The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass

I flushed, feeling myself a country bumpkin. I had thought the four-day ride along the roads from Witenie — just west of Oxeneford — to Rosseley Manor on the Thames south of Hanbledene, a grand adventure in my life, but when I compared it to the vast distance this household needed to travel from the Welsh Marches to this lovely spot in Bochinghamscire … I felt the fool.

Evelyn smiled kindly at me. ‘It is always an entry to a vaster world, Maeb, when you first join a family such as this. I forget sometimes what it was like for me, eleven years ago.’

I nodded, feeling a little better for Evelyn’s compassion, and we resumed our climb up the staircase.

The upper level of the house comprised the family’s private quarters. There were a number of smaller chambers, and one large, the solar, and it was to the solar that Evelyn led me.

My first question about the family was answered when Evelyn opened the door, and I felt the warmth of the chamber.

Lady Adelie did like a fire, then, or braziers. At least I should be warm.

We paused just inside the door and I looked about hastily, trying to spot my lady. The chamber was well lit from a window to the east and, indeed, warmed by several charcoal braziers. There was a richly curtained bed at the far end of the chamber, several stools and benches positioned about, a cot or two, and what seemed to me to be a horde of children standing in a group looking at me curiously.

To one side in a beautifully carved chair, alongside the largest of the braziers, sat a woman who, by the richness of her clothes, must be the Lady Adelie, Countess of Pengraic.

I dipped hastily and dropped my eyes.

‘Mistress Maeb,’ she said, her voice thin with exhaustion, ‘come closer that I might speak with you more easily.’

I walked over and took the stool that Lady Adelie patted.

Her hand was bony and pale, and when I finally raised my eyes to her face I saw that it was thin and lined, her eyes shadowed with fatigue.

‘I am sorry I kept you so long waiting. The day …’ She made a futile gesture with her hand. ‘Well, it has escaped me. I should not have so delayed you, for you are family, and welcome here.’

She managed to put some warmth into that last and I smiled in relief.

‘Thank you, my lady,’ I said. ‘You have honoured me by asking for me to be here. I am immensely grateful, and shall do my best to serve you in whatever manner you ask.’

‘It will be a thankless task,’ Lady Adelie said. ‘I shall try, myself, to be of little labour to you, but, oh, the children.’

The children … The words echoed about the chamber, and I glanced at the six children who had lost interest in me and now talked or played among themselves. They all had Stephen’s look — fair-haired and blue-eyed — and ranged in age from a crawling infant to perhaps thirteen or fourteen for the eldest girl.

Lady Adelie must have seen my look, for she managed a small smile. ‘And this is not all, for there is my eldest son, Stephen.’ She sighed, and placed a hand over her belly. ‘And yet another to come later in the summer.’

‘My lady has been blessed,’ said a woman standing behind Lady Adelie’s chair, ‘that she has lost only two of her children to illness or accident.’

‘Blessed indeed,’ Lady Adelie said. Then she nodded at the woman behind her. ‘This is Mistress Yvette Bailleul. She, Mistress Evelyn and yourself shall bear the burden of my care and that of my younger children still playing about my skirts. But you look cold and tired … have you drunk or eaten? No? Then we must remedy that. Evelyn, perhaps you can take Maeb further into your care and make sure she is fed, then show her to the cot you will share? We will all sup together later, but for now …’

Lady Adelie’s voice drifted off, and I saw discomfort and weariness in her face. No wonder, I thought, having spent her marriage bearing so many and such healthy children to the earl. I hoped he was grateful for his wife, then felt a little resentful on my lady’s behalf that he should burden her with yet another pregnancy at an age when most women were thinking to leave the perils of childbirth long behind them.

I rose, curtsied once more, told the countess again how grateful I was for her offer to call me to her service, then Evelyn led me away.

Chapter Three

My days fell into an easy routine within the Pengraic household. Evelyn — for so she asked me to address her — and I shared a small chamber just off the solar. It was large enough to hold our small bed, a chest for our belongings, and one stool. The room’s comfort contented me, especially since I shared it with Evelyn, who I quickly grew to like and respect.

At night we would share the bed, talking into the darkness. I appreciated the chance of such chatter, not only for the friend it brought me, but because I could practise my French with Evelyn. I mentioned this to her one night, thanking her, and she laughed merrily.

‘Maeb! Your French is as courtly as any, and with a lovely lilt. Do not fret about it. Your speech does not betray that you spent more time among the village English than among more gracious ranks.’

I relaxed with relief. I had worried that Lady Adelie found it disjointed, or jarring, and had been visited by nightmares of Lord Stephen and the earl laughing about it on the barge journey to Westminster. My father, due to circumstance and his own lack of effort, had been a lowly ranked nobleman and our estate at Witenie had been poor. I’d spent most of my childhood running about with the village English, particularly after my mother died when I was young and when subsequently my father spent years away on pilgrimage in the Holy Lands.

Each day we rose before dawn to join Lady Adelie at private prayers before a small altar in the solar, the family’s private living chamber. The ground floor hall was unused when the earl was not in residence, so our days were spent either in the upper level solar or with the children in the gardens and meadows outside.

After prayers, as dawn broke, we would break our fast with a small meal. Lady Adelie and Mistress Yvette, who I quickly learned was my lady’s most treasured confidante, then spent the morning and early afternoon at their stitching and embroidery — if my lady felt well — or dozing together on my lady’s large bed if she felt fatigued or unwell (which was often). We ate our main meal in the early afternoon, then gathered about the altar again for prayers, and enjoyed the late afternoon spring weather before supping at dusk. After supper, some time was spent listening to a minstrel if the countess was in the mood, more prayers, then bed.

I was surprised at the tranquillity of life within the Pengraic household. The earl was one of the great nobles of England, almost a king in his own right within the Welsh Marches, but Evelyn said that when he was away the countess preferred to keep a quieter routine. All the hustle and bustle of an important noble establishment had departed with the earl and Lord Stephen.

When they returned, Evelyn assured me with a smile, life would quicken.

In the meantime Evelyn and I performed only light duties for Lady Adelie. We brushed out her kirtles and cleaned the non-existent mud from her shoes. We helped Mistress Yvette plait the countess’ long fair hair, and twist it with ribbons and false hair and weights and tassels so that her twin braids hung almost to the floor. We mended her hose, pressed her veils and emptied her chamber pot into the communal privy, but she required little else of us apart from our presence at her daily prayers, for my lady was a devout woman, and wished it of us, also.

Thus our days were spent mostly with the children, who quickly became my joy, as they were Evelyn’s.

The oldest of them, a fourteen-year-old girl named Alice, was truly not a child at all. She lingered in her parents’ house only until a marriage could be contracted for her. Alice was a quiet girl, very grave, but courteous and kind, and helped Evelyn and myself with the care of her younger siblings.

After Alice there was a gap of some three years to her sister Emmette. She, too, was a reserved child, but with a readier smile than Alice. After Emmette came what I thought of as a miracle — twin boys! I had never seen twin children before, nor heard of any who had survived their first year, so they were remarkable to me for that reason alone. Ancel and Robert, eight years old, were also astonishing in that they looked so similar I could not ever tell them apart, which they believed gave them free licence to play trick after trick on me, often before their mother, who regarded them with much loving tolerance. The boys spent the majority of their day with the men of the household — the steward, the guards, the grooms — and disdained learning their letters alongside their sisters. But they were boys, destined for nobleness, and truly did not need the alphabet skills of the clerk. Despite their tricks I adored them, for they always brought a smile to my face. Evelyn told me they were to join another noble household during the summer, as the sons of noblemen were wont to do. I was glad to have at least a little time to spend with them, though, for they never ceased to be a marvel to me.