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 afterdeck 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 Owain’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 guardpost, 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
