Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

Certainly I will go."
    "Wait a little, wait a little!" Otir shifted his formidable bulk on the bench where he sat listening. "Not so fast! This issue may well have arisen between two men, but there are more of us in it now, invited in upon terms to which I hold, and to which I will hold you, my friend. If you are content to let go your assets on any man's word, without security, I am not willing to let go mine. If you leave here to enter Owain's camp and submit yourself to Owain's persuasion or Owain's compulsion, then I require a hostage for your safe return, not a hollow promise."
    "Keep me," said Brother Mark simply. "I am willing to remain as surety that Cadwaladr shall go and come without hindrance."
    "Were you so charged?" Otir demanded, with some suspicion of the efficacy of such an exchange.
    "No. But I offer it. It is your right, if you fear treachery. The prince would not deny you."
    Otir eyed the slight figure before him with a cautious degree of approval, but remained sceptical. "And does the prince place on you, Brother, an equal value with his own kinsman and enemy? I think I might be tempted to secure the one bird in hand, and let the other fly or founder."
    "I am in some sort Owain's guest," said Mark steadily, "and in some sort his courier. The value he sets on me is the value of his writ and his honour. I shall never be worth more than I am as you see me here."
    Otir let loose a great bellow of laughter, and struck his palms together. "As good an answer as I need. Stay, then, Brother, and be welcome! You have a brother here already. Be free of my camp, as he is, but I warn you, never venture too near the rim. My guards have their orders. What I have taken I keep, until it is fairly redeemed. When the lord Cadwaladr returns, you have due leave to go back to Owain, and give him such answer as we two here see fit."
    It was, Cadfael thought, a deliberate warning to Cadwaladr, as well as to Mark. There was no great trust between these two. If Otir required a surety that Cadwaladr would come back unmolested, it was certainly not simply out of concern for Cadwaladr's safety, but rather taking care of Otir's own bargain. The man was his investment, to be guarded with care, but never, never, to be wholly trusted. Once out of sight, who knew what use so rash a princeling would make of whatever advantage circumstances offered him?
    Cadwaladr rose and stretched his admirable body with sleek, pleasurable assurance. Whatever reservations others might have, he had interpreted his brother's approach as wholly encouraging. The threat to the peace of Gwynedd had been shrewdly assessed, and Owain was ready to give ground, by mere inches it might be, but sufficient to buy off chaos. And now all he, Cadwaladr, had to do was go to the meeting, behave himself seemly before other eyes, as he knew well how to do with grace, and in private surrender not one whit of his demands, and he would regain all, every yardland that had been taken from him, every man of his former following. There could be no other ending, when Owain spoke so softly and reasonably at the first advance.
    "I go to my brother," he said, grimly smiling, "and what I bring back with me shall be to your gain as well as mine."
    Brother Mark sat with Cadfael in a hollow of the sand dunes overlooking the open sea, in the clear, almost shadowless light of afternoon. Before them the swathes of saud, sculptured by sea winds, went rolling down in waves of barren gold and coarse, tenacious grass to the water's edge. At a safe depth offshore seven of Otir's ships rode at anchor, four of them cargo hulls, squat and sturdy, capacious enough to accommodate a wealth of plunder if it came to wresting their price out of Gwynedd by force, the other three the largest of his longships. The smaller and faster vessels all lay within the mouth of the bay, where there was safe anchorage at need, and comfortable beaching inshore. Beyond the ships to westward the open, silvery water extended, mirroring a pallid, featureless blue sky, but dappled in several places by the veiled gold of shoals.
    "I knew," said Mark, "that I should find you here. But I would have come, even without that inducement. I was on my way back to the meeting-place when they passed by. I saw you prisoners, you and the girl. The best I could do was make for Carnarvon, and carry that tale to Owain. He has your case well in mind. But what else he has in his mind, with this meeting he has sought, I do not know. It