Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

to be close. Do you think a good Welshman would neglect his interests where the contrivances of his betters are concerned?"
    "I had thought a good Welshman never acknowledged any betters," said Mark, and smiled. "You had your ear to the leather of the tent?"
    "For your benefit no less. Owain has offered to buy us all three out of Otir's hold. And Otir, if he has held back from coming to terms at once, has promised us life and limb and this degree of freedom until he comes to a decision. We have nothing worse to fear."
    "I was not in any fear," said Heledd, still gazing thoughtfully southward. "Then what comes next, if Owain has left his brother to his fate?"
    "Why, we sit back and wait, here where we are, until either Otir decides to accept his price for us, or Cadwaladr somehow scrapes together whatever fool sum in money and stock he promised his Danes."
    "And if Otir cannot wait, and decides to cut his fee by force out of Gwynedd?" Mark wondered.
    "That he will not do, unless some fool starts the killing and forces his hand. I exact my dues, he said, from the debtor who owes them. And he means it, not now simply out of self-interest, but out of a very deep grudge against Cadwaladr, who has cheated him. He will not bring Owain and all his power into combat if by any means he can avoid it and still get his profit. And he is as able to make his own dispositions," said Cadfael shrewdly, "as any other man, and for all I can see, better than most. Not only Owain and his brother are calling the shots here, Otir may well have a trick or two of his own up his sleeve."
    "I want no killing," said Heledd peremptorily, as though she gave orders by right to all men presently in arms. "Not for us, not for them. I would rather continue here prisoner than have any man brought to his death. And yet," she said grieving, "I know it cannot go on thus deadlocked, it must end somehow."
    It would end, Cadfael reflected, unless some unforeseen disaster intervened, in Otir's acceptance of Owain's ransom for his captives, most probably after Otir had dealt, in whatever fashion he saw fit, with Cadwaladr. That score would rank first in his mind, and be tackled first. He had no obligation now to his sometime ally, that compact had been broken once for all. Cadwaladr might go into exile, once he had paid his dues, or go on his knees to his brother and beg back his lands. Otir owed him nothing. And since he had all his following to pay, he would not refuse the additional profit of Owain's ransom. Heledd would go free, back to Owain's charge. And there was a man now in Owain's muster who was waiting to claim her on her return. A good man, so Mark said, presentable to the eye, well-thought of, a man of respectable lands, in good odour with the prince. She might do very much worse.
    "There is no cause in the world," said Mark, "why it should not end for you in a life well worth the cherishing. This Ieuan whom you have never seen is wholly disposed to receive and love you, and he is worth your acceptance."
    "I do believe you," she said, for her almost submissively. But her eyes were steady upon a far distance over the sea, where the light of air and the light of water melted into a shimmering mist, indissoluble and mysterious, everything beyond hidden in radiance. And Cadfael wondered suddenly if he was not, after all, imagining the conviction in Brother Mark's voice, and the womanly grace of resignation in Heledd's.
    Chapter Ten
    Turcaill came down from conference in Otir's tent towards the shore of the sheltered bay, where his lithe little dragon-ship lay close inshore, its low sides mirrored in the still water of the shallows. The anchorage at the mouth of the Menai was separated from the broad sandy reaches of the bay to southward by a long spit of shingle, beyond which the water of two rivers and their tributaries wound its way to the strait and the open sea, in a winding course through the waste of sands. Turcaill stood to view the whole sweep of land and water, the long stretch of the bay extending more than two miles to the south, pale gold shoals and sinuous silver water, the green shore of Arfon beyond, rolling back into the distant hills. The tide was flowing, but it would be two hours or more yet before it reached its highest, and covered all but a narrow belt of salt marsh fringing the shore of the bay. By midnight it would be on the turn again, but full enough to float the little ship with its shallow draught close inshore. Inland of