Chapter Eleven. T wo men of Cuhelyn’s company, making thecomplete rounds of the southern rim of the encampment, found theremotest gate unguarded in the early hours of the

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T wo men of Cuhelyn’s company, making thecomplete rounds of the southern rim of the encampment, found theremotest gate unguarded in the early hours of the morning, andreported as much to their captain. If he had been any other thanCuhelyn this early check upon the defenses would not have beenordered in the first place. To him the presence withinOwain’s camp of Cadwaladr, tolerated if not accepted, wasdeep offence, not only for the sake of Anarawd dead, but also forthe sake of Owain living. Nor had Cadwaladr’s proceedingswithin the camp been any alleviation of the suspicion anddetestation in which Cuhelyn bore him. Retirement into this remotecorner might have been interpreted by others as showing a certainsensitivity to the vexation the sight of him must cause hisbrother. Cuhelyn knew him better, an arrogant creature blind toother men’s needs and feelings. And never to be trusted,since all his acts were reckless and unpredictable. So Cuhelyn hadmade it his business, with nothing said to any other, to keep aclose eye upon Cadwaladr’s movements, and the behavior ofthose who gathered about him. Where they mustered, there was needof vigilance. The defection of a guard brought Cuhelyn to the gatein haste, before the lines were astir. They found the missing manlying unhurt but wound up like a roll of woolen cloth among thebushes not far from the fence. He had contrived to loosen the cordthat bound his hands, though not yet enough to free them, and hadworked the folds of cloth partly loose from his mouth. The muffledgrunts that were all he could utter were enough to locate him assoon as the searchers reached the trees. Released, he came stifflyto his feet, and reported from swollen lips what had befallen himin the night.

“Danes—five at least—They came up from thebay. There was a boy could be Welsh showed them theway…”

“Danes!” Cuhelyn echoed, between wonder andenlightenment. He had expected devilment of some kind fromCadwaladr, was it now possible that this meant devilment aimedagainst Cadwaladr, instead? The thought gave him some souramusement, but he did not yet quite believe in it. This could stillbe mischief of another kind, Dane and Welshman regretting theirseverance and compounding their differences secretly to acttogether in Owain’s despite.

He set off in haste to Cadwaladr’s tent, and walked inwithout ceremony. A rising breeze blew in his face, flapping thesevered skins behind the brychan. The swaddled figure on the bedheaved and strained, uttering small animal sounds. This secondbound victim confounded all possible notions that might account forthe first. Why should a party of Danes, having made its wayclandestinely here to Cadwaladr, next proceed to bind and silencehim, and then leave him here to be found and set free as inevitablyas the sun rises? If they came to enter into renewed conspiracywith him, if they came to secure him hostage for what he owed them,either way it made no sense. So Cuhelyn was reflecting bewilderedlyas he untied the ropes that pinioned arms and legs, plucking theknots loose with grim patience with his single hand, and unwoundthe twisted rugs from about the heaving body. A hand scored by therope came up gropingly as it was freed, and plucked back the lastfolds from a shock head of disordered dark hair, and a face Cuhelynknew well.

Not Cadwaladr’s imperious countenance, but the younger,thinner, more intense and sensitive face of Cuhelyn’s mirrortwin, Gwion, the last hostage from Ceredigion.

They came to Owain’s headquarters together,the one not so much shepherding the other as deigning to walkbehind him, the other stalking ahead to make it plain to allviewers that he was not being driven, but going in vehement earnestwhere he wished to go. The air between them vibrated with theanimosity that had never existed between them until this moment,and by its very intensity and pain could not endure long. Owain sawit in the stiff set of their bodies and the arduous blankness oftheir faces when they entered his presence and stood side by sidebefore him, awaiting his judgment.

Two dark, stern, passionate young men, the one a shade tallerand leaner, the other a shade sturdier and with coloring of a lessvivid darkness, but seen thus shoulder to shoulder, quivering withtension, they might indeed have been twin brothers. The glaringdifference was that one of them was lopped of half a limb, and thatby an act of blazing treachery on the part of the lord the otherserved and worshipped. But that was not what held themcounterpoised in this intensity of anger and hostility, so strangeto both of them, and causing them both such indignant pain.

Owain looked from the one grim face to the other, and askedneutrally of both: “What does this mean?”

“It means,” said Cuhelyn, unlocking his set teeth,“that this man’s word is worth no more than hismaster’s. I found him trussed up and gagged inCadwaladr’s tent. The why and how he must tell you, for Iknow nothing more. But Cadwaladr is gone, and this man left, andthe guard who kept the lines there says that Danes came up from thebay in the night, and left him, too, bound among the bushes to opena way within. If all this to-do has a meaning, he must deliver it,not I. But I know, and so do you, my lord, better than any, that hegave his oath not to attempt flight from Aber, and he has brokenhis oath and befouled his bond.”

“Scarcely to his own gain,” said Owain, and forboreto smile, eyeing Gwion’s face marked by the harsh folds ofthe brychan, his black hair tangled and erected, and the swollenlips bruised by the gag. And to the young man so grimly silent anddefiantly braced he said mildly: “And how do you say, Gwion?Are you forsworn? Dishonoured, with your oath in themire?”

The misshapen lips parted, and shook for a moment with therecoil from tension. So low as to be barely audible, Gwion saidremorselessly: “Yes.”

It was Cuhelyn who twisted a little aside, and averted his eyes.Gwion fixed his black gaze on Owain’s face, and drew deeperbreath, having freely owned to the worst.

“And why did you so, Gwion? I have known you some whilenow. Read me your riddle. Truly I left you work to do in Aber, inthe matter of Bledri ap Rhys dead. Truly I had your parole. So muchwe all know. Now tell me how it came that you so belied yourself asto abandon your troth.”

“Let it lie!” said Gwion, quivering. “I didit! Let me pay for it.”

“Nevertheless, tell it!” said Owain with formidablequietness. “For I will know!”

“You think I will use excuses in my own defense,”said Gwion. His voice had steadied and firmed into a calm of utterdetachment, indifferent to whatever might happen to him. He begangropingly, as if he himself had never until now probed thecomplexities of his own behavior, and was afraid of what he mightfind. “No, what I have done I have done, I do not excuse it,it is shameful. But I saw shame every way, and no choicebut to accept and bear the lesser shame. No, wait. This is not forme to say. Let me tell it as I did it. You left it to me to sendback Bledri’s body to his wife for burial, and to convey toher the news of how he died. I thought I might without offence doher the grace of facing her, and bringing him to her myself,intending a return to my captivity—if I can so call that easycondition I had with you, my lord. So I went to her in Ceredigion,and there we buried Bledri. And there we talked of what Cadwaladryour brother had done, bringing a Danish fleet to enforce hisright, and I came to see that both for you and for him, and for allGwynedd and Wales, the best that could be was that you two shouldbe brought together, and together send the Danes empty-handed backto Dublin. The thought did not come from me,” he saidmeticulously. “It came from the old, wise men who haveoutlived wars and come to reason. I was, I am, Cadwaladr’sman, I can be no other. But when they had shown me that for hisvery sake there must be peace made between you two brothers, then Isaw as they saw. And I made cause with such of his old captains asI could in such haste, and gathered a force loyal to him, butintent on the reconciliation I also desired to see. And I broke myoath,” said Gwion with brutal vehemence. “Whether ourfine plans had succeeded or failed, I tell you openly, I would havefought for him. Against the Danes, joyfully. What business had theymaking such a bargain?

Against you, my lord Owain, with a very heavy heart, but if itcame to it, I would have done it. For he is my lord, and I serve noother. So I did not go back to Aber. I brought a hundred goodfighting men of my own mind to deliver to Cadwaladr, whatever useit might be his intent to make of them.”

“And you found him in my camp,” said Owain, andsmiled. “And half of your design seemed to be already donefor 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, andtook him with them a prisoner, and left you behind? Was he of yourmind?

A brief contortion shook Gwion’s dark face. “Theycame, and they have taken him. I know no more than that. Now I havetold you, and I am in your hands. He is my lord, and if you willhave me to fight under you I will yet be of service to him, but ifyou deny me that, you have the right. I thought on him beleaguered,and my heart could not stand it. Nevertheless, as I have given himmy fealty, so now I have given for him even my honor, and I knowall too well I am utterly the worse by its loss. Do as you seefit.”

“Do you tell me,” said Owain, studying him narrowly,“that he had no time to tell you how things stand between ustwo? If I will have you to fight under me, you say! Why, so Imight, and not the worst man ever I had under my banner, if I hadfighting in mind, but while I can get what I aim at withoutfighting, I have no such matter in mind. What makes you think I maybe about to sound the onset?”

“The Danes have taken your brother!” protestedGwion, stammering and suddenly at a loss. “Surely you mean torescue him?”

“I have no such intent,” said Owain bluntly.“I will not lift a finger to pluck him out of theirhands.”

“What, when they have snatched him hostage because he hasmade his peace with you?”

“They have snatched him hostage,” said Owain,“for the two thousand marks he promised them if they wouldcome and hammer me into giving him back the lands heforfeited.”

“No matter, no matter what it is they hold against him,though that cannot be the whole! He is your brother, and in enemyhands, he is in peril of his life! You cannot leave himso!”

“He is in no peril at all of the least harm,” saidOwain, “if he pays what he owes. As he will. They will keephim as tenderly as their own babes, and turn him loose without ascratch on him when they have loaded his cattle and goods and gearto the worth he promised them. They do not want outright war anymore than I do, provided they get their dues. And they know that ifthey maim or kill my brother, then they will have to dealwith me. We understand each other, the Danes and I. But put my meninto 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, staringwide-eyed.

“Tell him, Cuhelyn, how this contention stands,”said Owain, leaning back with a sigh from such irreconcilable andinnocent loyalty.

“My lord Owain offered his brother parley, withoutprejudice,” said Cuhelyn shortly, “and told him he mustget rid of his Danes before there could be any question of hislands being given back to him. And there was but one way to sendthem home, and that was to pay what he had promised. The quarrelwas his, and he must resolve it. But Cadwaladr believed he knewbetter, and if he forced my lord’s hand, my lord would haveto join with him, to drive the Danes out by battle. And he wouldhave to pay nothing! So he delivered defiance to Otir, and bade himbe off back to Dublin, for that Owain and Cadwaladr had made theirpeace, and would drive them into the sea if they did not up anchorand go. In which,” said Cuhelyn through his teeth, and withhis eyes fierce and steady and defiant upon Owain, who after allwas brother to this devious man, and might recoil from too plainspeaking, “he lied. There was no such peace, and no suchalliance. He lied, and he broke a solemn compact, and looked to bepraised and approved for it! Worse, by such a cheat he left inperil three hostages, two monks and a girl taken by the Danes. Overthem my lord has spread his hand, offering a fair price for theirransom. But for Cadwaladr he will not lift a finger. And now youknow,” he said fiercely, “why the Danes have sent bynight to fetch him away, and why they have dealt fairly by you, whohave committed no offence against them. They have shed no blood,harmed no man of my lord’s following. From Cadwaladr theyhave a debt to collect. For even to Danes a prince of the Welshpeople should keep his word.”

All this he delivered in a steady, deliberate voice, and yet ata white heat of outrage that kept Gwion silent to the end.

“All that Cuhelyn tells you is truth,” saidOwain.

Gwion opened stiff lips to say hollowly: “I do believe it.Nevertheless, he is still your brother and my lord. I know him rashand impulsive. He acts without thought. I cannot therefore abjuremy fealty, if you can renounce your blood.”

“That,” said Owain with princely patience, “Ihave not done. Let him keep his word to those he brought in torecover his right for him, and deliver my Welsh soil from anunwanted invader, and he is my brother as before. But I would havehim clean of malice and false dealing, and I will not put my sealto those things he has done which dishonor him.”

“I can make no such stipulation,” said Gwion with awry and painful smile, “nor set any such limit to myallegiance. I am forsworn myself, even in this his fellow. I gowith him wherever he goes, even into hell.”

“You are in my mercy,” said Owain, “and I havenot hell in mind for you or him.”

“Yet you will not help him now! Oh, my lord,”pleaded Gwion hotly, “consider what men will say of you, ifyou leave a brother in the hands of his enemies.”

“Barely a week ago,” said Owain with arduouspatience, “these Danes were his friends and comrades in arms.If he had not mistaken me and cheated them out of their price theywould be so still. If I pass over his treachery to them, I will notpass over his gross and foolish misreading of me. I do not likebeing taken for a man who will look kindly on oath-breakers, andmen who go back shamefully on bargains freely made.”

“You condemn me no less than him,” said Gwion,writhing.

“You at least I understand. Your treason comes of tooimmovable a loyalty. It does you no credit,” said Owain,wearying of forbearance, “but it will not turn away yourfriends from you.”

“I am in your mercy, then. What will you do withme?”

“Nothing,” said the prince. “Stay or go, asyou please. We will feed and house you as we did at Aber, if youwant to stay, and wait out his fortune. If not, go when and whereyou please. You are his man, not mine. No one will hinderyou.”

“And you no longer ask for my submission?”

“I no longer value it,” said Owain, and rose with amotion of his hand to dismiss them both from his presence.

They went out together, as they had entered, butonce out of the farmstead Cuhelyn turned away, and would havedeparted brusquely and without a word, if Gwion had not caught himby the arm.

“He damns me with his mercy! He could have had my life, orloaded me with the chains I have earned. Do you, too, avert youreyes from me? Had it been otherwise, had it been Owain himself, orHywel, beleaguered among enemies, would not you have set yourfealty to him above even your word, and gone to him forsworn ifneed were?”

Cuhelyn had pulled up as abruptly as he had turned away. Hisface was set. “No. I have never given my fealty but to lordsabsolute in honor themselves, and demanding as much of those whoserve them. Had I done as you have done, and brought the dishonoras a gift to Hywel, he would have struck me down and cast me out.Cadwaladr, I make no doubt, welcomed and was glad ofyou.”

“It was a hard thing to do,” said Gwion with thesolemnity of despair. “Harder than dying.”

But Cuhelyn had already plucked himself free, with fastidiouscare, and was striding away through the camp just stirring intolife with the morning light.

Among Owain’s men Gwion felt himself an exile and anoutcast, even though they accepted his presence in their midstwithout demur, and took no pains to avoid or exclude him. Here hehad no function. His hands and skills did not belong to this lord,and to his own lord he could not come. He passed through the lineswithdrawn and mute, and from a hillock within the northernperimeter of the encampment he stood for a long time peeringtowards the distant dunes where Cadwaladr was a prisoner, a hostagefor two thousand marks’ worth in stock and money and goods,the hire of a Danish fleet.

Within his vision the fields in the distance gave way to thefirst undulations of sand, and the scattered trees dwindled intoclusters of bushes and scrub. Somewhere beyond, perhaps even inchains after his recapture, Cadwaladr brooded and waited for helpwhich his brother coldly withheld. No matter what the offence, notthe breaking of his pledged word, not even the murder of Anarawd,if indeed such guilt touched him, nothing could justify for GwionOwain’s abandonment of his brother. His own breach of faithin leaving Aber Gwion saw as unforgivable, and had no blame forthose who condemned it, but there was nothing Cadwaladr had done orcould do that would have turned his devout vassal from revering andfollowing him. Once given and accepted, fealty was for life.

And he could do nothing! True, he had leave to depart if he sowished, and also true, he had a company of a hundred good fightingmen bivouacked not many miles away, but what was that against thenumbers the Danes must have, and the defenses they had secured? Anill-considered attempt to storm their camp and free Cadwaladr mightonly cost him his life, or, more likely, cause the Danes to upanchor and put to sea, where they could not be matched, and taketheir prisoner away with them, back to Ireland, out of reach of anyrescue.

The distant prospect afforded him no enlightenment, and noglimmer of a way forward towards the liberation of his lord. Itgrieved him that Cadwaladr, who had already lost so much, should beforced to pay out what remained to him in treasury and stock to buyhis liberty, without even the certainty that he might recover hislost lands, for which the sum demanded of him had been promised inthe first place. Even if Owain was right, and the Danes intendedhim no harm provided the debt was paid, the humiliation ofcaptivity and submission would gnaw like an ulcer in that proudspirit. Gwion grudged Otir and his men every mark of their fee. Itmight be said that Cadwaladr should never have invoked alien aidagainst a brother, but such impetuous and flawed impulses hadalways threatened Cadwaladr’s wisdom, and men who loved himhad borne with them as with the perilous cantrips of a valiant andfoolhardy child, and made the best of the resultant chaos. It wasnot kind or just to withdraw now, when most it was needed, theindulgence which had never before failed him.

Gwion moved on along the ridge, still straining his eyes towardsthe north. A fringe of trees crowned the crest, squat and warped bythe salt air, and leaning inland from the prevailing wind. Andthere beyond their uneven line, still and sturdy and himself rootedas a tree, a man stood and stared towards the unseen Danish forceas Gwion was staring. A man perhaps in his middle thirties,square-built and muscular, the first fine salting of grey in hisbrown hair, his eyes, over-shadowed beneath thick black brows,fixed darkly upon the sand-molded curves of the naked horizon. Hewent unarmed, and bare of breast and arms in the sunlight of themorning, a powerful body formidably still in his concentration ondistance. Though he heard Gwion’s step in the dry grassbeneath the trees, and it was plain that he must have heard it, hedid not turn his head or stir from his fixed surveillance for somemoments, until Gwion stood within touch of him. Even then hestirred and turned about only slowly and indifferently.

“I know,” he said, as though they had been aware ofeach other for a long time. “Gazing will bring it nonearer.”

It was Gwion’s own thought, worded very aptly, and it tookthe breath out of him for a moment. Warily he asked: “You,too? What stake have you over there among the Danes?”

“A wife,” said the other man, with a brief, dryforce that needed no more words to express the enormity of hisdeprivation.

“A wife!” echoed Gwion uncomprehendingly. “Bywhat strange chance…” What was it Cuhelyn had said, ofthree hostages left in peril after Cadwaladr’s defection anddefiance, two monks and a girl taken by the Danes? Two monks and agirl had set out from Aber in Owain’s retinue. To fall victimin the first place to Cadwaladr’s mercenaries, and then to beleft to pay the price of Cadwaladr’s betrayal, if the mindsof the Danes ran to vengeance? Oh, the account was growing long,and Owain’s obduracy became ever easier to understand. ButCadwaladr had not thought, he never thought before, he acted firstand regretted afterwards, as by now he must be regrettingeverything he had done since he made the first fatal mistake offleeing to the kingdom of Dublin for redress.

Yes, the girl—Gwion remembered the girl. A black-browedbeauty, tall, slender, and mute, serving wine and mead about theprince’s table without a smile, except occasionally themalicious and grieving smile with which she plagued the cleric theysaid was her father, reminding him on what thin ice he walked, andhow she could shatter it under him if she so pleased. That storyhad been whispered around the llys from ostler to maid to armorerto page, and come early to the ears of the last hostage fromCeredigion, who alone could observe all these goings-on with anindifferent eye, since Gwynedd was not home to him, and Owain wasnot his lord, nor Gilbert of Saint Asaph his bishop. The same girl?She had been on her way, he recalled, to match with a man ofAnglesey in Owain’s service.

“You are that Ieuan ab Ifor,” he said, “whowas to marry the canon’s daughter.”

“I am that same,” said Ieuan, bending thick blackbrows at him. “And who are you, who know my name and whatI’m doing here? I have not seen you among the prince’sliegemen until now.”

“For reason enough. I am not his liegeman. I am Gwion, thelast of the hostages he brought from Ceredigion. My allegiance wasand is to Cadwaladr,” said Gwion starkly, and watched theslow fire kindle and glow in the sharp eyes that watched him.“For good or ill, I am his man, but I would far rather itshould be for good.”

“It is his doing,” said Ieuan, smoldering,“that Meirion’s daughter is left captive among thesesea-pirates. Such good as ever came from him you may measure withinthe cup of an acorn, and like an acorn feed it to the pigs. Hebrings barbarian raiders into Gwynedd, and then goes back on hisbargain, and takes to his heels into safety, leaving innocenthostages to bear the brunt of Otir’s rage. He has been asdire a curse to his own best kin as he was to Anarawd, whom he haddone to death.”

“Take heed not to go too far in his dispraise,” saidGwion, but in weariness and grief rather than indignation,“for I may not hear him miscalled.”

“Oh, be easy! God knows I cannot hold it against any manthat he stands by his prince, but God send you a better prince tostand by. You may forgive him all, no matter how he shames you, butdo not ask me to forgive him for abandoning my bride to whateverfate the Danes keep for her.”

“The prince has declared her in his protection,”said Gwion, “as I have heard only an hour ago. He has offeredfair ransom for her and for the two monks who came from England,and warned to the value he sets on her safe-keeping.”

“The prince is here,” said Ieuan grimly, “andshe is there, and they have lost their grip on the one they wouldliefer have in hold. Other captives may find themselves serving inhis place.”

“No,” said Gwion, “you mistake. Whateverrancor you may have against him, be content! This past night theyhave sent a ship into the bay, and put men ashore to break theirway into the camp to his tent. They have taken Cadwaladr prisonerback with them, to pay his own ransom or suffer his own fate. Noneed for another victim, they have the chosen one fast in theirhands.”

Ieuan’s rough brows, the most expressive thing about him,knotted abruptly into a ruled line of suspicion and disbelief, andthen, confronted by Gwion’s unwavering gaze, released theirblack tension into open bewilderment and wonder.

“You are deceived, that cannot be…”

“It is truth.”

“How do you know it? Who has told you?”

“There was no need for any man to tell me,” saidGwion. “I was there with him when they came. I saw it. Fourof Otir’s Danes burst in by night. Him they took, me theyleft bound and muted, as they had left the guard who kept the gate.Here I have still the grazes of the cords with which they tied me.See!”

They had scored his wrist deep in his efforts to break free;there was no mistaking rope-burns. Ieuan beheld them with a long,silent stare, assessing and accepting.

“So that is why you said to me: “You, too?”Now I know without asking what stake you have over thereamong the Danes. Hold me excused if I say plainly that your griefis no grief to me. What may fall upon him he has brought down onhis own head. But what has my girl done to deserve the peril inwhich he left her? If his capture delivers her, I am right glad ofit.”

Since there was no arguing with that, Gwion was silent.

“If I had but a dozen of my own mind,” Ieuanpursued, rather to himself than to any other, “I would bringher off myself, against every Dane Dublin can ship over intoGwynedd. She is mine, and I will have her.”

“And you have not even seen her yet,” said Gwion,shaken by the sudden convulsion of passion in a man so containedand still.

“Ah, but I have seen her. I have been within a stone-throwof their stockade undetected, and can do as much again. I saw herwithin there, on a crest of the dunes, looking south, looking forthe deliverance no one sends her. She is more than they told me. Aslissome and bright as steel, and moves like a fawn. I would venturefor her alone, but that I dread to be her death before ever I couldbreak through to her.”

“I would as much for my lord,” said Gwion, grownquiet and intent, for this bold and fervent lover had started avein of hope within him. “If Cadwaladr is nothing to you, andyour Heledd hardly more to me, yet if we put our heads and ourforces together we may both benefit. Two is better than onealone.”

“But still no more than two,” said Ieuan. But he waslistening.

“Two is but the beginning. Two now may be more in a fewdays. Even if they break my lord into paying his ransom, it willtake some days to bring in and load his cattle, and put togetherwhat remains in silver coin.” He drew closer, his voicelowered to be heard only by Ieuan, if any other should pass by.“I did not come here alone. From Ceredigion I have collectedand led some hundred men who still hold by Cadwaladr. Oh, not forthe purpose we have in mind at this moment. I was certain thatthere would be peace made between brothers, and they would combineto drive out the Danes, and I brought my lord at least a fairfollowing to fight for him side by side with those who fight forOwain. I would not have him go free and living only by hisbrother’s grace, but at the head of a company of his own men.I came ahead of them to carry him the news, only to find that Owainhas abandoned him. And now the Danes have taken him.”

Ieuan’s face had resumed its impassive calm, but behindthe wide brow and distant gaze a sharp mind was busy with thecalculation of chances hitherto unforeseen. “How far distantare your hundred men?”

“Two days’ march. I left my horse, and a groom whorode with me, a mile south and came alone to find Cadwaladr. NowOwain has cast me free of him into the world to stay or go, I canreturn within the hour to where I left my man, and send him tobring the company as fast as men afoot can march.”

“There are some within here,” said Ieuan,“would welcome a venture. A few I can persuade, some willneed no persuasion.” He rubbed large, powerful hands togethersoftly, and shut the fingers hard on an invisible weapon.“You and I, Gwion, will talk further of this. And before thisday is out, should you not be on your way?”

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