The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass

I kept my eyes on my stitching, but bit by bit tilted my body toward the group of men, my curiosity insatiable.

‘Maeb.’

I looked up. The earl was gazing at me. ‘If you are so curious, then come see.’

I thought about protesting that my stitching was more important. In the event, I merely rose, laid the stitching to one side, and walked over.

‘This is Gilbert Ghent,’ the earl said, ‘recently arrived from the southeast. He is one of the senior knights of my household.’

I inclined my head and smiled at him in greeting, as he did likewise. He was a good-looking man, aristocratic, but with a face I liked and trusted immediately.

‘Sir Gilbert, does the south-east still burn? The last I heard the plague raged there with such ferocity that all life lay in its grip.’

‘My lady,’ Ghent said, and I wondered that the honorific now felt almost familiar to me, ‘the plague has loosened its grip on the south-east of England. Perhaps there is little flesh left to feed it, or mayhap, now that the summer draws on, the plague begins to lose its strength as do most plagues.’

‘We hope it will die down completely over winter,’ the earl said, ‘and give us some time to recover and plan for its probable resurgence next spring. We were discussing what parts of England still lie in the plague’s grip, and which are free.’

I leaned over d’Avranches’ shoulder, looking at the map. ‘This represents England?’ I had never seen a map before.

‘Aye,’ said d’Avranches. ‘See, here the coastline, and see here these little triangles … they represent the mountains of this realm; these wobbly lines are the rivers, and here named the towns and cities.’

‘Where are we now?’ I said. ‘Where is Pengraic Castle?’

‘Here,’ d’Avranches said, one finger stabbing down onto the map. He pointed out London, and Glowecestre, and Oxeneford, and I slowly grasped how the map depicted in representative form the whole of the realm of England.

‘It is amazing,’ I said, somewhat awed, ‘and useful.’

‘Aye,’ said the earl. ‘I shall have to keep it hid from you, Maeb, lest you use it to plot your conquest of Edmond’s realm.’

I glanced at him, worried that he was angry, but to my surprise I saw amusement in his eyes. That amusement deepened as he recognised my startlement.

‘I think my lady need only appear at Edmond’s court,’ Ghent said gallantly, ‘to conquer his realm.’

Suddenly the amusement faded from the earl’s face, replaced with a flash of irritation.

‘How far has the plague stretched?’ I asked, anxious to deflect the earl’s anger.

Ghent had subsided after looking at the earl’s glowering face and it was left to d’Avranches to answer. ‘Apart from a few minor deviations,’ the garrison commander said, ‘the plague has spread in a line from Dovre westward through to Wales. It entered Wales through the Usk Valley here,’ now his finger pointed to the valley which Pengraic Castle overlooked, ‘and then deeper into Wales once it had struck here.’

‘How deep into Wales has it gone?’ I asked.

‘I am not sure,’ the earl answered. He had relaxed again, and I dared another look at him. ‘We know it struck Pengraic and Crickhoel, and there have been reports of a few cases further west along the valley at Tretower and Penpont, but beyond that … those are lands controlled by Madog ap Gruffydd, and as yet we have not heard any rumour, let alone fact, of what has happened in his dark valleys.’

I had to think for a moment. Madog ap Gruffydd? Then I remembered the privy meeting I’d attended with the king and his earls. Madog was the Welsh prince against whom the Marcher Lords stood.

‘Praise sweet Jesu,’ I said without thinking, ‘that Madog chose not to attack while this castle lay helpless!’

All three men looked at me, d’Avranches swivelling about to cast his narrowed eyes in my direction.

My face flamed, and I felt the fool.

‘Maeb makes a good point,’ the earl said, slowly, consideringly. ‘The last I heard, in late spring, was that Madog had moved from the northern to the southern regions of his territories. If he had been able, he might not have resisted a tilt at this castle. Mayhap the Welsh have, indeed, been struck as hard as we.’

He continued to regard me, eyes lost in thought, and I breathed a little easier, grateful that I had not made such a fool of myself at all.

‘I wonder how far into Wales the plague spread,’ the earl muttered. ‘How far it looked …’

I returned to my stitching, Evelyn checking on me every now and then to make sure I had not overly tired myself, and the men continued their discussion a while longer. Eventually Ghent and d’Avranches bowed to the earl, and left.

The earl rose and came to my side, looking down at my stitching.

I folded my hands, the work concealed within.

‘You went to the chapel yesterday,’ the earl said. ‘I did.’

‘Owain tells me you walked back to the solar.’

‘With Owain’s aid. I needed to lean on him heavily.’

‘Then, Maeb, lean on my arm and climb with me to the roof. Fresh air will brighten your cheeks.’

I put my stitching to one side and took his arm. I had resolved to be more woman than girl, and to walk forward with more confidence, but this closeness with the earl was disconcerting for I did not know what he wanted.

Also, I was afraid that if I returned to the roof all I would think of was Stephen, and I might not be able to control my tears.

I did not need to worry about the memories of Stephen. The roof of the great keep was bright with sun, and redolent with the scent of cut meadow hay wafting up from the river. We walked slowly in silence about the northern wall, stopping midway to lean against the parapet and look over the inner bailey and the garrison to the north.

Everything was ordered and settled once more. There was not the bustle I recalled from the days before the plague, when many hundreds had lived within the castle, but the chaos and dismay that followed when the plague had gripped the castle had now disappeared. Horse lines — thick with horse once again — were securely tied, and the horses settled with hay and water to hand. A group of knights practised their swordplay at the northern end of the bailey, their shouts and occasional guffaws of laughter reaching us even at the top of the great keep. Owain pottered about his herb garden, which once more bloomed and buzzed with bees. Two men picked cabbages and leeks in the garden against the eastern wall of the castle. A messenger, dressed in the earl’s livery, trotted his horse to the main gates, spoke briefly with the guards, then vanished through the wicket gate.

‘How strange,’ I said softly, ‘that normality resumes so easily.’

‘Normality is always an illusion,’ the earl said, ‘and one relatively easily maintained, for all wish to believe in it.’

‘How many have returned, or been replaced?’ I said. ‘When the plague was at its height, so many died, and more fled.’

‘If any of those who fled,’ the earl said, ‘dare to return then they know I will have their balls sawn off with a blunt blade and fed to the dogs. But as to your question, the garrison is now a little more than a third manned, and more men arriving from lands to the north of England every day.’

‘You have lands in the north of England?’

‘I shall have a map drawn, as you delight in them so much, with all my lands marked in scarlet that you may wonder at your wealth.’

There was a marked edge to his voice, and I spoke no more of his lands. ‘It is so strange,’ I said, ‘to wake each day and remember that I am alive. I should have died.’

He did not respond, and I stole a glance at his face. The earl was looking northward, far beyond the castle, to the peak of Pen Cerrig-calch. There was a look almost of yearning on his face, and I wondered at it.

Here in the strong sun, his face seemed more lined than ever, but paradoxically less old. There was a vitality there, I realised, that I had not appreciated before. I wondered how old he was, and quickly deduced from what I knew of the earl’s age when Stephen was born, and how old Stephen was, that the earl was some thirty-five or thirty-six years of age. Well past youth, but not yet the old man I had always thought him.

‘Did Stephen bring you up here?’ the earl asked, and I realised with a start he was looking at me.