‘Do not jest, Owain!’ For a moment I had a vision of that blackened horror seated in a chair at the high table, and it sickened me.
‘I am sorry, my lady.’
Why ‘my lady’ now when a moment ago I had been but ‘Maeb’?
‘What am I to do, Owain?’
‘Accept what lies before you. The earl means you no harm. He is an angry man, but none of that is your fault. He sees his world destroyed, and rails against the injustice. He would not suggest you stand by his side if he did not think you were worthy.’
‘How can I be worthy, Owain?’
‘You have strength and spirit. You survived what killed most others. Take what he offers, Maeb, and have the courage to see where it leads.’
I will fail, I thought. I cannot be a countess.
‘You will be a great countess,’ Owain said. ‘Stephen saw it in you. I see it in you. The earl sees it in you.’
‘Evelyn thinks the world has gone mad and I elevated beyond comprehension.’
Owain gave a soft chuckle. ‘Evelyn is a good woman, but she cannot see beyond yesterday.’
I looked at Stephen’s grave, remembering that he had said that I would survive the plague, and wed a great man, and love him dear. And so it would come to pass, although I could not imagine loving the earl dear. But remembering those words made me feel as though Stephen had blessed this marriage, and that he would have wanted me to accept it and move on with my life.
He had also said that I should confess to Owain, and do penance. If I did that, then maybe I could clear my conscience.
Stephen was dead and gone. The plague and all that had happened was in my past. I would move forward.
I sighed. ‘Will you take my confession, Owain? I cannot step into tomorrow without unburdening myself of my sins to God. Absolve me of my sins, I beg you. And then lend me your arm, for I think my legs might now, with some help, carry me back to the solar.’
‘Good,’ he said.
Chapter Five
The visit to the chapel to Stephen’s grave, and my talk with Owain, marked a turning point in my life. Before I had been a girl, uncertain, always ready to take a step backward. Now I was a woman and I would step forward into the future with some degree of acceptance, if not confidence.
Once Owain had escorted me to the solar, I instructed Evelyn to ask two of the servants to move our bed from the corner of the solar, where it had rested ever since my first arrival at Pengraic, to the chamber in the women’s dormitory that had formerly been that of the nurse and younger children. I was tired from the visit to the chapel and the painfully slow trip back to the solar, but I needed to do this. A low-ranked attending woman might cringe in a bed in the corner of the solar, a soon-to-be-countess did not.
I was also determined to regain my full strength quickly. If I was in the solar, then I would take my place by the fire, not hide away in a corner. If I needed rest, then I would retire to my chamber.
This day also marked a change in my relationship with Evelyn. We were still friends, but the balance of power had changed between us. Formerly it was Evelyn who led, now it was me, and there was distance between us, too, where once there had been none. I would shortly become countess, a rank far beyond Evelyn’s, and that difference in rank would always leave its shadow on our friendship.
This was all very ironic, considering all the advice and warnings Evelyn had once given me regarding Stephen.
But I could not dwell on that, or leave room for regrets. This was tomorrow, not yesterday.
Once our new chamber had been scrubbed out, our bed installed, and all the clothes and toys and fuss of the children tucked away in a large chest and sent down to the underground storage chambers, Evelyn and I went through the fabrics she’d had brought up from below.
They took my breath away. There were fine linens meant for chemises (and the very finest for veils), bleached so white they almost gleamed in my hands, many of them already embroidered in intricate designs using white or cream wools. There were bolts of woollen cloths, some fine weave for summer and some heavy for winter. Some of these, too, were heavily embroidered. But what truly amazed me were the silks; rare, costly bolts of fabrics which must have come from far, far away … I could almost smell the spiced air of their homelands on them. Some of the silks were vividly coloured — saffrons, vermilions, azure — others were of delicate pastels. I touched them in wonder and dared to imagine myself clothed in their glory.
As well as the bolts of textiles there were girdles, ribbons, beads, threads of every hue including heavy, gilded gold, and small delicate flowers, leaves and fruits made of wax.
‘There is so much,’ I said.
‘My lord earl had many daughters he needed dowry and marriage clothes for,’ Evelyn remarked.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘now I shall take them as my marriage clothes as it is my lord’s wish. But I cannot believe Lady Adelie did not make more use of these treasures.’
‘She was of simple taste,’ Evelyn said.
Indeed, she had been, but for a moment I wondered if Evelyn’s words contained any criticism, then I discarded the idea. There was too much else to worry about, and to do, than to dwell on what Evelyn thought.
In the end, what she thought did not matter.
I decided we needed to stitch two fine linen chemises, one good day kirtle, and one more opulent kirtle for feasts in the great hall … and betrothals. For the day kirtle I selected a light woollen scarlet fabric that we could embroider with flowered designs, and for the richer kirtle an emerald silk fabric that, together with a geometric design in the golden thread, would make a suitable kirtle for formal occasions.
Later that day, two women arrived to help with the stitching — the erstwhile wet nurse Sewenna who, together with her entire family, had survived the plague (why her family, and not that of the earl’s?), and a woman named Tilla from the village of Crickhoel below the castle.
In truth, I felt a little guilty that these women had left their families at a time when every able-bodied pair of hands was needed to help with harvest. But at the same time I refused to stand before the earl and witnesses for my betrothal in my old, worn kirtle that stank of death and disaster and subservience.
By the late afternoon the four of us had cut out the fabric for both chemises and kirtles to suit my newer, thinner frame and had begun the stitching. We worked through to evening, our work interrupted only by the occasional visit of Sewenna’s older son bringing his mother her baby to suckle and by a light supper sent to us on Taillebois’ instruction.
I rested comfortably that night, and in the morning dressed, prayed, broke my fast, then told Evelyn that I would take my stitching to the solar for the day.
When I entered the solar the earl was seated under a window with d’Avranches and a knight I did not recognise — he must have recently ridden in. The three of them were poring over large parchments; maps, I thought, by those lines I could see.
I greeted them, dipping in courtesy, and then took a chair by the fireplace — which was alight even on this summer’s day to take the chill from the large, stone-walled chamber — where the light from a second window fell over my shoulder. I had my stitching with me, but it was not for either chemise or kirtle. If I was to be betrothed shortly, then I would need a gift for my contracted husband. It was not strictly necessary, and under the circumstances, because of the recent plague disaster at the castle, its lack would surely be overlooked, but the earl had said he would settle some manors on me for my jointure and I wanted, very much, to be able to gift him something. It could be nothing of the value of manors, but it would be a gift, and its symbolic value greater, I hoped, than its fiscal value. It would enable me to hold my head high on my betrothal day.
I trusted he would like it, and not be disappointed.
The men resumed their conversation once I was settled, the recently arrived knight talking the most, and occasionally pointing to the map. I was desperately curious — what were they discussing? Army movements? Brigands? What was being planned? Snatches of conversation reached me, names of towns and manors, and at times the earl asked a sharp question of the knight, who invariably responded by pointing at the map.