The Summer of the Danes (32 page)

“Not
yet within call, but close. A short while yet!”

Otir
stood like a rock in the edge of the surf, solid legs well braced, watching the
advance of the swart, stocky cattle and their escort of armed men. Light-armed,
as a man would normally go about his business. No need to expect any treachery
there. Nor did it seem likely that Owain had had any part in that ill-managed
raid in the night, or had any knowledge of it. If he had taken action, it would
have been better done.

“Now!”
said the lookout sharply from above. “Now, while they are all watching Owain.
You have them on the flank.”

“Forward
now!” Gwion echoed, and burst out of the sheltering slopes with a great roar of
release and resolve, almost of exultation. After him the ranks of his
companions surged headlong, with swords drawn and short lances raised aloft, a
sudden glitter of steel as they emerged from shadow into sun.

Out
into clear view, and streaming down the last slope of sand into the shingle of
the beach, straight for the Danish muster. Otir swung about, bellowing an alarm
that brought every head round to confront the assault. Shields went up to ward
off the first flung javelins, and the hiss of swords being drawn as one was
flung into the air like a great indrawn breath. Then the first wave of Gwion’s
force hurtled into the Danish ranks and bore them backwards into their fellows
by sheer weight, so that the whole battle lurched knee-deep into the surf.
Cadfael saw it from his high place, the impact and the clashing recoil as the
ranks collided in a quivering shock, and heard the sudden clamour of voices
shouting, and startled cattle bellowing. The Danes had so spaced their array
that every man had room to use his right arm freely, and was quick to draw
steel. One or two were borne down by the first impetuous collision, and took
their attackers down into the sea with them in a confusion of spray, but most
braced themselves and stood firm. Gwion had flung himself straight at Otir.
There was no way to Cadwaladr now but over Otir’s body. But the Dane had twice
Gwion’s weight, and three times his experience in arms. The thrusting sword
clanged harshly on a raised and twisted shield, and was almost wrenched out of
the attacker’s grasp. Then all Cadfael could see was one struggling, heaving
mass of Welshman and Dane, wreathed in shimmering spray. He began to make his
way rapidly down on to the beach, with what intent he himself could hardly have
said.

Echoing
shouts arose from among the clansmen who marched at Owain’s back, and a few
started out of their ranks and began to run towards the melee in the shallows,
hands on hilts in an instant, their intent all too plain. Cadfael could not
wonder at it. Welshmen were already battling against an alien invader, there in
full view. Welsh blood could not endure to stand aside, all other rights and
wrongs went for nothing. They hallooed their partisan approval, and plunged
into the boiling shallows. The reeling mass of entangled bodies heaved and
strained, so closely locked together that on neither side could they find free
room to do one another any great hurt. Not until the ranks opened would there
be deaths.

A
loud, commanding voice soared above the din of snarling voices and clanging
steel, as Owain Gwynedd set spurs to his horse and rode into the edge of the
sea, striking at his own too impetuous men with the flat of his sheathed sword.
“Back! Stand off! Get back to your ranks, and put up your weapons!” His voice,
seldom raised, could split the quaking air like thunder hard on the heels of
lightning when he was roused. It was that raging trumpet-call rather than the
battering blows that caused the truants to shrink and cower before him, and
lean aside out of his path, plashing ashore in reluctant haste. Even
Cadwaladr’s former liegemen wavered, falling back from their hand-to-hand
struggles. The two sides fell apart, and thrusts and sword-strokes that might
have been smothered in the encroaching weight of wrestling bodies found room to
wound before they could be restrained or parried.

It
was over. They fell back to the solid shingle, swords and axes and javelins
lowered, in awe of the icy glare of Owain’s eyes, and the angry circling of his
horse’s stamping hooves in the surf, trampling out a zone of stillness between
the combatants. The Danes held their ranks, some of them bloodied, none of them
fallen. Of the attackers, two lay groping feebly out of the waves to lie limp
in the sand. Then there was a silence.

Owain
sat his horse, quieted now by a calming hand but still quivering, and looked
down at Otir, eye to eye, for a long moment. Otir held his ground, and gave him
back penetrating stare for stare. There was no need for explanation or
protestation between them. With his own eyes Owain had seen. “This,” he said at
length, “was not by my contrivance. Now I will know, and hear from his own
mouth, who has usurped my rule and cast doubt on my good faith. Come forth and
show yourself.”

There
was no question but he already knew, for he had seen the charge launched out of
hiding. It was, in some measure, generous to let a man stand fast by what he
had done, and declare himself defiantly of his own will, in the teeth of
whatever might follow. Gwion let fall the arm still raised, sword in hand, and
waded forward from among his fellows. Very slowly he came, but not from any
reluctance, for his head was erected proudly, and his eyes fixed on Owain, He
plashed waveringly out of the surf, as little wave on following wave lapped at
his feet and drew back. He reached the edge of the shingle, and a sudden
rivulet of blood ran from his clenched lips and spattered his breast, and a
small blot of red grew out of the padded linen of his tunic, and expanded into
a great sodden star. He stood a moment erect before Owain, and parted his lips
to speak, and blood gushed out of his mouth in a dark crimson stream. He fell
on his face at the feet of the prince’s horse, and the startled beast edged
back from him, and blew a great lamenting breath over his body.

Chapter Fourteen

“SEE
TO HIM!” SAID OWAIN, looking down impassively at the fallen man. Gwion’s hands
stirred and groped feebly in the polished pebbles, faintly conscious of touch
and texture. “He is not dead, have him away and tend him. I want no deaths,
more than are already past saving.”

They
made haste to do his bidding. Three of the front rank, and Cuhelyn the first of
them, ran to turn Gwion gently on his back, to free his mouth and nostrils from
the churned-up sand. They made a litter from lances and shields, and muffled
him in cloaks to carry him aside. And Brother Cadfael turned from the shore
unnoticed, and followed the litter into the shelter of the dunes. What he had
on him by way of linen or salves was little enough, but better than nothing
until they could get their wounded man to a bed and less rough and ready care.

Owain
looked down at the pool of blackening blood in the shingle at his feet, and up
into Otir’s intent face.

“He
is Cadwaladr’s man, sworn and loyal. Nevertheless, he did wrong. If he has cost
you men, you have paid him.” There were two of those who had followed Gwion
lying in the edge of the tide, lightly rocked by the advancing waves.

A
third had got to his knees, and those beside him helped him to his feet. He
trailed blood from a gashed shoulder and arm, but he was in no danger of death.
Nor did Otir trouble to add to the toll the three he had already put on board
ship, to sail home for burial. Why waste breath in complaint to this prince who
acknowledged and deserved no blame for an act of folly?

“I
hold you to terms,” he said, “such as we understood between us. No more, and no
less. This is none of your doing, nor any choice of mine. They chose it, and
what came of it has been between them and me.”

“So
be it!” said Owain. “And now, put up your weapons and load your cattle, and go,
more freely than you came, for you came without my knowledge or leave. And to
your face I tell you that if ever you touch here on my land again uninvited I
will sweep you back into the sea. As for this time, take your fee and go in
peace.”

“Then
here I deliver your brother Cadwaladr,” said Otir as coldly. “Into his own hands,
not yours, for that was not in any bargain between you and me. He may go where
he will, or stay, and make his own terms with you, my lord.” He turned about,
to those of his men who still held Cadwaladi sick with gall between them. He
had been made nothing, a useless stock, in a matter conducted all between other
men, though he was at the heart and core of the whole conflict. He had been
silent while other men disposed of his person, his means and his honour, and
that with manifest distaste. He had no word to say now, but bit back the
bitterness and anger that rose in his throat and seared his tongue, as his
captors loosed him and stood well aside, opening the way clear for him to
depart. Stiffly he walked forward on to the shore, towards where his brother
waited.

“Load
your ships!” said Owain. “You have this one day to leave my land.” And he
wheeled his horse and turned his back, pacing at a deliberate walk back towards
his own camp. The ranks of his men closed in orderly march and followed him,
and the bruised and draggled survivors of Gwion’s unblessed army took up their
dead and straggled after, leaving the trampled and bloodied beach clear of all
but the drovers and their cattle, and Cadwaladr alone, aloof from all men,
stalking in a black, forbidding cloud of disgust and humiliation after his
brother.

In
the nest of thick grass where they had laid him, Gwion opened his eyes, and
said in a fine thread of a voice, but quite clearly: “There is something I must
tell Owain Gwynedd. I must go to him.”

Cadfael
was on his knees beside him, staunching with what linen he had to hand, padded
beneath thick folds of brychans, the blood that flowed irresistibly from a
great wound in the young man’s side, under the heart. Cuhelyn, kneeling with
Gwion’s head in his lap, had wiped away the foam of blood from the open mouth
and the sweat from the forehead already chill and livid with the unhurried
approach of death. He looked up at Cadfael, and said almost silently: “We must
carry him back to the camp. He is in earnest. He must go.”

“He
is going nowhere in this world,” said Cadfael as quietly. “If we lift him, he
will die between our hands.”

Something
resembling the palest and briefest of smiles, yet unquestionably a smile,
touched Gwion’s parted lips. He said, in the muted tones they had used over
him: “Then Owain must come to me. He has more time to spare than I have. He
will come. It is a thing he will wish to know, and no one else can tell him.”
Cuhelyn drew back the tangle of black hair that lay damp on Gwion’s brow, for
fear it should discomfort him now, when all comfort was being rapt away all too
quickly. His hand was steady and gentle. There was no hostility left. There was
room for none. And in their opposed fashion they had been friends. The likeness
was still there, each of them peered into a mirror, a darkening mirror and a
marred image.

“I’ll
ride after him. Be patient. He will come.”

“Ride
fast!” said Gwion, and shut his mouth upon the distortion of the smile. On his
feet already, and with a hand stretched to his horse’s bridle, Cuhelyn
hesitated. “Not Cadwaladr? Should he come?”

“No,”
said Gwion, and turned his face away in a sharp convulsion of pain. Otir’s last
defensive parry, never meant to kill, had struck out just as Owain thundered
his displeasure and split the ranks apart, and Gwion had dropped his levelled
sword and his guard, and opened his flank to the steel. No help for it now, it
was done and could not be undone.

Cuhelyn
was gone, in faithful haste, sending the sand spraying from his horse’s hooves
until he reached the upland meadow grass and left the dunes behind. There was
no one more likely to make passionate haste to do Gwion’s errand than Cuhelyn,
who for a brief time had lost the ability to see in his opposite his own face.
That also was past.

Gwion
lay with closed eyes, containing whatever pain he felt. Cadfael did not think
it was great, he had already almost slipped out of its reach. Together they
waited. Gwion lay very still, for stillness seemed to slow the bleeding and
conserve the life in him, and life he needed for a while yet. Cadfael had water
beside him in Cuhelyn’s helmet, and bathed away the beads of sweat that
gathered on his patient’s forehead and lip, cold as dew.

From
the shore there was no more clamour, only the brisk exchanges of voices, and
the stir of men moving about their business unhindered now and intent, and the
lowing and occasional bellowing of cattle as they were urged through the
shallows and up the ramps into the ships. A rough, uncomfortable voyage for
them in the deep wells amidships, but a few hours and they would be on green
turf again, good grazing and sweet water.

“Will
he come?” wondered Gwion, suddenly anxious.

“He
will come.”

He
was coming already, in a moment more they heard the soft thudding of hooves,
and in from the shore came Owain Gwynedd, with Cuhelyn at his back. They
dismounted in silence, and Owain came to look down at the young, spoiled body,
not too closely yet, for fear even dulling ears should be sharp enough to
overhear what was not meant to be overheard.

“Can
he live?”

Cadfael
shook his head and made no other reply.