The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass

‘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?