Chapter Seven
Meg
Goronwy directed the men forward as we approached the gap. At this location, the road ran through a narrow crevasse, which Goronwy informed me led ultimately to the ford across the Eden. A young man remained beside me, not Rhodri, Bevyn this time, who wasn’t even old enough to shave. He focused his eyes ahead, however, and I could tell he resented the duty of riding with me if it was going to keep him from the forefront of a fight.
As the hills rose up on either side, Goronwy suddenly signaled a stop. He glanced back at me and Bevyn and tipped his head.
“We must stay here, my lady,” Bevyn said. “Get well back into the trees.”
He and I dismounted and led our horses away from the road, Anna still high in the saddle, clutching the pommel with both hands. I could hardly believe how well she’d done these long hours of riding, but she seemed unfazed.
Bevyn tethered my horse to a tree but kept the reins of his horse, prepared to launch out of the woods to save his companions if he had to. With Anna on my hip, she and I found a higher spot from which to watch the road. The trees were bare of leaves, making hiding difficult but allowing me a better view of the road.
At first, our soldiers moved easily, though their shoulders were tense, waiting—for what, none of us know.
“This is the worst part,” Bevyn said. “Before it happens.”
“You’ve been in battle before?” I asked.
He turned to look at me before returning his gaze to the road below. “My father tells me this.”
Then, a roar broke the silence, coming from the trees on our side of the road, but further south. Bevyn shoved me to my knees and I put out a hand to stop myself from toppling with Anna to the ground. The road became the definition of chaos, arrows flying at Goronwy’s men and them struggling to return fire.
Goronwy’s horse reared and he cursed. He managed to stay on her, while at the same time swinging his shield around to block any further arrows. A dozen of Goronwy’s men turned towards the wood, urging their horses forward, but at the same instant, a host of men charged out of them, aided by the terrain which gave them the higher ground.
The two lines of horses crashed into each other and men on both sides went down. Beside me, Bevyn had mounted his horse, hardly able to contain himself. I pressed Anna’s face against my shoulder while she cried at the noise and at my fear.
“Awn! Awn!” I said. Go! Go!
He went, crashing through the bracken and spurring his horse out of the trees and onto the road. He raised his sword arm sliced through one attacker and then another, neither of whom even had time to turn. He cut down one man who pressed on Goronwy, who’d lost his horse and now stood astride the body of another man.
I watched only Bevyn, too frightened to look away, praying with everything in me that he stayed upright; that he lived through this. His sword developed a coating of blood and it flashed as he moved it up and down, killing every enemy within reach.
And then Llywelyn came.
I couldn’t see his face from this far away, but I could imagine his grimace, that teeth-bared look all the men had as he and Hywel galloped full-speed side-by-side down the opposite slope. Bevyn broke off from what he was doing and flowed into formation behind Llywelyn. The soldiers moved as a unit and I understood then that that was what Bevyn meant, more than the daily practice with wooden swords that I’d always imagined was standard for knights-in-training. It was the ability to work as a team, to trust that you didn’t have to block that enemy’s sword because the man beside you had already done it.
They moved fluidly through the opposition. I didn’t know how they avoided their own soldiers but they did. I barely had time to catch my breath before it was over. So many men were dead or injured. But I couldn’t see them, through the tears that poured down my cheeks.
I stared at the battlefield, unseeing, until I caught sight of Llywelyn pacing north along the road towards me. By the time, he glimpsed me among the trees, I could tell he was angry. His focus was such that I could practically see the blood thundering in his ears and that his vision had narrowed to a red haze.
Just like Trev.
He burst into the space in front of me, grabbed my arms, and pulled me to him. He brought his nose to within inches of mine.
“Tell me how you knew!”
“I . . I . .”
“Are you the traitor? Are you a spy for the English?”
“No! No!” I said.
“Who did you tell that we were coming this way?”
“Nobody! I didn’t tell anyone! I didn’t even know until just before we left!”
“You knew they’d attack us here!”
“I only knew that at one time someone had! Would I have told you about it if I planned to betray you?”
He stared down into my face while I gazed up at him, my face white and my eyes wide. He’d gripped my upper arms so tightly it was going to leave marks. Then my words finally penetrated and Llywelyn’s vision cleared. He relaxed his hands and set me on my feet. Anna had been asleep on a blanket but sat up, her eyes wide, looking at us. Llywelyn’s face fell and he put his forehead into mine.
“I didn’t mean to scare you or her.” He ran his hands up and down my arms. “Last night, I promised you I wouldn’t hurt you, and here I’ve already broken that promise. I can’t fix it. I’m sorry, Marged.”
“I didn’t betray you, Llywelyn,” I said.
“I know that now,” he said. “But there’s too much about you that is unfamiliar and unusual. I haven’t had time to hear your story, but you can’t evade my questions any longer. I will not abide another day in ignorance.”
“I know no more than you, Llywelyn,” I said. “I don’t know how I came to be here, or why, only that Anna and I are here.”
Llywelyn eased back from me further. “Perhaps you are a gift from God,” he said, in Welsh. “Perhaps he sent you so I wouldn’t die at Coedwig Gap today.”
“How many are dead?” I said, in French, not letting him know I understood him. His comment had been for himself alone.
“Too many.”
“I saw the battle. I saw men fall, but many, surely, survived.”
“And they need help,” Llywelyn said. He stepped around me to my horse. “We need the bandages you carry.”
“Is there someone who can stay with Anna? Perhaps I can assist. I took a first aid class last quarter.”
He glanced at me. “You know something of healing?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.
Okay, so by twentieth century standards I knew nothing about healing, but I figured if this really was the Middle Ages, the people here knew less than nothing and I might actually be useful.
In addition to that first aid class, which I should have known not to mention to Llywelyn since he couldn’t possibly know what ‘first aid’ was, I’d had a baby. I’d doctored Anna’s knees countless times. I’d even held Elisa together when as a child she’d run into a barbed wire fence without seeing it. Our parents hadn’t been home and in the first frantic minutes, I’d staunched the blood, cleaned her wounds, and plastered her with bandaids before calling my neighbor for help.
“We’ll need clean water and alcohol,” I said as Llywelyn tugged the saddlebag off the horse and lugged it toward the road. I grabbed Anna’s hand and hung back, not wanting her to see what was in front of us. I’d followed the battle as best I could from my hiding place. Men had died, many of them.
“Rhodri!” Llywelyn called to a young man hauling a man by his feet off the road. Helmetless but unhurt, he trotted over to Llywelyn.
“Yes, my lord,” he said, a little breathlessly. His face was whiter than the usual Celtic pallor.
“I want you to stay with the little girl, here,” Llywelyn said. “Marged has some healing skill that we need.”
“Yes, my lord,” Rhodri said. “I’ve six younger brothers and sisters. I know how to look after little ones.” He crouched in front of Anna. “Would you like to walk with me and look for bugs?”
I thought the chances of finding any bugs in the middle of a leafless, January woods in Wales slim to none, but he had the right idea. I bent to her and spoke in English. “Will you go with him? Mommy’s going to be right over there, helping some people who got hurt. Rhodri wants to know if you’d like to look for bugs with him?”
Anna nodded and transferred her hand from mine to Rhodri’s. They set off slowly toward the woods, away from the road, Rhodri modifying his gate to a loose-hipped walk to match her tiny steps.
“Okay,” I said, looking after them for another few seconds, and then turning the other way. I didn’t know if I was traumatizing Anna for life by all she’d seen and heard in the last twenty-four hours, but she’d been making friends among Llywelyn’s company during our ride, so I hoped she was okay with Rhodri—and more importantly, okay inside.
The scene in the gap hit me like a punch in the stomach. Dead men and horses lay strewn across the ground, although Llywelyn’s men were attempting to clear the road. I’d carelessly mentioned the possibility of ambush, but the reality was far worse than I could have ever imagined. There was blood everywhere. The Middle Ages. Dear God, I’m in the Middle Ages. I walked faster, hustling to keep up with Llywelyn’s long legs.
When we reached Geraint, Goronwy shifted out of the way and I fell onto my knees beside the wounded man. Llywelyn crouched beside me, his hand resting gently on the small of my back.
“Oh, my Lord,” I breathed. “What’s to be done?” The sight of his bloody shirt lessened my hope that I could help him or anyone.
Llywelyn ripped open Geraint’s shirt so we could see the extent of the damage. “That’s the first time you’ve used my title,” he said. His voice was low so I wasn’t even sure I heard him correctly.
I glanced at him, confused, and then realized that he thought I meant him, not God. It made me want to laugh, that hysteria from this morning bubbling to the surface yet again, but one look at Geraint and I sobered. I lifted the cloth that Goronwy held to the old man’s side and revealed a three-inch hole. “He’s just bleeding out on the road,” I said.
“Can you help him?” Llywelyn said.
I thought back to my basic biology from high school. There weren’t very many organs on the left side of the body, but it was a huge hole and I couldn’t imagine that his intestines weren’t punctured. At least the site wasn’t full of dirt, as the sword had ripped through layers of mail and cloth to reach Geraint’s skin, but who knew where that sword had been.
“Do you have some strong alcohol?” I asked Goronwy, who’d been waiting nearby, in French. “Not to drink but to pour on the wound. It’s the best way to clean it right now.”
“I’ll find some.”
“Hurry,” Llywelyn said.
I sat back on my heels as Llywelyn pressed at the wound again, trying to staunch the flow of blood. During the minute it took for Goronwy to run to one of the horses and back, the bleeding gradually slowed. Llywelyn looked up and met my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I couldn’t take my eyes off Geraint’s face. I’d seen death before—of course I had—but never like this. I’d never held someone’s hand as his life left his body, both of you knowing that it’s over. In the last second, Geraint’s eyes had widened, as if he’d really seen me, and I met his gaze. There had been acceptance there, but something else that looked like despair. I ached for him and didn’t want to move or have anything to do with all the others who lay as he did, dead or injured in the road.
Llywelyn closed Geraint’s eyes, then cleared his throat. “Others aren’t as bad off.”
“Yes, Llywelyn,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Llywelyn straightened and stared down at his friend, long lines drawn in his face. How old is he? I didn’t know; didn’t even know what year this was. Llywelyn helped me to my feet just as Goronwy reached us, having slowed to walking pace at the sight of us. We didn’t need to tell him the news.
“Here,” he said, handing me a flask. “Others have need of it.”
Llywelyn led me to a young man who sat on a stump a few feet off the road. He hung his head and his right hand pressed on his left forearm as blood seeped between his fingers. I knelt in front of him and gently nudged his hand away to see his wound. Thankfully, a sword hadn’t slashed through a vein at his wrist, but across the top of his forearm—more like a laceration than a cut.
“My bracers protected my arms,” the boy said, “but the blow was so strong I can’t even feel my hand.”
“Brifo, Cadoc,” Llywelyn said, his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “This is going to hurt.”
I struggled to control the shaking in my hands as I mopped at the blood with a wet cloth. I poured a small measure of the woody-scented alcohol on the wound, grimacing for the boy as I did so. He jerked as the first drop hit, and swore, but then the only indication of pain was the slow tears leaking from his eyes. I wrapped the wound in strips of cloth and tied it, then looked for Llywelyn again. He must have been watching me, at least part of the time, because he broke off his conversation with Hywel and came over.
“If he gets the cloth dirty or he changes the bandages, he needs to put more alcohol on the wound,” I said in French, my entire Welsh vocabulary having apparently evaporated from my brain. “Otherwise it will get infected. It still might.”
“What’s this, ‘infected’?” Llywelyn asked.
I searched for the proper word. “Festering?” I suggested. “Full of evil vapors?”
Llywelyn nodded as if that explained anything and he sent me to the next man. All told, I worked on five men like Cadoc, each one with a wound caused by the hacking of a sword at limbs that should never have been near a sharp object in the first place.
“I thought armor was supposed to prevent this kind of damage,” I said as I tied the last knot on the last man.
Llywelyn glanced at me, surprise showing on his face. “If not for the armor, they would have lost their limbs entirely. These are minor wounds compared to what they would have experienced unprotected.”
And that was certainly something I should have known, if I were a thirteenth century woman. I put a hand to my head and bent forward, feeling all of a sudden the dizziness that I’d been holding back for the last hour as I worked on the men.
“Sorry,” I said.
Llywelyn put his hand on the back of my neck and pushed me down, so that my head rested on my knees. “Breathe,” he said. “You’ve done very well.” He called something in Welsh that I didn’t understand and could barely hear anyway as the rushing in my ears was so loud. Then a new pair of boots appeared by my knee. It was Goronwy.
“My lady,” he said, “Can I help?”
I shook my head, just trying to regain control. This always happened to me once the danger was over. I just hoped I wouldn’t pass out. After a few minutes, breathing came more easily and I looked up. Llywelyn had left me to confer with someone whose name I didn’t know. In the time I’d been working on the wounded, order had set in. The dead enemy had been stacked in the ditch on the far side of the road and our dead had been wrapped in blankets, laid out in a line near where Llywelyn stood. Several men helped to heave the bodies onto horse’s backs for the rest of the journey to the manor.
“Your color returns,” Goronwy said. “If you can ride, we need to move. The sun will fall behind the trees at any moment.”
He helped me up. Though I swayed, I managed to stay on my feet.
“Do we know what happened?” I asked him. “We left Castell Criccieth on very short notice. Someone must have been working very quickly to ambush us here.”
Goronwy’s face grew more grim. “It’s someone we trust,” he said. “Someone knew that we might come, had men ready for that possibility, and sent word ahead. A rider alone could have arrived here before us easily. The question is who that rider was. I recognize some of the men we killed, but no faces leap out as having been at Criccieth. Most were men of Powys, Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn’s men.”
“Whose men?” I’d never heard such a bizarre name, even in Welsh.
Goronwy glanced at me, a hint of a smile on his face. “Gwenwynwyn. He and Prince Llywelyn are at peace, but in the past, Gruffydd has been a staunch ally of Prince Dafydd, Lord Llywelyn’s brother, and of King Henry. I’m disappointed to think that he is involved in this attack. Regardless, neither he nor any of his men were at Criccieth.”
“So who’s the traitor?” I asked. “Does Llywelyn suspect his brother? I’m not sure that I liked him very much.”
For the first time since I’d met him, Goronwy looked amused. “The Prince has asked that we don’t speak of him for now. He will not countenance unfounded suspicions. If Prince Dafydd has betrayed his brother, his actions would be unforgivable.”
I wasn’t too sure about that. Our library hadn’t carried any Welsh history books to speak of, but Mom loved to tell stories. Growing up, it was Mom’s stories that gave me a sense of Wales, but I wasn’t sure how many of them were myth and how many were true.
But one thing I did remember: Dafydd never got punished much for anything he did. He’d even tried to assassinate Llywelyn once. He’d fled to England afterwards and the King of England took him in—and then later forced Llywelyn to take him back. It looked to me like a classic case of a coddled rich boy who’d gotten as far as he had on some innate intelligence, good looks, and charm. That’s certainly how Dafydd had acted with me.
The sun disappeared and the men lit torches. Rhodri reappeared with Anna, who seemed no worse for wear. “Look, Mommy,” she said, as she came up to me. “We collected leaves!”
I bent to admire them, marveling at how simple life could be if only we could live it. “They’re pretty sweetheart,” I said.
“She’s very curious,” Rhodri said. “I taught her some Welsh and she was able to repeat them back to me.”
“Diolch,” I said. Thank you.
Llywelyn finally returned and handed me a wet cloth to wipe my hands. I took it, noticing for the first time the blood on my clothing. I turned towards him, shocked. “Llywelyn,” I breathed. “Anna shouldn’t see me like this.”
He leaned down so his mouth was only inches from my ear. “She won’t notice if you don’t call attention to it. She’s only a child and will see what she expects to see.”
He put his hands around my waist and boosted me onto my horse. Rhodri then bent to pick up Anna and handed her to me. I bundled her underneath the cloak, wincing at the blood again, but Llywelyn was right. It had dried and blended in with the blackness of my cloak.
Rhodri took the reins from me and pulled the horse forward, leading us. “Is your horse . . .” I stopped, afraid to ask anything more.
“He’s alive,” he said. “We’ve lost too many, though, and a dead companion rides him instead of me.”
I nodded and it was a somber company that traveled the last three miles to Llywelyn’s manor in the forest.
By the time we reached it, Anna had fallen asleep and I was numb from head to toe, physically and mentally. I found myself reliving the fight and its aftermath over and over again. I didn’t know what Llywelyn would find when he questioned one of his prisoners, but I know what I saw, and would never forget . . .
I couldn’t imagine living another day in this world. I wanted to go home.