Poor Edith….
As Ghislaine stared at Harold’s remains, hand over her mouth in distress, Gaetan went to the body and tossed the fabric back over the face. He could see how startled and unbalanced she was but it was of no matter to him; war was war and if she was going to fight like a soldier, then she would know that death went along with such a vocation. He never imagined that her shock and grief was for another reason entirely. His gaze hovered on her for a moment before turning to the men standing behind him.
“This is Ghislaine of Mercia,” he told his knights in their language. “She is the sister of Edwin of Mercia, Morcar of Northumbria, and Alary of Mercia. She has come to tell us that Kristoph is now the prisoner of her brother, Alary, and that he is in a good deal of danger.”
Various expressions of surprise and concern spread across the faces of his exhausted knights. “Where is he?” Denis de Winter asked, to either Gaetan or Ghislaine. “Has ransom been demanded?”
Gaetan shook his head. “That is the strange part,” he said. “According to Lady Ghislaine, her brother seeks no ransom. He is using Kristoph for information and she fears that when Kristoph is no longer useful, Alary will kill him.”
“Where is he?” Luc de Lara asked, far more unpleasantly than Denis had. “We searched far and wide and did not find him. Where is he being held?”
Gaetan looked at Ghislaine, who was struggling to pull herself together. When she saw that their attention was on her, she labored to speak coherently.
“Part of the retreating army gathered to the east in a forest,” she said in their language, mostly looking at Gaetan because those angry, huffing knights intimidated her. “Your knight was there when last I saw him but Alary said he would be moving him north to Tenebris, which is where he lives out his life these days. Tenebris used to be a hunting lodge for the kings of Mercia but now… now it is a terrible, dark place with a dark reputation. Alary rules over it like his own little kingdom and Edwin simply looks the other way. Men go in to Tenebris but they do not come out again. You cannot permit your man to go there because, if he does, you will never see him again.”
The knights were trying to decipher her heavily-accented speech. “Tenebris?” Aramis repeated, looking at Gaetan. “I’ve not heard of it. Where is it?”
Gaetan shook his head. “I do not know.” He turned to Ghislaine. “Where is this place?”
Ghislaine found her feet, rising unsteadily on shaky legs. “To the north, somewhere west of Coventry,” she said. “There is a good deal of wild land between here and Tenebris. It is a perilous journey that will take many days.”
“I know where it is.”
Bartholomew Wellesbourne spoke and all eyes turned to him. He was a man of few words, big and blonde with eyes so dark that they were nearly black. He was the only one of the group that hadn’t been born in France. As a mercenary, he’d been hired by Gaetan years ago and had simply never left the man even though his loyalty to the man far outweighed any monetary compensation these days. His focus was on Ghislaine, however.
“A ydych yn deal Cymraeg?” he asked her. Do you speak Welsh?
Ghislaine nodded her head hesitantly. “Ychydig yn.” A little.
Bartholomew eyed her, somewhat suspiciously, before turning to Gaetan. “I was born in the village of Wellesbourne, as you know,” he said. “It is very close to Wales and I spent my youth there. I traveled with my father, who was also a mercenary, and I have seen much of the land she speaks of. There is a forest there called Far Forest that is rumored to be haunted. Mercia borders several Welsh kingdoms and she is correct; it is very wild. If he takes Kristoph there, we will quite possibly lose him forever.”
Gaetan didn’t like the sound of that. Now, all of the warnings of Kristoph being in danger were starting to sink in as he was coming to realize what, exactly, she had meant.
“Then we must go and get him now,” he said, turning to Ghislaine. “You say that he is being kept to the east of here?”
Ghislaine nodded. “Aye,” she replied. “But there are several hundred men camped there. If you intend to rescue him, then you must take many men with you. My men will not so easily give up their Norman prize.”
As the knights considered that option, Marc de Moray pushed through the group and went straight to the body of Harold in the center of the tent. Big, gruff, black-haired de Moray was a no-nonsense kind of man. He tossed back the fabric across the king’s face, exposing the slightly green features to the weak light.
“Will they give it up for this?” he asked, looking at Gaetan. “Normandy told you to toss the body in the sea but you did not. You have held on to it, mayhap for just such an event? Because if you have, I will ride in to that encampment this very moment with the body and demand Kristoph’s release in exchange for their king. If they do not accept the terms, then we will exchange the lady for Kristoph. Surely this Alary of Mercia will want his sister back.”
Ghislaine’s eyes widened. Now, she was to be a hostage? “He does not know I have come,” she said. “Alary has no love for me, as I have no love for him. You would be offering him nothing that was of value. It would be useless.”
Gaetan eyed de Moray for a moment, perhaps considering his offer to deliver Harold’s body, before looking to Ghislaine. “What were your plans after you told us of Kristoph, then?” he asked. “Did you think we would simply let you return to your Saxon brethren? You do realize that you have left yourself open to the enemy, do you not?”
Truth be told, Ghislaine hadn’t considered any of that. She looked at the big men in the tent, all of them blood-thirsty warriors who had come to her lands seeking glory. They were her enemy and they did not trust her. It took her a moment to realize how very foolish she had been. Her thoughts of mercy, of vengeance against Alary, had her singularly focused. She hadn’t considered what she would do after telling the Norman’s of her brother’s plans for their comrade. Now, she was feeling cornered, frightened in more ways than she could comprehend.
“I came with peaceful intentions,” she said, having visions of all of these men swarming on her at once and being pulled limb from limb. Her gaze was fixed on Gaetan. “You showed me mercy once before. Do I wrongly assume you would show it to me again?”