The Summer of the Danes

by Ellis Peters

  Thus in either camp the second day drew to a close.

  *

  Faced with the authority of Hywel ab Owain, the grudging and stiff-necked testimony, of Gwion, who so clearly hated having to admit his lord’s capitulation, and holding Cadwaladr’s seal in his hand, Rhodri Fychan on his own lands in Ceredigion found no reason to question further the instructions he was given. He accepted with a shrug the necessity, and delivered to Hywel the greater part of the two thousand marks in coin. It made some heavy loads for a number of sumpter horses which were likewise contributed as part of the ransom price. And the rest, he said resignedly, could be rounded up from grazing land close to the northern border of Ceredigion, near the crossing into Gwynedd, in Cadwaladr’s swart, sturdy cattle, moved there when this same Hywel drove him out of his castle and fired it after him, more than a year ago. His own herdsmen had grazed them there on his behalf ever since he had been driven out.

  It was at Gwion’s own suggestion that he was commissioned to ride northward again ahead of his companions, and get this herd of cattle, slow-moving as they would be, in motion towards Abermenai at once. The horsemen would easily overtake them after they had loaded the silver, and no time would be wasted on the return journey. A groom of Rhodri’s household rode with him, glad of the outing, to bear witness that they had the authority of Cadwaladr himself, through his steward, to cut out some three hundred head of cattle from his herds and drive them northward.

  It was all and more than he could have hoped for. Travelling south he had had no opportunity to withdraw himself or make any preparation for his escape. Now with his face to the north again everything fell into his hand. Once he had set out across the border of Gwynedd, with herd and drovers in brisk motion behind him, nothing could have been easier than to detach himself and ride ahead, on the pretext of giving due notice to Otir to prepare his ships to receive them, and leave them to follow to Abermenai at the best speed they could make.

  It was the morning of the second day, very early, when he set forth, and evening when he reached the camp where he had left his hundred like-minded companions living off the country about them, and by this little more popular with their neighbours than such roving armies usually are, and themselves glad to be on the move again.

  It seemed wise to wait until morning before marching. They lay in a sheltered place in open woodland, aside from the roads. One more night spent here, and they could be on their way with the first light, for from now on they could move only at a fast foot pace, and even by forced marches foot soldiers cannot outpace the horsemen. Cadwaladr’s drovers must rest their travelling herd overnight, there was no fear of being overtaken by them. Gwion slept his few hours with a mind content that he had done all a man could do. In the night, on the highroad half a mile from their camp, Hywel and his mounted escort passed by.

  Chapter 13

  BROTHER CADFAEL walked the crest of the dunes in the early evening of the third day, and saw the Danish cargo ships beached in the shallows below him, and the line of men, stripped half-naked to wade from shore to ships, ferrying the barrels of silver pence aboard, and stowing them under foredeck and afterdeck. Two thousand marks within those small, heavy containers. No, somewhat less, for by all accounts the sumpter horses and certain cattle were to go with them as part of Otir’s fee. For Hywel was back from Llanbadarn before noon, and by all accounts the drovers would not be far behind.

  Tomorrow it would all be over. The Danes would raise anchor and sail for home, Owain’s force would see them off Welsh soil, and then return to Carnarvon, and from there disperse to their homes. Heledd would be restored to her bridegroom, Cadfael and Mark to their duties left behind and almost forgotten in England. And Cadwaladr? By this time Cadfael was sure that Cadwaladr would be restored to some degree of power and certain of his old lands, once this matter was put by. Owain could not for ever hold out against his blood. Moreover, after every dismay and exasperation his brother had cost him, always Owain hoped and believed that there would be a change, a lesson learned, a folly or a crime regretted. So there was, but briefly. Cadwaladr would never change.

  Down on the steel-grey shingle Hywel ab Owain stood to watch the loading of the treasure he had brought from Llanbadarn. There was no haste, doubtful if they could put the beasts aboard until the morrow, even if they reached here before night. Down there on neutral ground Dane and Welshman brushed shoulders amicably, content to part with debts paid and no blood shed. The affair had almost become a matter of marketing. That would not suit the wildest of Owain’s clansmen. It was to be hoped he had them all well in hand, or there might be fighting yet. They did not like to see silver being bled away from Wales into Dublin, even if it was silver pledged, a debt of honour. But steadily the small barrels passed from man to man, the sunbrowned backs bending and swaying, the muscular arms extending the chain from beach to hold. About their bared legs the shallow water plashed in palest blues and greens over the gold of sand, and the sky above them was blue almost to whiteness, with a scatter of whiter clouds diaphanous as feathers. A radiant day in a fine, settled summer.

  From the stockade Cadwaladr was also watching the shipment of his ransom, with his stolid shadow Torsten at his shoulder. Cadfael had observed them, withdrawn a little to his right, Torsten placidly content, Cadwaladr stormy-browed and grim, but resigned to his loss. Turcaill was down there aboard the nearest of the ships, hoisting the barrels in under the after deck, and Otir stood with Hywel, surveying the scene benignly.

  Heledd came over the crest, and made her way down through the scrub and the salt grasses to stand at Cadfael’s side. She looked down at the activities stretching out from beach to ship, and her face was calm and almost indifferent. “There are still the cattle to get aboard,” she said. “A rough voyage it will be for them. They tell me that crossing can be terrible.”

  “In such fine weather,” said Cadfael, matching her tone, “they’ll have an easy passage.” No need to ask from which of them she had that information.

  “By tomorrow night,” she said, “they’ll be gone. A good deliverance for us all.” And her voice was serene and even fervent, and her eyes followed the movements of the last of the porters as he waded ashore, bright water flashing about his ankles. Turcaill stood on the after-deck for some moments, surveying the result of their labours, before he swung himself over the side and came surging through the shallows, driving blue of water and white of spray before him, and looking up, saw Heledd as blithely looking down from her high place, and flung back his lofty flaxen head to smile at her with a dazzle of white teeth, and wave a hand in salute.

  Among the men-at-arms who stood at Hywel’s back to see the money safely bestowed Cadfael had observed one, thickset and powerful and darkly comely, who was also looking up towards the ridge. His head was and remained tilted back, and his eyes seemed to Cadfael to be fixed upon Heledd. True, one woman among a camp of Danish invaders might well draw the eye and the interest of any man, but there was something about the taut stillness and the intent and sustained pose that made him wonder. He plucked at Heledd’s sleeve.

  “Girl, there’s one below there, among the lads who brought the silver—you see him? On Hywel’s left!—who is staring upon you very particularly. Do you know him? By the cut of him he knows you.”

  She turned to look where he indicated, gave a moment to considering the face so assiduously raised to her, and shook her head indifferently.

  “I never saw him before. How can he know me?” And she turned back to watch Turcaill cross the beach and pause to exchange civilities with Hywel ab Owain and his escort, before marshalling his own men back up the slope of the dunes towards the stockade. He passed before Ieuan ab Ifor without a glance, and Ieuan merely shifted his stance a little to recover the sight of Heledd on the dunes above him, as Turcaill’s fair head cut her off from him in passing.

  *

  During those vital night watches, Ieuan ab Ifor had taken care to be captain of the guard on the westward gate of Owai
n’s camp, and to have a man of his own on watch through the night hours. Towards midnight of that third night Gwion had brought his muster by forced marches to within sight of Owain’s stockade, and there diverted them to the narrow belt of shingle exposed by the low tide, to pass by undetected. He himself made his way silently to the guard-post, and from its shadow Ieuan slid out to meet him.

  “We are come,” said Gwion in a whisper. “They are down on the shore.”

  “You come late,” hissed Ieuan. “Hywel is here before you. The silver is already loaded aboard their ships, they are waiting only for the cattle.”

  “How can that be?” demanded Gwion, dismayed. “I rode ahead from Llanbadarn. The only halt I made was the few hours of sleep we took last night. We marched before dawn this morning.”

  “And in those few hours of the night Hywel overtook and passed you by, for he was here by mid-morning. And come tomorrow morning the herd will be here and loading. Late to save anything but a beggarly life for Cadwaladr as Owain’s almsman instead of Otir’s prisoner.” For Cadwaladr he did not grieve overmuch, except as his plight had strengthened the case for a rescue which could at the same time deliver Heledd.

  “Not too late,” said Gwion, burning up like a stirred fire. “Bring your few, and make haste! The tide is low and still ebbing. We have time enough!” They had been ready every night for the signal, and they came singly, silently and eagerly, evading notice and question. Glissading down the suave slopes of the dunes, and across the belt of shingle to the moist, firm sand beyond, where their feet made no sound. More than a mile to go between the camps, but an hour left before the tide would be at its lowest, and ample time to return. There was a lambent light from the water, a shifting but gentle light that was enough for their purposes, the white edges of every ripple showing the extent of the uncovered sand. Ieuan led, and they followed him in a long line, silent and furtive under the dykes of Owain’s defences, and on into the no-man’s-land beyond. Before them, anchored offshore after their loading, the Danish cargo ships rode darkly swaying against the faint luminosity of the waves, and the comparative pallor of the sky. Gwion checked at sight of them.

  “These have the silver already stored? We could reclaim it,” he said in a whisper. “They’ll have only holding crews aboard overnight.”

  “Tomorrow!” said Ieuan with brusque authority. “A long swim, they lie in deep water. They could pick us off one by one before ever we touched. Tomorrow they’ll lay them inshore again to load the beasts. There are enough among Owain’s muster who grudge so much as a penny to the pirates; if we start the onset they’ll follow, the prince will have no choice but to fight. Tonight we take back my woman and your lord. Tomorrow the silver!”

  *

  In the small hours of the morning Cadfael awoke to a sudden clamour of voices bellowing and lurs blaring, and started up from his nest in the sand still dazed between reality and dreaming, old battles jerked back into mind with startling vividness, so that he reached blindly for a sword before ever he was steady on his feet, and aware of the starry night above and the cool rippling of the sand under his bare feet. He groped about him to pluck Mark awake before he recalled that Mark was no longer beside him, but back in Owain’s retinue, out of reach of whatever this sudden threat might be. Over to his right, from the side where the open sea stretched away westward to Ireland, the acid clashing of steel added a thin, ferocious note to the baying of fighting men. Confused movements of struggle and alarm shook the still air in convulsive turmoil between sand and sky, as though a great storm-wind had risen to sweep away men without so much as stirring the grasses they trod. The earth lay still, cool and indifferent, the sky hung silent and calm, but force and violence had come up from the sea to put an end to humanity’s precarious peace. Cadfael ran in the direction from which the uproar drifted fitfully to his ears. Others, starting out of their beds on the landward side of the encampment, were running with him, drawing steel as they ran, all converging on the seaward fences, where the clamour of battle had moved inward upon them, as though the stockade had been breached. In the thick of the tangle of sounds rose Otir’s thunderous voice, marshalling his men. And I am no man of his, thought Cadfael, astounded but still running headlong towards the cry, why should I go looking for trouble? He could have been holding off at a safe distance, waiting to see who had staged what was plainly a determined attack, and how it prospered for Dane or Welshman, before assessing its import for his own wellbeing, but instead he was making for the heart of the battle as fast as he could, and cursing whoever had chosen to tear apart what could have been an orderly resolution of a dangerous business.

  Not Owain! Of that he was certain. Owain had brought about a just and sensible ending, he would neither have originated nor countenanced a move calculated to destroy his achievement. Some hot-blooded youngsters envenomed with hatred of the Dane, or panting for the glory of warfare! Owain might reserve his quarrel with the alien fleet that invaded his land uninvited, he might even choose to exert himself to thrust them out when all other outstanding business was settled, but he would never have thrown away his own patient work in procuring the clearing of the ground. Owain’s battle, had it ever come to it, as it yet might, would have been direct, neat and workmanlike, with no needless killing.

  He was near to the heave and strain of close infighting now, he could see the line of the stockade broken here and there by the heads and shoulders of struggling men, and a great gap torn in the barrier where the attackers had forced their way in unobserved, between guard-posts. They had not penetrated far, and Otir already had a formidable ring of steel drawn about them, but on the fringes, in the darkness and in such confusion, there was no knowing friend from enemy, and a few of the first through the gap might well be loose within the camp.

  He was rubbing shoulders with the outer ring of Danes, who were thrusting hard to shift the whole intruding mass back through the stockade and down to the sea, when someone came running behind him, light and fast, and a hand clutched at his arm, and there was Heledd, her face a pale, startled oval, starry in the dark, lit by wide, blazing eyes.

  “What is it? Who are they? They are mad, mad… What can have set them on?”

  Cadfael halted abruptly, drawing her back out of the press and clear of random steel. “Fool girl, get back out of here! Are you crazed? Get well away until this is over. Do you want to be killed?”

  She clung to him, but held her ground sturdily, more excited than afraid. “But why? Why should any of Owain’s do such mischief, when all was going so well?”

  The struggling mass of men, too closely entangled to allow play to steel, reeled their way, and some among them losing balance and footing, the mass broke apart, several fell, and one at least was trampled, and let out breath in a wheezing groan. Heledd was torn away from Cadfael’s grasp, and uttered a brief and angry scream. It cut through the din on a piercing, clear note, and even in the stress of battle turned heads in abrupt astonishment to stare in her direction. She had been flung aside so sharply that she would have fallen, if an arm had not taken her about the waist and dragged her clear as the shift of fighting surged towards her. Cadfael was borne the opposite way for a moment, and then Otir’s rallying cry drew the Danish circle taut, and their driving weight bore the attackers backwards, and compressed them into the breach they had made in the stockade, cramming them through it in disorder. A dozen lances were hurled after them, and they broke and drew off down the slope of the dunes towards the shore.

  A handful of the young Danes, roused and eager, would have pursued the retreating attackers down the dunes, but Otir called them sharply to order. There were wounded already, if none dead, why risk more? They came reluctantly, but they came. There might be a time to take revenge for an act virtually of treachery, when agreement, if not sworn and sealed, had amounted almost to truce. But this was the time rather to salvage what was damaged, and sharpen once again a watchfulness grown slack as the need seemed to diminish.

  In the co
mparative stillness and quiet they set about picking up the fallen, salving minor wounds, repairing the breach in the stockade, all in grim silence but for the few words needed. Under the broken fence three men lay dead, the foremost of the defenders overwhelmed by numbers before help could reach them. A fourth they picked up bleeding from a lance-thrust meant for his heart, but diverted through the shoulder. He would live, but he might lack the muscular power of his left arm for the rest of his life. Of minor gashes and grazes there were many, and the man who had been trampled spat blood from injuries within. Cadfael put by all other considerations, and went to work with the rest in the nearest shelter by torchlight, with whatever linen and medicines they could provide. They had experience of wounds, and were knowledgeable in treating them, if their treatment was rough and ready. The boy Leif fetched and carried, awed and excited by this burst of violence by night. When all was done that could be done Cadfael sat back with a sigh, and looked round at his nearest neighbour. He was looking into the ice-blue eyes and unwontedly sombre face of Turcaill. The young man had blood on his cheek from a graze, and blood on his hands from the wounds of his friends.