The Devil's Diadem

  I felt resentful. He had paid me no attention.

  ‘Gilbert?’ I called.

  Ghent’s shoulders and back moved as he visibly pulled in a deep breath, then he pivoted his horse about on its hind legs and rode back to me.

  ‘Please sit down, my lady,’ he said. ‘You will topple out if you do not sit.’

  I sat, irritated. ‘Gilbert? What did that knight want?’

  ‘You did not hear our conversation?’

  ‘No. I did not. What did he say?’

  Ghent frowned, as if I had disappointed him. ‘Well, he talked of the bear, and how he may not trespass on the bear. The bear is sacrosanct, and he may not interfere.’

  I almost hissed in frustration. ‘Gilbert, what does that mean?’

  Again Ghent frowned. ‘You do not understand, my lady?’

  I was about to snap at him, then realised that Ghent was still lost in another world.

  ‘What else did he say, Gilbert?’

  ‘That we face trials ahead. That he will do what he can.’

  Trials?

  ‘My lady,’ Ghent said, hesitating a long moment before he continued, ‘how may I say this?’

  Again, a pause.

  ‘There are trials ahead. There is blood ahead. There is nothing you can do, nor could have done, to prevent it. Do not grieve too much.’

  And with that unsettling, obscure statement, Ghent turned his horse and waved our company on as he rode forward.

  No matter how much I pressed him later that night, when finally we arrived at Skenfrith Castle, Ghent did not elaborate. Indeed, he barely spent a word on me, and I realised he was still adrift into whatever dream the knight had dragged him.

  Chapter Four

  We started early the next day. It should be an easy day’s journeying through the last of the forest until we reached Bergeveny, but we did not want to take risks.

  From Bergeveny, just one short day’s travel to Pengraic.

  We were almost home, and I allowed myself to rest. I had taken enormous risks travelling when I was so big with child, but we would reach Pengraic in good time.

  Or just enough time. Already I could feel the child moving downward, settling itself for birth, and I had begun to experience annoying pains in my back, hips and legs. It would not be long, now.

  It was a bright day, and everyone seemed cheered by the appearance of the sun. All save Ghent, who seemed lost in his own world. I found it barely possible to get a word out of him, and his continued dreaminess was beginning to annoy me. I wanted to reach Pengraic, and I didn’t want a dawdling, dreamy Ghent to hobble our progress.

  We began well enough, but by mid-morning our progress had slowed as we encountered yet more snowdrifts. By mid-afternoon tempers had frayed from our stop–start progress and when we came to a massive tree that had toppled across our pathway, I am afraid I hit the side of the cart with my fist in frustration. I was tense, achy, my back pained me, and all I could think about was Bergeveny and a night’s rest there before making for Pengraic as early as possible the next day.

  Ghent dismounted from his horse and waved the soldiers into action. We had shovels, but only one axe, and swords were of little use against this mighty tree trunk. While the horses and riders could easily have gone round the tree, the carts could not. The trunk had to be cleared from the path. Ella and Isouda had dismounted from their horses, and sat in the cart with Gytha and myself. We talked desolately, none of us able to raise much of an interest in anything, when Gytha suddenly gave a small shriek.

  She was looking round-eyed at something over my shoulder, and I turned grumpily, wondering what could be going wrong now.

  What I saw sent a chill of fear through my body.

  Two score or more of armed men in maille over dark red tunics were kicking their horses from the forest, and even now were upon Ghent and our soldiers.

  My escort had no chance. Most had laid aside their weapons to struggle with the tree, and they did not have time to reach them before they were struck down by the flashing weapons of our attackers.

  Two soldiers survived long enough to land several blows, but were then cut down.

  Ghent, turning too slowly to face the riders, was felled by a hard blow to the head.

  It was all done within moments. I had a hand to my mouth in shock, my women were crying out.

  Our two grooms had fled.

  Suddenly the attackers surrounded my cart. Several of them flung themselves off their horses, hauling a shrieking Isouda, Ella and Gytha out of the cart. The men spoke in a strange language, and it took me a moment to put the language and red tunics under the maille together and realise who they were.

  These were Madog’s men. His bodyguard, the Teulu.

  Two of the riders climbed into the cart, reaching for me.

  I cried out, trying to struggle, but they were too powerful for my pitiful strength. One tied my hands together at the wrists, the other gagged and blindfolded me.

  Then one of them grabbed my ankles and pulled me roughly down so that I lay along the floor of the cart.

  Covers, blankets and cushions were thrown over me, then something heavy that left me feeling stifled.

  For some time nothing but some muffled speaking and a few shouts. I heard something being tossed into the other cart.

  I wondered what had happened to my women, then tried not to think of it.

  I could easily imagine what was happening to them.

  Madog may want me, but he had no use for my women.

  After a long time the heavy cover that stifled me was drawn back, and I heard and felt maille hauberks being tossed in the cart, some of them covering my legs, then some cloth — the red tunics, probably.

  ‘Lady Maeb,’ said a voice in good French, ‘you will lie there quiet. We are taking you now to our lord. You will be kept safe. But while we are moving you will stay still and you will not try to cry out. We have your companion Ghent in the other cart and we will not hesitate to kill him if you try to attract attention. Do you understand me?’

  Ghent was still alive? I remembered the sound of something heavy being thrown into the other cart.

  ‘Do you understand me?’

  I nodded, wishing I could speak so I could request to be moved into a more comfortable position, or even given some water.

  But the man pulled the heavy cover over me once more, and I was left in the darkness, hardly able to breathe, and with the weight of several hauberks lying on my legs.

  The cart lurched, and we moved on down the now presumably cleared track. We travelled for many hours. What was originally discomfort for me eventually became searing pain as my muscles cooled and seized. The movement of the car buffeted me to and fro, and the weight of the maille on my legs became almost unbearable. I could barely move, nor to change my position, and certainly not make any kind of noise to attract attention, even if I had wished. The rope about my wrists cut into the flesh, and my hands swelled so that after a while I could no longer feel or move my fingers. My back and hips ached more powerfully than ever.

  But of all the aches and pains, nothing distressed me so much as the fact that after some time I could no longer control my bladder. Urine soaked through my chemise and kirtle, and I wept with the humiliation.

  I would be dragged before Madog in this disgusting state, dishevelled, soiled, bleeding.

  And then? I did not fool myself that he wanted me alive. He would want something from me — I could not think what unless this was a design only to humiliate my husband — and when he had that he would kill me. This treatment now indicated that he had no interest in keeping me alive once he’d done with me.

  The tears collected under my blindfold until the entire wretched thing was soaked, making me even more uncomfortable.

  I prayed to my knight, my protector, but he did not come.

  I remembered what he had said to Ghent.

  There are trials ahead. There is blood ahead. There is nothing you can do, nor could have done, to pr
event it. Do not grieve too much.

  I wished I had never left London.

  We passed through a town at some point, almost certainly Bergeveny. I could hear the street noise, the clatter of carts down the streets, the sound of people talking, laughing.

  People living normal lives, not knowing that in the cart rumbling by them a woman lay in agony and in fear of her life.

  I wondered if Ghent was still alive in the other cart, and if my women, too, were alive or if they had been slaughtered by now.

  I hoped they were dead, if only to end their suffering and humiliation and fear.

  Oh sweet Jesu, why had I insisted on this journey?

  We travelled through until well after nightfall. I could not see the light from behind my blindfold and the heavy layers that covered me, but gradually I felt the air grow chill, and I shivered from the cold.

  The cart also slowed as we travelled along increasingly rougher and steeper tracks.

  We were moving uphill. I guessed we were into the hills and mountains on the other side of the Usk Valley from Pengraic if we had passed through Bergeveny.

  We travelled long into the night, the movements of the cart increasingly violent as the terrain grew rougher. Occasionally, I heard one or two of the men speak, the language coarse and unknown to my ears.

  When the cart lurched to a sudden halt, I moaned in pain through my gag.

  There were more voices, raised in obvious greeting, and I knew we had arrived at our destination.

  I trembled with fear and felt so unsettled in my stomach I worried I would vomit into my gag and choke myself.

  Suddenly the heavy cover over me was wrenched back, and icy air rushed in about me.

  The voices were louder now, laughing, close.

  The hauberks were hauled off my legs, and then someone climbed into the cart and lifted me under the arms, sliding me down the cart until I half fell out.

  My legs could barely support me, and I swayed to and fro, sure I would fall.

  Someone caught me by the arm to steady me, and said something in a derogatory voice at which many men about me laughed.

  Not before, or ever after, have I ever felt so humiliated. I knew I was dishevelled, stained, ungainly with my belly and numb limbs, and my clothes stank vilely. I must have looked like a street whore down on her luck.

  There were fingers at the back of my head, and my gag fell off.

  I heaved in a breath, desperate for water but not wanting to beg lest I set off the laughter once more.

  Then the fingers were at the back of my blindfold, and it fell away.

  For a long moment I could not see. It was deep night, very black, but there were five or six fires roaring fiercely, throwing leaping light about and highlighting the shapes of men walking to and fro.

  There were two men standing in front of me, perhaps four or five paces away. I blinked, trying to focus, trying to make out their faces in the fractured light.

  Then my vision cleared, and I saw standing before me Madog ap Gruffydd … and Henry, son of King Edmond.

  Chapter Five

  The weave scarring on Henry’s cheek looked black and deep in the firelight. He regarded me with obvious malicious contempt, then grunted in derision. ‘Not so beautiful now, bitch, eh?’ he said.

  Then he strode over and dealt me a stunning blow to the side of my face, sending me flying to the ground.

  The fall knocked the breath out of me, and it took me a long, painful time before I could get any more air in. I was crying, struggling for breath, my mouth full of dirt and my face smeared with it, and the impact on the ground had sent agony flaring through my back and hips and down my legs.

  A back tooth had loosened, and I probed it out of its socket with my tongue and then spat it out.

  ‘We need her alive for a while yet,’ Madog snapped, and he came over and hauled me back to my feet.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw two men drag Ghent from the other cart, dumping him on the ground. He moved, but only a little and only sluggishly, and I thought he must be barely alive.

  Madog took a knife from his belt and I flinched as he raised it. Both Henry and Madog chuckled, but Madog only used it to cut the rope bindings at my wrist.

  ‘Do not think to run into the night,’ Madog said. ‘These hills are not called the Bearscathe Mountains for nothing. Bears roam here, and they are just emerging from their winter dens, fierce with starvation.’

  As if to underscore his words I heard a long, low moan echoing about the hillside.

  For an instant everyone within the encampment stilled, listening, before they resumed talking and moving about.

  Madog gestured to one of his men, who brought over a skin of ale, handing it to me.

  I was parched, and lifted it to my mouth with trembling hands, the metal mouth of the skin clattering against my teeth as I drank.

  ‘We will need to move out soon,’ said Madog, and Henry nodded.

  ‘It will not be long before news of the lady’s seizure spreads, and doubtless d’Avranches will undertake some foolish rescue.’

  Oh please, I begged silently, please, please let d’Avranches find me.

  I thought of my knight again, he who had sworn to always come to my aid if I needed him, and begged him to come save me.

  Nothing happened, and I hated him.

  Madog sat me before one of the fires, two of his Teulu standing guard over me, while he and Henry moved about, ordering men to break camp. As well as the Teulu there were perhaps a dozen English soldiers, and I thought they must be Henry’s men. My cheek and jaw throbbed horribly from where Henry had struck me and where the tooth had fallen out. I cannot have been there long, but, even despite my pain, my exhaustion sent me into a fitful doze and I jumped in surprise when someone suddenly kicked dirt into the fire to douse it.

  ‘Come,’ said a voice, and one of the warriors pulled me to my feet.

  I looked about, and saw with some surprise that while I had been dozing, the contents of my chests had been flung about the clearing — my kirtles, my chemises, my ribbons and baubles, as well as those of my women. The entire contents of the carts had been completely ransacked.

  ‘Can you ride?’ said Madog, walking over.

  I looked at him, then back at the cart. Why couldn’t I — ‘No cart will go where we are going,’ said Madog.

  ‘Can you ride?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘That was not the right answer,’ Madog said, dragging me by the wrist toward a horse. It was a big, rangy animal, and it rolled its eyes alarmingly as Madog lifted me bodily into the saddle.

  Again, pain shot through my back and hips.

  Madog shouted to a horseman close by, and he rode over. Madog handed him the reins of my horse, then tied a length of rope about the horse’s neck.

  ‘Hang on to that,’ Madog said, and then he was off to his own horse, mounting up and shouting to his Teulu to ride out.

  My horse lunged forward, almost unseating me, and I struggled to find the stirrups with my feet. I clung grimly to the rope, but even once I had my feet firmly in the stirrups I found it painful and very difficult to keep my balance on the thin-backed horse, who not only shied at every shadow with regular monotony, but stumbled his way to his knees on numerous occasions on the steep track up which Madog led us. Twice a Teulu riding close by had to push me back into the saddle as I leaned so precariously I would otherwise have fallen.

  I could not believe the agony now coursing through my body. Everything hurt — my face from Henry’s blow, my back and legs, my belly, my hands which were still swollen and numb from being tightly bound for so long.

  At one point Madog reined his horse to the side of the track and waited until I came level with him. He looked me over, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘We will make camp soon,’ he said.

  ‘We have come far enough. No one can reach us without being spotted miles away, or without riding through a trap I have set lower down the mountain for them.’ r />
  ‘What do you want with me?’ I said.

  ‘For God’s mercy, Madog, let me go. What have I done to you?’

  ‘Mevanou,’ he said.

  ‘My son. As a wife and son was stolen from me, so now I steal a wife and a son.’

  Then he kicked his horse forward, pushing past me back to the head of the column.

  Despair overcame me. He blamed me for Mevanou’s death? And that of his son? And why not! God alone knew what lies Henry had been feeding him.

  Was I to be blamed for every death in England?

  I wondered at the unlikely pairing of Madog and Henry. What were they about?

  I wept in hopelessness and pain, hanging on grimly to the clumsy bastard of a horse I rode, trying to swallow my sobs so that the Teulu riding close by did not realise how lost in anguish I was.

  Madog was going to kill me. If I had not known it before, I knew it now.

  We rode until well after dawn when, finally true to his word, Madog commanded us to halt and make camp. We were in a clearing on a heavily wooded hillside, a little down from its ridge. My Teulu companion pulled me down from the horse — I literally fell into his arms, so exhausted and in so much pain I could do little else — then dragged me to sit by a camp fire being built and lit by another Teulu.

  I could not have escaped had I wished to. I could barely move. I doubted I could even stand on my own. Madog could not invent any torture that would hurt me more than I hurt now. I sat by the fire, my hands shaking with weariness and distress, every breath almost too agonising to bear, when there came the sound of a horse behind me, and then the thump of a body beside me.

  Gilbert Ghent! Sweet Christ Jesu, I had forgot him all this time. He must have been tied over the horse, for he was in no state to have ridden this distance. I shuffled over, touching his bruised and scabbed face, calling his name.

  His eyes flickered open once, then closed almost immediately. I rested my hand on his forehead, feeling how cold and clammy it was, and prayed now that he was indeed lost in another world, for this one would be too horrifying and painful for him.