He looked older, ravaged by the years and the time of horror when plague had raged through Witenie. His hair, what remained of it, was white, his face lined and pouchy. He walked with a shambling gait that spoke of his age and increasing infirmity.
‘My lady,’ he said when he saw me, and bowed. ‘I am happy to see you. You have done well.’
‘And I am happy to see you, Osbeorn,’ I said, rising and kissing him on the cheek. ‘Osbeorn, this is your king, Edmond, and here my husband, the Earl of Pengraic.’
I thought Osbeorn might have been unnerved at an introduction to Edmond, but he did not appear perturbed, and bowed to both Edmond and Raife, greeting them both with polite phrases.
‘Thank you, de Warenne,’ Edmond said, dismissing the man. ‘Will you make sure that all entrances to the Tower are well guarded? Use all the available men. Then return and wait outside in the gallery.’
De Warenne bowed and left.
‘Do you think the armies of hell are about to invade?’ Raife said.
‘I take no chances,’ Edmond replied, then looked to Osbeorn. ‘Osbeorn, you were steward to Sir Godfrey Langtofte, yes?’
‘Indeed, my lord king.’
‘And you were close friends?’
‘Good friends, aye, sir.’
‘You spent many evenings dipping your beards into cups of rough wine.’ Osbeorn chuckled. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘And this closeness continued after Sir Godfrey returned from the Holy Lands?’
‘Indeed, sir.’
‘Osbeorn, good man, do you know of any jewels or valuables Sir Godfrey brought home with him from the Holy Land?’
‘There were nothing, sir king. My master, he came home with his life and a few clothes. Naught else.’
Raife rubbed his eyes with a hand, as if he were suddenly very, very tired.
‘Nothing at all, Osbeorn?’ Edmond asked. ‘Nothing?’
‘His life, and his clothes, sir. Oh, and that old dusty piece of embroidery that he begged me give to the Lady Maeb here.’
‘That embroidery came from the Holy Land, Osbeorn?’ I asked.
‘Yes, indeed, my lady. My master, your father, he loved it dear. Dusty rag that it was. He wanted you to have it badly.’
Both Raife and Edmond were looking at Osbeorn intently. ‘An embroidery?’ Edmond asked. ‘An embroidery of what?’
‘Of the Last Supper,’ Raife said. ‘Maeb showed it to me. It has no significance. I would have felt it otherwise, I am certain.’
‘Where is it now?’ Edmond said.
‘It is in the Cornhill house,’ Raife said.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it is not. Not any more. I gave it to de Warenne as a token. So that Osbeorn here would know that he came on my behalf.’
We were all looking at Osbeorn who had no idea why the tension in the chamber had suddenly grown to deeply uncomfortable proportions.
‘This cloth?’ he said, and from the pocket of his mantle he drew the old embroidered cloth.
‘I brought it to return to you, madam.’
Both Raife and Edmond moved, but it was I who took it from Osbeorn.
‘Thank you, Osbeorn,’ I said, then I handed it to Raife.
He unfolded it, showing the embroidered scene of the Last Supper to Edmond.
‘It is nothing,’ Raife said. ‘Nothing. Not even good embroidery. It has nothing to do with the diadem. I have no idea why Godfrey would have treasured it so much, or wanted Maeb to have it so badly.’
‘Good sir,’ said Osbeorn, ‘Sir Godfrey did not like the embroidery as such, but he said that the depiction of sweet Lord Christ shows Jesu using an eating knife almost identical to the one that my Lady Maeb had as a child, so that the cloth always served to remind him of her.’
‘An eating knife?’ Edmond said, and glanced at the one that hung from my girdle.
The knife that Alianor had given me.
‘What eating knife?’ Raife said to me.
‘The one I’d had since childhood,’ I said.
‘It cannot have any significance. It is not something my father gave me, and certainly not anything that came back from the Holy Land.’
Raife looked at the one on my girdle.
‘That’s not it. I remember you using a plainer one.’
‘I did, yes,’ I said.
‘Alianor gave me this knife when first I arrived in London.’
‘And your old one?’ Edmond said.
‘Your childhood one?’
‘I presented it to fitzErfast, the steward at the Cornhill house, as a token of my esteem for him.’
‘Jesu,’ Edmond muttered.
‘So the plague followed you around until you handed the knife to this fitzErfast. That is why the plague did not follow you back to Pengraic Castle? By God, Maeb, why did you not connect this sooner?’
‘Because I thought it had no significance, my lord king! It was not my father’s, he did not give it to me, and most certainly not after arriving back from the Holy Lands! I do not even know who gave it to me — it was, I believe, a baptismal gift from an unremembered well-wisher.’
‘Could this knife have significance?’ Edmond asked Raife.
‘I won’t know until I handle it,’ Raife said.
‘Does fitzErfast still have it, Maeb?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘When I returned to London I remember seeing it at his belt, and was pleased he still wore it.’
‘de Warenne!’ Edmond shouted, then he looked at Osbeorn.
‘You may go, good man. My servants will bed and feed you, and give you means to return to Witenie in the morning. But be sure never to mention a word of what you have heard in this chamber, for fear of your life.’
An hour. It took an hour for de Warenne to ride to the Cornhill house and return with the knife, and Edmond, Raife and I spent that entire time in uncomfortable silence.
De Warenne came in, handed the knife to me, then left without a word.
I held it in my hands and looked at it. It was as familiar to me as my own face, for I had used it since I was four or five until that moment some months ago when I gave it to fitzErfast. It was of good although unremarkable craftsmanship, having a twisted handle of silver and a steel blade. I could not see what possible connection it had to the diadem.
I lifted it to the table, then slid it toward my husband.
Raife hesitated, just very slightly, then picked it up, turning it gently in his fingers.
‘You were given this as a baptismal gift, Maeb?’
‘Yes. I think so. It may have belonged to my mother. I truly can’t remember. I just know I have had it all my life.’
‘The blade is of recent craftsmanship,’ Raife said. ‘Made within the past twenty or thirty years. Perhaps just before it was gifted to you, Maeb. But the handle, now … that is of ancient craftsmanship. Very ancient. It belongs to the time of the Old People. Maeb, who was your mother?’
‘A woman of poor family,’ I said. ‘My father loved her, though, and made a match with her. Her name was Leorsythe.’
Raife looked at me sharply. ‘That is a name of the Old People. It is from her, not your father, that you have your blood, Maeb.’
Uda, I thought. Uda told me that I had the blood of the Old People. Uda herself must be one of the Old People.
And yet I never took that thought through to its logical conclusion, or combined it with what she had told me. Not for thirty years.
‘You seem to have made a study of these Old People,’ Edmond said to Raife.
Raife gave an indifferent shrug. ‘I listen to the myths, for they are strong about Pengraic. But, this knife — wherever it came from anciently — it has recently had work.’
‘The new steel blade,’ I said.
‘Even more recent than that,’ Raife said. He held up the knife, and tapped at the knobbed end of the handle with a finger. ‘This end knob has recently been taken off and fixed back on again within the last year or two,’ Raife said.
‘I can take a good guess and say sometime after your father returned from the Holy Lands, eh, Maeb.’
I went cold.
‘I lost it for a time,’ I said.
‘Some weeks. I was so happy when I discovered it in my chamber. I could not think how I could have overlooked it in previous searches.’
Raife gave a nod. ‘Your father took it,’ he said, ‘and hid the diadem within it.’
‘No!’ I said.
‘Yes,’ Raife said.
‘How?’ Edmond said.
‘How? A diadem could not possibly fit in that handle.’
‘We speak not of any diadem,’ said Raife, ‘but of the Devil’s diadem and that is very subtle trickster. It can be persuaded to do almost anything you ask of it. Sir Godfrey would have needed no magic to hide it. He would simply have requested it of the diadem, persuaded it somehow. Maeb, your father left the embroidered cloth to you as a clue, as a pointer to the true hiding place of the diadem. God knows where he got the cloth … whether he had it made up himself, or if the cloth gave him the idea of where to hide the diadem. But it is here, in this small knife. Maeb, forgive me what I do now.’