Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

that was all that mattered. Why, what follows? How is it so good for us all?"
    "Why, the man has come to his senses, and agreed to pay these Danes what he promised them. Mark has just been sent off to commission Owain, in his brother's name, and with his brother's seal for surety, to collect and pay his ransom. Otir will take it and go, and leave Gwynedd in peace."
    Now she had indeed turned to pay due attention to what he was saying, with raised brows and sharply arrested hands. "He has given in? Already? He will pay?"
    "I have it from Mark, and Mark is already on his way. Nothing could be surer."
    "And they will go!" she said, a mere murmur within her still lips. She drew up her knees and folded her arms about them, and sat gazing before her, neither smiling nor frowning, only coolly and resolutely assessing these changed prospects for good and evil. "How long, do you think, Cadfael, it will take to bring cattle up here by the drove roads from Ceredigion?"
    "Three days at the least," said Cadfael, and watched her put away that factor in the methodical recesses of her mind, to be kept in the reckoning.
    "Three days at the most, then," she said, "for Owain will make all haste to be rid of them."
    "And you will be glad to be free," said Cadfael, probing gently into regions where truth had at least two faces, and he could not be sure which one was turned towards him, and which was turned away.
    "Yes," she said, "I shall be glad!" And she looked beyond him into the grey-blue, shifting surface of the sea, and smiled.
    Gwion had reached the guard-post, the same by which his lord had been abducted, without hindrance, and was in the very act of stepping over the threshold when the guard barred his way with a braced lance, and challenged him sharply: "Are not you Gwion, Cadwaladr's liegeman?"
    Gwion owned to it, bewildered rather than alarmed. No doubt they were keeping a closer watch on this gate, after last night's incursion, and this sentry did not know Owain's mind, and had no intention of incurring blame by allowing either entry or exit unquestioned. "I am. The prince has given me leave to stay or go, as I choose. Ask Cuhelyn. He will tell you so."
    "I have later news for you," said the guard, unmoving. "For the prince has only a short while since asked that you be sought, if you were still within the pale, and sent back to him."
    "I never knew him change his mind in such a fashion," protested Gwion distrustfully. "He made it plain he set no store on me, and did not care a pin whether I stayed or departed. Nor whether I lived or died, for that matter."
    "Nevertheless, it seems he has a use for you yet. No harm, if he never threatened any. Go and see. He wants you. I know no more than that."
    There was no help for it. Gwion turned back towards the squat roof of the farmstead, his mind a turmoil of unprofitable speculations. Owain could not possibly have got wind of what was still at best only a vague intent, hardly a plan at all, though he had spent a long time with Ieuan ab Ifor over the detail of numbers and means, and all that Ieuan had gathered concerning the layout of the Danish camp. Too long a time, as it now appeared. He should have left at once, before there could be any question of detaining him. By this time he could have despatched his groom south to bring up the promised force, and been back within the stockade here before ever he was missed. Planning could have waited. Now it was too late, he was trapped. Yet nothing was quite lost. Owain could not know. No one knew but Gwion himself and Ieuan, and Ieuan had not yet spoken a word to any of those stalwarts he knew of who would welcome a venture. That recruitment was still to come. Then what Owain wanted of him could have nothing to do with their half-formed enterprise.
    He was still feverishly recording and discarding possibilities when he entered the low-beamed hall of the farm, and made his stiff and wary reverence to the prince across the rough trestle table.
    Hywel was there, close at his father's shoulder, and two more of the prince's trusted captains stood a little apart, witnesses in some business which remained inexplicable to Gwion. For the only other person in the room was the meagre little deacon from Lichfield, in his rusty black habit, his spiky ring of straw-coloured hair growing stubbornly every way, his grey eyes as always wide, direct and tranquil. They looked at Gwion, and Gwion turned his head away, as though he feared they might see too