The Devil's Diadem

by Sara Douglass

  He gave a nod, and our conversation turned to more general matters. From then on, Saint-Valery became one of my good friends at court and he came to visit two more times, when he knew Alianor to be with me.

  I went to the Tower frequently, as Raife had asked. Largely because both Henry and the Templars were absent (where, I wondered?). I enjoyed myself there. Edmond showed me much courtesy, often sitting me at high table, although not again at his side — not without my husband present. I made deeper acquaintance with many of the other nobles, secular and clergy alike, and slowly found my way about this gallantry of aristocrats with a degree of confidence. Edmond and I spoke often, although usually only in generalities, and I became more comfortable with him, too, and often I would find our eyes meeting across some crowded space and a gentle smile exchanged.

  Alianor continued to be a good friend and companion. Together with Isouda and Evelyn, as well as Alianor’s women and various attendants, we sometimes wandered the markets and streets of London, or visited the churches. I also spent time at the Pembrokes’ house, as I did at the de Lacys’. Alianor graced me with a most beautifully crafted and jewelled eating knife, and I accepted it gladly, giving the one I’d had since childhood to our house steward, fitzErfast, as evidence of my regard for his service.

  My pregnancy continued well, for which I thanked the Virgin Mary every day. From time to time I was indisposed, but I found that much of my energy returned now that I was past the first few months. My belly had rounded out, its plumpness pleasingly displayed by the jewelled girdle that I wore often. I spent much time in prayer, asking that my confinement would not be injurious to either myself or the child, and that the child would prove a son and healthy. Alianor and Isabel both suggested good midwives they knew in London, for it appeared I would not return to Pengraic before the birth.

  Overall, the weeks that Raife was away passed pleasantly enough and with little to note, save for three incidents, the last of which, occurring the night before Raife returned, destroyed my hard-won complacency.

  The first incident I put behind me quickly. It was the second week that Raife was away, and I lay fast asleep in our bed. As Raife liked, so I had come to like, and I had no sleeping companions, either in my bed or in the chamber: Isouda and Evelyn both slept in a chamber nearby.

  I woke, suddenly. I thought I could hear snuffling in the chamber, as if a snotty child was rummaging through one of the chests. I could also smell something horribly malodorous — like dog droppings left to steam in a puddle of water in the sun. I was so confused by this, the soft noises and the terrible odour, that I sat bolt upright.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said, peering into the blackness.

  There came a bang, as if of a chest slamming shut, then a slight scuffling sound, then nothing. I sat, terrified, my heart pounding, the bed covers clutched to my chest.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I cried, louder this time, my voice thin with fright.

  There came a banging from outside the door, and it suddenly opened.

  It was one of the house servants who slept in the chamber beyond. He carried a candle.

  ‘My lady? What is wrong?’

  ‘There was someone here!’

  The man shouted instantly for aid, and within moments two guards had appeared, weapons to hand.

  They looked about, but there was no one. No place to hide and the shutters on the window were securely closed and bolted on the inside.

  ‘There is no one, my lady,’ one of them said.

  My heart had ceased pounding now.

  There was no one.

  Even the odour had vanished.

  ‘I must have had a dream,’ I said. ‘I am sorry for disturbing your rest, but thank you for coming so quickly.’

  Isouda and Evelyn had appeared by now, too, their faces worried as they clutched robes about them.

  By now I was feeling severely embarrassed. ‘A dream only,’ I said again. ‘A night vapour.’

  ‘Would you like one of us to stay, my lady?’ Isouda said.

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Go back to your beds.’

  I lay awake once everyone had gone, but I convinced myself as I had the others that it had been nothing but a dream, and I drifted back to sleep within a short while.

  Three days later I was at court when I found myself talking with Maud de Gernon, wife to the Earl of Chestre. We had been taking part in a lively game of bowls down the centre of the lesser hall and now sat drinking small beer by one of the fires.

  ‘I have heard,’ she said, as we watched two squires further down the hall start pushing each other in the chest over some slight, ‘that Madog ap Gruffydd came to parley with your husband.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it was a tense day.’

  Maud laughed. ‘I can imagine! His name is cursed in our Marches. He has caused such terrible dismay and destruction.’

  ‘So Raife has said.’

  ‘Thankfully most of his raids have stopped now that we have his wife.’ Instantly, my interest in the Welsh princess was renewed. ‘Where is she now?’ I said.

  Maud looked at me with round eyes. ‘Here! Beneath our very feet! Both Edmond and my husband felt it too dangerous to keep her within the Marches — saints alone know what Madog might have been capable of if he thought she were near — so now she lives in an apartment on the ground floor of the Tower.’ She gave a little shrug. ‘It is commodious enough, and airy, and less chill than her Welsh homeland.’

  Here? Beneath our feet? Our conversation turned to other matters, but my mind kept worrying over the presence of the princess below.

  Later I had opportunity to speak with Edmond privately.

  ‘My lord king,’ I said. ‘You know that Madog came to parley with Raife?’

  He gave a nod.

  ‘Madog spoke of his worry about his wife and son, and now I hear they are confined to an apartment on the ground floor of this tower. I said, perhaps foolishly, that if I could I would let his wife know of his love and care. May I have your permission to visit his princess?’

  Edmond studied me, and I could see he struggled between the yea and the nay. ‘Be careful she does not use you, Maeb. You are not yet as studied in court-craft and intrigue as she is.’

  ‘I will be careful, my lord.’ I hesitated. ‘My lord, I am a young wife, and I know the fears and uncertainties that go with that. I can imagine her fear as she is confined so far from her husband and her worries over her child.’

  ‘The boy died last spring.’

  ‘Oh! Then she must be in need of comfort and —’

  ‘Maeb, be careful!’

  I thought he was warning me only of the princess, and I did not, could not, think through other dangers. Despite all my new-found confidence at court, I was still a novice at court-craft and intrigue and could not see the trap.

  I contented myself with looking at the king appealingly, and eventually he sighed.

  ‘It is against my better judgment, Maeb, but if you wish, then go. But, by God, be careful what you say and do! Do not trust her, do not carry anything out for her, nor anything in. Nothing. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, my lord,’ I said happily. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

  I went to see the princess the next day. I learned her name was Mevanou, and that she was not much older than myself.

  A guard escorted me down the narrow stairs of the north-eastern tower to the lower level that was partially above, partially below ground. Here the large spaces had been partitioned into store rooms, dormitories for soldiers, and even a few cells for prisoners, but the guard led me past all of those until we reached the south-western portion of the tower where the space under the chapel crypt had been redesigned into a spacious apartment for the Welsh princess.

  I admit to some nerves as the guard fumbled with the keys to the lock of the door, but when he opened it and announced my name in a gruff voice I put a smile to my face and walked through the door confidently.

  I found myself in a commodious chamber, well furnished
and most comfortable. It was lit by two narrow windows that looked onto the inner bailey, and in the far wall I could see a door into a privy chamber. The air felt a little damp, but there was a brazier burning to one side, and wraps enough to keep anyone warm.

  A woman stood just before one of the windows, in a shaft of light. She was very small, and somewhat thin, and as she moved forward a step, out of the light, I saw that she had a pale complexion, her nose scattered with freckles, and dark red hair.

  ‘My lady?’ I said. ‘I am Maeb, Countess of Pengraic. I have come on behalf of your husband, that you may know of his love and concern for you and …’

  I stumbled to a halt.

  ‘Our son?’ she said. Mevanou did not speak French so well as her husband, and her voice had a heavy accent. ‘Our son is dead, murdered by the malignant air within this prison. My husband’s love and concern is no longer of any use to him.’

  ‘Then may I offer it to you.’ This conversation was not going the way I had thought it might. ‘I spoke with your husband recently enough, and he —’

  ‘Most likely misses me not. He has mistresses and bastard sons a-plenty to keep him warm.’

  ‘But he has ceased raiding since you were seized. He must hold you in great affection!’

  ‘If he has ceased raiding then there will be other reasons for it. The nearness of the plague, perhaps. Madog values his life before any others.’

  ‘Then I am most sorry for you, my Lady Mevanou, to be so far from your homeland and so great a distance from any love and care. Would you like me to stay? I can share the gossip of the court, and —’

  ‘Go,’ she said. ‘I have no interest in you, nor in your sympathetic cause, and most particularly I have no interest in the idle wife of one of the bastard Normans who keeps my land under a foreign yoke.’

  Her voice was harsh and unyielding. I tried to summon yet more sympathy for her, but I felt as if I had been slapped in the face.

  ‘Then I will bid you good day, Lady Mevanou,’ I said, inclined my head slightly, and turned for the door.

  Having been rejected so utterly, I did not go to see Mevanou again. I worried for her, and thought her forthright rudeness most likely a product of her grief and fear, but I did not want to thrust myself on her, nor suffer the sharpness of her tongue again. A few days later Edmond asked me what had happened and I told him.

  ‘She is a vicious witch,’ he said. ‘I think sometimes that Madog is grateful Chestre took her. So is your crusade of sympathy over, my lady?’

  ‘I am afraid so, my lord,’ I said ruefully. ‘It took her but a few brief moments to learn to hate me, and I do not want to anger her further by visiting her again.’

  ‘You took nothing to her, nor carried anything hence?’

  ‘No, my lord king, I was most careful.’

  ‘Good, but it is best if you speak of this to no one.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  The third incident still leaves me, after all these years, shaking in fear.

  I had woken in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep. The weight of the child was bothering me, I had a deep ache in my head and my legs cramped continuously. I decided to rise and walk a little, perhaps go down to the chapel and pray, and then return to bed to see if I could find some sleep before dawn.

  I slid out of bed, shivering in the cool night, and slipped into a warm, loose robe. I opened the door, walking into the chamber beyond mine. Here slept always one of the household’s servants, and a candle always kept burning.

  I used the candle to light another, my slight noise rousing the servant from his sleep.

  ‘I am just going down to the chapel,’ I said. ‘I am well, but cannot sleep. Stay where you are.’

  He nodded, fell back to his bed, and was asleep again almost instantly.

  I moved as silently as I could through the house. It was very quiet, although there was soft noise coming from the hall where a couple of the knights or squires who slept there must have been talking softly. I crept past the entrance to the hall and down the tight circular stairs to the crypt beneath the house, where lay the chapel.

  As I padded down the steps I thought I heard a slight noise from the chapel, but thought little of it. It might have been someone else visiting the chapel at night, it might have been a rat … it might have been the result of any number of innocent actions. I simply did not think for a moment it might be something malevolent.

  Vicious.

  I reached the last step into the crypt and then turned to my left toward the part that was used as a chapel.

  And stopped dead, so terrified I could not move, nor utter a sound.

  The candles were burning in the chapel and I could see clearly.

  An imp from hell, standing with his back to me, pissing against the altar, whistling some devilish tune softly through his snout.

  I knew what it was instantly, for it was a perfect brother to the one I had seen in the palace in Oxeneford. It had the same lumpish body, the same forked, snaking tail, the same thin, stick-like limbs.

  And, as it turned at the slight sound I had made as I gasped in horror, the same round, pig-snouted, sharp-toothed visage.

  It hissed when it saw me, then it shook its cock free of dribbles, and turned to face me fully.

  ‘The master’s bitch,’ it said, its forked tongue glistening as it slipped in and out of its mouth during speech. I backed against the wall in horror. I wanted to flee, but for the moment my limbs were frozen and I could not move.

  The imp took a step toward me. ‘Bitch,’ it said again. ‘Hell awaits all murderers!’

  Terrified, sure it was going to drag me down to hell then and there, I finally rediscovered my capacity for movement and, throwing the candle at the horror, I turned into the stairwell and scrambled up, screaming for aid.

  Men came tumbling out of the hall.

  ‘My lady! My lady! What is it?’

  ‘The chapel,’ I managed to say. ‘The chapel!’

  Half a dozen men piled down the stairs. I could hear them below, searching and shouting.

  Eventually, several of them returned.

  ‘There is nothing, my lady,’ one said, ‘except a terrible odour.’

  I felt coldness seep through me. As soon as the man had mentioned it, I remembered that I, too, had smelled the stink as the imp stepped toward me.

  It was the same stink I’d smelled in my chamber the night I’d woken thinking there was someone in the chamber.

  There had been someone in the chamber with me.

  The imp. Snuffling through one of my chests.

  I bent over, and was sick.

  I told no one of what I had seen. I remembered how Raife had asked me not to speak of the imp that we’d seen in Edmond’s palace in Oxeneford, and so I held my silence this time, too.

  I did not wonder why the imp had called me ‘the master’s bitch’. All I could think of was that it had promised me hell for what I had done.

  For the rest of that night I had Evelyn sleep with me in my bed.

  Chapter Nine

  Raife arrived the next day in the late morning. There was much clattering of horses’ hooves in the courtyard, and men and dogs milling about, and I tried not to rush down the stairs to reach him. He smiled as soon as he saw me — a wide genuine smile — and I thought I’d never been so glad to see anyone in my life as I was to see Raife.

  He came over, clasped my shoulders, and kissed me soundly. ‘How do you, wife?’

  ‘I do well, my lord,’ I said, wanting only to speak to him privately. ‘Perhaps —’

  ‘The child?’

  ‘The child does well, too, my lord. Can we —’

  But Raife had turned away and was shouting at one of the grooms to take care of his courser.

  It seemed to take half my life for my husband to escape the clamour of the courtyard, traverse the hall (where countless squires, knights and sundry nobles seemed to want his attention), up the stairwell and into our private ap
artments. There I had to engineer the departure of Charles, Isouda and Evelyn and fitzErfast as well as a small boy who seemed to be scrambling about directionless.

  But, finally, I had Raife alone.

  He came over, smiling, kissed me, and laid a hand on my belly. ‘The child has grown handsomely in my absence, I see by the size of your belly.’

  ‘Raife —’

  He kissed me once more, deeply and passionately, and I realised he had missed me perhaps as much as I had missed him.

  I pulled my face away. ‘Raife, twice while you were gone an imp has been here.’

  His face went white. Both his hands gripped my upper arms. ‘What ?’

  ‘Once I woke and the vile thing was snuffling about my belongings, and last night,’ my voice was rising into hysteria but I could not help it, ‘I went to the chapel late and one was pissing on the altar. Sweet Jesu, Raife! What is happening?’

  Raife just stared at me. I think he was so shocked that he could not say anything for the moment.

  ‘They were just like the imp we saw in the palace at Oxeneford.’ I had not actually seen the one in my chamber at night, but I was not going to split hairs over the issue. It had been an imp.

  Now I burst into tears — I was still terrified from the previous night. ‘What is happening, Raife? Why are they in our house? Do they follow Edmond?’

  He gave me an odd look at that, but quickly replaced it with one of concern, then held me tightly in his arms.

  ‘It is Hallow’s Eve today,’ he said. ‘Perhaps the gates between hell and our world have opened. I will have a priest reconsecrate the chapel, and bless this chamber. That will keep them at bay.’

  He leaned back, looking me in the face and using one hand to wipe away my tears. ‘These are bleak times indeed, Maeb, if imps scramble about unhindered. Maybe it is simply because of All Hallow’s Eve when the borderlands thin between our world and that of the dead. Perhaps the imps are here to spread plague … we need to take care and keep good watch.’

  They might be here to spread plague? Jesu!

  ‘I did not tell anyone about the imps. Not even Isouda or Evelyn.’