The Brothers of Gwynedd (110 page)

  After he had said this I saw those two, father and son, exchange one rapid and stealthy glance, and look away again, and I wondered if Llewelyn with his customary bluntness had not given away more of his case than was altogether wise, though I knew why he did it. It was his wish to show them at once that their best policy was to make a clean breast of the affair and accept whatever penalty was imposed, with the implicit assurance that it would not be extreme. He did not want outand-out hostility, for fear Wales should be maimed of one of its vital provinces. Nor, indeed, was his ever a mind for extremes, which produce counter-extremes in the recoil. What he had now suggested seemed rather to calm than to alarm them. They continued to protest total innocence, and absolute confidence, but they accepted a day some ten days ahead, the seventeenth of April, for the hearing, and the place was fixed at Llewelyn's manor of Bach-yr-Anneleu in Cydewain, which was handy for both parties.

  "Very well," said Llewelyn, "name your arbitrators." And he himself for his part chose Tudor, with one of his brothers, and Anian ap Caradoc, who was one of his chief law clerks. Griffith named one of his own officers of Powys, and his justiciar, and one other whose name I have forgotten. It is a long time since I saw those documents. Then they chose and agreed on the prior of Pool, as a just man bound to neither side, to fill the seventh place. And those two withdrew from Dolforwyn to set about preparing their defence. They went wary, anxious and wincing, but not desperate, and I think their heads were together even on the ride home.

  The seven judges in the meantime were at liberty to examine and take statements around Pool and Dolforwyn, but I think Griffith had taken good care to get out of the castle any of those men who knew what had been planned, and little fresh information was gleaned, except the curious fact that the company of armed men, clearly a war-band, had left Pool castle not merely one night before their re-entry, but four. The poacher who had been out in the woods that night was none too anxious to tell what he had seen, but did so honestly, and the justices turned a blind eye to what else he had been about. It was a puzzling detail. In such weather, what could Owen have been doing with his men for those four days? Apart from that we got rumours and little more.

  On the seventeenth of April the judges sat at Llewelyn's manor, and Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn and his son came before them. But it fell out somewhat differently from what we had expected, for as soon as the court was convened Griffith and Owen asked leave to speak, and said outright that they pleaded guilty to the offence with which they were accused, that they had indeed plotted treason against the lord prince, in despite of the fealty they owed him. They desired to confess their fault and throw themselves upon the prince's mercy.

  Llewelyn did question a little concerning those four full days lost.

  "My lord," said Owen, who had led the unlucky expedition, "when we found the valley road impassable, rather than abandon the enterprise we tried to make a circle through the hills and come at Dolforwyn from the north side, and though we made a part of the journey, we crossed between the brooks that drain into the Bechan, and then we could go no further, nor get back with safety, and it took us two days to make our sorry way home to Pool. My lord, now in more blessed condition I thank God there was no harm but to us who invoked it." He was a smooth young man, and bent on salving his threatened prospects if he could by any means do it.

  "Well," said Llewelyn, "I have done. You are confided to your judges."

  Then those seven justices conferred, and with no voice dissenting—bear in mind always that Griffith's own justiciar was one of the seven—they accepted that plea of guilty, and gave their verdict that in view of the absolute confession of treason, the two accused were placed, as to their bodies, lands and possessions, at the disposal of the lord prince, to do with them and all things theirs whatsoever he would. Thus everything Griffith owned passed into Llewelyn's hands, to give back or retain, as he pleased. And what he pleased he had already considered, weighed and measured, to balance enforcement with remission, and penalty with clemency. He was as pale and grave as his traitors when he made his mind known. And they—I say it, who saw them then, and know what plaintive play they made thereafter with their wrongs— they were immeasurably happy with the outcome, having expected worse, even with their careful precautions.

  "The most of your lands and possessions," said Llewelyn, "I am moved to grant back to you. There are certain exceptions." He named them, all territories which had traditionally been in dispute between Gwynedd and Powys. They lopped Powys perhaps of one-quarter of its ground. "You may make your petition for the remainder," he said, "upon conditions." And those conditions also he set out in full. Griffith and Owen had every opportunity to protest against them, had they so wished. They were main glad not to make any such protest. I think they were astonished and gratified at the modesty of their loss.

  Nevertheless, I own it was not easy for Griffith to swallow the indignity, when he was forced to go on his sixty-year-old knees before the prince, and ask humbly for the restoration of the remainder of his lands, for him and his heirs, pruned of those small parts beyond the Dovey, in Cyfeiliog, and of thirteen vils near the river Lugg, and most of Arwystli. To the conditions attached he assented, not gladly, but that was not to be expected, and I do not think they were unjust or excessive. First, Owen was taken into Llewelyn's keeping as hostage for his and his father's loyalty. Then also twenty-five of the chieftains of the lands regranted to Griffith were to give their fealty instead to the prince, and swear a solemn oath to be faithful to the prince as against Griffith if he again offended. And last, all the parties had to agree that if Griffith or his heirs again attempted treason against Llewelyn, then the prince should have the right to take possession again of all the lands in the traitor's hold, and keep and enjoy them for ever. The compact was not complete until Griffith, with what grace he could, authorised this seizure in the event of his own default.

  On the following day he and his son executed a deed likewise rendering all their possessions forfeit to the prince if Owen should attempt to escape from Llewelyn's custody, and be lawfully convicted of such an attempt. His parole was thought hardly a strong enough guarantee and since it was far less trouble, and more agreeable for him, if he could be out of close ward and merely an enforced guest at court, a sanction of such severity might hold him as effectively as bars.

  We remained in Cydewain until the time came for the May meeting at the ford, where Edward's commissioners duly came, and some of the mutual complaints were dealt with by sensible give and take, though others proved more intractable, and there was little but parchment progress with the envoys of the Earl of Hereford. But something of interest we learned there, for it came out that Rhodri, who had shaken off the dust of Wales in chagrin after his marriage plans foundered, was now in London, in the service of the queen-mother, and moreover, had found a more complacent bride, and one just as profitable, for he was married to a lady who was an heiress in Gloucestershire.

  "Who would have thought it?" said Llewelyn, relieved and amused, as well as heartily glad for him. "Without benefit of my thousand marks, all but fifty, he has done as well for himself, after all. That's one load off my mind. Beatrice, she is called, it seems, and they say a pleasant lady. Who knows, he may have run at the right time for his own fortunes."

  There had never been any further mention of that debt owed to Rhodri, and there was little point in pursuing him with it, even had we known until then where to find him. And shortly thereafter he went abroad to France in the queen-mother's retinue. Llewelyn shrugged aside the commitment for the time being, since there had been no claim laid upon it. But for his brother, though the least to be remarked of all his brothers, he was pleased and assuaged. The old law of lands partible equally between brethren, though he stood out against it all his days for the sake of Wales, Wales as a people, a tongue and a nation, hung heavy upon his heart. Such a curse it can be, to be one of four brothers, in a land that keeps such customs. How much easier was Edward's lot, by all men acknowledged as the sole heir to monarchy, and even the lot of his brother, accustomed to accept and illuminate his lesser but glorious place, having its own rights and not encroaching upon the greater.

  "I have even heard," said Llewelyn, "that this lady is with child. Rhodri is from good stock. Who knows but my grandsire may repeat himself out of Rhodri's loins as well as any other? There may be greatness yet from what I fear I reckoned too small. Let's, at all costs, wish him well!"

  So we went home cheered rather than burdened, satisfied that the evil of Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn was curbed and frustrated, and that what ill effects remained from that collision could be softened and soothed away by our usage of Owen, while he remained with us. I know that Llewelyn had in mind a fairly early release, and reassuring patronage in the meantime. The young man went with us dutifully, nervous, attentive, almost obsequious in his determination to wipe out the past, and Llewelyn took care to pay him some civil attention in return, though they had little in common. Such relationships are not easy upon either side.

  On our way back into Gwynedd we halted overnight at Corwen, in the vale of Edeyrnion. Some of the solid men of those parts came to the prince with various pleas and petitions, and among them was a miller, a stout man and enterprising, who had his mill a few miles up the river from that place, and since there were often people wishing to cross the Dee by his boat and save themselves a league or two on foot, he came to ask licence to provide a ferry and man it at that spot. It was a reasonable request, and quickly granted, and I went to write him the needful licence and get it sealed, and afterwards walked up with him some way along the riverside, to take the evening air, for it was a fine night after a stormy day.

  It so happened that the river was running fairly high, and is always rough water there. I remarked that he would need a sturdy ferryman if his service was to operate on any but summer days, and he allowed that there were times when he would not ask any man to risk his life on that crossing, though most of the year he knew it himself well enough to master it, and he could find men at least as good to do the work for him. I said, eyeing the broken water, which was storm-brown, that I would not care to tackle it myself even now, in late May. And he laughed, and said this was nothing, this would not hinder him.

  "You should have seen it in those winter floods we had. Man and beast, we were up in the roof of the mill, though we stand high, and we had to wade to get out. I mind one night when it was at its worst, there came a company riding downstream and wanting to cross. What they were doing out in such numbers God knows, forty of them if there was one! But they came shouting, was there not a ford a little higher, for they must get over. And I laughed in their faces, asking after a ford, when a man had to ford his own fields, let alone a torrent like the Dee. Then they would have me take them across in my boat, but I would not have attempted one trip, let alone the four or five I should have had to make. And with horses? Not for the world! I think they would have taken the boat by force, they were so urgent, but that they were afraid to handle it themselves when it came to it. They were even mad enough to think of trying to swim the beasts across. But not mad enough to do it!" he said, and laughed.

  All this I heard at first but currently, as of mild interest between two companions passing the time, but before he was halfway through his story I was sharply intent, and hearing echoes in every word, for could there have been two such parties out in such weather, and on such urgent business that only God could turn them back with his storms? I asked of him: "What night was this? Can you recall?"

  "That I can," said the miller confidently, "for the next day was the first break in the clouds, and by evening the rain stopped, though it was ten days before the Dee was back in its bed. It was the first night of February."

  Two days out from their muster at Pool, and two days before their draggled return. It was too apt to be untrue. The company that Owen had led out of the castle stealthily by night had ridden, not up the Severn or through the hills to the raiding of Dolforwyn, but hard towards the north-east, only to be turned back by the Dee in flood. And if that was true, then upon some blacker business than Dolforwyn, or why should they compound so willingly with that story and throw themselves gratefully on Llewelyn's mercy? If they had not had worse to fear by letting the case be pursued further they would have fought it out in the court and denied everything but some local brawl not threatening their fealty.

  "But I tell you this," said the miller with certainty, "though they rode on downstream to try elsewhere, I'm sure they never got across Dee that night, nor that sen-night, either.

  No, thought I, they never did. And I asked him, with no too great show of interest: "What could they have wanted so desperately on the way north, in such weather? Was there anything to be noted about them out of the ordinary?"

  "Out of the ordinary enough, come to think of it," said the miller, "when we have such order as the prince has made in the land. They were armed, every man, with bows or steel."