The Devil's Diadem

by Sara Douglass

  Then he was gone.

  ‘Maeb?’ Evelyn, wakening.

  I struggled to sit on the side of the bed, not certain if I had dreamed Stephen’s presence.

  ‘Was that Lord Stephen?’ Evelyn said.

  ‘Aye,’ I said, ‘he wants me to join him.’

  I could almost hear Evelyn thinking this through in her mind, but eventually all she did as I pulled on my robe and laced it tight was to sigh and tell me to be careful.

  Yvette, on a trestle bed a short distance away, said nothing, but I could see the glint of her eyes in the gloom.

  I kissed Evelyn on the cheek and said I would not be long. Then, straightening out my braids as I went, I joined Stephen in the stairwell.

  He led me upward to the roof of the great keep. It was a vast space, a roof of slate that gently sloped to the outer walls.

  In marked contrast to our earlier night excursion, Stephen was in a sombre mood.

  ‘Dear God,’ he said as we halted near the southern parapet of the roof, ‘this is going to be bad, Maeb. I am sorry you have been caught up in it.’

  ‘I would have been caught up in it wherever I was, my lord. Even had I stayed in Witenie.’

  ‘I sent a messenger to my father earlier. This will take him hard. He believed we’d be safe here. The loss of my mother …’

  ‘He loved her.’

  ‘She was a good wife to him. He held her in high esteem.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Look at the river from up here on high. See how it gleams silver in the moonlight?’

  I looked. From our vantage point we could look right down the Usk Valley and the winding silver ribbon of the river. The night was so peaceful, I could almost let myself believe that all was right with our world.

  ‘I cannot tell what will happen here, Maeb, but I do not think it good.’

  ‘If the plague has struck all along our route, then any of us who travelled from Rosseley might already be harbouring the death. We cannot assume your lady mother will be the only death.’

  He looked at me sombrely, and nodded. ‘She was the first, perhaps, because she was already weakened by the child.’

  Again, I felt cold, and ill. There was not just the family and Lady Adelie’s attending women, but also the servants and the large escort who had come with us. Perhaps even now I was sickening and did not yet realise it. Perhaps even now a soldier in the northern keep was coughing gently during the night and thinking little of it.

  ‘What is going to happen, my lord?’

  ‘People within this castle are going to fall ill. There is nothing we can do to prevent that. We must manage this horror as best we can, but eventually panic will consume this castle, and then, well, then it will become unsafe. I have talked long and hard with d’Avranches. I think we can maintain discipline for as long as the sickness here remains confined to a few. But once … if … it spreads throughout the castle, then panic will be impossible to avoid.’

  He sighed, leaning over the parapet, looking at the view. ‘Maeb, I brought you here for a reason.’

  He stopped then, falling into a silence.

  ‘My lord?’ I said as the silence stretched out between us.

  ‘Maeb,’ he said, straightening, ‘I cannot bear the thought that I might die as my mother has done. The horror … Maeb, I asked you here to ask you a question. If I fall ill … if the fungus consumes me … would you suffocate me? The thought that I might burn …’

  His voice broke, and maybe I should have comforted him, but my mind was in turmoil.

  ‘What you ask is a mortal sin, my lord! I cannot murder you!’

  ‘I beg you, Maeb!’

  ‘No! My lord, I cannot. Why ask me?’

  ‘Because I think only you have the mercy to do it.’

  I could not reply. His request had so horrified me that I was now lost for anything to say. It was not just that Stephen was asking me to murder him, a sin that would condemn me to hell unless I could receive absolution, but the idea that he might himself fall ill from this terrible disease was almost too much to bear.

  ‘I would do the same for you,’ he said, very gently. ‘Maeb, there is no hope from this plague. No one survives it. If I fall sick, if the fungus appears on my skin, please, do as I ask … as I beg.’

  I could not believe we were standing here discussing such things. ‘No,’ I whispered, taking a step back. I took another step, and he came forward, taking one of my hands in his.

  ‘Maeb, I am so sorry. I shall not ask it of you again.’

  ‘I cannot.’

  ‘I know. I am sorry.’

  ‘Cannot.’ I found myself unable to stop repeating it.

  ‘Maeb —’

  ‘Surely your father can help.’ It was stupid, and I knew it instantly, but I could not bear Stephen to speak so of his death and of murder.

  Stephen dropped my hand and sighed yet again. ‘The situation in England is worse than I said to my lady mother. Far worse. The plague has spread wide and deep. Many, many thousands have died. Horribly. Some towns have burned to the ground. What has happened in the more isolated villages, I cannot tell. I have heard even that some ships, having sailed from our shores, have sunk aflame within days of leaving port. It is truly a terrible death, Maeb.’

  I felt that last was unnecessary, and used solely to advance his own cause.

  ‘All is in disarray,’ Stephen continued. ‘Edmond has forces spread over much of southern England, trying to keep or restore order, but, of course, even they are being decimated. Now, I think, Edmond has moved to a policy of only entering an area after the plague has spent itself. As for the harvest this year, well, God and his saints shall have to get it in, for I fear common man shall be unable to do so. Whoever survives this, Maeb, may face starvation next winter.

  ‘As for my father. What can he do? Maybe he also harbours the death. Maybe he is already dead and my messenger shall have no one to tell of our loss. We are on our own for this, sweet Mae. On our own.’

  I felt a rush of sympathy for Stephen. He was of an age with me, and yet had to shoulder the responsibilities and cares for this entire castle.

  All I could do was shake in fear.

  ‘What do we do?’ I asked him. ‘What now?’

  ‘We wait,’ he said. ‘And watch.’

  He reached out and pulled me into a gentle embrace. I didn’t resist. More than anything I needed comfort, and to be held.

  I rested my head against his chest clad in only a thin linen shirt on this warm summer’s night.

  Stephen held me close, stroking my hair, and I slowly relaxed. He drew in a deep breath … and I froze in terror as I heard, very faintly, a crackling deep within his lungs.

  Chapter Seven

  Without Lady Adelie, Yvette, Evelyn and myself were purposeless. Having cleaned and scrubbed the privy chamber, we spent our time in the solar, indifferently sewing or stitching sundry fabrics that were the worse for our attention. Alice and Emmette sat with us, subdued and grieving the death of their mother. Rosamund and baby John spent several hours with us each day, and they were our only cheerfulness, for neither understood what had happened to their mother and only wanted to play and chortle.

  We were waiting for death to strike, all of us save Alice and Emmette who knew not the true nature of their mother’s death.

  My mind was almost fully on Stephen. I wondered if I had imagined that crackle in his lungs, if my overall fright had constructed it. I could not bear the thought that he might fall victim to the plague, partly because of my own affection for him and partly because I did not wish to be faced with his request that I should smother his breath.

  No. No. I could not do that. It was a sin, a dreadful sin, and would condemn me to hell. How could he ask that of me?

  So we sat, mostly in silence, our hands jabbing uselessly in and out of fabric, waiting for death.

  On the third day after Lady Adelie’s funeral it arrived.

  Evelyn and I were woken in the early hours o
f the morning by a terrible hacking cough coming from Yvette’s bed. We stumbled up, grabbing at our mantles, terrified at what it might be, and knowing to our very bones that we were right to be so terror-struck.

  I lit a candle from the coals in the fireplace and brought it to Yvette’s bedside.

  She was still coughing as she retched up gouts of yellow fungus.

  It was everywhere; spattering her pillow and covers, staining her mouth and chin and breast.

  Amid it all, her frightened eyes, staring at us.

  ‘Fetch Owain,’ Evelyn murmured. I handed her the candle and fled.

  Owain insisted we shift Yvette into the chapel. Evelyn and I said we could nurse Yvette for a few days, surely, in the solar. Owain prevailed.

  Yvette could still walk, so Evelyn and myself helped her down the stairwell, across the courtyard of the great keep and through the inner bailey to the chapel. I know Stephen had wanted to keep the fact that the plague had struck inside the castle secret, but it was no longer possible.

  Men stopped and stared as Yvette coughed her way across the inner bailey, a yellow-stained cloth gripped to her mouth. When we stepped inside the chapel, it was to see two of the beds already occupied.

  ‘Men-at-arms,’ Owain said. ‘They came in last night.’

  ‘Were they from our escort?’ I said, and Owain gave a tight nod.

  I felt my stomach, already twisted with fear, clench even tighter.

  ‘Over here,’ Owain said, leading us to an area partitioned with church screens. Owain left us, and Evelyn and I helped Yvette out of her kirtle and put her to bed in her chemise. No one spoke. There were six trestle beds in this area and I had the feeling six would not be enough.

  Evelyn caught my eye. ‘We can take it in turns sitting with Yvette,’ she said, and I nodded dumbly. ‘Return after midday,’ she continued. ‘Have some rest now.’

  Again I nodded, leaving the chapel. I did not quite know what to do, so eventually I trod up the stairwell and into the female dormitory where the nurse and the children had their cubicles.

  The children and their nurse were gathered in a large space they used as their day room. Alice and Emmette were sitting by a window, looking completely blank.

  As I entered, the nurse turned about, John in her arms, and said worriedly, ‘He has such a fever!’

  I stood there, then burst into tears.

  The next week was hell on earth, for it seemed as though hell itself had crawled into the sunlight and infested the castle. The day after Yvette started to hack up the yellow fungus a further twenty people fell ill.

  The day after that, with John already ailing, Alice and Emmette both succumbed to the plague. Coughing up the fungus in the morning, by the evening it had covered their bodies, and Owain made the grim decision to lay them directly on mats on the stone floor of the chapel.

  ‘Best to save the beds,’ he said.

  Yvette was dead. She had died just before the two girls were carried into the chapel, self-immolating in a terrible, shrieking fireball that drove both Evelyn and myself out of the chapel, unable to watch.

  The chapel stunk, not only of sickness, but of burned flesh, and smoke seemed to hang continually about its vaulted roof.

  Owain worked tirelessly, silently.

  Stephen, who had come to see his sisters, was equally grimly silent.

  I managed to speak to him outside as he left.

  ‘What can we do?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing but endure,’ Stephen answered. ‘Do you still feel well?’

  I nodded, but I lied. My body ached and pained all over, but I didn’t know if this was the plague manifesting itself, or just muscle aches caused by sleepless nights and the constant trudging between chapel and keep, the nursing of Yvette and, now, the two girls.

  ‘God save us,’ I whispered, looking at Stephen. His face was sunken and grey, his skin waxy, and I could see the fever in his eyes.

  I did not have to ask him how he fared.

  ‘I am going to stay with my sisters,’ he said to me. ‘Do for them what needs to be done.’ He paused. ‘Do you understand?’

  I nodded, hopeless.

  ‘And do you remember what I asked of you?’ he said, very softly.

  I nodded, too exhausted, too distraught, too heart-sick to be horrified. ‘I —’ Stephen began, then we both jumped, startled by the sound of Alice screaming.

  We rushed inside the chapel and behind the screens of the women’s section.

  There Alice tossed on her mat locked in some delirium so terrifying she had kicked off all her covers and fought against Evelyn who was trying to restrain her.

  ‘No!’ Alice screamed, and, sweet Jesu, there was such terror in her voice. ‘No! I do not have it! I do not have it!’

  ‘Alice!’ Stephen cried, at her bedside. ‘Alice, wake, wake!’

  But no matter how he shook her, Alice did not rouse from her delirium. ‘No! No! Stay away. Begone. I do not have it! Not!’

  Suddenly she arched her back completely off the bed, her cries now so piteous they tore at my heart. Stephen grabbed at her, thinking to hold her tight, but Alice was, in her extremity, too strong even for him. She fought him off as if he were the Devil, then shrieked, a sound that I shall not forget to my dying day, and collapsed back to the bed, utterly limp.

  We all stared, then Owain bent down and placed his hand near her mouth.

  ‘She is gone,’ he said. He straightened, looking at Stephen. ‘Three have died this way, shrieking as if the Devil himself were after them, and crying that they do not have “it”, whatever “it” might be, nor do they know where “it” is. They have died of sheer dread, I think.’

  Owain sighed, then knelt by Alice’s bed, murmuring a prayer.

  I took a step backward and, as I did so, Stephen put his hand to his mouth and stifled a cough.

  Owain’s head shot up, his face white.

  All order within the castle vanished. People fled, not caring if they took the plague with them. Guards no longer manned the gates and, eventually, they stood halfway open with no one bothered to close them.

  No one wanted to enter.

  Stephen and d’Avranches had tried to keep order, initially, but had ceased their efforts after it became obvious to everyone that the castle harboured plague.

  The kitchen was deserted, save those who, like me, came to rummage about for something to eat. Evelyn spent all her time helping in the chapel, now thick with bodies that coughed fungus which spattered even over the strange paintings on the wall. I tried to bring her some food, but she said she felt ill and no longer wanted to eat.

  I had the two children, John and Rosamund, in my care. Their nurse had fled one night, leaving her charges alone. When I checked them late one morning I found both children huddled together in Rosamund’s bed, their faces and bottoms wet, their eyes pools of distress.

  I was furious with the nurse. Incandescent with rage, but I think, looking back now, much of that rage was frustration and fear finding outlet in anger. I scooped up the two children and cleaned them, and clothed them in fresh dresses and stockings, and hugged them tight.

  John had a small patch of fungus on his right shoulder, even though he was not coughing. He had fought this longer than I thought possible, but now it appeared the plague tightened its grip on him.

  I had come to expect that fungus now, on almost anyone I met, so it did not set me to tears and terrors as once it had. I merely determined to do as much for the children as I could. I owed that much to their mother, and put them to bed in a cot in their parents’ privy chamber.

  I thought it would be a good place for them to die.

  No one lived through this. Not a single person. Everyone died who went into the chapel, as did those who fell ill elsewhere in the castle and were left where they lay. Two buildings in the outer bailey had burned down. A floor had burned through in the northern keep. D’Avranches, I heard, had ordered any among the knights or soldiers struck down to be dragged — by thei
r heels if necessary — through the keep and into either of the baileys, or to the chapel if they could be got that far. And for those left … I heard d’Avranches wandered the garrison at night, his dagger drawn.

  It didn’t shock me. Everyone feared the fire, and I am certain those who met their end other than by the flames were grateful for it.

  I began to re-think what Stephen had asked of me.

  Anything was better than the terrible death the plague dealt.

  The day after I brought Rosamund and John to the privy chamber, Stephen met me as I was climbing up the stairwell from the kitchen, a bowl of pottage in my hands. I don’t know who was going to eat it; both Rosamund and John were very ill, and I had no appetite.

  ‘Stephen,’ I said, my voice cracking, glad beyond measure to see him.

  He looked terrible, his cheeks sunken, his skin grey, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen. I tried to persuade myself it was exhaustion from all the care he carried on his shoulders, but in my heart I knew it was the sickness.

  ‘Maeb,’ he said, and caught me briefly to him, taking the pottage in one of his hands, the other sliding about my shoulders.

  I cried a little as he held me, my heart broken over this waste of life, and that Stephen, too, looked certain to die. He was a good man, kind as well as noble, and he should have lived to become one of the greatest aristocrats of his age.

  But no, it seemed that his life was to be forfeit, and all for no reason that I could determine.

  ‘Where are God and His saints?’ I said. ‘Why are we left to die like this, like dogs?’

  He said nothing, just held me tighter, his face pressed into my hair.

  After a while he spoke. ‘I have come to see John and Rosamund.’ Now his voice trembled. ‘I don’t know if … if …’

  ‘They are still alive,’ I said, ‘although both sicken. Come, I have them in their mother’s room.’

  ‘Emmette is dead,’ he said. ‘The fungus covered her face. I … I made certain she didn’t suffer.’

  ‘Sweet Jesu,’ I muttered, ‘how is it come to this?’

  ‘Through God’s grace,’ Stephen said, and his voice was rich with bitterness.