The Summer of the Danes (25 page)

Only
Turcaill and Torsten and two others followed Leif as he padded softly in
through the unguarded gate, and along the stockade towards the remembered spot
where he had caught the unmistakable, authoritative tones of Cadwaladr’s voice,
raised in astonished pleasure as he recognised his midnight visitor. The lines
of the camp ended here, in stillness and silence, the invaders moved as shadows
among shadows. Leif pointed, and said no word. There was no need. Even in a
military camp Cadwaladr would have his rank heeded and his comforts attended
to. The tent was ample, proof against wind and weather, and no doubt as well
supplied within. At the edges of the flap that shielded its entrance fine lines
of light showed, and on the still air of the night lowered voices made a level,
confidential murmur, too soft for words. The messenger from the south was still
there with his prince, their heads together over tidings brought and plans to
be hatched.

Turcaill
set his hand to the tent-flap, and waited until Torsten, with his drawn dagger
in his hand, had circled the tent to find a rear seam where the skins were sewn
together. Thin leather thongs or greased cord, either could be cut with a sharp
enough blade. The light within, by the steady way it burned and its low source,
must be a simple wick in a small dish of oil, set perhaps on a stool or a trestle.
Bodies moving outside would show no outline, while Torsten as he selected his
place, could sense rather than see the vague bulks of the two within. Close
indeed, attentive, absorbed, expecting no interruption.

Turcaill
whipped aside the tent-flap and plunged within so fast, and with two others so
hard on his heels, that Cadwaladr had no time to do more than leap to his feet
in indignant alarm, his mouth open to vent his outrage, before there was a
drawn dagger at his throat, and princely anger at being rudely interrupted
changed instantly into frozen understanding and devout and quivering stillness.
He was a foolhardy man, but of excellently quick perceptions, and his
foolhardiness did not extend so far as to argue with a naked blade when his own
hands were empty. It was the man who sat beside him on the well-furnished
brychan who sprang to the attack, lunging upward at Turcaill’s throat. But
behind him Torsten’s knife had sliced down the leather thongs that bound the
skins of the tent together, and a great hand took the stranger by the hair, and
dragged him backwards. Before he could rise again he was swathed in the
coverings of the bed and held fast by Turcaill’s men.

Cadwaladr
stood motionless and silent, well aware of the steel just pricking his throat. His
fine black eyes were glittering with fury, his teeth set with the effort of
restraint, but he made no move as the companion he had welcomed with pleasure
was trussed into helplessness, in spite of his struggles, and disposed of
almost tenderly on his lord’s bed.

“Make
no sound,” said Turcaill, “and come to no harm. Cry out, and my hand may slip.
There is a little matter of business Otir wishes to discuss with you.”

“This
you will rue!” said Cadwaladr though his teeth.

“So
I may,” Turcaill agreed accommodatingly, “but not yet. I would offer you the
choice between walking or being dragged, but there’s no putting any trust in
you.” And to his two oarsmen he said: “Secure him!” and drew back his hand to
sheathe the dagger he held.

Cadwaladr
was not quick enough to seize the one instant when he might have cried out
loudly and raised a dozen men to his aid. As the steel was withdrawn he did
open his mouth to call on his own, but a rug from the brychan was flung over
his head, and a broad hand clamped it smotheringly into his open mouth. The
only sound that emerged was a strangled moan, instantly crushed. He lashed out
then with fists and feet, but the harsh woollen cloth was wound tightly about
him, and bound fast.

Outside
the tent Leif stood sentinel with pricked ears, and wide eyes sweeping the dark
spaces of the camp for any movement that might threaten their enterprise, but
all was still. If Cadwaladr had desired and ordered private and undisturbed
converse with his visitor, he had done Turcaill’s work for him very thoroughly.
No one stirred. In the copse where they had left the guard the last of their
party came looming out of the dark to join them, and laughed softly at sight of
the burden they carried between them, slung by the ropes that pinioned him.

The
guard?” asked Turcaill in a whisper.

“Well
alive, and muttering curses. And we’d best be aboard before they find he’s
missing and come looking for him.”

“And
the other one?” Leif ventured to ask softly, as they wound their way back from
cover to cover towards the beach and the saltings. “What have you done with
him?”

“Left
him to his rest,” said Turcaill.

“You
said no killing!”

“And
there’s been none. Not a scratch on him, you can be easy. Owain has no cause
for feud against us more than he had from the moment we set foot on his soil.”

“And
we still don’t know,” marvelled Leif, padding steadily along beside him into
the moist fringe left by the receding tide, “who the other one was, and what he
was doing there. You may yet wish you’d secured him while you could.”

“We
came for one, and we’re taking back one. All we wanted and needed,” said
Turcaill.

The
crew left aboard reached to hoist Cadwaladr over into the well between the
benches, and help their fellows after. The steersman leaned upon his heavy
steer board, the inshore rowers thrust off with their oars, poling the little
ship quite lightly and smoothly back along the furrow she had ploughed in the
sand, until she rode clear and lifted joyously into the ebb of the tide.

Before
dawn they delivered their prize, with some pride, to an Otir who had just
roused from sleep, but came bright-eyed and content to the encounter. Cadwaladr
emerged from his stifling wrappings flushed and tousled and viciously enraged,
but containing his bitter fury within an embattled silence.

“Had
you trouble by the way?” asked Otir, eyeing his prisoner with shrewd
satisfaction. Unmarked, unblooded, extracted from among his followers without
trampling his formidable brother’s toes, or harming any other soul. A mission
very neatly accomplished, and one that should be made to show a profit.

“None,”
said Turcaill. “The man had prepared his own fall, withdrawing himself so to
the very rim, and planting a man of his own on guard. Not for nothing! I fancy
he has been looking for word from his old lands, and made shift to keep a door
open. For I doubt he’ll get any sympathy from Owain, or expects any.” At that
Cadwaladr did open his mouth, unlocking his set teeth with an effort, for it
was doubtful if he himself quite believed what he was about to say. “You
misread the strength of the Welsh blood-tie. Brother will hold by brother. You
have brought Owain down on you with all his host, and so you will discover.”

“As
brother held by brother when you came hiring Dublin men to threaten your
brother with warfare,” said Otir, and laughed briefly and harshly.

“You
will see,” said Cadwaladr hotly, “what Owain will venture for my sake.”

“So
we shall, and so will you. I doubt you’ll find less comfort in it than we
shall. He has given both you and me fair notice that your quarrel is not his
quarrel, and you must pay your own score. And so you shall,” said Otir with
glossy satisfaction, “before you set foot again outside this camp. I have you,
and I’ll keep you until you pay me what you promised. Every coin, every calf,
or the equal in goods we will have out of you. That done, you may go free, back
to your lands or beggarly into the world again, as Owain pleases. And I warn
you, never again look to Dublin for help, we know now the worth of your word.
And that being so,” he said, thoughtfully plying his massive jowls in a
muscular fist, “we’ll make sure of you, now that we have you!” He turned upon
Turcaill, who stood by watching this encounter with detached interest, his own
part already done. “Give him in charge to Torsten to keep, but see him
tethered. We know all too well his word and oath are no bond to him, so we may
rightly use other means. Put chains on him, and see him watched and kept
close.”

“You
dare not!” Cadwaladr spat on a hissing breath, and made a convulsive movement
to launch himself against his judge, but ready hands plucked him back with
insulting ease, and held him writhing and sweating between his grinning guards.
In the face of such casual and indifferent usage his boiling rage seemed hardly
more than a turbulent child’s tantrum, and burned itself out inevitably into
the cold realisation that he was helpless, and must resign himself to the
reversion of his fortunes, for he could do nothing to change it.

“Pay
what you owe us, and go,” said Otir with bleak simplicity. And to Torsten:
“Take him away!”

Article
VII.
        

Article
VIII.
     

Chapter Eleven

TWO
MEN OF CUHELYN’S COMPANY, making the complete rounds of the southern rim of the
encampment, found the remotest gate unguarded in the early hours of the
morning, and reported as much to their captain. If he had been any other than
Cuhelyn this early check upon the defences would not have been ordered in the
first place. To him the presence within Owain’s camp of Cadwaladr, tolerated if
not accepted, was deep offence, not only for the sake of Anarawd dead, but also
for the sake of Owain living. Nor had Cadwaladr’s proceedings within the camp
been any alleviation of the suspicion and detestation in which Cuhelyn bore
him. Retirement into this remote corner might have been interpreted by others
as showing a certain sensitivity to the vexation the sight of him must cause
his brother. Cuhelyn knew him better, an arrogant creature blind to other men’s
needs and feelings. And never to be trusted, since all his acts were reckless
and unpredictable. So Cuhelyn had made it his business, with nothing said to
any other, to keep a close eye upon Cadwaladr’s movements, and the behaviour of
those who gathered about him. Where they mustered, there was need of vigilance.
The defection of a guard brought Cuhelyn to the gate in haste, before the lines
were astir. They found the missing man lying unhurt but wound up like a roll of
woollen cloth among the bushes not far from the fence. He had contrived to
loosen the cord that bound his hands, though not yet enough to free them, and
had worked the folds of cloth partly loose from his mouth. The muffled grunts
that were all he could utter were enough to locate him as soon as the searchers
reached the trees. Released, he came stiffly to his feet, and reported from
swollen lips what had befallen him in the night.

“Danes—five
at least—They came up from the bay. There was a boy that could be Welsh showed
them the way…”

“Danes!”
Cuhelyn echoed, between wonder and enlightenment. He had expected devilment of
some kind from Cadwaladr, was it now possible that this meant devilment aimed
against Cadwaladr, instead? The thought gave him some sour amusement, but he
did not yet quite believe in it. This could still be mischief of another kind,
Dane and Welshman regretting their severance and compounding their differences
secretly to act together in Owain’s despite.

He
set off in haste to Cadwaladr’s tent, and walked in without ceremony. A rising
breeze blew in his face, flapping the severed skins behind the brychan. The
swaddled figure on the bed heaved and strained, uttering small animal sounds.
This second bound victim confounded all possible notions that might account for
the first. Why should a party of Danes, having made its way clandestinely here
to Cadwaladr, next proceed to bind and silence him, and then leave him here to
be found and set free as inevitably as the sun rises? If they came to enter
into renewed conspiracy with him, if they came to secure him hostage for what
he owed them, either way it made no sense. So Cuhelyn was reflecting
bewilderedly as he untied the ropes that pinioned arms and legs, plucking the
knots loose with grim patience with his single hand, and unwound the twisted
rugs from about the heaving body. A hand scored by the rope came up gropingly
as it was freed, and plucked back the last folds from a shock head of
disordered dark hair, and a face Cuhelyn knew well.

Not
Cadwaladr’s imperious countenance, but the younger, thinner, more intense and
sensitive face of Cuhelyn’s mirror twin, Gwion, the last hostage from
Ceredigion.

They
came to Owain’s headquarters together, the one not so much shepherding the
other as deigning to walk behind him, the other stalking ahead to make it plain
to all viewers that he was not being driven, but going in vehement earnest
where he wished to go. The air between them vibrated with the animosity that
had never existed between them until this moment, and by its very intensity and
pain could not endure long. Owain saw it in the stiff set of their bodies and
the arduous blankness of their faces when they entered his presence and stood
side by side before him, awaiting his judgement.

Two
dark, stern, passionate young men, the one a shade taller and leaner, the other
a shade sturdier and with colouring of a less vivid darkness, but seen thus
shoulder to shoulder, quivering with tension, they might indeed have been twin
brothers. The glaring difference was that one of them was lopped of half a
limb, and that by an act of blazing treachery on the part of the lord the other
served and worshipped. But that was not what held them counterpoised in this
intensity of anger and hostility, so strange to both of them, and causing them
both such indignant pain.