“I told you. Stealing our money. And not just that. I've been missing good cattle, sheep, even a few slaves. Those miners are getting above themselves, and they're not paying you like they should. But you'll never prove it. Never. Not even your clever fellow Lwellwyn can look at a hole in the moor and tell me how much tin is supposed to come out in a year.” Cadwy swiped at a moth, then shook his head moodily. “They think they're above the law. That's the problem. Just because Uther was their patron they think they're above the law.”
Owain shrugged. His attention was back on the butter-smothered girl who was now being chased about the lower terrace by a half dozen drunken men. The grease on her body made her hard to catch and the grotesque hunt was making some of the watching men helpless with laughter. I was having a hard time stopping myself from giggling. Owain looked back to Cadwy. “So go up there and kill a few of the bastards, Lord Prince,” he said as though it was the easiest solution in the world.
“I can't,” Cadwy said.
“Why not?”
“Uther gave them protection. If I attack them they'll complain to the council and to King Mark and I'll be forced to pay sarhaed.” Sarhaed was the blood price put on a man by law. A King's sarhaed was un payable a slave's was cheap, but a good miner probably had a high enough price to hurt even a wealthy prince like Cadwy.
“So how will they know it's you who attacked them?” Owain asked scornfully. For answer Cadwy just tapped his cheek. The blue tattoos, he was suggesting, would betray his men. Owain nodded. The buttered girl had at last been pinned down and was now surrounded by her captors among some shrubs that grew on the lower terrace. Owain crumbled some bread, then looked up at Cadwy again. “So?”
“So,” Cadwy said slyly, 'if I could find a bunch of men who could thin these bastards out a little, it would help. It'll make them look to me for protection, see? And my price will be the tin they're sending to King Mark. And your price…“ He paused to make sure Owain was not shocked by the implication, '.. will be half that tin's value.”
“How much?” Owain asked quickly. The two men were speaking softly and I had to concentrate to hear their words over the warriors' laughter and cheers.
“Fifty gold pieces a year? Like this,” said Cadwy and took a gold ingot the size of a sword handle from a pouch and slid it along the table.
“That much?” Even Owain was surprised.
“It's a rich place, the moor,” Cadwy said grimly. “Very rich.” Owain stared down Cadwy's valley to where the moon's reflection lay on the distant river as flat and silver as a sword blade. “How many of these miners are there?” he finally asked the Prince. The nearest settlement,“ Cadwy said, 'has got seventy or eighty men. And there are a deal of slaves and women, of course.”
“How many settlements?”
“Three, but the other two are a way off. I'm just worried about the one.”
“Only twenty of us,” Owain said cautiously.
“Night-time?” Cadwy suggested. “And they've not been attacked ever, so they won't be keeping watch.” Owain sipped wine from his horn. “Seventy gold pieces,” he said flatly, 'not fifty.“ Prince Cadwy thought for a second, then nodded his acceptance of the price. Owain grinned. ”Why not, eh?“ he said. He palmed the gold ingot, then turned fast as a snake to look up at me. I did not move, nor took my eyes from one of the girls who was wrapping her naked body round one of Cadwy's tattooed warriors. ”Are you awake, Derfel?“ Owain snapped. I jumped as though startled. ”Lord?" I said, pretending my mind had been wandering for the last few minutes.
“Good lad,” Owain said, satisfied I had heard nothing. “Want one of those girls, do you?” I blushed. “No, Lord.”
Owain laughed. “He's just got himself a pretty little Irish girl,” he told Cadwy, 'so he's staying true to her. But he'll learn. When you get to the Otherworld, boy' he had turned back to me 'you won't regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.“ He spoke gently. In my first days in his service I had been frightened of him, but for some reason Owain liked me and treated me well. Now he looked back at Cadwy. ”Tomorrow night,“ he said softly. ”Tomorrow night." I had gone from Merlin's Tor to Owain's band, and it was like leaping from this world to the next. I stared at the moon and thought of Gundleus's long-haired men massacring the guards on the Tor, and I thought of the people on the moor who would face the same savagery the very next night and I knew I could do nothing to stop it, even though I knew it should be stopped, but fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death. Our shields had been smeared with boat-builder's pitch so they would look like the black shields of Oengus Mac Airem's Irish raiders whose long, sharp-pr owed boats raided Dumnonia's northern coast. A local guide with tattooed cheeks led us all afternoon through deep, lush valleys that climbed slowly towards the great bleak loom of the moor that was occasionally visible through some break in the heavy trees. It was good woodland, full of deer and cut with fast, cold streams running seaward off the moor's high plateau.
By nightfall we were on the moor's edge, and after dark we followed a goat track up to the heights. It was a mysterious place. The Old People had lived here and left their sacred stone circles in its valleys while the peaks were crowned with jumbled masses of grey rock and the low places were filled with treacherous swamps through which our guide led us unerringly.
Owain had told us that the people of the moor were in rebellion against King Mordred, and that their religion had taught them to fear men with black shields. It was a good tale, and I might have believed it had I not eavesdropped on his conversation with Prince Cadwy the night before. Owain had also promised us gold if we did our task properly, then warned us that this night's killing would have to stay secret for we had no orders from the council to mete out this punishment. Deep in the thick woods on our way to the moor we had come to an old shrine built beneath a grove of oaks and Owain had made us each swear the death-oath of secrecy in front of the moss-grown skulls that were lodged in niches of the shrine's wall. Britain was full of such ancient, hidden shrines — evidence of how widespread the Druids had been before the Romans came where country folk still came to seek the Gods' help. And that afternoon, under the great lichen-hung oaks, we had knelt before the skulls and touched the hilt of Owain's sword and those men who were initiates in the secrets of Mithras had received Owain's kiss. Then, thus blessed by the Gods and sworn to the killing, we moved on towards the night. It was a filthy place we came to. Great smelting fires spewed sparks and smoke towards the heavens. A sprawl of huts lay between the fires and around the gaping black maws that showed where men delved into the earth. Huge mounds of charcoal looked like black tors, while the valley smelt like no other I had ever seen; indeed, to my heated imagination that upland mining village seemed more like Annawn's realm, the Otherworld, than any human settlement.
Dogs barked as we approached, but no one in the settlement took any notice of their noise. There was no fence, not even an earth bank to protect the place. Ponies were picketed close to rows of carts and they began to whinny as we edged down the valley's side, but still no one came out of the low huts to find the cause of the unrest. The huts were circles made of stone and roofed with turf, but in the settlement's centre was a pair of old Roman buildings; square, tall and solid.
“Two men apiece, if not more,” Owain hissed at us, reminding us how many men we were each expected to kill. “And I'm not counting slaves or women. Go fast, kill fast and always watch your backs. And stay together!”