The Brothers of Gwynedd (170 page)

  "I never supposed," said Llewelyn without passion, "that we could have held it for long. You have held it for three months, I cannot see how you could have done much more. What do you know of his forces now? And how disposed?"

  "By our count, he can command as many as eight thousand foot, and above seven hundred and fifty mounted, now he has the feudal levies up. And besides the longbowmen and crossbowmen distributed among his flanking armies and his ships, there's a large body of archers encamped with his own command at Rhuddlan. And see, this is how he has parted his forces." He drew in the stone of the parapet with the sheath of his dagger, the long north-south gash of the Clywd, and the level stroke of the coastline crossing its mouth. "His own army, the main force, here at Rhuddlan, and now patrolling the river valley. Here to eastward, working from Hope and drawing his supplies from Chester, de Grey. He has Ruthin now, and Owen Goch is with him. And here, moving into the valley of the upper Dee from Oswestry, the earl of Surrey has yet a third army, and is aiming at Dinas Bran, and with Ruthin gone, even if I had men to spare here, I doubt if we could get them to Dinas safely. They feed one another with men," said David, "according to where the need is, for they can all join hands. Edward has three ways in to the west, none of them easy, and please God we'll make them hard for him indeed, but none impossible, given enough men and horses and arms. By the Dee, by Ruthin, and by the coast. But he has not moved a step further west than Rhuddlan yet. He's wary of extending his line while we are still here on his flank. He wants us rolled back into Eryri before he ventures."

  "Yes," said Llewelyn, "he has learned. And what of Anglesey? You say they're already established there. Oh, small blame to you, how could there be? I neglected the need for power by sea, not you. How did they mount their landing force, and how far has it gone?"

  "Edward began loading great store of crossbow quarrels and arrows into ships before the end of July, and putting archers aboard, as many as thirty in some of the ships. No secret where they were bound, but there was nothing I could do to prevent. Forty ships in all he had, to carry and cover his landing force, and we dared not even get within range of their longbows. All I could do was make sure that coast was well manned, both the mainland and the island, they have not won it cheaply. And I sent orders as soon as we saw what was in the wind, that the islanders should reap whatever part of the grain was ripe enough, and get it ashore to us. The rest they were to let stand as long as possible, and reap it as it fell ready, and fire it if the enemy landed before it was all in. Or if they could garner any of it and hide it there for their own use, that they could do."

  "Did they get any part of it ashore in time?" asked the prince, mindful of all the soldiers he had to feed if this should continue into a winter war. "After so hot a summer, it could be well forward."

  "Yes, a part they did get in, and have sent us some and hidden some, for they knew there'd be no escape for them once the English landed. But the greater part remained. No help for it! Edward can judge how far forward a western harvest will be in a good season," said David bitterly, "as well as we. Before the end of August he put Luke de Tany in command, he that was seneschal of Gascony, and sent them off from Rhuddlan. They had a hard fight of it to get ashore, and still have to beat off constant raids, but once they had a landing-place cleared they've been able to ferry more men in, until they have a considerable army there. They have a tight hold on the southern coast of the island now, and on two-thirds of our corn, though some our people did burn in time. My men saw fires there."

  "If he's poured so many men into Anglesey," said Llewelyn frowning, "it is not simply to hold down the islanders or take the harvest. That army he means to use again, to come at us from the west and north while he moves in from the east. What has Tany been up to this past month, besides reaping what's left of our grain?"

  "There's more to tell," David owned. "Too much by far! Edward has the dock at Rhuddlan ringed with archers thicker than reeds, but we've raided there as chance offered, and slipped spies in once or twice by night, and we have some idea of what's happening there. Ever since de Tany got his force ashore the ships have been coming and going daily, not only with arrows and crossbow quarrels, but with stranger goods. Timber and iron and nails and cords, and small boats, and with them great numbers of men who carry no arms and are not soldiers, but carpenters and labourers. All this month past they've been building a bridge of boats across the narrows, between Porthaethwy on the island and Bangor on the main, with forty ships and any number of coastal boats to protect the work and bring the materials in, and archers enough to keep us at a distance. If they have not touched land yet, they will any day now, the thing is all but complete. Edward has even detached some of the Cinque Ports ships and sent them home. He cannot afford to turn the south coast traders against him by disrupting their traffic for too long, and he has plenty of ships left, with his small craft, and may get more yet from France. I have that coast manned as strongly as I can spare the men for it. Nothing has been attempted yet. But I see it as clearly as you, he is holding this fourth army in reserve until he feels the time ripe to draw a noose about Snowdon from both sides."

  He eyed his brother darkly and steadily, unafraid even of those memories that separated them. "I have much to learn," he said, "but I, too, am learning. It was like this, the last time? It's fitting that I should be made to understand the realities of war with Edward. It is less just that you should be made to suffer it over again."

  "Justice has little to say in the matter," said Llewelyn, with that distant, absent gentleness that marked his dealings with difficult men since Eleanor left him desolate. "Little to do with Edward's law, and less with his warfare. I don't complain of him—
we
began it. But his warfare is the logical end of his law, an extension of the same discipline. And both are loaded upon one side."

  I marvelled to see David smiling at him. A tight and rueful smile it was, but it had its own warmth, all one man could spare to give to another at that pass. "If that "we" is a royal one," he said, "it is too generous, and I denounce it. And if it means we, you and I, it is still generous indeed, for I began it, I alone. And if I ever was in doubt of the gravity of what I did, I'm in no doubt now. We are stretched to the end of our reach, so far as men and weapons go. And he is only just beginning to get his armies into motion, and has fresh men still to come. Did you know he has got his first Gascons? No question, we have one of them prisoner, he lost his way in the marshes of the Elwy, and we picked him off for what he could tell. Not a great company, this first one, forty or so foot and sixteen mounted crossbowmen. But there'll be more. We have no such reserve to draw on."

  "We have ourselves," said Llewelyn, "and no one else can let us fall. But you are right to look the truth in the face, we can fight no other way but face-forward. I never thought you had gone into this war lightly. Do you think," he said with the faintest of smiles, "I did not notice the quietness in the wards below? You have already sent the children away, have you not?"

  "The day I sent to you," said David. "This is no place for them now. And Elizabeth and the women, too, though it was no easy matter to get her to go."

  "Where have you put them?" asked the prince.

  "In Dolwyddelan, but I've sent word since to move them on to Dolbadarn. I can think of no better and safer place. If ever Edward penetrates so far into the mountains we're all lost. When you came, I was weighing in my mind the chances of holding Denbigh, and to be honest, I don't rate them high. Now that Ruthin's gone, we're in danger of being outflanked, and I don't intend to be shut up here like a rat in a trap, to be starved out in the end. I cannot afford to lose my army here, when Snowdon itself may need every man of us before the end. If I must abandon Denbigh to Edward, I cannot even afford to leave my castellan a strong garrison. It's either withdraw all, and destroy the place after us, or else withdraw all but a few, a skeleton force, and let them stand out the siege as long as they can, to give us more time. A sorry choice! I do not like asking any man of mine to stay and fight to the death here while I escape to fight on elsewhere. And even if he has my leave to surrender and get what terms he can, without fighting to the end, can we rely on any generosity from Edward?"

  "Towards others, perhaps," said Llewelyn. His voice was low and equable, implying nothing more than he said, but David heard no less clearly all that had not been said, that though the common spear-men and bowmen of Wales might look for clemency, being of little importance to the king once their resistance ceased, there would never again be mercy for the princes of Gwynedd. David had made his throw to win or lose all, and though for himself I think he had not changed his mind, his heart was shaken and racked for Llewelyn.

  "I did this to you," he said, "and was certain I did well. Now I am stricken with doubts. What right had I to force your hand?"

  "None," said Llewelyn simply, "but it is done, and the next step must be taken from here where we stand." And seeing his brother's face desperately sombre, the eyes clinging upon him in hunger and thirst after some reassurance he could get from no other creature, the prince sighed, and did his best for him. "Child," he said patiently, as he might have reasoned with his youngest and most perilous brother long before, when he was indeed newly out of childhood and greedy for glory, "you trouble needless. You did me no wrong. I am of your mind, it would have come to this, soon or late. I was for late, for making him show his hand, you saw it otherwise. But it's all one now, and your choice of time may well have been right, and mine wrong. I have no regrets, none. Nor need you have any. We are here together, and that is good. And what men can do, we shall do."

What men could do, that they did. The prince held council briefly that same day with those of his own captains and David's as were at hand. The necessary work they parted among them, and agreed as to how much time and effort could reasonably be expended on holding the threatened eastern line, now that Ruthin was lost, and Dinas Bran under attack.

  "I should be happier," said David, "if he would turn some of his forces on to me here, and ease the pressure on Dinas, but I fear he can see plainly enough that direct assault on Denbigh could lose him many men for little gain, and cost him weeks of work, no matter how many he threw into the siege. His aim is to isolate the garrison here as we used to do his garrisons at Degannwy and Diserth, in the past, and leave Denbigh helpless and useless while the war passes it by. But here we have no means of bringing relief and supplies by sea, as he had at Degannwy. No, he'll try to draw a noose about Denbigh while I'm still in it, and I cannot let him succeed. But I'll go when I must, and not before."

  Since Gray was in Ruthin, and the earl of Surrey closing in on Dinas Bran and the valley of the Dee, while Edward's base at Rhuddlan offered a northern approach, the move to outflank Denbigh might come from either side, or from both together, to join hands about him. Llewelyn warned him to take no risks by clinging to his castle a day too long, for he could not be spared, and the worst disaster that could now overtake Wales would be the separation of its two princes, one from the other. They were now not only the symbol, but the reality of the unity of Wales. At that David looked up quickly from the scrawled map he was drawing of the lines of Clwyd and Conway, and the highlands between, and withdrew his mind briefly from the consideration of Edward's next advance, to fix a glittering stare upon his brother's face. And in a moment he went back to his frowning study of his own imperilled position, and said, very low and deliberate of voice, that he would not make any mistake that might threaten that unity.

  Very shortly after the council ended, Llewelyn took his own company and returned westward to meet his foot soldiers, leaving the defence of the Middle Country to his brother, while he deployed his own army along the northern coast from Conway to Carnarvon, keeping close contact along that line so that men could be moved quickly wherever need might arise. Another line he strung along the western bank of the Conway, in case the English made any attempt to penetrate by some inland route over the high watershed between the rivers, and left a number of outposts on the eastern side of Conwav to keep touch with any moves David might make, and bring reinforcements to him quickly if he should be hard pressed.

  This work we began, since the foot soldiers were more than a day behind us in their march from the south, at Ysbyty Ifan on the upper Conway, where they were appointed to meet with us. And as they were in need of rest, there we were all encamped overnight. It is no great way from there to the castle of Dolwyddelan, and in Dolwyddelan Elizabeth and all her children had now taken refuge, and with them was my Cristin. I was out on the first rise of the upland road in the early evening, looking towards the west and thinking of her, with the knot of longing drawn tight about my heart, when Llewelyn came quietly behind my shoulder and said: "Will you ride there with me? We can be there by dark and leave with the dawn. I have a duty to see to the well-being of my sister and her children."

  So, perhaps, he had, and his affection for Elizabeth, who in her innocence had wrought so strongly on his brother, and deserved so well of them both, was deep and warm, and yet I knew he had rather my needs in mind then. When he laid his hand upon my arm I felt the touch pass into my flesh and blood like the comfort of a fire at the onset of a cold night. He had spoken but seldom and briefly since Eleanor died, always calmly, always to the point, always with consideration towards poor human creatures caught in this world's snares as he was, yet all his utterance lacking some part of him that we needed and missed, we who had known him when he was man alive. He touched me then, there above the Conway, and his hand was quick and kind, and his voice speaking into my ear was close instead of distant, and sounded to me strangely young, the voice of my eighteen-year-old star-brother when first I entered his service at Aber, long years before. So strong was that illusion that I was reluctant to turn my head and look at him, for grief at his silvered temples and lined brow, and more than all of his widowed eyes, that looked upon me with the awful compassion of those who have nothing to lose but through another's loss, and nothing to hope for but through another's gain.