The Devil's Diadem

by Sara Douglass

  The servant brought a chair, and we sat, sharing the simple meal.

  I felt a coldness from him and wondered at it. We talked, but only in somewhat awkward fragments and I grew increasingly uncomfortable, wondering why Edmond’s mood was so reserved.

  ‘You are looking much better, my lady,’ he said, finally sitting back and wiping his mouth with a napkin.

  ‘I am feeling so, my lord, thank you.’

  ‘The child?’

  ‘He is well also, my lord.’

  ‘He should be baptised before I leave,’ Edmond said. ‘I will stand as sponsor.’

  ‘That is a great honour. I thank you, my lord king.’

  He gave a terse nod, acknowledging the thanks. ‘Much of my company shall be leaving in the morning,’ he said. ‘Many of them have long distances to travel to reach their homes.’

  There was an implied criticism there, and it left me fumbling for the right words.

  ‘My lord, I am sorry I have been such a trouble to you and your company.’

  If I had been waiting for him to wave the apology aside, then I was to be disappointed.

  ‘Many, if not all,’ Edmond said, ‘will talk of your strange rescue, and of the extraordinary way we were led to your side. And that in time to save you, and not Henry.’

  Sweet Jesu. When Edmond and I had last spoken of this he had not been so cold, nor had his voice this accusatory tone. Had he now begun to wonder if witchery was involved in my rescue and the concurrent death of his eldest son? My witchery?

  ‘My lord, I —’

  ‘Maeb, many will remember Henry’s accusation of witchcraft against you. Many will wonder if witchery was involved in your rescue.’

  I felt cold; Edmond’s words had confirmed my fears. What had people been saying about their ride along the falloway? Was Edmond regretting now that he’d listened to the knight? Had he grown doubtful? Did he feel vulnerable? Did he think my very existence might now threaten him?

  Suddenly I saw a yawning chasm before me, and it held all the perils of hell. Coupled with Edmond’s coldness, it made me suddenly horribly aware of how alone I was in this world. My husband had always been there to protect me, if no one else could, and he had been a powerful protector.

  But now … no, my husband was no longer my saviour.

  And Edmond. Edmond, too, had always supported me, but today I could feel and hear him distancing himself and I was terror-struck. Without either my husband’s or Edmond’s support and protection, I was helpless against any who might move against me.

  Who might accuse me of witchcraft.

  Sweet Jesu, how had it come to this?

  Edmond sighed, refilling his cup of wine and drinking of it deeply.

  ‘You trail intrigue and mystery and trouble behind you like some women trail scent, Maeb,’ he said.

  ‘You are a trouble.’

  Tears filled my eyes, and I could not reply. I hung my head, hoping he would not see the tears, and stared at my hands clasped in my lap. Gone was the man who had spoken so sweetly to me in Saint John’s chapel.

  ‘What is wrong between you and Pengraic, Maeb?’

  I thought of what Owain had said to me, that Edmond might help me, and that this was Edmond’s realm that the Devil trod over so vilely.

  I thought of all the people dying of the plague and wondered if it was my fault they suffered.

  But how could I tell Edmond? Would not the king’s suspicions of witchcraft be completely vindicated?

  ‘Maeb!’

  ‘Oh, my lord, I am so sorry.’ I let slip a sob, my hands over my face.

  I wanted Edmond to move about the table and comfort me, I wanted that so badly, and yet he did not move.

  He just sat, watching me, unmoved by my womanly weakness.

  ‘Maeb, tell me.’

  Owain had known there was something terribly wrong.

  I could not hide it from Edmond, nor could I think of any lies that might plaster over the truth.

  So I told him. Everything. The imps, and what my husband had told me — that he was the Devil’s man, come to find the diadem.

  Everything, save that single thing, that the knight had aided me through the ordeal. The only thing saving me now was that people believed that God had spoken in the great hall that day I’d undergone the ordeal, and not the knight’s trickery.

  I finished.

  I could not look at Edmond.

  There was complete silence.

  Finally, unable to bear it any longer, I looked up.

  Edmond was staring at me and I could not tell if he was shocked or thinking deeply.

  Both, perhaps.

  Suddenly he was on his feet, cursing foully. His chair had fallen and Edmond picked it up and threw it across the chamber so that it shattered against a wall.

  I cringed, and Isouda and one of Edmond’s knights rushed in from the solar.

  ‘Get out!’ Edmond shouted at them, striding over to slam the door shut.

  Then he whipped about.

  ‘By all the saints, Maeb, you were going to keep this from me? How long have you known, eh?’

  ‘Only after you’d left for Elesberie, my lord. I am sorry.’ Strangely, I was easier now that he was angry than sitting across from me, silent.

  Anger would pass.

  ‘I did not know what to do, sir,’ I said, as clearly and honestly as I could. ‘All I could think was to run home to Pengraic.’

  ‘Jesu,’ Edmond muttered, walking away, one hand rubbing at his forehead. He turned about again.

  ‘You did not know at the Privy Council?’

  ‘No, my lord, I did not.’

  ‘But you knew of the imps, yes?’

  I nodded.

  ‘And yet you said nothing.’

  ‘My lord, my husband had asked me not to. I loved and trusted him, and I had no reason then not to do so.’

  ‘And yet you did not trust me enough to mention that imps crawled through my palace as well as your home.’

  I wondered if this was the issue, that I had left it this long before deciding to trust Edmond.

  ‘I was frightened, sir. And I trusted my husband completely.’

  ‘You owed him loyalty before me?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  He sighed, moving over to sit on the bed, which was the only place left for him to sit now he had destroyed his chair.

  ‘I wonder if that is how it should be, that a wife should offer her loyalty to her husband before she offers it to the king.’

  ‘It was how it was with me.’

  ‘And now I am the first person you have told this.’

  ‘No, my lord. I told Owain, my priest, this morning, as confession.’ Edmond muttered an obscenity.

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘That I should tell you.’

  Edmond threw up his hands. ‘Well, praise be to God for Brother Owain, for otherwise I should never have learned! Sweet mother of Christ, Maeb, I thought that you and I … I thought …’

  I dropped my eyes. This was not just between a king and his subject, then, but between a man and a woman, too.

  ‘So,’ Edmond said, his voice profoundly weary, ‘plague ravages my realm because the Devil thinks that his precious diadem is hidden here and the plague shall sniff it out. The Templars accuse you of harbouring the diadem, something you deny. But, lo, now I learn your husband is the Devil’s own man sent to snatch the diadem from its hiding place and return it to his hellish master. Meanwhile, some deep witchery was used so that you might be rescued from death … but not my son. Have I missed any salient facts, Maeb?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You claim innocence in all this?’

  Now I raised my face back to his. ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘And yet,’ Edmond said, his voice now dangerously quiet, ‘how remarkable a coincidence it is that sweet, pretty, innocent Mistress Maeb should first find herself in the Devil’s lieutenant’s household, and then, amazingly, find herself his wife.
How astounding that, coupled with this, it appears that your father may have stolen this diadem and entrusted it to you —’

  ‘I do not have it, my lord! I do not know where it is! I know nothing about this cursed diadem!’

  ‘Then explain to me why this remarkably unadventurous plague travels only in your footsteps. Back and forth, back and forth.’

  ‘Has it followed me back to Pengraic, my lord? Has it?’

  He chewed the inside of his cheek. ‘I do not know. I have no intelligence as yet. But my gut instinct tells me that you are not so innocent as you claim. Why did Pengraic marry you if not to get his hands on the diadem? And why do I think that the best way I can rid my realm of this disaster is to send your husband back to hell with a well-placed sword stroke and cast you into the seas, that the plague may follow you into its depths?’

  I could actually feel myself go pale with shock.

  Edmond gave a slow nod, acknowledging my reaction.

  ‘Why should I not do that, Maeb?’

  Again, I wept. I was somewhat astounded I had any tears left.

  ‘I do not know, my lord.’

  ‘And yet how God favours you,’ Edmond said.

  ‘I would think Pengraic had aided you through that ordeal save he was so panicked at the thought of you undertaking it.’

  ‘The ordeal was carried out under the word of God. Raife could not have intervened even had he wished to do so.’

  ‘In that I am inclined to believe you. And this strange knight, and Ghent … I felt only good from them, not evil. So for the moment, Maeb, I am prepared to trust you — but not as I once did. Who knows what else you keep from me? Always the kernel of doubt will be there, and I will watch you more carefully.’

  That stung. Badly.

  ‘What will we do, my lord? What can I do, to win back your regard?’ He studied me thoughtfully.

  ‘Whatever happens, Maeb, you shall be at the heart of it. This is war now, and you are a soldier in it. Your days of innocence — whether claimed or real — are over.’

  Chapter Eight

  Perhaps that day spent out of bed had wearied me, or maybe the seeds of the sepsis were already there, but later that evening I fell in to a fiery ague. I do not recall much about that night, nor the following week and more of days and nights, save that the fever sapped away at my strength and that I was consumed by pain and aches.

  I dreamed during this time, much as I had dreamed when I was dying of the plague and hemlock. Again I saw the forbidden falloway and I could sense the knight sitting his courser waiting to turn me back if I stepped foot along that falloway. Unlike that earlier period of dying, however, this time I did not venture toward him. I stood at the entrance of the falloway and looked down its length longingly, but I did not attempt to walk it.

  Isouda later told me I had been overtaken by childbed fever, and that Owain had worried it would carry me away. I became so sick, and so sensitive to any sound at all, that Edmond ordered that the castle come to a stillness when I was at my worst, so that the noise of the inner bailey and great keep might not torture me.

  Edmond kept a vigil in the solar. Maybe he dreaded losing his soldier in the war ahead, maybe he dreaded losing me, I don’t know. Maybe both. But for the ten days that I lay critically ill Edmond kept vigil, and it gladdened my heart when I later heard of it.

  During this time, also, Owain baptised my son. Edmond and Isouda stood as sponsors, and Edmond named him Geoffrey, which was a fine name. Sewenna continued to feed him and he gained weight with every day. When, after two weeks, they brought Geoffrey to see me again I was astounded at his size and heaviness. For his part, Geoffrey seemed to have forgot his mother, for he fretted and cried when he was put into my arms and did not stop until he was again with Sewenna.

  I felt a twinge of unhappiness that he did not recognise me, but it did not last long. I could not love this child, nor did I try overmuch to do so. My maternal instincts were utterly overwhelmed and defeated by the horror of his father.

  Once I had emerged from death’s shadow Edmond left me to recover and embarked on a tour of the Welsh Marches, visiting as far north as Scersberie. He arrived back at Pengraic Castle after five weeks with an impressive number of soldiers (most of the company which had originally accompanied him on my rescue, had left within days of their initial arrival at Pengraic). After a few days rest at Pengraic, Edmond then led these knights and soldiers on a foray deep into the Usk Valley, taking advantage of the disarray of the Welsh forces after the death of Madog ap Gruffydd and, in the process, recapturing Brecon Castle, which the Welsh had held for a number of years.

  I grew stronger as the weeks passed. While Edmond was fighting his way up the Usk Valley, I spent my time within the castle, in Owain’s garden, and praying over, and receiving comfort from, Stephen’s grave. I also took Dulcette out for increasingly longer rides, always escorted by a goodly number of soldiers, and often d’Avranches himself.

  D’Avranches, I think, came less to protect me than to pass the time of day with Isouda, who also rode out with me.

  I envied them their smiles.

  Eventually, some ten or twelve weeks after I had given birth to Geoffrey, Edmond returned to Pengraic Castle, and we had our first lengthy conversation since that day I’d told him of my husband’s true identity. We had seen each other many times before now, of course, but Edmond had never lingered nor talked more than asking how either myself or Geoffrey was doing.

  Now, fresh from his journey about the Marches and his impressive victory at Brecon Castle, Edmond had decided I was well enough to venture back to London.

  We sat in the solar, eyeing each other.

  ‘D’Avranches tells me another message arrived from Pengraic last night,’ Edmond said.

  ‘Aye. He commands me again to return to London.’ My husband had been sending messengers thick and fast since he learned of my arrival at Pengraic Castle and the birth of his son. At first Raife had tried asking me to return to London, always appealing to me to trust him, then when that accomplished nothing, he ordered me to return. Raife had also sent numerous messages to Edmond, giving full account of the state of London, and requesting that when Edmond returned, to bring me with him.

  I had sent little in reply, save that both I and Geoffrey were doing well and that his son thrived. I would return, I told the various messengers, if Edmond thought I should.

  ‘I also received word that the plague continues to die out in London,’ Edmond said. ‘It raged furious for a full five weeks, but now … there have been no new infections reported for the past ten days.’

  But in the meantime many thousands had died. On top of the ice tragedy and the fire, it would take generations for the city to recover.

  ‘And the plague has not spread from London?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ Edmond paused. ‘It did not follow your return route to Pengraic via Sancti Albans, Elesberie and Wodestoch.’

  ‘Well, if it did not follow me, then I do not have the diadem!’ Edmond gave an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. ‘Or you left it in London. The plague has not moved from there because it has no need. It has done the same thing as happened at Pengraic Castle when you were here previously. It stopped. Maybe because it had found the location of the diadem then, too.’

  ‘I —’

  ‘Let me finish. That, plus the fact that Pengraic seems increasingly desperate to have you back in London, seems to me to indicate that the diadem rests somewhere in London and that you have the key to its location. Thus, it is time that we returned, too. I want this done with, Maeb. My realm is being torn apart by disaster after disaster, and they always follow in your footsteps. Now we go back to London and we finish this.’

  ‘You are not afraid to face my husband?’

  Edmond looked at me oddly. ‘Afraid? No, why should I be? He is not after my realm, only the cursed diadem. I fear Archbishop du Bec more than Pengraic. And my dear, it is you who will need to face him, you who have the diadem, or the knowl
edge of its location.’

  I could not argue any more that I did not have the damned thing. I could see no reason why I should go back to London, and no reason to see Raife again. I should stay here, and raise my son, the future Earl of Pengraic.

  I want to stay here. But I could not say that. Edmond was as determined to get me back to London as my husband was to have me there.

  Once more I prepared to take to the road between London and Pengraic. We would travel in a well-guarded company, for Edmond did not trust some other lord to not take it into his head that by seizing me he might have access to the diadem. We would also travel fast. Although there were carts in which I could travel if I needed, I would ride Dulcette whenever possible.

  Edmond wanted London.

  I did not take Geoffrey with me. He was vulnerable, particularly considering toward what we travelled. He would stay with Sewenna, and Isouda also would stay at Pengraic to oversee his care.

  Isouda raised no objections — both her and d’Avranches’ families had opened marriage negotiations.

  Our journey was accomplished in the main with few troubles, save that of the towns we passed through that had endured not one but two successive waves of plague. Although we rode through these towns, and Edmond always stopped to confer with their men of rank to see what aid he could organise for them, we did not stay there. Instead Edmond led us from royal manor to royal manor so that we ate from his own purse, instead of from those towns and houses who were crippled by plague and needed their coin for their own purposes.

  Edmond and I spoke only occasionally, and then only on the briefest of matters. I could feel his suspicion in every look, every gesture. He, as with so many others, now appeared certain that I had the diadem and there was nothing I could say to disabuse him of that notion.

  I dreaded returning to London and to Raife.

  After two weeks’ travel we approached Oxeneford. It was still early in the morning, not yet midday, and I thought we would eat and then have an early night. I was glad, for I was tired and sore from the constant riding.

  But perhaps an hour’s ride from Oxeneford, Edmond waved on the majority of the column, including Gytha and Ella, and told me he and I were to ride to the Benedictine abbey of Godstou with only some fifteen soldiers and knights as company.