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 guardposts. 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 comparative 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.
“Why?” said Turcaill. “What was there to gain? It was as good as finished. Now they have their dead or wounded, too, I saw men being carried or dragged when they broke and ran. What was it made it worth their while to break in here?”
“I think,” said Cadfael, rubbing a hand resignedly over his tired eyes, “they came for Cadwaladr. He still has a following, as rash as the man himself. They may well have thought to pluck him out of your keeping even in Owain’s despite. What else do you hold of such value to them that they should risk their lives for it?”
“Why, the silver he’s already paid,” said Turcaill practically. “Would they not have made for that?”
“So they well may,” Cadfael admitted. “If they have made a bid for the one, they may do as much for the other.”
“When we lay the ships inshore again tomorrow,” Turcaill’s brilliant eyes opened wide in thought. “I will say so to Otir: the man they can have, and good riddance, but the ransom is fairly ours, and we’ll keep it.”
“If they are in good earnest,” said Cadfael, “they have still to do battle for both. For I take it Cadwaladr is still safely in Torsten’s keeping?”
“And in chains again. And sat out this foray with a knife at his throat. Oh, they went away empty-handed,” said Turcaill with dour satisfaction. And he rose, and went to join his leader, in conference over his three dead. And Cadfael went to look for Heledd, but did not find her.
“These we take back with us for funeral,” said Otir, brooding darkly over the bodies of his men. “You say that these who came by night were not sent by Owain. It is possible, but how can we tell? Certainly I had believed him a man of his word. But what is rightfully ours we will make shift to keep, against Owain or any other. If you are right, and they came for Cadwaladr, then they have but one chance left to win away both the man and his price. And we will be before them, with the ships and the sea at our backs, with masts stepped and ready for sail. The sea is no friend to them as it is to us. We’ll stand armed between them and the shore, and we shall see if they will dare in daylight what they attempted in the night.”
He gave his orders clearly and briefly. By morning the encampment would be evacuated, the Danish ranks drawn up in battle array on the beach, the ships manoeuvred close to take the cattle aboard. If they came, said Otir, then Owain was in good faith, and the raiders were not acting on his orders. If they did not come, then all compacts were broken, and he and his force would put to sea and raid ashore at some unguarded coast to take for themselves the balance of the debt, and somewhat over for three lives lost.
“They will come,” said Turcaill. “By its folly alone, this was not Owain’s work. And he delivered you the silver by his own son’s hand. And so he will the cattle. And what of the monk and the girl? There was a fair price offered for them, but that deal you never accepted. Brother Cadfael has earned his freedom tonight, and it’s late now to haggle over his worth.”
“We will leave supplies for him and for the girl, they may stay safe here until we are gone. Owain may have them back as whole as when they came.”
“I will tell them so,” said Turcaill, and smiled.
Brother Cadfael was making his way towards them through the disrupted camp at that moment, between the lines soon to be abandoned. He came without haste, since there was nothing to be done about the news he carried, it was a thing accomplished. He looked from the three bodies laid decently straight beneath their shrouding cloaks to Otir’s dour face, and thence full at Turcaill.
