The Devil's Diadem (23 page)

I tried to wash away the fungus, but it would not budge.

As I washed, I kept thinking what a waste this was. Stephen was a fine man with a strong body. Why did God inflict this on him? No one would miss me, but England would miss Stephen most terribly. He would have matured into a strong lord. Why take him? What grievous sin had he committed that he needed to suffer in this manner? What grievous sin all those who suffered in this castle?

I wondered about Rosamund and John. Why had God wanted them to die as they did? Neither had sinned … by all the saints in heaven, what mortal sin could a toddling child commit, save that he had been born?

My thoughts and mood darkened as I washed and wondered. Perhaps Stephen and I deserved it. We had committed grievous sin with the murder of Rosamund and John, true. But Lady Adelie? She had died in a manner most horrid, her death the most agonising possible, a death usually reserved for the most appalling of sinners.

But unless there was some dark, terrible secret in Lady Adelie’s life (which I could not believe), there was no reason for the manner of her death.

I grew angry with God for inflicting this plague upon his peoples. Perhaps some deserved it, but I am sure most did not.

When I had done I covered Stephen with linens and a thin woollen coverlet, then lay down beside him. The effort of washing him had exhausted me, and I fell into a doze.

The Devil came for me. I dreamed I was trapped in some dark, confined space. Suddenly something loomed behind me, and I turned, my heart racing.

It was a beast of indescribable horror. It radiated power that crushed me. I could do nothing against it. I could not flee, I could not fight. I was defenceless before it. It opened its mouth, and in that great yawning maw I could see leaping flames and hear from within the screams of the damned.

I thought I would die of terror. I choked on the stench of the monster (
the Devil! The Devil! Somehow I knew it but I refused to acknowledge it, because that admission
would
have killed me
) and his breath.

Where is it?
the monster demanded of me.
Where did you hide it?

I twisted this way and that, but I was unable to loose myself from his terrible power.

Where is it?

I didn’t know what it wanted. I had hid nothing. I could not answer, although I was desperate to tell it what it wanted, so that I could be freed.

I can
smell
its stink on you! Where is it?
‘I don’t know!’ I screamed.

And then suddenly I was awake, Stephen’s concerned face close to mine.

‘You dreamed, too,’ he said, and I nodded, crying.

He pulled me closer and held me, and we lay there in silence all that morning and into the afternoon.

I dozed off again, although thankfully this time I did not dream. When I woke it was full night and Stephen was struggling for his life beside me.

I lurched upright, cursing myself for falling asleep. Every one of my bones ached and hot pain seared up and down my spine.

I cried out, the momentary agony forcing me to hold my breath until it had passed.

Only then did I manage to turn to Stephen.

He was gasping, unable to breathe properly, almost as if he had something stuck in his throat. One of his hands was, indeed, clasped about his throat.

The other, on the side farthest from me, waved weakly in the air.

‘Stephen? Stephen?’ I blinked, trying to clear my vision. Earlier I had lit a candle and placed it in a wall sconce, and by its weak, guttering light, I saw that fungus spilled out of Stephen’s mouth and down his chin to his neck.

Oh, sweet Virgin Mary! It must be choking him!

His eyes caught mine, pleading, and at that moment — unfairly — I hated both Evelyn and Owain with every particle of my being for not providing the hemlock in time.

The appalling horror of Stephen’s suffering made me panic. I knew what he wanted — his eyes were locked into mine, begging, begging, begging — but I could not do it, the horror of it, I could not —

His hand grabbed mine, clutching tightly, and his eyes brimmed with tears.

Do it
, they said.
Please. Please.

I was sobbing at his suffering. I could not bear it. Yet, at the same moment, I could not bear to end his life. Not Stephen, not Stephen …

Please, Maeb. Please.

Consumed with grief and anger and fear, I grabbed one of the heavy pillows. I hesitated a moment, then, wishing beyond anything that it was already over, I slammed the pillow down over Stephen’s face, shuffling forward on my knees so I could put my full weight upon it.

I was sobbing so hard my chest felt as if it would crack in two.

Not Stephen, not Stephen, no, no …

Both his hands grabbed my wrists, forcing them to bear down even harder.

His body was convulsing, and all I wanted was for him to die, to let go life, to stop this horror so that I could somehow escape and forget that this had happened, just forget, forget everything.

His grip on my wrists loosened. I think I was shrieking now, or as much of a shriek as I could force out of my painful, hoarsened throat.

Why didn’t he die? Why didn’t he die? Why —

Stephen went limp under me. Yet still I pushed down on that pillow with all my might.

I don’t know how long I knelt there on that bed, Stephen dead beneath me, pushing down on the pillow and shrieking, but I know it was a long time. My own body was screaming in agony, every joint, every muscle afire with fever, but still I knelt … still I knelt …

Eventually I reeled back, almost falling off the bed.

Stephen did not move.

The pillow half slipped from his face, and I saw his eyes, bulging, staring sightlessly into God’s judgment.

I slid to my knees on the floor, my hands clutching at the coverlets, partly pulling them from the mattress.

There I crouched, sobbing, so bereft I thought (
hoped
) it would kill me, unable to think, or to rise and walk away.

I became aware of another presence, and I looked to the door. Evelyn stood there, staring at me, horror on her face.

In her hand she held a small vial.

The hemlock.

Evelyn raised me to my feet, and led me from the chamber. ‘I will tend to him,’ she said.

‘Owain, he wanted Owain —’

‘I know. I will fetch Owain. Hush now, I will look after everything.’

She helped me into the solar, and thence to the bed we had shared in those times when the world was sane.

I lay, shivering with fever, every joint aching. My spine felt as if it was on fire, my lungs felt thick, every breath a struggle. I could
taste
the fungus in my mouth.

I wanted to ask Evelyn for the hemlock. I wanted to die, there was nothing to live for any more, but Evelyn was already halfway to the stairwell. Thus I lay there, weeping in pain and fear and loss until I fell into slumber.

I did not dream. When I woke it was because I was finding breathing almost impossible. I put a hand to my face, and felt there the fur of the fungus. I struggled, trying to call out, but I was voiceless.

If I was voiceless, then I was also terrified. I was sure that the fire was not far away, and I was sure that Evelyn had abandoned me.

I was helpless, and hopeless.

And then, suddenly, Evelyn was there.

Please
, I mouthed at her, and she understood. She gave me a last smile, nodded, then gently raised my head and put the flask to my lips.

Of what happened next, I cannot speak, for the poison took effect and I was senseless.

Owain shall speak on my behalf.

Chapter Ten

OWAIN’S TESTIMONY

T
his time was that of the Devil, I am certain. Days ran like blood into yet more days, until I knew not where I was within the week and if I had missed the Sabbath or not. All prayers were forgotten, all the hours of the days unmarked. There was nothing but death, near death, longed for death and terrible death. The chapel stank of it: of the fungus, of terror, of hopelessness, of death,
always
of death. Sometimes we did not get to a sufferer in time, and he was consumed by flames, screeching and twisting amid his own terrifying inferno.

We would have to drag those near him away, themselves screaming, frantic to escape the flames.

And then, as if my life had been cast from a cart drawn by bolting horses and dashed against the rocks, everything came to a halt.

My Lord Stephen died. The most precious heir in this land. Dead.

I knew he’d harboured the plague but (perhaps foolishly) I’d hoped that he would somehow overcome it. If anyone could, I reasoned with myself as I struggled through the morass of hopelessness within the chapel, then Stephen could.

He was stronger than most.

If he could not, then he deserved the kindest passage through, as I’d given others.

It was the only reason I’d agreed to send hemlock to Maeb. She was of the old blood, too, even if she did not then recognise it. I knew Maeb loved him, and I knew that she would hesitate until the last moment before she gave Stephen the poison. She would not destroy him unless she absolutely had to, because neither her blood nor her heart would allow it.

In the end, it had been too late. My messenger took longer than I’d hoped, and by the time he arrived, and I’d sent Evelyn with the hemlock to Maeb, Stephen was dead.

Evelyn returned to tell me almost as soon as she’d discovered the fact. I came, with two strong men who’d been helping me in the chapel (they were fatalistic souls, and believed that if God had meant for them to die, they would have caught the plague well before now), and brought Stephen’s body back to the chapel where we wrapped it and laid it in the single private place remaining — the space behind the altar. Here Stephen would need to rest until I could do what was needed.

Maeb was dying, too.

I hoped Evelyn would give her the hemlock. I liked Maeb, not merely because of the old blood she carried, but because she radiated warmth and interest. I can confess this here, because I know my lady can never read it, but during my life as a priest there have been very few women who have roused me enough to consider breaking my vows of chastity.

Mistress Maeb Langtofte was one of them. She was so lovely as a young woman. So lovely.

But for now such thoughts were far beyond me. My life was the chapel and the dying. I had not slept in days, and I was wearied beyond exhaustion. I sorrowed for Maeb, but she had Evelyn with her, and that would need to be enough.

It was the day after Stephen had died. I was, as I had been for days, weeks (a lifetime?), doing what I could in the chapel. Administering herbs to alleviate suffering where I could, hemlock to alleviate suffering permanently as I dared, and I ignored d’Avranches, who occasionally appeared in the chapel administering his own form of ease. When he wasn’t in the chapel, he was prowling the rest of the castle.

D’Avranches was a man driven, I think, not only by the need to reduce suffering, but also the need to preserve his liege lord’s property.

Nothing more would burn if he could help it.

He was also the man who organised the removal of corpses from the chapel, never asking why so many of them were unburned. D’Avranches had managed to bring together enough able men to dig a trench beyond the walls of the castle for the dead. Every so often they would appear within the chapel and remove what needed removing.

I could not have done without him.

I was standing by the door of the chapel, pausing from my ministrations, taking a few deep breaths of fresh air and wiping the cold sweat from my face, when suddenly there was a clatter of horses’ hooves. I did not immediately take much note of it — loose horses had been clattering about the inner bailey for days now — but after a moment I realised there was a group of horses and their hooves made sound as if they were being purposefully ridden.

I stepped beyond the door, and for a moment could not believe what my eyes showed me.

It was the Earl of Pengraic, a score of horsemen behind him.

He rode into the inner bailey, his head moving about as he looked, the shock at what he saw registering on his face.

I stumbled forward and, as I came to within fifteen paces of him, the earl saw me, kicking his horse forward.

‘By God, Owain,’ he said, ‘what has happened here?’

‘The plague, my lord. I am sorry.’

‘Stephen sent me a message … I could not believe it … I rode as hard as I might, by heavenly Jesu I killed three horses to get here … Where is Stephen, Owain?
Where is my son?
’

Sweet merciful saints. ‘My lord, I am sorry. My Lord Stephen died last night. I have him laid out behind the —’

‘Dead?
Stephen is dead?
It can’t be!’ The earl swung down from his horse and grabbed the front of my robe. ‘Tell me this is not truth, priest!’

I could not reply. Emotion swelled my throat and made words impossible.

He saw from my face. He knew. His hand slowly released his grip and he took a step back. ‘They were supposed to be
safe
, Owain. Safe!
He promised me Pengraic would be safe!
’

I did not understand his words, and supposed only that the earl was maddened with grief and shock and did not know what he said.

‘Stephen is dead?’ he said again, although this time he did not require an answer. I could hear the beginnings of understanding in his voice. ‘Stephen is dead … and the rest of my family? My wife? My children? What of them, Owain?’

Stephen’s message must have contained news of Lady Adelie’s death, but maybe the earl had not believed that, either.

‘They are all gone, my lord. We could do nothing to save them.’

‘All?’ The word was forced through his lips. ‘
All?
’

I nodded. ‘I am so sorry, my lord. We did the best we could. We —’

‘He did this deliberately!’ the earl said, almost shouting. ‘Deliberately!’