The Good Knight

by Sarah Woodbury

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gwen hung her head over the side of the Danish ship, emptying her insides into the sea for the twentieth time. The chop of the waves was such that she had to grip the rail tightly just to stay upright and not spew the contents of her stomach—what little remained of them—on herself or in the boat. Part of her thought that would serve the others right, but the smell would probably only make her more ill. The moment of spite wouldn’t be worth it.

  A big square sail flew above her head and men scrambled all over the boat as they maneuvered the rigging, tacking their way towards Ireland. As soon as they’d left the immediate vicinity of the shore, the leader—the same man who’d carried her—had ordered his men to hoist it. It puffed out now—satisfactorily it seemed from the looks on the sailors’ faces. In addition, the wind hadn’t lessened since they’d left Wales, which seemed to please them all no end.

  Watching it, the leader turned to Gwen with an enormous smile. “A good wind. If it keeps up, we will reach Dublin before two full days have passed.”

  Gwen stared at him, horror churning in her gut instead of fear. She rested her forehead on the rail, feeling the coolness of the sea spray blowing into her face, but overcome by despair that with the disappearance of the shore behind them, she had no choices at all. She had to continue with the Danes.

  And Gareth… she shivered. Surely he knew that Hywel hadn’t touched her—had never touched her for reasons that had never been entirely clear to her, but by now were set in stone. Hywel would tell him so, but sometimes men didn’t think clearly when it came to women. And with that, she acknowledged that she loved Gareth—and wanted him to love her. Maybe when she saw him again she’d have the courage to tell him. She fingered his cross which she still wore around her neck. The time had never seemed right to give it to him. As it had every day for the last five years, it comforted her to have something of his always with her.

  Whatever August heat had warmed her on shore had disappeared the moment they’d pulled out of the bay. A new guard hung onto her waist—this time, a young one named Olaf. He grinned through perfectly white teeth and spoke no Welsh, nor any other language it seemed. His grip tightened as her shoulders shuddered, as if he feared she would throw herself overboard even though they were in the middle of the sea. She couldn’t even see Mt. Snowdon anymore. As they tacked towards the setting sun, the direction of the wind confirmed what she’d feared: they’d continued sailing directly west, towards Dublin, and not south to Ceredigion as she’d initially hoped.

  It had been a faint hope anyway, with Cadwaladr on the run from his brother and in the company of four dozen Danishmen. He would be as safe as he could be in Ireland. Ceredigion was another matter, and he knew it. She wondered how his wife would react, knowing she had a coward for a husband. Then again, she probably already knew.

  Finally, Gwen had nothing left in her stomach to come up, so her guard left her with her eyes closed, curled on a blanket near the stern of the boat so she’d be out of the way of the oarsmen and the rigging. Her illness gave her two advantages: one, they left her alone; and two, it perpetuated the myth that she carried Hywel’s child.

  She hoped she could keep up the façade long enough for them to either lose interest in her, or take her back home, though that thought in and of itself was enough to make her gag. It was only because she’d left her family behind—and Gareth—that she could even contemplate a return journey. Gradually the sun lowered in the sky until it shone directly into Gwen’s face. She shut her eyes, feeling the warmth on her eyelids.

  All of a sudden, the sun disappeared. Gwen opened her eyes to find the big Dane blocking the light. He gazed down at her, his hands on his hips. Gwen curled up tighter, not wanting him to look at her, speak to her, or touch her. The Dane didn’t appear to get the message.

  “No sea legs, eh.” He crouched in front of her and reached a hand to her shoulder.

  Gwen twitched away.

  “You’re afraid of me?”

  “Shouldn’t I be?” Gwen said. “You’ll do whatever Cadwaladr says, and I know of what he’s capable.”

  The Dane snorted. “I don’t take orders from Cadwaladr.”

  Gwen had been staring at his boots so as not to look into his eyes, but the disgust and assured tone in his voice made her chance a glance at his face. “What do you mean?”

  “You think us barbarians,” he said, “but I reckon my Latin is better than yours.”

  Despite herself, Gwen smiled. “Don’t tell my father that.”

  “See,” the Dane said. “Already your fear leaves you. I am Godfrid mac Torcall, descended from Brian Boru, like your Hywel, eh?”

  Gwen opened her eyes fully, finding that her fear was fading, as he’d said. “I am Gwen, a bard’s daughter.”

  His eyes lit at that, although whenever she’d looked into them they’d been bright—as if he found the world deeply amusing. Maybe he was like Hywel in that, though in Hywel, that amusement came out with more than a touch of cynicism. “You will sing for us when we reach my father’s hall.”

  “Is he the King of Dublin?” Gwen said.

  A shadow crossed Godfrid’s face. Apparently, this was the one thing that could dampen his mood. “He shares power with Ottar.”

  Gwen didn’t know who Ottar was, nor Torcall for that matter. The politics of Wales were so complicated that she’d never had time to learn anyone else’s, though she’d met men from Ireland before in southern or western Wales. “And Cadwaladr? Does he have plans for me?”

  Godfrid glanced behind him to where Cadwaladr stood near the prow of the boat, one foot up on a box of cargo. He rested his hip on the rail and looked towards Ireland. “He may not realize it, but you are my hostage now, not his. You carry my cousin’s child. He should not have taken you from Hywel.”

  Cousin. And that eased Gwen’s fears even more. The Danes were no less fierce about kinship than the Welsh, for all that brother murdered brother just as in Wales. Gwen had learned enough about Hywel’s ancestry growing up with him to understand what that tie meant to the Royal House of Wales.

  As Godfrid promised, they reached Dublin just after noon on the second day out from Anglesey. Though pale, having not kept anything down except a few sips of water in two days, Gwen was able to sit up once they reached the calm harbor below the city. She’d never seen so many ships in one place, from the larger warships like the one in which she’d sailed, to the smaller, more agile craft that hugged the coast.

  These Danes didn’t seem to be fisherman as much as traders, bringing goods from all over the world into Dublin. She wondered how much of it was stolen. The Danes hadn’t raided Welsh shores for a hundred years, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t moved farther afield. Well … unless Anarawd’s murder counted as a raid. And that wasn’t random, since Cadwaladr had invited them in.

  Dublin was a place unlike any she’d ever seen. In all their travels in Wales, her family had never passed through a town with more than a thousand people. The Dublin streets wended around a maze of thatched cottages. As at home, they’d been built in wattle and daub with thatched roofs, all crammed in together. They also appeared to have been planted anywhere the owner liked. Interspersed among them, equally haphazardly, were craft halls, stalls, churches, merchants, and small greens.

  Church bells rang from all directions. She’d thought the Danes heathen, but according to Godfrid, who held her elbow as he helped her off the ship, that was no longer the case, not since the great Sitric of the silken beard had converted to Christianity and later died on pilgrimage to Rome. That was the same Sitric from whom Hywel descended, though not Godfrid as it turned out. He’d explained the genealogy that made him and Hywel cousins, but Gwen had soon lost track of the odd-sounding names and the multiple marriages and divorces that connected them. Besides, as she wasn’t really carrying Hywel’s child, it could hardly matter to her.

  Solid ground felt like heaven, even as the barrage of sights and sounds overwhelmed
her senses.

  “Five thousand souls live in Dublin,” Godfrid said, and Gwen could well believe it.

  The smell of refuse, excrement, and humanity almost made her vomit yet again, but she held onto her stomach with one hand and Godfrid’s arm with the other, weaving on her feet but still upright. Godfrid handed her off to the mute Olaf, who guided her through the streets, passing houses, merchants, and an open air market. At first she couldn’t grasp what was being sold, until she saw the men, women, and children bound together in a long line. Slaves.

  Gwen shivered, though not from cold this time. Regardless of Godfrid’s present friendliness, if Cadwaladr or the Danes discovered that she wasn’t carrying Hywel’s child, that could be her fate too. The company wended its way deeper into the maze that was Dublin until they reached Godfrid’s father’s home on the edge of the city.

  Prince Cadwaladr was there before her, smiling and condescending, as if by bringing her here he’d achieved a great victory instead of fleeing Wales with his tail between his legs. The hall rose before them, also unlike anything she’d ever seen. Because Dublin was unrelievedly flat, there was nothing to indicate they’d reached a special residence, other than the size of the hall, which was four times larger than any other place she’d seen so far.

  “The true king of Dublin lives over there,” Cadwaladr said, waving his hand to indicate the way they’d come. This didn’t help her to orient herself, as she’d gotten turned around in the maze of streets. It was confusing enough that the sea lay to the east, not the west, as in Wales.

  The hall wasn’t rectangular in shape as she might have expected, but bowed outwards in the middle, tapering to a third less wide on both ends. It had timber walls, a great thatched roof, and was set on a laid-stone foundation that also served as the floor.

  The entrance doors, with two men in full armor to guard them, sat at one of the narrow ends. At Cadwaladr’s approach, both men bowed, not particularly low but enough to acknowledge his higher rank, and moved aside. Cadwaladr had lived in Dublin for a long time and these men probably knew him. She shuddered at the thought of making that crossing from Wales more than once, much less willingly, as Cadwaladr had. She held more tightly to poor Olaf’s arm, trying to contain her exhaustion, and staggered up the stairs after the Welsh prince.