Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

lambent light from the water, a shifting but gentle light that was enough for their purposes, the white edges of every ripple showing the extent of the uncovered sand. Ieuan led, and they followed him in a long line, silent and furtive under the dykes of Owain's defences, and on into the no-man's-land beyond. Before them, anchored offshore after their loading, the Danish cargo ships rode darkly swaying against the faint luminosity of the waves, and the comparative pallor of the sky. Gwion checked at sight of them.
    "These have the silver already stored? We could reclaim it," he said in a whisper. "They'll have only holding crews aboard overnight."
    "Tomorrow!" said Ieuan with brusque authority. "A long swim, they lie in deep water. They could pick us off one by one before ever we touched. Tomorrow they'll lay them inshore again to load the beasts. There are enough among Owain's muster who grudge so much as a penny to the pirates; if we start the onset they'll follow, the prince will have no choice but to fight. Tonight we take back my woman and your lord. Tomorrow the silver!"
    In the small hours of the morning Cadfael awoke to a sudden clamour of voices bellowing and lurs blaring, and started up from his nest in the sand still dazed between reality and dreaming, old battles jerked back into mind with startling vividness, so that he reached blindly for a sword before ever he was steady on his feet, and aware of the starry night above and the cool rippling of the sand under his bare feet. He groped about him to pluck Mark awake before he recalled that Mark was no longer beside him, but back in Owain's retinue, out of reach of whatever this sudden threat might be. Over to his right, from the side where the open sea stretched away westward to Ireland, the acid clashing of steel added a thin, ferocious note to the baying of fighting men. Confused movements of struggle and alarm shook the still air in convulsive turmoil between sand and sky, as though a great storm-wind had risen to sweep away men without so much as stirring the grasses they trod. The earth lay still, cool and indifferent, the sky hung silent and calm, but force and violence had come up from the sea to put an end to humanity's precarious peace. Cadfael ran in the direction from which the uproar drifted fitfully to his ears. Others, starting out of their beds on the landward side of the encampment, were running with him, drawing steel as they ran, all converging on the seaward fences, where the clamour of battle had moved inward upon them, as though the stockade had been breached. In the thick of the tangle of sounds rose Otir's thunderous voice, marshalling his men. And I am no man of his, thought Cadfael, astounded but still running headlong towards the cry, why should I go looking for trouble? He could have been holding off at a safe distance, waiting to see who had staged what was plainly a determined attack, and how it prospered for Dane or Welshman, before assessing its import for his own wellbeing, but instead he was making for the heart of the battle as fast as he could, and cursing whoever had chosen to tear apart what could have been an orderly resolution of a dangerous business.
    Not Owain! Of that he was certain. Owain had brought about a just and sensible ending, he would neither have originated nor countenanced a move calculated to destroy his achievement. Some hot-blooded youngsters envenomed with hatred of the Dane, or panting for the glory of warfare! Owain might reserve his quarrel with the alien fleet that invaded his land uninvited, he might even choose to exert himself to thrust them out when all other outstanding business was settled, but he would never have thrown away his own patient work in procuring the clearing of the ground. Owain's battle, had it ever come to it, as it yet might, would have been direct, neat and workmanlike, with no needless killing.
    He was near to the heave and strain of close infighting now, he could see the line of the stockade broken here and there by the heads and shoulders of struggling men, and a great gap torn in the barrier where the attackers had forced their way in unobserved, between guard-posts. They had not penetrated far, and Otir already had a formidable ring of steel drawn about them, but on the fringes, in the darkness and in such confusion, there was no knowing friend from enemy, and a few of the first through the gap might well be loose within the camp.
    He was rubbing shoulders with the