The Summer of the Danes (19 page)

Nor
was it hard to imagine how Owain could still love his troublesome brother,
after many offences and repeated reconciliations.

“A
fine figure of a man,” said Cadfael, contemplating this perilous presence
warily.

“If
he did as handsomely,” said Heledd.

The
chieftains had withdrawn eastward towards the strait, the circle of their
captains surrounding them. Cadfael turned his steps, instead, still southward,
to get a view of the land approach by which Owain must come if he intended to
shut the invaders into their sandy beachhead. Heledd fell in beside him, not,
he judged, because she was in need of the comfort of his or any other company,
but because she, too, was curious about the circumstances of their captivity,
and felt that two minds might make more sense of them than one alone.

“How
have you fared?” asked Cadfael, eyeing her closely as she walked beside him,
and finding her composed, self-contained and resolute of lip and eye. “Have
they used you well, here where there are no women?”

She
curled a tolerant lip and smiled. “I needed none. If there’s cause I can fend
for myself, but as yet there’s no cause. I have a tent to shelter me, the boy
brings me food, and what else I want they let me go abroad and get for myself.
Only if I go too near the eastern shore they turn me back. I have tried. I
think they know I can swim.”

“You
made no attempt when we were no more than a hundred yards offshore,” said
Cadfael, with no implication of approval or disapproval.

“No,”
she agreed, with a small, dark smile, and added not a word more.

“And
even if we could steal back our horses,” he reflected philosophically, “we
could not get out of this armed ring with them.”

“And
mine is lame,” she agreed again, smiling her private smile.

He
had had no opportunity, until now, to ask her how she had come by that horse in
the first place, somehow stealing him away out of the prince’s stables while
the feast was at its height, and before any word was brought from Bangor to
alert Owain to the threat from Ireland. He asked her now. “How came it that you
ever came into possession of this horse you call yours so briskly?”

“I
found him,” said Heledd simply. “Saddled, bridled, tethered among the trees not
far from the gatehouse. Better than ever I expected, I took it for a good omen
and was thankful I had not to go wandering through the night afoot. But I would
have done it. I had no thought of it when I went out to refill the pitcher, but
out in the courtyard I thought, why go back? There was nothing left in Llanelwy
I could keep, and nothing in Bangor or Anglesey that I wanted. But there must
be something for me, somewhere in the world. Why should I not go and find it,
if no one else would get it for me? And while I was standing there in shadow by
the wall, the guards on the gate were not marking me, and I slipped out behind
their backs. I had nothing, I took nothing, I would have walked away so, and
never complained. It was my choice. But in the trees I found this horse,
saddled and bridled and ready for me, a gift from God that I could not refuse.
If I have lost him now,” she said very solemnly, “it may be he has brought me
where I was meant to be.”

“A
stage on your journey, it may be,” said Cadfael, concerned, “but surely not the
end. For here are you and I, hostages in a very questionable situation, and you
I take to be a lass who values her freedom highly. We have yet to get ourselves
out of captivity, or wait here for Owain to do it for us.” He was revolving in
some wonder what she had told him, and harking back to all that had happened in
Aber. “So there was this beast, made ready for riding and hidden away outside
the enclave. And if heaven meant him for you, there was someone else who
intended a very different outcome when he saddled him and led him out into the
woods. Now it seems to me that Bledri ap Rhys did indeed mean to escape to his
lord with word of all the prince’s muster and strength. The means of flight was
ready outside the gate for him. And yet he was found naked in his bedchamber,
no way prepared for riding. You have set us a riddle. Did he go to his bed to
wait until the llys was well asleep? And was killed before the favourable hour?
And how did he purpose to leave the maenol, when every gate was guarded?”

Heledd
was studying him intently along her shoulder, brows knitted together, only
partially understanding, but hazarding very alert and intelligent guesses at
what was still obscure to her. “Do you tell me Bledri ap Rhys is dead? Killed,
you said. That same night? The night I left the llys?”

“You
did not know? It was after you were gone, so was the news that came from
Bangor. No one has told you since?”

“I
heard of the coming of the Danes, yes, that news was everywhere from the next
morning. But I heard nothing of any death, never a word.”

No,
it would not be news of crucial importance, like the invasion from Ireland,
tref would not spread it to tref and maenol to maenol as Owain’s couriers had
spread word of the muster to Carnarvon. Heledd was frowning over the belated
news, saddened by any man’s death, especially one she had known briefly, even
made use of, in her own fashion, to plague a father who wronged her affection.
“I am sorry,” she said. “He had such life in him. A waste! Killed, you think,
to prevent his going? One more warrior for Cadwaladr, and with knowledge of the
prince’s plans to make him even more welcome? Then who? Who could have found
out, and made such dreadful shift to stop him?”

“That
there’s no knowing, nor will I hazard guesses where they serve no purpose. But
soon or late, the prince will find him out. The man was in a sense his guest,
he will not let the death go unavenged.”

“You
foretell another death,” said Heledd, with forceful bitterness. “What does that
amend?”

And
to that there was no answer that would not raise yet further questions, probing
all the obscure corners of right and wrong. They walked on together, to a
higher point near the southern rim of the armed camp, unhindered, though they
were observed with brief, curious interest by many of the Danish warriors
through whose lines they passed. On the hillock, clear of the sparse trees,
they halted to survey the ground all about them.

Otir
had chosen to make his landfall not on the sands to the north of the strait,
where the coast of Anglesey extended into a broad expanse of dune and warren,
none too safe in high tides, and terminating in a long bar of shifting sand and
shingle, but to the south, where the enclosing peninsula of land stood higher
and dryer, sheltered a deeper anchorage, and afforded a more defensible
campsite, as well as more rapid access to the open sea in case of need. That it
fronted more directly the strong base of Carnarvon, where Owain’s forces were
mustered in strength, had not deterred the invader. The shores of his chosen
encampment were well manned, the landward approach compact enough to afford a
formidable defence under assault, and a broad bay of tidal water separated it
from the town. Several rivers drained into this bight, Cadfael recalled, but at
low tide they would be mere meandering streaks of silver in a treacherous waste
of sand, not lightly to be braved by an army. Owain would have to bring his
forces far round to the south to approach his enemy on safe ground. With some
six or seven miles of marching between himself and Owain, and with a secure
ground base already gained, no doubt Cadwaladr felt himself almost
invulnerable. Except that the six or seven miles seemed to have shrunk to a
single mile during the night. For when Cadfael topped the ridge of bushes, and
emerged with a clear view well beyond the rim of the camp to southward, the
open sea just glimmering with morning light on his right hand, the pallid
shallow waters and naked sands of the bay to his left, he caught in the
distance, spaced across the expanse of dune and field and scrubland, an
unmistakable shimmer of arms and faint sparkle of coloured tents, a wall
ensconced overnight. The early light picked out traces of movement like the
quiver of a passing wind rippling a cornfield, as men passed purposefully to
and fro about their unhurried business of fortifying their chosen position. Out
of range of lance or bow, Owain had brought up his army under cover of darkness
to seal off the top of this peninsula, and pen the Danish force within it.
There was to be no time wasted. Thus forehead to forehead, like two rival rams
measuring each other, one party or the other must open the business in hand
without delay.

It
was Owain who opened dealings, and before the morning was out, while the Danish
chiefs were still debating the appearance of his host so close to their
boundaries, and what action he might have in mind now that he was there. It was
unlikely that they had any qualms about their own security, having swift access
to the open sea at need, and ships the Welsh could not match, and doubtless,
thought Cadfael, discreetly, drawn back from the knot of armed men gathered now
on the knoll, they were also speculating as to how strong a garrison he had
left to hold Carnarvon, and whether it would be worth staging a raid by water
upon the town if the prince attempted any direct assault here. As yet they were
not persuaded that he would risk any such costly action. They stood watching
the distant lines narrowly, and waited. Let him speak first. If he was already
minded to receive his brother into favour again, as he had done several times
before, why make any move to frustrate so desirable a resolution?

It
was mid-morning, and a pale sun high, when two horsemen were seen emerging from
a slight dip in the sandy levels between the two hosts. Mere moving specks as
yet, sometimes lost in hollows, then breasting the next rise, making steadily
for the Danish lines. There were barely half a dozen dwellings in all that
stretch of dune and warren, since there was little usable pasture and no good
ploughland, and doubtless those few settlements had been evacuated in the
night. Those two solitary figures were the sole inhabitants of a no-man’s-land
between armies, and as it appeared, charged with opening negotiations to
prevent a pointless and costly collision. Otir waited for their nearer approach
with a face wary but content, Cadwaladr with braced body and tense countenance,
but foreseeing a victory. It was in the arrogant spread of his feet bestriding
Welsh ground, and the lofty lift of his head and narrowing of his eyes to view
the prince’s envoys.

Still
at the limit of the range of lance or arrow, the second rider halted and
waited, screened by a thin belt of trees. The other rode forward to within
hailing distance, and there sat his horse, looking up at the watchful group on
the hillock above him.

“My
lords,” the hail came up to them clearly, “Owain Gwynedd sends his envoy to
deal with you on his behalf. A man of peace, unarmed, accredited by the prince.
Will you receive him?”

“Let
him come in,” said Otir. “He shall be honourably received.”

The
herald withdrew to a respectful distance. The second rider spurred forward
towards the rim of the camp. As he drew near it became apparent that he was a
small man, slender and young, and rode with more purpose than grace, as if he
had dealt rather with farm horses than elegant mounts for princes and their
ambassadors. Nearer still, and Cadfael, watching as ardently as any from the
crest of the dunes, drew deep breath and let it out again in a great sigh. The
rider wore the rusty black habit of the Benedictines, and showed the composed
and intent young face of Brother Mark. A man of peace indeed, messenger of
bishops and now of princes. No doubt in the world but he had begged this office
for himself, none that he had urged upon the prince the practicality of making
use of one whose motives could hardly be suspected, who had nothing to gain or
lose but his own freedom, life and peace of mind, no axe to grind, no profit to
make, no lord to placate in this world, Welsh, Danish, Irish or any other. A
man whose humility could move like a charmed barrier between the excesses of
other men’s pride.

Brother
Mark reached the edge of the camp, and the guards stood aside to let him pass.
It was the young man Turcaill, twice Mark’s modest size, who stepped forward
hospitably to take his bridle, as he lighted down and set out briskly to climb
the slight slope to where Otir and Cadwaladr waited to greet him.

In
Otir’s tent, crammed to the entrance with the chief among his forces, and every
other man who could get a toehold close to the threshold, Brother Mark
delivered himself of what he had come to say, partly on his own behalf, partly
on behalf of Owain Gwynedd. Aware by instinct of the common assumption among
these freebooters that they had rights in the counsels of their leaders, he let
his voice ring out to reach the listeners crowding close outside the tent.

Cadfael
had made it his business to secure a foothold near enough to hear what passed,
and no one had raised any objection to his presence. He was a hostage here,
concerned after his own fashion as they were after theirs. Every man with a
stake in the venture exercised his free right to guard his position.

“My
lords,” said Brother Mark, taking his time to find the right words and give
them their due emphasis, “I have asked to undertake this embassage because I am
not involved upon any part in this quarrel which brings you into Wales. I bear
no arms, and I have nothing to gain, but you and I and every man here have
much, all too much, to lose if this dispute ends in needless bloodshed. If I
have heard many words of blame upon either side, here I use none. I say only
that I deplore enmity and hatred between brothers as between peoples, and hold
that all disputes should be resolved without the shedding of blood. And for the
prince of Gwynedd, Owain ap Griffith ap Cynan, I say what he has instructed me
to say. This quarrel holds good between two men only, and all others should
hold back from a cause which is not theirs. Owain Gwynedd bids me say that if
Cadwaladr his brother has a grievance, let him come and discuss it face to
face, in guaranteed safety to come and to return.”