The Summer of the Danes (24 page)

Another
foraging expedition? If that was the intent, it would make good sense to take
to the strait by night, and lie up somewhere well past Carnarvon to begin their
forays ashore before dawn. The town would certainly have been left well
garrisoned, but the shores beyond were still open to raiding, even if most of
the inhabitants had removed their stock and all their portable goods into the hills.
And what was there among the belongings of a good Welshman that was not
portable? With ease they could abandon their homesteads if need arose, and rear
them again when the danger was over. They had been doing it for centuries, and
were good at it. Yet these nearest fields and settlements had already been
looted once, and could not be expected to go on providing food for a small
army. Cadfael would have expected rather that they would prefer combing the
soft coast southward from the open sea, Owain’s muster notwithstanding. Yet
this small hunter set off silently into the strait. In that direction lay only
the long passage of the Menai, or, alternatively, she could be meaning to round
the bar of shingle and turn south into the bay by favour of this high tide.
Unlikely, on the face of it, though so small a fish could find ample draught
for some hours yet, until the tide was again well on the ebb towards its
lowest. A larger craft, Cadfael reflected thoughtfully, would never venture
there. Could that in itself be the reason why this one was chosen, and
despatched alone? Then for what nocturnal purpose?

“So
they’re gone,” said Heledd’s voice behind him, very softly and sombrely. She
had come up at his shoulder soundlessly, barefoot in the sand still warm from the
day’s sunlight. She was looking down to the shore as he was, and her gaze
followed the faintly luminous single stroke of the longship’s wake, withdrawing
rapidly eastward. Cadfael turned to look at her, where she stood composed and
still, the cloud of her long hair about her.

“So
they’re gone! Had you wind of it beforehand? It does not surprise you!”

“No,”
she said, “it does not surprise me. Not that I know anything of what is in
their minds, but there has been something brewing all day since Cadwaladr so
spited them as he did. What they are planning for him I do not know, and what
it may well mean for all the rest of us I dare not guess, but surely nothing
good.”

“That
is Turcaill’s ship,” said Cadfael. It was already so far lost in the darkness
that they could follow it now only with the mind’s eye. But it would not yet
have reached the end of the shingle bar.

“So
it would be,” she said. “If there’s mischief afoot, he must be in it. There’s
nothing Otir could demand of him, however mad, but he would plunge into it
headfirst, joyfully, with never a thought for the consequences.”

“And
you have thought of the possible consequences,” Cadfael deduced reasonably,
“and do not like them.”

“No,”
she said vehemently, “I do not like them! There could be battle and slaughter
if by some foul chance he kills a man of Owain’s. It needs no more to start
such a blaze.”

“And
what makes you think he is going anywhere near Owain’s men, to risk such a
chance?”

“How
should I know what the fool has in mind?” she said impatiently. “What troubles
me is what he may bring down on the rest of us.”

“I
would not so readily score him down as a fool,” said Cadfael mildly. “I would
have reckoned him as shrewd in the wits as he is an able man of his hands.
Whatever he’s about, judge it when he returns, for it’s my belief he’ll come
back successful.” He was careful not to add: “So leave fretting over him!” She
would have denied any such concern, though now with less ferocity than once she
would have attempted. Best leave well alone. However she might hope to deceive
others, Heledd was not the girl to be able to deceive herself.

And
away there to the south in Owain’s camp was the man she had never yet seen,
Ieuan ab Ifor, not much past thirty, which is not all that old, well thought of
by his prince, holder of good lands, and personable to the beholder’s eye,
possessed of every asset but one, and invisible and negligible without it. He
was not the man she had chosen.

“Tomorrow
will show,” said Heledd, with relentless practicality. “We had best go get our
sleep, and be ready for it.”

They
had rounded the tip of the shingle bar, and kept well out in the main channel
as they turned southward into the bay. Once well within, they could draw
inshore and keep a watch on the coastline for the first outlying pickets of
Owain’s camp. Turcaill’s boy Leif kneeled on the tiny foredeck, narrowing his
eyes attentively upon the shore. He was fifteen years old, and spoke the Welsh
of Gwynedd, for his mother had been snatched from this same north-western coast
at twelve years old, on a passing Danish raid, and had married a Dane of the
Dublin kingdom. But she had never forgotten her language, and had spoken it
always with her son, from the time that he learned to speak at all. A
half-naked boy in the high summer, Leif could go among the Welsh trefs and the
fishing villages here and pass for one of their own, and his talent for
acquiring information had brought in beforehand a useful harvest.

“Cadwaladr
has kept touch always with those who hold by him,” Leif had reported
cheerfully, “and there are some among his brother’s muster now would go with
him if he attempted some act of his own. And I hear them say he has sent word
south from Owain’s camp to his men in Ceredigion. What word nobody knows,
whether to come and join him in arms, or whether to be ready to put together
money and cattle if he is forced to pay what he promised us. But if a messenger
comes asking for him he’ll think it no harm, rather to his gain.”

And
there was more to be told, the fruit of much attentive listening. “Owain will
not have him close to him. He keeps a few of his own about him now, and has
made his base at the southern edge of the camp, in the corner nearest the bay.
There if news comes for him from his old lands, he can let the messenger in and
Owain need not know. For he’ll play one hand against the other however his
vantage lies,” said Leif knowingly.

There
was no arguing with that. Everyone who knew Cadwaladr knew it for truth. If the
Danes had been slow to realise it, they knew it now. And Leif could be the
messenger as well as any other. At fourteen a Welsh boy becomes a man, and is
acknowledged as a man.

The
ship drew in cautiously closer to shore. Outlines of dune and shingle and
scattered bushes showed as denser or paler bulks in the dark, slipping by on
their right hand. And presently the outer fringe of the Welsh camp became
perceptible rather by the lingering intimations of humanity, the smoke of
fires, the resinous odours of newly split wood in the lengths of stockade, even
the mingled, murmurous sounds of such activity as persisted into the night,
than by anything seen or clearly heard. The steersman brought his barque still
closer, wary of the undulations of marsh grass beneath the placid surface of
the shallows, until they should have passed the main body of the camp, and
drawn alongside that southern corner where Cadwaladr was reputed to have set up
his camp within the camp, drawing about him men of his old following, whose
adherence to his brother remained less reliable than to their former prince.
More than one fashion of messenger could make contact with him there, and other
tidings reach him besides the gratifying news that his lavish generosity was
still remembered by some, and himself still held in respect as lord and prince,
to whom old fealty was due. He could still be reminded, not only of privileges,
but of responsibilities owing, and debts unpaid.

The
line of the shore receded from them, dipping westward, and closed with them
again gradually as they slid past. The faint warmth and stir that was not quite
sound, but only some primitive sensitivity to the presence of other human
creatures, unseen, unheard, watchful and potentially hostile, fell behind then
into the empty silence of the night.

“We
are past,” said Turcaill softly into the steersman’s ear. “Lay us inshore.” The
oars dipped softly. The lithe little ship slid smoothly in among the tufted
grasses, and touched bottom as gently as a feather lighting. Leif swung his
legs over the side, and dropped into the shallows. There was firm sand under
his bare feet, and the water reached barely halfway to his knee. He looked back
along the line of the shore where they had passed, and even over the darkened
camp there still hung a faint glow left over from the day.

“We’re
close. Wait till I bring word.”

He
was gone, winding his way in through the salt grasses and the straggle of scrub
to the lift of the dunes beyond, narrow here, and soon rising into rough
pasture, and then into good fields. His slight shape melted into the soft,
dense darkness.

He
was back within a quarter of an hour, sliding out of the night as silently as a
wisp of mist before they were prepared for his return, though they had waited
without impatience, with ears pricked for any alien sound. Leif waded through
the salt bush and the shallow water cold round his legs, and reached to hold by
the ship’s side and whisper in an excited hiss: “I have found him! And close!
He has a man of his own on the guard-post. Nothing simpler than to come to him
in secret from this side. Here they expect no attack by land, he can go and
come as he pleases, and so can some who would liefer do his bidding than
Owain’s.”

“You
have not been within?” demanded Turcaill. “Past the guard?”

“No
need! Someone else found the way there not a moment ahead of me, coming from
the south. I was in the bushes, close enough to hear him challenged. He had but
to open his mouth, whoever he is, and he was welcome within. And I saw where he
was led. He’s fast within Cadwaladr’s tent with him now, and even the guard
sent back to his watch. There’s none inside there now but Cadwaladr and his
visitor, and only one guard between us and the pair of them.”

“Are
you sure Cadwaladr is there?” demanded Torsten, low-voiced. “You cannot have
seen him.”

“I
heard his voice. I waited on the man from the time we left Dublin,” said the
boy firmly. “Do you think I do not know the sound of him by now?”

“And
you heard what was said? This other—did he name him?”

“No
name! ‘You!’ he said, loud and clear, but no name. But he was surprised and
glad, more than glad of him. You may take the pair of them, once the guard is
silenced, and let the man himself tell you his name.”

“We
came for one,” said Turcaill, “and with one we’ll go back. And no killing!
Owain is out of this quarrel, but he’ll be in fast enough if we do murder on
one of his men.”

“But
won’t stir for his brother?” marvelled Leif, half under his breath. “What
should he fear for his brother? Not a scratch upon Cadwaladr, bear in mind! If
he pays his proper ransom he gets his leave to go, as whole as when he hired
us. Owain knows it better than any. No need to have it said. Over with you,
then, and we’ll be out with the tide.”

Their
plans had been made beforehand; and if they had taken no count of this
unexpected traveller from the south, they could very simply be adapted to
accommodate him. Two men alone together in a tent conveniently close to the rim
of the camp offered an easy target, once the guard was put out of action. Cadwaladr’s
own man, in his confidence and in whatever schemes he had in mind, must take
his chance of rough handling, but need come to no permanent harm. “I will take
care of the guard,” said Torsten, first to slip over the side to where Leif
waited. Five more of Turcaill’s oarsmen followed their leader into the salt
marsh and across the sandy beach. The night received them silently and
indifferently, and Leif went before, retracing his own path from cover to
sparse cover towards the perimeter of the camp. In the shelter of a straggling
cluster of low trees he halted, peering ahead between the branches. The line of
the defences was perceptible ahead merely as a more solid and rigid darkness
where every other shadow was sinuous and elusive. But Cadwaladr’s liegeman
could be seen against the gap which was the gate he guarded, as he paced back
and forth across it, head and shoulders clear against the sky. A big man, and
armed, but casual in his movements, expecting no alarm. Torsten watched the
leisurely patrol for some minutes, marked its extent, and slipped sidelong
among the trees to be behind its furthest eastward point, where bushes
approached to within a few yards of the stockade, and a man could draw close
without being heard or seen.

The
guard was whistling softly to himself as he turned in the soft sand, and
Torsten’s sinewy left arm took him hard around body and arms, and the right
clamped a palm hard over his mouth and cut off the whistle abruptly. He groped
frantically upward to try and grip the arm that was gagging him, but could not
reach high enough, and his struggles to kick viciously backward cost him his
balance and did no harm to Torsten, who swung him off his feet and dropped
bodily over him into the sand, holding him face-down. By that time Turcaill was
beside them, ready to thrust a fold of woollen cloth into the man’s mouth as
soon as he was allowed to raise himself, and empty it splutteringly of sand and
grass. They wound him head and shoulders in his own cloak, and bound him fast
hand and foot. There they bestowed him safely enough, if none too comfortably,
among the bushes, and turned their attention to the rim of the camp. There had
been no outcry, and there was no stirring within the fences. Somewhere about
the prince’s tents there would be men wakeful and alert, but here at the
remotest corner, deliberately chosen by Cadwaladr for his own purposes, there
was no one at hand to turn back retribution from him.