The Devil's Diadem

by Sara Douglass

  I wondered why Madog kept him alive.

  A sharp pain knifed through my back, and I hoped I was not going into labour here and now. I would have no help or aid. Not from these men.

  Madog and Henry ambled over, each carrying food and a skin of ale. They sat down at the fire, Madog offering me food, which I refused, and the ale, which I took.

  ‘We have been hearing fabulous rumours about you, Maeb,’ said Henry, his mouth half full of food.

  I didn’t say anything. I was past caring.

  ‘It has been said,’ Henry continued, pausing to take a healthy swig of ale, ‘that you know the whereabouts of a fabled crown, gleaming with jewels more marvellous than any found in fairyland, and which even the Devil lusts after so intensely he is prepared to tear this world apart to get it. Is that so?’

  I wondered who among those at Edmond’s privy meeting had been spreading tales.

  ‘No,’ I said. I remembered how I’d seen all the contents of the carts searched.

  ‘You looked through my belongings.’

  ‘All that fancy flummery,’ said Madog.

  ‘Its expense would have fed a thousand of my people for a year.’

  ‘And yet you want this diadem,’ I said.

  ‘For what? To melt down into coin to feed your thousands?’

  Henry made a menacing gesture toward me, and I flinched.

  He laughed and I hated him.

  ‘What are you doing together?’ I said.

  ‘What dark cause can have united you?’

  Madog gave a small shrug. ‘Power, land, a castle or two that we have our eyes on. The earldom of Pengraic — at least that’s what Henry wants, I doubt I’d get my hands on it. A chance to settle old scores; you can see Henry’s burned into his cheek, and you know mine. I do not take the death of my wife lightly, Maeb.’

  ‘She hated you. She said you had mistresses and bastard sons a-plenty to care overmuch about her.’

  ‘Mevanou was my wife,’ Madog snapped. ‘She was stolen from me, cloistered in a damp dungeon and our son was left to die from neglect before Mevanou was driven to her death. You think I do not care about that? That I do not care about the dishonour? There was always going to be a price to pay for that humiliation, and you are it.’

  ‘If you want someone to blame for Mevanou’s death,’ I said, ‘then look no further than Henry. I am astounded to find you sharing a camp fire so companionably. Someone let Mevanou out of her chamber and chased her to, and then off, the roof of the Conqueror’s Tower in order to smear my name. No one wanted — wants — that more than Henry.’

  Madog looked sideways at Henry, and I realised that their alliance was as thin and insubstantial as moonlight.

  ‘Henry’s cheek bears the proof that God took my part over his,’ I said.

  ‘And God has abandoned you now,’ said Madog, ‘if your stained, piss-stinking appearance offers any sign.’

  I winced, and said nothing as Henry chuckled. I dropped my eyes to Ghent instead and laid my hand on his cheek.

  He still breathed.

  ‘Tell us where this diadem is,’ said Henry, ‘and we’ll save his life along with yours.’

  ‘I do not know where it is,’ I said.

  ‘In Pengraic Castle?’ said Henry.

  ‘If we hauled your battered body before d’Avranches, do you think he’d open the gates so we could have a look?’

  ‘I don’t know where it is! I know nothing of it!’

  Henry sprang to his feet, moving about the fire. He seized my hair, pulling my head back until I cried out with pain.

  ‘Why have you run from London? Eh? What have you hidden along the path?’

  ‘Nothing!’ I screamed.

  ‘Why have you run from London?’

  ‘Because I loathe my husband!’

  Madog grunted. ‘She’s said something sensible at last.’

  Henry let my hair go and I bent forward, my face in my hands, sobbing.

  ‘We do want this diadem,’ Madog said, his soft voice infinitely more frightening than Henry’s.

  ‘We think whoever owns this diadem could control … who knows how great a territory? England, at the very least. Perhaps Christendom. Imagine the power.’

  I raised my face, trying to speak through my sobs. ‘Do you think that if I actually had this diadem I would not have smote you with its power by now?’ I ran a shaking hand over my body. ‘Do you think I would have allowed myself to sink to this state of disgrace if I controlled such power?’

  ‘She makes a good point,’ said Madog.

  ‘She is a cunning witch,’ said Henry, ‘as my cheek attests.’

  ‘Then we shall test her resolve,’ said Madog, rising and kicking dirt into the fire to extinguish it. ‘She cares for poor Ghent there. Let us see if she will save him from death.’

  Henry smiled, and drew his sword.

  ‘No, no,’ said Madog, ‘I have a much better plan.’ He signalled one of the Teulu, and talked quietly to him in their own language for several moments. The Teulu nodded and walked away, calling to several of his comrades.

  Madog came and sat back down, saying nothing for a while until two of the Teulu walked into camp dragging a stout tree trunk. As they struck away its thin branches, and as two others started digging a deep hole in the ground, Madog spoke to me in that soft, chilling voice of his.

  ‘See that pole. They will set it securely into the ground soon enough. Meanwhile, others of my Teulu have set meat about the camp — just scraps of it, just enough to attract the bears. Now, you tell us where that diadem is and we will allow your knight here to live. If you do not tell us, then we will tie him to that stake, strip him of his clothing and leave him for the bears. Have you ever heard the scream of a man as he is being eaten by bears? I have. It is not pleasant. Now. Where is this diadem?’

  ‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’

  Madog shrugged. Again he signalled to his Teulu, and two came over, dragging poor Ghent toward the pole now being securely secured in the hole.

  ‘I don’t know!’ I screamed.

  ‘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.

  I turned my head slightly to look around the clearing.

  Scores of knights and soldiers, all mailled, helmeted and weaponed, had either killed or driven away the Teulu.

  There were silver-backed wolves sniffing about the dead bodies.

  This company — knights, soldiers, horses, wolves, Edmond — could not possibly have charged en masse into this clearing along a track on which horses could barely manage a stumble in a single line.

  This was impossible. It was a dream. I was already dead.

  Another vicious band of searing heat encircled my belly, radiating into my back and hips, and I cried out.

  ‘Maeb!’ Edmond’s mailled hand gripped my shoulder.

  ‘Maeb, for sweet Jesu’s sakes, is it your time?’

  I managed a nod, then cried out once more, clutching at Edmond’s hand. He muttered a curse, then tried to rise.

  I gripped his hand with both mine, my despair and fright giving me abnormal strength, and would not allow him to stand.

  ‘Jesu, Maeb,’ Edmond muttered, then managed to turn enough to shout to one of the knights.

  ‘Odo! The women! Bring the damned women!’

  Oh, he had brought women with him, too. This dream thought of everything.

  I screwed my eyes shut with the next contraction and wished desperately for a tight, closeted warm chamber with a thick bed smothered in coverlets. S
urely this dream Edmond could provide that as well?

  There was a scurrying of feet and then I heard Isouda, Ella and Gytha crying at my side: ‘My lady! My lady! My lady!’

  They would be dead also, and thus sharing my dream.

  ‘I will leave you with your —’ Edmond began, and I gripped his hand even harder, the links of his maille gauntlet pressing deep into the flesh of my fingers.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t go … don’t go.’ I thought that if I let his hand go everything about me would vanish and I would be cast adrift in the blackness of death with this terrible, terrible pain.

  ‘My lord,’ said Isouda, ‘where is she wounded? This blood … there is so much of it …’

  I could hear the horror in her voice.

  ‘It is not her blood,’ said Edmond, nodding to the dreadful corpse to one side, ‘but Madog’s.’

  Now I gave a loud cry as the pain got immeasurably worse. I felt an unbearable urge to push, and knew the baby was only moments away.

  ‘We need clean cloth,’ said Gytha, who had very suddenly become quite voluble. ‘Water, if you can manage it. A clean knife. Blankets. But we must have clean cloth.’

  Edmond just stared at her.

  ‘Arrange it!’ snapped Gytha and, amid all my pain, dislocation, and disbelief that any of this was actually happening, I thought that a woman who could command a king in this manner was a woman worth keeping by my side.

  Edmond once again turned his head and bellowed for the hapless Odo.

  I don’t know from where, but Odo did manage to find clean cloths, a single blanket and a clean knife. There was no water save for what some of the knights carried in their drinking skins, but Gytha and the other two women coped with what they had.

  I gripped tight onto Edmond’s hand and, with the king by my side, the corpse of a Welsh prince by my shoulder, and half of the royal court’s knights standing about, gave birth to a son in that blood-soaked clearing.

  When Isouda lifted him, wrapped in a woollen cloth, and laid him in my arms, I marvelled that both he and I had survived these past few days.

  ‘My lord king,’ I said to Edmond, who, now that his hand was free, had stripped off his gauntlets and was rubbing his hand which was red with welts from my terrible grip.