The Devil's Diadem (65 page)

Someone had organised a grand reception. I suspected it to be Edmond, for he did not appear surprised at the welcome — although perhaps that was merely the experience of his kingship.

No. He
had
known, for he had made sure I was dressed in my finest, including the jewelled girdle and coronet that Raife had given me.

A groom helped me down from Dulcette (the only friend who remained with me since I had arrived at Rosseley Manor two years before), and Edmond came over. I had so often thought of him as ordinary, but today he was handsome, strong, powerful, every inch the king. His wiry dark hair had been cut fresh close to his scalp, he was smooth chinned and cheeked and dressed in the most sumptuous of robes and jewels.

He smiled, and kissed me, softly, lingeringly, in front of everyone who was standing outside the entrance to the great hall.

‘Edmond,’ I said softly, ‘my nerves are screaming.’

‘Then they do so quietly,’ he said, ‘for you look as calm as a still lake.’

‘My lord,’ I said more formally as the palace chamberlain approached, ‘I —’

‘Ah, fitzRolf,’ Edmond said, turning to the man.

FitzRolf carried in his hands a pillow, with whatever it contained covered in a dainty cloth. Edmond lifted the cloth aside, and there was a crown — not as beautiful as the Devil’s diadem, but a crown nonetheless set with magnificent gems. Edmond lifted it, looked at it, then set it on his head.

He held out his arm for me.

I hesitated, thinking that I should not take it. That it would be an impertinence before the court and nobles and so soon after the scandal of Raife’s death.

‘To hide in the shadows,’ Edmond said softly, ‘will be to admit to everything whispered. You may not wear a crown, but you rule my heart, and I want this clearly understood by everyone in this court.’

I took a breath, then his arm, and together we walked up the steps into the great hall at Westminster, the princes Richard and John following behind.

Chapter Two

I
was not queen, and not given the benefit of that rank, but I stood beside Edmond in place of a queen, and thus commanded respect. In many cases it may have been a false respect — smiles and courtliness to my face, dark words behind it — but never again did anyone challenge or accuse me.

They may have tried in the months following Raife’s death, but that time also witnessed the rise of Edmond’s power base. King, ward of the infant Earl of Pengraic and thus controller of the vast Pengraic fortunes and land, and with the power of the Church (themselves the second largest landholder in England behind the king) solidly behind him. He was unassailable. Some at the court might not like me, but Edmond loved me, and that is what mattered.

It may have been unwise for Edmond to marry me, but it was equally unwise for any to attack me.

I became an accepted part of court, and of Edmond’s life.

What surprised me as the years passed was that Edmond did not tire of me. I had assumed he would, as he had of all his lovers. But, no. He continued to shower me with love and dedication. I have no doubt that there were many at court who would have wasted no time in whispering to me rumours of any dalliance that Edmond had embarked upon. But there were no whispers.

There were no lovers.

There were no rumours.

I saw women at court flatter him and preen before him, and even when Edmond did not realise he was being watched, his expression always was one of disinterest. Women more beautiful than I sought his bed and were rejected with utter indifference.

The marriage negotiations with the King of France’s daughter came to naught having dragged on for almost six years. Then Edmond’s ambassadors considered a German princess, then one from one of the Iberian states. There was a daughter of Scotland paraded before him.

But always, there were problems with the negotiations. They would start with enthusiasm, and then founder amid myriad difficulties.

It became obvious that Edmond would not marry again. His son John married and fathered a son, and then another, and after that there was little purpose in Edmond trying to father more male heirs. His sons would do it for him.

Edmond relaxed.

I relaxed.

Edmond showered me with far more than love and dedication. As the years passed he granted me lands and estates until I became wealthy and a powerful landholder in my own right — all these lands will go to my son Hugh on my death as Edmond has provided for the three daughters I gave him over time.

I loved Edmond. Not with the same passion as Raife, but with such steadfastness and respect and friendship that he became the pivot of my life.

The passion I’d once given Raife I now gave to his son, Hugh.

It is strange that the child I conceived with Raife during the early, good times of our marriage became a stranger to me, and the child who was conceived amid such doubt became the adored child. Even the three daughters I eventually bore Edmond — Heloise, Ellice and Adète — while loved and cherished, were nonetheless always second to Hugh in my heart. I tried not to show it, but they all knew.

Geoffrey stayed at Pengraic for the first six years of his life. In all that time I did not see him. He was raised by Isouda and d’Avranches; they were his effective parents, not I.

When Geoffrey was approaching the sixth anniversary of his birth, Isouda and d’Avranches brought him to court.

Edmond and I laid on a great welcome for him, but it so intimidated Geoffrey he refused to leave d’Avranches’ side for the first day (even then he was too much the man to hide behind Isouda’s skirts). He gave me a sullen bow, and Edmond an even sketchier one.

He refused to talk with us, only answering in the barest of monosyllables when d’Avranches exhorted him to speak.

He looked like Raife.

That is what I found hardest to bear. He looked so much like Raife (and thus also like Stephen), and yet I think he hated me. Even then, even at six. It became more obvious as he grew.

I knew I had failed him, but what else could I have done? When he was an infant I could not have taken him back to London when the plague was in the land and the issue of the Devil’s diadem yet to be resolved. In the year afterward it was deemed too dangerous, and my position too uncertain. After that, well, I moved about with Edmond a great deal, and I did not want to risk a small child on the move from Pengraic to eastern England.

Of course, I carried Hugh about with me everywhere during this time. I would have been aghast at the idea of leaving him behind.

Geoffrey continued as a stranger to me all his life. He treated me with a cold tolerance, I think, only because I was so closely tied to Edmond, and Edmond was untouchable … the king was needed as a contented ally.

But Geoffrey had heard the rumours surrounding his father’s death, and he always blamed me for it. We talked of it just once, when he was nineteen and taking the full responsibilities (and lands and powers) of the earldom on his shoulders.

‘Talk’ doesn’t quite describe it. I had broached the subject, somewhat tentatively, and in reply Geoffrey actually spat at my feet and then walked away.

It devastated me then and still does. How could I have allowed that child to slip away?

But I did, and I did it because of Hugh.

Everyone assumed that Hugh was Edmond’s son, even Edmond, I think. Hugh certainly always thought that Edmond was his father and addressed him as a son did a father. Hugh is treated by all as a prince in everything but name. Edmond was not the bad parent I was, and never favoured him over his older sons Richard and John, nor even over Geoffrey, but even so Hugh somehow stood out from all of them.

In any grouping of Hugh, Richard, John and Geoffrey, it is always to Hugh that people turn first, always at Hugh that people smile first. He is so favoured, in beauty and talent and courage and sheer, blinding magnetism, that he is a natural leader.

Unsurprisingly, Richard, John and Geoffrey resent him for this. Richard and John also fear Hugh. Because of his wealth and popularity, and supposed parentage by Edmond, Hugh represents a shadowy, but very real, threat to the throne of England.

All three also resent that Edmond endowed Hugh with much land and wealth so that by the time Hugh was twenty he was almost his older brothers’ equal in lordships and lands. Combined with what I will leave him on my death … Hugh can never be anything but a powerful nobleman.

Hugh has inherited my propensity to acquire enemies just as he has inherited my looks.

There is another, quite extraordinary thing about Hugh.

He is almost entirely of the blood of the Old People.

He is a Falloway Man.

Chapter Three

U
da told me when I was heavily pregnant with Hugh that he was of the blood of the Old People. Edmond had brought her to Elesberie for Christmastide court. I avoided her whenever possible, because I had not trusted Raife when she’d pleaded with me to do so and I thought she would remonstrate with me. But Uda never mentioned Raife to me, or the issue of trust. All she was interested in was the child I carried.

‘He will be a Falloway Man,’ she said.

‘Mark my words.’

I didn’t mark them. I pushed them to the back of my mind. At that time of my life, in the year after I’d lost Raife, all I wanted was to huddle behind Edmond and simply forget everything that had happened the night Raife died, and the events which led up to it.

By the time Hugh was a toddling boy I had completely forgot Uda’s words. Uda had died shortly after Hugh’s birth and she’d never seen the boy. And all I wanted to do was to enjoy my son and cherish him.

But when Hugh was six, I lost him.

Hugh’s sixth year was the last in which I would have him to coddle. After his seventh birthday he would venture ever more into the world of men, learning the art and craft of weaponry, battle, the courtly skills of the knight and the subtleties of the nobleman. But I had this last year to hold him close.

That summer I was pregnant with Ellice, the second of the daughters I bore Edmond. Edmond was in the north of England, and I had decided that I would take Hugh and Heloise into the meadows beyond Thorney Island to play for the afternoon. We had an escort, and Gytha (to whom I was becoming ever closer) and the children’s nurse, Blanche, came — as well as several servants — all in a company which rode either in cart or on horse out to the meadows to chase butterflies and picnic.

I played a while with the children, and then we ate. It was a warm day and by then I was tired — I was only two months away from giving birth. I asked Gytha and Blanche (and the servants and men-at-arms, too) to watch the children, and I sat in the shade of one of the carts to doze.

I fell heavily asleep.

When I woke, it was as if I had been caught in a dream. I was aware of Gytha and Blanche playing with Heloise, and of the servants and men-at-arms standing about, but I could barely hear their chatter. Everything was hazy in the heat.

I could not see Hugh and became anxious about him. I rose, a little unsteadily, and looked about.

He was nowhere.

I tried to call to Gytha and Blanche, but my voice was muted, and they did not hear me.

I walked around the cart, looking everywhere. The land here was flat and almost treeless — he could not be hiding, and if he was not hiding, then he was lost, for Hugh was nowhere to be seen.

I walked further from our little picnic spot, calling Hugh’s name. I still could not see well, either the heavy sleep or the heat haze made sight difficult.

Now I was becoming frantic. I called Hugh’s name over and over, stumbling through the meadow. He had been stolen, I knew it. Another Madog had appeared and was even now pinning a terrified Hugh to the ground, razoring the blade across his throat. Some of my unknown enemies at court had taken him, factions allied with Richard and John, perhaps, keen to see the illegitimate prince removed.

I turned, and suddenly there he was, standing fifty or so paces away, his back to me. I had looked there a moment ago, and he had not been there, but I did not care what mysteries lay behind his sudden appearance. It was enough that he
was
here.

‘Hugh!’ I cried, walking toward him as fast as I could.

Then I stopped, staring. A moment ago there had been but Hugh standing there. Now a knight on a horse was beside him, and a woman with long, shining golden braids bending down to Hugh her hand on his shoulder.

They would snatch him! The woman was about to lift him to the knight, who would run away with him!

I opened my mouth to scream but then Hugh turned to look at me and the woman also.

Hugh smiled, as did the woman, and somehow the panic in my breast calmed.

I was much closer to them now and the woman’s face seemed familiar. Then I realised that the knight, so bright in the sun, was sitting a white courser whose diamond-entangled mane dragged along the ground.

It was the strange knight.

Stephen?

Now I was terrified that any sudden move or word on my part might scare him away. I moved slowly toward the three, smiling and holding out my hand for Hugh. When I came close he took it.

‘This is the sun-drenched knight,’ Hugh said, and turned back to the knight.

I looked up and the knight lifted away his helmet, and, yes, it was Stephen, smiling at me with such gentle love that tears filmed my eyes.

Then I looked at the woman and realised it was Uda. Uda as a beautiful young woman.

My hand tightened about Hugh’s.

‘Don’t take my son,’ I said.

‘We will not,’ said Uda, ‘do not fear. We are merely making ourselves known to him.’

‘Why?’ I said, perhaps a little defensively.

‘Because he is the Falloway Man,’ said Stephen, and then suddenly I was alone in the meadow with my son and Stephen and Uda had vanished.

I stared about, but Stephen and Uda were nowhere to be seen. I crouched down by Hugh, taking him by the shoulders.

‘Hugh? Are you well?’

He smiled at me, so beautiful.