The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass

‘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 southeast in its terror.’