The Wind From Hastings by Morgan Llywelyn

captor.
    â€œAh, you misunderstand. You are not invited to dine. You are, let us say, to provide the entertainment.”
    â€œI will provide no sport for the Godwine! You cannot frighten me with torture!”
    â€œI have no instructions to torture you,” said the Saxon coolly. And with a sudden, savage swing, he raised his hideous battle-ax and cleaved Griffith’s head from his body.
    The man caught it by its auburn hair, even before it hit the dirt, and he held it up at arm’s length for the cheering men.
    â€œThe centerpiece for Harold Godwine’s table!” he cried.

HAROLD

    S OMETIMES IT IS possible to be hurt so badly that you don’t feel anything at all. It was like that for me for a little while. I was fully aware that the sun was still high in the sky, birds twittered in the trees and the rocky ground on which I lay hurt my ribs. But an unseen blanket was wrapped around me; no grief or agony passed through. My eyes saw Griffith die; my soul did not feel it. For a little while.
    There was so much blood! I had not believed there was that much blood in a human body! I lay there whispering “Jesus and Mary, Jesus and Mary” to myself, I don’t know why, watching the blood spout from my husband’s body and feeling only a sense of relief that the children could not see it from where they crouched, hidden with Gwladys.
    Then all at once something snapped in me. I have no memory of getting up or scrambling down the hillside. I was aware of nothing until I staggered into the center of that murderous band and began hitting blindly at everyone in sight. Screams of hate and rage
tore from my throat. I felt possessed of a thousand devils. Nothing could hurt me, nothing could stop me! I knew only that I must punish them, tear and rend them with my teeth and nails until the thing was undone somehow and my Griffith was alive again! It had to be!
    I was seized around the waist from behind by that same Saxon housecarle whose ax had just slain my lord. I kicked—it gave me some satisfaction to feel my heels striking his shins—but even in my madness my strength was no match for his. Oh, my Griffith, I was not strong enough to be the warrior queen you deserved, but I did my best, my love!
    â€œWhat’s this!” I heard his voice exclaim. “A Welsh wildcat come to kill us all!”
    The men around him laughed, making mock of me, but I did not care.
    â€œMurderers, murderers!” I screamed at them.
    â€œNot murderers, lady!” exclaimed one of the Saxons, putting on an offended voice even though he laughed at me. “This is an honorable act of war. We have slain the troublemaker Griffith and restored the land to peace.”
    I struggled to reach behind me and rip the ears off my captor, but two other men grabbed my flailing hands and held them fast. To my horror, I saw that one of the men was Rhyderch, a former member of our own household guard. In my contempt I spat in his face.
    â€œYou do not call this murder, Rhyderch? You who have betrayed your Prince with the foulest treason, do you not think that makes you his murderer?”
    Rhyderch stuck out his weak little chin obstinately and tried to look as if he were a man. “Not murder, my lady! I have aided our Saxon friends in the destruction of the Welsh tyrant, and I am proud to take credit for it.”
    There were no words for the fury I felt, so I screamed without words. My mind searched the Welsh
vocabulary I had learned so diligently and found no name foul enough to call Rhyderch and his kind. But the Saxon tongue abounded in them.
    â€œMaggot in dog dung!” I shrieked at him in the language of my childhood. “Ball-less abortion of a humpbacked whore!”
    â€œWhat’s this! The Welsh wildcat is a Saxon!” The man holding me shifted his grip and spun me around to face him, that I might see the light of triumph in his eyes. “We have caught ourselves Griffith’s