‘Please God do not kill Ghent … I do not know!’
Madog gave me a considering look, then nodded at his men.
The men stripped Ghent of his clothing, then tied him roughly but securely to the stake.
‘Stop!’ I cried.
Madog raised his eyebrows at me, one hand raised to his men, who paused and looked over.
‘Where?’ he said.
‘Please, please,’ I begged.
‘Don’t kill Ghent. Please don’t … please … for what purpose? I do not know where this diadem is!’
Madog shrugged and dropped his hand.
The men resumed securing Ghent to the stake.
Ghent was rousing. He moaned, blinking his eyes.
Oh sweet merciful Jesu Christ, don’t let Gilbert die like this … don’t let him die like this.
‘Lay the trail,’ said Madog, ‘then mount up.’
‘By God,’ Henry muttered, ‘I shall remember this delicacy for when I am king.’
I closed my eyes, praying that Henry would never be king. The thought of any man being punished in this brutal, savage way sickened me.
Madog seized me and lifted me roughly atop my horse. The creature shied at the sudden weight; I slipped, grabbing for the rope, and Madog swore as he pushed me back into place.
‘Fall off at your peril,’ he said. ‘The bears are starved enough for two.’
Gilbert, I thought, my mind numbed with shock. I looked over at him, and saw to my horror that his eyes were open and gazing right at me.
‘Gilbert,’ I said, and maybe he heard, because he gave a small smile and a nod.
Pain knifed through my back and hips, this time migrating into my belly as well, and I moaned, leaning forward over the horse.
A moment later, the horse lurched as a Teulu pulled sharply at the reins.
I turned once more to look at Gilbert. He was still watching me, and again he gave me a nod.
I wept, not only for him, but for me, and for my sheer exhaustion of life. If Madog was going to kill me, I wanted it to be quick, and not in the same torturous, cruel method he had devised for Gilbert.
We rode for some time, although I do not think we covered much distance. The track was narrow, and difficult for the horses, and we progressed only at a slow walk.
Shortly after we left the clearing where Gilbert was staked, we heard the first moans and grunts of the bears.
I did not want to listen. If I had been able to sit the damned horse without the need to grasp the rope I would have covered my ears with my hands.
We kept riding until we came to yet another small clearing in the forest.
There Madog halted us.
To listen.
Shortly after we arrived I heard the first scream. I cried out, covering my ears now that we were not moving, but even the thickness of my hands could not dull the terror and agony of those screams. They came, one after the other, barely leaving time for Gilbert to have drawn breath until I, too, screamed and screamed and screamed in company with Gilbert’s terrible dying.
Henry rode over to me, tearing a hand from an ear. ‘Where is the diadem?’ he shouted at me, and all I could do was shriek back, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!’
He still had me by the wrist and, in anger and frustration, he shoved it back at me, so unsettling my balance that I fell from the horse, hitting my head hard on the ground.
I blacked out.
When I finally blinked my eyes, and when the fog finally lifted from my mind, it was to realise three things.
One, that Gilbert had finally, gratefully, stopped screaming.
Second, that pain now regularly banded my belly like a hot iron girdle and only every few breaths. My time must finally be here, in this godforsaken wintry mountainous forest, surrounded by bears and men who hated me.
Third, Madog and Henry were engaged in a vicious argument, not fifteen feet from where I lay. They looked as if they had been arguing for some time, for they were now in full-flighted dispute.
The two men were standing face to face, spitting at each other with their words.
‘If she knew where this mythical diadem was,’ Madog was shouting, ‘she would have told us by now! I am sick unto death of chasing around after your rumours.’
‘All I need are a score of your men,’ Henry said, ‘and I can ride down to Pengraic Castle and —’
‘You think I want to send my men on a mission that will see them killed? D’Avranches will fill the lot of you with arrows from atop the castle parapets!
‘I am done with you, Henry. All I wanted was this woman to take my revenge for the slight done to me when Mevanou was stolen and she and my son murdered. I am within one knife strike of achieving that now. In regards to Pengraic Castle, I am going to use the cover of night to toss the body of the countess and Pengraic’s cold, unborn heir as close to its front gates as I can get them. I will not —’
‘You treacherous Welsh cunt,’ said Henry. ‘You will do as I want or I will hound you into Wales’ pitiful soil!’
I thought Henry particularly brave, or stunningly foolhardy, to so address Madog.
‘We had an agreement,’ Henry continued.
‘An alliance. You said you would help —’
Madog, in a lightning-fast move, wrapped his left arm about Henry’s neck, squeezing it tight, while at the same time he reached down with his right and grabbed Henry’s cock and balls. Then he wrenched backward with his left arm and lifted with his right, and Henry toppled over backward, a shriek coming from his mouth as Madog continued to hold onto Henry’s cock and balls as he fell.
Henry instinctively curled about his injured genitals as he hit the ground, and Madog simply knelt down, drawing his dagger at the same moment, wrenched back Henry’s head and cut his throat.
Madog stood, not even breathing deeply, his face impassive as he gazed at Henry choking his life out in gouts of blood at Madog’s feet.
‘I send a message to England’s cursed king as well,’ Madog said, ‘that my lands are poison to his kind!’ Then he looked about at Henry’s twelve or so men. ‘I have no argument with you. Leave now, and go back the way you have come.’
After hesitating briefly, the soldiers glanced at each other, then at the heavily armed Teulu about them, and then quietly mounted their horses and were gone.
Madog spoke to his Teulu, obviously giving them the order to mount up, for they all turned for their horses. Then Madog came over to me.
‘You pitiful wretch,’ Madog said softly as he knelt down by my shoulder.
‘This is a sad place for you to die, but remember that so also did Mevanou die sadly. Your husband loves you and cherishes you and will mourn you, no doubt, even if you loathe him, as you say. I hope your death sends a message to this land’s cursed Norman overlords … I will do to them as they do to me. Say a prayer, Maeb, for you have only moments to death.’
He lifted his knife, still wet with Henry’s blood, grabbed my hair with his free hand, and pulled my head back to expose my throat.
I was rigid with terror, but also somehow peaceful.
It would soon be done.
Madog hefted the knife and, just before he brought it across my throat, I saw and heard the whistling flash of the sword that took off the Welsh prince’s head.
Madog’s head flew across my body, rolling away into the undergrowth, then his corpse toppled across my chest.
My mind could make no sense of what had happened, but I was repulsed by the blood spurting from Madog’s neck and soaking into my clothes. I lifted my hands, using them to bat ineffectually at his body to try and get it off mine.
There was a knight beside me, holding a bloodied sword. Some part of my mind, still somewhat rational, realised it must have been this knight who took off Madog’s head. He stood over me, clad in gleaming maille and a rich damson-coloured surcoat and with what was possibly a golden crown about his helmet.
I assumed he would now kill me.
But instead the knight took a quick look about — I was vaguely aware there was fighting about the clearing — then sheathed his sword, wrested off his helmet and sank to his knees beside me.
‘Merciful God, Maeb!’ Edmond said as he pulled Madog’s corpse from my body.
‘What has become of you?’
Chapter Six
My mind simply would not accept that this was Edmond. Edmond was sixty or more miles north along bad roads in Hereford. He could not possibly be here, even had he heard I’d been stolen.