the rapidly darkening glade. She started to stand, but some instinct kept her still. She’d wait and then reveal herself when she knew they had come to save her. They could belong to Thrand the Destroyer’s band of outlaws rather than Hagal. He had every reason not to want this marriage. It must have been his men who attacked them because they knew what it would mean. Her heart pounded so loudly she thought they must hear it.
‘The maid is dead. One simple task and she failed to do that—keep the pampered Lady Cwenneth in the cart. Refused to say where she’d gone. Claimed she didn’t know,’ the tall one said. ‘Now we have to find the oh so spoilt lady and dispose of her.’
‘Good riddance,’ Narfi said. ‘That woman was trouble. She knew too much. She asked for too much gold and then got cold feet. Couldn’t bring herself to be associated with murder. No spine.’
He put his boot down not three inches from Cwenneth’s nose. She pressed her back closer to the hollow and fervently prayed that she would go unnoticed. Her brain reeled from the shock that Agatha was dead! And that she had been willing to betray and murder her!
‘We spread the rumour it was Thrand the Destroyer who did this? Clever!’
‘No, Thrand Ammundson is in Jorvik, attending the king. Halfdan keeps him close now that he fears death. More is the pity.’ Narfi chuckled. ‘The Northumbrians fear him more than any. Can’t see why. He isn’t that good. Sticks in my craw and Hagal’s. Ammundson gets gold thrown at his feet without lifting his sword simply because of his legendary prowess on the battlefield. I could take him in a fight with one hand tied behind my back.’
‘Why did Hagal want the Lady of Lingwold dead? Did he hold with the curse?’
‘Revenge for her husband killing his favourite cousin three years ago. He swore it on the battlefield. Hagal is a man who settles scores. Always.’
A great numbness filled Cwenneth. Not an ambush because of the gold they carried for her dowry or a random act of banditry, but a deliberate act of revenge by Hagal the Red. She was supposed to die today. There was never going to have been a wedding to unite two peoples, but a funeral. The entire marriage contract had been a ghastly trick.
Her stomach revolted, and she started to gag, but Cwenneth forced her mouth to stay shut. Her only hope of survival was in staying completely silent.
Cwenneth tightened her grip about the flowers and tried to breathe steadily. Why hadn’t Edward questioned him closer? Or had the opportunity to get rid of the menace that was Thrand Ammundson tempted her brother so much that he never thought to ask?
All the while, her brain kept hammering that it was far too late for such recriminations. She had to remain absolutely still and hope for a miracle.
She had to get back to Lingwold alive and warn her brother. Why go to all this trouble if Hagal had only wanted to murder her? She had to expose Hagal the Red for the monster he was before something much worse happened.
‘Gods, I wish that maid had done what she promised and slit the widow’s throat at the signal. I was looking forward to getting back to the hall early like. Now we have to trample through these woods, find her and do it ourselves.’
The second man sent a stream of spittle which landed inches from her skirt. Cwenneth forced all of her muscles to remain still, rather than recoiling in revulsion.
‘She won’t survive out here. Soft as muck that woman. Pampered. Unable to walk far. Everything had to be done for her.’
‘You only have that maid’s word that the Lady Cwenneth had no weapons.’
‘It doesn’t matter if she does. Imagine that useless creature coming up against any wild beast! How would she fight? Boring it to death with her complaints about food or the slowness of our progress? The woman doesn’t know one end of a sword from another. She wouldn’t last more than a few heartbeats even if she does have a knife.’
They both laughed and started to search the undergrowth off to her right. Quietly, Cwenneth searched the ground for something sharp, something so she could defend herself if they did find her. She did know how to use a knife. The pointy bit went into the flesh and she should go for the throat. Her fingers closed around a sharp rock.
A solitary howl resounded in the clearing. Cwenneth’s blood went ice-cold. Wolves. She didn’t know which sort were worse—the four-legged variety who lurked in the woods or the two-legged variety standing not ten feet from her who had just slaughtered people for no good reason.
Narfi clapped his hand on the other man’s back. ‘Don’t worry. Dead women tell no tales. By the time we reach Acumwick, the wolf will have done our work for us. We’ll come back and find the body in a day or two. Hagal will never know. Now let’s get to the hall. I want my food. Killing always makes me hungry.’
Making jokes about what she’d do when she met the wolf and speculating on how she’d die, the pair sauntered off.
Cwenneth hugged her knees to her chest, hardly daring to breathe. She was alive, but there were many miles of inhospitable country between here and Lingwold.
She screwed up her eyes tight. She’d do it. She’d prove them wrong. She wasn’t minded to die yet and particularly not to suit thieves’ and murderers’ schemes. She would defeat Hagal and prove to everyone that she wasn’t cursed.
* * *
The air after a slaughter takes on a special sort of stillness, different from the silence after a battle when the Valkyries gather the honourable dead. Then the birds pause, but the air continues to flow. After a slaughter, even the air respects the dead.
The instant Thrand Ammundson came around the bend in the road, he knew what had happened—a slaughter of the innocents.
‘Gods! What a mess.’ Thrand surveyed the carnage spread out before him. An overturned, smouldering wreckage of a travelling cart with six butchered and dismembered bodies lying about it dominated the scene. The sickly-sweet tang of fresh blood intermingling with smoke and ash hung in the air.
‘You would think after ten years of war, people would know better than to travel so lightly armed,’ one of his men remarked. ‘Halfdan maintains the peace, but there are Northumbrian bandits. Desperate men do desperate things.’
‘Surprised. They thought they were safe,’ Thrand answered absently as he bent to examine the first body. ‘Always a mistake.’
He gently closed the old man’s eyes and forced his mind to concentrate on the scene. The bodies were cold, but not picked clean. And the fire had failed to completely consume the cart. It had merely smouldered rather than burning to the ground. Not a robbery gone wrong, but cold-blooded murder. And he knew whose lands they crossed—Hagal the Red’s. Hagal would be involved, but behind the scenes. A great spider waiting for the fly to blunder in.
Thrand pressed his lips together. Everything proclaimed Hagal the Red’s handiwork, but he needed more proof if he wanted to bring him to justice, finally and for ever. Something solid and concrete. Hagal had had a hand in the slaughter of Thrand’s family back in Norway. Thrand knew it in his bones, but no one had listened to his proof and Hagal had slithered away like the snake he was.
‘How do you know they were surprised?’ Helgi, one of his oldest companions-in-arms, asked, kneeling beside him.
‘Look at their throats. Cut.’ Thrand gestured
