Summer of the Danes bc-18 Page 18

  “Cadwaladr has kept touch always with those who hold by him,” Leif had reported cheerfully, “and there are some among his brother’s muster now would go with him if he attempted some act of his own. And I hear them say he has sent word south from Owain’s camp to his men in Ceredigion. What word nobody knows, whether to come and join him in arms, or whether to be ready to put together money and cattle if he is forced to pay what he promised us. But if a messenger comes asking for him he’ll think it no harm, rather to his gain.”

  And there was more to be told, the fruit of much attentive listening. “Owain will not have him close to him. He keeps a few of his own about him now, and has made his base at the southern edge of the camp, in the corner nearest the bay. There if news comes for him from his old lands, he can let the messenger in and Owain need not know. For he’ll play one hand against the other however his vantage lies,” said Leif knowingly.

  There was no arguing with that. Everyone who knew Cadwaladr knew it for truth. If the Danes had been slow to realise it, they knew it now. And Leif could be the messenger as well as any other. At fourteen a Welsh boy becomes a man, and is acknowledged as a man.

  The ship drew in cautiously closer to shore. Outlines of dune and shingle and scattered bushes showed as denser or paler bulks in the dark, slipping by on their right hand. And presently the outer fringe of the Welsh camp became perceptible rather by the lingering intimations of humanity, the smoke of fires, the resinous odours of newly split wood in the lengths of stockade, even the mingled, murmurous sounds of such activity as persisted into the night, than by anything seen or clearly heard. The steersman brought his barque still closer, wary of the undulations of marsh grass beneath the placid surface of the shallows, until they should have passed the main body of the camp, and drawn alongside that southern corner where Cadwaladr was reputed to have set up his camp within the camp, drawing about him men of his old following, whose adherence to his brother remained less reliable than to their former prince. More than one fashion of messenger could make contact with him there, and other tidings reach him besides the gratifying news that his lavish generosity was still remembered by some, and himself still held in respect as lord and prince, to whom old fealty was due. He could still be reminded, not only of privileges, but of responsibilities owing, and debts unpaid.

  The line of the shore receded from them, dipping westward, and closed with them again gradually as they slid past. The faint warmth and stir that was not quite sound, but only some primitive sensitivity to the presence of other human creatures, unseen, unheard, watchful and potentially hostile, fell behind then into the empty silence of the night.

  “We are past,” said Turcaill softly into the steersman’s ear. “Lay us inshore.”

  The oars dipped softly. The lithe little ship slid smoothly in among the tufted grasses, and touched bottom as gently as a feather lighting. Leif swung his legs over the side, and dropped into the shallows. There was firm sand under his bare feet, and the water reached barely halfway to his knee. He looked back along the line of the shore where they had passed, and even over the darkened camp there still hung a faint glow left over from the day.

  “We’re close. Wait till I bring word.”

  He was gone, winding his way in through the salt grasses and the straggle of scrub to the lift of the dunes beyond, narrow here, and soon rising into rough pasture, and then into good fields. His slight shape melted into the soft, dense darkness.

  He was back within a quarter of an hour, sliding out of the night as silently as a wisp of mist before they were prepared for his return, though they had waited without impatience, with ears pricked for any alien sound. Leif waded through the salt bush and the shallow water cold round his legs, and reached to hold by the ship’s side and whisper in an excited hiss: “I have found him! And close! He has a man of his own on the guardpost. Nothing simpler than to come to him in secret from this side. Here they expect no attack by land, he can go and come as he pleases, and so can some who would liefer do his bidding than Owain’s.”

  “You have not been within?” demanded Turcaill. “Past the guard?”

  “No need! Someone else found the way there not a moment ahead of me, coming from the south. I was in the bushes, close enough to hear him challenged. He had but to open his mouth, whoever he is, and he was welcome within. And I saw where he was led. He’s fast within Cadwaladr’s tent with him now, and even the guard sent back to his watch. There’s none inside there now but Cadwaladr and his visitor, and only one guard between us and the pair of them.”

  “Are you sure Cadwaladr is there?” demanded Torsten, low-voiced. “You cannot have seen him.”

  “I heard his voice. I waited on the man from the time we left Dublin,” said the boy firmly. “Do you think I do not know the sound of him by now?”

  “And you heard what was said? This other, did he name him?”

  “No name! ‘You!’ he said, loud and clear, but no name. But he was surprised and glad, more than glad of him. You may take the pair of them, once the guard is silenced, and let the man himself tell you his name.”

  “We came for one,” said Turcaill, “and with one we’ll go back. And no killing! Owain is out of this quarrel, but he’ll be in fast enough if we do murder on one of his men.”

  “But won’t stir for his brother?” marvelled Leif, half under his breath.

  “What should he fear for his brother? Not a scratch upon Cadwaladr, bear in mind! If he pays his proper ransom he gets his leave to go, as whole as when he hired us. Owain knows it better than any. No need to have it said. Over with you, then, and we’ll be out with the tide.”

  Their plans had been made beforehand; and if they had taken no count of this unexpected traveller from the south, they could very simply be adapted to accommodate him. Two men alone together in a tent conveniently close to the rim of the camp offered an easy target, once the guard was put out of action. Cadwaladr’s own man, in his confidence and in whatever schemes he had in mind, must take his chance of rough handling, but need come to no permanent harm.

  “I will take care of the guard,” said Torsten, first to slip over the side to where Leif waited. Five more of Turcaill’s oarsmen followed their leader into the salt marsh and across the sandy beach. The night received them silently and indifferently, and Leif went before, retracing his own path from cover to sparse cover towards the perimeter of the camp. In the shelter of a straggling cluster of low trees he halted, peering ahead between the branches. The line of the defences was perceptible ahead merely as a more solid and rigid darkness where every other shadow was sinuous and elusive. But Cadwaladr’s liegeman could be seen against the gap which was the gate he guarded, as he paced back and forth across it, head and shoulders clear against the sky. A big man, and armed, but casual in his movements, expecting no alarm. Torsten watched the leisurely patrol for some minutes, marked its extent, and slipped sidelong among the trees to be behind its furthest eastward point, where bushes approached to within a few yards of the stockade, and a man could draw close without being heard or seen.

  The guard was whistling softly to himself as he turned in the soft sand, and Torsten’s sinewy left arm took him hard around body and arms, and the right clamped a palm hard over his mouth and cut off the whistle abruptly. He groped frantically upward to try and grip the arm that was gagging him, but could not reach high enough, and his struggles to kick viciously backward cost him his balance and did no harm to Torsten, who swung him off his feet and dropped bodily over him into the sand, holding him face-down. By that time Turcaill was beside them, ready to thrust a fold of woollen cloth into the man’s mouth as soon as he was allowed to raise himself, and empty it splutteringly of sand and grass. They wound him head and shoulders in his own cloak, and bound him fast hand and foot. There they bestowed him safely enough, if none too comfortably, among the bushes, and turned their attention to the rim of the camp. There had been no outcry, and there was no stirring within the fences. Somewhere about the prince
’s tents there would be men wakeful and alert, but here at the remotest corner, deliberately chosen by Cadwaladr for his own purposes, there was no one at hand to turn back retribution from him.

  Only Turcaill and Torsten and two others followed Leif as he padded softly in through the unguarded gate, and along the stockade towards the remembered spot where he had caught the unmistakable, authoritative tones of Cadwaladr’s voice, raised in astonished pleasure as he recognised his midnight visitor. The lines of the camp ended here, in stillness and silence, the invaders moved as shadows among shadows. Leif pointed, and said no word. There was no need. Even in a military camp Cadwaladr would have his rank heeded and his comforts attended to. The tent was ample, proof against wind and weather, and no doubt as well supplied within. At the edges of the flap that shielded its entrance fine lines of light showed, and on the still air of the night lowered voices made a level, confidential murmur, too soft for words. The messenger from the south was still there with his prince, their heads together over tidings brought and plans to be hatched.

  Turcaill set his hand to the tent-flap, and waited until Torsten, with his drawn dagger in his hand, had circled the tent to find a rear seam where the skins were sewn together. Thin leather thongs or greased cord, either could be cut with a sharp enough blade. The light within, by the steady way it burned and its low source, must be a simple wick in a small dish of oil, set perhaps on a stool or a trestle. Bodies moving outside would show no outline, while Torsten as he selected his place, could sense rather than see the vague bulks of the two within. Close indeed, attentive, absorbed, expecting no interruption.

  Turcaill whipped aside the tent-flap and plunged within so fast, and with two others so hard on his heels, that Cadwaladr had no time to do more than leap to his feet in indignant alarm, his mouth open to vent his outrage, before there was a drawn dagger at his throat, and princely anger at being rudely interrupted changed instantly into frozen understanding and devout and quivering stillness. He was a foolhardy man, but of excellently quick perceptions, and his foolhardiness did not extend so far as to argue with a naked blade when his own hands were empty. It was the man who sat beside him on the well-furnished brychan who sprang to the attack, lunging upward at Turcaill’s throat. But behind him Torsten’s knife had sliced down the leather thongs that bound the skins of the tent together, and a great hand took the stranger by the hair, and dragged him backwards. Before he could rise again he was swathed in the coverings of the bed and held fast by Turcaill’s men.

  Cadwaladr stood motionless and silent, well aware of the steel just pricking his throat. His fine black eyes were glittering with fury, his teeth set with the effort of restraint, but he made no move as the companion he had welcomed with pleasure was trussed into helplessness, in spite of his struggles, and disposed of almost tenderly on his lord’s bed.

  “Make no sound,” said Turcaill, “and come to no harm. Cry out, and my hand may slip. There is a little matter of business Otir wishes to discuss with you.”

  “This you will rue!” said Cadwaladr though his teeth.

  “So I may,” Turcaill agreed accommodatingly, “but not yet. I would offer you the choice between walking or being dragged, but there’s no putting any trust in you.” And to his two oarsmen he said: “Secure him!” and drew back his hand to sheathe the dagger he held.

  Cadwaladr was not quick enough to seize the one instant when he might have cried out loudly and raised a dozen men to his aid. As the steel was withdrawn he did open his mouth to call on his own, but a rug from the brychan was flung over his head, and a broad hand clamped it smotheringly into his open mouth. The only sound that emerged was a strangled moan, instantly crushed. He lashed out then with fists and feet, but the harsh woollen cloth was wound tightly about him, and bound fast.

  Outside the tent Leif stood sentinel with pricked ears, and wide eyes sweeping the dark spaces of the camp for any movement that might threaten their enterprise, but all was still. If Cadwaladr had desired and ordered private and undisturbed converse with his visitor, he had done Turcaill’s work for him very thoroughly. No one stirred. In the copse where they had left the guard the last of their party came looming out of the dark to join them, and laughed softly at sight of the burden they carried between them, slung by the ropes that pinioned him.

  The guard?” asked Turcaill in a whisper.

  “Well alive, and muttering curses. And we’d best be aboard before they find he’s missing and come looking for him.”

  “And the other one?” Leif ventured to ask softly, as they wound their way back from cover to cover towards the beach and the saltings. “What have you done with him?”

  “Left him to his rest,” said Turcaill.

  “You said no killing!”

  “And there’s been none. Not a scratch on him, you can be easy. Owain has no cause for feud against us more than he had from the moment we set foot on his soil.”

  “And we still don’t know,” marvelled Leif, padding steadily along beside him into the moist fringe left by the receding tide, “who the other one was, and what he was doing there. You may yet wish you’d secured him while you could.”

  “We came for one, and we’re taking back one. All we wanted and needed,” said Turcaill.

  The crew left aboard reached to hoist Cadwaladr over into the well between the benches, and help their fellows after. The steersman leaned upon his heavy steer board, the inshore rowers thrust off with their oars, poling the little ship quite lightly and smoothly back along the furrow she had ploughed in the sand, until she rode clear and lifted joyously into the ebb of the tide.

  Before dawn they delivered their prize, with some pride, to an Otir who had just roused from sleep, but came bright-eyed and content to the encounter. Cadwaladr emerged from his stifling wrappings flushed and tousled and viciously enraged, but containing his bitter fury within an embattled silence.

  “Had you trouble by the way?” asked Otir, eyeing his prisoner with shrewd satisfaction. Unmarked, unblooded, extracted from among his followers without trampling his formidable brother’s toes, or harming any other soul. A mission very neatly accomplished, and one that should be made to show a profit.

  “None,” said Turcaill. “The man had prepared his own fall, withdrawing himself so to the very rim, and planting a man of his own on guard. Not for nothing! I fancy he has been looking for word from his old lands, and made shift to keep a door open. For I doubt he’ll get any sympathy from Owain, or expects any.”

  At that Cadwaladr did open his mouth, unlocking his set teeth with an effort, for it was doubtful if he himself quite believed what he was about to say. “You misread the strength of the Welsh blood-tie. Brother will hold by brother. You have brought Owain down on you with all his host, and so you will discover.”

  “As brother held by brother when you came hiring Dublin men to threaten your brother with warfare,” said Otir, and laughed briefly and harshly.

  “You will see,” said Cadwaladr hotly, “what Owain will venture for my sake.”

  “So we shall, and so will you. I doubt you’ll find less comfort in it than we shall. He has given both you and me fair notice that your quarrel is not his quarrel, and you must pay your own score. And so you shall,” said Otir with glossy satisfaction, “before you set foot again outside this camp. I have you, and I’ll keep you until you pay me what you promised. Every coin, every calf, or the equal in goods we will have out of you. That done, you may go free, back to your lands or beggarly into the world again, as Owain pleases. And I warn you, never again look to Dublin for help, we know now the worth of your word. And that being so,” he said, thoughtfully plying his massive jowls in a muscular fist, “we’ll make sure of you, now that we have you!” He turned upon Turcaill, who stood by watching this encounter with detached interest, his own part already done. “Give him in charge to Torsten to keep, but see him tethered. We know all too well his word and oath are no bond to him, so we may rightly use other means. Put chains on him, and see him
watched and kept close.”

  “You dare not!” Cadwaladr spat on a hissing breath, and made a convulsive movement to launch himself against his judge, but ready hands plucked him back with insulting ease, and held him writhing and sweating between his grinning guards. In the face of such casual and indifferent usage his boiling rage seemed hardly more than a turbulent child’s tantrum, and burned itself out inevitably into the cold realisation that he was helpless, and must resign himself to the reversion of his fortunes, for he could do nothing to change it.

  “Pay what you owe us, and go,” said Otir with bleak simplicity. And to Torsten: “Take him away!”

  Chapter Eleven.

  ” TWO MEN OF Cuhelyn’s company, making the complete rounds of the southern rim of the encampment, found the remotest gate unguarded in the early hours of the morning, and reported as much to their captain. If he had been any other than Cuhelyn this early check upon the defences would not have been ordered in the first place. To him the presence within Owain’s camp of Cadwaladr, tolerated if not accepted, was deep offence, not only for the sake of Anarawd dead, but also for the sake of Owain living. Nor had Cadwaladr’s proceedings within the camp been any alleviation of the suspicion and detestation in which Cuhelyn bore him. Retirement into this remote corner might have been interpreted by others as showing a certain sensitivity to the vexation the sight of him must cause his brother. Cuhelyn knew him better, an arrogant creature blind to other men’s needs and feelings. And never to be trusted, since all his acts were reckless and unpredictable. So Cuhelyn had made it his business, with nothing said to any other, to keep a close eye upon Cadwaladr’s movements, and the behaviour of those who gathered about him. Where they mustered, there was need of vigilance. The defection of a guard brought Cuhelyn to the gate in haste, before the lines were astir. They found the missing man lying unhurt but wound up like a roll of woollen cloth among the bushes not far from the fence. He had contrived to loosen the cord that bound his hands, though not yet enough to free them, and had worked the folds of cloth partly loose from his mouth. The muffled grunts that were all he could utter were enough to locate him as soon as the searchers reached the trees. Released, he came stiffly to his feet, and reported from swollen lips what had befallen him in the night.