The Summer of the Danes (28 page)

“He
knows me by now well enough,” said Otir drily, “to know that I am not so
foolish as to destroy what can and shall be profitable to me. But if you doubt
it, very well, we will send him one he will trust, and the man shall take due
orders from you in your very person, and bear witness to Owain that he has so
taken them, and that he saw you whole and in your right mind. Owain will know
truth by the bearer of it. I doubt he can take pleasure in the sight of you,
not yet. But he’ll so far prove your brother as to put together your price in
haste, once he knows you’ve chosen to honour your debts. He wants me gone, and
go I will when I have what I came for, and he may have you back and welcome.”

“You
have not such a man in your muster,” said Cadwaladr with a curling lip. “Why
should he trust any man of yours?”

“Ah,
but I have! No man of mine, nor of Owain’s, nor of yours, his service falls
within quite another writ. One that offered himself freely as guarantor for
your safe return when you left here to go and parley with your brother. Yes,
and one that you left to his fate and my better sense when you tossed your
defiance in my face and turned tail for your life back to a brother who
despised you for it.” Otir watched the prince’s dark face flame into scarlet,
and took dour satisfaction in having stung him.

“Hostage
for you he was, out of goodwill, and now you are returned indeed, though in
every manner of illwill, and I have no longer any claim to keep him here. And
he’s the man shall go as your envoy to Owain, and in your name bid him plunder
such means and valuables as you have left, and bring your ransom here.” He
turned to Torsten, who had stood waiting in high and obvious content through
these exchanges. “Go and find that young deacon from Lichfield, the bishop’s
lad, Mark, and ask him to come here to me.”

Mark
was with Brother Cadfael when the word reached him, gathering dry and fallen
twigs for their fire from among the stunted trees along the ridge. He
straightened up with his load gathered into the fold of a wide sleeve, and stared
at the messenger in mild surprise, but without any trace of alarm. In these few
days of nominal captivity he had never felt himself a captive, or in any danger
or distress, but neither had he ever supposed that he was of any particular
interest or consequence to his captors beyond what bargaining value his small
body might have.

Like
a curious child he asked, wide-eyed: “What can your captain want with me?”

“No
harm,” said Cadfael. “For all I can see, these Irish Danes have more of the
Irish than the Dane in them after all this time. Otir strikes me as Christian
as most that habit in England or Wales, and a good deal more Christian than
some.”

“He
has a thing for you to do,” said Torsten, goodnaturedly grinning, “that comes
as a benefit to us all. Come and hear it for yourself.”

Mark
piled his gathered fuel close to the hearth they had made for themselves of
stones in their sheltered hollow of sand, and followed Torsten curiously to
Otir’s open tent. At the sight of Cadwaladr, rigidly erect in his chains and
taut as a bowstring, Mark checked and drew breath, astonished. It was the first
intimation he had had that the turbulent fugitive was back within the
encampment, and to see him here fettered and at bay was baffling. He looked
from captive to captor, and saw Otir grimly smiling and obviously in high
content. Fortune was busy overturning all things for sport.

“You
sent for me,” said Mark simply. “I am here.”

Otir
surveyed with an indulgent eye and some surprisingly gentle amusement this
slight youth, who spoke here for a Church that Welsh and Irish and the Danes of
Dublin all alike acknowledged. Some day, when a few more years had passed, he
might even have to call this boy ‘Father’! ‘Brother’ he might call him already.
“As you see,” said Otir, “the lord Cadwaladr, for whom you stood guarantor that
he should go and come again without hindrance, has come back to us. His return
sets you free to leave us. If you will do an errand for him to his brother
Owain Gwynedd, you will be doing a good deed for him and for us all.”

“You
must tell me what that is,” said Mark. “But I have not felt myself deprived of
my freedom here. I have no complaint.”

“The
lord Cadwaladr will tell you himself,” said Otir, and his satisfied smile
broadened. “He has declared himself ready to pay the two thousand marks he
promised to us for coming to Abermenai with him. He desires to send word to his
brother how this is to be done. He will tell you.”

Mark
regarded with some doubt Cadwaladr’s set face and darkly smouldering eyes. “Is
this true?”

“It
is.” The voice was strong and clear, if it grated a little. Since there was no
help for it, Cadwaladr accepted necessity, if not with grace, at least with the
recovered remnant of his dignity. “I am required to pay for my freedom. Very
well, I choose to pay.”

“It
is truly your own choice?” Mark wondered doubtfully.

“It
is. Beyond what you see, I am not threatened. But I am not free until the
ransom is paid, and the ships loaded for sea, and therefore I cannot go myself
to see my cattle rounded up and driven, nor draw on my treasury for the
balance. I want my brother to manage all for me, and as quickly as may be. I
will send him my authority by you, and my seal by way of proof.”

“If
it is what you wish,” said Mark, “yes, I will bear your message.”

“It
is what I wish. If you tell him you had it from my own lips, he will believe
you.” His lips at that moment were drawn thin with the hard-learned effort to
keep the bitterness and fury caged within, but his mind was made up. There
could be revenges later, there could be another repayment to be made in
requital of this one, but now what he needed was his freedom. He slid out his
private seal from a pocket in his sleeve, and held it out, not to Otir, who sat
watching with a glittering grin, but to Mark. “Take my brother this, tell him
you had it from my hand, and ask him to hasten what I need.”

“I
will, faithfully,” said Mark.

“Then
ask him for my sake to send to Llanbadarn, to Rhodri Fychan, who was my
steward, and will be my steward again if ever I regain what is mine. What is
left of my treasury he will know where to find, and at my orders, witnessed by
my seal, he will deliver it over. If the sum is not enough, what is lacking
must be made up in cattle. Rhodri knows where my stock are bestowed in safe charge.
There are still herds kept for me, more than enough. Two thousand marks is the
sum. Ask my brother to make haste.”

“I
will,” said Mark simply, and began by himself making all haste. It was he who
took an ambassador’s leave of them, rather than acknowledging his own dismissal
from Otir’s presence. A brisk reverence and a brief farewell, and he was
already on his way, and for some reason the space within the tent and about it
looked curiously empty by the removal of his small, slight figure.

He
went on foot; the distance was barely more than a mile. Within the halfhour he
would be delivering his message to Owain Gwynedd, and setting in motion the
events which were to restore Cadwaladr his freedom, if not his lands, and
remove from Gwynedd the threat of war, and the oppressive presence of an alien
army. The only pause he made before leaving was to impart to Cadfael the errand
on which he was sent.

Brother
Cadfael came very thoughtfully to where Heledd was stirring the sleeping fire
in the stone hearth, to prepare food for the evening meal. His mind was full of
what he had just learned, but he could not help remarking how well this vagrant
life in a military camp suited her. She had taken the sun graciously, her skin
was a golden bronze, with an olive bloom upon it, suave and infinitely becoming
to her dark hair and eyes, and the rich red of her mouth. She had never in her
life been so free as she was now in her captivity. The gloss of it was about
her like cloth of gold, and it mattered not at all that her sleeve was torn,
and the hem of her gown soiled and frayed.

There’s
news that could be good for us all,” said Cadfael, watching her neat movements
with pleasure. “Not only did Turcaill come back safely from his midnight foray,
it seems he brought back Cadwaladr with him.”

“I
know,” said Heledd, and stilled her busy hands for a moment, and stared into
the fire and smiled. “I saw them come back, before dawn.”

“And
you never said word?” But no, she would not, not yet, not to anyone. That would
be to reveal more than she was yet ready to reveal. How could she say that she
had risen before the sun, to watch for the little ship’s safe return? “I’ve
scarcely seen you today. No harm had come of whatever they were up to, that was
all that mattered. Why, what follows? How is it so good for us all?”

“Why,
the man has come to his senses, and agreed to pay these Danes what he promised
them. Mark has just been sent off to commission Owain, in his brother’s name,
and with his brother’s seal for surety, to collect and pay his ransom. Otir
will take it and go, and leave Gwynedd in peace.”

Now
she had indeed turned to pay due attention to what he was saying, with raised
brows and sharply arrested hands. “He has given in? Already? He will pay?”

“I
have it from Mark, and Mark is already on his way. Nothing could be surer.”

“And
they will go!” she said, a mere murmur within her still lips. She drew up her
knees and folded her arms about them, and sat gazing before her, neither
smiling nor frowning, only coolly and resolutely assessing these changed
prospects for good and evil. “How long, do you think, Cadfael, it will take to
bring cattle up here by the drove roads from Ceredigion?”

“Three
days at the least,” said Cadfael, and watched her put away that factor in the
methodical recesses of her mind, to be kept in the reckoning. “Three days at
the most, then,” she said, “for Owain will make all haste to be rid of them.”

“And
you will be glad to be free,” said Cadfael, probing gently into regions where truth
had at least two faces, and he could not be sure which one was turned towards
him, and which was turned away.

“Yes,”
she said, “I shall be glad!” And she looked beyond him into the grey-blue,
shifting surface of the sea, and smiled.

Gwion
had reached the guard-post, the same by which his lord had been abducted,
without hindrance, and was in the very act of stepping over the threshold when
the guard barred his way with a braced lance, and challenged him sharply: “Are
not you Gwion, Cadwaladr’s liegeman?”

Gwion
owned to it, bewildered rather than alarmed. No doubt they were keeping a
closer watch on this gate, after last night’s incursion, and this sentry did
not know Owain’s mind, and had no intention of incurring blame by allowing
either entry or exit unquestioned. “I am. The prince has given me leave to stay
or go, as I choose. Ask Cuhelyn. He will tell you so.”

“I
have later news for you,” said the guard, unmoving. “For the prince has only a
short while since asked that you be sought, if you were still within the pale,
and sent back to him.”

“I
never knew him change his mind in such a fashion,” protested Gwion
distrustfully. “He made it plain he set no store on me, and did not care a pin
whether I stayed or departed. Nor whether I lived or died, for that matter.”

“Nevertheless,
it seems he has a use for you yet. No harm, if he never threatened any. Go and
see. He wants you. I know no more than that.” There was no help for it. Gwion
turned back towards the squat roof of the farmstead, his mind a turmoil of
unprofitable speculations. Owain could not possibly have got wind of what was
still at best only a vague intent, hardly a plan at all, though he had spent a
long time with Ieuan ab Ifor over the detail of numbers and means, and all that
Ieuan had gathered concerning the layout of the Danish camp. Too long a time,
as it now appeared. He should have left at once, before there could be any
question of detaining him. By this time he could have despatched his groom
south to bring up the promised force, and been back within the stockade here
before ever he was missed. Planning could have waited. Now it was too late, he
was trapped. Yet nothing was quite lost. Owain could not know. No one knew but
Gwion himself and Ieuan, and Ieuan had not yet spoken a word to any of those
stalwarts he knew of who would welcome a venture. That recruitment was still to
come. Then what Owain wanted of him could have nothing to do with their
half-formed enterprise.

He
was still feverishly recording and discarding possibilities when he entered the
low-beamed hall of the farm, and made his stiff and wary reverence to the
prince across the rough trestle table.

Hywel
was there, close at his father’s shoulder, and two more of the prince’s trusted
captains stood a little apart, witnesses in some business which remained
inexplicable to Gwion. For the only other person in the room was the meagre
little deacon from Lichfield, in his rusty black habit, his spiky ring of
straw-coloured hair growing stubbornly every way, his grey eyes as always wide,
direct and tranquil. They looked at Gwion, and Gwion turned his head away, as
though he feared they might see too deeply into his mind if he met them fully.
He found even the benevolent regard of such eyes unnerving. But what could this
little cleric have to do with any matter between Owain and Cadwaladr and the
Danish interlopers? Yet if the business in hand here was something entirely
different, what could it have to do with him, and what need to recall him?
“It’s well that you have not left us, Gwion,” said Owain, “for after all there
is a thing you can do for me, and therewith also for your lord.”