The Summer of the Danes (22 page)

He
had progressed thus far in an ever-hastening torrent of words, as if desperate
to convince rather himself than Owain. Misgivings had made their stealthy way into
his mind almost without his knowledge, by reason of the chill stillness of his
brother’s face, and the grimly silent set of his mouth below the unrelenting
frown. Now the flow of eloquence flagged and faltered, and though Cadwaladr
drew deep breath and took up the thread again, he could no longer recover the
former conviction. “I have still a following, I will do my part. We cannot
fail, they have no firm foothold, they will be caged in their own defences, and
swept into the sea that brought them here.”

This
time he let fall the very effort of speech. There was even a silence, very
eloquent to the several of Owain’s men who had ceased their work on the
defences to listen with a free tribesman’s interest, and without any
dissembling. There was never born a Welshman who would not speak his mind
bluntly even to his prince.

“What
is there,” Owain wondered aloud, to the sky above him and the soil below,
“persuades this man still that my words do not mean what they seem to mean in
sane men’s ears? Did I not say you get no more from me? Not a coin spent, not a
man put at risk! This devilment of your own making, my brother, it was for you
to unmake. So I said, so I meant and mean.”

“And
I have gone far to do it!” Cadwaladr flared, flushing red to the brows. “If you
will do your part as heartily we are done with them. And who is put at risk?
They dare not put it to the test of battle. They will withdraw while there’s
time.”

“And
you believe I would have any part in such a betrayal? You made an agreement
with these freebooters, now you break it as lightly as blown thistledown, and
look to me to praise you for it? If your word and troth is so light, at least
let me weight it with my black displeasure. If it were for that alone,” said
Owain, abruptly blazing, “I would not lift a finger to save you from your
folly. But there is worse. Who is put at risk, indeed! Have you forgotten, or
did you never condescend to understand, that your Danes hold two men of the
Benedictine habit, one of them willing hostage for your good faith, which now
all men see was not worth a bean, let alone a good man’s liberty and life. Yet
more, they also hold a girl, one who was in my retinue and in my care, even if
she chose to venture to leave it and make shift alone. For all these three I
stand responsible. And all these three you have abandoned to whatever fate your
Otir may determine for his hostages, now that you have spited, cheated and
imperilled him at the cost of your own honour. This is what you have done! Now
I will undo such part of it as I can, and you may make such terms as you can
with the allies you have cheated and discarded.”

And
without pause for any rejoinder, even had his brother retained breath enough to
speak, Owain flung away from him to call to the nearest of his men: “Send and
saddle me my horse! Now, and hasten!”

Cadwaladr
came to his senses with a violent convulsion, and sprang after him to catch him
by the arm. “What will you do? Are you mad? There’s no choice now, you are
committed as deep as I. You cannot let me fall!”

Owain
plucked himself away from the unwelcome hold, thrusting his brother to arm’s
length in brief and bitter detestation. “Leave me! Go or stay, do as you
please, but keep out of my sight until I can bear the very look and touch of
you. You have not spoken for me. If you have so represented the matter, you
lied. If a hair of the young deacon’s head has been harmed, you shall answer
for it. If the girl has suffered any insult or hurt, you shall pay the price of
it. Go, hide yourself, think on your own hard case, for you are no brother nor
ally of mine; you must carry your own follies to their deserved ending.”

It
was not more than two hours past noon when another solitary horseman was
sighted from the camp on the dunes, riding fast and heading directly for the
Danish perimeter. One man alone, coming with manifest purpose, and making no
cautious halt out of range of weapons, but posting vehemently towards the
guards, who stood watching his approach with eyes narrowed to weigh up his
bearing and accoutrements, and guess at his intent. He wore no mail, and bore
no visible arms.

“No
harm in him,” said Torsten. “What he wants he’ll tell us, by the cut of him. Go
tell Otir we have yet another visitor coming.”

It
was Turcaill who carried the message, and delivered it as he interpreted it. “A
man of note by his beast and his harness. Fairer-headed then I am, he could be
a man of our own, and big enough. My match, if I’m a judge. He might even top
me. By this he’s close. Shall we bring him in?”

Otir
gave no more than a moment to considering it. “Yes, let him come. A man who
spurs straight in to me man to man is worth hearing.”

Turcaill
went back jauntily to the guardpost, in time to see the horseman rein in at the
gate, and light down empty-handed to speak for himself. “Go tell Otir and his
peers that Owain ap Griffith ap Cynan, prince of Gwynedd, asks admittance to
speech with them.”

There
had been very serious and very composed and deliberate consultation in Otir’s
inner circle of chieftains since Cadwaladr’s defiance. They were not men of a
temper to accept such treachery, and make the best of their way tamely out of
the trap in which it had left them. But whatever they had discussed and
contemplated in retaliation suddenly hung in abeyance when Turcaill, grinning
and glowing with his astonishing embassage, walked in upon their counsels to
announce:

“My
lords, here on the threshold is Owain Gwynedd in his own royal person, asking
speech with you.”

Otir
had a sense of occasion that needed no prompting. The astonishment of this
arrival he put by in an instant, and rose to stride to the open flap of his
tent and bring in the guest with his own hand to the trestle table round which
his captains were gathered.

“My
lord prince, whatever your word, your self is welcome. Your line and your
reputation are known to us, your forebears on your grandmother’s side are close
kin to kin of ours. If we have our dissensions, and have fought on opposing
sides before now, and may again, that is no bar but we may meet in fair and
open parley.”

“I
expect no less,” said Owain. “You I have no cause otherwise to love, since you
are here upon my ground uninvited, and for no good purpose towards me. I am not
come to exchange compliments with you, nor to complain of you, but to set right
what may be misunderstood between us.”

“Is
there such misunderstanding?” asked Otir with dry good humour. “I had thought
our situation must be clear enough, for here I am, and here are you acknowledging
freely that here I have no right to be.”

“That,
as at this moment,” said Owain, “we may leave to be resolved at another time.
What may have misled you is the visit my brother Cadwaladr paid you this
morning.”

“Ah,
that!” said Otir, and smiled. “He is back in your encampment, then?”

“He
is back. He is back, and I am here, to tell you—I could even say, to warn
you—that he did not speak for me. I knew nothing of his intent. I thought he
had come back to you just as he left you, still your ally, still hostile to me,
still a man of his word and bound to you. It was not with my will or leave that
he discarded you, and with you the sacred worth of his word. I have not made
peace with him, nor will I make war with him against you. He has not won back
the lands I took from him, for good reason. The bargain he made with you he
must abide as best he may.”

They
were steadily gazing at him, and from him to one another, about the table,
waiting to be enlightened, and withholding judgement until the mists cleared.
“I am slow to see, then, the purpose of this visit,” said Otir civilly,
“however much pleasure the company of Owain Gwynedd gives me.”

“It
is very simple,” said Owain. “I am here to lay claim to three hostages you hold
in your camp. One of them, the young deacon Mark, willingly remained to ensure
the safe return of my brother, who has now made that return impossible, and
left the boy to answer for it. The other two, the girl Heledd, a daughter of a
canon of Saint Asaph, and the Benedictine Brother Cadfael of the abbey of
Shrewsbury, were captured by this young warrior who conducted me in to you,
when he raided for provisions far up the Menai. I came to ensure that no harm
should come to any of these, by reason of Cadwaladr’s abandonment of his
agreement. They are no concern of his. They are all three under my protection.
I am here to offer a fair ransom for them, no matter what may follow between
your people and mine. My own responsibilities I will discharge honourably.
Cadwaladr’s are nothing to do with me. Exact from him what he owes you, not
from any of these three innocent people.”

Otir
did not openly say: “So I intend!” but he smiled a tight and relishing smile
that spoke just as clearly for him. “You may well interest me,” he said, “and I
make no doubt we could agree upon a fair ransom, between us. But for this while
you must hold me excused if I reserve all my assets. When I have given
consideration to all things, then you shall know whether, and at what price, I
am willing to sell your guests back to you.”

“At
least, then,” said Owain, “give me your pledge that they shall come back to me
unharmed when I do recover them—whether by purchase or by capture.”

“I
do not spoil what I may wish to sell,” agreed Otir. “And when I collect what is
due to me, it will be from the debtor. That I promise you.”

“And
I take your word,” said Owain. “Send to me when you will.”

“And
there is no more to be said between us two?”

“As
yet,” said Owain, “there is nothing more. All your choices you have reserved.
So do I reserve mine.”

Cadfael
left the place where he had stood motionless and quiet, in the lee of the tent,
and followed down through the mute ranks of the Danes as they drew aside to
give the prince of Gwynedd clear passage back to his waiting horse. Owain
mounted and rode, without haste now, more certain of his enemy than ever he had
been since boyhood of his brother. When the fair head, uncovered to the sun,
had twice dipped from sight and reappeared again, and was dwindling into a
distant speck of pale gold in the distance, Cadfael turned back along the fold
of the dunes, and went to look for Heledd and Mark. They would be together.
Mark had taken upon himself, somewhat diffidently, the duty of keeping a
guardian eye upon the girl’s privacy. She might shake him off at will when she
did not want him; when if ever she did want him, he would be within call.
Cadfael had found it oddly touching how Heledd bore with this shy but resolute
attendance, for she used Mark as an elder sister might, considerate of his
dignity and careful never to open upon him the perilous weaponry she had at her
disposal in dealing with other men, and sometimes had been known to indulge for
her own pleasure no less than in hurt retaliation against her father. For there
was no question but this Heledd, with her gown frayed at the sleeve and
crumpled by sleeping in a scooped hollow of sand lined with grass, and her hair
unbraided and loose about her shoulders in a mane of darkness burnished into
blue highlights by the sun, and her feet as often as not bare in the warm sand
and the cool shallows along the seaward shore, was perceptibly closer to pure
beauty than she had ever been before, and could have wreaked havoc in most
young men’s lives here had she been so minded. Nor was it wholly in her own
defence that she went about the camp so discreetly, suppressing her radiance,
and avoided contact with her captors but for the young boy who waited on her
needs and Turcaill, to whose teasing company she had become accustomed, and
whose shafts she took passing pleasure in returning.

There
was a bloom upon Heledd in these days of captivity, a summer gloss that was
more than the sheen of the sun on her face. It seemed that now that she was a
prisoner, however easy was her captivity within its strict limits, and had accepted
her own helplessness, now that all action and all decisions were denied her she
had abandoned all anxiety with them, and was content to live in the passing day
and look no further. More content than she had been, Cadfael thought, since
Bishop Gilbert came to Llanelwy, and set about reforming his clergy while her
mother was on her deathbed. She might even have suffered the extreme bitterness
of wondering whether her father was not looking forward to the death that would
secure him his tenure. There was no such cloud upon her now, she radiated a
warmth that seemed to have no cares left in the world. What she could not
influence she had settled down to experience and survive, even to enjoy.

They
were standing among the thin screen of trees on the ridge when Cadfael found
them. They had seen Owain arrive, and they had climbed up here to watch him
depart. Heledd was still staring wide-eyed and silent after the last glimpse of
the prince’s bright head, lost now in distance. Mark stood always a little
apart from her, avoiding touch. She might treat him sisterly, but Cadfael
wondered at times whether Mark felt himself in danger, and kept always a space
between them. Who could ensure that his own feelings should always remain
brotherly? The very concern he felt for her, thus suspended between an
uncertain past and a still more questionable future, was a perilous pitfall.