“Scarcely to his own gain,” said Owain, and forbore to smile, eyeing Gwion’s face marked by the harsh folds of the brychan, his black hair tangled and erected, and the swollen lips bruised by the gag. And to the young man so grimly silent and defiantly braced he said mildly: “And how do you say, Gwion? Are you forsworn? Dishonoured, with your oath in the mire?”
The misshapen lips parted, and shook for a moment with the recoil from tension. So low as to be barely audible, Gwion said remorselessly: “Yes.”
It was Cuhelyn who twisted a little aside, and averted his eyes. Gwion fixed his black gaze on Owain’s face, and drew deeper breath, having freely owned to the worst.
“And why did you so, Gwion? I have known you some while now. Read me your riddle. Truly I left you work to do in Aber, in the matter of Bledri ap Rhys dead. Truly I had your parole. So much we all know. Now tell me how it came that you so belied yourself as to abandon your troth.”
“Let it lie!” said Gwion, quivering. “I did it! Let me pay for it.”
“Nevertheless, tell it!” said Owain with formidable quietness. “For I will know!”
“You think I will use excuses in my own defence,” said Gwion. His voice had steadied and firmed into a calm of utter detachment, indifferent to whatever might happen to him. He began gropingly, as if he himself had never until now probed the complexities of his own behaviour, and was afraid of what he might find. “No, what I have done I have done, I do not excuse it, it is shameful. But I saw shame every way, and no choice but to accept and bear the lesser shame. No, wait. This is not for me to say. Let me tell it as I did it. You left it to me to send back Bledri’s body to his wife for burial, and to convey to her the news of how he died. I thought I might without offence do her the grace of facing her, and bringing him to her myself, intending a return to my captivity, if I can so call that easy condition I had with you, my lord. So I went to her in Ceredigion, and there we buried Bledri. And there we talked of what Cadwaladr your brother had done, bringing a Danish fleet to enforce his right, and I came to see that both for you and for him, and for all Gwynedd and Wales, the best that could be was that you two should be brought together, and together send the Danes empty-handed back to Dublin. The thought did not come from me,” he said meticulously. “It came from the old, wise men who have outlived wars and come to reason. I was, I am, Cadwaladr’s man, I can be no other. But when they had shown me that for his very sake there must be peace made between you two brothers, then I saw as they saw. And I made cause with such of his old captains as I could in such haste, and gathered a force loyal to him, but intent on the reconciliation I also desired to see. And I broke my oath,” said Gwion with brutal vehemence. “Whether our fine plans had succeeded or failed, I tell you openly, I would have fought for him. Against the Danes, joyfully. What business had they making such a bargain?
Against you, my lord Owain, with a very heavy heart, but if it came to it, I would have done it. For he is my lord, and I serve no other. So I did not go back to Aber. I brought a hundred good fighting men of my own mind to deliver to Cadwaladr, whatever use it might be his intent to make of them.”
“And you found him in my camp,” said Owain, and smiled. “And half of your design seemed to be already done for you, and our peace made.”
“So I thought and hoped.”
“And did you find it so? For you have talked with him, have you not, Gwion? Before the Danes came up from the bay, and took him with them a prisoner, and left you behind? Was he of your mind?
A brief contortion shook Gwion’s dark face. “They came, and they have taken him. I know no more than that. Now I have told you, and I am in your hands. He is my lord, and if you will have me to fight under you I will yet be of service to him, but if you deny me that, you have the right. I thought on him beleaguered, and my heart could not stand it. Nevertheless, as I have given him my fealty, so now I have given for him even my honour, and I know all too well I am utterly the worse by its loss. Do as you see fit.”
“Do you tell me,” said Owain, studying him narrowly, “that he had no time to tell you how things stand between us two? If I will have you to fight under me, you say! Why, so I might, and not the worst man ever I had under my banner, if I had fighting in mind, but while I can get what I aim at without fighting, I have no such matter in mind. What makes you think I may be about to sound the onset?”
“The Danes have taken your brother!” protested Gwion, stammering and suddenly at a loss. “Surely you mean to rescue him?”
“I have no such intent,” said Owain bluntly. “I will not lift a finger to pluck him out of their hands.”
“What, when they have snatched him hostage because he has made his peace with you?”
“They have snatched him hostage,” said Owain, “for the two thousand marks he promised them if they would come and hammer me into giving him back the lands he forfeited.”
“No matter, no matter what it is they hold against him, though that cannot be the whole! He is your brother, and in enemy hands, he is in peril of his life! You cannot leave him so!”
“He is in no peril at all of the least harm,” said Owain, “if he pays what he owes. As he will. They will keep him as tenderly as their own babes, and turn him loose without a scratch on him when they have loaded his cattle and goods and gear to the worth he promised them. They do not want outright war any more than I do, provided they get their dues. And they know that if they maim or kill my brother, then they will have to deal with me. We understand each other, the Danes and I. But put my men into the field to pull him out of the mire he chose for himself? No! Not a man, not a blade, not a bow!”
“This I cannot believe!” said Gwion, staring wide-eyed.
“Tell him, Cuhelyn, how this contention stands,” said Owain, leaning back with a sigh from such irreconcilable and innocent loyalty.
“My lord Owain offered his brother parley, without prejudice,” said Cuhelyn shortly, “and told him he must get rid of his Danes before there could be any question of his lands being given back to him. And there was but one way to send them home, and that was to pay what he had promised. The quarrel was his, and he must resolve it. But Cadwaladr believed he knew better, and if he forced my lord’s hand, my lord would have to join with him, to drive the Danes out by battle. And he would have to pay nothing! So he delivered defiance to Otir, and bade him be off back to Dublin, for that Owain and Cadwaladr had made their peace, and would drive them into the sea if they did not up anchor and go. In which,” said Cuhelyn through his teeth, and with his eyes fierce and steady and defiant upon Owain, who after all was brother to this devious man, and might recoil from too plain speaking, “he lied. There was no such peace, and no such alliance. He lied, and he broke a solemn compact, and looked to be praised and approved for it! Worse, by such a cheat he left in peril three hostages, two monks and a girl taken by the Danes. Over them my lord has spread his hand, offering a fair price for their ransom. But for Cadwaladr he will not lift a finger. And now you know,” he said fiercely, “why the Danes have sent by night to fetch him away, and why they have dealt fairly by you, who have committed no offence against them. They have shed no blood, harmed no man of my lord’s following. From Cadwaladr they have a debt to collect. For even to Danes a prince of the Welsh people should keep his word.”
All this he delivered in a steady, deliberate voice, and yet at a white heat of outrage that kept Gwion silent to the end.