The rags on the platform moved.
‘Rhys,’ said Martin, ‘I have brought Captain Owen Archer. Owain ap Rhodri to your people. You remember I told you he would help you.’
The man sat up. He was young, with what looked to be fair hair beneath a dirty bandage that encircled his head.
Owen crouched down beside Rhys, saw where the blood oozed. ‘Your ear?’
‘Yes,’ Rhys whispered. His hand hovered over the bandage, but he did not touch it.
Owen saw the pain in the man’s eyes, the lines on his face. And he noted something else, beneath the grime and suffering. ‘I see now what Eleri meant. Your son was made in your image.’
‘You have seen him?’
‘And your lady.’
‘She is well?’
‘Well enough. She is here, in St David’s. Did Martin tell you?’
Rhys glanced at Martin, confused. ‘You did not tell me Tangwystl was here.’
‘I did not wish to tease you with the knowledge until there was someone who might take you inside.’ Martin joined them. ‘His ear was almost severed. A monk stitched it up with care, though Rhys departed before it could heal properly.’
Rhys put a hand on Owen’s. ‘You will take me to her?’
‘I will. And your wounds will be tended.’
‘They will throw me in the dungeon.’
‘By and by, perhaps. But I hope that my father-in-law will be able to keep you hidden for a few days, allow you to regain your strength.’
‘You will take him tonight?’ Martin asked.
‘Aye. We must wait a while, until the palace quiets. Then I shall take him through the tunnel. Sir Robert awaits us on the other side.’
A shuffling sound reminded Owen of Duncan. He had thought to take him back, also, but now he knew too much.
Twenty-three
While the Cydweli men buoyed their courage with their last skin of wine and watched the swirling shadows beyond the fire’s reach, particularly round the standing stone at the edge of their encampment, Dafydd rested his head against the rough bark of the tree to which he and his companions were tied. He gazed up through the bare, twisted branches, watching the fog twirl and dance around the stars. He was remembering a morning mist that once kept him from the arms of a beauty with slender brows, a promised tryst in a greenwood. How the mist had cloaked the land with a blanket of darkness, stilled the birds, chilled his heart. A fog at evening was not so hopeless. The white, sharp light of the stars and the moon might penetrate it. Such a night was meant for dreaming.
And yet these English cursed it. What had they hoped for? To ride all through the night? Had they mistresses in St David’s?
‘It is the stone,’ said Madog. ‘They do not like the stone.’
‘Nor have they liked the crosses along the way,’ said Brother Dyfrig, ‘though they call themselves Christians.’
‘I do not like the standing stones at nightfall,’ said Cadwal. ‘We are near a burial chamber, did you know? On the hill above us. I feel them up there, watching us. This stone by our camp is a part of their burial honour. They do not like us to be here.’
Dafydd pitied Cadwal. He paid for his strength and size with a fear of the Otherworld that could be as crippling as a physical weakness. ‘What do you fear? That the dead will rise and smite you for camping near their grave? Why should they care about you? And on such a night? Why would they leave the Otherworld to shiver in such dampness? To trip over their gossamer garments?’
‘Are you making a poem?’ Dyfrig growled.
‘Perhaps. Have you an entertainment to propose? But of course you will spend this time in prayer.’ Though Dafydd had seen precious little prayerful behaviour in the monk.
‘It is a pity you did not think to recruit help from Newcastle Emlyn. It was not far from Maelgwn’s farm,’ said Dyfrig. ‘We would not be dragged through the countryside starving had you planned better.’
Dafydd laughed. ‘My uncle, Llywelyn ap Gwilym, was constable of the castle, but he is long dead. And his son tolerates me only so long as he hears no tales of mischief. He would chase me from the house if he knew of my offering sanctuary to the wretched boy. He would not understand. Besides, the castle is not so close to Maelgwn’s farm. You clutch at the air with your complaint.’
‘Would that I could clutch at something,’ Dyfrig said. ‘I can feel nothing in either arm.’
‘Be grateful,’ said Madog. ‘Last night you could not bear the pain.’
Brother Dyfrig truly suffered more than the others. His broken arm was splinted and bound close to his body, but even so he endured much pain from the jostling ride, and today he had fallen on his arm as he dismounted. Their captors had merely laughed.
‘I would rather feel the pain than nothing,’ Dyfrig said.
Cadwal hushed them.
‘What is it?’ Dafydd asked.
The giant sat with head cocked, listening to the darkness behind them. ‘Horses. Back beyond the light,’ he whispered.
‘Dyfrig,’ a voice called softly. It might almost be mistaken for the wind in the brush. Still, Dafydd held his breath, fearful that their captors had heard. But their own loud talk and the crackling fire must have masked the sound, for no shouts challenged the darkness.
‘It is Father Edern. And a friend. We shall cut your bonds when the fire dies down.’
Dafydd, overjoyed to be saved, strained to see the priest, but the fog still blurred the brush.
All four captives grew quiet, listening to the darkness.
‘They notice your silence,’ Edern whispered.
‘Aye, they look this way,’ Cadwal hissed. He and Dyfrig were bound to the side of the tree facing into the clearing.
‘Chatter among yourselves as before,’ Edern whispered. ‘But not so loud they understand you.’
Cadwal was the first to start muttering. He worried about their horses. How were they to escape their captors without horses?
Madog joined in. He saw no problem. While their captors slept, they would take all of the horses.
‘But we cannot ride tonight,’ whispered Dafydd. ‘We would lose ourselves in the fog and risk the horses.’
‘We take shelter nearby till morning,’ Madog murmured. ‘Perhaps the burial chamber.’
Cadwal groaned.
‘What if they find us before morning?’ Dafydd wondered.
‘We should fall on them and bind them up,’ Cadwal hissed. ‘Then we wait here until dawn. We are now six against four and three of them are already wounded.’
‘So am I,’ Dyfrig muttered.
Dafydd warmed to the new adventure. ‘We shall attack them while they sleep.’
‘They will not sleep,’ Dyfrig whispered. ‘Surely one skin of wine passed among four soldiers would not put them to sleep.’
‘But look at them,’ said Cadwal, ‘they rub their eyes, sink lower on to their blankets.’
Dafydd could not see them, being tied to the tree facing away, with Madog. ‘Perhaps they have at last found the wine with poppy juice,’ Dafydd whispered. ‘I meant it for Brother Samson, but Maelgwn did not seem to need it. I thought it might ease the pilgrim when we find him, for surely his wound has opened with his flight.’
‘I was sorely in need of it yesterday,’ muttered Dyfrig.
‘I did not think our captors would give it you,’ Dafydd whispered. God watched over them, to let their captors find that wine tonight. But Dafydd prayed that they had not dug deeper into his saddle-bag.
‘Drop your heads now,’ Edern whispered from the darkness. ‘Make them think you sleep.’
The floor of the tunnel was slippery. Owen shone the lantern over the walls and ceiling and saw how the stones seeped. At the edges of the floor lay piles of debris and crumbled stone. When Owen had passed this way with Father Edern he had not allowed his eye to wander round, anxious to reassure his men, not add his unease to their fears. For he did not like being beneath the earth, in a stone vault. And seeing how stone had been hollowed for this purpose, he thought now this must be the work of the Old Ones, those who had cut the great stones for the burial cairns, who had lifted them into the air to rest on the upright stones. He must have a care not to step into the Otherworld.