The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass

Edmond studied me, and I could see he struggled between the yea and the nay. ‘Be careful she does not use you, Maeb. You are not yet as studied in court-craft and intrigue as she is.’

‘I will be careful, my lord.’ I hesitated. ‘My lord, I am a young wife, and I know the fears and uncertainties that go with that. I can imagine her fear as she is confined so far from her husband and her worries over her child.’

‘The boy died last spring.’

‘Oh! Then she must be in need of comfort and —’

‘Maeb, be careful!’

I thought he was warning me only of the princess, and I did not, could not, think through other dangers. Despite all my new-found confidence at court, I was still a novice at court-craft and intrigue and could not see the trap.

I contented myself with looking at the king appealingly, and eventually he sighed.

‘It is against my better judgment, Maeb, but if you wish, then go. But, by God, be careful what you say and do! Do not trust her, do not carry anything out for her, nor anything in. Nothing. Yes?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ I said happily. ‘Thank you, my lord.’

I went to see the princess the next day. I learned her name was Mevanou, and that she was not much older than myself.

A guard escorted me down the narrow stairs of the north-eastern tower to the lower level that was partially above, partially below ground. Here the large spaces had been partitioned into store rooms, dormitories for soldiers, and even a few cells for prisoners, but the guard led me past all of those until we reached the south-western portion of the tower where the space under the chapel crypt had been redesigned into a spacious apartment for the Welsh princess.

I admit to some nerves as the guard fumbled with the keys to the lock of the door, but when he opened it and announced my name in a gruff voice I put a smile to my face and walked through the door confidently.

I found myself in a commodious chamber, well furnished and most comfortable. It was lit by two narrow windows that looked onto the inner bailey, and in the far wall I could see a door into a privy chamber. The air felt a little damp, but there was a brazier burning to one side, and wraps enough to keep anyone warm.

A woman stood just before one of the windows, in a shaft of light. She was very small, and somewhat thin, and as she moved forward a step, out of the light, I saw that she had a pale complexion, her nose scattered with freckles, and dark red hair.

‘My lady?’ I said. ‘I am Maeb, Countess of Pengraic. I have come on behalf of your husband, that you may know of his love and concern for you and …’

I stumbled to a halt.

‘Our son?’ she said. Mevanou did not speak French so well as her husband, and her voice had a heavy accent. ‘Our son is dead, murdered by the malignant air within this prison. My husband’s love and concern is no longer of any use to him.’

‘Then may I offer it to you.’ This conversation was not going the way I had thought it might. ‘I spoke with your husband recently enough, and he —’

‘Most likely misses me not. He has mistresses and bastard sons a-plenty to keep him warm.’

‘But he has ceased raiding since you were seized. He must hold you in great affection!’

‘If he has ceased raiding then there will be other reasons for it. The nearness of the plague, perhaps. Madog values his life before any others.’

‘Then I am most sorry for you, my Lady Mevanou, to be so far from your homeland and so great a distance from any love and care. Would you like me to stay? I can share the gossip of the court, and —’

‘Go,’ she said. ‘I have no interest in you, nor in your sympathetic cause, and most particularly I have no interest in the idle wife of one of the bastard Normans who keeps my land under a foreign yoke.’

Her voice was harsh and unyielding. I tried to summon yet more sympathy for her, but I felt as if I had been slapped in the face.

‘Then I will bid you good day, Lady Mevanou,’ I said, inclined my head slightly, and turned for the door.

Having been rejected so utterly, I did not go to see Mevanou again. I worried for her, and thought her forthright rudeness most likely a product of her grief and fear, but I did not want to thrust myself on her, nor suffer the sharpness of her tongue again. A few days later Edmond asked me what had happened and I told him.

‘She is a vicious witch,’ he said. ‘I think sometimes that Madog is grateful Chestre took her. So is your crusade of sympathy over, my lady?’

‘I am afraid so, my lord,’ I said ruefully. ‘It took her but a few brief moments to learn to hate me, and I do not want to anger her further by visiting her again.’

‘You took nothing to her, nor carried anything hence?’

‘No, my lord king, I was most careful.’

‘Good, but it is best if you speak of this to no one.’

‘Yes, my lord.’

The third incident still leaves me, after all these years, shaking in fear.

I had woken in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep. The weight of the child was bothering me, I had a deep ache in my head and my legs cramped continuously. I decided to rise and walk a little, perhaps go down to the chapel and pray, and then return to bed to see if I could find some sleep before dawn.

I slid out of bed, shivering in the cool night, and slipped into a warm, loose robe. I opened the door, walking into the chamber beyond mine. Here slept always one of the household’s servants, and a candle always kept burning.

I used the candle to light another, my slight noise rousing the servant from his sleep.

‘I am just going down to the chapel,’ I said. ‘I am well, but cannot sleep. Stay where you are.’

He nodded, fell back to his bed, and was asleep again almost instantly.

I moved as silently as I could through the house. It was very quiet, although there was soft noise coming from the hall where a couple of the knights or squires who slept there must have been talking softly. I crept past the entrance to the hall and down the tight circular stairs to the crypt beneath the house, where lay the chapel.

As I padded down the steps I thought I heard a slight noise from the chapel, but thought little of it. It might have been someone else visiting the chapel at night, it might have been a rat … it might have been the result of any number of innocent actions. I simply did not think for a moment it might be something malevolent.

Vicious.

I reached the last step into the crypt and then turned to my left toward the part that was used as a chapel.

And stopped dead, so terrified I could not move, nor utter a sound.

The candles were burning in the chapel and I could see clearly.

An imp from hell, standing with his back to me, pissing against the altar, whistling some devilish tune softly through his snout.

I knew what it was instantly, for it was a perfect brother to the one I had seen in the palace in Oxeneford. It had the same lumpish body, the same forked, snaking tail, the same thin, stick-like limbs.

And, as it turned at the slight sound I had made as I gasped in horror, the same round, pig-snouted, sharp-toothed visage.

It hissed when it saw me, then it shook its cock free of dribbles, and turned to face me fully.

‘The master’s bitch,’ it said, its forked tongue glistening as it slipped in and out of its mouth during speech. I backed against the wall in horror. I wanted to flee, but for the moment my limbs were frozen and I could not move.

The imp took a step toward me. ‘Bitch,’ it said again. ‘Hell awaits all murderers!’

Terrified, sure it was going to drag me down to hell then and there, I finally rediscovered my capacity for movement and, throwing the candle at the horror, I turned into the stairwell and scrambled up, screaming for aid.

Men came tumbling out of the hall.

‘My lady! My lady! What is it?’

‘The chapel,’ I managed to say. ‘The chapel!’

Half a dozen men piled down the stairs. I could hear them below, searching and shouting.