“I do believe,” Cadfael said, “that they have found her a good man, with all the advantages but one. A fatal lack! He is not of her choosing.”
“She might do very much worse. When she meets him, she may be wholly glad of him. And in this world,” Mark reflected ruefully, “women, like men, must make the best of what they can get.”
“With thirty years and more behind her,” said Cadfael, “she might be willing to settle for that. At eighteen, I doubt it!”
“If he comes in arms to carry her away, at eighteen that might weigh with her,” Mark observed, but not with entire conviction in his tone.
Cadfael had turned his head and was looking back towards the crest of the dunes, where a man’s figure had just breasted the rise and was descending towards the beach. The long, generous stride, the exuberant thrust of the broad shoulders, the joyous carriage of the flaxen head, bright in the sun, would have given him a name even at a greater distance.
“I would not wager on the issue,” said Cadfael cautiously. “And even so, he comes a little late, for someone else has already come in arms and carried her away. That issue, too, is still in doubt.”
The young man Turcaill erupted into Brother Mark’s view only as he drew towards the spit of sand, and scorning to go the whole way to walk it dryshod, waded cheerfully through the shallows directly to where Heledd sat. Her back remained turned towards him, but doubtless her ears were pricked.
“Who is that?” demanded Mark, stiffening at the sight.
“That is one Turcaill, son of Turcaill, and if you saw us marched away to his ship, you must have seen that lofty head go by. It can hardly be missed, he tops the rest of us by the length of it.”
“That is the man who made her prisoner?” Mark was frowning down at Heledd’s minute island, where still she maintained her pretence at being unaware of any intruder into her solitude.
“It was you said it. He came in arms and carried her away.”
“What does he want with her now?” Mark wondered, staring.
“No harm. He’s subject to authority here, but even aside from that, no harm.” The young man had emerged in a brief flurry of spray beside Heledd’s rock, and dropped with large, easy grace into the sand at her feet. She gave him no acknowledgement, unless it could be considered an acknowledgement that she turned a little away from him. Whatever they may have said to each other could not be heard at such a distance, and it was strange that Cadfael should suddenly feel certain that this was not the first time Heledd had sat there, nor the first time that Turcaill had coiled his long legs comfortably into the sand beside her.
“They have a small private war going on,” he said placidly. “They both take pleasure in it. He loves to make her spit fire, and she delights in flouting him.”
A children’s game, he thought, a lively battle that passes the time pleasantly for both of them, all the more pleasantly because neither of them need take it seriously. By the same token, neither need we take it seriously.
It occurred to him afterwards that he was breaking his own rule, and wagering on an issue that was still in doubt.
Chapter Nine
IN THE ABANDONED farmstead where Owain had set up his headquarters, a mile from the edge of Otir’s camp, Cadwaladr set forth the full tale of his grievances, with some discretion because he spoke in the presence not only of his brother, but of Hywel, against whom he felt perhaps the greatest and most bitter animosity, and of half a dozen of Owain’s captains besides, men he did not want to alienate if he could keep their sympathy. But he was incapable of damping down his indignation throughout the lengthy tale, and the very reserve and tolerance with which they listened to him aggravated his burning resentment. By the end of it he was afire with his wrongs, and ready to proceed to what had been implied in every word, the threat of open warfare if his lands were not restored to him.
Owain sat for some minutes silent, contemplating his brother with a countenance Cadwaladr could not read. At length he stirred, without haste, and said calmly: “You are under some misapprehension concerning the state of the case, and you have conveniently forgotten a small matter of a man’s death, for which a price was exacted. You have brought here these Danes of Dublin as a means of forcing my hand. Not even by a brother is my hand so easily forced. Now let me show you the reality. The boot is on the other foot now. It is no longer a matter of you saying to me: give me back all my lands, or I will let loose these barbarians on Gwynedd until you do. Now hear me saying to you: You brought this host here, now you get rid of them, and then you may, I say may! be given back what was formerly yours.”
It was by no means what Cadwaladr had hoped for, but he was so sure of his fortune with such allies that he could not refrain from putting the best construction upon it. Owain meant more and better than he was yet prepared to say. Often before he had proved pliant towards his younger brother’s offences, so he would again. In his own way he was already declaring an alliance to defy and expel the foreign invaders. It could not be otherwise.
“If you are ready to receive and join with me…” he had begun, for his high temper mildly and civilly, but Owain cut him off without mercy.
“I have declared no such intent. I tell you again, get rid of them, and only then shall I consider restoring you to your right in Ceredigion. Have I even said that I promise you anything? It rests with you, and not solely upon this present ground, whether you ever rule in Wales again. I promise you nothing, no help in sending these Danes back across the sea, no payment of any kind, no truce unless or until I choose to make truce with them. They are your problem, not mine. I may have, and reserve, my own quarrel with them for daring to invade my realm. But now any such consideration is in abeyance. Your quarrel with them, if you dismiss their help now, is your problem.”
Cadwaladr had flushed into angry crimson, his eyes hot with incredulous rage. “What is this you are demanding of me? How do you expect me to deal with such a force? Unaided? What do you want me to do?”
“There is nothing simpler,” said Owain imperturbably. “Keep the bargain you made with them. Pay them the fee you promised, or take the consequences.”
“And that is all you have to say to me?”
“That is all I have to say. But you may have time to think what further may be said between us if you show sense. Stay here overnight by all means,” said Owain, “or return when you will. But you will get no more from me. While there’s a Dane uninvited on Welsh ground.”
It was so plainly a dismissal, and Owain so unremittingly the prince rather than the brother, that Cadwaladr rose tamely and went out from the presence shocked and silent. But it was not in his nature to accept the possibility that his endeavours had all come to nothing. Within his brother’s compact and well-planned camp he was received and acknowledged as both guest and kin, sacred and entitled to the ultimate in courtesy on the one ground, treated with easy familiarity on the other. Such usage only confirmed his native optimism and reassured his arrogant self-confidence. What he had heard was the surface that covered a very different reality. There were many among Owain’s chiefs who kept a certain affection for this troublesome prince, however sorely that affection had been tried in the past, and however forthrightly they condemned the excesses to which his lofty temper drove him. How much greater, he reflected, at Owain’s campaign table and in Owain’s tent overnight, was the love his brother bore him. Time and again he had flouted it, and been chastened, even cast out of all grace, but only for a while. Time and again Owain had softened towards him, and taken him back brotherly into the former inescapable affection. So he would again. Why should this time be different?