fairly flat, a green valley that wound into the distance, bounded on either side by hills and mountains — the Black Mountains to the north, the Bearscathe Mountains to the south. The road followed the path of the River Usk, and was flat and well maintained. The sun shone, the trees on the riverbank dipped and swayed in the breeze, and late spring flowers littered the banks of the road.

It was not what I had expected. All my life I’d heard tales of the Welsh and of their savagery; all children feared them. Yet here we were, deep in the Welsh Marches, and the countryside here was, if anything, prettier than any I had yet seen along the journey. Even the mountains and hills to either side had lost their threatening aspect. Their lower reaches had been cleared for fields, their crowns sometimes bare, sometimes cloaked in thick forest. The Usk was on my left as I rode into the valley, its banks covered by trees whose branches dipped into the water, so that my view of the river was veiled by shifting leaves.

This was not, surely, the dark, damned country of Lady Adelie’s description.

We turned a little north, away from the river, and followed a road toward a small village that someone told me was called Crickhoel. I had my gaze set on it, not thinking that we might be very close to the castle, when suddenly Stephen was at my side again.

I jumped, for I had not seen him approach. He nodded to my right, to a spot much higher than the village. ‘My home,’ he said, and I turned my head, lifted my gaze …

And gasped.

There it was. Pengraic Castle, sitting far up the side of a mountain, high, high above us.

‘There is a spur of land,’ Stephen said, pointing with one hand, ‘that runs south from the flank of the mountain — the Welsh call it Pen Cerrig-calch. At the end of the spur is a plateau, and it is on that plateau that Pengraic sits.’

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I had never seen any castle as mighty as this one. We were still some two miles from it, far down in the valley, yet even so it dominated the entire landscape.

Built of weathered grey stone, it rose into the sky — untold battlements and parapets, and sheer walls that rose to merge with the low clouds.

‘All you can see of the castle from this spot,’ Stephen said, ‘is the great keep. But behind that the castle stretches toward the mountain. Through the inner bailey, then into the northern keep and then the outer bailey beyond that. Ah, Maeb, I hope you will love it as much as I.’

I glanced at him then, and I saw such love on his face as he gazed upward that it stunned me.

‘It is legend,’ Stephen said, very softly, ‘that the rock on which Pengraic Castle sits has been sacred since that time when only the Old People roamed these hills.’ He dropped his eyes very suddenly to mine. ‘Perhaps so,’ he said, ‘and perhaps they’ve never left.’

‘Old People?’

‘The name given to those ancient folk who lived here even before the English or even the Welsh came to live on this island.’

The Old People. I shivered, but forgot them almost immediately as soon afterward we turned our horses and began our climb upward.

It was hard work, for the way was steep, and the cart horses moved very slowly. I gave Dulcette as loose a rein as I could and let her find her own pace — soon her head was low and bobbing up and down as she picked her way from one side of the roadway to the other, wherever she thought she saw an easier path.

Very gradually we drew closer to the castle. We approached from the south-eastern side, and as we came about I could clearly see that the castle stretched right along the spur of land that descended from the southern flank of Pen Cerrig-calch. I could not comprehend its size; the great keep alone would have awed me, but to see the entire castle stretch back along the spur, its walls and battlements punctuated at regular intervals by towers … in its entirety I thought the castle became a mountain itself, one mountain of grey stone that grew out of another.

The sides of the mountain that led up to the castle were very steep, sloping down on the castle’s southern, western and eastern flanks. The only gentle gradient lay behind the castle, as the spur of land rose to join with Pen Cerrig-calch.

I thought the castle must be impregnable.

The roadway doglegged up the steep hillside. We moved northward almost halfway along the long eastern flank of the castle before executing a tight turn — the carts only barely managing to keep to the road — and climbing south back toward the main gate situated in the south wall by the great keep.

When we drew close, within twenty or so paces, the walls of the castle towered over me; they blotted out the sun, casting everyone in deep, cold shadow, and I shivered.

I tried to twist about, to see what I could of the castle, but suddenly Dulcette picked up her pace and entered the gateway and I was surrounded by walls of stone.

And then, as if by magic, Dulcette emerged into bright sunshine and I was inside Pengraic Castle.

PART TWO

THE DEATH

CHAPTER ONE

Pengraic Castle was a marvel, but it also disconcerted me as it was so vast. I felt lost amid its huge chambers and the tight, winding stairwells that appeared suddenly in the most surprising of spaces.

My days were mostly spent in the great keep, and those mostly on the upper level … here was the solar and the lord’s privy chamber, as well the male and female dormitories for servants and guards. The ground level housed the great hall, the kitchens, and the storage and stabling areas. Because the earl was not in residence and Lady Adelie was not well, I did not eat in the great hall, which was where the majority of the servants, soldiers and knights dined, but rather took my meals with the countess in either the solar or her chamber.

I was awed not only by the size of the castle, and its complexity (which took me weeks to fathom), but also by the richness of its amenities and furnishings. The great hall, the solar, and even the lord’s chamber, were well furnished with enormous fireplaces which had chimneys to take away the smoke (the great hall had two fireplaces, which would keep it warm on the coldest of nights).

The wooden floors were spread with woven rugs, the walls hung with tapestries of such skilled work that they amazed me, and often, when the countess did not require my presence, I spent much time in tracing the story lines embroidered into their fabric.