‘Both.’
He gave a little shrug.
‘They will both rise again, my lady. What appears a barren field today shall bloom tomorrow.’
‘I had never realised you such the optimistic poet, fitzErfast,’ I said. He smiled, bowed, and left.
Ella, Gytha and I unpacked what we needed, made the beds, swept and did what we could to make the solar and privy chamber comfortable and homely. The cook brought us a meal at nones, and we ate, and then all three of us mutually decided to have a nap.
We were exhausted, and more than a little heartsick at this our first day back in London.
Ella and Gytha shared a bed in the solar — they would move back into their dormitory chamber once it had been cleaned and warmed, and I lay down on the bed in the privy chamber. I fell asleep immediately.
When I woke, several hours later, as dusk was falling, it was to see Raife standing in the doorway, leaning against the timber supports, a cylindrical leather document holder held loosely in one hand. Watching me.
Chapter Two
I sat up, slowly.
I was shocked by the surge of emotion at seeing him. It wasn’t hatred. It wasn’t fear. It was, unbelievably, gladness.
I hadn’t expected that.
‘You do not need to be frightened of me,’ he said, softly.
‘I am not.’
He stood straight, propped the document holder against the wall, then walked over slowly and sat on the side of the bed.
He looked very tired, impossibly wearied.
‘Edmond tells me the child is well,’ he said.
‘He is.’
‘And you?’
‘I am well.’
‘You almost died,’ he said, ‘twice. First by Madog’s hand, and then from childbed fever. By God, Maeb, I —’
‘I am alive now, as you see, thanks to Edmond.’
‘You should never have left the Tower,’ he snapped.
‘To travel so near your confinement, and then to be stolen by Madog and Henry!’
‘If I was stolen then that was not my fault!’
He glared at me, then very suddenly he relaxed and gave a soft laugh.
‘Look at me. I admonished myself over and over on the ride to this house that I must not snap at you, and yet it is the first thing I do.’
‘You were worried.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because if I died then you might not find your precious diadem?’
‘Because I love you.’
I dropped my eyes. I did not know what to think, or what to say.
‘You have not been able to find the diadem,’ I said, after a lengthy pause.
‘No.’
‘No doubt you searched this house inside and out while I was gone.’
‘I did.’
‘And yet still no diadem. Raife … I do not have it. I never have.’
‘The plague came here and stopped,’ Raife said.
‘The imps tell me it is here, somewhere. My master grows angry and fretful. He wants his diadem back.’
Oh, how easy those words now slipped into his speech. His master. The imps.
‘If I have that diadem,’ Raife continued, ‘then all this is finished. The death. The terror. I can end it all.’
‘Have you no soul to speak so easily of the death, the horror that has been visited on so many, among them your own wife and children? How can you still ride through this city, which has suffered so terribly, and still bear your head high? How can you —’
‘Maeb, I will ask you again. Please, trust me. Damn it! I wish Adelie had found the time to teach you your letters! Trust me.’
He took my hand as he said that, and I pulled it away immediately. Why in the name of all the saints was he carrying on about whether or not I could read?
‘I can’t trust you,’ I said.
‘And yet,’ he said, bitterness ringing every word, ‘whenever you have asked me for trust I have given it to you. At the ordeal … trust me, you said, and I did.’
‘I am blameless in this, and you are not. I will not trust you.’
He looked away, the muscle in his jaw clenching and unclenching.
‘Who were you,’ I said, ‘before you went down to hell?’
‘A man,’ he said.
‘And what sin did you commit to be sent to hell?’
Raife’s eyes narrowed and I wondered what lies he was conjuring for me. Then he gave a chuckle, which surprised me.
‘I lusted after beauty,’ he said, ‘nothing but a bauble. It seems such a waste, now.’
‘That was all?’
‘It was enough.’
‘You did not murder?’
‘No, I did not murder.’
‘What was your name?’
Sadness filled his eyes.
‘I cannot remember.’
‘How long ago did you live in your first life, when you were a man?’
‘A long, long time,’ Raife said.
‘Countless generations. I had to spend a great deal of time in hell, you know, to work my way up to being the Devil’s right-hand man. You just don’t do that overnight.’
There was definite humour in his eyes now.
‘Don’t jest of it,’ I said.
‘Would you have me weep, as I wept when I thought you lost on the way to Pengraic? When Edmond sent word that you lay at death’s door from childbed fever? When I thought constantly on the fact that it was Edmond with you at Pengraic and not I? Did you bed him, wife? Did you think to make a better alliance for yourself than that you made with me?’
‘I did not bed him,’ I whispered.
He reached out, touched my cheek briefly, then dropped his hand.
‘I wish I could believe that.’
Trust me, I almost said.
‘I did not,’ I said.
Raife sighed, and looked away.
‘I have heard rumours of how Edmond reached you on that mountain.’
‘He used a falloway,’ I said.
‘The same knight who appeared to me in the forest east of London also appeared to Edmond, and led him to me.’
‘You have powerful protectors,’ Raife said.
‘Who is it, I wonder, this knight?’
The way he said it made me think that he knew who it was.
‘I believe it to be Stephen,’ I said.
‘Aye,’ Raife said, ‘it is Stephen, lost to the Old People, now. And Ghent too, from what Edmond said. Maeb, I am sorry for Ghent. He was good to you and loyal to me. I liked and respected him. He did not deserve that death.’
I was almost in tears at both his easy acceptance that the knight who protected me was Stephen, and at his sorrow for Ghent. That was genuine, I think. I could discern no dissembling beneath his words.
‘I wish …’ I said.
‘Aye,’ Raife said, ‘and I have spent these past months wishing, too.’ Then he rose, walked over to the door to close it, and came back to me.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘the diadem. But not tonight. Not tonight.’
He stood me upright from the bed, unclothed me, and disrobed himself.
We went to bed.
We lay there side by side for a time, staring at the ceiling.
Then Raife sighed and rolled over to me. He kissed me, and caressed my body.
I would have thought myself sickened to have him touch me, but I was not. I might have been afraid, knowing what he was, but I was not. I was very sad, for everything that had been, and might have been. I think it was for that reason that I allowed him to make love to me, and perhaps even sadness that allowed me to respond to his touch.
I don’t know what else it might have been.
For thirty years, I have convinced myself that it was sadness that made me accept him that night.
I did not once think that it may have been love, for that admission, literally and figuratively, would have led me to hell.
Chapter Three
I woke just after dawn the next mornin
g. I lay there, listening to Raife breathe, knowing he, too, was awake.
The moment felt awkward for both of us, I think.
He rose after some minutes, opening the shutters of the window to let in the soft morning light. He stood there, the light illuming his body, gazing toward the Conqueror’s Tower.
I wondered if he was thinking of Edmond.
Then Raife turned and bent down, lifting from the floor the document holder he’d brought with him the previous night. He came back to the bed and sat on its edge, close by me.
I sat up, looking at the document holder.
‘What is it?’ I said. As I did not know my letters I could not imagine what kind of document he might wish to show me.
Raife’s mouth quirked in a wry smile. ‘These months you were gone,’ he said, ‘I spent both half angry with you and half desperate to wonder how I could achieve your trust. The angry part of me did not want to bother. It said to me that if you did not wish to trust me, then so be it. We would both need to live and die with that.
‘But the part of me which loves you begged me to find a way, any way, to try and make you understand …’ he paused, as if seeking his words carefully, ‘my motives in what I do, and where I have been, and with whom I consort. That part of me drove me to construct this.’
He hefted the document holder in his hand.
‘Raife?’
He sighed, then opened the document holder and slid out a large sheaf of tightly rolled loose vellum pages.
I expected him to unroll them, still unsure of why he wanted me to study written words I could not possibly understand, but Raife continued to sit, looking at the rolled sheafs of vellum, the fingers of one hand lightly tapping them.
‘I sat many nights over these, Maeb,’ he said.
‘Imagine, the lord of Pengraic, a man of such immense wealth and power and nobility, sitting at his table late into the night sketching these poor drawings for you.’
‘Drawings?’
He lifted a hand and pressed a finger against my lips.
‘Just look at them, Maeb. Do not speak. Do not speak. Just look and, I pray to God, understand.’
Then, achingly slowly, Raife unrolled the first of the vellum sheets and showed it to me.
It was full of drawings, of peoples and forests, and of crowns and imps. I looked back to Raife.
‘Raife? What —’
‘Just look, Maeb, I beg you, and understand!’
I looked back to the vellum sheet. Raife’s finger pointed at the first set of figures and I saw a group of people much like the Old People depicted on the walls of Pengraic chapel. They were grouped about a man wearing a crown.
Raife’s fingers tapped that figure wearing the crown and he lifted his finger, as if to point elsewhere, but at that moment a terrible stench filled the chamber and an imp appeared behind Raife.
‘What is this, then, master? Is this what we have watched you poring over, night after night?’
I shrieked, shuffling away from Raife and the imp to the other side of the bed.
At the same time, the imp leaned over Raife’s shoulder and made as if to grab the handful of pages.
Raife pushed the imp to one side and the vile creature toppled over onto the bed, one of his arms flailing out so that its hand hit my cheek.
Its touch was cold, moist, and nauseating, and I screamed once, then again.
The imp struggled to rise, as also did I, and for one moment we were both a tangle of limbs as we tried to escape the bed.
Raife had moved to the other side of the bed, reaching out a hand to try and pull me away, but I hit out at him in my panic and fear and all my resurrected loathing. ‘Get away from me!’ I shrieked.
Then, horrifyingly, the imp rolled right over the top of me — I felt its repulsive hand slide across my breasts! — and made an unsuccessful grab at the pages still in Raife’s hand.
Servants were at the door now, concerned by the commotion, but Raife shouted at them to wait outside.
The imp had taken advantage of Raife’s momentary distraction, lunging again for the pages. Raife stepped back, but the imp was quick. It had rediscovered both its balance and its senses and it managed to get its clawed hands about the pages. Raife and the imp struggled, back and forth, then Raife tore the pages from the imp and tossed them onto the coals of the fire, where they flared into flames.
‘Damn you!’ he cried, and I thought for one strange moment his voice was breaking. ‘Damn you to hell!’
‘Get out!’ I screamed at both of them.
‘Get out!’
The imp hissed in frustration as it saw the pages curl into ash, then it vanished, but Raife reached for me.
‘Maeb, please, you must let me —’
‘Get out!’ I shouted, angry and repulsed by his nearness, and wishing I had not allowed him to make love to me the night previous.
‘Get out! I do not care if I never see you again!’
I paused, breathing heavily. ‘Get out!’
He stepped back, his face impassive.
‘As you wish, wife.’
Then he collected his clothes, and left.
The moment the door closed I retched, struggling to the window to breathe in some air not yet befouled by either the imp or my husband.
I was so shocked, so terrified, I did not think again on what it was he’d been trying to show me.
Chapter Four
I was still out of sorts when I was summoned to the Tower just before midday. I wondered what had happened, why either Edmond or Raife could want me, but I called for Dulcette to be saddled, then I rode with a small escort as the sun was at its zenith.
The fields between the city buildings and the Tower, once used for jousting and games, were now humped over with recently dug plague pits.
I shuddered, and tried not to look.
It was a subdued world inside the gates of the inner bailey. I remembered the day I had ridden in here, jangling with nerves about my first day at court. Then it had been a bustling, crowded space.
Now there was one groom, two soldiers standing guard, a single horse tied to an iron ring in a wall, and no one else.
I imagined that Edmond must already have sent for more men-at-arms, for currently both city and Tower were horribly vulnerable.
The groom helped me dismount and I walked the stairs to the first-level entrance unescorted. The lesser hall was almost deserted. I saw Saint-Valery by one fire, and gave him a nod, gladdened to see him alive, and there were maybe fifteen others about, but that was it.
In the upper gallery de Warenne stood guard by the entrance into the great hall. He nodded as I came up. ‘They are waiting for you inside, my lady,’ he said.
I walked into the great hall. There was a table pushed close to the western wall’s central fireplace and around it sat Edmond and Raife. There were documents spread over the table.
They both stood as I walked over. I sat down and they resumed their seats.
Edmond pushed a ewer and cup toward me and I poured myself some small beer, sipping it as I looked warily at Raife, and then almost as carefully at Edmond.
Why was I here?
Raife seemed to be wondering the same thing as he looked at Edmond enquiringly.
‘It is time to end this,’ Edmond said softly, and I quailed internally.
He was going to tell Raife that he knew who he was, and Raife would know I’d told Edmond.
For all that my husband was, I still dreaded him knowing I had betrayed his trust.
Raife raised an eyebrow at Edmond. ‘End this?’
‘This madness,’ said Edmond, looking directly at Raife. ‘The diadem.’ Raife flicked a glance my way.
‘It is time to send you and your master’s diadem back to hell,’ said Edmond. ‘I have had enough. This realm, this people, have had enough.’
Now Raife looked at me fully, and I saw the hurt at my betrayal clear on his face.
‘Yes,’ Edmond said, ‘she told me. For pity??
?s sake, Raife, you expected her to keep this silent? To put to one side that she had unwittingly wed a servant of hell?’
Raife was still staring at me, and now Edmond banged his hand on the table, making Raife jerk his eyes back to the king.
‘By God, sir,’ Edmond said, ‘you have betrayed everyone! I have trusted you all my life, and for what? Adelie, her children — did they know? Of course not, eh? Have you spent the past almost forty years using this realm for your master’s black ends, eh? Have you —’
‘I have not betrayed either you, nor this realm,’ Raife said.
‘My only purpose as my master’s servant in this mortal realm was to find for him the diadem. No other. The petty concerns of this realm were of no interest to him.’
Whatever resentment and questions Edmond had bottled up these past weeks now spilled out.
‘For sweet Christ’s sake, Raife,’ Edmond said, ‘why sit here these past thirty-six years? Why not just take the form of some anonymous ploughman and take the diadem as you needed? Why take the form of a great noble, lest you meant to use that power against me at some point? And why here in England? Were you so sure that the diadem rested in England? Are there other of your master’s servants waiting in other realms? Can I expect them all to congregate here, in London, hoping to be the ones to lay their hands on this diadem? Can —’
Raife held up a hand.
‘Edmond,’ he said, ‘I am sorry for the deception. I have been a true friend to you all my life, and remain so now. You will probably choose not to believe me, nor to trust me — my wife prefers to think me utterly malicious and beyond redemption — but I will try to answer your questions as honestly as I may.
‘Why did I choose to take the form of a great noble? Edmond, do you honestly think I would have preferred to have been a ploughman living from day to day on the fruits of my toils in the mud? Besides, my nobility gives me access to most of the information that you have and access to all parts of the realm. A ploughman would have none of these. High nobility was needed.
‘Why for thirty-six years? I had to be born, Edmond. I could not suddenly take flesh, nor position within society. I had to come to it naturally.