"Aidan God-speaker," he breathed. And then could say no more for the tears that choked his voice. He raised a trembling hand to me, as if he would stroke my face. I seized the hand and grasped it tight.
"Stand easy, brother," I told him. "We are soon leaving this place." Turning my eyes once more to the throng, I asked, "How many of the others still live?"
"All of them, I think," he replied nodding.
"Where are they? I do not see them."
By way of reply, the wily Dane raised his hands to his mouth, drew breath and gave out a bellowing roar. It was, I remembered, the sea marauder's war cry, now weakened and strained. He gave it again, and then cried, "Heya! Aidan has returned! Come, men, we are going home!"
The echo of Harald's shout died away to silence. I watched the gathered ranks as out from among the dead-eyed slaves came the wasted remnant of the Sea Wolf pack. My spirit writhed within me to see them shambling forth-some in pairs still, others by themselves, but all dragging their irons. Off to one side, one poor wretch hobbled towards me, his eagerness made pathetic by his lurching gait. His last steps were ill-judged and he tottered headlong to the dust. I reached down to raise him and found myself looking into Gunnar's haggard face.
"Aeddan," he said, tears streaming from his eyes. "Aeddan, thank God, you have come at last. I knew you would return. I knew you would not leave us to die in this place."
I helped him to his feet and clasped him to me. "Gunnar," I said, "forgive me, brother. I should have come sooner, forgive me."
"How should I forgive you?" Wonder made his features childlike. "You have returned. I knew you would. I never doubted."
I looked at the other slaves slowly making their way to where we stood. "Where is Dugal?" I said. "I do not see him." Once more, panic assailed me. Have I come too late? Dugal! Where are you, brother? "Where are the Britons?"
In the same instant, I heard a cry from across the yard. I turned and saw, stumbling forward through the press, the hulking figure of my dearest friend and brother. Vastly changed, he was-still, I knew him as I would have known my own self. "Dugal!" I cried, and hastened to meet him.
Seeing me, he half-turned and gestured to someone behind him, and then came on. We met in the centre of the yard before the whipping post where we had last seen one another, and where Bishop Cadoc had gone to death in my place. "Dugal!" I cried, my own eyes filling with tears. "Are you alive, Dugal?"
"Just so, Dana," he whispered, kneading the flesh of my shoulders with his hands. "I am."
Faysal appeared beside us just then. "We best move quickly," he reminded me. "The slaves and their masters grow restive."
To Dugal I said, "Do the Britons yet live?"
"They do," he said, and turned to the slaves looking on, their agitation increasing by the moment. No longer slack-witted, I could tell by the expressions on their faces they had begun to perceive that there would be no execution today. But the sight of strangers choosing slaves seemingly at random confused and excited them.
"Brynach! Ddewi!" At Dugal's shout two round-shouldered figures lurched from the throng. I would not have known them in a thousand years for the men they had once been. Brynach's hair was white and he walked with a stoop, and the young Ddewi had lost an eye. The hair and beards of both, like the hair and beards of all, were nasty, matted, lice-infested tangles.
I took up their hands and embraced them. "Brothers," I said, "I have come for you."
Brynach smiled; his teeth were discoloured and his gums were raw. "All praise to Christ, our Lord and Redeemer! His purposes shall not be seen to fail."
At his words my heart twisted within me. I wanted to shout at him: Christ! How dare you thank that monster! Had it been left to God, the mines would claim your rotting bones. It is Aidan, not Christ, who frees you now!
But I swallowed the bile and said, "We are leaving this place. Can you walk?"
"I will crawl to freedom if need be," he said, his mouth spreading in a grin. The skin of his lips split in the violence of his smile and began to bleed.
"Come, Ddewi, the day of our liberation has come. We are leaving our captivity." With the gentleness of a mother bending to an ailing child, the elder monk took hold of the younger's hand and began leading him away. It was then that I understood Ddewi had lost more than an eye only.
Some of the slaves across the yard began shouting at me. I could not make out what they wanted, nor did I want to know. My only thought now was to escape with the prize as quickly as possible. "We must go," Faysal said, his voice urgent, his eyes wary. "To wait any longer is to tempt the devil."
Pausing only long enough to make doubly certain that none of my friends was left behind, I counted eighteen Sea Wolves, and three Celts. To Faysal, I said, "Mount those who cannot walk." He hurried away, shouting orders to Bara and Nadr.
The chief overseer, who had stood aside biding his time, now pressed forward. "You take my slaves;" he protested, shaking his fist in the air, "what will you give me for them?"
Rounding on him, I said, "You have read the decree. It says nothing of payment."
"You cannot take my slaves!" he whined. "I must be paid!"
Ignoring him, I called to Faysal, "Is everyone ready?"
"Lead the way," he replied. "We will follow." He looked around at the guards, who appeared sullen and unhappy. Some shifted uneasily in their places, as if weighing the consequences of siding with the overseer.
"This way," I called, raising my hand and striding forth. I took but two steps and was stopped by Jarl Harald, who put his hand to my sleeve and said, "We cannot leave yet."
"Cannot leave?" I stared at him. "What do you mean?"
He glanced furtively towards the overseer, who still waved his arms in protest, crying his outrage at our uncaring treatment of him. Putting his mouth to my ear, Harald whispered a terse explanation.
"What?" I wondered in disbelief. "You cannot mean it."
He nodded solemnly. "We did not know you would return today," he said.
"I am sorry," I told him flatly. "There is no time."
Folding his arms across his chest, the king shook his head solemnly. "Nay."
Faysal, seeing my hesitation, hastened to my side. "We must go."
"There is a small matter yet to be resolved," I muttered, staring hard at the king, who remained adamant.
Faysal made to protest, then glanced at the Danish king, his face set in a stubborn frown. "Resolve it quickly, my friend," he relented. "I fear your decree will not detain this greedy fellow very much longer."
I looked to the slave master, who was now urgently gesturing for several of his guards to join him. There was nothing for it but to seize the lion by his beard, as it were. "Come with me," I ordered Faysal, "and bring two warriors."
Marching directly to the angry overseer, I faced him squarely. "We are leaving," I announced, "but not before the chains are removed and we have secured the bones of our brothers."
"Bones!" he brayed in disbelief. "There was nothing said about bones!"
"Listen to me well," I told him darkly as Faysal and the two rafiq came to stand behind me, "your worthless life hangs by a thread over the pit, but hear me out and you may yet save yourself."
The slave master subsided, grumbling and cursing.
"I was a slave here," I began. "On the day I left this place, two of my friends and I were to have been executed." The slow dawn of recognition broke over the man's fleshy face. "Faysal stopped the execution, but not before you killed an old man who gave himself in my place. Do you remember?"