Sara Douglass
The Devil’s Diadem

Dedication

Karen Brooks, you beautiful, amazing, courageous woman,

this is for you, with all of my love and all of my thanks.

Epigraph

Speak not the word, for remember that the wind shall carry your word to all the corners of the earth, as also to the ears of God and of the Devil both.

Traditional folk saying

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Author’s Note

Map: Twelfth-Century England & Wales

Map: Pengraic Castle

Map: Twelfth-Century London

Map: The Conqueror’s Tower

Place Names

Maeb Langtofte That Was, her Testimony

Part One: Rosseley Manor

Chapter One

His footsteps tripped down the great stone staircase as if…

Chapter Two

I waited in that wretched little alcove for what felt…

Chapter Three

My days fell into an easy routine within the Pengraic…

Chapter Four

The next day began as had all my previous mornings…

Chapter Five

Naturally, fate and Lady Adelie conspired to make me break…

Chapter Six

I found Yvette and she went to Lady Adelie.

Chapter Seven

The next day passed in a blur of activity as…

Chapter Eight

We departed Rosseley shortly afterward. The king, Summersete and Scersberie…

Chapter Nine

We reached Oxeneford late in the afternoon. The king had…

Chapter Ten

The next day Evelyn woke me. She’d been up early…

Chapter Eleven

We left very early the next morning. I was glad,…

Chapter Twelve

If Lady Adelie had been too tired to pursue me,…

Part Two: The Death

Chapter One

Pengraic Castle was a marvel, but it also disconcerted me…

Chapter Two

I slept in the solar, for Mistress Yvette (who slept…

Chapter Three

There was no further chance for Stephen to return and…

Chapter Four

We went straight to Lady Adelie. I was thrilled to…

Chapter Five

Stephen asked me to go to the kitchen to order…

Chapter Six

Numbed by all that had happened, I nonetheless managed to…

Chapter Seven

Without Lady Adelie, Yvette, Evelyn and myself were purposeless. Having…

Chapter Eight

We lay together on the bed, side by side, our…

Chapter Nine

I found some water, enough to wash Stephen down, and…

Chapter Ten

This time was that of the Devil, I am certain.

Part Three: The Countess

Chapter One

I drank the hemlock, and was grateful and at peace.

Chapter Two

It took me years to understand why I did not…

Chapter Three

Evelyn came to help me back to bed, happily prattling…

Chapter Four

I lay awake for much of the night. I felt…

Chapter Five

The visit to the chapel to Stephen’s grave, and my…

Chapter Six

I sat up late into the night, stitching the earl’s…

Chapter Seven

Despite Prince Henry’s obvious desire for haste, we tarried in…

Chapter Eight

We married within ten days. I spent much of that…

Chapter Nine

Thus I became the Countess of Pengraic. A new circumstance…

Chapter Ten

The northern gates clanged shut behind us and I heard…

Part Four: The Conqueror’s Tower

Chapter One

I had hardly dared allow myself to think about the…

Chapter Two

I went to the chapel early in the morning on…

Chapter Three

I rose in the pre-dawn darkness, wrapping myself in a…

Chapter Four

I stood, smoothing the fine linen kirtle over my body,…

Chapter Five

‘Are you quite overcome yet?’ Lady Alianor said to me…

Chapter Six

I accompanied the king in to dinner, which was a…

Chapter Seven

We arrived home. I was exhausted and fraught. I could…

Chapter Eight

Raife took me back to court one more time before…

Chapter Nine

Raife arrived the next day in the late morning. There…

Part Five: Christmastide

Chapter One

Raife had hurried home for what Edmond liked to call…

Chapter Two

When we returned from the hunt we partook of a…

Chapter Three

‘How can you name my wife!’ Raife said immediately. ‘She…

Chapter Four

The hall was in an uproar. Many people were shouting.

Chapter Five

Raife hugged me to him so tightly he squeezed my…

Chapter Six

Winter was colder than it had been for many years.

Chapter Seven

The de Lacy’s manor hall sat atop a rise amid…

Chapter Eight

I stayed abed the next day, and only heard what…

Chapter Nine

When the morrow arrived, it was to discover that Edmond…

Chapter Ten

I tried to put the Templars and their accusations behind…

Part Six: The Bearscathe Mountains

Chapter One

I had been exceedingly unsettled by that chapel visit, and…

Chapter Two

I returned to our privy chamber, not answering Isouda when…

Chapter Three

We travelled in as small a company as possible. It…

Chapter Four

We started early the next day. It should be an…

Chapter Five

The weave scarring on Henry’s cheek looked black and deep…

Chapter Six

My mind simply would not accept that this was Edmond.

Chapter Seven

The next day we travelled to Pengraic Castle. It was…

Chapter Eight

Perhaps that day spent out of bed had wearied me,…

Part Seven: The Devil’s Diadem

Chapter One

We rode into London five days later. The last I…

Chapter Two

I sat up, slowly.

Chapter Three

I woke just after dawn the next morning. I lay…

Chapter Four

I was still out of sorts when I was summoned…

Chapter Five

Again, there was just Raife and Edmond waiting in the…

Chapter Six

‘Jesu!’ Edmond exclaimed, and I turned to look at the…

Chapter Seven

We went to the Tower and down the stairwell. I…

Part Eight: The Falloway Man

Chapter One

As I had known it would, terrible scandal erupted the…

Chapter Two

I was not queen, and not given the benefit of…

Chapter Three

Uda told me when I was heavily pregnant with Hugh…

Chapter Four

My world went to nothing when Edmond died. Some days…

Chapter Five

My lady, the countess that was, wishes me to relate…

Chapter Six

Thus, finally, I come to the end of my testimony.

The Testimony of Hugh De Mortaigne, Earl of Wessex, Known as Hugh The Wolf

Glossary

About the Author

Other Books by Sara Douglass

Copyright

About the Publisher

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Devil’s Diadem is set, not in the early twelfth-century England of our past, but in a fictional version of that world. While there are many similarities between our past and the twelfth-century world of The Devil’s Diadem, and many characters and points of historical reference remain the same, there are still characters and issues which render this England not quite the one you may have learned about in history books.

PLACE NAMES

Where possible in The Devil’s Diadem I use contemporary place names.

A list of the twelfth-century place names used in this book and their modern-day equivalents follows (an explanation of terms can be found in the Glossary).

Badentone: Bampton

Bearscathe Mountains: the Brecon Beacons in Wales

Bergeveny: Abergaveny

Blachburnscire: Blackburnshire

Bochinghamscire: Buckinghamshire

Bouland: Bowland

Brimesfelde: Brimpsfield

Cantuaberie: Canterbury

Chestre: Chester

Chinteneham: Cheltenham

Cicestre: Chichester

Cirecestre: Cirencester

Craumares: Crowmarsh Gifford

Crickhoel: Crickhowell

Depdene: Forest of Dean

Derheste: Deerhurst

Donecastre: Doncaster

Dovre: Dover

Elesberie: Aylesbury

Etherope: Hatherop

Eurvicscire: Yorkshire

Exsessa: Essex

Fenechirche: Fenchurch

Glowecestre: Gloucester

Glowecestrescire: Gloucestershire

Godric Castle: Goodrich Castle

Godstou: Godstow

Hamestede: Hampstead

Hanbledene: Hambleden

Herefordscire: Herefordshire

Holbournestrate: Holborn

Lincolescire: Lincolnshire

Lincolie: Lincoln

Meddastone: Maidstone

Monemude: Monmouth

Oxeneford: Oxford

Oxenefordscire: Oxfordshire

Pengraic Castle: this is a fictional castle, but it is situated atop Crug Hywel, or Table Mountain, at the foot of the Black Mountains in Wales.

Pomfret: Pontefract

Ragheian: Raglan

Redmeleie: Redmarley D’Abitot

Richemont: Richmond

(in Yorkshire)

Saint Edmund’s Burie: Bury Saint Edmund’s

Sancti Albani: Saint Albans

Scersberie: Shrewsbury

Sudfulc: Suffolk

Sudrie: Surrey

Summersete: Somerset

Walengefort: Wallingford

Walsingaham: the two conjoined villages of Little and Greater Walsingham in Norfolk.

Wincestre: Winchester

Witenie: Witney

Wodestrate: Wood Street

Wodestoch: Woodstock

MAEB LANGTOFTE THAT WAS, HER TESTIMONY

In the name of our Saviour, the heavenly Lord Jesu, and of His beloved mother, the blessed Virgin Mary, greetings. Pray hear this testimony from your humble servant, Maeb Langtofte that was, on the eve of her dying. May sweet Jesu and His Holy Mother forgive my sins, and let me pass in peace, and forgive me the manner of my passing.

My faithful servant and priest Owain of Crickhoel writes down these words and in some places will speak for me when I no longer have the breath. Brother Owain has taken my confession and offered me Godly advice these past thirty years. He has been a good and faithful friend to me and I pray that his reward in the next life will reflect this.

My life has been one of sin, but no sin has been greater than that of my young womanhood. Pray sweet Jesu forgive me, forgive me, forgive me. I did what I thought best and yet I am stained with mortal sin. Pray sweet Jesu do not apportion blame on Brother Owain for what he writes. His pen may wield the words, but it was I who wielded the sin.

Sweet Lord forgive me my lack of trust, and forgive me my lack of learning, for in both I have failed you in this life. I pray that in my next life I can redeem both sins and failures to you. I thank you from my heart for the gift of the Falloway Man, for without him I could have no hope of redemption. Your grace and love of this sinner, this womanly fool, is unending.

But I waste time, Owain, for I do not think I have long left in this mortal life. So we shall begin, and it is fitting I begin with that day I met he without sin, the one, shining, uncomplicated love of my life, Lord Stephen of Pengraic.

PART ONE

ROSSELEY MANOR

CHAPTER ONE

His footsteps tripped down the great stone staircase as if from heaven — their passage rich with joy and authority. Their lightness and pattern told me he was tall, athletic and undoubtedly young; happy, for those footsteps surely danced in their delight of life; confident, and therefore a member of the great nobility who lived in this manor house, for no one else would have dared to so skip through the majesty of the central vestibule.

He would be one of the older sons, a prince in bearing if not quite in rank.

There was a flash of gold and silver as he passed the doorway of the little shadowy alcove in which I sat, waiting. He was tall and golden-haired, bedecked with jewels and vibrant fabrics and with a glint of steel at his hip.

I was dazzled, even by this brief glimpse of a member of the Pengraic family.

Then, unbelievably, he was back at the doorway, and stepping into my alcove.

I rose hastily from the rickety stool on which I had waited and dipped in brief courtesy. I kept my eyes down, and surreptitiously pressed my hands into my skirts so that they may not betray my nervousness.

I prayed my French was gentle enough to sound sweet to his ears. I had spent too much of my childhood practising my English with the village children, and not enough perfecting my courtly French with those of more seemly rank.

‘What have I found hiding in the doorkeeper’s alcove?’ he said, and the warmth in his voice made me dare to raise my eyes.

He was of my age, perhaps nineteen or twenty years, and therefore must be the oldest son, Lord Stephen. His hair was light wheaten gold, his fine beard similar, his eyes a deep cornflower blue. His clothes were of a richness I had never seen before, his tunic all heavy with gold and silver embroidery that his noble mother must have stitched for him.

‘Rumour has it that doorkeeper Alaric has only rats in here for company, not beautiful young maidens.’

‘My lord, I am Mistress Maeb —’

‘Mistress Maeb Langtofte!’ he said, and I was amazed that he should know of my name. ‘My mother told me she expected a new woman to attend her. But what do you here? In this dark hole? Has no one announced you yet?’

‘The man at the door —’

‘Alaric.’

‘Yes, my lord. Alaric. He asked me to wait here while he sent word to your lady mother.’

‘Alaric has always been the fool … or maybe not, for if I had found you suddenly at my door I, too, might have secreted you away in my bedchamber.’

I glanced at the tiny cramped bed nestled into a hollow in the thick stone wall — the alcove had not the floor space for both bed and stool — then met Stephen’s eyes.

And then, the Virgin help me, I flushed deeply at the import of his words.

‘I only jest, Maeb,’ he said gently, and at the care in his voice, combined with my overall awe at his presence and kindness, I felt my heart turn over completely. ‘My mother has been resting this afternoon and thus you have been kept waiting, for foolish Alaric must not have wanted to disturb her. Had he told any of us you were here, we would have seen to it you were welcomed far more warmly, and far sooner. Alaric is a fool, indeed.’

Lord Stephen paused to study me, and the gentleness in his eyes and face increased even more, if that were possible.

‘You cannot wait here,’ he said. ‘I shall escort you to my mother myself —’

‘Stephen,’ said a voice, and we both jumped.

‘My lord,’ Stephen said, and half bowed as he turned.

A man stood in the alcove doorway — he could not have entered unless he had wanted to completely fill the tiny space of this alcove with the crush of our bodies — an aged and wearied form of the youthful vitality which stood before me.

It could only be Lord Stephen’s father, Raife de Mortaigne, the Earl of Pengraic.

Unlike his son’s, Lord Pengraic’s tone was hard and devoid of compassion, and my eyes once more dropped to the floor while my hands clutched within the poor woollen skirts of my kirtle.

‘You have no time to waste in idle chatter,’ Lord Pengraic said to his son. ‘The bargemen await and we must be away. Have you said your farewells to your lady mother?’

‘I have, my lord,’ Stephen said.

‘Then to the barge,’ the earl said.

Stephen inclined his head, managing to shoot me an unreadable look as he did so, then stepped past his father and disappeared from my sight.

The air felt chill and the world an emptier place without him close. I was amazed that so few moments in his company could have made so profound an impression on me.

To my consternation the earl did not turn immediately and follow his son.

‘Who are you?’ he said.

I dipped again in courtesy, and repeated my name.

‘Langtofte …’ the earl said. ‘Your father was one of the sons of Lord Warren of Langtofte, yes?’

‘Yes, my lord. Sir Godfrey Langtofte.’ A son left poor, with little land, who left me yet poorer in worldly goods and hope when he gave what he had to the Templars at his death five months ago. My mother, might the Virgin Mary watch over her always, had long been in her grave. My father had left me with the name of minor nobility, but nothing else of any worth, not even brothers and sisters to comfort me.

‘And so now you are here,’ the earl said, ‘waiting upon my wife, which doubtless you think a prettier life than one spent at your devotions in a nunnery, which must have been the only other choice available to you.’

His tone hurt. I kept my eyes downcast, lest he see the humiliation within them.

‘Mind your ambitions do not grow too high, Mistress Langtofte. Do not think to cast the net of your aspirations over my son —’

‘My lord!’ I said, now stung to look at him too directly. ‘I did not —’

‘He would think you nothing but a dalliance and would ruin your name yet further, and you would grace whatever nunnery I banish you to with a bawling infant of no name whatever, for do not expect me to allow it the de Mortaigne —’

‘My lord! I —’

‘Think not to speak over me!’ he said, and I took a step backward, pushing over the stool, so wary was I of the contempt in his face.

Pengraic was one of the greatest nobles in England, not only the most powerful of the Marcher Lords, but also close confidant of the king. He could destroy my life with a word.

‘Be careful of your place here, Mistress Langtofte,’ he said, now very soft, ‘for it rests only on my sufferance.’

With that he turned on his heel and was gone, and a moment later I heard shouting as the earl’s party moved down to the great barge I had seen waiting earlier at the pier on the Thames.

I stood there, staring at the empty space which still seemed to me to throb with his anger and contempt. My heart thudded in my chest, and I bit my lip to keep myself from tears.

The earl’s unfairness knifed deep, particularly since it contrasted so brutally with the warmth of his son. I eased myself with the notion that Lord Stephen must have received his gentleness and kindness from his lady mother, and that she would keep me under a similarly gentle and most noble wing, and shield me from the unjustified anger of her lord.

Thus began my life in the Pengraic household.

CHAPTER TWO

I waited in that wretched little alcove for what felt like hours. I felt its cold and dampness seep into my joints, and I wondered how the man Alaric managed to sleep in here at nights.

I hoped the Lady Adelie believed in braziers, or maybe even a fire, in the family’s privy chambers.

It was a nerve-wracking wait. Pengraic had struck to the heart when he’d said I had but two choices — enter a nunnery or take the only other offer open to me: serve Lady Adelie, Countess of Pengraic, who was a close cousin of my father’s mother. I loved my Lord God and all his saints, but I did not think I would manage well with the isolation and rigidity of a nunnery. Besides, I wanted a home and family of my own one day. After the death of my father I had little choice left in my life. I had stayed some months with a distant cousin, but she and I did not settle well together and she resented the cost to her household of the small degree of food I ate at table. It was a relief to leave her house. I felt keenly the loss of my home on the death of my father; I was well aware that alone, and with no dowry, I was but a hair’s breadth away from destitution despite my noble heritage.

How unhappy then, that in this single household prepared to offer me shelter the resident lord appeared determined to despise me.

I sat there and tried to fight back the despondency. I wondered why it took so long for the lady of the house to send for me. Was this a test? Had she forgot me? Should I say something to Alaric who occasionally slid by the door, glancing in as if he, too, wanted me gone?

Finally, as an early evening gloom settled over the house, I heard more footsteps on the staircase, and a moment later a woman appeared at the door.

‘Mistress Maeb?’

I stood up, a little too hastily.

‘Yes.’

The woman stepped closer, holding out her hands to take one of mine. She was older than me, perhaps by ten or twelve years, and even though her face and eyes were weary she offered me a smile and her hands’ clasp was warm.

‘I am Evelyn Kendal.’

‘Mistress Kendal,’ I said, and dipped in courtesy.

She patted the back of my hand. ‘No need for such formality with me, Maeb, though you should always show Lady Adelie respect. We have kept you waiting long. I am sorry for that. My lady has been feeling unwell and she asked us to sit with her while she slept. But now she is awake and feeling more cheerful, and has remembered you. Is this your bag? So little for all your belongings! Follow me and I shall bring you to my lady.’

I picked up my bag — truly only a heavy cloth wrapped about my few remaining possessions — and thankfully departed Alaric’s alcove. A few steps beyond it I heard him scurry inside, a shadowy spider glad to have his home released to him once again.

This was my first good look at the interior of Rosseley manor house. I had been awestruck when I rode up, for the entire house was of stone, a great rarity for its expense and thus only an option for the greatest lords. Inside it was spacious and well appointed — the hangings on the walls were thick and colourful and there were large wooden chests pushed against walls. As we passed the doors that led into the great hall of the house I saw a glimpse of the colourful pennants and banners hanging from the walls and ceiling, and I was much impressed.

But what should I have expected? The Earl of Pengraic was one of the Marcher Lords, almost completely independent of the king, wealthy beyond most of the Norman nobility, and a great man for the influence of his family and of the extent of his lands, lordships and offices.

‘This house came to the earl as part of Lady Adelie’s dowry,’ Evelyn said as we began to climb the staircase. ‘We use it during the winter months when the Marches become too damp and cold for my lady to bear. We sometimes spend spring and summer here, also, for the earl often needs to attend court and it is but a day or two’s barge ride along the Thames to the king’s court at Westminster.’

‘Is that where the earl and his son have gone now?’ I asked. I had spent a moment envying Lady Adelie for the wealth of her dowry, and then the envy evaporated as I thought on the marriage it had bought her.

Evelyn nodded. ‘King Edmond has asked the earl’s attendance upon some difficult matter, I believe. Have you travelled far, Maeb?’

‘A long way,’ I said. ‘All the way from Witenie.’

Evelyn stopped on the stairs and laughed in merriment. ‘A long way? Oh, my dear! The distance from here to Witenie is but a trifle compared to that which we will cover when eventually we go home to Pengraic Castle in the Marches. That is a long journey!’

I flushed, feeling myself a country bumpkin. I had thought the four-day ride along the roads from Witenie — just west of Oxeneford — to Rosseley Manor on the Thames south of Hanbledene, a grand adventure in my life, but when I compared it to the vast distance this household needed to travel from the Welsh Marches to this lovely spot in Bochinghamscire … I felt the fool.

Evelyn smiled kindly at me. ‘It is always an entry to a vaster world, Maeb, when you first join a family such as this. I forget sometimes what it was like for me, eleven years ago.’

I nodded, feeling a little better for Evelyn’s compassion, and we resumed our climb up the staircase.

The upper level of the house comprised the family’s private quarters. There were a number of smaller chambers, and one large, the solar, and it was to the solar that Evelyn led me.

My first question about the family was answered when Evelyn opened the door, and I felt the warmth of the chamber.

Lady Adelie did like a fire, then, or braziers. At least I should be warm.

We paused just inside the door and I looked about hastily, trying to spot my lady. The chamber was well lit from a window to the east and, indeed, warmed by several charcoal braziers. There was a richly curtained bed at the far end of the chamber, several stools and benches positioned about, a cot or two, and what seemed to me to be a horde of children standing in a group looking at me curiously.

To one side in a beautifully carved chair, alongside the largest of the braziers, sat a woman who, by the richness of her clothes, must be the Lady Adelie, Countess of Pengraic.

I dipped hastily and dropped my eyes.

‘Mistress Maeb,’ she said, her voice thin with exhaustion, ‘come closer that I might speak with you more easily.’

I walked over and took the stool that Lady Adelie patted.

Her hand was bony and pale, and when I finally raised my eyes to her face I saw that it was thin and lined, her eyes shadowed with fatigue.

‘I am sorry I kept you so long waiting. The day …’ She made a futile gesture with her hand. ‘Well, it has escaped me. I should not have so delayed you, for you are family, and welcome here.’

She managed to put some warmth into that last and I smiled in relief.

‘Thank you, my lady,’ I said. ‘You have honoured me by asking for me to be here. I am immensely grateful, and shall do my best to serve you in whatever manner you ask.’

‘It will be a thankless task,’ Lady Adelie said. ‘I shall try, myself, to be of little labour to you, but, oh, the children.’

The children … The words echoed about the chamber, and I glanced at the six children who had lost interest in me and now talked or played among themselves. They all had Stephen’s look — fair-haired and blue-eyed — and ranged in age from a crawling infant to perhaps thirteen or fourteen for the eldest girl.

Lady Adelie must have seen my look, for she managed a small smile. ‘And this is not all, for there is my eldest son, Stephen.’ She sighed, and placed a hand over her belly. ‘And yet another to come later in the summer.’

‘My lady has been blessed,’ said a woman standing behind Lady Adelie’s chair, ‘that she has lost only two of her children to illness or accident.’

‘Blessed indeed,’ Lady Adelie said. Then she nodded at the woman behind her. ‘This is Mistress Yvette Bailleul. She, Mistress Evelyn and yourself shall bear the burden of my care and that of my younger children still playing about my skirts. But you look cold and tired … have you drunk or eaten? No? Then we must remedy that. Evelyn, perhaps you can take Maeb further into your care and make sure she is fed, then show her to the cot you will share? We will all sup together later, but for now …’

Lady Adelie’s voice drifted off, and I saw discomfort and weariness in her face. No wonder, I thought, having spent her marriage bearing so many and such healthy children to the earl. I hoped he was grateful for his wife, then felt a little resentful on my lady’s behalf that he should burden her with yet another pregnancy at an age when most women were thinking to leave the perils of childbirth long behind them.

I rose, curtsied once more, told the countess again how grateful I was for her offer to call me to her service, then Evelyn led me away.

CHAPTER THREE

My days fell into an easy routine within the Pengraic household. Evelyn — for so she asked me to address her — and I shared a small chamber just off the solar. It was large enough to hold our small bed, a chest for our belongings, and one stool. The room’s comfort contented me, especially since I shared it with Evelyn, who I quickly grew to like and respect.

At night we would share the bed, talking into the darkness. I appreciated the chance of such chatter, not only for the friend it brought me, but because I could practise my French with Evelyn. I mentioned this to her one night, thanking her, and she laughed merrily.

‘Maeb! Your French is as courtly as any, and with a lovely lilt. Do not fret about it. Your speech does not betray that you spent more time among the village English than among more gracious ranks.’

I relaxed with relief. I had worried that Lady Adelie found it disjointed, or jarring, and had been visited by nightmares of Lord Stephen and the earl laughing about it on the barge journey to Westminster. My father, due to circumstance and his own lack of effort, had been a lowly ranked nobleman and our estate at Witenie had been poor. I’d spent most of my childhood running about with the village English, particularly after my mother died when I was young and when subsequently my father spent years away on pilgrimage in the Holy Lands.

Each day we rose before dawn to join Lady Adelie at private prayers before a small altar in the solar, the family’s private living chamber. The ground floor hall was unused when the earl was not in residence, so our days were spent either in the upper level solar or with the children in the gardens and meadows outside.

After prayers, as dawn broke, we would break our fast with a small meal. Lady Adelie and Mistress Yvette, who I quickly learned was my lady’s most treasured confidante, then spent the morning and early afternoon at their stitching and embroidery — if my lady felt well — or dozing together on my lady’s large bed if she felt fatigued or unwell (which was often). We ate our main meal in the early afternoon, then gathered about the altar again for prayers, and enjoyed the late afternoon spring weather before supping at dusk. After supper, some time was spent listening to a minstrel if the countess was in the mood, more prayers, then bed.

I was surprised at the tranquillity of life within the Pengraic household. The earl was one of the great nobles of England, almost a king in his own right within the Welsh Marches, but Evelyn said that when he was away the countess preferred to keep a quieter routine. All the hustle and bustle of an important noble establishment had departed with the earl and Lord Stephen.

When they returned, Evelyn assured me with a smile, life would quicken.

In the meantime Evelyn and I performed only light duties for Lady Adelie. We brushed out her kirtles and cleaned the non-existent mud from her shoes. We helped Mistress Yvette plait the countess’ long fair hair, and twist it with ribbons and false hair and weights and tassels so that her twin braids hung almost to the floor. We mended her hose, pressed her veils and emptied her chamber pot into the communal privy, but she required little else of us apart from our presence at her daily prayers, for my lady was a devout woman, and wished it of us, also.

Thus our days were spent mostly with the children, who quickly became my joy, as they were Evelyn’s.

The oldest of them, a fourteen-year-old girl named Alice, was truly not a child at all. She lingered in her parents’ house only until a marriage could be contracted for her. Alice was a quiet girl, very grave, but courteous and kind, and helped Evelyn and myself with the care of her younger siblings.

After Alice there was a gap of some three years to her sister Emmette. She, too, was a reserved child, but with a readier smile than Alice. After Emmette came what I thought of as a miracle — twin boys! I had never seen twin children before, nor heard of any who had survived their first year, so they were remarkable to me for that reason alone. Ancel and Robert, eight years old, were also astonishing in that they looked so similar I could not ever tell them apart, which they believed gave them free licence to play trick after trick on me, often before their mother, who regarded them with much loving tolerance. The boys spent the majority of their day with the men of the household — the steward, the guards, the grooms — and disdained learning their letters alongside their sisters. But they were boys, destined for nobleness, and truly did not need the alphabet skills of the clerk. Despite their tricks I adored them, for they always brought a smile to my face. Evelyn told me they were to join another noble household during the summer, as the sons of noblemen were wont to do. I was glad to have at least a little time to spend with them, though, for they never ceased to be a marvel to me.

After the boys there was a gap of four years to the child who quickly became the true joy of my life — Rosamund. She was shy with me at first, but gradually became more confident, blossoming into the most loving child I could imagine. She had her brother Stephen’s warmth and charm, coupled with golden hair, the loveliest eyes and the sweetest laugh I ever heard from another person’s mouth. I thought her heaven on earth and cuddled her every moment I could, and encouraged her to share Evelyn’s and my cot, which imposition Evelyn allowed with much goodwill, for a wriggling child did not always induce a good night’s sleep.

Finally came baby John. He was well past his first birthday, and was only just learning to walk. He was chubby and cheerful and rarely cried, and was the only one of the boys that I had much to do with.

Evelyn told me that the earl and the countess had lost two other children, born after Stephen and before Alice. Geoffrey, a son, born a year later than Stephen had died after falling from his horse as a youth, while a daughter, Joanna, had perished only recently in childbed after her marriage to a lord in Yorkshire.

I quickly grew to love all the Pengraic children who still lived. They were courteous, merry, mischievous, all in turn, and I could not believe that any of them had sprung from the loins of one so dour as the earl.

For many days Lady Adelie remained a distant figure to me. She was not well with this child, Evelyn told me, and so rested for many hours of each day, keeping only Mistress Yvette close by her side. On my tenth day in the household, however, Lady Adelie said she felt well enough to sit in the garden, and perhaps have a minstrel amuse her, and so Yvette, Evelyn and myself busied ourselves with her wraps and embroideries and her favoured book of devotion, and carried them out to a group of chairs and benches one of the servants had set up under a flowering apple tree.

Evelyn and I helped settle the countess in a chair, then prepared to withdraw, assuming Lady Adelie would prefer to sit only with Mistress Yvette as usual.

But the countess surprised me by indicating I should sit with her, and sending Evelyn and Mistress Yvette back to the house for some embroidery wools she needed.

I sat on the end of a bench close to the countess’ chair, shifting my heavy braids to one side so that they were not in my way, and took up the stitching of a linen shift for Rosamund. I was a little nervous, for I could see the countess’ eyes drifting occasionally to my needle, and from there I developed a certainty that Lady Adelie was about to dismiss me from her service for some transgression.

‘You are a good needlewoman,’ Lady Adelie said eventually, startling me so greatly my fingers fumbled and I dropped my needle, retrieving it hastily from my skirts.

‘Who taught you such skill?’ she continued. ‘Your mother?’

‘Yes, my lady. Her embroidery was exquisite. I have never seen the like.’ Instantly I regretted the words. What if the countess took offence?

But she only smiled gently, giving a little nod. ‘So I have heard. ’Tis a pity she died when you were still so young. But that is the way of life, and of God’s will.’

‘Aye, my lady.’

We stitched in silence for a little while. I relaxed, thinking myself silly to be so concerned about dismissal.

‘Ah,’ the countess said, setting her stitching to one side and putting a hand in the small of her back as she stretched. ‘My eyes fail me, Maeb. I thought I might see the better in this bright light, but … no. They still strain over this work. Will you fetch my book of prayers, Maeb? It is set there, by that basket.’

I bent over, picking up the leatherbound book, taking a moment to marvel at the bright gilding on the edges of its pages before holding it out for the countess that she might take it.

‘No, no,’ Lady Adelie said. ‘You read to me — you can see the passage I have marked with the silken twist. I do not wish to strain my eyes further with the impossibly small letters of its monkish scribe.’

I froze in horror, the book still extended in my hand.

Lady Adelie looked at the book, then at my face.

‘Ah,’ she said in a gentle voice, finally taking the book from me. She set it in her lap, unopened. ‘You have not learned your letters.’

‘No, my lady.’ I dropped my eyes, ashamed. It was not unusual for one of my rank within the lower nobility to not know her letters, but sitting before the countess now I felt like an oaf.

‘You mother did not teach you?’ Lady Adelie said.

I shook my head, hating what I had to say, thinking I sullied my mother’s memory after having so recently praised her. ‘She did not know herself, my lady.’

‘It is a shame,’ Lady Adelie said, ‘that the comfort of sweet Jesu’s words and deeds and those of our beloved saints were denied her in the privacy of her chamber. I could not bear it, if I would always need to wait for the presence of a priest to comfort me.’

I was feeling worse by the moment, and I kept my eyes downcast.

‘And I suppose that wastrel, your father, had no learning.’

I shook my head once more, blinking to keep the tears at bay. I knew that the countess had her children tutored in letters and figures, and I was mortified that even the eight-year-old boys, Ancel and Robert, had greater learning than me.

‘Do not weep, my dear,’ Lady Adelie said, leaning the short distance between us to pat me gently on the hand.

She paused, thinking. ‘We shall have you tutored in letters,’ she said, then paused again. ‘But not with the children, for that should not be seemly. I shall teach you, my dear, when I have birthed this child, and am strong again. I have a duty of care to you and I shall not fail.’

‘Thank you, my lady.’ She did me a great honour by offering to teach me herself, for surely her time could be spent on other duties. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and returned her smile.

‘And then we shall find you a gentle husband,’ Lady Adelie said, ‘for your father was remiss in not seeking such for you himself. Did he forget your very existence?’

‘He did try, my lady.’ Not very hard, I thought. ‘But I have little dowry and —’

I stopped, horrified that the countess might think I hoped she would augment that meagre dowry with her own riches. Suddenly I could see the earl standing before me again, his face and tone contemptuous, warning me against harbouring ambitions above my station.

‘You are a member of the Pengraic household,’ the countess said, her tone firm. ‘That alone carries a weight of more import than any wealth of coin or land. An alliance into the Pengraic house is no small matter —’

I wondered what the earl might have to say about this. I doubted he would ever think I wielded any measure of influence within his house.

‘— and I am sure that some gentle lord shall seek your hand eagerly. You have a lovely face. Such depth in your green eyes — and that black, black hair! As for your figure — that alone is enough to tempt any man into thoughts of bedding. You shall not remain unwedded long.’

I flushed at her words, but was immeasurably grateful to the countess for her support. Where her husband had been contemptuous, his lady wife extended the hand of graciousness and care. I was privileged indeed, and more fortunate than I could have hoped to have been offered this place at Lady Adelie’s side.

‘You are old not to be wived,’ Lady Adelie said. ‘How old are you? Eighteen? Nineteen?’

‘Nineteen, my lady.’

‘Ah! At nineteen I already had three children born.’ Lady Adelie sighed, one hand resting on her belly. ‘Stephen I bore when I was but fifteen — the earl only a year older. Such young parents. Ah, Maeb, the lot of a wife is a hard one, but you must bear it. The travails of childbirth litter our lives with danger, and we must keep our faith in the Lord, that we may survive them.’

‘You have so many beautiful children, my lady. They must bring you great comfort.’

‘The earl is a demanding husband,’ the countess said, her face twisting in a small grimace. ‘Although I fear the dangers of childbed I am grateful each time I find myself breeding, that my husband can no longer make such demands of me.’

I kept my eyes downcast, setting my fingers back to stitching, thinking of the whispered fragments of conversations I had heard over the years from women gossiping about their husbands and lovers (and of what I had seen as a curious child in the village of Witenie). Most of these women had spoken in bawdy tones and words, and I thought the countess must truly be a devout and gracious woman, of exquisite breeding and manners, to find distasteful what other women found delightful.

‘The earl is so demanding …’ the countess said again, her voice drifting off, and the look on her face made me think she feared him.

I did not blame her. I feared him, too, and I could not imagine what her life must be like, needing to watch her every word in the company of a man with so uncertain a temper.

‘Evelyn has spoken little of Pengraic Castle,’ I said, mostly to distract the countess from whatever thoughts troubled her. ‘What is it like?’

The countess stilled, and I was instantly sorry for my question.

‘It is a dark place,’ she said, ‘but I must bear it, as must you.’

I opened my mouth, thinking to apologise for my error in asking such a question, but the countess continued.

‘It is a dismal place, Maeb. Ungodly, and wrapped all about with the mists and sleet of the dark Welsh mountains. The people … the people of that land care more for their sprites and fairies and tales of the ancient ones than they do for the saints and our sweet, dear Lord Jesu. I swear even the stones of Pengraic Castle are steeped in the ungodliness of those Welsh hills.’

‘I am sorry, my lady,’ I said. Sorry to have caused her greater distress, sorry that I should need to endure both the Welsh Marches and this castle myself, some day.

‘Sorrow’s claws have firm grasp on Pengraic Castle, Maeb. But what do we here, speaking of such when the sun burns bright and the apple blossoms? Come, here are Evelyn and Yvette returned, and a servant with cooling cordials, and we shall drink and gossip as women do, and be merry.’

And so we did, our words and smiles chasing away the shadows cast by the final minutes of the conversation between the countess and myself. The sun burned, and it was a good day. Peaceful and gentle, with the scents of spring all about us.

It did not last. The morrow brought with it terrible tidings that meant my days at Rosseley Manor were done.

I would never see it again, in all my days. That was my enduring loss, for Rosseley was a lovely, peaceful place. Even though I spent so little time there, it holds a special place in my heart. Every May Day, when we celebrate the return of life to the land, I think of Rosseley’s sweet meadows and orchards, and light a candle in remembrance of a gentle life that almost was.

CHAPTER FOUR

The next day began as had all my previous mornings at Rosseley. Evelyn and I rose early, washed and dressed, then attended Lady Adelie. We made the countess’ bed while Mistress Yvette helped the countess with her chemise and kirtle, then we knelt at prayers before breaking our fast with small beer and fruit and cheese with some fresh-baked bread. Evelyn and I then rose, meaning to help the nurse dress the younger children, when Ancel and Robert burst into the chamber.

‘Mama! Mama!’ they cried.

‘Sweet Jesu, children, cease your shrieking!’ the countess said. She was out of sorts after a restless night, and Evelyn and I exchanged a glance before turning to the two boys, now at one of the windows, meaning to usher them from the chamber.

‘Mama!’ one of the twins said. ‘Our lord father is home. Look! Look!’

‘And at the head of a great cavalcade!’ the other added.

I started for the window, but Evelyn grabbed my elbow, pulling me back with a warning look. Then she tipped her head very slightly toward the countess, who had risen and walked sedately toward the window herself.

Of course. I gave a small nod, and berated myself for my stupidity.

It was not my place to be first at the window, but that of the countess.

Lady Adelie stood at the window and peered. Then she took a step back, clearly shocked. ‘Mother of heaven!’ she said.

‘My lady?’ Yvette said, going to stand with her.

‘Fetch the house steward immediately!’ Lady Adelie said to her, then beckoned Evelyn over. ‘Ah! Why did I pick such a dull kirtle today? Well, there is no time to change. Evelyn, fetch me a freshly laundered veil and ensure you pick the brightest one. Maeb, make sure the children are dressed and neat, and keep them in their chambers for the time being, even Alice. Ancel, Robert, you can come with me and aid me down the staircase.’

With that she was gone, a twin on either side of her, Evelyn hastening after with a fresh veil for my lady’s head.

I looked toward the window, desperately curious, hesitated, then, remembering my lady’s tone, hurried to see the children were dressed and awaiting in their chamber.

At least the children’s chamber had a window that overlooked the courtyard. Almost as soon as I and the nurse had the children dressed and neat, Alice and Emmette helping, I looked outside.

The courtyard was a flurry of activity. I could see Lady Adelie, Yvette now at her side along with the twins, and the steward, William. Lady Adelie and William were in deep conversation and, as I watched, the steward nodded, then strode away organising some men-at-arms into a presentable line and shouting at two grooms to tidy away some barrels and a laden cart.

Lady Adelie now had her fresh veil, and Mistress Yvette spent a moment fixing it securely to her hair.

Evelyn was nowhere to be seen.

‘What is going on?’ I said, as I turned to look at the nurse and Alice, who now stood by me. ‘Is it always thus when the earl returns?’

Both shook their heads.

‘There is always some ceremony,’ Alice said. ‘My mother likes to greet him in the courtyard together with the steward — but not this fuss. Maybe she is merely surprised by the suddenness of his return. I don’t know.’

‘It is far more than the suddenness of the earl’s return,’ said Evelyn, who had just stepped into the chamber.

She joined us at the window, the four of us standing close so we might all have a view.

‘Then what —’ I began, stopping at the sound of clattering hooves.

Suddenly the courtyard was filled with horses and their riders and a score of hounds. There were men everywhere, horses jostling and snorting, and the newly arrived hounds barking and snapping at the resident dogs. Whatever order Lady Adelie and the steward had managed to arrange was instantly undone by the press of bodies and the raising of voices.

‘The horses are lathered and stumbling,’ the nurse remarked. ‘They have been ridden hard and fast.’

‘All the way from the king’s court,’ Evelyn murmured.

I glanced at her, a dozen questions on my lips, but then Alice nudged me. ‘Look,’ she said.

Somehow a small circle of calm had emerged in the heart of the chaos. I saw the earl dismounting from his horse, and stepping forth to the countess. They took each other’s hands in a light grip, perfunctorily kissed, then the earl and the countess turned to another man, recently dismounted.

He was in dull garb, unlike the earl who shone in azures and vermilions, and I could not understand why the earl and the countess turned to him. Why did Lady Adelie not greet her son, Stephen, now also dismounted and standing close to his parents?

‘Who —’ I began yet once more, stopping in amazement as I saw Lady Adelie sink in deep courtesy before this other man, the earl having to take her elbow to support her as she almost slipped on the cobbles.

Behind her, the twin boys bowed deep in courtly fashion.

‘The king,’ Evelyn said. ‘Edmond.’

The chaos of the courtyard rapidly spread throughout the entire house. Hounds ran up and down the great staircase, snapping and growling as servants and men-at-arms hurried this way and that. As I stood just inside the door of the children’s chamber, watching, I saw William the steward hastening to and fro, barking orders, having bedding rearranged and taken from this chamber to that to accommodate the influx of a score or more men, while stools and benches, trestles and boards, were hurried into the great hall below me.

The earl was home and with a king to entertain.

‘What should we do?’ I said to Evelyn.

‘Remain here,’ she said. ‘Lady Adelie will send when she requires us, and I think we’d do best at keeping the children out from under this hubbub. Poor Rosamund and John would be crushed if they ventured beyond the confines of this chamber!’

At that very moment, John, who had recently learned to toddle, managed to slip between both of our legs and totter toward the dangerous mayhem on the staircase.

‘John!’ Evelyn and I cried at the same time, bending down to reach for him.

He tried to evade us, gurgling with laughter, and only after a small scramble did we manage to retrieve him and stand upright again, John now safely in my arms.

I felt Evelyn go rigid, and I looked up.

The earl and the king were standing not half a dozen feet away, on the last rise of the staircase before they would step onto the wooden planks of the flooring.

Both were looking right at us.

I managed to register that the earl was furious, and that the king had an expression of some amusement on his face, before I dropped my eyes and sank down into the deepest courtesy I could manage.

My heart was pounding, and I couldn’t think. I was terrified, not merely of the earl, but of the fact that not a few feet away stood the King of England.

Naturally, in such a state I compounded both my terror and my utter mortification by slipping just as I reached the lowest depths of my courtesy and thumping onto my bottom with an ungracious thud.

I was trying hard not to let John drop (could I manage to deepen my mortification? Yes, I could, if I sent John rolling away toward the king’s feet), and from my bottom I slid onto a shoulder with a hard thump, making me cry out in pain.

Out of the corner of one eye I saw Evelyn bending down to snatch John from my hands and, as she raised him up, another hand appeared before my face.

‘Take it,’ a quiet voice said, and I did, and allowed the king to help me to my feet.

I couldn’t look at him. I hung my head in misery, appalled that I could have so embarrassed the earl before the king.

And humiliate myself before the both of them.

Sweet Jesu, perhaps even little John would remember this all the days of his life, and chortle over my misery to his children.

‘It is no indignity to save a child from harm,’ the king said, and I finally raised my eyes to his face. I did not think it remarkable and was surprised that a king could look so like an ordinary man. He was olive-skinned, with dark wiry hair cropped close to his skull over a strong face. His eyes were brown, and surprisingly warm, and his sensual mouth curved in a soft smile. I supposed he was of an age with the earl, and from my youthful perspective, that seemed very old indeed.

‘Your name?’ he said.

‘Mistress Maeb Langtofte,’ the earl said in a flat voice, coming to stand at the king’s shoulder. ‘Recently joined my house to serve Adelie.’

‘Then allow me to apologise for having upset your day, Mistress Maeb,’ Edmond said. ‘It has been most discourteous of me.’

I thought he must be laughing at me, but there was no malice in his eyes, only that shining, compelling warmth.

I could not speak, still too awed and humiliated. I realised Edmond continued to hold my hand and I tried to pull it away.

He held on to it a moment too long. It would not have been noticeable to anyone else, but both he and I knew it. Something in his eyes changed, just briefly, and then Edmond gave a small nod and he and the earl turned away and walked into the solar.

Evelyn, John still in her arms, and I stepped back into the chamber. Evelyn closed the door and I burst into tears.

I think my tears humiliated me almost as much as my foolishness before the king and earl. I hated to weep and show weakness, but at that moment everything was too overwhelming for me to do anything else.

I would not ever be able to show my face again within the household. The earl would despise me, and Lady Adelie too, and it was her contempt that I feared the most. Maybe life in a nunnery might not be so bad after all … surely I would be better suited to it than a noble household. I could not ever show my face again. I …

Evelyn, having handed John to the nurse, wrapped her arms about me and hugged me close.

‘Come, come,’ she teased, ‘did you really need to throw yourself at the king’s feet in such a fashion?’

I began to laugh, even as I was crying, and after a few moments Evelyn dried my tears, and I straightened my back and determined that I would stay out of sight of the king lest my treacherous legs threaten to wobble me to the floor again.

CHAPTER FIVE

Naturally, fate and Lady Adelie conspired to make me break my promise within the hour.

Mistress Yvette arrived in the chamber, all bustle and busyness, and said that the countess wished Evelyn and myself to bring the children to greet their father and the king. I sent one frantic look to Evelyn, but she was no help, having turned away to speak with Alice and Emmette, so I swallowed my nerves, settled John on one hip — Sweet Jesu let me not drop him — and took Rosamund by the hand.

She was a sweet girl and gave me a happy smile, and I reminded myself that all I needed to do was escort the children into the solar, perhaps hand John to his mother, then step back and wait silently in the shadows.

Ancel and Robert were back with us by this stage, and Evelyn took them in hand, straightening their tunics and hair, and positioning them on either side of her, one hand on each boy’s shoulder as if that might actually restrain them.

So, with Mistress Yvette leading the way, we progressed toward the solar.

Two men-at-arms stood either side of the closed door. They were weaponed and wary, and as good an indication, if any were needed, that they protected someone of immeasurable worth beyond the door. I did not know them, nor did their stern faces relieve my nerves. Mistress Yvette looked at them, then nodded back at us. One of the men relaxed enough to stand down from his guard and open the door into the chamber.

We filed in and I kept myself as far as I could in Mistress Yvette’s shadow. Evelyn caught my eye, giving a small smile of reassurance.

I was surprised at how uncrowded it was. I had expected the same bustle and chaos in the solar as was in evidence everywhere else, but there was only a group seated in chairs and benches about one of the open windows.

Light spilled in the window and over the group, and I had to blink in order to make them out.

There was Edmond, seated in the imposing chair that was normally the earl’s.

Pengraic sat next to him, leaning close as they murmured quietly.

Lady Adelie sat on a chair opposite them. She was packed about with pillows and cushions, and I thought she looked weary.

Beside her sat Stephen, his hair gleaming in the sunshine, leaning in to the service of his mother as the earl did to the king. Two other men — great nobles by their dress — completed the circle; I soon learned they were Walter de Roche, Earl of Summersete, and Gilbert de Montgomerie, Earl of Scersberie, and a Marcher Lord like Pengraic.

Lady Adelie noticed us first, and, as she gave a smile, so Stephen turned.

He noticed me immediately as I hid behind Mistress Yvette, almost as if he’d been looking, and gave an imperceptible nod.

‘Ah, my children,’ Pengraic said, and then they were all looking at us, and I tried to shuffle even further behind Mistress Yvette.

To no avail. Both the earl and the king looked directly at me, no doubt reliving my earlier humiliation. I glanced at Lady Adelie and saw that her face was sympathetic.

They had told her then, yet she did not condemn me.

The older children, Alice, Emmette and the twins, dipped or bowed before the king, then Pengraic beckoned Alice forward a step.

‘Gilbert,’ the earl said, ‘this is my daughter Alice.’

Alice dimpled prettily at the closer of the two noblemen, and curtsied again. I looked at the gleam of interest in the nobleman’s eyes, and wondered if Pengraic was arranging a match between Alice and this man — the Earl of Scersberie. Scersberie was an old man, older even than Pengraic, and I thought it likely Alice was to replace a wife lost to the ravages of childbirth.

I wondered if Alice were to be the first replacement, or a second or third. I had a momentary gladness that I had no estates or dowry, that I, too, might be handed about, offered to old men who lusted after my riches.

Pengraic beckoned Emmette forward, introducing her, then the twins stepped forward at his gesture.

‘Ancel, Robert,’ Pengraic said, ‘you remember my lord of Summersete. It seems you will be going to his household a little sooner than expected.’

The boys dipped their heads and looked suitably restrained. The Earl of Summersete, a much younger man, and darkly handsome, gave them a friendly enough nod.

Sweet Jesu, I thought, was Pengraic about to dispose of all his children at this one gathering?

‘And these two are the babies I have left,’ the countess said, and gestured me forward.

John was wriggling about on my hip, and I was having trouble holding him, but Rosamund behaved beautifully, walking forward docilely but confidently, and dipping in a little courtesy that put my attempt to shame.

I still could not look at either the earl or the king.

‘The little boy I have met previous,’ said Edmond. ‘On the stairs a short while ago.’

He paused, and I finally looked at him. His eyes were warm, glinting with secret amusement.

Then Edmond saved me by bending forward so he could look Rosamund in the eyes and take all attention away from myself and John.

‘And who is this pretty little maid?’ Edmond said, his voice soft, and he held out a hand.

I let Rosamund’s hand go and she walked over to the king, her arms out, laughing, and the king grinned and swung her up to his lap.

‘And this is the daughter I shall lay claim to, Raife, should ever I lose my beloved Adelaide.’

All attention was now on the king and the girl in his lap, and I faded backward, keeping a firm grip on the still-wriggling John, who seemed determined to get down.

For a few minutes the group exchanged pleasantries about the children, then Pengraic caught Lady Adelie’s eye, who in turn summoned Mistress Yvette over to her side.

Mistress Yvette listened, nodded, then took Rosamund from the king, caught the twins’ eyes and jerked her head toward the door.

Alice, ever watchful, smiled and dipped in yet another pretty courtesy, taking leave of the men and her mother. Her sister Emmette followed Alice’s example, and both girls walked over to where I stood with Evelyn.

Thank the Lord, I thought, we are to be dismissed.

Mistress Yvette brought Rosamund over, and handed her to Evelyn.

‘Take the children, Evelyn, and keep them in their chamber for the day,’ she said quietly, keeping our consultations from disturbing the group by the window. ‘Their mother does not want them running about the house today. Not the twins, certainly not the girls. I need to find William, and confer with him about tonight’s feast.’

Yvette surprised me by taking John from my arms and handing him to Alice. ‘Maeb,’ she said, ‘stay here and serve the men and our lady their wine, and if Lady Adelie should look too exhausted, then run to find me, that I might aid her back to her bed.’

‘But —’ I started. But I can’t stay here and serve these great nobles their wine! What if I should drop —

‘You will do well enough, Maeb,’ Mistress Yvette said in a tone that brooked no dissent, and with that she, Evelyn, and the children turned and left the room.

I briefly closed my eyes, seeking courage. The closest I had ever come to high nobility was standing in a small crowd in Witenie on May Day, three years past, watching silently as a knight wearing a magnificent surcoat over his maille hauberk, and his two squires, rode past in splendid indifference to our awed gaze.

I opened my eyes, automatically seeking out Lady Adelie for reassurance.

She saw me looking and gave a little nod, either to hurry me up or to impart some sense of confidence.

I chose to believe the latter and so, wiping my hands among my skirts to dry away my nerves, I walked over to a small chest on which sat several ewers and a number of silver wine cups.

I poured out six cups of a rich, spiced and unwatered wine, then carried two across to the group, offering one first to the king, and the other to Pengraic.

The king gave me a warm look as he took the cup, the earl a cool and somewhat calculating one. I got the sense from the earl that he could not wait for a chance to berate me again; one did not have to consult all the saints in heaven to know I’d given him reason enough this day.

The next two cups I took to the other two earls, serving the Earl of Summersete first.

Summersete gave me a long look as he took the goblet from my hand. ‘Is she to be trusted?’ he said to Pengraic. ‘I do not see why we cannot this once serve our own wine.’

‘She can be trusted,’ said Lady Adelie. ‘She has no loyalty but to this household, and will not betray it. And she is not here just to serve wine. I am not well with this child I carry, and would prefer that one of my women remain to attend me if needed.’

Over the past weeks I had come to like and respect Lady Adelie. Now she had my complete loyalty for these words of confidence.

Something in my back straightened. ‘I will not speak anything I hear in this chamber,’ I said. ‘I swear it, my lords.’

‘For God’s sake, Summersete,’ said Edmond, ‘the next thing you’ll be wanting to rack her to see if she will confess to being in the King of Sicily’s employ. Leave it be. I am too weary and too heartsick to want to find new shadows among the army that already gather about us!’

A few short weeks ago I had been but the orphaned daughter of a lowly knight, lost in her rustic idyll. Now I was not only serving wine to the King of England and some of his greatest nobles, but this king and these nobles were engaged in an argument about whether I might be a spy in the employ of the King of Sicily.

My mouth twitched. I caught Stephen’s eye as I moved about Summersete to serve Scersberie, and, God help me, the amusement in Stephen’s face almost undid me.

I retreated hastily to the chest and collected the final two cups for Lady Adelie and Stephen, keeping my eyes downcast as I served them. I then moved to a spot several paces away from the group and sat on a stool, distant enough not to be obtrusive, yet close enough to see if any needed his goblet refilled, or if the Lady Adelie needed my attention.

And close enough to hear the conversation that ensued.

‘My lady,’ Edmond said to Lady Adelie, ‘I do beg your forgiveness for this unexpected intrusion. I know you prefer to keep a quiet household and my appearance has very evidently shattered the calm. Please, do not trouble yourself to arrange any richness of entertainment or feasting on my behalf. I am content to rest and eat as any member of your household.’

‘My dear lord,’ Lady Adelie replied, ‘you are truly welcome in my house, and whatever feast or entertainment I offer you, be assured it is offered out of love and respect and not out of obligation. My only fear is that your arrival in such hasty manner, and without your usual retinue, foretells some heavy and terrible tidings.’

‘I regret to say that it does, madam,’ Edmond said. He sighed, fiddling a little with his wine cup before resuming. ‘The south-east, from Dovre to Cantuaberie, is struck with plague. We have heard rumours of it in France and further east, but had hoped our realm should be spared. Not to be, I am afraid.’

‘We should have closed the ports months ago,’ Scersberie said.

‘Well enough to say that now,’ Pengraic said, ‘but then we did not understand how vilely this plague spreads, nor how long it takes to show its evil nature.’

‘My lords,’ Lady Adelie said, ‘please, tell me more. What plague? How dire, that my lord king had to flee Westminster?’

Edmond indicated that Pengraic should respond.

‘My lady,’ Pengraic said, ‘my lord king’s council has, for the past several months, received reports of a plague that had spread west from the lands of the Byzantine Empire, through the Hungarian and German duchies and into the French duchies — even the Iberian states of Aragon and Navarre have not been spared. The rumours spoke of terrible suffering —’

‘How so?’ said Lady Adelie.

Edmond shook his head slightly at Pengraic, and the countess turned to the king.

‘My lord,’ she said, ‘I must know. I carry the responsibility of this household when the earl my husband is not present. I cannot manage it weighted by ignorance.’

Pengraic flicked a glance at me before continuing, and I felt my stomach turn over. Not at the thought that he might be angry at me, or not trust me, but at the words he was now about to speak. Somehow even then I knew the horror that awaited us.

‘The sickness begins mildly enough,’ said Pengraic. ‘A feeling of malaise, then a cough. Then, a yellow phlegm expelled from the lungs.’

‘And not any phlegm,’ said Scersberie, ‘for it is not moist at all, but of a dry, furry nature.’

‘From then the sickness spreads rapidly,’ Pengraic said. ‘Once a man begins to cough the yellow phlegm, his body rapidly succumbs. Eventually, the yellow … fungus … spreads over most of his body.’

He paused. ‘And then the final horror, Adelie. This “fungus” seems composed of heat, for all too often it bursts into flame and the sufferer is burned to death in his or her sickbed.’

‘Terrible,’ said Summersete, shaking his head. ‘So many houses burned to the ground. An entire town, so I have heard, in the south of France.’

Sweet Mary, I thought. And what of all the souls burned along with the houses? Have you no thought for them?

Lady Adelie’s face was shocked, as I am sure mine was. ‘This is of the Devil!’ she said. ‘What else can explain it?’

I think she expected her husband to respond, but his eyes were downcast to his interlaced fingers in his lap and he did not speak.

‘Indeed,’ said Edmond. ‘Nothing but the Devil could be behind such horror. No one has ever seen the like.’

‘God’s mercy upon us,’ Lady Adelie murmured. ‘How is it spread? By touch? By a miasma in the air?’

‘We do not know,’ said Edmond, ‘but physicians believe that a man can be infected many weeks before any symptoms show. We had thought England safe, for there were no cases here, but it was merely that the infection had arrived weeks before any started to cough or grow the evil fungus.’

‘Or burn,’ said Summersete, and I thought he had a horrid fascination with the flames. Initially I had liked him for his youthful handsome face, but now I realised those pretty features covered a dark nature.

‘Dovre and the south-eastern villages and towns are now infected,’ said Edmond. ‘People are dying, many more are coughing up the furry phlegm. Unrest spreads.’

‘I do not doubt it,’ Lady Adelie said, making the sign of the cross over her breast. ‘Are we safe here? What can we do to protect ourselves?’

‘You are not safe,’ said Pengraic. ‘Not from the plague, not from the unrest. You and the children, and whatever of the household you wish, must depart for Pengraic Castle as shortly as you may. The Welsh Marches are isolated and safe.’

‘No!’ cried Lady Adelie. ‘I cannot! I am troubled enough with this child. I cannot undertake such a long journey back to —’

‘You must, madam,’ said Stephen, and I jumped a little at his voice, for I had almost forgot his presence. ‘You risk all — your life and that of my brothers and sisters — if you stay here.’

‘But —’ Lady Adelie began.

‘You will return to Pengraic Castle,’ said the earl. ‘It is your safe haven. Nothing, not even the plague, can leap its walls.’

‘And you?’ Lady Adelie said.

‘Pengraic will stay with me,’ said Edmond. ‘I am raising men at Oxeneford — my main party has gone there, while my queen and sons have gone north to Elesberie — and I detoured to Rosseley with your husband only to add my voice to his that you depart for Pengraic Castle.’

‘Stephen will stay with you,’ said Pengraic. ‘Edmond and I will ride with you as far as Oxeneford, and from there Stephen can escort you in a more leisurely manner to Pengraic.’

‘And what of the Welsh?’ said Lady Adelie. ‘If they think England is in disarray may not that renegade Welsh oaf who calls himself prince, Madog ap Gruffydd, lead his army on Pengraic? The castle sits on a direct route from the heart of Welsh darkness into England. Do you save me from plague only to risk me to Madog? Raife, you are sorely needed at Pengraic yourself!’

‘Madam,’ said Scersberie, ‘Madog is currently in the north of Wales. I shall need to deal with him, if any.’

‘Your words speak your doubt for our son’s abilities,’ said Pengraic. ‘Stephen is well enough the knight and castellan to keep you safe at Pengraic. And he has the garrison commander there to aid him. Ralph d’Avranches comes from a long line of Marcher Lords, both in this land and in our homelands of Normandy. He could hold a castle against the forces of the Devil himself.

‘Where is your courage, Adelie?’ Pengraic finished. ‘It is not for you to be so fearful.’

‘I fear for my children,’ Lady Adelie said softly. ‘And for this child I carry. But … I shall do as you wish, my lords. Maeb? Will you fetch Yvette? I think I shall need to rest.’

I nodded, rising and starting for the door, my mind whirling with everything I had heard.

‘Maeb.’

It was Pengraic, and I turned back to the group.

‘Remember your oath that you should not speak of what you have heard in this room. If fear spreads, then you endanger your lady’s life.’

‘I shall remember, my lord. I will not speak of it.’

With that, I left the solar and sought out Mistress Yvette.

Of what they spoke when I had gone I do not know.

CHAPTER SIX

I found Yvette and she went to Lady Adelie.

I stood for a little time in the courtyard where I had found Yvette in yet another deep conversation with William, and watched the bustle about me. It was clear that Pengraic had not waited for his wife’s approval before ordering preparations for departure. Men loaded carts with provisions, as also with chests from the house. I wondered if I were to go with the Lady Adelie, or if I should find myself homeless again.

My question was answered as soon as I returned to the children’s chamber. Evelyn was fussing about, packing linens into a deep chest.

‘We are to leave!’ she said to me as I entered. ‘William sent a man to tell us to pack. Ah, to Pengraic at this time of year. I am sure my lady is none too pleased. Maeb, what has happened? What did you hear?’

‘I may not speak of it, Evelyn. I am sorry.’

‘But we are to leave for Pengraic?’

‘If you have heard it, then, yes, we are.’ There was no point denying this.

‘But why? My lady is with child, and not well. It is a long and arduous journey and … ah, you may not speak of it. I know.’

Evelyn stopped, and sighed. ‘Well, at least we shall dine with the king tonight. A small reward for all this mayhem. Maeb, you have yet to witness such an event, yes? Then you shall enjoy yourself this evening. Whatever else awaits, you may say that at least you dined with the king. Now, come help me with these linens … and do you know where lie Alice’s and Emmette’s mantles? I cannot find them anywhere.’

England might be gripped by plague, and the Pengraic house might be in turmoil, but even so, it seemed nothing would stop the steward and Lady Adelie entertaining the king as they believed fitting. The great hall on the ground floor had been opened up, benches and trestle tables moved in, the great banners and tapestries rehung from beams and on walls, the fires lit, and I was, indeed, to dine with the king.

Nothing in Lady Adelie’s household had prepared me for this. As the evening drew in, Evelyn and I left the two youngest children in the care of their nurse while she and I, together with Alice, Emmette and the twin boys, washed and prepared ourselves for the evening’s feast. I had nothing suitable to wear, but Mistress Yvette, in a moment she spared us from her dressing of Lady Adelie, generously offered me one of her kirtles, a lovely spring-green linen garment, adorned with crimson ribbons and embroideries.

‘It is so beautiful!’ I said as I smoothed it down over my hips.

‘And it suits your black hair,’ said Evelyn, ‘and reflects the green of your eyes.’

Despite everything I had heard this day, and the upheaval of the entire household, I shall admit I was more than a little excited at this evening’s entertainments. I had never worn such a rich gown, nor thought I would ever attend a court where a king should be present.

There would not be many women attending — Lady Adelie, Mistress Yvette, and Evelyn only; myself, and the two elder Pengraic girls still at home. There would be no gaggle of painted court beauties, or a bevy of titled ladies. All courtly attention would be on our small group.

I wondered if I would attract any admiring eyes. I fingered one of my heavy braids, shifting it this way and that across my breasts, pleased with the effect of my black hair against the green and scarlet.

Evelyn came over, and I remarked that she had not veiled her head as she was wont to do.

‘There will be no veils among the womenfolk tonight, Maeb. It is the new fashion to wear hair unadorned, save for flowers or jewels, at courtly events. Even married women go without their veils.

‘And the unmarried … Maeb, why not wear your hair loose tonight? It will be all wavy from the braiding, and it must surely reach all the way down to your knees. You have such lovely hair … you do not need to lengthen it with the horsehair that some women require. Tonight you can shine in all your womanly glory, eh? Enough to catch the eye of one of the king’s gentle retainers? A youthful knight, or even a baron?’

‘Sweet Jesu, Evelyn, you shall have me married before the morn!’

She laughed. ‘Ah, come now, Maeb. Here now, it is all loosened. We shall brush it … and I have just the thing for your brow, this circlet of ribbon and waxen flowers that Lady Adelie once gave to me. There. Done. You shall be beautiful for tonight, and for one evening forget whatever worries you heard earlier. Now, let’s see if Alice has managed to dress Emmette’s hair, or if we shall have to do it ourselves.’

There was a small looking glass in the chamber, and as Evelyn turned to Alice and Emmette, I stole a glance in its reflection.

I hardly recognised myself. The excitement had put a sparkle in my eyes, and the richness of the verdant green gown, and the unaccustomed sight of my hair unbound and tumbling about my shoulders and back, made me look almost the wood dryad. I bit my lips a little to make them redden and, checking quickly to make sure Evelyn was not watching, pinched my cheeks to colour them, too.

For that moment, the plague and the journey ahead was all lost in my anticipation. I forgot even my humiliation of earlier, and looked forward only to an evening that a few weeks ago I could not ever have imagined myself attending.

My night would be full of earls and kings and feasting. I thought of Stephen, too, and wondered what he would make of me now.

I remembered the jest he made of his bedchamber on that day I had first arrived at Rosseley, and suddenly I had no need of pinching to make my cheeks colour.

I put down the looking glass, and turned to where Evelyn fussed over the girls, and smiled.

Tonight I would enjoy, and tomorrow I would fear.

I had not previously entered the great hall of Rosseley Manor. Its doors were always closed, and there had been no reason for me to go inside. My world had been completely bounded by Lady Adelie and her children — not the larger world of men and court of which I’d only had tantalising glimpses.

So on this night, when I entered, I stopped and just looked.

I had never seen a chamber so huge, not even that of a church! I knew that the hall ran a great distance from seeing its outer walls, but even so, nothing had prepared me for its size once I entered it.

Now I understood why the stairs from the ground floor to the upper level wound up and up for an eternity — they had to somehow surmount the height of the hall’s panelled ceiling.

The hall ran back from its entrance doors to an enormous fireplace in its far wall. Before that fireplace — ablaze even on this warm spring night — sat a raised dais with a long table heavy with patterned silken damasks and linens. The light from both the fire and the scores of torches and candles about made the silver and golden plate and cups and pitchers atop the table glint with a rosy light.

I had never seen … I had never comprehended such riches!

I knew this all came from the earl’s household store, for I’d overheard William on the stairs earlier, handing a key to an armed servant that the plate might be unlocked for the night.

If an earl commanded such wealth, then what might the king’s court reveal?

‘Maeb.’

Evelyn’s voice broke into my awed reverie, and I hastily moved aside at her gentle tug on my hand. We walked to one side of the hall — two long tables ran down the length of the hall, as if they were pillars supporting the cross beam of the high table — and allowed one of the servants to lead us to our places. We were by ourselves now, for we had handed over Alice, Emmette, Ancel and Robert to Mistress Yvette so they could enter with their parents, and the two younger children were with the nurse. Mistress Yvette would stay close to Lady Adelie for the evening, so Evelyn and myself had little to do but enjoy ourselves, with no duties to perform.

The two long tables were already almost full of diners. There were no other women present save for Evelyn and myself — Lady Adelie, Mistress Yvette and the two girls had yet to make their entrance — and we attracted many a glance as we moved closer to the high table.

The glances were admiring and speculative both, and I lowered my eyes that I might not meet any of their interest. I flattered myself that many of those glances were directed at me, but I knew that Evelyn must also garner her share of admiration, for she was still young enough to rouse lust in a man, and looked very fine tonight in her deep red gown and her glistening nut-brown hair heavily braided with blue and silver beads.

Evelyn — usually — wore the veil of the married woman, but was she widowed? Or as yet unwed and only wore the veil as acknowledgement of her rank and age? She had never talked of a husband to me in our nightly chats, and in fact avoided revealing too much personal information at all. I resolved to delve a little this night, if I had the chance.

We arrived at our places, only five or six down from the high table, and Evelyn graciously thanked the servant who bowed and left us to seat ourselves. We were lucky to have a bench of our own, and as we slid into place I was careful not to catch the table linens and tip all the tableware to the ground.

Tonight, I was determined that I should be worthy of my place in this court.

Our tableware, though fine, was not of the beauty of the high table. Pewter bowls held water for us to wash our fingers, and wine cups of similar nature sat before us. There were some pewter spoons on the table, but mostly we would use our fingers or the small personal knives that all carried at belts or girdles. At least my knife would not disgrace me, I thought, fingering it gently as it swung from my girdle, for it was of good craftsmanship — one of the few things I’d had from my childhood that was of any worth.

A servant appeared at our elbows, and filled our cups with a spiced wine.

I took a sip, and marvelled at its headiness. I would need to be careful not to sip too enthusiastically.

‘Sweet mistress,’ said the man immediately on my left, ‘may I ask your name? I have been to the earl’s court on many an occasion, but have not seen you previously.’

I turned to look at him, wondering how I should respond. He was a man of younger years, fair of hair and with an open friendly face, well dressed in a heavily embroidered russet tunic with a fine white linen shirt beneath. He wore several gold rings, set with gems, on his fingers, and a small hoop through one ear.

‘I am Mistress Maeb Langtofte, and I serve the Lady Adelie. Are you with the king’s retinue? Forgive my ignorance, but I do not yet know even all the earl’s retinue, let alone the king’s.’

‘I think any man could find it easy to forgive you anything,’ the man said, ‘for it is rare to find such beauty without a jealous husband attached to her arm. You must be new arrived at the earl’s house, yes? Otherwise I cannot imagine how you yet remain unwed. I swear, within the six month, a score of gallant knights and barons shall beg the earl for your hand.’

I was growing uncomfortable now, for I was not used to such direct conversation nor such admiration. The man also had not yet given me his name, and I did not know if perchance I spoke with one of the king’s younger brothers, or one of his lords, or if he was one of the earl’s men and sent here to test me. He could just as likely have been attached to either Summersete or Scersberie, and I was at a loss as to how to address him.

The man’s blue eyes twinkled, and I knew he sensed my discomfort.

‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I am Ranulph Saint-Valery, and I hail from Lincolescire. Edmond amuses himself by keeping me within his court, but for what reason, I do not know, for I cannot think I serve one single useful earthly purpose.’

I smiled, thinking it would not be hard to like this man.

‘But for tonight, lovely lady,’ Saint-Valery continued, ‘I shall be your servant, and shall serve you the most delicate morsels from my plate and wipe the lip of your cup with my napkin, that your wine may always taste sweet.’

Now I was blushing, for I had never before encountered such courtliness, nor such attention.

Fortunately Evelyn came to my rescue as I struggled to make some light, witty remark.

‘My Lord Saint-Valery, you are making my young companion blush with your pretty words. Maeb, our lord king likes to keep Sir Ranulph at his court for the beauty of his poetry. You have at your side one of England’s greatest poets. Is that not so, my lord?’

Ranulph made a deprecating gesture with one hand, then half turned aside as a servant made a fuss in the refilling of his wine cup.

The momentary distraction allowed Evelyn to whisper into my ear. ‘Be careful of him, Maeb. A celebrated poet he may be, but he is also one of Edmond’s spies at court. He uses his poetry and sweet tongue to coerce even the most well-kept secret from the tightest lips.’

I squeezed her hand, grateful for the warning.

I wondered if my table companion was mere happenchance, or if Edmond had decided I might be a spy in the employ of the King of Sicily after all.

Saint-Valery and I chatted for a while of Witenie, where I was born and raised. He knew of its market, having attended one day, which knowledge surprised me.

‘You did not see me?’ he said, his mouth curving in a smile. I was a little disturbed to suddenly realise how sensual that mouth was. ‘Choosing among the apples?’

‘No, my lord,’ I said, ‘for I should surely have remembered so distinguished a visitor had I seen you. Perhaps you came disguised? A travelling minstrel perhaps. A vagabond. So that none might recognise you and mark your presence.’

The smile widened a little, although the expression on his face was now speculative rather than amused. ‘You have courage with your words, Mistress Maeb. You are not afraid to tease.’

‘It is the wine,’ I murmured. ‘It goes to my head.’

‘Then I shall press it the more urgently upon you, that I might know you better.’

I was about to reply, but just then the mellow tones of two horns sounded by the door and all conversation stopped as we turned to look.

‘The king,’ Saint-Valery murmured, and with that all assembled at the long tables rose, and either bowed or dipped in courtesy.

Edmond and the Earl of Pengraic and Lady Adelie had entered the hall. Edmond led the way, Lady Adelie on his arm, with the earl a step behind. All were dressed richly, and I thought that Edmond now looked every part the king in his splendid blue tunic with its gold embroideries, fur-lined mantle, jewelled brooch, and heavily jewelled circlet upon his brow. He wore a sword at his left hip, and its hilt looked to me as if it were fashioned from pure gold inlaid with diamonds.

Lady Adelie looked weary, but otherwise sparkled with jewels in the circlet she wore on her head and wound through her braids which hung almost to the floor. The earl likewise wore rich cloth and many jewels, and a sword as well. He and the king were the only men in the hall, apart from the men-at-arms standing against the walls, who wore their weapons, although all of us carried small eating knives at our belts.

Saint-Valery saw me looking at the swords. ‘No one wears their sword in the presence of the king,’ he murmured, ‘save his host.’

I nodded my thanks.

Behind came Walter de Roche, the Earl of Summersete, and Gilbert de Montgomerie, the Earl of Scersberie.

Lord Stephen walked a few steps behind the two earls, looking splendid in a gold and silver tunic, possibly the one I had seen him in that first day I’d met him, and I am afraid my heart skipped a beat at the sight of him. I wondered if he would see me from where he ate at high table.

After Stephen came Alice and Emmette and the two boys, Ancel and Robert, with Mistress Yvette a step behind. She was dressed in a manner almost as rich as Lady Adelie, which showed as nothing else the favour in which Lady Adelie held her.

Edmond and Lady Adelie drew close to where Evelyn, Saint-Valery and I stood, and while the countess kept her eyes ahead, the king glanced over.

For a moment he met my eyes, then I dropped mine and sank a little deeper in courtesy.

When I looked up again, the entire party had passed me and had arrived at the high table where they were in the process of seating themselves.

Once the high table had sat, Pengraic, who alone had remained standing, raised his wine cup and led the wassail toast in honour of Edmond.

‘Drinkhail!’ the assemblage responded as we raised our cups and toasted the king. Then we all sat, and the evening’s feasting and entertainment began.

Considering the king, the earl and their respective retinues had only arrived this morning, and with no warning, William the house steward had done his earl and his lady proud. A pig and a yearling ox had been slaughtered and roasted: a half score servants brought in the meat piled high on silver platters. As well as the pork and ox, several swans and a score of rabbits had been roasted and served, and there followed several platters of pigeon and fish in various spiced milks and pottages. And yet more men followed, bearing bowls of stews and vegetables, sauces and soups.

A servant appeared at my elbow, placing a trencher of bread before me, as well as a small plate. The high table was served their food first, then the servants came down the long lines of the table, offering us our choice of meats and their accompanying dishes.

Saint-Valery chose for me, selecting cuts of meats and sauces for my plate and trencher, until I thought that perhaps he was intending to feed me for a week. I protested somewhat weakly at the amount of food he thought I might eat and he inclined his head in acquiescence, and thus we began our feast.

Minstrels came to entertain us with harps and pipes and sweet voices.

I was, I confess it, overawed. Nothing in Lady Adelie’s household had prepared me for a courtly event like this. I stole glances at the high table, watching the king and the nobles eat and drink, laugh and gesture, and offer each other choice pieces of meat as well as other courtesies. I thought Stephen had been well placed, sitting between the earls of Summersete and Scersberie, and I confess I watched him the most and was both delighted and flustered when he saw me, and raised his wine cup in a greeting to me.

I was even more flustered when it became obvious that Saint-Valery had witnessed the exchange.

‘Lord Stephen shines like a young god, does he not,’ Saint-Valery said.

I did not know what to say, and hid my confusion with a sip of wine.

‘It is said that the earl seeks a foreign princess for his eldest son’s wife,’ Saint-Valery added.

‘And Lord Stephen would be worthy of such,’ I murmured, hoping it was the right thing to say.

‘But fear not,’ Saint-Valery said, ‘I am sure that Stephen will not forget you. Most lords take mistresses, and Stephen would treat such a woman well, I think. Perhaps you —’

‘I would not want such a thing!’ I said, hoping I had injected enough righteous indignation into my voice.

‘I was only going to suggest that you might like to attend his wife, as you do now his mother,’ Saint-Valery said, his eyes glinting with humour.

I was angry with him. It was not what he had wanted to suggest at all.

‘The Lady Adelie says she shall find me a gentle husband,’ I said.

‘As I am sure she can,’ Saint-Valery said. ‘A knight such as your father, perhaps … a man of gentle name and rank but with little lands nor any offices to his name. You do not have a large dowry, do you? No, I thought not. Possibly none at all, knowing your father. Virtue is all very well, Mistress Maeb, but not when your “gentle” marriage means you shall need to glean with your peasant womenfolk so you might have bread for your table.’

I could not reply. I was furiously angry with him now, not simply for his ungenerous words and bawdry, but at the fact that he seemed to know my circumstances all too well. He knew of my father and his lack of extensive lordships and coin, but I had not once mentioned it.

Who had been discussing me with Saint-Valery? And why?

‘Maeb,’ Saint-Valery said, ‘I only speak of the ways of the world and of the court. Virtue is all very well, but not when it condemns you to servitude. You are a beautiful woman. You must have seen the eyes that pass your way. And you are spirited, and many a nobleman likes that in a woman. Yet you have no dowry. Not even the care of Lady Adelie could win for you anything but the basest knight. I only wish to open your mind to the possibilities.’

‘I can only hope for the basest knight, my lord? Then surely that puts you well within my reach. Speak to Lady Adelie, and I am yours.’

Saint-Valery stared at me, then roared with laughter. Everyone about us paused to look, and from the corner of my eye I saw those at the high table turn to us as well.

I flamed with colour, and wondered if I should stand, and leave.

‘Maeb,’ Evelyn murmured, ‘just dip your head at the high table, and smile graciously, then return to your meal.’

I did so, almost unable to bear to look at them. Stephen was smiling, Lady Adelie looked a little concerned, Pengraic’s face was a mask of disdain, and, sweet Jesu, the king actually nodded at me and raised his wine cup slightly.

Mistress Yvette merely looked cross.

All I had wanted was to enjoy the evening, and yet now it was tainted.

‘My lord,’ Evelyn said to Saint-Valery. ‘You speak too boldly to Maeb. She is young, and untutored in courtly ways. You accuse her of teasing, and yet you are unmerciful in it. Be wary, I pray you, for both the earl and the countess take good care of her well-being and happiness.’

I admired Evelyn then as never before. She had spoken gently, and yet even so, she had issued Saint-Valery a stern warning. Well might Saint-Valery have the ear and the regard of the king, yet he could ill afford to make an enemy of the earl.

Saint-Valery inclined his head, accepting the rebuke.

‘I beg your forgiveness, Mistress Maeb,’ he said, and the apology in his voice seemed genuine. ‘I have not spoken well, and that was discourteous of me.’

I gave a small nod, accepting his apology, although the unhappiness must have been obvious on my face. For the next few minutes we ate in silence, then the awkwardness was broken when the Earl of Summersete rose — for what reason I do not know — and in the doing bumped into a servant directly behind his chair. The servant was carrying yet another platter of food, and all went flying, servant and earl both, the food spattering in a gravy-laden arc about them.

My mouth twitched, happy to see that even such a nobleman as the earl could make as much a fool of himself as I might, and I heard muffled chortles all about me.

‘I am glad to see you smile again, Maeb,’ Saint-Valery said. ‘Will you forgive me enough to talk with me again?’

I was happy enough to do so, for in my amusement I had put aside all my anger and embarrassment. Thus, as the meal progressed, we chatted of this and that, Saint-Valery pointing out nobles and retainers at the tables and telling me a little of each.

‘Your lord has put on a goodly feast for his king,’ Saint-Valery said as the feast drew toward its final dishes. ‘He has done himself proud in Edmond’s eyes.’

‘And his household had little enough time in which to do so,’ I said. I did not particularly like the earl, from my brief encounters with him, but I was happy enough to bolster the regard of his household.

‘It is all a great flurry,’ Saint-Valery said. ‘One moment we were happy in court at Edmond’s palace at Westminster, the next we are fleeing eastward to Oxeneford, detouring to collect the earl’s family. What can be the matter do you think? It must be dire news.’

I had by this stage had a great amount of the spiced wine to drink, and its headiness had fuzzed my mind.

But not enough to endanger my head by babbling the secrets I had heard that day in the solar.

‘It is terrible news, I have heard, my lord.’

‘Yes?’ he said, leaning a little closer.

Beside me, I felt Evelyn stiffen.

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I have heard …’ I paused, drawing out the moment, ‘ … I have heard that the very dryads from the woods threaten the king! They rustle their leaves, and the king grows anxious!’

Saint-Valery chuckled. ‘You have done well, Mistress Maeb. No doubt you know I shall be reporting thus to Edmond. I —’

‘Mistress Maeb,’ said the Earl of Pengraic’s voice, and a heavy hand fell on my shoulder. ‘I would speak with you privately if I might.’

My stomach fell away. I looked up at the earl’s face. It was impassive, but I thought I saw anger in his eyes.

Sweet Jesu, what had I done so wrong he needed to single me out like this?

I murmured a politeness to Saint-Valery, then rose and walked after the earl out of the hall.

I could feel the eyes following me as I went.

Pengraic led me to a quiet corner by the staircase, then turned to me.

‘What did Saint-Valery speak with you about?’ he said.

‘We chatted of the court, and he pointed out the nobles to me, and —’

‘Did he ask about the meeting in the solar?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said that the king had learned the dryads in the forests threatened to shake their leaves at him, and thus he fled Westminster.’

Foolishly, I thought he would laugh at my wit as had Saint-Valery.

‘What do you know of the dryads in the woods?’ the earl snapped.

‘I am sorry, my lord,’ I stuttered, ‘I only thought to deflect Saint-Valery’s interest.’

The earl simply stared at me.

‘I am sorry, my lord,’ I repeated, and hung my head. It was aching now from all the excitement and the wine, and all I wanted was to escape everyone and flee back to my chamber.

‘You think too much of yourself, Maeb.’

I bit my lip. I did not know what to say.

He sighed, and I found the courage to look at him again.

The earl’s face had lost all its anger and now only looked tired. I realised that he, as the king and everyone who had arrived with them, had been riding for a full day and night and must be exhausted.

‘Maeb, my lady wife will need all your love and care on your journey to Pengraic. She is not well with this child.’

‘I know, my lord. She shall have it. I care for her greatly.’

He studied me, then gave a small nod. ‘I am very much afraid the world shall be a dark place for many months to come.’

I was feeling ever more uncomfortable, mainly because I had not thought to see the earl this vulnerable — he had always been so proud and strong and terrible to me — and that vulnerability frightened me.

‘Maeb, remember this, and remember it well. Every word spoken is carried by the wind to each corner of this mortal earth, and to the ears of God and the Devil. Remember it.’

‘I will, my lord.’

In my tiredness I could not grasp what he meant, nor could I foretell that my utter failure to remember his words in time to come would make a wreck and a mockery of my entire world.

Just then Evelyn appeared, pausing a few steps away.

The earl nodded to her, then he walked toward the hall.

Before he had gone too far, I called out to him. ‘My lord? I have said nothing to Saint-Valery, nor anyone else. Truly.’

He looked at me a long moment. ‘I know that,’ he said, then he walked off.

I put a hand to my head. ‘Evelyn, I think I need to go to bed. Is it seemly that I leave the feast now?’

She smiled and came close, taking my arm. ‘Yes. No one will take offence. Come now, I have had enough myself, and I think those at high table are making murmurs about their beds, too. Yvette will look after our lady and we will make sure Alice and her sister and the boys find their beds, and then we will sleep.’

Much later I lay in the bed I shared with Evelyn, unable to sleep even though my head throbbed and my limbs ached with weariness. My mind could not stop, revisiting everything I had seen and heard and done this day.

After a while I felt Evelyn’s hand on my arm. ‘You did well today, Maeb. I do not know what you heard in the solar, but if all that wine Saint-Valery pressed on you did not loosen your tongue, then little else but torture will … and I do not think you need worry about that in our company.’

I chuckled. ‘Not even from the earl?’

Evelyn laughed softly. ‘I think he might be too tired, but maybe next week, when he is recovered …’

‘Evelyn … may I ask something of your life?’

‘Of course. I have little to hide.’

‘Are you wed? I was wondering this evening, as we walked into the hall …’

‘And you wondered if I could have my pick of all the men?’ Evelyn laughed again. ‘Maybe so, but I have little interest. Yes, I was wed, but my husband died within a year of our marriage and eventually I took service with my lady. I have a daughter from that marriage, fourteen summers this year.’

‘Truly? Where is she now?’

‘In service to the household of Sir Roger de Tosny at Redmeleie, north of Glowecestre.’

I considered her words — thinking Evelyn would be a good mother and that she must miss her daughter. ‘You do not wish to wed again?’

She took a long time answering, and I wondered if she had fallen asleep or if perchance I had hit on the little she did want to hide.

‘I will tell you this, Maeb, not only because I like you, but also because you will hear of it soon enough from someone else. I was only surprised Saint-Valery did not speak of it to you — but then I suppose he had his reasons to keep silent. I also tell you of this because of the way Edmond looked at you this morning. When you fell from your courtesy … by the Blessed Virgin, Maeb, you did not see him almost fall himself in his rush to aid you!’

She paused. ‘I did long for another man once, and lived for those hours I spent in his arms, but there was no question of marriage. Maeb, I was the king’s lover for one summer. I loved him with every breath I took, but … his whims burn furious and then fade fast. Many others have replaced me in his bed since that summer and my own passion for him has long since died. It was a summer’s fancy only. He looks upon me kindly now, but I swear he has forgot that once he took me to his bed. Now, no, I have little interest in finding myself another husband. I have a secure home with the countess, and after Edmond …’

I was struck dumb. I had not expected this confession.

‘And now he wants you, Maeb. But he will not touch you, not yet. Not while you remain unwed — that is his idea of courtesy.’ She gave a brief, soft laugh. ‘But if ever you do wed, my sweet, and return to court, beware of his interest. He has marked you well. Saint-Valery was at your side this evening for good reason and it had little to do with whether or not you prattled about what you heard in the solar. Edmond wants to know you better, and the only way he can do that for the moment is through Saint-Valery. Even now Saint-Valery will be at the king’s side, whispering quietly in his ear. Be careful, Maeb. Be very, very careful.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next day passed in a blur of activity as the household prepared to leave. I think both the earl (indeed, all three of them) and the king were greatly impatient with this necessary delay, but they bore it well, and spent the best part of the day out hunting for venison with many of their entourage, including Stephen and Saint-Valery. I spent my time between the children’s chamber and the solar, at one moment helping Evelyn and the nurse pack for the children (and keeping the younger ones from under everyone else’s feet), at the next hurrying to Mistress Yvette’s impatient call that I aid her and the countess. In other parts of the house, servants packed plate and linens, barrels of wine and salted meats, tapestries and hangings.

I had not realised so much of the earl’s house travelled back and forth between Pengraic Castle and Rosseley.

‘Normally,’ Evelyn remarked to me at one point during the day, ‘much of the household would be sent on ahead of the earl and his family, to be waiting for them at the castle. But now …’ She shrugged, and moved back to folding linens and ribbons.

I was glad to be so busy with the packing, and running this way and that.

My mind continued to spin with all that had happened yesterday. I had met a king, and sat in on a privy meeting between him and three of his highest nobles. I had heard of great terror approaching, and yet could speak of it to no one. I had attended a great feast of court and had the king’s own man sit next to me.

I had caught a king’s eye.

As had, once, Evelyn.

I found it difficult to reconcile all of this, and what it might mean for my future. Of everything to be afraid of, it was Edmond’s interest which truly unsettled me. His interest would be a passing fancy, little else, and yet it might well ruin my life. I would be discarded as had Evelyn, and as had many others. My only security in life at present was my place within the Pengraic household. There was nothing else. My only future security would be a good marriage to a man with enough estates to ensure I would not lack, through any circumstance. Without that marriage I was truly most vulnerable.

Yet such a marriage rested only on Pengraic’s tenuous goodwill, for I had no dowry to attract interest. I could do nothing to threaten that goodwill if I wanted any future security in life. Pengraic had warned me against his son Stephen. What did he think now, knowing of the king’s interest? That I had deliberately aimed my ambitions higher than Stephen?

I worried and fretted all through the day. News of the plague slipped into the dim recesses of my mind. It was Edmond’s interest that represented my most immediate threat.

Despite what Lady Adelie had said about Pengraic, I could not wait to reach the castle within the Welsh Marches.

The king would be far distant then, and I could relax.

We would be leaving very early the next morning. Lady Adelie had said to me that the first two days would be hard riding, but then, having left behind the king and Pengraic with the greater part of their retinues at Oxeneford, we could travel in more leisurely a fashion to our destination. It was late in the night, and Evelyn and I were readying ourselves for sleep (there had been no feast tonight; merely grabbed food from a platter a servant had brought round), when Evelyn turned abruptly to reach for a shoe she had left to one side of the stool.

Suddenly she cried out in pain, both hands reaching for her back.

‘Evelyn! What has happened?’

She was white and biting her lips. ‘I have wrenched my back, Maeb. Oh, such stupidity! Why could I not have been more careful? And tomorrow we must travel. With this!’

I helped her to bed, Evelyn again crying out with pain as she lowered herself down. I wrapped a shawl about my chemise, and went down to the kitchens to get her a warm poultice for her back.

When finally I, too, went to bed, I cuddled up close to Evelyn, desperately tired, but not able to sleep. I wished for those long, calm, bright days of my early days at Rosseley, and wondered if they would ever come again.

We rose early the next day. Well, I rose, but Evelyn managed to get to her feet only with the most heartbreaking cries of pain. Her back was seized and swollen and every movement hurt. After I helped her to dress I left her sitting mournfully in the children’s chamber, watching as the nurse and Alice and Emmett managed to dress the children.

I went to aid Mistress Yvette get the countess ready. She was up, already in her linen chemise with Mistress Yvette helping her into her kirtle. The earl was with her, too, and I gave him a brief glance and quick dip of courtesy as I passed.

I could not look at his face.

‘Where is Evelyn?’ said the countess.

‘She wrenched her back badly last night, my lady. Forgive her not attending you this morning. She is in great pain.’

‘Oh, poor Evelyn!’ Lady Adelie said. ‘My lord, she will need to join me in my travelling cart. She cannot ride.’

Pengraic belted his tunic, then reached for his sword belt. ‘Your cart is already overladen, madam. The nurse and the two younger children will need space by your side, as will Mistress Yvette, who wobbles off any horse that goes beyond a walk.’

I kept my face downcast, amused by the mental image of Mistress Yvette ‘wobbling’ off her horse.

‘Now we must pack Evelyn in there some place.’ The earl paused. ‘Mistress Maeb, please tell me you do not require space atop the cart as well. The lighter it keeps, the faster it shall travel.’

‘I can ride well enough, my lord,’ I said, finally looking at him. He looked tired and irritated, but I think that was so much his normal expression I thought little enough of it.

‘By what do you mean “well enough”?’ he said.

‘I learned to ride on my father’s courser,’ I said. ‘The horse was old, but still of uncertain temper. Few managed him — my father and I alone.’

The earl stared, then gave a nod. ‘Well, we shall see. The saints alone know what horses are available. I will need to speak to Ludo. Madam,’ he continued, his attention now given back to his wife, ‘I will break my fast below. I need to oversee preparations. Be ready soon. It will be a long day’s journeying for us, and I cannot wait on your prayers.’

‘My lord,’ Lady Adelie said, and the earl left the solar.

She sighed, and turned back to Mistress Yvette. ‘Fetch me some bread and cheese, Yvette, and a mug of small beer. We can pray well enough when we are lurching along the road, and I do not wish to keep my lord awaiting. Maeb, how do the children?’

By the time I returned to the children’s chamber, they had all vanished to the courtyard below, and only the nurse remained, gathering a few last items.

‘Evelyn is waiting in the cart below,’ she said. ‘One of the servants carried her down the stairs. Fetch whatever you need, Maeb, and join us below.’

Suppressing a flare of excitement in my belly, I went to the small chamber Evelyn and I had shared, wrapped my mantle about my shoulders, picked up my bag of possessions and hurried down the stairs.

The courtyard was a mass of movement, cantankerous voices, nervous hooves slipping across cobbles and the excited barking of dogs. The larger part of the entourage that the king and the earls had brought with them was waiting on the road beyond, but the courtyard space was still crowded enough with men and carts and horses.

I stood undecided, not knowing what to do or where to turn, when the earl, who had been speaking to Ludo, his Master of Horse, turned and saw me. He said something to Ludo, and the man hurried over to me.

‘Saints save me, girl,’ Ludo said, his creased face even more deeply lined than usual on this morning, ‘I pray you spoke truth when you said you could manage a horse. Here, man, take this bag and set it into one of the carts — into that of my lady’s, if there be any room left.’

A groom appeared beside me, and I relinquished my bag.

‘This is the one mount I have available that might be suitable for you,’ Ludo continued, ‘and I value her too highly to allow her to be wasted on a doltish rider.’

There was a clatter of hooves, and another groom led over a lovely grey mare, all fine boned and dark eyed and flagged of tail. She was a palfrey, and thus an expensive horse — of far more worth than my father’s courser had been.

I felt the first needle of worry. What if I allowed her to run away from me and she foundered in a ditch?

‘I need to see you ride her first,’ said Ludo. ‘If I am not satisfied, you will need to walk behind the carts, unless a place is found for you within them. Come, we will go to the orchard. There is space there for me to see you ride Dulcette, yet fence enough to stop the mare should she bolt.’

He led Dulcette to a mounting block. I walked over, trying not to notice that the earl was now standing, arms folded, watching, and mounted with Ludo’s help. Once I had settled my skirts and rested my feet in the stirrups, Ludo let me take up the reins, and, my heart in my mouth, I gave Dulcette’s flanks a little press with my legs.

She responded immediately. She had spirit and I knew at once that she was unnerved by this new rider upon her and that all she wanted was to dash. I held the reins firmly, and guided her through the mass of people and horses toward the orchard.

The mare’s ears kept flicking back toward me, and I could literally feel her trying to decide if she liked me or not — her muscles were bunched tight under the saddle.

I did not care if she liked me. All I asked was for her to respect me enough to obey me.

We reached the orchard and some space and quiet. My heart thudding, I gave Dulcette another press with my legs and clicked my tongue. She tried instantly to run away with me, as I had thought she would, but I pulled her back and spoke disapprovingly to her, warning her with my voice.

She responded, praise the saints, her ears twitching faster than a march fly, and I allowed myself to relax a little. I kept her to a hard walk until we reached the farthest reaches of the orchard, then I turned her back, and gave her a little more rein.

I had thought she might break into a trot or even a canter, but instead Dulcette did something remarkable, something I had never before felt while riding.

She broke into a fast-paced gait that was neither trot nor canter, but which was unbelievably smooth.

She ambled!

I had only ever seen a horse do it once before — the knight who had passed by our village had been riding a horse that ambled, and then I had watched in fascination at its fluid, effortless gait. An ambler was most highly regarded, for in this gait it could cross ground more speedily and with far less effort than could a horse that only progressed at a trot or canter. Amblers could go further and faster than most other horses.

I was riding a prized animal, indeed.

By the time I reached the gate where waited Ludo, I had a huge smile on my face — I simply couldn’t help myself.

‘She ambles!’ I cried, and Ludo’s face broke into a grin to match mine.

‘You will do well, mistress,’ he said. ‘My mind is easier now.’

I was still smiling in delight when I raised my head to look to the courtyard.

Instead, I met the eyes of Pengraic, who had been waiting a little further back, leaning nonchalantly against a wall, his arms still folded.

He caught my gaze, gave me an expressionless look, then turned away.

CHAPTER EIGHT

We departed Rosseley shortly afterward. The king, Summersete and Scersberie had been with the column forming on the road outside. Once the earl had mounted, he and Stephen led our contingent from the courtyard and the column began to move westward.

I turned on Dulcette’s back for a last look at Rosseley. The sun was well up and the manor house gleamed golden in the light, the meadows and orchard green and verdant. I must have intuited somehow that I would never return for the house blurred as tears formed in my eyes, and I turned back to the road ahead, wiping at my eyes as I did so.

I kept Dulcette close to the cart which held Lady Adelie, Mistress Yvette and Evelyn as well as Rosamund and the baby, John. Alice and Emmette rode their horses beside me; the twin boys, Ancel and Robert, also horsed, were far ahead close to their father.

The column held some sixty or seventy knights and men-at-arms. I was somewhat relieved to see that, while they all carried weapons, none wore their maille hauberks, which indicated that the king and earls did not think we were under any immediate threat. I thought the knights and soldiers must be relieved also, for today promised to be warm and the maille hauberks would have been stifling. Most of the knights and soldiers rode at the head of the column, but some fifteen or so brought up the rear behind me.

As well there were two score or so male servants and grooms, and another twelve carts besides that which held Lady Adelie. We travelled fast, even the carts, for we had some fifteen miles of roads and byways to travel to get to our first destination — Walengefort Castle, residence of the Earl of Summersete.

Dulcette was a delight to ride, her amble so smooth and comfortable I could relax completely. She and I had come to some silent agreement: we would respect each other. She no longer tried to run away with me, and I allowed her freedom in choosing her own path and pace. About mid-morning Ludo rode past and asked how I did. I simply smiled in return, and I think he was happy, giving me a nod as he rode on.

The day wore on. We stopped briefly at noon, resting under the shade of a group of beech trees and eating a lunch of fruit and bread and beer. I ate with the countess and her children (save the twin boys who stayed near their father), while the men cloistered themselves into two groups a little way off. Eventually, as servants packed away the lunch and men remounted their horses, Stephen came over to assist his mother and Evelyn back into the cart.

Then he led Dulcette over to a fallen log so that I might mount.

I was a little self-conscious with him this close and with his attention only for me. He and I had exchanged only a handful of words since he’d returned to Rosseley with his father, and the only times I had seen him were with other people attending and little chance for us to speak.

Now Stephen fussed over me as I mounted, making sure my feet were well set in the stirrups and the girth tight.

I prayed that the earl was not watching.

‘Maeb,’ he said, finally stopping to look up at me, one hand on Dulcette’s rein that I might not ride forward.

He paused, and I looked at him, feeling as if my heart turned over at the sight of his warm, handsome face.

He smiled, slowly. ‘I look forward to escorting you home to Pengraic,’ he said, his smile stretching even wider.

Then he slapped Dulcette’s neck and walked back to where his own horse waited.

I sat there a few minutes longer, searching for every layer of meaning to that short statement, and what that look in his eyes conveyed.

Soon enough, I recollected myself to look round. Surely the earl would be sitting his horse, staring at me silently.

But he was far distant, still on the ground, talking animatedly with the Earl of Scersberie, and I had the feeling that he’d not noticed a moment of what had just passed.

I turned Dulcette’s head for the road, where Lady Adelie’s cart waited for the main column to ride on.

That afternoon Stephen pulled his horse back to ride for a while by his mother’s cart, talking to her.

Together with Alice (Emmette rode ahead, before her mother’s cart), I rode a little distance behind the cart, which gave me the opportunity to sit and watch Stephen to my heart’s content. Of all the nobles and royalty in this travelling band, I thought him the most uncomplicated.

Eventually Stephen reined in his horse so that he fell back to where Alice and I rode.

‘Alice,’ he said, ‘our lady mother wishes to speak with you.’

Alice gave a nod and pushed her horse forward.

Stephen smiled. ‘And now I have my chance to dally a little while with the lovely Mistress Maeb.’

‘You should not,’ I said, ‘for your father will be angry with me. He thinks I have unseemly ambitions.’

‘For me?’ Stephen said. ‘I am indeed flattered, mistress.’

‘My lord, my only security is this household, and —’

‘I understand Maeb. I will stay only a moment. After Oxeneford, however …’ He smiled, and I could not help but return it.

After Oxeneford Stephen would lead this column, the earl left far behind and with no chance of seeing how often we talked.

‘When you attended us in the solar the day before yesterday,’ Stephen said, ‘you heard some dark things, yet you have been unable to talk of them since, nor seek any reassurance. When there is a chance, after Oxeneford, I will talk more openly and fully with you of those things. I wish I could do it now … but …’

‘Is it truly as bad as it sounded, my lord?’

‘Yes. I am sorry. There will be dark days ahead, Maeb. I pray we have left Rosseley in good enough time, that …’

His voice drifted off, but I knew what he meant. That we have avoided the plague.

Then the good humour returned to his face. ‘You looked so beautiful that night in the great hall,’ he said. ‘My father ought to be more worried about my ambitions. Not yours.’

With that, and a final wicked smile, he booted his horse into a canter and moved forward to rejoin his father.

That evening, as the sun was setting, we rode through Craumares then across the arched stone bridge over the Thames into Summersete’s castle of Walengefort. It had been a long day, very tiring, and I was glad enough to hand Dulcette over to a groom and aid my lady (and Evelyn, who was still in great pain) to their beds for the night. When I lay down by Evelyn, we exchanged only a few words before I slipped gratefully into sleep.

We rose early again the next day, mounting our horses and carts just after dawn to ride northward to Oxeneford. We followed the Thames now, riding a wide and well-kept road by the riverside. I kept Dulcette behind my lady’s cart, with the two older girls, Alice and Emmette for company. We did not talk much, for the pace was even faster than the previous day, and several times I saw either the countess or Evelyn wince as the cart rattled along.

Both the earl and Stephen stayed out of sight at the head of the column with the king. We had left Summersete in his castle, together with the twins Robert and Ancel (joining his household earlier than expected), but I’d overheard two of the knights saying he might be joining the king at Oxeneford within a few days.

I did, however, have another companion for part of the ride. After our break for the noon meal, and as Stephen had yesterday, Saint-Valery joined myself and the two girls for a while. I was more than cautious of him after what Evelyn had told me, and answered his questions as briefly as I might.

‘Have I said anything to offend you, mistress?’ he asked eventually, keeping his voice low that Alice and Emmette on the other side of me might not hear.

‘I worry only to whom you might repeat what I say,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Mistress Maeb, you are far beyond your rustic childhood now. For better or worse, you have become part of a noble household, and thus will inevitably be drawn into the dealings of the court. Treat everyone with suspicion if you must, but be courtly and gracious in the doing, or else soon your enemies shall outnumber your allies.’

‘Forgive me, my lord,’ I said, stung by his rebuke. ‘It is just that I feel adrift within a dark marshland, where each and every word might sink me to my doom. To me it appears that silence is the greater safety. I fumble. I am sorry for it.’

‘Perhaps I also should beg forgiveness, for I have been peppering you with questions and allowed you to ask none. What would you know? This,’ he waved a hand at the column containing all its knights and lords, ‘must appear so strange to you.’

‘Oh, it does, my lord.’ I thought for a moment. ‘My lord, I am curious as to why the king, together with the Earls of Summersete and Scersberie, came to Rosseley with my Lord Pengraic. I know of the reason why they travel to Oxeneford, as must you —’

‘Elegantly put, mistress. For that you have my admiration.’

‘— but why did they accompany my Lord Pengraic? Surely they could have ridden straight for Oxeneford? Allowed my Lord Pengraic to collect his household and join them there?’

We continued in silence a brief while, Saint-Valery looking to the road ahead while he thought. Eventually he glanced over to ensure that Alice and Emmette were not close — they were chatting between themselves and had fallen back a little — before he spoke.

‘Matters are difficult,’ Saint-Valery said, ‘as well you know. There is the … sickness … and there is also increasing unrest.’ He paused again, picking his words carefully. ‘Pengraic is a powerful Marcher Lord, Maeb. He is the most independent and powerful of Edmond’s nobles. He controls great wealth and land and thus men-at-arms. He is, in effect, a king in all but name. Edmond, as well Scersberie and Summersete, accompanied him to Rosseley to ensure that Pengraic did, in fact, come to Oxeneford and not make straight for the Welsh Marches where he might collect his mighty garrison and … well … Edmond merely wanted to make sure Pengraic was at his side as an ally and not at his back like … well …’

I was horrified, and more than a little angry on my lord’s behalf. I did not like the man, and feared him, yet I felt intensely loyal to him if only for my lady’s sake.

‘Has not Edmond enough enemies and evils at his door,’ I said, not thinking that the words might go straight back to the king, ‘that he needs to start inventing new ones?’

Saint-Valery looked at me, then he burst into laughter as he had when I’d snapped at him during the feast. He calmed somewhat. ‘You are so much the —’ he began.

‘Saint-Valery,’ snapped a voice behind us, and we both swivelled in our saddles.

Pengraic was directly behind us, his horse’s head nodding between the rumps of Saint-Valery’s horse and Dulcette.

Sweet Jesu, I thought, how long has he been there?

Saint-Valery evidently thought the same thing, for he had gone white.

‘To the front, if you will,’ Pengraic said to Saint-Valery, and the man gave a nod and kicked his horse forward.

Pengraic drew his bright bay courser level with Dulcette, graced me momentarily with one of his expressionless looks, then moved forward himself.

I sat Dulcette, shaking as badly as a leaf in a storm. Pengraic had almost certainly overheard what Saint-Valery said, and then my reply. I was not so foolish as to congratulate myself for saying what was, as it happened, precisely the right thing at the right moment. Instead I realised again how close I had come to losing my place in the Pengraic household and embracing penury. I could just as easily have nodded and smiled at Saint-Valery. Even agreed with him, simply to appear gracious to a man who had so recently accused me of ungraciousness.

My shaking grew as I thought that, on the other hand, Saint-Valery might believe that I had known Pengraic was there, and had thus structured my outraged response for the earl’s benefit — and Saint-Valery’s (and through him the king’s) discomfort.

And how had Pengraic come to be so close behind us? I had thought him at the head of the column. I did not remember seeing him ride past us to the rear.

I was glad I was going to Pengraic Castle. The court and its treacherous eddies were too frightening and dangerous for me. I could not wait to escape them — and Pengraic himself.

Dark and damned the castle might be, but I thought it would prove considerably safer than these sun-drenched lowlands.

CHAPTER NINE

We reached Oxeneford late in the afternoon. The king had a palace outside the city walls, and it was there we would stay for a few days before travelling on to Pengraic in the Welsh Marches.

We skirted the city, turning for the north-western meadows, and suddenly I saw laid out in the fields beyond the palace the encampment of what appeared to me to be a large army. There were scores of tents with pennants flying the colours and heraldic arms of their occupants, long horse lines, cooking fires, men at weapon practice or standing about idling, and maille-smiths sweating over their work. It made the threat of unrest, even outright rebellion, seem very real to me, whereas before it had only been something lurking in the shadows of words and frowns.

Much of the column peeled off into this encampment, but Edmond, his closest retainers (including Saint-Valery), Scersberie and Pengraic and his household continued into the palace. I helped Lady Adelie and Evelyn out of the cart, then took control of John and Rosamund. Evelyn was moving better now, although she was still stiff and sore. We went inside the palace and were shown to our chambers. We were all glad to be allowed to rest, before the evening meal in the king’s great hall.

Unlike the meal at Rosseley, Evelyn and myself, and even Mistress Yvette, sat at places far down the hall tables, where we only talked among ourselves during a repast I thought indifferent to that offered at Rosseley. Evelyn was feeling uncomfortable, and no one noticed when I decided to accompany her back to our chamber where I thought I would help her to bed.

I stayed with her for a while, until Mistress Yvette returned and then went with her to help Lady Adelie to her bed. The earl and his countess had a magnificent chamber on the top floor of the main palace building, with a cleverly arched and panelled ceiling, and with its own great fireplace. Their bed, heavily draped in well-worked crimson hangings and festooned with furs, dominated the room and I spent more than a few minutes in some envy at their comforts.

The earl was elsewhere, and once Mistress Yvette and I had disrobed Lady Adelie and helped her into the luxurious bed, Yvette and I carefully folded the countess’ robes and lay them in one of the two chests in the chamber.

‘Maeb?’

I turned to the countess, sitting in her bed with her ever-present book of devotion in her hands.

‘Maeb, Yvette is weary, although she will not speak of it, and is troubled by an ache in her temples. Will you attend me tomorrow morning, at rising? I would allow Yvette a morning to lie abed, for her own rest.’

‘Of course, madam.’ I was both pleased and a little nervous. I had attended the countess on occasion in the morning, aiding her to rise, but always with Mistress Yvette present.

‘In that hour before dawn, if you will,’ Lady Adelie said. ‘I would rise early for my prayer on the morrow.’

Privately I thought the countess could do with a lie abed herself, for she looked strained, but I merely nodded, dipped in courtesy, made sure that neither the countess nor Mistress Yvette needed me for anything else, and returned to the chamber I shared with Evelyn.

I had thought to find Evelyn asleep, but she was awake, and in some discomfort.

‘Evelyn? What is it?’

‘Oh, nothing too troublesome, Maeb. Do not fret. It is but this back. It cramps and will not let me sleep.’

‘I will fetch a hot poultice for you, Evelyn. It will relax the griping.’

I could see Evelyn struggling with herself. I knew Evelyn well. Part of her would not wish to trouble me, the other part desperately yearned for that poultice.

I laughed. ‘Do not fret, Evelyn. I know the way to the kitchens, for I went there earlier for madam’s posset. I will fetch the poultice, and then you will rest easy.’

Evelyn’s face relaxed in relief. ‘Thank you, Maeb.’

I found the kitchen easily enough, and tried to keep out of the cooks’ and servants’ way as I made a warm barley and herb poultice for Evelyn’s back. I wrapped it in some linen, then begged a wooden bowl from one of the cooks that I might carry it more easily.

It was late night now, and many of the torches had burned low. I crossed the small courtyard to the building where our chamber lay, but somehow took the wrong door. I only realised I had mislaid my way when I walked into a store chamber filled with barrels and realised that I had not passed through it on my way to the kitchen. It was very dark, the only light coming from a couple of open windows high in the walls, and I muttered to myself, cross that I had lost my way.

I turned for the door, intending to retrace my steps back into the courtyard where I might find the right door, when I stopped, so terrified that I froze, unable to move or even think.

The door was open, and there must have been a torch in the chamber beyond, for what stood — crouched — in the door was clearly silhouetted.

It was an imp — my mind registered that at least. How often had I seen them, crawling in stone across the walls of churches, or grinning down from their gutters high above?

It had a grotesque lumpy body, its limbs thin and stick-like, its hands and feet over-sized and splayed as it rested on all fours, watching me.

A long, skinny tail snaked out behind it, threshing to and fro, like a cat stalking.

Its face was round, with a pig’s snout, its teeth small and sharp.

A red forked tongue flicked out as I watched, and its luminous eyes slowly blinked.

Then it hissed and rose on its back legs as if to strike out. Standing, it was taller than a man.

I shrieked, stumbling backward, certain that it would take my life and carry my soul down to hell.

Suddenly something caught me about the waist and I was violently wrenched to one side.

‘Get thee back to thy foul master, imp!’ a man’s voice cried, and I heard the sound of steel being drawn.

I had stumbled against a barrel, and it was only after I had found my balance and could look up that I realised it was Pengraic who stood there, stepping forth to the imp with his sword drawn. He made a lunge toward it and the imp gave a soft sibilant hissing sound, as if thwarted, and abruptly vanished.

A low cry came from my throat, and everything momentarily blurred and darkened about me. I felt the earl grab me about the waist again, and he guided me to sit down on a barrel that lay on its side. He sat holding me until he was sure that I would no longer faint.

‘Saints damn you! What do you here?’

‘I am s … s … sorry, my lord. I came only for a poultice for Evelyn’s back.’ Amazingly, I realised I still held the thing in my hands. I had been confronted by an imp from hell, but I had not dropped Evelyn’s poultice. ‘I lost my way … I am … I am … sorry.’

‘You are a most foolish woman, mistress!’ the earl said as his hands relaxed away from my waist.

I thought to rise, almost as fearful of the earl in his bad temper as I had been of the imp, but he stopped me.

‘Wait. We need to talk, then I will escort you back to your chamber.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

‘You will not say anything, not to anyone, about what you saw here tonight.’

‘No, my lord.’

‘Not to anyone, Maeb! Swear it!’

‘I swear, my lord!’

‘Not to Evelyn, not to my lady wife, not to Stephen. To no one. It would cause panic and dismay, and that we do not need.’

‘I will not speak, my lord.’

We were close enough that I could see his face, and I could see that he watched me carefully, his eyes narrowed. Finally he gave a small nod. ‘Yes, I will trust you. You will not speak.’

What if he had decided the other way? That I could not be trusted? What would he have done?

I had been trembling, but now I trembled more.

‘You are not in danger, Maeb. The imp will not trouble you again … but stray here no more. Stay close to your lady and your chamber.’

I nodded. ‘But the imp has seen me, my lord … did it come for me? How do I know it won’t return?’

‘Maeb, just trust me. It will not return for you. It was not you it wanted.’

‘Then who? I —’

‘Stop questioning my words, Maeb!’

I cringed at the sharpness of his voice, and he sighed. ‘Maeb, now I am sorry for my roughness of speech. And I have yet to express my gratitude for what you said to Saint-Valery this day. That was well said, and I thank you for it.’

I knew he was trying to take my mind away from the imp, but still I appreciated his words. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

I wanted to leave. I kept glancing toward the door, but the earl sat as if he still had something to say but could not quite find the words for it. I grew more uncomfortable by the moment, and wished desperately I was back in my chamber, curled up with Evelyn, finding refuge in a deep, unknowing sleep.

The earl turned a little, enough so that he faced me directly. ‘Maeb, there is a dark flood coming. You will need to be strong.’

‘My lord?’

‘The plague. It will be worse than you could ever imagine, worse than you have been told.’

I did not know what to say, for his words struck great fear into me.

‘Remember that you promised all your care for my wife.’

‘I will be strong, for my lady’s sake.’

‘Good.’ His voice had relaxed now, so I dared also to relax.

A little too soon, as it happened.

‘Saint-Valery has asked for your hand in marriage,’ he said.

‘No!’ I said.

‘You know full well why he has asked for you, don’t you.’

Of course I knew. The king did not want to touch me until I had been wed. It was his idea of courtesy. Saint-Valery would do anything to smooth the path for his master. I was to be used and then discarded in the king’s casual game of lust at court. I felt ill, and I think some of what I felt showed on my face.

‘Do not worry, Maeb. You will go to Pengraic and there you will be safe. Who knows who or what will be left standing when this flood recedes.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ I did not truly know what to say. They were the safest words I could think of.

‘Now take that poultice to Evelyn, and forget all you have seen and heard this night — save your vow of silence.’

‘I will, my lord,’ I said.

I rose, dipped in courtesy, and left the store room. The earl seemed to have forgotten his promise to escort me to my chamber, but I did not mind. I was glad enough to leave him.

I returned safe to my chamber, and applied the poultice to Evelyn’s back. She did not appear to notice anything amiss, and I said not a word of what had occurred.

I lay beside her, the poultice warming us both as we curled together, but I did not sleep that night. The hissing imp invaded my thoughts whenever I closed my eyes, and if it was not the imp, it was the earl’s words. There is a dark flood coming. It will be worse than you could ever imagine, worse than you have been told.

It was all I could think about. The imp and the earl’s bleak warning. They pushed away any other thought I may have had, whether of Saint-Valery’s offer for my hand, or whatever query I may have raised in my own mind as to what purpose the earl may have had for lurking in that store room.

I was exhausted and gritty-eyed when I crept into the earl and countess’ chamber early the next morning. I stoked their fire, adding more wood, set two bowls of water to warm on the hearth, then lit several candles with a taper from the fire.

‘My lady?’ I bent over her side of the bed, laying my hand gently on her shoulder.

She sighed, then opened her eyes, and thus we began our day.

The countess pushed back the cover and sat on the side of the bed. She took several deep breaths as I pulled a half mantle about her shoulders, and I thought she struggled a little with them. She was very pale, and her distended belly heavily veined, and I wondered yet again how much this child was taking from her.

‘My lady?’ I murmured, concerned for her.

‘I am well enough, Maeb. Fetch the water, and I will wash.’

The earl rose as I carried one of the bowls back to the countess, and as she washed so did he, crouching by the fire and grunting as he splashed water over his face and the back of his neck.

It seemed strange to be working silently with my lady as I helped her to dress, first in her linen chemise and stockings, then in a brightly coloured kirtle that slipped over her head and belted loosely about her swollen body. I combed out and re-braided her hair. Behind us the earl was dressing with the aid of his valet, Charles, and as he and the countess prepared for the day they exchanged quiet words about the countess’ continuation of her journey to Wales.

It was almost as if I (and Charles) were invisible to the earl and his wife. They had been naked before me, yet the greater familiarity was allowing me to watch this routine intimacy of one of the most remarkable dynastic marriages in England. There was no passion between them, but there was a strong respect, and they both listened to the other.

It was only when Charles was gone and both the earl and his wife fully dressed, the earl shaking out his mantle in preparation to going outside, that they dragged me into the conversation.

‘I saw Maeb last night,’ said the earl to the Lady Adelie, and my heart started into my mouth, ‘as she was going to bed and I returning to you. I spoke briefly with her about Saint-Valery’s offer. She was not pleased.’

Lady Adelie turned to regard me. ‘It is a good offer, Maeb. He is a man of wealth, with several lordships and estates and great influence. It is a far better match than I could have hoped for you.’

I stood with my eyes downcast, not knowing how to respond.

‘Maeb understands what comes attached to the offer,’ Pengraic said.

‘Ah,’ Lady Adelie said. She took a breath, considering the matter. ‘This must seem strange to you, Maeb, and perhaps not welcome, but you have yet to learn the ways of the court. The king is a kindly man and a generous one. He has a warm heart. In many respects, he is the one who will provide the security in your life, not Saint-Valery.’

‘I cannot believe that you recommend this path to me, madam,’ I said, almost in tears. ‘Why not trade me in the cattle yards next market day? You may yet get an even higher offer for me.’

‘You have a poor habit of speaking your mind, mistress,’ the earl snapped. ‘It is not pleasing, nor will it ease your path in life.’

‘I have not spoken all I could,’ I snapped back at him, so angry and hurt that I cared not what I said. ‘As well you know, my lord.’

The countess looked at her husband, an eyebrow raised.

‘I will not accept Saint-Valery’s offer,’ I said, still looking at the earl, ‘unless you force my hand.’

Lady Adelie sighed, but the earl held my gaze steadily. I was playing a dangerous game here, for he knew that I was threatening to break my silence about last night.

‘No wonder your father did not manage to marry you away,’ Pengraic said softly, ‘for you have the temper and petulance of a harridan. What man could possibly want you for a wife? You would curdle the milk in the dairy as soon as you laid eyes on it.’

‘Raife,’ Lady Adelie murmured.

‘I will tell Saint-Valery that the matter will be settled once the threat of the plague has passed,’ Pengraic continued. ‘Until then, mistress, you will endeavour to keep your tongue still in that waspish mouth of yours until you are well clear of this court and on your way home to Pengraic. You will not refuse Saint-Valery outright; the matter can remain in abeyance for the time being. Madam,’ he turned to Lady Adelie, ‘you have a long journey to the Marches in which you can instil some manners into this girl. God help us all if she behaves like this at court!’

With that, he was off, slamming the door behind him.

I fell to my knees before Lady Adelie, my tears now spilling over. ‘Madam,’ I said, ‘I am truly sorry for what I said. It was fear that spoke.’

‘You must surely loathe the idea of marriage to Saint-Valery,’ she said. ‘But, girl, do you expect to choose your own husband? It will never be. I was not allowed to choose my husband, nor did I have any say in who that husband might be. Saint-Valery is not a bad man, and he is of a far better rank and of greater wealth and estates than you could ever have hoped!’

‘But it shall be a sham so that the king can —’

‘The king’s fancy will last but a season,’ Lady Adelie said, ‘and in the meantime you will have won for yourself a position in society that but a few weeks ago was as far beyond you as are the stars in the firmament. The marriage will be no sham; it will be honoured by Saint-Valery, who will receive the king’s favour for it. It is an advantageous marriage to you and to this household.’

Ah, the nub of it. Both the earl and the countess saw this match as a means of placing their own factor in the court and bed of the king, while Saint-Valery was likely anticipating yet more favours from the king for doing his will.

‘Maeb,’ the countess said, her tone kindly, ‘you have come from a simple and uncomplicated world and in a short time have been hurled into such … events. It is overwhelming.’

‘You and the earl are asking me to forsake my vows of marriage,’ I said, unable to believe the devout countess could overlook this small detail.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘in worldly matters, one has to bend with the wind.’

‘Would you have done so, madam?’

Again I risked her anger, but I was still upset and more than a little angry myself.

‘For what favour and advantage it would bring to my family,’ she said, ‘yes, I would. Oh, Maeb. It is but a man. They are simple creatures and so easily sated. You have such a wit and spirit about you …’ She paused, sighing softly. ‘My dear, such an alliance can purchase you influence; wealth, if that is what you desire, or offices and favours for your children. Marriage among our rank is not merely affection between a man and a woman, but a power-building exercise, a constant accumulation of rank and privilege and estates and offices for ourselves, but more so for our children. It is a game, Maeb, and one you do not wish to lose.

‘Now, come with me to chapel, and let us say our prayers. Remember, always in life there is a priest to whom you can confess, and wash away your sins.’

Later that morning, when we had returned to Lady Adelie’s chamber, she noticed that the earl had left behind his gloves.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘he will be cross, but no doubt is too busy to return for them. Maeb, will you take them to him? He will not be far — ask any of the king’s servants or men-at-arms and they will tell you.’

It was not a task I felt happy about, but I could surely leave them with a servant somewhere to hand to the earl.

I made for the main quarters of the king, where I knew he met with his advisers and nobles. I would not be allowed in, so I felt sure that I could safely leave the offending gloves with a guard.

But the earl was not there.

‘He has just left,’ said one of the guards. ‘He and his son are heading for the chapel.’

My heart sank, because now I would need to speak to the earl, stand face to face with him, meet his eye, and I did not think I was quite courageous for that yet, not after our morning’s confrontation. Already I was regretting pushing him so far, for I did not think now he would treat me kindly in future dealings.

I hurried for the chapel, crossing the main courtyard, and saw the distinctive figure of the earl in the distance, Stephen to one side of him, and another man to his other, to whom I did not pay attention. I wanted only to hand these damned gloves to the earl and then return to my lady, with whom I had much mending of fences to accomplish.

I hurried as fast as I dared over the cobbles, slippery from a recent shower of rain, but even as I drew close the men started to run lightly up the steps toward the open door of the chapel.

The last thing I wanted was to be forced into sidling up to the earl at his devotions.

‘My lord!’ I cried.

All three stopped, and turned, as one.

A ray of sunshine suddenly broke through the low clouds and illumed the three of them: Stephen, Pengraic … and the king, Edmond.

I couldn’t move. I was frozen by the vision on the steps. They all had their gaze on me. Stephen’s face was creased in a wide, open grin. Whatever the earl felt was locked away tight behind his impassive façade. The king … Edmond looked at me with a warm regard, and it suddenly struck me that what I feared in the proposed marriage to Saint-Valery was not Edmond, or what he asked, but Saint-Valery and a lifetime of regret at his side.

The sun’s ray bathed the three men in a golden, ethereal light, and I knew God had handed me this moment. It caught me in the thrall of premonition, and I realised then, in that instant, that my life would be bounded by the knight, the earl and the king, and no other.

What I did not know then was that this was the last time I would ever see these three men together.

‘Mistress Maeb?’ said the earl, and somehow I freed myself from my thrall, and walked up the steps toward him.

‘Your gloves, my lord,’ I said, handing them over, then I dipped in courtesy toward Edmond, nodded at Stephen, and turned my back on them and walked away.

I walked easy, for somehow, in a manner I could yet not discern, my entire life was settled in that one golden moment.

Whatever happened now was in fate’s hands, and no manner of struggling would change a thing.

CHAPTER TEN

The next day Evelyn woke me. She’d been up early to go down to the kitchens, returning one of the bowls I had used for a poultice.

‘Maeb! Maeb!’

I opened my eyes grudgingly. Mistress Yvette was back tending our lady this morning, and I’d been allowed to sleep until Evelyn and I joined them in chapel for our morning prayers.

‘Maeb! I have heard news — of a plague. Everyone is talking of it.’

I sat up, wondering what I should say.

‘I have heard such terrible things. Sweet Mother Mary, Maeb, is this what you had heard in the solar?’

I nodded. No point in trying to deny it now.

‘And why we are fleeing back to Pengraic?’

I nodded again.

Evelyn was white, and she sat down on the bed as I rose, washed my face and dressed.

‘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 Iride 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.

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 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.

The countess kept mainly to the solar during the day, and her privy chamber in the evening and night. She rarely ventured beyond those two chambers. All her meals were taken here. I assisted her morning and night to robe and then disrobe, and attend to her needs at those times, but during the day Mistress Yvette mostly kept her company, and I was left free for other duties.

As at Rosseley, these mostly involved the children. Ancel and Robert, the twins, were no longer with the household so their mischief no longer concerned me. Alice and Emmette, almost grown ladies, tended to keep to themselves, or else sat with their mother learning their stitching and embroideries. That left John, the baby, and Rosamund, and as the nurse tended John for most of the time, it meant that Rosamund and I spent much of our days together.

I did not mind, for she was a delightful child and I loved her dearly. Sometimes she and I played in the solar, but the noise of our merriment oft disturbed the countess, and we sought our amusements elsewhere.

The children, as did the nurse, slept in the female dormitory (itself portioned into different apartments) which ran immediately off the solar (the men’s dormitory lay on the western side of the keep). After a few days of running and playing in there, I decided we both needed to venture further than the living quarters on the upper level.

I took Rosamund into the solar, where the countess sat with Mistress Yvette, Alice and Emmette.

‘My lady,’ I said, ‘Rosamund needs to run, and we both need the fresh air. May I take her for a walk in the inner bailey?’

‘Be wary of the horses,’ said Lady Adelie, ‘and do not get in the way of the knights or soldiers.’

‘I will be careful, my lady.’

And thus we were free to explore a little. I was thrilled. While I marvelled at the richness and luxury of the lord’s chambers, I still longed for the open air and the sun on my face. I took Rosamund by the hand and together we descended the stairwell.

The kitchens and the courtyard of the great keep were alive with activity: servants hurried to and fro, and the courtyard had a half score of horses being groomed. I gathered Rosamund in my arms, not wanting her to be trampled, and together we walked through the gate to the inner bailey.

I’d only had a glimpse of the inner bailey when we’d first arrived, as upon entering the main gate I’d been directed into the great keep’s courtyard. I’d had a sense of great space, and I knew I’d seen trees and gardens, which had surprised me.

Now, as I slipped through the keep’s gateway to the inner bailey, I could see that the walls enclosed a vast area, two large portions of which were given over to orchards, herb and food gardens. I turned to my left where there was a garden growing in the space bounded by the keep, the outer ring of defence wall and the chapel, a large and gracious building which ran from the outer wall into the centre of the bailey. It was a large garden, sheltered from the constant movement of men and horses through the inner bailey by a waist-height picket fence, and so I was happy to let Rosamund run free once we’d walked through the fence’s gateway.

I kept an eye on Rosamund, making sure she disturbed none of the plants, but mostly I let her be as I strolled along the garden paths. The scent from the flowers and the pungent leaves of the herbs, the gentle hum of the bees, the sun on my face … I breathed in deeply, closing my eyes briefly as I relaxed.

When I opened them again I saw that a man approached from a door in the chapel; the castle priest, from his robes and tonsure.

‘You must be Mistress Maeb Langtofte,’ he said as he came to a halt before me. He had a pleasant face, well featured, with a strong nose, warm brown eyes and a fringe of dark hair that flopped over his brow. He was only some five or six years older than me.

‘You know me?’ I said, surprised.

‘Who else could you be?’ the priest said, then inclined his head. ‘I am Brother Owain.’ He nodded at the chapel. ‘And there my realm. I knew you because I know all of the countess’ women … save for her new attending woman. Thus, you must be she.’

‘I am indeed,’ I said. I indicated the garden. ‘Should I not be here, Brother Owain? I could not resist. Both Rosamund and myself needed the sun on our faces, and the fresh air. I thought …’

‘You are most welcome to the garden,’ Owain said. ‘Its purpose is to soothe the soul as much as the flesh. But keep Rosamund away from that far corner. It harbours dark plants I use in my herbals, and if she were to eat them, then it would not go well for her.’

I nodded, glancing about to make sure Rosamund was nowhere near the dangerous herbs. She was wandering through the garden close to the chapel, studying various flower heads in childish wonder, and I relaxed.

‘How do you find Pengraic, mistress?’ Owain said.

For a moment I thought he meant the earl, then realised he talked of the castle.

‘I find it very formidable,’ I said. ‘I feel a little lost.’

‘It is overwhelming when first you enter it,’ Owain said. ‘Initially you only see its towering walls, and the great slabs of stone. But after a while …’

‘Yes?’

‘After a while you begin to see its loveliness, too.’

I looked about, wondering that I should ever find these defences ‘lovely’.

I must have been frowning for Owain gave a little laugh. ‘You have been here but days, and I wager you have seen little of the castle save the great keep. I have lived here most of my life, and to me this castle is a world all to itself.’

‘Most of your life?’ I said, curious.

‘Aye,’ Owain said. ‘I was born in Crickhoel — that is the village you passed by to reach the castle — and apart from the years I spent learning my craft in the priory in Glowecestre, I have lived either in the village or this castle all the years of my life.’

‘You are Welsh?’ I said.

‘Indeed, mistress.’

I did not know how to phrase this next question, so I chose vagueness. ‘And yet you are happy here?’

‘Here? In this castle? In this Norman castle?’ Owain chuckled. ‘Yes, I am. This place … it holds much history among my people. It is a sacred spot. We tell myths that come from the people who were here before the Welsh; we have a strong attachment to the past. It is no wonder that Pengraic’s ancestor built his castle here, meaning to impose himself on the Welsh — he had to intimidate both the legends and the Welsh. And to answer your next question, for I see it on your face, yes, my loyalty is to the earl, and to Lord Stephen.’

I opened my mouth to ask another question, wondering that Owain mentioned, as had Stephen, the ancient peoples and the sacredness of this spot, but just at that moment we heard footsteps approaching.

It was Stephen — which fact gave me a warm glow — and another knight. I did not know the other man, but he strode with as much authority as Stephen, and carried about him almost as grand an air of nobility.

‘Owain!’ Stephen said. ‘And Mistress Maeb, guarding my youngest sister. Maeb, you have not met Ralph yet, have you? Then may I present Ralph d’Avranches, the garrison commander at Pengraic.’

I remembered his name from the conversation I’d heard in the solar at Rosseley. D’Avranches was from a distinguished and noble Norman family, and was renowned for his military skill.

‘My lord,’ I said, dipping in courtesy.

‘Mistress,’ d’Avranches said, with the minimum of politeness. He was singularly uninterested in either myself or Owain, and turned immediately back to Stephen, with whom I imagined he had been deep in conversation before Stephen detoured into the garden. ‘If I have your leave, my lord.’

‘By all means,’ Stephen said, and, with a half bow to Stephen, d’Avranches turned on his heel and was gone, his booted feet crunching along the gravel path.

‘I am glad to see you about,’ Stephen said to me. ‘I am sorry I have not attended my mother as I should, but …’ he shrugged. ‘Garrison matters always seem to crowd round me, demanding my attention. How does she keep, Maeb?’

‘She is well enough,’ I said. ‘She has regained some colour, and eats better now she is not constantly travelling. She has a little cough from the dampness of the stone, or perhaps a lingering chill caught while travelling, but otherwise she is much improved.’

‘I am relieved I managed to escort her home safe,’ Stephen said. ‘I worried for her, and the child. There is not yet sign of its birth?’

‘My lady thinks a little while yet, my lord,’ I said.

Stephen nodded, then grinned at Owain. ‘No doubt such tedious household gossip bores you, my friend.’

‘Indeed not, my lord,’ Owain said. He looked to me. ‘I did not know my lady has been unwell. Would you ask her if she would like me to attend on her?’

‘Owain is skilled with herbals,’ Stephen said, ‘and I should have thought to have asked you to visit her before now, Owain. I will attend her this very afternoon, and speak to her of you.’

Owain gave a small bow. ‘I was about to show Mistress Maeb the chapel, my lord. Will you accompany us?’

I was not sure I should be seen with Stephen at all, for I still heeded the countess’ and Evelyn’s warnings. But no one from my lady’s chambers could see us here, and the chapel would be private. No harm could come of it, surely.

Stephen made a movement as if he were about to offer me his arm, then thought better of it. ‘I would be glad of it,’ he said, ‘for the chapel always gives me great peace.’

I collected Rosamund, who had by now picked enough flowers to wind into a chain about her head, and together with Stephen and Owain we entered the southern door of the chapel.

The chapel was dim, lit only by a score of candles and the light from the imposing eastern window (which I took a moment to marvel at, for I had never seen the like). My eyes adjusted slowly to the light and by then Rosamund was squirming in my arms, trying to get down.

I looked to Owain for permission.

‘Let her run free,’ he said. ‘I have no objection.’

I set her down with a small sigh of relief and a few words of stern warning not to touch the candles.

She wandered off, happily intrigued by the intricately carved sandalled feet of the nearby stone statue of a saint, and I turned to look more fully about the chapel.

Apart from its size — this was the largest chapel I had ever entered — it was as all chapels in which I had worshipped, save that it was far more richly appointed and that the wall paintings were somehow different. I frowned at them, not immediately able to see how they differed from all others I had seen, then …

‘Oh,’ I said, and both Owain and Stephen laughed.

‘Come,’ said Owain, ‘walk a little closer. This panel here is among my favourites. What do you make of it?’

All churches and chapels had their walls painted with various scenes from the Bible as well as from the martyrdom of saints and scenes of the last judgment. But here the paintings were markedly different. While they showed scenes from the Bible and of saints’ martyrdoms, all these scenes were set within magnificent forests.

The chapel walls were alive with trees. Branches dipped this way and that, and saints, apostles and martyrs danced in and out of clearings and veils of leaves.

Even the figures of the people depicted within were different. All the people were tall and willowy, and had a sense of the otherworldly about them.

‘I have never seen anything like it!’ I said. ‘It is very … unusual.’

In truth, I found the heavily wooded nature of the walls somewhat unsettling. It made the chapel darker than otherwise it might have been, and, sweet Jesu, I wondered if I looked hard enough would I see any wood dryads or fairies peeking out from the crowns of the trees.

‘The chapel was painted many years ago,’ Stephen said, walking over and softly laying the fingertips of one hand against a depiction of a gnarled tree trunk. ‘I believe my ancestor made good use of the craftsmen in Crickhoel. I saw you looking at the figures, Maeb. They are said to be of the Old People who I mentioned to you, those who were here before the Welsh came. They are long gone now.’

‘To the Old People this was a sacred spot,’ Owain said. ‘On some festivity days the villagers of Crickhoel ask the earl if they can come and worship in this chapel. They like to lay flowers on the heartstone. The earl never refuses.’

I studied the paintings further. ‘Why are there wolves running among the people?’

‘Again,’ Owain said, ‘these walls depict ancient myths as well as Christian tales. It is said the wolves are the protectors of this land, and of the ancient peoples, and of those who today still bear their bloodlines.’

‘My mother wants these forests and people and wolves painted over,’ Stephen said, turning to me and smiling, ‘but my father has for the moment resisted her. It would be a shame to lose them, for I enjoy knowing I have a forest so close whenever I need its solace.’

‘But these painting are very … pagan,’ I said. ‘Do they not worry you, Owain, plastered as they are about a chapel dedicated to our Lord Christ Saviour?’

‘No,’ Owain said. ‘If anything, they give me comfort. I like to think that the Old People are still here, watching over us.’

That was very un-Christian of him, I thought. Perhaps Owain was as much, or more, a man of these mountains and their past than he was Lord Christ’s man?

‘Maeb,’ Stephen said, ‘have you seen this? This is the stone of which Owain just spoke.’

He led us toward an immense stone set in the very heart of the nave. It was five or six times the size of the other floor slabs, and irregularly shaped.

It was very smooth, worn smooth over the centuries by the passage of thousands of feet.

‘This stone was here before the chapel was built,’ Stephen said. ‘It was set into the space atop this hill, perhaps by the Old People. We call it the heartstone: heart of the chapel, heart of the castle, heart of the hill, and heart to many of the Welsh who live here.’

‘But this is a Christian chapel,’ I said, more than a little aghast.

‘This was hallowed ground long, long before Jesus Christ set foot here,’ said Stephen, ‘and I doubt he ever minded much that the place was already warmed and sacred by the time he arrived.’

I am afraid that my mouth hung open a little as I stared at Stephen.

He saw, and laughed softly. ‘Come now, Maeb. There are such sacred sites all over the country. Surely you noted the Long Toms we passed on our journey here.’

The Long Toms. The ancient crosses that stood at crossroads and which had been there long before Christianity set its hand on this land. We had indeed passed many on our way here. There had always been one standing outside Witenie, too, and the local villagers laid flowers at its base during the mid-summer festivals.

Yet, still … I wondered that the chapel had been built right over a spot that was so anciently sacred.

‘Maeb,’ Owain said, ‘Lord Christ is a generous and loving lord. He does not mind sharing his home, and he does not mind that sometimes he shares our love. So long as we live our lives with good in our hearts and in our actions, then he asks no more.’

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

I slept 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.’

Lady Adelie’s colour was, frankly, appalling. Her skin had a yellowish-grey pallor to it and always seemed to have a sheen of cold sweat. She appeared exhausted by the child, moving only from her bed to a chair by the window in her chamber, then back to her bed again. She rarely spoke, and never smiled, as if even words or emotion were simply too much for her. Lady Adelie had initially appeared to recover from the journey from Rosseley, but over the past few days her health had deteriorated once more.

Yvette paused in her folding of a linen. ‘She is well enough, Maeb. Our Lady Adelie’s colour has never been good, and her cough is but a mild summer chill, exacerbated by the baby pressing on her lungs. Do not fret. She will do well enough, for she is a courageous woman and strong, despite her apparent frailty.’

I was not sure of Mistress Yvette’s explanation and apparent confidence, but then she knew the Lady Adelie far better than I. ‘I worry that the child drains her strength,’ I said.

‘She is not a young woman, but she has birthed many infants. Do not worry, mistress. All be well enough, I am sure.’

Once more I spared a moment’s resentment for the earl, as I had that first day I’d come into his household, that he required of his lady so much effort in her later years. Had he not already enough sons?

I clutched the eaglestone and hoped its powerful protective magic would serve to aid my lady.

Two days after this conversation Stephen came to the solar and sought permission from his mother to enter her privy chamber. Now that Lady Adelie had retired to her chamber in preparation for the birth she normally would not have seen any man, not even her son, but apparently Stephen convinced Yvette — who carried word to and fro from Lady Adelie — that it was necessary and important, and so my lady admitted him after a brief whisper with Yvette.

Gilda and Jocea were also in the privy chamber, hunched silent and watchful in a shadowy corner, as were Alice and Emmette. The two girls sat most of the day with their lady mother, sometimes reading to her from her prayer book, or otherwise engaged in stitchery.

Apart from a brief glance as he entered, Stephen paid both the midwives and his sisters no attention. I stood slightly to one side of my lady’s bed and Stephen spared me a slightly longer look. I searched for any deeper message in that look, but there was nothing there save distraction and worry — which instantly set me to distraction and worry.

As he greeted his mother and she him, I moved as if to leave my place, but Lady Adelie motioned me to stay, then crooked her finger at Yvette to bring her closer.

‘I share my troubles these days, Stephen,’ she said, with the ghost of a smile, ‘and I see by your face that you carry troublesome news.’

‘And good news, my lady,’ Stephen said, almost managing to raise his own smile. ‘I have heard this morning from my lord father.’

Lady Adelie’s face brightened as I had not seen it do for many weeks. ‘Raife? How is he? What news? Where is he? Oh, Stephen, speak!’

I had not realised, until this very moment, that my lady loved her husband. I had known there existed respect between them, but not, until now, that so also did love.

‘He sent word,’ said Stephen, ‘that he is now in Elesberie with the king — the plague came to Oxeneford and the king moved his court to his royal manor at Elesberie. He is well, my lady, and sends you his regards and affection.’

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