Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

secret from this side. Here they expect no attack by land, he can go and come as he pleases, and so can some who would liefer do his bidding than Owain's."
    "You have not been within?" demanded Turcaill. "Past the guard?"
    "No need! Someone else found the way there not a moment ahead of me, coming from the south. I was in the bushes, close enough to hear him challenged. He had but to open his mouth, whoever he is, and he was welcome within. And I saw where he was led. He's fast within Cadwaladr's tent with him now, and even the guard sent back to his watch. There's none inside there now but Cadwaladr and his visitor, and only one guard between us and the pair of them."
    "Are you sure Cadwaladr is there?" demanded Torsten, low-voiced. "You cannot have seen him."
    "I heard his voice. I waited on the man from the time we left Dublin," said the boy firmly. "Do you think I do not know the sound of him by now?"
    "And you heard what was said? This other, did he name him?"
    "No name! 'You!' he said, loud and clear, but no name. But he was surprised and glad, more than glad of him. You may take the pair of them, once the guard is silenced, and let the man himself tell you his name."
    "We came for one," said Turcaill, "and with one we'll go back. And no killing! Owain is out of this quarrel, but he'll be in fast enough if we do murder on one of his men."
    "But won't stir for his brother?" marvelled Leif, half under his breath.
    "What should he fear for his brother? Not a scratch upon Cadwaladr, bear in mind! If he pays his proper ransom he gets his leave to go, as whole as when he hired us. Owain knows it better than any. No need to have it said. Over with you, then, and we'll be out with the tide."
    Their plans had been made beforehand; and if they had taken no count of this unexpected traveller from the south, they could very simply be adapted to accommodate him. Two men alone together in a tent conveniently close to the rim of the camp offered an easy target, once the guard was put out of action. Cadwaladr's own man, in his confidence and in whatever schemes he had in mind, must take his chance of rough handling, but need come to no permanent harm.
    "I will take care of the guard," said Torsten, first to slip over the side to where Leif waited. Five more of Turcaill's oarsmen followed their leader into the salt marsh and across the sandy beach. The night received them silently and indifferently, and Leif went before, retracing his own path from cover to sparse cover towards the perimeter of the camp. In the shelter of a straggling cluster of low trees he halted, peering ahead between the branches. The line of the defences was perceptible ahead merely as a more solid and rigid darkness where every other shadow was sinuous and elusive. But Cadwaladr's liegeman could be seen against the gap which was the gate he guarded, as he paced back and forth across it, head and shoulders clear against the sky. A big man, and armed, but casual in his movements, expecting no alarm. Torsten watched the leisurely patrol for some minutes, marked its extent, and slipped sidelong among the trees to be behind its furthest eastward point, where bushes approached to within a few yards of the stockade, and a man could draw close without being heard or seen.
    The guard was whistling softly to himself as he turned in the soft sand, and Torsten's sinewy left arm took him hard around body and arms, and the right clamped a palm hard over his mouth and cut off the whistle abruptly. He groped frantically upward to try and grip the arm that was gagging him, but could not reach high enough, and his struggles to kick viciously backward cost him his balance and did no harm to Torsten, who swung him off his feet and dropped bodily over him into the sand, holding him face-down. By that time Turcaill was beside them, ready to thrust a fold of woollen cloth into the man's mouth as soon as he was allowed to raise himself, and empty it splutteringly of sand and grass. They wound him head and shoulders in his own cloak, and bound him fast hand and foot. There they bestowed him safely enough, if none too comfortably, among the bushes, and turned their attention to the rim of the camp. There had been no outcry, and there was no stirring within the fences. Somewhere about the prince's tents there would be men wakeful and alert, but here at the remotest corner, deliberately chosen by Cadwaladr for his own purposes, there was no one at hand to turn back retribution from