Brother Cadfael 18: The Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters Page A

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