The Brothers of Gwynedd (27 page)

  He had, however, one implacable enemy among us, and that was the Lady Senena, who was a whole-hearted champion of her daughter and her daughter's husband, and therefore found only satisfaction in Meredith's expulsion, and was greatly affronted that her son should welcome him into Gwynedd as an ally. For these family relationships with their hates and loves were the trammel and bane of Wales as they were of the marches, and indeed, from all I could ever learn, of England and France and those troubled realms beyond the sea no less. And the more the great laboured to make dynastic marriages, the more they tied their own hands, and put into other hands knives for their own backs. Their history and ours was ever a chronicle of such expulsions and revenges, the tide of fortune flowing now this way, now that, and never safe or still. But the ladies and the waiting-women about the llys at Aber had reason to thank Meredith for some relief, for while he was with us the Lady Senena withdrew in dudgeon to Carnarvon, and her strict and increasingly cantankerous supervision of the household was withdrawn with her.

  Doubtless Meredith thought her a harridan, as she thought him a villain, neither being of a temper to acknowledge that there may be some substance even in an opponent's viewpoint, and some justice in his complaint. So it was as well that they should be separated. Surely that lady was destined always to be torn in pieces between those people she loved most, for now she saw her son, the one who had least obeyed or supported her, but also the one who had best fulfilled in his own person the ambitious dreams she had cherished for her line, preparing undoubted rebellion against the English, under whose protection her dear daughter, with her husband and children, enjoyed the peaceful possession of their estates. It may be that she confessed, in her own heart though never to any other, her sad responsibility for these divisions, for if she had stayed in Gwynedd and maintained, in the teeth of all deprivations, the loyalty of her family to Wales, they might now have been all in unity upon one side, if not in total harmony. And it may also be that she had learned somewhat from all these trials, for whatever her own hope in the matter, she kept silence, and gave no warning to any party of what the others intended, but retired into her own helplessness, determined not to do further harm where she doubted her ability to do any good.

  So the year went on, with due attention to lambing, and the cultivation of the fields, and the hope of harvest, and the building of boats and fashioning of armour. And in the high summer Prince Edward as earl of Chester paid his first ceremonial visit to that city and shire, and sent out formal proclamations announcing his coming, and appointing times and places where he would receive the homages due to him in the four cantrefs of the Middle Country. He came to Chester on the seventeenth day of July, and towards the end of that month he was conducted by the justiciar and his officers on a tour of his Welsh possessions, making a stay of two or three days at his castle of Diserth, and again at Degannwy, where the chieftains and tenants of the region once Welsh would attend to offer him their fealty.

  "Now," said Llewelyn, reading the smith's despatches with the first spark of excitement in eye and voice, "we shall see of what he is made." And when some of the men of Rhos and Rhufoniog sent secretly to ask him whether they should attend or no, he advised without hesitation that they should. "For," said he, "it's well always to see for yourselves whether he means justly by you or not, and whether he has wit and understanding to listen to you, as well as ears to hear you."

  So they went, and we had more than one report thereafter, hopeful and doubtful both. For this was, they said, a very comely and upstanding young man, very tall for his years, which were just seventeen, and in audience gracious and welcoming to all, so that they had been encouraged to open to him their grievances, though with care, and ask hopefully for a more considerate tenderness towards Welsh custom, which was daily flouted. All which he had heard with debonair patience, though whether any of it had sunk in, or whether it was to him the mere tedious business of making a royal appearance, the more cautious among them were not prepared to say. As we heard, there was a great train of young nobles in attendance on him, very gay and frivolous, more interested in the pretty tourneys the prince held in Chester than in the administration of the four cantrefs or the welfare of their inhabitants. There was much money spent on the lavish entertainment and courtly show of those round tables and jousts in Chester, by all accounts, and the prince himself was a very fine lance already, and could hold his own with any who came.

  "Before the winter," Llewelyn prophesied, following this pageantry from a distance with a calculating eye, "he may well be wishing he had again every mark spent and every lance broken. He will need them."

  The royal party left Chester and rode south on the third day of August. Whether the prince had made any easy promises, or whether the hopeful among his tenants had deceived themselves into believing that he had, I cannot be sure. But for some weeks after his departure there was an expectant quiet, while they waited for the meeting between benevolent lord and dutiful vassals to bear the good fruit it should. Only in September did they begin to give up hope of betterment, for Edward was gone, seemingly, without a glance behind, or a thought to spare for remembering them, and the exactions of the chief bailiff continued as before, and the acts of tyranny in the enforcing of English law, county law, upon Welsh commotes, without regard for local feeling or respect to tradition.

  "Let be," said Llewelyn, when the young men of the bodyguard grew impatient, and looked to him expectantly, "a month or two yet, till the corn's all in, and safe stored. If an army's to starve this coming winter, it shall not be mine."

  By the same token he took particular care to see to the late autumn salting of the slaughtered beasts that had not fodder for the winter, for he had been buying in salt as much as he could get. And this last was still in the doing when the unrest in the Middle Country broke out into scattered acts of rebellion, and two of the high men of Rhos crossed the Conway and came riding to Aber to appeal for Llewelyn's aid.

  "For," said they, "we cannot live longer in this fashion, deprived of our right as free Welsh landholders, our young men forced to give armed service to the English, and our land taxed to keep our own people in chains. Come and make Welsh land Welsh again, for we will die rather than to go on in bond to Langley and his kind. Come and lead us, and we will be your people, in war and peace the same."

  Llewelyn knew his hour then. The season was ripe, the supplies assured, and of winter fighting we Welsh, better prepared and equipped than usual, had no fear. Moreover, we were also better informed on one point than our visitors, for we knew from the smith of Chester that Geoffrey Langley had left that town for Windsor, where Prince Edward kept his court, to render due account to him of all his Welsh lands in the north, believing the Middle Country, if not pacified, securely bound, and helpless to do more than thresh in its chains. And when the prince rose before his council and his guests, very pale with recognition and desire of his destiny, and very bright with the assurance of his own election, we all knew that the waiting was over.

  "Go back and tell all those who sent you to me," he said, "that I am coming, that I am with them. I, too, have waited for Wales to be Welsh again, and what I can give, and what I can do, towards that end, that I promise you. Go back and tell your people that one week from today I shall cross the Conway and break out of my own bonds, which I have suffered as long as you. And until then, for your sons' sakes, keep the fire damped low, that the blow may fall harder and more suddenly when it comes. When I bring my army across the river, then send me your young fighting men. And by the grace of God I shall make them the instruments of liberty, and bring, God helping me, the most of them safe and free back to you."

  I said gladly that I would go with him wherever he willed, though his intent I had not then divined, nor did I until we turned into the uplands short of Bangor, riding southwards. Then I knew. And he, sensing the moment when the knowledge entered me, turned his head and smiled.

  "You do not ask me anything," he said, inviting question.

  "I would not by word or look prompt you to anything, or presume to advise or censure whatever it is in your mind to do," I said. "Whatever it may be, the judgment is yours alone. And in your judgment I place my trust."

  "That was one of your loftiest speeches," he said, mocking me, "and if you had no personal hopes or fears of what I may be about to do, you would not need such high-flying words. I am going to war. I have room for a good fighting brother who hardly knows what fear is. Provided, of course," he said grimly, "he is on my side! I propose to ask him."

  "Him! Not both, then," I said.

  "One, as I remember," he said, "did his best to kill me, once."

  "Both, as I remember," I said, "have done as much, and with equal ferocity."

  "One to my face, and one behind my back. I see a small difference there," he answered me mildly. "There is also a nagging doubt in me concerning the one who rode at me head-on like a mad creature. Was he indeed trying his best to kill? Or to be killed?"

  He saw that I was startled, for indeed I had not considered how apt this conclusion might be until this moment. "Did you think I had not caught what he said to me?" he asked gently. "I heard it, and so did you. No other. It was as well. There were knots enough to be undone, after that affray, without having to explain David to other men."

  I told him then, honestly, that it had never entered my head to think that David had been seeking to run upon his own death. Nor could I truly believe it now, no matter what he had cried out against himself when he was half-stunned and wholly dazed. And yet Llewelyn had planted a doubt in me that would not be quieted thereafter. He, with his open and magnanimous charity, put the best construction on what David had said and done, able to envisage without too bitter blame a thwarted and restless young man tempted to strike for power even against his brother, and finding no difficulty in the shame and self-hate that caused him to invite retribution afterwards. A simple enough David that would have been. But I was sure in my heart that the David God had visited upon us was in no way simple. Nor had he cried out to his conqueror:
"Kill me, you were justified!
" but:
"Kill me! You were wise!"

  "Well, let it lie," said Llewelyn, humouring me because he saw me troubled. "He is young, he called himself ambitious and greedy, but I think it was for glory and action more than for land, and glory and action I can offer him in plenty. We'll make the assay, at least, and hear how he will answer."

  I did not urge him to offer the like opportunity to Owen Goch, for I could not in good conscience make such a suggestion. So when we rode down out of the hills to the neck of land between the two llyns, with the sunset light heavy and bright as fire in the water, and climbed the winding path up the great rock on which Dolbadarn castle stood, he bade his castellan bring forth to us in the high chamber only David.

  He came in stepping with soft and wary delicacy, like a cat, and stood blinking for a moment in the full torch-light, for doubtless his own cell, though provided with what comforts were possible, was but poorly lit in the dark hours. He was, as always, very debonair in his apparel, imprisonment could not deface his beauty or his gift of freshness and cleanliness. But he was thinner, and had a hungry look, like a mewed hawk, or a horse starved of exercise. Recognising us, he smiled, even at me, as though we had parted only yesterday, and the best of friends.

  "It's long since you honoured me with a visit, brother," he said. "And to bring Samson, too, that was kind."

  Llewelyn bade him sit, and he obeyed without comment or thanks. I saw that his face was somewhat haggard, the eyes blue-rimmed like bruises. He had put on a good front, but he was sadly fretted with his confinement, for surely he was one bird never meant to be caged. Llewelyn looked him over closely, and said with compunction: "I think I have done worse to you than ever you tried to do to me. Do you eat? Do you sleep? Have you had wants that could have been met, and have not asked? What sort of pride is that?"

  "Do I look so ill-cared-for?" said David, injured. "I had thought I made a very fair bid at being what a prisoner should. It takes a while to get into the way of it, but I think I have it now. You may be better pleased with me the next time."