Ellis Peters - The Summer of The Danes

“And you, being a good Welshwoman,” said Turcaill, wryly smiling, “fear for your Gwynedd, and all those men of Owain’s host camped there barely a mile from us.”

“I have a bridegroom among them,” she reminded him smartly, and set her teeth with a snap.

“So you have. I will not forget your bridegroom,” Turcaill promised, grinning. “At every step I take, I will think on your Ieuan ab Ifor, and draw in my hand from any stroke that may bring him into peril of battle. There’s no other consideration could so surely curb any rashness of mine as the need to see you married to a good, solid uchelwr from Anglesey. Will that content you?”

She had turned to look at him intently, her great eyes purple-black and unwaveringly earnest. “So you are indeed bound on some mad foray for Otir! You have as good as said so.” And as he did not make any protest or attempt to deny it further: “Make good what you have promised me, then. Take good care! Come back without hurt to any. I would not have even you come to harm.” And meeting the somewhat too bright intelligence of the blue eyes, she added with a toss of her head, but with a little too much haste for the disdainful dignity at which she aimed: “Let alone my own countrymen.”

“And foremost of all your countrymen, Ieuan ab Ifor,” Turcaill agreed with a solemn face: but she had already turned her back on him and set off with erected head and vehement stride towards the sheltered hollow where her own small tent was placed.

Cadfael arose from his chosen nest in the lee of the squat salt bushes wakeful and restless for no good reason, left Mark already sleeping, and dropped his cloak beside his friend, for the night was warm. It was at Mark’s insistence that they lay always within call of Heledd’s tent, though not so close as to offend her independent spirit. Cadfael had small doubt by this time of her safety within the Danish enclave. Otir had given his orders, and no man of his following was likely to take them lightly, even if their minds had not been firmly fixed upon more profitable plunder than one Welsh girl, however tempting. Adventurers, Cadfael had noted throughout his own early life of adventure, were eminently practical people, and knew the value of gold and possessions. Women came much lower down in the scale of desirable loot.

He looked towards where her low windbreak lay, and all was dark and silent there. She must be asleep. For no comprehensible reason, sleep eluded him. The sky bore a light covering of cloud, through which only a star here and there showed faintly. There was no wind, and tonight there would be no moon. The cloud might well thicken by morning, even bring rain. At this midnight hour the stillness was profound, even oppressive, the darkness over the dunes shading away both east and west into a very faint impression of lambent light from the sea, now almost at its fullest tide. Cadfael turned eastward, where the line of guards was more lightly manned, and he was less likely to excite any challenge by being up and about in the dead of night. There were no fires, except those turfed down in the heart of the camp to burn slowly till morning, and no torches to prick through the darkness. Otir’s watchmen relied on their night eyes. So did Brother Cadfael. Shapes grew out of shapelessness gradually, even the curves and slopes of the dunes were dimly perceptible. It was strange how a man could be so solitary in the midst of thousands, as if solitude could be achieved at will, and how one to all intents and purposes a prisoner could feel himself freer than his captors, who went hampered by their numbers and chained by their discipline.

He had reached the crest of the ridge above the anchorage, where the lighter and faster Danish ships lay snugly between the open sea and the strait. A wavering line of elusive light, appearing and vanishing as he watched, lipped the shore, and there within its curve they lay, so many lean, long fishes just perceptible as darker flecks briefly outlined by the stroking of the tide. They quivered, but did not stir from their places. Except for one, the leanest and smallest. He saw it creep out from its anchorage so softly that for a moment he thought he was imagining the forward surge. Then he caught the dip of the oars, pinpricks of fire, gone almost before he could realise what they were. No sound came up to him from the distance, even in this nocturnal stillness and silence. The least and probably fastest of the dragon-ships was snaking out into the mouth of the Menai, heading eastward into the channel.

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.”