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
This 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 behin
d 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!’
‘My lord?’
‘Damn him! Damn him! Damn him! ’
And then the earl gave an almost hysterical laugh. ‘What am I saying? He is already damned, more than I could ever wish on him. Oh God, oh God, what am I to do? Adelie? She is truly gone?’
I nodded again, hoping that no one ever told him the terrible manner of his wife’s death.
‘And the children,’ he said, much softer now, ‘the children. Stephen. What did they ever do to deserve such a manner of death? They were innocents, especially the babies. Gone, Owain, truly?’
I nodded. ‘I have left Stephen’s body in the chapel, my lord earl. I thought you would want …’
‘Yes. Thank you. Thank you.’ The earl rested a heavy hand on my shoulder. ‘Who is left of my household, Owain? Who?’
‘Of the ladies, only Mistress Evelyn is well. Mistress Yvette is dead. Mistress Maeb is dying, or dead.’
‘Maeb has the plague?’
‘Badly, my lord.’ And then I added, without thinking: ‘She has taken hemlock, to die more peacefully than the plague would allow her.’
‘Hemlock? And where would she get that, priest?’
That hand had tightened into a claw on my shoulder now, and I quailed. The earl did not wait for an answer. ‘Where is she?’
‘In the solar, my lord. I am sorry —’ That damned word kept burbling to the surface, and it was the most useless word contained within a priest’s — or any man’s — vocabulary. I thought of muttering something about peace, and God’s will, and thought better of it immediately.
I need not have worried. The earl was already gone, running to the inner gate and the great keep.
He did not come back until that evening.
I saw him enter the chapel, pausing as he stared at the crammed beds, his nostrils twitching at the stink, his face aghast at the moans and wails of the dying.
I hurried over. ‘My lord?’
‘Maeb is somewhere I cannot reach her now,’ he said. He looked me in the eye. ‘Running with the wolves.’
I went cold. I knew what he meant.
‘I have done all I can for her,’ the earl continued. ‘Either she will live or she won’t. Where is Stephen?’
‘Behind the altar, my lord. Do you … do you require my aid?’
Pengraic studied me. His face was weary, so weary, and his skin ashen, as if he suffered himself. ‘Do you have the time?’ he said, indicating the chaos of the chapel.
‘I will always have the time for Lord Stephen,’ I said.
‘Then thank you,’ the earl said. ‘Yes, assist me if you will. And after … cause Stephen’s name and rank to be carved into the central heartstone of the chapel that his soul may rest in the very heart of this sacred place.’
I nodded, and together we moved toward the altar, and poor Stephen’s body.
Part Three
The Countess
Chapter One
I drank the hemlock, and was grateful and at peace. I was certain I would go straight to hell for my sins, but at least I need not suffer needlessly in the doing. I lay back and Evelyn, weeping, sat with me, holding my hand and stroking my forehead.
A time passed, and I felt my limbs grow cold. I tried to move my hands and feet and found I could not.
More time passed, and my vision blurred, the high roof of the solar vanishing into myriad patches of indistinct greys and browns.
I could not see Evelyn at my side, which I much regretted for I would have liked to depart this life with my last sight being of her kind and loved face.
After yet more time as my limbs grew heavy, and so cold I wanted to shiver, but could not, my consciousness dimmed and I knew only blackness.
I died. It was utterly wonderful. I did not need to fight any more. It was peaceful. There was, finally, no pain. I had escaped any hemlock and plague both. No demons from hell came to seize me. I had no guilt any more. My world became one of complete serenity.
There was just … nothing, and I could drift uncaring and at peace.
I dreamed as I faded from life. I dreamed I heard an angry man shouting and Evelyn’s fearful voice replying. I dreamed of being rocked back and forth, and of being shaken about in my cold, hard bed.
Then my dream grew most strange, and I thought to myself that the hemlock was working fully to drive my senses from my body.
I dreamed I walked down a path in a dark, dark forest, peopled with the trees from the walls of the castle chapel. There was no light. Nothing.
In the forest wolves howled and something monstrous grunted and roared.
I grew frightened. I hastened ever faster down the path, knowing that down here, somewhere, lay safety and peace.
Then something huge blocked my path.
I cried out in fear and fell back, but the massive thing pursued me. I felt hot breath wash over me.
Go back, someone said.
A wolf snapped at my heels and I shrieked.
Again something massive pushed at me, and somewhere in the depths of my mind I think I recognised it as the shoulder of a mighty horse.
Someone, the rider on the mighty horse, was using the animal to push me back.
Go back.
I turned, and fled, the wolves and the horse and rider pursuing me.
I dreamed. I dreamed I wandered the mountain tops, carrying a torch. I was looking down into the valley, and there was the table-topped mountain that now held Pengraic Castle, save that in my dream I again saw the circling dancers and the man standing in their centre, with light about his head.
I wanted to get to that flat-topped mountain, to those dancers, to the man crowned with light, but every time I started down the thing came at me again (the horse) and it pushed me back, back, back.
The wolves howled.
I fled along the forest path. Behind me came the thunder of hooves, and the snap and snarl of the wolf pack.
I was terrified, witless with fear, my heart pounding so fast I thought it would burst.
I ran.
Eventually, I collapsed with fear and exhaustion, and the horse and the wolf pack were upon me.
Then, somewhere far distant, I heard the shout of an angry and vengeful man. I trembled within my non-existent state. Was it the Devil, reaching for me?
The man, shouting again, closer now.
Now the voice of a woman. I could sense — hear — her cringing within her reply to the man, hear her fear, and her guilt also.
What was it, this guilt, that it had spread throughout the entire world? I wished them gone, for they had both destroyed the peace of my death. I tried to ignore them, tried to push myself back into the void of death, but the voices were insistent, and they dragged me closer, closer, closer.
Pain shattered my peace. I fo
und myself within a body again and it was wracked with pain. I gasped, spending a fraction of existence wondering that finally my throat had opened enough to admit air, then gasped again, choking, drawing in painful breath after painful breath, feeling my ribs crack with the force of my coughing.
The pain was terrible but, worse, was the realisation that I was still alive and that, somehow, someone had denied me death.
The hemlock had failed me and now I would burn.
I hated whoever it was had denied me death, and I wept, not wanting to open my eyes in case that action finally sealed my re-entry into life.
‘Maeb? Maeb?’
It was Evelyn. ‘Maeb?’
I wept anew, and finally opened my eyes. I had been seen, it was too late. ‘I hurt, Evelyn. I am in agony. Kill me, please, please …’
‘Like you did my son?’
I turned my eyes, and there stood the Earl of Pengraic, and I knew the Devil had come to fetch me.
Chapter Two
It took me years to understand why I did not die, and to understand the significance of the horse and rider and the wolves.
But then, in that year after I woke up from death, I had no idea. I could not understand why I had not died. I knew I was dying from both plague and hemlock, and yet neither killed me. Strange. Moreover, I was certain that I did die, so how was it I found myself alive? Breathing? In agony?
Neither Owain, nor Evelyn, nor even the earl, would speak of it to me. Owain and Evelyn because, I think, they simply did not know how my health was accomplished, and the earl would not speak of it because that was his prerogative (and he probably did not know, either). I had fragmentary dreams of wolves and horses, but I thought them the hallucinations of the hemlock, not of any true vision.
I found myself in the world, and somehow I needed to find the strength to live once more.
I spent many days, probably weeks, in my bed in the solar. Evelyn nursed me constantly, feeding me broths, washing me, turning me from side to side so I did not develop sores on my body, murmuring to me as to a child, perhaps like she had once murmured to her daughter, who she must have been frantic about … But still she nursed me.