The Devil’s Diadem by Sara Douglass

When I did see him he made no mention of what had been said in the council chamber. Beforehand, he had been so adamant that he would defend me from any more accusations, but now one had been made he was strangely silent.

We did not speak of it, but from time to time I found him looking at me speculatively.

No one else spoke to me of this diadem, either. I do not know if de Lacy had told his wife, but I had not seen Alianor since leaving her hall. She had returned north to her husband’s estates in Blachburnscire while her husband Robert rode with the Queen’s funeral procession. I missed her company.

I grew bored. My women and I sewed garments for the baby, and we made what arrangements we could for my confinement within the Tower, as it seemed I would give birth there, but I did little else save stroll about inner and outer bailies, and sometimes, with the gentle Ghent at my side, along the moat outside the outer curtain wall.

One morning I rose very early, well before dawn. I had spent another uncomfortable night — alone, as it happened, as Raife had sent word to say he was staying overnight in the Cornhill house. Uncomfortable, cramped and achy, I decided to visit Saint John’s chapel to pray.

Ella came with me. She had been lying in bed, too cold to sleep, and was happy to accompany me (Raife had forbidden me to wander about beyond our chambers alone in the dark). We wrapped ourselves warmly and set out across the inner bailey.

The Tower was very quiet. Guards on the staircase into the lesser hall on the first floor allowed us entry unchallenged (both of us were well known about the Tower now). The hall was comfortably warmer than outside, all its fireplaces roaring, stoked by the boys set by each one to maintain them overnight. People lay huddled about wrapped in mantles, cloaks and covers. A few dogs nosed around looking for scraps.

‘You stay by the fires here, Ella,’ I murmured as we walked through the hall. ‘I would like to pray by myself. I cannot have you loitering to your death in this cold in the gallery outside the chapel.’

‘Are you sure my lady?’

‘Certain, Ella. Look. There is a stool by that fire. Take it now, and I shall know where to find you on my return. I shall not be long.’

Ella nodded, grateful for the command, and she left me for her place by the fire. I hugged my mantle closer, walking through to the north-east tower stairs and then up to the southern gallery and into the chapel.

It was freezing in the chapel, and I thought I would not spend long at my prayers at all; the walk was what I had wanted more than anything else. I walked toward a statue of the Virgin Mary where I thought I would kneel and ask for her intervention during my confinement that both I and the child might survive.

I stepped about a pillar — then gasped and took a step back in shock. ‘My lady, I did not mean to startle you.’

Edmond was sitting on the floor of the chapel, his back against the pillar. I did not know if he was drunk, or ill, or in despair, for I had never seen his face look so terrible, or his posture so slumped.

I knelt down, ungainly in my pregnancy. ‘My lord? Are you ill? Should I summon —’

He waved his hand. ‘Not ill. Raddled with guilt.’

‘My lord? What is wrong?’

He let out a deep breath. ‘News came during the night. Adelaide is dead.’

My mind was so fogged it took me several heartbeats to remember who Adelaide was.

‘Your queen is gone? God rest her soul, sir. May the saints watch over her.’

Another wave of that hand. ‘May the saints watch over her? I should have been the one watching over her, Maeb. Instead I let her slip further and further from my mind. I did not realise how ill she was … I never thought.’

‘I had heard she miscarried a few months ago.’

‘Aye, and she continued to bleed from that miscarry until it killed her, and yet none thought to tell me. Yet neither did I think to enquire. I sent messengers occasionally to spout hackneyed words regarding her welfare, but I have not truly thought of her in months. Is that the fate of all wives, Maeb? Is this what husbands do to you all? Do we all swagger our way through the concerns of the wider world and thus leave you to die alone and forgot in our thoughts?’

I did not know what to say. I thought banal words of reassurance that he had not treated Adelaide badly would be met with irritation, and so I did not speak them.

‘Many times, my lord, yes,’ I said softly.

Tears had formed in his eyes, and he wiped them away with one hand. ‘I will show her the respect in death I should have done in life,’ he said. ‘Adelaide shall be buried in Hereford Cathedral whose building she championed throughout her life; she told me once she wished to rest there. But that deed shall not atone for my neglect during our marriage. Oh God, Maeb, what shall I do?’

It distressed me to see him so melancholy. ‘You could rise from this cold floor, my lord king. That would be a start. I am near-encased in ice sitting here with you.’

‘Jesu God!’ he said, getting to his feet and holding out his hands to assist me to rise. ‘Here I am wallowing in my own self-reproach and letting you sit amid this frozen lake of a floor! What more do I need to prove my neglect of those about me?’

Even with his support I struggled to get to my feet, and both of us were smiling at my ungainliness by the time I stood before him.

‘Pengraic should have defended you more in council,’ he said. ‘I was angry at him for not speaking out earlier than he did.’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I would have spoken out far more boldly had I been your husband,’ Edmond said.

‘You did speak out boldly, my lord.’

‘And you may be sure, Maeb, that not a day goes by that I wish I was, indeed, your husband.’

Now I truly did not know what to say.

‘But how could you want me,’ he said, so soft, ‘when you know already what a poor husband I be?’

I knew well before he laid his mouth to mine that he would kiss me, but I did nothing to evade it. The kiss was very gentle, yet deep, and I found myself leaning in to him, allowing him to run his hand behind my head, down my back, over my hip.

The baby kicked suddenly, and I pulled back.

‘I must not,’ I said.

‘And yet you did.’ Edmond touched my face, running tender fingers from my temple down my cheek to my mouth. ‘And even now, having found your resolve, you do not run.’

‘How could I?’ I asked. ‘In this state.’

We both smiled, and Edmond gave me another, quicker kiss. ‘One day, Maeb …’

‘One day is very far away.’

‘I wonder,’ he said, his fingers and eyes back on my mouth. ‘I wonder.’

Part Six

The Bearscathe Mountains

Chapter One

I had been exceedingly unsettled by that chapel visit, and was glad when Edmond departed within two days for Elesberie manor where lay his wife’s corpse. He said that he would be attentive to her in death as he should have been in life, and meant to give her the burial she wanted — before the altar of the recently completed Hereford Cathedral.

Richard and John went with their father. Of Henry there had been no word. No one knew — or if they did were not saying — where he was. It worried me more than a little. Henry was a bad enemy to both me and Raife, and we would have preferred him in plain sight.

It was not a good time to leave London, but Edmond was insistent. His guilt over his lack of care for Adelaide ran deep indeed. He left Raife as Constable over all London to direct the rebuilding and reorganisation of the city, as well as its preparations for the plague which came closer every day. My husband, who I think may have preferred to have returned to Pengraic, was thus stuck in the city. Much of the court went with Edmond, too. There was to be a stately funeral procession from Elesberie through the counties of Bochinghamscire, Oxenefordscire, Glowecestrescire to Herefordscire and then two weeks of mourning and funeral ceremonies at Hereford Cathedral.

Every day news grew of the plague drawing closer. It had reached, and consumed, Oxeneford, and now moved along the roads which led to London.