The Devil’s Diadem. Sara Douglass

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СКАЧАТЬ hangings and cloths that were to return to Pengraic Castle. Myself, Evelyn, Alice and Emmette rode good palfreys; the twin boys, Ancel and Robert were no longer with us, for they had joined Summersete’s household at Walengefort.

      There were several senior house servants who rode with us, as well as a cleric who would be leaving us at Glowecestre, and two minstrels who wanted to travel westward to Cirecestre and had joined our company for the protection it afforded — their payment for this privilege was to keep us entertained in the evenings. Eight grooms led strings of spare horses and the war destriers that were not currently being ridden.

      To protect us came a large company of knights and horsed soldiers. There were two score knights, all heavily weaponed and all wearing their maille, and some fifty of the soldiers.

      I thought the entire assemblage almost a small army. While I felt safe, I wondered at the ease with which we would travel. Sweet Jesu, who would put us up? How would we manage on the roads?

      As it happened, I need not have worried. Stephen and his father had plotted out a journey that used the lesser travelled holloways and driftways that snaked through the countryside. While they were not the main roads, they were nonetheless well maintained and reasonably wide, for they were used for the droves of cattle and sheep that moved from market to market across the country. The holloways and driftways felt safe, having relatively little traffic on them (the majority of the droving traffic would not truly start until the autumn fairs), and they made for swift and easy travelling. They were exceedingly pleasant, for spring flowers covered their banks and they wound through some of the loveliest country I had yet seen.

      We did not travel as fast or as hard as we had on the two day journey from Rosseley to Oxeneford. Instead, we moved at a comfortable, steady pace which covered perhaps half the distance each day, sometimes a little more. It was easier on everyone — as well as the horses — and particularly on Lady Adelie, who found the journey more difficult than others.

      We met few people: a handful of pilgrims, some shepherds driving small flocks of sheep, one or two travelling friars, a pedlar or two, a few lines of pack animals and their drivers. There was no trouble on the roads, nor from any of the villages and manors we passed along the way. We did meet with people who asked us for news of what lay behind us, but Stephen was circumspect (as he instructed us to be) and so far as I know did not once mention the plague or the unrest further to the east. I know it was to protect us, but I often wondered what happened to those good folk we met going the other way.

      At night we stayed at either religious houses, some of the king’s own royal houses and estates along the way (Stephen carried the king’s seal, which granted us access whenever we needed it), as well as a few of the earl’s outlying manors.

      From Oxeneford we travelled to Badentone, and from there to Etherope. We arrived in Cirecestre on the fourth day of our travel, losing the minstrels, and there rested for a day before continuing to Brimesfelde. By this time Stephen had relaxed enough to allow the knights and soldiers to cease wearing their maille, for which I believe all were grateful, for the days grew much warmer as we moved into May and the chain had hung heavy and hot about them. The column grew immediately more cheerful and relaxed once the maille was set into the carts and the men could move more comfortably.

      Stephen rode close to the head of the column for the first few days, or back a little further with some of the knights, and I saw little of him during the day. In the evenings he gathered for a while with Lady Adelie, myself, Evelyn, Mistress Yvette and those children not in bed, listening for a while to our chatter, but he did not stay long, for he needed to organise the next day’s ride, and I know he spent some time at dicing with some of the knights.

      But from the day when he had ordered that the men need not don their hauberks, Stephen became more relaxed and often rode further back in the column. At first he rode next to the cart with his mother, chatting to her, but she grew tired easily, and soon he pulled his horse back to where Evelyn and I rode with Alice and Emmette.

      I admit that my heart turned over whenever he did this. The sight of his handsome face, and his easy, charming smile invariably tongue-tied me for long minutes and it was Evelyn who initially responded to his questions and conversation. But I would relax, and join in, and these long hours spent ambling down the back driftways of Glowecestrescire, laughing in easy conversation, were among the happiest of my life.

      Sometimes Rosamund, sitting in the cart with her mother, would cry to join us and make such a fuss that Lady Adelie would signal Stephen, who would ride close to the cart and lift the laughing girl into the saddle before him. After a while, she would beg to join me, and so Stephen pulled in close so he could lift Rosamund across to sit before me in the saddle, and I would warm with pleasure at the bumping of our legs and the graze of his warm hand against mine as he lifted her over.

      Rosamund was a sweet child and no bother (and Dulcette, too, was sweet, and did not mind the girl). Usually, after chatting and clapping her hands gleefully for a while, Rosamund would nod off, and I rode along, one arm about her soft, relaxed body leaning in against mine, and Stephen and I would talk as if we had known each other since infancy.

      Stephen fooled no one that his interest was chiefly in me. Generally at least one among Evelyn, Alice and Emmette rode with us, but occasionally all three would be riding elsewhere, or called to Lady Adelie’s side, or their horses would gradually drop back and they might be caught in a conversation with someone behind us.

      Then the conversation between Stephen and myself would veer to more intimate matters, and I found it so easy to talk to him that within a day or two I felt as if I could broach any subject I wanted.

      I asked him of the plague, of what he truly knew and what he had seen.

      ‘Sweet Jesu, Maeb,’ he said, ‘it is bad. More terrible than you can imagine. When we left Westminster, the plague had gripped almost all of the south-east in its terror.’

      ‘But London and Westminster were not infected?’

      ‘No. But …’ He hesitated. ‘You know we think that the plague infects long before it shows its hand. God help us if any of us came into contact with someone carrying the plague and yet who looked perfectly healthy.’

      I looked at him, shocked at what he was saying.

      ‘I need to tell you this, Maeb. I am sorry. I do not know if we have brought the plague with us or not. None of us are ill. I ask the knights each evening, I question the soldiers. They are in good health, or so they assure me. Dear God, they all look well enough, but …’

      ‘The sickness takes time to manifest itself.’

      ‘Yes. But it has been, what, a fortnight now, and we are all still well. I lie awake at night and worry my stomach into knots with it, but —’

      ‘The king and earl acted as fast as they could, my lord. At least this way, we may yet outrun it.’

      We rode a little way in silence, the sunshine a little duller for me now.

      Maybe Pengraic Castle was not going to be as impregnable as I had hoped.

      ‘I have heard that the south-east, particularly Dovre and Cantuaberie, are truly terrible, Maeb. Hell has both towns in its grip. People are dying … Jesu! Dying in such agony, the flames melting their flesh, from within and without. At Westminster one knight told me he had heard descriptions of people crouched on the sides of roads like dogs, vomiting forth gouts of sulphurous fungus … choking and retching at the same moment … oh dear saints in heaven, Maeb, why am I telling you this? I am sorry, I just needed …’

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