The Devil's Diadem (28 page)

‘Very often, my lord. You say things I cannot understand, and I fear that you are always angry at me.’

‘You should not seek to understand me,’ he said. ‘You might not like what you discover. But to other, more delightful, matters. You are looking much better, Maeb. Perhaps the day after tomorrow we can speak the vows of betrothal. I see no reason to wait. Then shortly after, we may marry.’

I tried one more time, simply to quiet my mind. ‘My lord, why
me
? You could have the choice of any noble lady. You could pick up wealth and estates and alliances simply by riding your way to court and snapping your fingers at those highly ranked women looking for a husband. Why me?’

‘Have I not said enough, Maeb? You are a woman, and I need a wife. If you want more, then I will say that you are a lovely woman, and it will be no trouble on my part to bed you. Is that enough for you? If not, then I regret it, for there is nothing more to say. Now, take my arm and do not be afraid. I will see you back to the solar, where I will set you back in your chair and you will be safe once more.’

There was just a little amusement in that last, so I stepped forward and took his arm, and the earl saw me safe back to the solar.

Chapter Six

I
sat up late into the night, stitching the earl’s gift, hoping it would be good enough to please him. The earl had set the date for our betrothal for the day after tomorrow, Saint Swithun’s Day, and I needed to have the gift finished. Evelyn and the two other women were making good progress on the kirtles and chemises. All would be ready. From Saint Swithun’s Day I could be a reasonable apparition of an earl’s betrothed.

I still had fears regarding the marriage, and the earl’s motivations for it, but I tried to set them to one side. I had little choice in the matter and only hoped that I should not be a wife to embarrass my husband, his name, or his titles and influences. I had always wanted marriage, I had always wanted a good marriage, and now that I had moved past my startlement at
how
good a marriage I would make, I resolved to do my best.

While I sat up late stitching, remembering what had happened on the roof of the great keep (were all the stranger days of my life to be delineated by rooftop conversations?), I prayed to the Blessed Saint Virgin Mary to guide me, as also to the departed souls of Stephen and Lady Adelie. I prayed to Stephen for his forgiveness, and hoped that from his place in heaven (where surely he must be) he would not think I had stepped on his dead back to reach the higher prize of his father. To Lady Adelie I prayed for guidance in my life ahead, as also forgiveness for what I had done to her children, and that I was to take her place in her marriage bed.

I stitched prayer and hope into my gift for the earl, and wished that he would accept the gift in the spirit in which I stitched and gave it.

Saint Swithun’s Day dawned clear and bright, a good omen for the day, and my new life, ahead.

The betrothal ceremony was to take place in the solar in the late afternoon (I should have to wait all day!) and then there would be a celebratory feast in the great hall of the castle. I still had not attended an evening dinner in the great hall (let alone a feast), as Lady Adelie had never done so. Then the plague had struck and in the chaos of its aftermath and my own feebleness, I had not been to any of the dinners in the hall hosted by the earl. I was looking forward to the evening feast, if only because then I could relax after the high nerves of the betrothal ceremony … but even then that feast held traps and fears as I remembered how I had only barely avoided disaster during the feast I’d attended at Rosseley Manor.

The betrothal would be my first public act as countess-to-be. I did not want to spoil it with some unwitting muddle on my part. I drove Evelyn to irritation by my constant questions about protocol, what I should say and do, when I should smile and when not, and what rank, in courtly terms, did a woman of no rank but soon-to-be of high noble rank hold between betrothal and formal marriage? Who should I dip in courtesy to after betrothal but before marriage, and who not?

We spent the morning in my bathing and the protracted business of washing my hair. It was so thick and long that it took Evelyn, together with Sewenna who arrived to help as well, most of the morning to wash, dry and anoint it with rosewater and sweet smelling herbs. When it was fully dry and combed out it was so glossy, soft and thick I thought I would never manage it.

Should I wear it loose as befitted my virginal state?

‘No,’ said Evelyn, ‘leave that for the marriage mass.’

Then what?

Evelyn was grinding her teeth by this point, I am sure. In the end we decided to comb the mass of hair over my right shoulder, loosely plait it down to my waist, then leave the hair to flow free again down to my knees, securing the loose plait with a length of black ribbon that exactly matched my hair. Sewenna went down to Owain’s herb garden, found some purple and scarlet flowers, and we wound those through the plaited section.

The flowers matched the purple and scarlet in the embroidery about the neckline and sleeves of the emerald silk kirtle. This kirtle was so fine, so beautiful, that I had to be persuaded to wear it. I thought I would feel more comfortable in the plainer scarlet woollen day kirtle, but Evelyn would not hear of it.

‘You will wear the green,’ she said.

‘I should save it for the wedding,’ I responded.

‘We will have something finer for you by then,’ Evelyn said, winning the argument.

Finer than this emerald kirtle? I could not imagine it. But I allowed Evelyn and Sewenna to lace me tightly into the silk kirtle. I had lost much weight over the past few weeks, and the slender, richly dressed figure in the mirror left me speechless when first I looked.

I could barely recognise myself.

‘You need jewels,’ Evelyn said, ‘but I suppose they will come soon enough.’

I thought jewels would overwhelm me, and was glad I had none. Evelyn had made a scarlet girdle, stitched about with the gilded golden thread, and she wound that about my waist and hips so that it emphasised the soft roundness of my belly.

‘You are very beautiful,’ she said. ‘Every knight, serving man and torch bearer will envy the earl tonight.’

Then she smiled. ‘You still look like the wood dryad with that hair of yours and your green eyes.’

I tried to smile back, but my nerves would not allow it. I was desperate not to misstep today and wished that somehow I could be transported instantly through the terrors of the afternoon and evening to the time when I could lose this finery and slip gratefully into bed and close my eyes against the day.

Late afternoon arrived. I had not been able to eat anything all day, and now, whenever I tried to sit still, I found that my hands trembled imperceptibly. My stomach was a knot of nerves.

From our chamber with its thin wooden partition walls we could hear the build-up of voices close by in the solar.

Sweet Jesu, how many witnesses
had
the earl invited? I had thought two or three — why bother with a crowd — but, as I moved from the women’s dormitory to the solar, it became very evident that the earl had determined on a crowd.

I paused at the doorway, hiding one last time in the shadows, taking comfort from them, then raised my head and stepped through into the solar, Evelyn a step behind me.

Dear sweet Jesu, there was a multitude of people
.

Later, when I had the time to sit down and sort through them by name, I realised that there were only some twenty people in the solar, but to me, at first sight, it looked like hundreds.

They all turned to look at me virtually the moment I stepped into the chamber.

My stomach turned over, my heart likewise, and I wondered what I was doing to have agreed to this. Then I realised I had never actually formally consented, and for one wild instant my brain considered the possibility of just running from the chamber shrieking denial.

And then I smiled, inclined my head slightly, took a deep breath and stepped forward.

There were only men in the chamber, no women. I recognised d’Avranches, Gilbert Ghent, Taillebois, Owain and several knights from the garrison. Then to my shock I saw Walter de Roche, the Earl of Summersete, whom our party had left at his castle of Walengefort on our way to Oxeneford.

What was he doing here?

Beside him was the earl, dressed in a fine tunic of scarlet and blue, heavily embroidered with golden silk in the heraldic symbols of Pengraic, and wearing a jewelled sword belt and scabbard.

Suddenly, gratefully, I did not feel overdressed and was glad I had donned the finest kirtle after all.

To one side of the earl, as the crowd continued to part, I saw an even more richly dressed young man of about my age.

He was tall, almost as tall as the earl, and of good strong features with curly brown hair and warm brown eyes. I lingered a little at his eyes, for they somehow seemed familiar to me, then I caught myself and lowered my own, for this was obviously a young man of rank (another earl, I wondered? Or de Roche’s son?).

The earl, my earl, Pengraic, stepped forward and held out his hand. His eyes, too, were reassuringly and somewhat unusually warm, and he gave me the smallest nod of approval.

‘My lord,’ I murmured, dipping in courtesy. With Pengraic still clasping my hand, I turned in Summersete’s direction, as the next senior ranking man in the chamber, and dipped to him as well.

‘Mistress Maeb,’ Summersete said, his entire face alive with sardonic humour at the idea that a girl he had last seen travelling as the least of Lady Adelie’s women was now about to take the lady’s place.

Then, obviously, the young man. I was feeling more confident now. I had made a decorous entrance, and had thus far greeted everyone in seemly order.

Nothing could go wrong.

‘My lord prince,’ Pengraic said, and my heart suddenly sank in horror.
Prince. Oh sweet Virgin, this was one of Edmond’s sons. No wonder those eyes had looked familiar.

And I had ignored him in favour of Pengraic and Summersete when his rank demanded that I should have greeted him first.

‘My lord Prince Henry, this is Mistress Maeb Langtofte, in whose honour we all gather this afternoon.’

‘Mistress,’ said the prince, taking my hand from Pengraic’s and holding it gently as I dipped again, my face flushing in my humiliation.

‘I am sorry, my lord,’ I said, mortified that the first true words I spoke had to be an apology, ‘I did not know —’

‘It is of no matter,’ Henry said. ‘You could not have known me.’ He let my hand go. ‘By God, Pengraic, no wonder the haste!’

There was a ripple of polite laughter about the chamber.

Pengraic managed a small, tight smile, and I realised that he did not like Henry overmuch, or perhaps resented his presence.

Why is he here?
I wondered, realising that Pengraic did not invite him willingly. And Summersete? Both of them suddenly appearing?

‘Perhaps we might get on?’ Pengraic said.

‘By all means,’ Henry said. ‘The sooner we progress to the feast the better.’

Pengraic led me, Henry and Summersete just behind, to a table where a large parchment lay.

I realised that another humiliation lay before me.

‘These are the jointure documents, Maeb,’ Pengraic said, ‘drawn up by Owain who was clerk enough for the duty. They convey to you the manors of Cogshall, Shiphill, Wharton and Hexthorpe as your jointure, your support and sustenance in the event of my death. We both need to sign them, and my lord prince and Summersete will witness.’

With that Pengraic picked up the pen, dipped it in the ink, and signed his name with a flourish.

Then he handed the pen to me.

I took it, hesitating.

I could feel Pengraic tense, perhaps thinking I was about to refuse (or, worse, ask for more).

‘I can make a mark only, my lord,’ I said softly.

‘A mark is as legal as a name,’ Pengraic said, as if utterly indifferent to the matter. ‘That is why we have witnesses for such things.’

Immensely grateful to him, I dipped the pen in the ink then, at the place he indicated, drew a shaky X.

I stepped back, Henry taking the pen from me, signing his name with a flourish, then Summersete.

‘And now the vows,’ Henry said cheerfully.

Pengraic took both my hands in his, our wrists crossed in the traditional vowing manner.

‘Before these witnesses,’ Pengraic said, ‘I swear I will willingly take Mistress Maeb Langtofte of Witenie to wife.’

Eyes turned expectantly to me.

‘Before these witnesses, I swear I will willingly take Raife de Mortaigne, Earl of Pengraic, to husband.’

‘Done!’ said Summersete, moving toward a manservant who held a tray of full wine cups.

‘Not quite,’ said Pengraic.

He reached behind him to another servant who held something wrapped in a sky-blue cloth. Pengraic picked it up then turned back to me. ‘To my betrothed,’ he said, ‘as symbol of my good faith.’

I had not expected a gift, but at the same time was not surprised by it. Acceptance of the gift would be as legally binding as the vows spoken prior. I was glad also, for this now would make my own gifting far less awkward.

I quickly checked for Evelyn … good, she was standing close.

Then I gave a little dip and took the bundle from Pengraic. ‘I thank you, my lord.’

I unwrapped it, gasping in unfeigned wonder as I beheld a stunningly worked girdle woven with gold wires and links and set with pearls, diamonds, emeralds and rubies. It was a magnificent thing — I had never seen the like, nor ever expected that I should receive such a gift.

I looked at Pengraic. ‘You do me great honour,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

He gave a smile and I thought I could read him well enough now to see that he was pleased with my reaction.

‘You must put it on,’ said Henry, and stepped forward as if to take the girdle and fix it himself.

I was too quick. I held the girdle out to Pengraic. ‘My lord?’