Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

fell harmlessly into the sand behind him. Further pursuit was impossible, he had the wings of any horse the Danes could provide, and he was off back to his brother in all haste, to make good what he had dared to cry aloud. They watched him vanish and reappear twice in his flight, dipping and rising with the waves of the dunes, until he was a mere speck in the far distance.
    "Is this possible?" marvelled Brother Mark, shocked and incredulous. "Can he have turned the trick so lightly and easily? Would Owain countenance it?"
    The clamour of anger and disbelief that had convulsed the Danish freebooters sank with ominous suddenness into the contained and far more formidable murmur of understanding and acceptance. Otir gathered his chiefs about him, turned his back on the act of treachery, and went striding solidly up the dunes to his tent, to take counsel what should follow. There was no wasting time on denunciation or threat, and there was nothing in his broad brown countenance to give away what was going on behind the copper forehead. Otir beheld things as they were, not as he would have wished them. He would never be hesitant in confronting realities.
    "If there's one thing certain," said Cadfael, watching him pass by, massive, self-contained and perilous, "it is that there goes one who keeps his own bargains, bad or good, and will demand as much from those who deal with him. With or without Owain, Cadwaladr had better watch his every step, for Otir will have his price out of him, in goods or in blood."
    No such forebodings troubled Cadwaladr on his ride back to his brother's camp. When he was challenged at the outer guard he drew rein long enough to reassure the watch blithely: "Let me by, for I am as Welsh as you, and this is where I belong. We have common cause now. I will be answerable to the prince for what I have done."
    To the prince they admitted, and indeed escorted him, unsure of what lay behind this return, and resolute that he should indeed make good his purpose to Owain before he spoke with any other. There were enough of his old associates among the muster, and he had a way of retaining devotion long after it was proven he deserved none. If he had brought the Danes here to threaten Gwynedd, he might now have conspired with them in some new and subtle measure to get his way. And Cadwaladr stalked into the presence in their midst with a slight, disdainful smile for their implied distrust, as always convinced by the arguments of his own sanguine mind, and sure of his dominance.
    Owain swung about from the section of the stockade that his engineers were reinforcing, to stare and frown at sight of his brother, so unexpectedly returned. A frown as yet only of surprise and wonder, even concern that something unforeseen might have prevented Cadwaladr's freedom of movement.
    "You back again? What new thing is this?"
    "I am come to myself," said Cadwaladr with assurance, "and have returned where I belong. I am as Welsh as you, and as royal."
    "It is high time you remembered it," said Owain shortly. "And now you are here, what is it you intend?"
    "I intend to see this land freed of Irishman and Dane, as I am instructed is your wish also. I am your brother. Your forces and mine are one force, must be one force. We have the same interests, the same needs, the same aims..."
    Owain's frown had gathered and darkened on his brow into a thundercloud, as yet mute, but threatening. "Speak plainly," he said, "I am in no mood to go roundabout. What have you done?"
    "I have flung defiance at Otir and all his Danes!" Cadwaladr was proud of his act, and assured he could make it acceptable, and fuse into one the powers that would enforce it. "I have bidden them board and up sail and be off home to Dublin, for you and I together are resolute to drive them from our soil, and they had best accept their dismissal and spare themselves a bloody encounter. I was at fault ever to bring them here. If you will, yes, I repent of it. Between you and me there is no need of such harsh argument. Now I have dismissed and spurned their bought services. We will rid ourselves of every last man of them. If we are at one, they will not dare stand against us..."
    He had progressed thus far in an ever-hastening torrent of words, as if desperate to convince rather himself than Owain. Misgivings had made their stealthy way into his mind almost without his knowledge, by reason of the chill stillness of his brother's face, and the grimly silent set of his