Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

nearest of the ships, hoisting the barrels in under the after deck, and Otir stood with Hywel, surveying the scene benignly.
    Heledd came over the crest, and made her way down through the scrub and the salt grasses to stand at Cadfael's side. She looked down at the activities stretching out from beach to ship, and her face was calm and almost indifferent. "There are still the cattle to get aboard," she said. "A rough voyage it will be for them. They tell me that crossing can be terrible."
    "In such fine weather," said Cadfael, matching her tone, "they'll have an easy passage." No need to ask from which of them she had that information.
    "By tomorrow night," she said, "they'll be gone. A good deliverance for us all." And her voice was serene and even fervent, and her eyes followed the movements of the last of the porters as he waded ashore, bright water flashing about his ankles. Turcaill stood on the after-deck for some moments, surveying the result of their labours, before he swung himself over the side and came surging through the shallows, driving blue of water and white of spray before him, and looking up, saw Heledd as blithely looking down from her high place, and flung back his lofty flaxen head to smile at her with a dazzle of white teeth, and wave a hand in salute.
    Among the men-at-arms who stood at Hywel's back to see the money safely bestowed Cadfael had observed one, thickset and powerful and darkly comely, who was also looking up towards the ridge. His head was and remained tilted back, and his eyes seemed to Cadfael to be fixed upon Heledd. True, one woman among a camp of Danish invaders might well draw the eye and the interest of any man, but there was something about the taut stillness and the intent and sustained pose that made him wonder. He plucked at Heledd's sleeve.
    "Girl, there's one below there, among the lads who brought the silver, you see him? On Hywel's left, who is staring upon you very particularly. Do you know him? By the cut of him he knows you."
    She turned to look where he indicated, gave a moment to considering the face so assiduously raised to her, and shook her head indifferently.
    "I never saw him before. How can he know me?" And she turned back to watch Turcaill cross the beach and pause to exchange civilities with Hywel ab Owain and his escort, before marshalling his own men back up the slope of the dunes towards the stockade. He passed before Ieuan ab Ifor without a glance, and Ieuan merely shifted his stance a little to recover the sight of Heledd on the dunes above him, as Turcaill's fair head cut her off from him in passing.
    During those vital night watches, Ieuan ab Ifor had taken care to be captain of the guard on the westward gate of Owain's camp, and to have a man of his own on watch through the night hours. Towards midnight of that third night Gwion had brought his muster by forced marches to within sight of Owain's stockade, and there diverted them to the narrow belt of shingle exposed by the low tide, to pass by undetected. He himself made his way silently to the guard-post, and from its shadow Ieuan slid out to meet him.
    "We are come," said Gwion in a whisper. "They are down on the shore."
    "You come late," hissed Ieuan. "Hywel is here before you. The silver is already loaded aboard their ships, they are waiting only for the cattle."
    "How can that be?" demanded Gwion, dismayed. "I rode ahead from Llanbadarn. The only halt I made was the few hours of sleep we took last night. We marched before dawn this morning."
    "And in those few hours of the night Hywel overtook and passed you by, for he was here by mid-morning. And come tomorrow morning the herd will be here and loading. Late to save anything but a beggarly life for Cadwaladr as Owain's almsman instead of Otir's prisoner." For Cadwaladr he did not grieve overmuch, except as his plight had strengthened the case for a rescue which could at the same time deliver Heledd.
    "Not too late," said Gwion, burning up like a stirred fire. "Bring your few, and make haste! The tide is low and still ebbing. We have time enough!"
    They had been ready every night for the signal, and they came singly, silently and eagerly, evading notice and question. Glissading down the suave slopes of the dunes, and across the belt of shingle to the moist, firm sand beyond, where their feet made no sound. More than a mile to go between the camps, but an hour left before the tide would be at its lowest, and ample time to return. There was a