Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes

After him the ranks of his companions surged headlong, with swords drawn and short lances raised aloft, a sudden glitter of steel as they emerged from shadow into sun.
    Out into clear view, and streaming down the last slope of sand into the shingle of the beach, straight for the Danish muster. Otir swung about, bellowing an alarm that brought every head round to confront the assault. Shields went up to ward off the first flung javelins, and the hiss of swords being drawn as one was flung into the air like a great indrawn breath. Then the first wave of Gwion's force hurtled into the Danish ranks and bore them backwards into their fellows by sheer weight, so that the whole battle lurched knee-deep into the surf.
    Cadfael saw it from his high place, the impact and the clashing recoil as the ranks collided in a quivering shock, and heard the sudden clamour of voices shouting, and startled cattle bellowing. The Danes had so spaced their array that every man had room to use his right arm freely, and was quick to draw steel. One or two were borne down by the first impetuous collision, and took their attackers down into the sea with them in a confusion of spray, but most braced themselves and stood firm. Gwion had flung himself straight at Otir. There was no way to Cadwaladr now but over Otir's body. But the Dane had twice Gwion's weight, and three times his experience in arms. The thrusting sword clanged harshly on a raised and twisted shield, and was almost wrenched out of the attacker's grasp. Then all Cadfael could see was one struggling, heaving mass of Welshman and Dane, wreathed in shimmering spray. He began to make his way rapidly down on to the beach, with what intent he himself could hardly have said.
    Echoing shouts arose from among the clansmen who marched at Owain's back, and a few started out of their ranks and began to run towards the melee in the shallows, hands on hilts in an instant, their intent all too plain. Cadfael could not wonder at it. Welshmen were already battling against an alien invader, there in full view. Welsh blood could not endure to stand aside, all other rights and wrongs went for nothing. They hallooed their partisan approval, and plunged into the boiling shallows. The reeling mass of entangled bodies heaved and strained, so closely locked together that on neither side could they find free room to do one another any great hurt. Not until the ranks opened would there be deaths.
    A loud, commanding voice soared above the din of snarling voices and clanging steel, as Owain Gwynedd set spurs to his horse and rode into the edge of the sea, striking at his own too impetuous men with the flat of his sheathed sword.
    "Back! Stand off! Get back to your ranks, and put up your weapons!"
    His voice, seldom raised, could split the quaking air like thunder hard on the heels of lightning when he was roused. It was that raging trumpet-call rather than the battering blows that caused the truants to shrink and cower before him, and lean aside out of his path, plashing ashore in reluctant haste. Even Cadwaladr's former liegemen wavered, falling back from their hand-to-hand struggles. The two sides fell apart, and thrusts and sword-strokes that might have been smothered in the encroaching weight of wrestling bodies found room to wound before they could be restrained or parried.
    It was over. They fell back to the solid shingle, swords and axes and javelins lowered, in awe of the icy glare of Owain's eyes, and the angry circling of his horse's stamping hooves in the surf, trampling out a zone of stillness between the combatants. The Danes held their ranks, some of them bloodied, none of them fallen. Of the attackers, two lay groping feebly out of the waves to lie limp in the sand. Then there was a silence.
    Owain sat his horse, quieted now by a calming hand but still quivering, and looked down at Otir, eye to eye, for a long moment. Otir held his ground, and gave him back penetrating stare for stare. There was no need for explanation or protestation between them. With his own eyes Owain had seen.
    "This," he said at length, "was not by my contrivance. Now I will know, and hear from his own mouth, who has usurped my rule and cast doubt on my good faith. Come forth and show yourself."
    There was no question but he already knew, for he had seen the charge launched out of hiding. It was, in some measure, generous to let a man stand fast by what he had done, and declare himself defiantly of his own will, in the