The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass

He paused. ‘Did no one notice? That my mother …?’

I could not look at Yvette. ‘She had been coughing at night, this past week or so,’ I said. ‘I thought it only that the child … I did not even think … how could she have caught it, my lord? Where?’

Again Stephen shrugged. ‘A travelling minstrel, a servant. Perhaps at Rosseley, perhaps on the journey here. Who knows? God, God.’ Again he paused. ‘Did none of you notice anything? That fungus was well spread … how could my lady mother have concealed it?’

Now I looked full at Yvette, challenging her.

She shifted uncomfortably, and finally spoke, her voice soft and apologetic. ‘The fungus came three days ago, my lord. My lady … my lady begged me not to tell anyone. We kept it well hid.’

Stephen stared at her. ‘You did not think for a moment to tell me? You did not think that I carry full responsibility for all at Pengraic and should by rights have known? Sweet Jesu, woman, if I had known, if Owain had known, mayhap we could have prevented my mother’s terrible death! She did not even have time to confess! Why the silence?’

Yvette raised her head, and her voice was stronger. ‘Your lady mother was terrified,’ she said. ‘As was I. We feared what might happen if we —’

‘You think something worse could have happened than what actually did?’ Stephen all but shouted.

Yvette dropped her eyes to her lap.

Stephen sighed. ‘I will speak with d’Avranches,’ he said, ‘within the hour. He needs to know. Together we shall organise castle and garrison against the panic and sickness that will come. I will also send word to my father. I will need to risk a messenger, someone recently arrived who may not yet have had any contact with the plague in the castle. My father needs to know that the plague is here, and that his lady wife …’

Stephen had to stop and collect himself. ‘We cannot let word of what truly transpired here spread about the castle. There would be panic. Thus we will tell people that while my lady mother gave birth to an infant son, both died within an hour. I don’t know … there must be some reason we can give?’

‘Your lady mother died of bleeding,’ Yvette said. ‘We could not staunch it. And the child? He was weakly and took a few bare breaths before expiring. If Mistress Maeb told people that all was well, then,’ Yvette shrugged, ‘she had left the chamber before these tragedies occurred.’

Stephen nodded. ‘Good enough.’ He rubbed at his eyes, tired and emotional. ‘Sweet Jesu. I will need to tell Alice and Emmette their beloved mother is dead, although I will tell them Yvette’s tale, not the true tragedy. Owain, what can we do to prepare for the sickness spreading?’

‘I will sort through my herbs,’ Owain said. ‘Some may possibly be helpful. And I will organise men to clean out the chapel for the sick.’

Stephen gave him a slightly puzzled look.

‘The sick need to go somewhere,’ Owain said, ‘and the chapel has a stone floor, walls and vaulting. It will be safe.’

I felt sick. Lady Adelie’s torturous death could easily have set the castle ablaze with its wooden floors and panelling. It had only been by the fastest and most concerted effort that the fire had not spread from her bed (I remembered Stephen moving the poor child to the stone hearth to die in flames there).

Suddenly I imagined a score of people burning at the same time.

Suddenly I imagined flames crawling down my own skin.

For the first time, I realised that I would likely die in the coming weeks.

I bit my lip to stop the sob that almost escaped. Sweet Mother Mary, I did not want to die!

I lifted my eyes, and met Stephen’s gaze. I saw in his face such sorrow, such care, that tears finally escaped, and the sob from my lips, and I bent my head and cried, given over to the grief of my lady’s death and my own impending doom.

Chapter Six

Numbed by all that had happened, I nonetheless managed to get through the day, glad to be busy. Stephen announced the death of his lady mother in childbed, and the baby with her. She was to be laid to rest that very same day (for anyone asking about the rush, Stephen said that his grief and the summer heat did not allow further delay).

It was given to Yvette, Evelyn and myself to prepare Lady Adelie and her child for burial. The castle carpenters were building a casket for her, and we needed to shroud our lady in garments and wrappings suitable for one of her rank.

Normally we would have washed her body, dressed her hair, and garbed our lady in her finest robes for burial.

But none of us could face her blackened, terrible corpse. We had loved Lady Adelie and owed her full respect, but we simply could not touch her terrible corpse in its full, horrific nakedness. To this day it is a guilt I still carry. I wondered how it would be for me upon my own death.

We first re-clothed the bed in fresh hangings and bedclothes and removed any trace of soot from the walls, floor and furniture. Then, gritting our teeth, we took Lady Adelie’s hastily-wrapped corpse from its shadowy corner, unwrapped as much as we could bear, then carried her to the bed. There she lay, wrapped in several layers of linen; we could not face unwinding her any more.

We stood, and stared.

‘What shall we do?’ I whispered, feeling anew the terror of the manner of Lady Adelie’s death.

Her corpse was twisted and contracted by the fire that had consumed it. Within the hour we needed to have her prepared for the casket the carpenters would be carrying into this chamber, and poor Lady Adelie needed to be laying flat, her arms crossed over her breast, in peaceful repose. If she were all crooked and twisted, then the tale that she had died in childbed was immediately going to be exposed for the lie it was.

‘We will need to fix things,’ Yvette said, full of practicality, and, her mouth fixed in a grim, tight line, she grasped Lady Adelie’s left arm, which poked upward beneath the wrappings. Try as she might, however, she could not move it.

‘We will need to break it,’ Evelyn said, and my mouth dropped open in horror as I stared at her.

‘When I was young,’ Evelyn continued, ‘my uncle died in a fire. His corpse looked much the same as the Lady Adelie’s. In order to fit him into his casket, we had to break his limbs.’

‘What can we use?’ Yvette said, and at that moment all I wanted was to flee the room. The thought of being here when Yvette and Evelyn …

‘Last year,’ Evelyn said, moving over to the fireplace, ‘there was a loose brick here in the hearth. If it has not been remortared … no, it is still loose.’

Oh sweet Jesu.

Evelyn came back to the bed, carrying the brick. ‘I am so sorry, my lady,’ she said, and she lifted the brick high.

I turned away; I could not watch. But I stood there, my face in my hands, for the next while as a sickening series of thuds and snaps came from behind me.

After a while, blessedly, it ceased and I felt a soft hand on my shoulder. ‘I am sorry, Maeb,’ Evelyn said, ‘but it needed to be done.’

I wiped the tears from my face. ‘We should pray for her.’

‘Later,’ said Yvette, ‘when she is safely in her casket. We must continue now, for who knows when the casket shall arrive.’

So we continued, the work not quite so vile. Lady Adelie was still wrapped in the linens — somehow Evelyn and Yvette had done their work without the need to unwrap her — and so we merely straightened her as best we could, avoiding looking at the loathsome stains where bodily fluids from her broken corpse seeped through the linens. We collected the form of the infant, also wrapped, and placed it across Lady Adelie’s feet, binding it tightly in place. Then we wrapped both corpses in many layers of some fresh unmarked linens, then in a thickly embroidered woollen wrap. These masked the destruction beneath, as well as the smell of burned flesh, and provided a suitable richness for Lady Adelie’s, and her child’s, rank.

I suppose the other two women, as I did, wondered occasionally about the plague the corpses must carry, but then, like me, they had already been so heavily exposed to Lady Adelie that I think we feared her wrapped corpse less than her living body.

We knelt by the bed, our hands clasped, our heads bent, and we prayed for our lady and her child. We begged Lady Adelie’s forgiveness for the vile things we had done to her corpse, and entreated the saints to take care of her in heaven, where she surely was.