Chapter Fourteen.
SEE TO HIM!” said Owain, looking down impassively at the fallen man. Gwion’s hands stirred and groped feebly in the polished pebbles, faintly conscious of touch and texture. “He is not dead, have him away and tend him. I want no deaths, more than are already past saving.”
They made haste to do his bidding. Three of the front rank, and Cuhelyn the first of them, ran to turn Gwion gently on his back, to free his mouth and nostrils from the churned-up sand. They made a litter from lances and shields, and muffled him in cloaks to carry him aside. And Brother Cadfael turned from the shore unnoticed, and followed the litter into the shelter of the dunes. What he had on him by way of linen or salves was little enough, but better than nothing until they could get their wounded man to a bed and less rough and ready care.
Owain looked down at the pool of blackening blood in the shingle at his feet, and up into Otir’s intent face.
“He is Cadwaladr’s man, sworn and loyal. Nevertheless, he did wrong. If he has cost you men, you have paid him.” There were two of those who had followed Gwion lying in the edge of the tide, lightly rocked by the advancing waves.
A third had got to his knees, and those beside him helped him to his feet. He trailed blood from a gashed shoulder and arm, but he was in no danger of death. Nor did Otir trouble to add to the toll the three he had already put on board ship, to sail home for burial. Why waste breath in complaint to this prince who acknowledged and deserved no blame for an act of folly?
“I hold you to terms,” he said, “such as we understood between us. No more, and no less. This is none of your doing, nor any choice of mine. They chose it, and what came of it has been between them and me.”
“So be it!” said Owain. “And now, put up your weapons and load your cattle, and go, more freely than you came, for you came without my knowledge or leave. And to your face I tell you that if ever you touch here on my land again uninvited I will sweep you back into the sea. As for this time, take your fee and go in peace.”
“Then here I deliver your brother Cadwaladr,” said Otir as coldly. “Into his own hands, not yours, for that was not in any bargain between you and me. He may go where he will, or stay, and make his own terms with you, my lord.” He turned about, to those of his men who still held Cadwaladi sick with gall between them. He had been made nothing, a useless stock, in a matter conducted all between other men, though he was at the heart and core of the whole conflict. He had been silent while other men disposed of his person, his means and his honour, and that with manifest distaste. He had no word to say now, but bit back the bitterness and anger that rose in his throat and seared his tongue, as his captors loosed him and stood well aside, opening the way clear for him to depart. Stiffly he walked forward on to the shore, towards where his brother waited.
“Load your ships!” said Owain. “You have this one day to leave my land.”
And he wheeled his horse and turned his back, pacing at a deliberate walk back towards his own camp. The ranks of his men closed in orderly march and followed him, and the bruised and draggled survivors of Gwion’s unblessed army took up their dead and straggled after, leaving the trampled and bloodied beach clear of all but the drovers and their cattle, and Cadwaladr alone, aloof from all men, stalking in a black, forbidding cloud of disgust and humiliation after his brother.
In the nest of thick grass where they had laid him, Gwion opened his eyes, and said in a fine thread of a voice, but quite clearly: “There is something I must tell Owain Gwynedd. I must go to him.”
Cadfael was on his knees beside him, staunching with what linen he had to hand, padded beneath thick folds of brychans, the blood that flowed irresistibly from a great wound in the young man’s side, under the heart. Cuhelyn, kneeling with Gwion’s head in his lap, had wiped away the foam of blood from the open mouth and the sweat from the forehead already chill and livid with the unhurried approach of death. He looked up at Cadfael, and said almost silently: “We must carry him back to the camp. He is in earnest. He must go.”
“He is going nowhere in this world,” said Cadfael as quietly. “If we lift him, he will die between our hands.”
Something resembling the palest and briefest of smiles, yet unquestionably a smile, touched Gwion’s parted lips. He said, in the muted tones they had used over him: “Then Owain must come to me. He has more time to spare than I have. He will come. It is a thing he will wish to know, and no one else can tell him.”
Cuhelyn drew back the tangle of black hair that lay damp on Gwion’s brow, for fear it should discomfort him now, when all comfort was being rapt away all too quickly. His hand was steady and gentle. There was no hostility left. There was room for none. And in their opposed fashion they had been friends. The likeness was still there, each of them peered into a mirror, a darkening mirror and a marred image.
“I’ll ride after him. Be patient. He will come.”
“Ride fast!” said Gwion, and shut his mouth upon the distortion of the smile.
On his feet already, and with a hand stretched to his horse’s bridle, Cuhelyn hesitated. “Not Cadwaladr? Should he come?”
“No,” said Gwion, and turned his face away in a sharp convulsion of pain. Otir’s last defensive parry, never meant to kill, had struck out just as Owain thundered his displeasure and split the ranks apart, and Gwion had dropped his levelled sword and his guard, and opened his flank to the steel. No help for it now, it was done and could not be undone.
Cuhelyn was gone, in faithful haste, sending the sand spraying from his horse’s hooves until he reached the upland meadow grass and left the dunes behind. There was no one more likely to make passionate haste to do Gwion’s errand than Cuhelyn, who for a brief time had lost the ability to see in his opposite his own face. That also was past.
Gwion lay with closed eyes, containing whatever pain he felt. Cadfael did not think it was great, he had already almost slipped out of its reach. Together they waited. Gwion lay very still, for stillness seemed to slow the bleeding and conserve the life in him, and life he needed for a while yet. Cadfael had water beside him in Cuhelyn’s helmet, and bathed away the beads of sweat that gathered on his patient’s forehead and lip, cold as dew.
From the shore there was no more clamour, only the brisk exchanges of voices, and the stir of men moving about their business unhindered now and intent, and the lowing and occasional bellowing of cattle as they were urged through the shallows and up the ramps into the ships. A rough, uncomfortable voyage for them in the deep wells amidships, but a few hours and they would be on green turf again, good grazing and sweet water.
“Will he come?” wondered Gwion, suddenly anxious.
“He will come.”
