Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes
them a prisoner, and left you behind? Was he of your mind?
A brief contortion shook Gwion's dark face. "They came, and they have taken him. I know no more than that. Now I have told you, and I am in your hands. He is my lord, and if you will have me to fight under you I will yet be of service to him, but if you deny me that, you have the right. I thought on him beleaguered, and my heart could not stand it. Nevertheless, as I have given him my fealty, so now I have given for him even my honour, and I know all too well I am utterly the worse by its loss. Do as you see fit."
"Do you tell me," said Owain, studying him narrowly, "that he had no time to tell you how things stand between us two? If I will have you to fight under me, you say! Why, so I might, and not the worst man ever I had under my banner, if I had fighting in mind, but while I can get what I aim at without fighting, I have no such matter in mind. What makes you think I may be about to sound the onset?"
"The Danes have taken your brother!" protested Gwion, stammering and suddenly at a loss. "Surely you mean to rescue him?"
"I have no such intent," said Owain bluntly. "I will not lift a finger to pluck him out of their hands."
"What, when they have snatched him hostage because he has made his peace with you?"
"They have snatched him hostage," said Owain, "for the two thousand marks he promised them if they would come and hammer me into giving him back the lands he forfeited."
"No matter, no matter what it is they hold against him, though that cannot be the whole! He is your brother, and in enemy hands, he is in peril of his life! You cannot leave him so!"
"He is in no peril at all of the least harm," said Owain, "if he pays what he owes. As he will. They will keep him as tenderly as their own babes, and turn him loose without a scratch on him when they have loaded his cattle and goods and gear to the worth he promised them. They do not want outright war any more than I do, provided they get their dues. And they know that if they maim or kill my brother, then they will have to deal with me. We understand each other, the Danes and I. But put my men into the field to pull him out of the mire he chose for himself? No! Not a man, not a blade, not a bow!"
"This I cannot believe!" said Gwion, staring wide-eyed.
"Tell him, Cuhelyn, how this contention stands," said Owain, leaning back with a sigh from such irreconcilable and innocent loyalty.
"My lord Owain offered his brother parley, without prejudice," said Cuhelyn shortly, "and told him he must get rid of his Danes before there could be any question of his lands being given back to him. And there was but one way to send them home, and that was to pay what he had promised. The quarrel was his, and he must resolve it. But Cadwaladr believed he knew better, and if he forced my lord's hand, my lord would have to join with him, to drive the Danes out by battle. And he would have to pay nothing! So he delivered defiance to Otir, and bade him be off back to Dublin, for that Owain and Cadwaladr had made their peace, and would drive them into the sea if they did not up anchor and go. In which," said Cuhelyn through his teeth, and with his eyes fierce and steady and defiant upon Owain, who after all was brother to this devious man, and might recoil from too plain speaking, "he lied. There was no such peace, and no such alliance. He lied, and he broke a solemn compact, and looked to be praised and approved for it! Worse, by such a cheat he left in peril three hostages, two monks and a girl taken by the Danes. Over them my lord has spread his hand, offering a fair price for their ransom. But for Cadwaladr he will not lift a finger. And now you know," he said fiercely, "why the Danes have sent by night to fetch him away, and why they have dealt fairly by you, who have committed no offence against them. They have shed no blood, harmed no man of my lord's following. From Cadwaladr they have a debt to collect. For even to Danes a prince of the Welsh people should keep his word."
All this he delivered in a steady, deliberate voice, and yet at a white heat of outrage that kept Gwion silent to the end.
"All that Cuhelyn tells you is truth," said Owain.
Gwion opened stiff lips to say hollowly: "I do believe it. Nevertheless, he is still your brother and my lord. I know him rash and impulsive. He acts without thought. I cannot therefore abjure my fealty, if you can renounce your blood."
"That," said Owain with
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