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.’