He was coming already, in a moment more they heard the soft thudding of hooves, and in from the shore came Owain Gwynedd, with Cuhelyn at his back. They dismounted in silence, and Owain came to look down at the young, spoiled body, not too closely yet, for fear even dulling ears should be sharp enough to overhear what was not meant to be overheard.
“Can he live?”
Cadfael shook his head and made no other reply.
Owain dropped into the sand and leaned close. “Gwion… I am here. Spare to make many words, there is no need.”
Gwion’s black eyes, a little dazzled by the mounting sun, opened wide and knew him. Cadfael moistened the lips that opened wryly, and laboured to articulate. “Yes, there is need. I have a thing I must say.”
“For peace between us two,” said Owain, “I say again, there is no need of words. But if you must, I am listening.”
“Bledri ap Rhys…’ began Gwion, and paused to draw breath. “You require to know who killed him. Do not hold it against any other. I killed him.”
He waited, with resigned patience, for disbelief rather than outcry, but neither came. Only a considering and accepting silence that seemed to last a long while, and then Owain’s voice, level and composed as ever, saying: “Why? He was of your own allegiance, my brother’s man.”
“So he had been,” said Gwion, and was shaken by a laugh that contorted his mouth and sent a thin trickle of blood running down his jaw. Cadfael leaned and wiped it away. “I was glad when he came to Aber. I knew what my lord was about. I longed to join him, and I could and would have told him all I knew of your forces and movements. It was fair. I had told you I was wholly and for ever your brother’s man, you knew my mind. But I could not go, I had given my word not to leave.”
“And had kept your word,” said Owain. “So far!”
“But Bledri had given no such word. He could go, as I could not. So I told him all that I had learned in Aber, what strength you could raise, how soon you could be in Carnarvon, everything my lord Cadwaladr had to know for his defence. And I took a horse from the stables before dark, while the gates were open, and tethered it among the trees for him. And like a fool I never doubted but Bledri would be true to his salt. And he listened to all, and never said word, letting me believe he was of my mind!”
“How did you hope to get him out of the llys, once the gates were closed?” asked Owain, as mildly as if he questioned of some ordinary daily duty.
“There are ways… I was in Aber a long time. Not everyone is always careful with keys. But in the waiting time he was noting all things within your court, and he could count as well as I, and weigh chances as sharply, while he so carried himself as to put all suspicion of his intent out of mind. What I thought was his intent!” Gwion said bitterly. His voice failed him for a moment, but he gathered his strength and resumed doggedly: “When I went to tell him it was time to go, and see him safely away, he was naked in his bed. Without shame he told me he was going nowhere, he was no such fool, having seen for himself your power and your numbers. He would lie safe in Aber and watch which way the wind blew, and if it blew for Owain Gwynedd, then he was Owain’s man. I called to mind his fealty, and he laughed at me. And I struck him down,” said Gwion through bared teeth. “And then, since he would not, I knew if I was to keep faith with Cadwaladr I must break faith with you, and go in Bledri’s place. And since he had so turned his coat, I knew that I must kill him, for to make his way with you he would certainly betray me. And before he had his wits again I stabbed him to the heart.”
Some quivering tension in his body relaxed, and he drew and breathed out a great sigh. He had done already almost all that truth required of him. The rest was very little burden.
“I went to find the horse, and the horse was gone. And then the messenger came, and there was no more I could do. Everything was in vain. I had done murder for nothing! What it was entrusted to me to do for Bledri ap Rhys, whom I killed, that I did, for penance. And what came of it you know already. But it is just!” he said, rather to himself than to any other, but they heard it: “He died unshriven, and so must I.”
“That need not be,” said Owain with detached compassion.
“Bear with this world a little while longer, and my priest will be here, for I sent word for him to come.”
“He will come late,” said Gwion, and closed his eyes.
Nevertheless, he was still living when Owain’s chaplain came in obedient haste to take a dying man’s last confession and guide his failing tongue through his last act of contrition. Cadfael, in attendance to the end, doubted if the penitent heard the words of the absolution, for after it was spoken there was no response, no quiver of the drained face or the arched lids that veiled the black, intense eyes. Gwion had said his last word to the world, and of what might come to pass in the world he was entering he had no great fear. He had lived long enough to rest assured of the absolution he most needed, Owain’s forbearance and forgiveness, never formally spoken, but freely given.
“Tomorrow,” said Brother Mark, “we must be on our way home. We have outstayed our time.”
They were standing together at the edge of the fields outside Owain’s camp, looking out over the open sea. Here the dunes were only a narrow fringe of gold above the descent to the shore, and in subdued afternoon sunlight the sea stretched in cloudy blues, deepening far out into a clear green, and the long, drowned peninsula of shoals shone pale through the water. In the deep channels between, the Danish cargo ships were gradually dwindling into toy boats, dark upon the brightness, bearing out on a steady breeze under sail, for their own Dublin shore. And beyond, the lighter longships, smaller still, drove eagerly for home.
The peril was past, Gwynedd delivered, debts paid, brothers brought together again, if not yet reconciled. The affair might have turned out hugely bloodier and more destructive. Nevertheless, men had died.
Tomorrow, too, the camp at their backs would be dismantled of its improvised defences, the husbandman would come back to his farmhouse, bringing his beasts with him, and return imperturbably to the care of his land and his stock, as his forebears had done time after time, giving ground pliably for a while to marauding enemies they knew they could out-wait, outrun and outlast. The Welsh, who left their expendable homesteads for the hills at the approach of an enemy, left them only to return and rebuild.
The prince would take his muster back to Carnarvon, and thence dismiss those whose lands lay here in Arfon and Anglesey, before going on to Aber. Rumour said he would suffer Cadwaladr to return with him, and those who knew them best added that Cadwaladr would soon be restored to possession of some part, at least, of his lands. For in spite of all, Owain loved his younger brother, and could not shut him out of his grace much longer.
