The Devil's Diadem (51 page)

‘And the Templars have your father’s lands and manor at Witenie.’

‘Yes.’

‘Perhaps I should ride there …’

‘And search for this piece of Templar fabrication? You cannot believe this story!’

He gave me a long, considering look, then a small smile. ‘Of course not. Now, send for your women that they may pack your finery, and we shall be off to enjoy Edmond’s hospitality once more.’

As our house was to be prepared to take in victims of the plague, should it arrive in London, we moved much of our household into the apartments Edmond gave us at the Tower. There Isouda, Ella and Gytha and I unpacked and tried to make our chambers as homely as possible. I felt safer here, not so much from the plague that approached, but from the Templars.

I wondered if Henry was behind their accusations. It seemed that those who plotted against me, having failed to prove me the murderess in God’s eyes, had now moved to making me the consort of the Devil — or at least of his diadem.

I might have laughed away their accusations, their fanciful tale, but for one thing.

Those imps who seemed to follow me. Had not one of them been searching among my linens? Had not one of them followed me when I’d got lost within Edmond’s palace at Oxeneford? God’s truth, one had even secreted itself under the ice, no doubt to see if I had hidden the diadem under my skirts!

Why did they believe this of me? I had
no
diadem!

I did not speak to Raife of these doubts. He had been late in my defence when the Templars had related this tale in Edmond’s council, and I think he had truly been considering riding to Witenie to find this mythical diadem himself. I had also never mentioned the imp under the ice to him, so could hardly bring this matter up now.

So I sat, and worried, and wondered what fate, or God, or even the Devil, had in store for me.

Chapter Ten

I
tried to put the Templars and their accusations behind me. The days passed. I kept mostly to our chambers within the Tower complex. My child was growing heavier, I needed to rest more and, as Edmond was so concerned with London, there was no court to attend. I saw little of Raife, as he spent most of the days out in London, helping where he could.

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.

It took the precise path Raife and I had taken on our journey to London. It took no detours. This plague wanted London, and nothing else.

No one who had heard Hugh of Argentine speak could put his words out of their minds. When those few left in the Tower who had heard his words — Alan de Bretagne, the Constable of the Tower, the Bishop of Wincestre, those city aldermen who occasionally came to speak with Raife — passed me within the Tower, or held conversation with me, I could see the speculation in their eyes.

Does the Countess of Pengraic have this diadem? If she admitted it, and handed it over, then could this Devil-sent plague be averted?

I felt like screaming at them that if I
did
have the diadem then I would throw it from the top of the Tower to any who would catch it, if they thought that might help.

I could see the question shadowing Raife’s eyes, too, and I felt it created a distance between us, as if he no longer trusted me.

I felt marked by the Devil, although I had never wittingly allowed him near.

I wished I could raise my father from his grave to either set these rumours to rest once and for all, or to say where he’d left the damned diadem, if he had, indeed, taken it.

I cursed the Templars daily, and wished I had any other birth name than Langtofte.

Raife and I spent most of our time apart. He was consumed by London and its troubles, and spent many nights away from our bed, claiming he kept such late nights at London’s problems, and such early mornings, that oft times it was easier for him to bed down somewhere in the city, even in our house on Cornhill. In my darker moments I imagined him tearing that house apart while I was not there, looking for the diadem. I don’t know why he could have wanted it … perhaps to save me from the persecution of the Templars, or perhaps for power, which all nobles lusted after.

I was big with child now, and I feared my body had grown unattractive to my husband. On those nights we did spend together Raife said he was weary and was not interested in love-making.

Images of his former mistresses swam through my dreams. Both were still in London, and I wondered
where
he spent his nights, truly. I suppose I suffered the anxieties and insecurities of every wife at some time or the other, but even if I tried to reassure myself of that, it did not help me sleep better at night.

Edmond found me desirable enough, even big with child. Why not my husband?

I could not even remember the last time Raife had kissed me.

One night, again spent on my own, I could not sleep. I worried about Raife and his absence. I worried about the Templars. I worried about the plague. I worried about whether or not my father had died in unconfessed sin, wearing the mantle of a thief. I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders that night, I think. I rose sometime, late, and wrapped myself in a gown to make the journey to the privy which, in these apartments, was far down the end of a corridor. I slipped through the solar, pausing to tell Isouda — who had waked as I opened the connecting door between my chamber and theirs — that I was only going to the privy, and made my way to the cubicle set into the outside wall of the building.

On my return, walking along the corridor, I heard my husband’s voice. I stopped, astounded and delighted. He had returned after all! I stood still, trying to locate him — he was speaking very low — and then walked several paces further to a small chamber which was used to store our household plate and linens. I did not even wonder why Raife was holding a conversation with someone in there, or why at such a late hour.