‘I distrusted you,’ he said. ‘You would have made Stephen a bad wife, but you will do well enough for me. For sweet Christ’s sake, Maeb, the world is turned upside down, and what mattered once now weighs little. I have no patience for your protests. Do as I ask, or face the uncertain cold holloways and byways beyond the gates of this castle.’
I was silent. The earl always had such a way with words.
The earl grunted, as if he had known I would raise no more objection. ‘I will settle three or four manors on you, Maeb, as jointure enough should I die before you, as surely I will. It is protection and price enough to silence your doubts.’
He stood. ‘You have just made a noble marriage, Maeb. Wasn’t that what you’d always wanted from your place in my household?’
Chapter Four
I lay awake for much of the night. I felt lost, adrift. Everything about me felt false. The plague should have killed me. I should have died. I had wanted to die.
But I had not died. Instead I had reawakened into, as the earl had put it, a world turned upside down.
Nothing was as it should be. All was false.
So false.
In the morning, I woke with Evelyn, and demanded she help me dress. She did as I asked, as she had since last night. Everything I asked, she did without question.
Everything felt false with her, now, too.
‘I want to go to the chapel,’ I said, as soon as I was dressed.
I did not stand, for fear I would wobble alarmingly. My head swayed with lack of sleep and weakness, but more than anything I wanted, needed, to go to the chapel.
I wanted to see where the earl had interred Stephen. Maybe there I might find some truth.
‘But you are so weak,’ Evelyn said. She hesitated at the end of that sentence, as if she had wanted to add either ‘Maeb’, or ‘my lady’. But neither suited. Both of us were lost in some halfway land of indecision. ‘You cannot walk.’
Now even our friendship was blighted.
‘Then find me a strong man, if any should remain within the castle, and he can carry me there.’
Evelyn hesitated, then gave a nod and left. Within a short while she had returned with Taillebois.
I suppose she felt that a common soldier would not suffice, now.
I did not know Taillebois well, for he had come to the castle after the plague, at the earl’s request, to replace Walter Giffard, who had died in the first onslaught of the sickness. But he seemed a gentle enough man and there was no hesitation in his manner with me, as there was from Evelyn. He knew little of me, save that I was to be his lady, so I had never been to him the least of Lady Adelie’s women, now to be elevated to a pinnacle unimaginable to those about her.
‘My lady,’ he said, without any indecision in either word or manner, and swung me into his arms.
We moved toward the stairwell, Evelyn hurrying behind with a warm wrap for me.
The chapel was cold and dim. Outside was summer, all sun and blowsy warm air.
Inside the chapel I could still sense the death, if not smell its stink or forced to endure its shrieks.
Owain emerged as if he had been waiting, carrying a chair, his eyebrow raised as he asked wordlessly where I wanted it.
‘At Stephen’s grave,’ I said, and he placed it by the heartstone in the centre of the nave.
Taillebois set me into it gently, then stood back a pace, waiting to be dismissed.
I felt comfortable with him, whereas with everyone else …
‘Thank you,’ I said to Taillebois, and he inclined his head and was gone. I took the wrap from Evelyn, thanking her as well.
After a hesitation she, too, left.
‘Would you like to be left alone, Maeb?’ Owain said, and I nodded, already choking with emotion as I looked at the stone that marked Stephen’s grave.
It did look as though it had been moved recently. The earth was a little crumbly about its edges, and I fancied it had a slight incline to the north as it settled.
Settled over Stephen’s corpse.
There was now script on the stone, too, freshly chiselled. I could not read it, but I supposed that it gave Stephen’s name and some prayer for his soul.
I sat there by Stephen’s grave and wept. I wept for him and for me. I wept for everything lost, life and death both. I wish I had died with him. Mostly, I wept for Stephen.
Sobs wracked my frame, and I clutched the arms of the chair that I would not fall from its embrace. I felt the unfairness of life and of God’s will, that Stephen should have died.
What was this world without him in it? He was such a tragic loss, not merely to me, or the earl, but to the realm.
Everything was wrong with my world, nothing right. The greatest injustice was the fact that I had survived when it should have been Stephen, it should have been Stephen … people needed Stephen, not me. He’d had such a bright, golden future.
I sobbed until I had nothing left to give. I do not know how long I sat there, but I know it was a long, long time. Eventually, I leaned back in the chair, drying my tears with the back of one shaking hand, still hiccupping a little with grief.
‘Owain?’
He was by my side instantly, and I wondered if he had been hovering in the shadows all this time.
‘Drink this, Maeb.’ He held out a pewter cup.
I took it, and sniffed a little suspiciously. ‘It is but honeyed wine,’ Owain said, ‘mixed with some spices. It will warm you, and give you comfort.’
Comfort. I clung to the word as I drank the wine, soon enough handing the empty cup back to Owain.
‘My world has vanished, Owain.’
‘I know.’
‘The earl has demanded I become his wife.’
‘I have heard of that.’
‘Why, Owain? I cannot possibly understand why he would want to do this. Does he want to punish me? He knows of Stephen’s death, and those of Rosamund and John, and my part in them. He asked me to tell him of them, but he knew beforehand.’
I waited for the I know, but all I received was silence.
‘How did he know, Owain?’
‘He asked me how they died, Maeb. I told him.’
I was so angry I hit the chair with my closed fist. ‘How could you have done that! How —’
‘He needed the comfort, Maeb. He needed to know they had died well. Better than they might have done.’
‘But Stephen …’
‘Stephen was going to die anyway. It was better that he died by your hand, than the flames of the plague. The earl is angry, but not with you.’
‘I committed great sin,’ I said. ‘Not in the earl’s eyes.’
The earl would not be my judge after my death, I thought. ‘Owain, I survived. Stephen might have, too. What I did … he might have survived if I had not … if I had not …’
‘Maeb, do not torture yourself. From what I know of the plague, then yes, he likely would have died horribly if you had not acted. You did what you thought was right and what he begged of you. You were sick nigh unto death yourself. What happened, happened.’
What happened, happened. What a damning thing to say of my actions. Stephen may have survived if I had not killed him.
‘I survived!’
‘You were strong, Maeb. Please, do not resent the fact that you survived and Stephen did not. Do not bear guilt about it. He would not want it.’
I stared at him, then sighed. ‘I feel so alone, Owain. Stephen is gone. Lady Adelie. The children. My entire purpose for life has gone. But yet now the earl thinks we should wed. Owain, why should the earl wish to marry me?’
Owain smiled. ‘He needs a wife, and you are young. You will be healthy again and you are lovely of feature. If I were to be honest, then I would say that I am not at all surprised the earl wants to wed you.’
‘And yet I have no title nor rank nor alliance nor estates. The earl, as any nobleman, values these far more than a pretty face.’
Owain gave a tilt of his head, which might have meant anything.
‘Everything feels false, Owain.’
‘That feeling will pass.’
‘I cannot be a countess. I do not know how. I cannot be Lady Adelie.’
‘If the earl had wanted Lady Adelie he would have disinterred her corpse and set it in her chair at high table.’