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Day Four
Cadoc
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Cadoc’s Danish was very bad, but his Gaelic was excellent. He was close enough to the byre to have heard a few names bandied about, Donnell and Connaught being the most momentous, and to see that things had gone awry very quickly down below him. He’d found a perch in a tree not far from where Dai and Steffan were being roped to the back of a horse, but now he couldn’t come down without risking exposure.
He would have just shot them all. Part of him thought there was no reason not to, and it would have solved a great many problems. But it might have created a great many more.
He could kill the heir to the High King of Ireland. That was as simple as nocking an arrow and loosing it.
None of them might survive the aftermath, however, least of all Dublin itself.
Still, if Dai and Steffan had been in real danger of being murdered on the spot, Cadoc would have thrown caution to the winds and shot everyone anyway.
But as it was, he did nothing, just watched the villain Vigo lead his friends away.
Unfortunately, once they were gone, Cadoc faced a real dilemma whether to track them through the woods now or get help and then track them. Steffan was more than competent, and likely had a knife his captors hadn’t found tucked into some piece of clothing. He could free himself and Dai if he could live long enough to get to it.
But Cadoc couldn’t leave them alone for that long, so, after they left, he made his way down from his tree. Vigo’s men had taken the torches with him, but the full moon and clear night meant Cadoc could still see. After listening for a count of thirty, during which time Cadoc settled his heart and his breathing to a manageable level, he started after them, though he quickly realized the pace they were setting was near to crippling. Dai and Steffan would have to be running to keep up, an uncomfortable prospect tied to the back of a horse.
Initially, the trail was easy to follow, but once they came out of the woods and reached a crossroads, Cadoc was forced to stop and reassess.
He couldn’t see or hear them. So many people had passed this way recently that hoofprints couldn’t be read as meaningful either. He didn’t know which way they’d gone.
But then, on the path north, a bit of pale fluff caught his eye, followed by a second and a third farther on. As he bent to the first one, he saw it was a crumb of bread, as were the others.
He straightened, looking west, which was the only other real option for where Vigo could be taking Dai and Steffan. If Cadoc were Vigo, he would have gone west, into Irish lands. But these men were Danish, even if allied with Donnell. North made sense too. He hoped too that Vigo wasn’t going to take his prisoners far, not at three in the morning.
Once Cadoc committed to the road, he was able to move fast enough that it took less than a quarter of an hour to catch up, aided by the trail Dai had left behind. Cadoc heard them before he saw them, giving him time to take a shortcut through a patch of woods that cut off some distance due to a bend in the road around a hillock. They’d come maybe two miles from the crossroads. It wasn’t so very far in actuality, but it was a long way to run behind a horse.
Which is perhaps why the entire company had come to a halt. As Cadoc crouched behind a tree on a little rise above the road, he saw Dai on his knees, his head down and breath coming hard. From the marks behind him, the horse had dragged him twenty feet before the group stopped.
Cadoc’s heart warmed to the boy. He could be tired. But as Dai bent over, his forehead almost to the dirt, his bound hands went to the pocket of his coat.
Then his captors hauled him to his feet again, and they set off, at a slower pace, with Dai continuing to stumble along behind them. Somewhere along the way, Vigo had taken a different turning, leaving only four men guarding Dai and Steffan.
When they had reached a point fifty yards ahead, Cadoc stepped into the road and bent to the cloth Dai had dropped. It was hemp, rough woven and designed to hold food for a journey—in this case, the bun from which Dai had been scattering bread. Cloth in hand, Cadoc started after them, though again making sure he remained well back. He was less afraid of losing them now than being spotted.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Cadoc included, the company turned off the road a short while later, this time into a more substantial holding than the lean-to, consisting of a thatched-roof hut with outbuildings. Smoke rose from the hut, but Steffan and Dai were taken to the adjacent barn, which significantly larger than the house. White sheep dotted the adjacent field. They’d arrived at a working farm.
To whom the farm belonged could wait until Cadoc had figured out the more important issue of what to do next. Dai and Steffan had been brought to the farm by four men, all on horseback, which was an indication of the money and status of the people involved. Ordinary peasants had cobs—horses to pull wagons and plows but untrained for riding the way these horses had been ridden. That made the men around Vigo warriors of a sort. They could be common Danishmen, but Cadoc thought they might be higher ranking than that, more on the level of a teulu, a personal guard.
He was rising from his hiding place to move closer to the barn, in hopes of hearing what was happening inside—and preventing something bad, if he could—when two things happened at once: Vigo rode into the clearing with three more men—and a hand came down hard on his shoulder. “Stay still.”
He turned to find Aron, followed closely by Iago, stooping low just behind him. A rush of gratitude flowed through him to see two more of his fellow Dragons in his hour of need. They were brothers in a way he’d never known before, and a fellow brother was in trouble—not to mention their brother-in-training.
“How did you find me?”
Aron grinned. “We never lost you.”
“You can run, I’ll give you that.” Iago grunted. “A few times I was afraid you’d get too far ahead, but Aron here—” he elbowed the younger man, “—has a good nose for the forest. Who knew?”
Aron ignored Iago’s compliment entirely, his eyes focused on the house and the barn. He knew his own worth.
“What do you see?” Cadoc said.
“Too many men.” Aron grimaced. “We may not have a choice about going in, however. I overheard the bit about selling Steffan and Dai as slaves. I don’t like the look of these newcomers either, and I don’t trust Vigo not to change his mind and kill them outright.”
Cadoc could only agree.
