Ellis Peters - The Summer of The Danes

He was still feverishly recording and discarding possibilities when he entered the low-beamed hall of the farm, and made his stiff and wary reverence to the prince across the rough trestle table.

Hywel was there, close at his father’s shoulder, and two more of the prince’s trusted captains stood a little apart, witnesses in some business which remained inexplicable to Gwion. For the only other person in the room was the meagre little deacon from Lichfield, in his rusty black habit, his spiky ring of straw-coloured hair growing stubbornly every way, his grey eyes as always wide, direct and tranquil. They looked at Gwion, and Gwion turned his head away, as though he feared they might see too deeply into his mind if he met them fully. He found even the benevolent regard of such eyes unnerving. But what could this little cleric have to do with any matter between Owain and Cadwaladr and the Danish interlopers? Yet if the business in hand here was something entirely different, what could it have to do with him, and what need to recall him?

“It’s well that you have not left us, Gwion,” said Owain, “for after all there is a thing you can do for me, and therewith also for your lord.”

“That I would certainly do, and gladly,” said Gwion, but as yet withholding belief.

“Deacon Mark here is newly come from Otir the Dane,” said the prince, “who holds my brother and your lord prisoner. He has brought word from Cadwaladr that he has agreed to pay the sum he promised, and buy himself out of debt and out of bondage.”

“I cannot believe it!” said Gwion, blanched to the lips with shock. “I will not believe it, unless I hear him say so, freely and openly.”

“Then you and I are of one mind,” said Owain drily, “for I also had hardly expected him to see sense so soon. You have good cause to know my mind in this matter. I would rather my brother should be a man of his word, and pay what he promises. But neither would I accept from another mouth the instruction that will beggar him. Otir deals fairly. From my brother’s mouth you cannot hear his will made plain, he will not be free until his debt is paid. But you may hear it from Brother Mark, who received it in trust from him, and will testify that he spoke it firmly and with intent, being whole of his body and in his right mind.”

“I do so testify,” said Mark. “He has been prisoner only this one day. He is fettered, but further than that no hand has been laid on him, and no threat made against his body or his life. He says so, and I believe it, as no violence has ever been offered to me or to those others hostage with the Danes. He told me what was to be done. And he delivered to me with his own hand his seal, as authority for the deed, and I have delivered it to the prince, according to Cadwaladr’s orders.”

“And the purport of his message? Be kind enough to repeat it,” the prince requested courteously. “I would not have Gwion fear that I have in any degree prompted you, or put twisted words into your mouth.”

“Cadwaladr entreats the lord Owain, his brother,” said Mark, fixing his dauntingly clear eyes upon Gwion’s face, “to send with all haste into Llanbadarn, to Rhodri Fychan, who was his steward, and who knows where his remaining treasury is bestowed, and to tell him that his lord requires the despatch to Abermenai of money and stock to the value of two thousand marks, to be delivered to the Danish force under Otir, as promised to them at the agreement in Dublin. And to that end he has sent his seal for guarantee.”

There was a long silence after the clear, mild voice ended this recital, while Gwion stood motionless and mute, struggling with the fury of denial and despair and anger within him. It was not possible that so proud and intolerant a soul as Cadwaladr should have submitted, and so quickly. And yet men, even the most arrogant and hot-headed of men, do value their lives and liberty high, and will buy them back even with humiliation and shame when the threat comes close, and congeals from imagination into reality. But first to dare defy and discard his Danes, and then to grovel to them and scrape together their price in undignified haste, that was unworthy. Had he but waited a few days, there should have been another ending. His own men were so near, and would not have let him lie in chains for long, even if brother and all had deserted him. God, let me have two days yet, prayed Gwion behind his dark, closed face, and I will fetch him off by force, and he shall call off his bailiffs and take back his property, and be Cadwaladr again, erect as he always was.

“This charge,” Owain was saying, somewhere at the extreme edge of Gwion’s consciousness, a voice from the distance, or from deep within, “I intend to fulfil with all haste, as he asks, the quicker to redeem his person together with his good name. My son Hywel rides south at once. But since you are here, Gwion, and all your heart’s concern is his service, you shall ride with Hywel’s escort, and your presence will be a further guarantee to Rhodri Fychan that this is indeed Cadwaladr’s voice speaking, and those who serve him are bound to obey. Will you go?”

“I will go.”

What else could he say? It was already decreed. It was another way of discarding him, but with a sop to his implacable loyalty. In the name of that loyalty he must now assist in stripping his lord of a great part of what possessions remained to him, when only a short while ago he had been in high heart, setting out to bring an army to Cadwaladr’s rescue, without this ignominy and loss. But: “I will go,” said Gwion, swallowing necessity whole. There might still be an opportunity to make contact with his waiting muster, before ever the Danish ships loaded and raised anchor with their booty, and sailed in triumph for Dublin.

They set out within the hour, Hywel ab Owain, Gwion, and an escort of ten men-at-arms, well-mounted, and with authority to commandeer fresh remounts along the way. Whatever Owain’s feelings now towards his brother, he did not intend him to remain long a prisoner, or, perhaps a defaulting debtor. There was no knowing which of the two mattered more.

The three days predicted by Cadfael passed in brisk activity elsewhere, but in the two opposed camps they dragged and were drawn out long, like a held breath. Even the watch kept upon the stockades grew a shade lax, expecting no attack now that the issue was near its resolution without the need of fighting. Only Ieuan ab Ifor still fretted at the waiting, and bore in mind always that such negotiations might collapse in failure, prisoners remain prisoners, debts unpaid, marriages delayed beyond bearing. And as the hours passed he spoke privately to this one and that one among his younger and more headstrong friends, rehearsed for them the safe passage he had made twice by night at low tide along the shingle and sand to spy out the Danish defences, and how there was a place where approach from the sea was possible in reasonable cover of scrub and trees. Cadwaladr might have submitted, but these young hot-heads of Wales had not. Bitterly they resented it that invaders from Ireland should not only sail home without losses, but even with a very substantial profit to show for their incursion. But was it not already too late, now that it was known Hywel had gone south with orders to bring back and pay over the sum Otir demanded and Cadwaladr had conceded?

By no means, said Ieuan. For Gwion was gone with them, and somewhere between here and Ceredigion Gwion had brought up a hundred men who would fight for Cadwaladr. None of these had consented to let his lord be plundered of two thousand marks, or be made to grovel before the Dane. They would not stomach it, even if Cadwaladr had been brought so low as to submit to it. Ieuan had spoken with Gwion before he left in Hywel’s party. On the way south, if chance offered, he would break away from his companions and go to join his waiting warriors. On the way north again, if he was watched too suspiciously on the way south, even Hywel would be content with him for his part in dealing with Rhodri Fychan at Llanbadarn, and no one would be paying too much heed to what he did. Somewhere along the drove roads he could break away and ride ahead. One dark night was all they would need, with the tide out and their numbers thus reinforced, and Heledd and Cadwaladr would be snatched out of bondage, and Otir could take to the seas for his life, and go back empty-handed to Dublin.