Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

recommended acceptance to the prisoners, and made it possible for their keepers to be about the more immediate business of getting their booty safely back to camp, without any stricter enforcement than a rapidly moving vessel and a mile or so of water on either side provided. No one laid hand on Cadfael once they were embarked. No one paid any further attention to Heledd, braced back defensively into the stern-post, where the young Dane had hoisted her, with knees drawn up and skirts hugged about her in embracing arms. No one feared that she would leap overboard and strike out for Anglesey; the Welsh were not known as notable swimmers. No one had any interest in doing either of them affront or injury; they were simple assets to be retained intact for future use.
    To test it further, Cadfael made his way the length of the well amidships, between the stowed loot of flesh and provisions, paying curious attention to the details of the lithe, long craft, and not one oarsman checked in the steady heave and stretch of his stroke, or turned a glance to note the movement at his shoulder. A vessel shaped for speed, lean as a greyhound, perhaps eighteen paces long and no more than three or four wide. Cadfael reckoned ten strakes a side, six feet deep amidships, the single mast lowered aft. He noted the clenched rivets that held the strakes together. Clincher-built, shallow of draught, light of weight for its strength and speed, the two ends identical for instant manoeuvring, an ideal craft for beaching close inshore in the dunes of Abermenai. No use for shipping more bulky freight; they would have brought cargo hulls for that, slower, more dependent on sail, and shipping only a few rowers to get them out of trouble in a calm. Square-rigged, as all craft still were in these northern waters. The two-masted, lateen-rigged ships of the unforgotten midland sea were still unknown to these Norse seafarers.
    He had been too deeply absorbed in these observations to realise that he himself was being observed just as shrewdly and curiously by a pair of brilliant ice-blue eyes, from under thick golden brows quizzically cocked. The young captain of this raiding party had missed nothing, and clearly knew how to read this appraisal of his craft. He dropped suddenly from the steersman's side to meet Cadfael in the well.
    "You know ships?" he demanded, interested and surprised at so unlikely a preoccupation in a Benedictine brother.
    "I did once. It's a long time now since I ventured on water."
    "You know the sea?" the young man pursued, shining with pleased curiosity.
    "Not this sea. Time was when I knew the middle sea and the eastern shores well enough. I came late to the cloister," he explained, beholding the blue eyes dilate and glitter in delighted astonishment, a deeper spark of pleasure and recognition warming within them.
    "Brother, you put up your own price," said the young Dane heartily. "I would keep you to know better. Seafaring monks are rare beasts, I never came by one before. How do they call you?"
    "My name is Cadfael, a Welsh-born brother of the abbey of Shrewsbury."
    "A name for a name is fair dealing. I am Turcaill, son of Turcaill, kinsman to Otir, who leads this venture."
    "And you know what's in dispute here? Between two Welsh princes? Why put your own breast between their blades?" Cadfael reasoned mildly.
    "For pay," said Turcaill cheerfully. "But even unpaid I would not stay behind when Otir puts to sea. It grows dull ashore. I'm no landsman, to squat on a farm year after year, and be content to watch the crops grow."
    No, that he certainly was not, nor of a temper to turn to cloister and cowl even when the adventures of his youth were over. Splendidly fleshed, glittering with animal energy, this was a man for marriage and sons, and the raising of yet more generations of adventurers, restless as the sea itself, and ready to cleave their way into any man's quarrel for gain, at the fair cost of staking their own lives.
    He was away now, with a valedictory clap on Cadfael's shoulder, steady of stride along the lunging keel, to swing himself up beside Heledd on the after-deck. The light, beginning to fade into twilight now, still showed Cadfael the disdainful set of Heledd's lips and the chill arching of her brows as she drew the hem of her skirt aside from the contamination even of an enemy touch, and turned her head away, refusing him the acknowledgement of a glance.
    Turcaill laughed, no way displeased, sat down beside