The Brothers of Gwynedd (30 page)

  "Not half a mile away," said Meredith ap Rhys Gryg, rearing his grizzled head to catch the note and distance of the horn. "Will you take station and let them come to you, or meet them moving? There's an assart just over the crest there that would stead us, cleared and abandoned after. They pasture sheep there in summer." For he was on his own turf here, no less than his nephew, and knew every fold of the hills, and the way the frost flowed and the winds blew.

  "If he chooses to stand," said Llewelyn, "he'll maybe have taken that for himself. No, we'll go to him. But gently, and roundabout. Forward softly, and wait until word comes back to us."

  In a little while one of the outriders did come cantering back without haste, through the deep mould of leaves off the track, and reported the fruit of his mission.

  "My lord, we saw them from the crest, just as they were leaving the open track. The ground beyond dips, not too deeply, but the slopes are steep enough to keep riders to the track, unless they have good reason to leave it. And thickly treed on both sided. They are moving into cover there on either side, to take us between them as we come. Their numbers we could not guess, so many were already hidden, but by the light reflected here and there they've spread themselves widely. And they have many archers."

  "But can use them only close to the track," said Meredith. "The woods grow too thickly to give them any field from above. They'll rely on their first few volleys, and then try to ride us down."

  "They can hardly have known how close we are," Llewelyn said, considering, "or they would not have ventured the horn. If they think to enclose us, well, we have time to go a little out of our way and enclose them. Meredith, you know these woods. Take your party up the slope to the right, and work your way above them. You, David, to the left. If you can do it undetected, go forward to the limit of their stand, and when you are there, confirm with each other by a woodpecker's call, and then sound, and close. We shall be at the point of entering their range, if I can judge it aright, and will drive in on them from the track."

  He kept only his mounted men for this party which was to spring the trap, and sent all his archers with the flanking companies. Goronwy he sent with David, and gave the steward the command, to temper David's boldness and audacity with Goronwy's patience and wisdom. And after they had withdrawn into cover and moved well ahead of us, we rode softly on, and having breasted the rise, where there was an open space as Meredith had said, and therefore some limited view ahead, we let ourselves be seen moving down at leisure and sought for the slight shiverings of the bushes that marked where the woods were occupied on either side by more than foxes and deer.

  "Two hundred paces, and we're in range," said Llewelyn to himself, fretting. "Where is the horn?"

  Then we heard the green woodpecker's raucous laugh, far before us, and he uttered a muted cry, and spurred again, to be at the point he desired when the horn sounded, as it did a moment later. And on that he cried the order for which we waited, and our ranks broke apart and plunged to left and right into the trees. The judgment was good, perhaps forty paces or so short, but our impetus was such that we made good that distance, perilously crouched over our horses' necks with swords out, before they well knew what was happening, and spread out among them, choosing each his path and meeting whatever enemy sprang up in his way. The archers were bereft of their targets and helpless from the start. Distantly we heard the clamour and tumult of the two flanking parties, closing in from the slopes. If Rhys had hoped for a surprise, it was he who was taken in his own trap.

  The daylight was dim among those trees, but the outlines of powdered snow made it possible to avoid the branches that swept down at us, and preserved a kind of subdued light that was enough to distinguish friend from foe. To do him justice, Rhys fought well, and used his head once he had recovered it, for he drew out such of his horsemen as were able to rally to the horn, and pulled them back to try and block our way, beyond the jaws of the trap now closing about him. But Meredith was swarming down the slope on the one hand, and David on the other, pushing forward as vehemently as Rhys drew back, and being now clear of our confused battle among the trees, their archers could choose their stance and fit and draw without haste or fear, and did great slaughter. Indeed, those on the flanks outran us, and left the way clear behind them for many of Rhys's men, both horse and foot, to get clear away out of the fight by climbing up the slopes and taking to their heels among the trees. But for some time they held their ground bravely enough, and in the twilight and tumult of the woods there was a long and bitter struggle that swayed now back and now forth, without direction, for in such conditions we could but find our marks where they rose at us, and take them one by one. So none of us knew how the others fared, or what carnage was done on either side, until the battle was over.

  It was my wish to keep close at Llewelyn's quarter, as always I did, but such was the tangle of men and horses, archers and lancers, among those thickets that I lost him quite. I was busy about the keeping of my own life, where even the shadows swung swords or drew bows at me, and I laboured after him but slowly and without direction. I did not then know what was happening ahead, where David, at his own suggestion but with Goronwy's hearty blessing, had taken the mounted part of their troop far forward under cover of the trees, and occupied the track at Rhys's rear. So when the issue was decided, and the men of Dynevor broke and began to scatter and run from us, and Rhys sought to rally to him all those remaining who could reach his banner, they found David blocking their way back home, and penned between his audacious challenge and the pursuit that massed out of the woods to follow them, they scattered and ran, slipping away singly into the forest, where we hunted them for a while only, and then were recalled by Llewelyn's horn.

  Some of those fugitives, breaking away to our right, certainly made their way safely to Carmarthen, where the king's hand was over them. Others, driven eastward instead of west, made for Aberhonddu, and drew off even further, into the security of Gwent. A few managed to get past us in cover, and fled to Dynevor to give the alarm. For Rhys had ventured most of his garrison, and the castle was left defenceless without them.

  We rode back, obedient to the call of the horn, in the heavy, late afternoon light, and the ground was crisping under us with frost, the leaves crackling, that had been moist and soft but an hour ago. We mustered to Llewelyn's summons, and salvaged our wounded, who were many, but few in serious case, for that was a battle of wrestling and scratches on our part. Yet there were dead, and not a few. We left them. We could do no other then, for the day was dying above us, and we had a castle to possess. Two, indeed, for David was sent forward to demand the surrender of Carreg Cennen, a few miles beyond Dynevor, while Llewelyn took his main party directly to Rhys's court. And as I know, he had his sister heavy on his mind, she who was but a year older than he, and utterly a stranger and an enemy, and now, for all he knew, widowed and bereaved, her children orphans. For Rhys Fychan was not made prisoner in that affray, nor did we find his body, though we sought for it close about the track until the light was failing. And doubtless many who fled, being hurt and having lost blood, benighted in the forest, died before morning.

  Howbeit, we mustered and rode. For however shaken he might be, he was not shaken in his resolve. And before we crossed the last gentle rise and looked down over the broad, gracious valley of Towy it was twilight, and only dimly could we discern, heaving out of the grey-green levels beneath us, the great mound with the river coiling beyond it, a moat to its southern approach, and on the mound the towering shape of Dynevor, the greatest and most sacred of all the castles of the line of Deheubarth.

  From that vantage-point it was but a mile. We came with the night, and challenged with horn and voice under the lofty gatehouse, and a trembling castellan, old and surely abandoned to this charge after the active had fled, came out to us from the portal with a flag of truce, and surrendered the castle to Llewelyn.

  I remember the hollow sound of the cobbled courtyard under our horses' hooves as we rode in, and the sparse gleam of torches and pine flares in sconces in the walls, and the few frightened domestics who peered out at us from doorways as we passed to the inner court, and drew back hastily into cover if we glanced their way. And the great, empty silence that hung about every tower and every hall like a heavier darkness, so that we knew before we asked that the soul was fled.

  The first thing Llewelyn said to the old steward, as he came anxiously to his stirrup to deliver up the keys, was: "Where is my herald?"

  The man had some dignity in his helplessness, though he was greatly afraid. He said that the herald was within, and safe, that the Lord Rhys had meant him no harm, nor discourtesy to his errand, but had ordered his detention until the army should have marched, when there was no longer anything to be gained by riding out, since he could not overtake the host.

  And the second thing my lord said to him was: "Where is your lady? Tell her that her brother is here, and begs her, of her grace, to receive him."

  Some of the womenfolk had crept out from the doorways to gaze at us by then, all in mourne silence and ready for retreat. A few young boys and old men were left to guard them, and stood as wary and irresolute as they, waiting to try the temper of this new master, of whom doubtless they had heard much, most of it blown up out of knowledge, like tales to frighten children.

  "My lord," said the steward, "the Lady Gladys is gone. There is no one here but myself to deliver the castle to you, as I was charged to do."

  "Gone?" said Llewelyn, shaken and dismayed, for though in a sense he feared this meeting, yet with all his heart he had also hoped for it, and to turn it to better account than conquest and dispossession. "She is in Carreg Cennen?"

  "No, my lord, she was here. When the first wounded man came down from the hills, with the news that the Lord Rhys's war-band was scattered and defeated, she had horses saddled, and left at once with her children, and a small escort."

  "What, now?" cried Llewelyn. "In the frost, and with night coming on? And to snatch away the children, too! Does she think so ill of me that a death of cold in the forest is better than shelter of my giving?" Whatever else he would have complained in his resentment and hurt he caught back and closed within himself. In a voice dry and calm he asked: "Which way have they gone?"

  "Eastward, towards Brecon. She hopes," said the old man sturdily, "to find her lord there, if he lives."

  Llewelyn looked up at the sky, where the stars were sharp and steely with frost, and eastward at the rising hills she must cross. "Very well," he said, "since she will have none of me, there's little I can do to aid her." He looked down at the offered keys, and turned to reach a hand to Meredith's bridle. "Here is your lord, make your obeisance to him." And to Meredith ap Rhys Gryg he said: "Take possession of your castles and your cantrefs, my friend, and I give you joy of them. Dynevor is yours, and by this time, I doubt not, Carreg Cennen also. Cantref Mawr and Cantref Bychan, the great and the little lands, are yours. Look well to them."

  Thus was Meredith restored to all those lands he had held before, together with the appanage of his nephew, of whom we did not then know whether he was alive or dead. And for his part Meredith acknowledged Llewelyn as his overlord, and undertook to be always his faithful ally and vassal.

  Then, the night being upon us wholly, we dismounted and went in, and the grooms who remained, together with our men, saw to the horses. Within Dynevor all was in good living order, but with some sign everywhere of that abrupt departure, a coffer open and clothes unfolded in the high chamber, where the lady had hurriedly put together such warm cloaks and furs as she most needed, and left all else behind, even a ring, forgotten, lying by her mirror. And though Llewelyn did not in any way abate his personal care for all the detail of our living, even seeing to it that the kitchens were manned and the proper order of the hall maintained, yet many times that evening he looked out at the darkness and frowned, and said, as if more to himself than any other: "To take such young children on such a night ride! And by mountain roads, mile on mile without even a hut for shelter!" And again: "I would go after her, but to what purpose, if she fears me so much, and wants none of me? I should but frighten her into worse folly."

  In the morning early came a messenger from David, to say that Carreg Cennen was ours, surrendered without resistance, and waited only for Meredith ap Rhys Gryg to choose a castellan and put him in charge there, and upon the arrival of his party to garrison the place, David would rejoin us at Dynevor, or repair wherever his lord and brother pleased to send him.

  "I please," said Llewelyn, "to send both him and myself home, in time to keep the Christmas feast at Aber, as is fitting when we have so much cause for thanksgiving. What we set out to do here is done." And though Meredith pressed him to stay longer, he would not, but set all in train for the march northwards. "We'll go by Builth," he said, "where we can move fast and freely, and have another good ally. And it may be we'll give Roger Mortimer something to think on with his Christmas cheer, as we pass through Gwerthrynion."

  But me he drew aside, before the bustle of preparation began, and with an earnest face committed to me a special charge, "I cannot rest," he said, "for thinking of my sister and her boys riding friendless through the hills in such weather, for surely they can have but a feeble escort, and with women and children they'll make but slow speed, and may meet God knows what perils. I cannot go after her, she would only fly me in greater anger, it seems, and I must take my army home. But you—you are not so changed that she will not know you, and you she has no reason to hate or fear. Take ten men, choose whom you will, and take the pick of the horses, for I want you fast and safe, and go and look for her along the roads to Brecon, and offer her safe-conduct wherever she may choose to go. But not like this, running like hunted hares, that I cannot abide. If she will not meet me, see her safe into Brecon, for her word should give you a courier's right to get safe out again. But if she will come, bring her north with you, and reassure her she shall have all possible honour and respect at my court, and her children also. They are princes of my grandsire's and my father's blood, and dearly welcome to me. Bring her if you can. Bring me word of her if you can bring no more. And say that I am sorry we were ever divided."