The Brothers of Gwynedd (35 page)

  I said that she was surely right, and to say truth I was shaken and moved that she felt so deeply and spoke so earnestly of my affairs. Indeed there was nothing left in me of feeling towards my lost father, by this time, but a small, disturbing core of curiosity, for from him I had in part the blood that ran in my veins, the impulses that drove me, the wits with which I served my prince, and some share in my face. Desiring knowledge of him was desiring knowledge of myself.

  But as for any need to make claim upon his blood and his household, if I did discover it, or to make myself known to any scion of that house, I felt none. The most I wanted of them was to know, not at all to be known. And so I said.

  "You are wise," she said, and I thought she drew breath as though in ease of mind, and let fall a long, soft sigh.

  It was my intent to go alone to Llewelyn before I presented Cristin to him, for the sight of a straight and comely young woman entering the hall with me would surely raise his hopes that it was the Lady Gladys I brought to him. But someone had observed us before ever we reached the gate of the Uys, and carried him word, and he came out in haste from the high chamber to meet us. He had just come in from riding, and now came from the fireside, unarmed, belting his gown about him, and he was flushed and bright from his exercise. At this time, shortly before his twenty-eighth birthday, he had let his beard grow, being much preoccupied with other matters in the field, and thereafter he kept it so, but close-cropped so that it left his mouth bare, and drew golden-brown lines along his upper lip and round the strong, sharp bones of his jaw, as though some cunning artist had engraved him in bronze. In his eager expectation his eyes also had centres of gold. And even when they lit upon Cristin he was still in hope and in doubt, for he had not set eyes upon his sister for fifteen years and more, and any woman riding in with me then, young and slender and dark, could have passed for the Lady Gladys. Nevertheless, he was quick to perceive that this one was too young.

  I lifted Cristin down, and she made a deep reverence to him, but he stopped her quickly, taking her by the hands and raising her, for the courtyard was muddy with melted snow. He said that she was welcome, and turned to embrace me.

  "I am glad to have you safe back with us," he said. "I feared you might have run your head into more trouble than I bargained for when I sent you out. You've had no losses?"

  "None, my lord," I said. "Delayed we were, but not by any disaster to ourselves. And though I'm sorry I could not bring you the Lady Gladys, yet she is safe in Brecon with her children. And someone else I have brought, who can give you more news of her than I can, for she has been in your sister's service, and was of her party when she left Dynevor. This is Cristin, daughter of Rhys Mechyll's bard Llywarch. She is left without a protector, and has chosen to be of your party rather than take refuge with the English."

  "This is a story I must hear," said Llewelyn, "but out of this cutting wind. Come in to the fire, and I'll have meat and drink brought for you." And he took her by the hand and led her through the hall of the llys to his own great chamber, where there was warmth, and furs to nest in, and the soft grey smoke of the brazier drifting high in the roof.

  "So you have chosen to be wholly Welsh," he said, when she was seated close to the fire, a horn of wine in her hand and the glow of warmth bringing a mirrored glow into her face, "when my own sister fled from me. I grant you she might well feel she had good cause. But you, it seems, were not afraid to venture."

  There is more in it than that, my lord," she said. "I fear I have been the cause of your plans going awry, for it was I who drew off Master Samson's pursuit and let my lady get safe into Brecon. As he will tell you. It was well-meant, but I have deprived her of the choice of which I was only too glad to take advantage, and I fear you may think less well of welcoming me when you know all."

  "That," said Llewelyn, eyeing her steadily, "I doubt. But if you want Samson to be your advocate, you could hardly do better."

  So I told all that story, how Cristin had played the hart to our hounds, and then gone to earth in the forest, how we had ridden on, in time only to see the Lady Gladys and her company cross the bridge into Brecon, where we could not follow, how we had returned by the same road to look for the woman who had deceived us, and how she had come forth to us out of the woods to lead us to a dying man. There was very little Llewelyn did not know of my grief with Meilyr, and his with me, for in these years of our close companionship we had talked of everything that linked and divided us in the past. He sat listening very intently as I told him of that death and burial.

  "Rhys Fychan and I between us," he said soberly, "have much to answer for. That was cruel waste at Cwm-du, of Meilyr and many another. Meredith has promised to send me a courier if anything is heard of Rhys himself, whether he lives or is slain. We found some wounded, and a few dead, on our way north again from Dynevor, but of Rhys no sign. For my part I think he was luckier than this man of his, and is with the English now, somewhere in one of those castles they hold along the Towy. I wish he had seen fit to come in with us and own his Welsh blood, and spare so many deaths."

  Cristin looked up with the flush of the wine in her face, holding off sleep now that she was in from the cold, and said doubtfully: "But as we heard it in Dynevor, you came south to set up Meredith in all his own lands and Rhys's, too. To cast out Rhys as Rhys cast out his uncle."

  "It need not have been so. To set up Meredith again in his own, yes, that I had sworn and have kept. But there was enough there once for both, and could be so again. The tale of their holdings in Cantref Mawr and Cantref Bychan is long enough, and the vale of Towy could very well hold both, if they would but be allies instead of enemies. But a brother who takes the English part when he has a choice I will not endure there. He made his own decision."

  She said: "I think, none too happily. Between the upper and the nether millstone a man feels his bones turning to powder. I think he chose what he took for safety, thinking the English stronger than you. He may well have other thoughts now."

  "Late," said Llewelyn, "for such as Meilyr."

  "Too late," she questioned persistently, "for such as Rhys?"

  He looked at her with a long, wide-eyed look, taking her in with more attention than before, and slowly he smiled. "I see that you are a loyal liege-woman to your lord and your lady, as well as a patriot Welshwoman. I cannot answer for what Rhys has done, nor guess what he may do. But I am mortal and fallible enough myself, God knows, to be very ware of damning a man for choosing wrong once out of fear for his life and lands, or shutting my ears to him when he turns and says: I was craven and I own it, and now I have done with it. Closing and locking one's doors may keep many a good man out, and that would be pity."

  For all the cloud of weariness and warmth that was closing her eyes, she was very sharply aware of him, and I knew that he had won her. And that pleased me, having so high a worship for both. She wanted, as I think, to give him pleasure in return for the hope he had freely given her for the prince she had served, for she began to tell him of her lady and her young sons, and to reassure him of their good health and high spirit on the ride to Brecon, the children taking it as a new game. The elder, Rhys Wyndod after his father, was nearly eight years old then, and very like his mother, she said. And the younger, five years of age, was named Griffith for his grandsire.

  "And there is more to tell," she said, "that a brother may like to know. My lady is again with child. No, you need feel no guilt or fear for her, she was in excellent health when she rode out, and only two months gone. She is strong and takes childbirth easily, and she will do very well, wherever she brings forth her third son. I do but tell you that you may take it into account, in whatever dealings follow. For I am sure Rhys Fychan is not set against you or against Wales, but only vexed for his failure against you, as is only human, and very perplexed as to what is best to do for his life and the good of his line. And if he comes to, she will never be far behind."

  Now this was surprising to me in my lord, whom I believed I knew so well, that he was so much charmed by this news, and asked her so many questions, he who had taken no thought at all for his own succession, and never seemed to see woman unless she spoke out with a voice as profound and shrewd as man. So utterly was he absorbed in his passion for Wales. And surely Wales is also a woman, being in all things both capricious and durable, tyrannous and lovely, harsh and gentle, wayward and faithful. To Cristin, in this first meeting, he spoke as to his match, and me he forgot, and I did not grudge being forgotten, for I greatly desired that she should make safe her place in his court, and be at rest there.

  If she had forgotten me, that I might have grudged, but she did not. In all she had to say to him, I was a presence. There was no need to tell me so.

  When they were done, for he saw that she was very weary, he said to her: "Madam, my steward's lady here will make proper provision for your rest. Tomorrow we ride for Aber, and if you are not too tired with your long journey I would have you travel with us, for Goronwy's wife at Aber will welcome you, and I shall be glad to have you keep the feast with us there. If you prefer it, we will provide you a litter. Make your home in my household as long as you please, and use it as your own. And beyond that, is there anything I can do for you, to set your mind at rest?"

  She looked up at him out of the cushions and skins that cradled her, and the heavy lids rolled back from her eyes, that were like violets, if violets could be lighted by candles within them. Her face was suddenly so still and so pale that for a moment she ceased to breathe, and all her bones shone white through the skin, as though smitten by frost. One glance she cast at me, and then looked back to him.

  "There is something," she said, "since you have asked for word from Meredith ap Rhys Gryg of the dead and the living. Of your kindness, will you ask him also for any news of one Godred ap Ivor, a landless knight in Rhys's service? For I am his wife, or his widow, and I would fain know which."

  "That I will do," he said to her, as gravely and simply as he would have said it to a man. "God forbid that I should have cost you so high, beyond my repaying. But whatever I can get to hear from Dynevor of Godred ap Ivor, you shall hear the same hour."

  Then he committed her to my care, to see her safely bestowed with the steward's wife, and she and I went out from him together in silence, her arm against mine. I had no word to say. For fear of the wrong answer I could ask nothing. But ever I watched her face as we went, while she looked not at all upon me, but straight before her, and was still white as ice with her own fear, the fellow to mine or its counter-balance, and which I dared not guess. For greatly she had steeled and mastered herself to ask that thing of him, wanting certainty instead of doubt, but there was nothing in her manner to me, then or after, to tell me which certainty it was she dreaded, to hear again of Godred living, or to receive assurance he was dead.