The prince’s cortège mustered in the dawn, in a morning hesitant between sullenness and smiles. There was the moisture of a brief shower on the grasses as Cadfael and Mark crossed to the church for prayer before saddling up, but the sun was shimmering on the fine drops, and the sky above was the palest and clearest of blues, but for a few wisps of cloud to eastward, embracing the rising orb of light with stroking fingers. When they emerged again into the courtyard it was already full of bustle and sound, the baggage horses being loaded, the brave city of tents along the hillside above folded and on the move, and even the frail feathers of cloud dissolved into moist and scintillating radiance.
Mark stood gazing before him with pleasure at the preparations for departure, his face flushed and bright, a child embarking on an adventure. Until this moment, Cadfael thought, he had not fully realised the possibilities, the fascinations, even the perils of the journey he had undertaken. To ride with princes was no more than half the tale, somewhere there was a lurking threat, a hostile brother, a prelate bent on reforming a way of life which in the minds of its population needed no reform. And who could guess what might happen between here and Bangor, between bishop and bishop, the stranger and the native?
“I spoke a word in the ear of Saint Winifred,” said Mark, flushing almost guiltily, as though he had appropriated a patroness who by rights belonged to Cadfael. “I thought we must be very close to her here, it seemed only gracious to let her know of our presence and our hopes, and ask her blessing.”
“If we deserve!” said Cadfael, though he had small doubt that so gentle and sensible a saint must look indulgently upon this wise innocent.
“Indeed! How far is it, Cadfael, from here to her holy well?”
“A matter of fourteen miles or so, due east of us.”
“Is it true it never freezes? However hard the winter?”
“It is true. No one has ever known it stilled, it bubbles always in the centre.”
“And Gwytherin, where you took her from the grave?”
“That lies as far south and west of us,” said Cadfael, and refrained from mentioning that he had also restored her to her grave in that same place. “Never try to limit her,” he advised cautiously. “She will be wherever you may call upon her, and present and listening as soon as you cry out your need.”
“That I never doubted,” said Mark simply, and went with a springy and hopeful step to put together his small belongings and saddle his glossy nutbrown gelding. Cadfael lingered a few moments to enjoy the bright bustle before him, and then followed more sedately to the stables. Outside the walls of the enclave Owain’s guards and noblemen were already marshalling, their encampment vanished from the greensward, leaving behind only the paler, flattened patches which would soon spring back into lively green, and erase even the memory of their visitation. Within the wall grooms whistled and called, hooves stamped lively, muffled rhythms in the hard-packed earth, harness jingled, maidservants shrilled to one another above the general babel of male voices, and the faint dust of all this vigorous movement rose into the sunlight and shimmered in gilded mist overhead.
The company gathered as blithely as if they were going maying, and certainly so bright a morning invited to so pleasant a pastime. But there were certain graver reminders to be remarked as they mounted. Heledd made her appearance cloaked and ready, serene and demure of countenance, but with Canon Meirion keeping close on one side of her, with tight lips and downdrawn brows, and Canon Morgant on the other, equally tightlipped but with brows arched into uncompromising severity, and sharp eyes dwelling alternately on father and daughter, and with no very assured approval of either. And for all their precautions, at the last moment Bledri ap Rhys stepped between them and lifted the girl into the saddle with his own large and potentially predatory hands, with a courtesy so elaborate that it glittered into insolence: and, worse, Heledd accepted the service with as gracious an inclination of her head, and a cool, reserved smile, ambiguous between chaste reproof and discreet mischief. To take exception to the behaviour of either party would have been folly, so well had both preserved the appearance of propriety, but both canons perceptibly beheld the incident with raised hackles and darkening frowns if they kept their mouths shut.
Nor was that the only sudden cloud in this clear sky, for Cuhelyn, appearing already mounted in the gateway, too late to have observed any present cause for offence, sat his horse with drawn brows, while his intent eyes ranged the entire company within until he found Bledri, and there settled and brooded, a long-memoried man of intense passions, measuring an enemy. It seemed to Cadfael, surveying the scene with a thoughtful eye, that there would be a considerable weight of ill will and not a few grudges among the rich baggage of this princely party.
The bishop came down into the courtyard to take leave of his royal guests. This first encounter had passed off successfully enough, considering the strain he had put upon it by inviting Cadwaladr’s envoy into conference. He was not so insensitive that he had not felt the momentary tension and displeasure, and no doubt he was drawing relieved breath now at having survived the danger. Whether he had the humility to realise that he owed it to the prince’s forbearance was another matter, Cadfael reflected. And here came Owain side by side with his host, and Hywel at his back. At his coming the whole bright cortege quivered into expectant life, and as he reached for bridle and stirrup, so did they all. Too tall for me, eh, Hugh? Cadfael thought, swinging aloft into the roan’s high saddle, with a buoyancy that set him up in a very gratifying conceit of himself. I’ll show you whether I have lost my appetite for travel and forgotten everything I learned in the east before ever you were born.
And they were away, out of the wide-open gate and heading westward after the prince’s lofty fair head, uncovered to the morning sun. The bishop’s household stood to watch them depart, warily content with one diplomatic encounter successfully accomplished. Such threats as lingered uneasily from last night’s exchanges cast their shadows on these departing guests. Bishop Gilbert, if he had believed in them at all, could let them withdraw unchallenged, for they were no threat to him.
As those within the enclave emerged into the green track without, Owain’s officers from the encampment fell into neat order about them, lining either flank, and Cadfael observed with interest but without surprise that there were archers among them, and two keeping their station a few yards behind Bledri ap Rhys’s left shoulder. Given this particular guest’s undoubted quickness of perception, he was equally aware of them, and just as clearly he had no objection to their presence, for in the first mile he did not let it inhibit him from changing his position two or three times to speak a civil word in Canon Morgant’s ear, or exchange courtesies with Hywel ab Owain, riding close at his father’s back. But he did not make any move to edge his way through the attendant file of guards. If they were keeping him in mind of his virtual captivity, so was he bent on assuring them that he was perfectly content, and had no intention of attempting to remove himself. Indeed, once or twice he looked to left and right to take the measure of the prince’s unobtrusive efficiency, and seemed not unfavourably impressed by what he saw.
All of which was of considerable interest to an inquisitive man, even if at this stage it remained undecypherable. Put it away at the back of the mind, along with everything else of oddity value in this expedition, and the time would come when its meaning would be revealed. Meantime, here was Mark, silent and happy at his elbow, the road westward before him, and the sun bright on Owain’s pennant of bright hair at the head of the column. What more could any man ask on a fine May morning?
*
They did not, as Mark had expected, bear somewhat northwards towards the sea, but made due west, over softly rolling hills and through well-treed valleys, by green trails sometimes clearly marked, sometimes less defined, but markedly keeping a direct line uphill and down alike, here where the lie of the land was open and the gradients gentle enough for pleasant riding.
“An old, old road,” said Cadfael. “It starts from Chester, and makes straight for the head of Conwy’s tidal water, where once, they say, there was a fort the like of Chester. At low tide, if you know the sands, you can ford the river there, but with the tide boats can ply some way beyond.”
“And after the river crossing?” asked Mark, attentive and glowing.
“Then we climb. To look westward from there, you’d think no track could possibly pass, but pass it does, up and over the mountains, and down at last to the sea. Have you ever seen the sea?”
“No. How could I? Until I joined the bishop’s household I had never been out of the shire, not even ten miles from where I was born.” He was straining his eyes ahead as he rode now, with longing and delight, thirsty for all that he had never seen. “The sea must be a great wonder,” he said on a hushed breath.
“A good friend and a bad enemy,” said Cadfael, beckoned back into old memories.
“Respect it, and it will do well by you, but never take liberties.”
The prince had set a steady, easy pace that could be maintained mile by mile in this undulating countryside, green and lush, patterned with hamlets in the valleys, cottages and church snugly huddled together, the fringe of cultivable fields a woven tapestry round them, and here and there solitary, scattered throughout the tref, the households of the free landowners, and no less solitary, somewhere among them, their parish church.
“These men live lonely,” said Mark, taking in the distinction with some wonder.
“These are the freeborn men of the tribe. They own their land, but not to do as they please with it, it descends by strict law of inheritance within the family. The villein villages till the soil among them, and pay their communal dues together, though every man has his dwelling and his cattle and his fair share of the land. We make sure of that by overseeing the distribution every so often. As soon as sons grow to be men they have their portion at the next accounting.”
“So no one there can inherit,” Mark deduced reasonably.
“None but the youngest son, the last to grow into a portion of his own. He inherits his father’s portion and dwelling. His elder brothers by then will have taken wives and built houses of their own.” It seemed to Cadfael, and apparently to Mark also, a fair, if rough and ready, means of assuring every man a living and a place in which to live, a fair share of the work and a fair share of the profit of the land.
“And you?” asked Mark. “Was this where you belonged?”
“Belonged and could not belong,” Cadfael acknowledged, looking back with some surprise at his own origins. “Yes, I was born in just such a villein tref, and coming up to my fourteenth birthday and a slip of land of my own. And would you believe it now?—I did not want it! Good Welsh earth, and I felt nothing for it. When the wool merchant from Shrewsbury took a liking to me, and offered me work that would give me licence to see at least a few more miles of the world, I jumped at that open door as I’ve jumped at most others that ever came my way. I had a younger brother, better content to sit on one strip of earth lifelong. I was for off, as far as the road would take me, and it took me half across the world before I understood. Life goes not in a straight line, lad, but in a circle. The first half we spend venturing as far as the world’s end from home and kin and stillness, and the latter half brings us back by roundabout ways but surely, to that state from which we set out. So I end bound by vow to one narrow place, but for the rare chance of going forth on the business of my house, and labouring at a small patch of earth, and in the company of my closest kin. And content,” said Cadfael, drawing satisfied breath.
They came over the crest of a high ridge before noon, and there below them the valley of the Conwy opened, and beyond, the ground rose at first gently and suavely, but above these green levels there towered in the distance the enormous bastions of Eryri, soaring to polished steel peaks against the pale blue of the sky. The river was a winding silver thread, twining a tortuous course through and over shoals of tidal mud and sand on its way northward to the sea, its waters at this hour so spread and diminished that it could be forded without difficulty. And after the crossing, as Cadfael had warned, they climbed.
The first few green and sunny miles gave way to a rising track that kept company with a little tributary river, mounting steeply until the trees fell behind, and they emerged gradually into a lofty world of moorland, furze and heather, open and naked as the sky. No plough had ever broken the soil here, there was no visible movement but the ruffling of the sudden wind among the gorse and low bushes, no inhabitants but the birds that shot up from before the foremost riders, and the hawks that hung almost motionless, high in air. And yet across this desolate but beautiful wilderness marched a perceptible causeway laid with stones and cushioned with rough grass, raised clear of the occasional marshy places, straddling the shallow pools of peat-brown water, making straight for the lofty wall of honed rock that seemed to Brother Mark utterly impenetrable. In places where the firm rock broke through the soil and gave solid footing, the raised sarn remained visible as a trodden pathway needing no ramp of stones, but always maintained its undeviating line ahead.
“Giants made this,” said Brother Mark in awe.
“Men made it,” said Cadfael. It was wide where it was clearly to be seen, wide enough for a column of men marching six abreast, though horsemen had to ride no more than three in line, and Owain’s archers, who knew this territory well, drew off on either flank and left the paved way to the company they guarded. A road, Cadfael thought, made not for pleasure, not for hawking or hunting, but as a means of moving a great number of men from one stronghold to another as quickly as possible. It took small count of gradients, but set its sights straight ahead, deviating only where that headlong line was rankly impossible to maintain, and then only until the obstacle was passed.
“But through that sheer wall,” Mark marvelled, staring ahead at the barrier of the mountains, “surely we cannot go.”
“Yes, you will find there’s a gate through, narrow but wide enough, at the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen. We thread through those hills, keep this high level three or four more miles, and after that we begin to descend.”
“Towards the sea?”
“Towards the sea,” said Cadfael.
They came to the first decline, the first sheltered valley of bushes and trees, and in the heart of it bubbled a spring that became a lively brook, and accompanied them downhill gradually towards the coast. They had long left behind the rivulets that flowed eastward towards the Conwy; here the streams sprang sparkling into short, precipitous lives, and made headlong for the sea. And down with this most diminutive of its kind went the track, raised to a firm level above the water, at the edge of the cleft of trees. The descent became more gradual, the brook turned somewhat away from the path, and suddenly the view opened wide before them, and there indeed was the sea.
Immediately below them a village lay in its patterned fields, beyond it narrow meadowland melting into salt flats and shingle, and then the wide expanse of sea, and beyond that again, distant but clear in the late afternoon light, the coast of Anglesey stretched out northward, to end in the tiny island of Ynys Lanog. From the shore towards which they moved the shallow water shimmered pale gold overlaid with aquamarine, almost as far as the eye could distinguish colour, for Lavan Sands extended the greater part of the way to the island shore, and only there in the distance did the sea darken into the pure, greenish blue of the deep channel. At the sight of this wonder about which he had dreamed and speculated all day long, Mark checked his horse for a moment, and sat staring with flushed cheeks and bright eyes, enchanted by the beauty and diversity of the world.
It happened that Cadfael turned his head to see where someone else had reined in at the same moment, perhaps in the same rapt delight. Between her two guardian canons Heledd had checked and sat staring before her, but her sights were raised beyond the crystal and gold of the shallows, beyond the cobalt channel to the distant shore of Anglesey, and her lips were austerely drawn, and her brows level and unrevealing. She looked towards her bridegroom’s land, the man against whom she knew nothing, of whom she had heard nothing but good; she saw marriage advancing upon her all too rapidly, and there was such a baffled and resentful sadness in her face, and such an obstinate rejection of her fate, that Cadfael marvelled no one else felt her burning outrage, and turned in alarm to find the source of this intense disquiet.
Then as suddenly as she had halted she shook the rein, and set her horse to an impatient trot downhill, leaving her black-habited escort behind, and threaded a way deeper into the cavalcade to shake them off at least for a few rebellious moments.
Watching her vehement passage through the ranks of the prince’s retinue, Cadfael absolved her of any deliberate intent in drawing close alongside Bledri’s mount. He was simply there in her way, in a moment she would have passed by him. But there was intent enough in the opportunist alacrity with which Bledri reached a hand to her bridle, and checked her passage knee to knee with him, and in the intimate, assured smile he turned upon her as she yielded to the persuasion. There was, Cadfael thought, one instant when she almost shook him off, almost curled her lip with the tolerant mockery which was all she truly felt for him. Then with perverse deliberation she smiled at him, and consented to fall in beside him, in no hurry to free herself of the muscular hand that detained her. They rode on together in apparent amity, with matched pace and in easy talk together. The rear view of them suggested to Cadfael nothing more than a continuation of a somewhat malicious but enjoyable game on both parts, but when he turned his head cautiously to see what effect the incident had had upon the two canons of Saint Asaph it was all too plain that to them it implied something very different. If Meirion’s drawn brows and rigid lips threatened storms towards Heledd and rage towards Bledri ap Rhys, equally they were stiff with apprehension of what must be going on behind the controlled but ominous rectitude of Morgant’s fleshy countenance.
Ah, well! Two days more, and it should be over. They would be safely in Bangor, the bridegroom would cross the strait to meet them, and Heledd would be rapt away to that mist-blue shore beyond the faint gold and ice-blue of Lavan Sands. And Canon Meirion could draw breath in peace at last.
*
They came down to the rim of the salt flats and turned westward, with the quivering plane of the shallows reflecting glittering light on their right hand, and the green of field and copse on the left, rising terrace beyond terrace into the hills. Once or twice they plashed through tenuous streams trickling down through the salt marshes to the sea. And within the hour they were riding alongside the high stockade of Owain’s royal seat and tref of Aber, and the porters and guards at the gates had seen the shimmer of their colours nearing, and cried their coming within.
From all the buildings that lined the walls of the great court of Owain’s maenol, from stables and armoury and hall, and the array of guest dwellings, the household came surging to welcome the prince home, and make his visitors welcome. Grooms ran to receive the horses, squires came with pitchers and horns. Hywel ab Owain, who had distributed his hospitable attentions punctiliously during the journey, moving from rider to rider with civilities as his father’s representative, and no doubt taking due note of all the undercurrents that drew taut between them, with his father’s interests in mind, was the first out of the saddle, and went straight to take the prince’s bridle, in an elegant gesture of filial respect, before ceding the charge to the waiting groom, and going to kiss the hand of the lady who had come out from the timber hall to welcome her lord home. Not his own mother! The two young boys who came leaping down the steps from the hall door after her were hers, lithe dark imps of about ten and seven years, shrilling with excitement and with a flurry of dogs wreathing round their feet. Owain’s wife was daughter to a prince of Arwystli, in central Wales, and her lively sons had her rich colouring. But an older youth, perhaps fifteen or sixteen, followed them more circumspectly down the steps, and came with authority and confidence straight to Owain, and was embraced with an affection there was no mistaking. This one had his father’s fair hair deepened into pure gold, and his father’s impressive male comeliness refined into a startling beauty. Tall, erect, with an athlete’s grace of movement, he could not emerge into any company without being noticed, and even at a distance the brilliant northern blue of his eyes was as clear as if an inner sun shone through crystals of sapphire. Brother Mark saw him, and held his breath.
“His son?” he said in an awed whisper.
“But not hers,” said Cadfael. “Another like Hywel.”
“There cannot be many such in this world,” said Mark, staring. Beauty in others he observed with a particular, ungrudging delight, having always felt himself to be the plainest and most insignificant of mortals.
“There is but one such, lad, as you know full well, for there is but one of any man that ever lived, black or fair, And yet,” owned Cadfael, reconsidering the uniqueness of the physical envelope if not of the inhabiting soul, “we go close to duplicating this one, there at home in Shrewsbury. The boy’s name is Rhun. You might look at our Brother Rhun, since Saint Winifred perfected him, and think one or the other a miraculous echo.”
Even to the name! And surely, thought Mark, recalling with pleasure the youngest of those who had been his brothers in Shrewsbury, this is how the pattern of a prince, the son of a prince, should look—and no less, a saint, the protege of a saint. All radiance and clarity, all openness and serenity in the face. No wonder his father, recognising a prodigy, loves him better than all others.
“I wonder,” said Cadfael half to himself, unwittingly casting a shadow athwart Mark’s contemplation of light, “how her two will look upon him, when they’re all grown.”
“It is impossible,” Mark said firmly, “that they should ever wish him harm, even if land-greed and power-greed have sometimes turned brothers into enemies. This youth no one could hate.”
Close at his shoulder a cool, dry voice observed ruefully: “Brother, I envy your certainty, but I would not for the world share it, the fall is too mortal. There is no one who cannot be hated, against whatever odds. Nor anyone who cannot be loved, against all reason.”
Cuhelyn had approached them unnoticed, threading a way through the stir of men and horses, hounds and servants and children. For all his black intensity, he was a very quiet man, unobtrusive in all his comings and goings. Cadfael turned in response to the unexpected observation, just in time to see the intent glance of the young man’s shrewd eyes, presently fastened with a wry, indulgent warmth upon the boy Rhun, sharpen and chill as another figure passed between, and follow the transit with a fixity that suggested to Cadfael, at first, nothing more than detached interest, and in a matter of seconds froze into composed but indubitable hostility. Perhaps even more than hostility, a measure of restrained but implacable suspicion.
A young man of about Cuhelyn’s years, and by no means unlike him in build and colouring, though thinner in feature and somewhat longer in the reach, had been standing a little apart, watching the bustle all round him, his arms folded and his shoulders leaned against the wall of the undercroft, as though this tumultuous arrival concerned him rather less than the rest of the household. From this detached stance he had moved suddenly, crossing between Cuhelyn and the linked pair, father and son, and cutting off the view of Rhun’s radiant face. Something to be seen here certainly mattered to this young man, after all, someone had been sighted who meant more to him than clerics from Saint Asaph or the young noblemen of Owain’s guard. Cadfael followed his vehement passage through the press, and saw him take one dismounting horseman by the sleeve. The very touch, the very encounter, that had drawn taut all the lines of Cuhelyn’s countenance. Bledri ap Rhys swung about, face to face with the youth who accosted him, visibly recognised an acquaintance, and guardedly acknowledged him. No very exuberant welcome, but on both parts there was one momentary flash of warmth and awareness, before Bledri made his visage formally blank, and the boy accepted the suggestion, and began what seemed to be the most current of court civilities. No need, apparently, to pretend they did not know each other well enough, but every need to keep the acquaintance on merely courteous terms.
Cadfael looked along his shoulder, and briefly, at Cuhelyn’s face, and asked simply: “Gwion?”
“Gwion!”
“They were close? These two?”
“No. No closer than two must be who hold by the same lord.”
“That might be close enough for mischief,” said Cadfael bluntly. “As you told me, your man has given his word not to attempt escape. He has not pledged himself to give up his allegiance beyond that.”
“Natural enough he should welcome the sight of another liegeman,” said Cuhelyn steadily. “His word he will keep. As for Bledri ap Rhys, the terms of his sojourn with us , I will see kept.” He shook himself briefly, and took each of them by an arm. The prince and his wife and sons were climbing the steps into the hall, the closest of their household following without haste. “Come, Brothers, and let me be your herald here. I’ll bring you to your lodging, and show you the chapel. Use it as you find occasion, and the prince’s chaplain will make himself known to you.”
*
In the privacy of the lodging allotted to them, backed into the shelter of the maenol wall, Brother Mark sat refreshed and thoughtful, looking back with wide grey eyes at all that had passed during this arrival in Aber. And at length he said: “What most caused me to watch and wonder, was how like they were, those two—the young liegemen of Anarawd and of Cadwaladr. It is no mere matter of the same years, the same manner of body, the same make of face, it is the same passion within them. In Wales, Cadfael, this is another fashion of loyalty even than the bond the Normans hold by, or so it seems to me. They are on opposing sides, your Cuhelyn and this Gwion, and they could be brothers.”
“And as brothers should, and by times do not, they respect and like each other. Which would not prevent them from killing each other,” Cadfael admitted, “if ever it came to a clash between their lords in the field.”
“That is what I feel to be so wrong,” said Mark earnestly. “How could either young man look at the other, and not see himself? All the more now that they have lived together in the same court, and admitted affection?”
“They are like twins, the one born left-handed, the other right-handed, at once doubles and opposites. They could kill without malice, and die without malice. God forbid,” said Cadfael, “it should ever come to that. But one thing is certain. Cuhelyn will be watching every moment his mirror image brushes sleeves with Bledri ap Rhys, and marking every word that passes between them, and every glance. For I think he knows somewhat more of Cadwaladr’s chosen envoy than he has yet told us.”
*
At supper in Owain’s hall there was good food and plenteous mead and ale, and harp music of the best. Hywel ab Owain sang, improvising upon the beauty of Gwynedd and the splendour of her history, and Cadfael’s recalcitrant heart shed its habit for a half-hour, and followed the verses far into the mountains inland of Aber, and across the pale mirror of Lavan Sands to the royal burial-place of Llanfaes on Anglesey. In youth his adventurings had all looked eastward, now in his elder years eyes and heart turned westward. All heavens, all sanctuaries of the blessed lie to westward, in every legend and every imagination, at least for men of Celtic stock; a suitable meditation for old men. Yet here in the royal llys of Gwynedd Cadfael did not feel old.
Nor did it seem that his senses were in the least dulled or blunted, even as he rejoiced in his dreams, for he was sharp enough to detect the moment when Bledri ap Rhys slid an arm about Heledd’s waist as she served him with mead. Nor did he miss the icy rigidity of Canon Meirion’s face at the sight, or the deliberation with which Heledd, well aware of the same maledictory stare, forbore from freeing herself immediately, and said a smiling word in Bledri’s ear, which might as well have been a curse as a compliment, though there was no doubt how her father interpreted it. Well, if the girl was playing with fire, whose fault was that? She had lived with her sire many loyal, loving years, he should have known her better, well enough to trust her. For Bledri ap Rhys she had no use at all but to take out her grievance on the father who was in such haste to get rid of her.
Nor did it appear, on reflection, that Bledri ap Rhys was seriously interested in Heledd. He made the gesture of admiration and courtship almost absentmindedly, as though by custom it was expected of him, and though he accompanied it with a smiling compliment, he let her go the moment she drew away, and his gaze went back to a certain young man sitting among the noblemen of the guard at a lower table. Gwion, the last obstinate hostage, who would not forswear his absolute fealty to Cadwaladr, sat silent among his peers, and enemies, some of whom, like Cuhelyn, had become his friends. Throughout the feast he kept his own counsel, and guarded his thoughts, and even his eyes. But whenever he looked up at the high table, it was upon Bledri ap Rhys that his glance rested, and twice at least Cadfael saw them exchange a brief and brilliant stare, such as allies might venture to convey worlds of meaning where open speech was impossible.
Those two will somehow get together in private, Cadfael thought, before this night is out. And for what purpose? It is not Bledri who so passionately seeks a meeting, though he has been at liberty and is suspect of having some secret matter to impart. No, it is Gwion who wants, demands, relies upon reaching Bledri’s ear. It is Gwion who has some deep and urgent purpose that needs an ally to reach fulfilment. Gwion who has given his word not to leave Owain’s easy captivity. As Bledri ap Rhys has not done.
Well, Cuhelyn had vouched for Gwion’s good faith, and pledged a constant watch upon Bledri. But it seemed to Cadfael that the llys was large enough and complex enough to provide him with a difficult watch, if those two were resolved to elude him.
The lady had remained with her children in private, and had not dined in hall, and the prince also withdrew to his own apartments early, having been some days absent from his family. He took his most beloved son with him, and left Hywel to preside until his guests chose to retire. With every man now free to change his place, or go out to walk in the fresh air of the late evening, there was considerable movement in the hall, and in the noise of many conversations and the music of the harpers, in the smoke of the torches and the obscurity of the shadowy corners, who was to keep a steady eye upon one man among so many? Cadfael marked the departure of Gwion from among the young men of the household, but still Bledri ap Rhys sat in his modest place towards the foot of the high table, serenely enjoying his mead—but in moderation, Cadfael noted—and narrowly observing everything that passed about him. He appeared to be cautiously impressed by the strength and strict order of the royal household, and the numbers, discipline and confidence of the young men of the guard.
“I think,” said Brother Mark softly into Cadfael’s ear, “we might have the chapel to ourselves if we go now.”
It was about the hour of Compline. Brother Mark would not rest if he neglected the office. Cadfael rose and went with him, out from the doorway of the great hall into the cool and freshness of the night, and across the inner ward to the timber chapel against the outer wall. It was not yet fully dark nor very late, the determined drinkers still in hall would not end their gathering yet, but in the shadowy passages between the buildings of the maenol those who had duties about the place moved without haste, and quietly, going about their usual tasks in the easy languor of the end of a long and satisfactory day.
They were still some yards from the door of the chapel when a man emerged from it, and turned along the row of lodgings that lined the wall of the ward, to disappear into one of the narrow passages behind the great hall. He did not pass them close, and he might have been any one of the taller and elder of the frequenters of Owain’s court. He was in no haste, but going tranquilly and a little wearily to his night’s rest, yet Cadfael’s mind was so persistently running upon Bledri ap Rhys that he was virtually certain of the man’s identity, even in the deepening dusk.
He was quite certain when they entered the chapel, dimly lit by the rosy eye of the constant lamp on the altar, and beheld the shadowy outline of a man kneeling a little aside from the small pool of light. He was not immediately aware of them, or at least seemed not to be, though they had entered without any great care to preserve silence; and when they checked and hung back in stillness to avoid interrupting his prayers he gave no sign, but continued bowed and preoccupied, his face in shadow. At length he stirred, sighed and rose to his feet, and passing them by on his way out, without surprise, he gave them: “Goodnight, Brothers!” in a low voice. The small red eye of the altar lamp drew his profile on the air clearly, but only for a moment; long enough, however, to show plainly the young, intense, brooding features of Gwion.
*
Compline was long over, and midnight past, and they were peacefully asleep in their small, shared lodging, when the alarm came. The first signs, sudden clamour at the main gate of the maenol, the muted thudding of hooves entering, the agitated exchange of voices between rider and guard, passed dreamlike and distant through Cadfael’s senses without breaking his sleep, but Mark’s younger ear, and mind hypersensitive to the excitement of the day, started him awake even before the murmur of voices rose into loud orders, and the men of the household began to gather in the ward, prompt but drowsy from the rushes of the hall and the many lodgings of the maenol. Then what was left of the night’s repose was shattered brazenly by the blasting of a horn, and Cadfael rolled from his brychan on to his feet, wide-awake and braced for action.
“What’s afoot?”
“Someone rode in. In a hurry! Only one horseman!”
“They would not rouse the court for a little thing,” said Cadfael, clawing on his sandals and making for the door. The horn blared again, echoes ricocheting between the buildings of the prince’s llys, and blunting their sharp edges against walls. In the open ward the young men came thronging in arms to the call, and the hum of many voices, still pitched low in awe of the night, swelled into a wordless, muted bellowing like a stormy tide flowing. From every open doorway a thread of light from hastily kindled lamps and candles spilled into the dark, conjuring here and there a recognisable face out of the crowd. A jaded horse, hard-ridden, was being led with drooping head towards the stables, and his rider, heedless of the many hands that reached to arrest him and the many voices that questioned, was thrusting a way through the press towards the great hall. He had barely reached the foot of the steps when the door above him opened, and Owain in his furred bed-gown came out, large and dark against the light from within, the squire who had run to arouse him with news of the coming close at his shoulder.
“Here am I,” said the prince, loud and clear and wide awake. “Who’s come wanting me?” As he moved forward to the edge of the steps the light from within fell upon the messenger’s face, and Owain knew him. “You, is it, Goronwy? From Bangor? What’s your news?”
The messenger scarcely took time to bend his knee. He was known and trusted, and ceremony was waste of precious moments. “My lord, early this evening one came with word from Carnarvon, and I have brought that word here to you as fast as horse can go. About Vespers they sighted ships westward off Abermenai, a great fleet in war order. The seamen say they are Danish ships from the kingdom of Dublin, come to raid Gwynedd and force your hand. And that Cadwaladr, your brother, is with them! He has brought them over to avenge and restore him, in your despite. The fealty he could not keep for love he has bought with promised gold.”