The Brothers of Gwynedd (36 page)
She rode with us next day, fresh as a flower, and now more decorously as a woman should, in a gown I had not seen before, for we were safe in our own country, and there were other women of the party, coming with the court from Bala to Aber to keep the feast. There was no great haste, for messengers had gone before to make preparation for the prince's coming, and we could ride at ease, sparing our horses and ourselves. So it was a pleasant and merry cavalcade that made its way through the mountain roads by Dolwyddeian and on to Bangor, where we halted for the night, and the next morning took the coast road east to Aber.
David had gone on before with the vanguard, to disperse those levies from the parts about Bangor and Carnarvon, and he met us at the crossing of the river Ogwen on that final morning ride, to escort his brother with fitting state to Aber. He had shed his mail, and blossomed in brocades and furs, very handsome and handsomely adorned. And when he had kissed Llewelyn's hand, and been warmly embraced, he fell into our line where it pleased him, exchanging greetings here and there with all those he knew best, and so ranged through the whole length of our procession until he came to me.
"Samson!" he cried, throwing a boisterous arm about me and all but wrestling me out of the saddle. "I'm glad to see you back with us whole and safe. You were so long, faith, I almost feared we'd lost you. But I hear you had no luck with my sister."
I owned it, and told him how it had befallen, and when he heard of that last encounter with my mother's husband, and of his death, he was cast into a sadness as true as it was brief, as when he himself had broken to me the news that I should not see my mother again.
"He was a dour fellow," he said, "this Meilyr, but never less than patient with me, when, God knows, I was trial enough even to longer-suffering souls than he. It was Meilyr first taught me to ride. I am glad, Samson, that you were brought to him so strangely, and he did not go solitary. Shall we not send word to Meredith to fetch him away to proper burial? For you say the place is marked with stones."
I said it was already done, for we had sent a messenger from Dynevor to the canons of Talley, with an endowment for his disposal at the abbey. Though doubtless, for all the devout searches they made for others of the fallen, many a man died there in the forests after Cwm-du, and wore away to clean bones undiscovered. And in the justice of God I think their unblessed sleep could not be held against them.
But when I went on to tell him how Cristin had rejected escort into Brecon, and chosen to cast in her lot with a free Wales, David's face lit like a sunrise with startled joy, and he looked round to search among the womenfolk for this new countenance.
"You have brought her here with you? She's among us now? Bring me to speak with this young she-warrior! I did not know my sister had such resolute maidens."
"She is not a maiden," I said drily, "but a wife. Or a widow by now, maybe. Her husband was a knight in Rhys Fychan's bodyguard, and she's had no word of him since Cwm-du."
"And she is under your protection," he said, gently mocking me, "and I am warned to keep my distance, am I?" I was silent, for I had not thought to have given him even so much enlightenment, and I feared to betray myself further. Even so, he grew serious again, and eyed me intently as we rode, not concealing his thoughts, but not plaguing me with them, either. "I'll never add to her troubles," he said, "but you'll not grudge me a word with her, and she so gallant a guest of our house, and so wholehearted a Welshwoman." His tone was light and a little mocking still, but his curiosity and his eagerness were real enough, and since there was not a personable young woman in any of the courts of Gwynedd who was not known to him, he could hardly fail to find the new face for himself in very short order. I thought it as well to bring him to her myself, and did so as we rode.
Cristin lifted to him her pearl-clear face, faintly flushed with the sting of the cold air and the exercise of riding, and opened her grey eyes wide upon his beauty. It seemed that she was undisturbed, for her serenity never quivered. It was he who lost the thread of his easy banter for a moment, and let a silence fall like a drift of snow between them. She had that kind of assurance, rooted in a personal pride quite without arrogance, that can endure such silences and feel no need to fill them. It was not often that David found himself at a loss with a woman, and I think the novelty of that experience did not at all displease him. He was much taken, and rode by her the rest of the way to Aber, not exerting himself to charm, for be had never found that there was any need, but rather taking pleasure in being charmed.
I let them alone on that journey, and what they said to each other, he questioning and she replying, I never knew, though I am sure it was formal enough and civil enough, the expected exchanges between princely host and respected guest. When we rode into the maenol at Aber it was David who took her waist between his bands and lifted her down, and did it with little haste and much delicate care, I think partly for pure mischief because I was close, and could not choose but see what pleasure it gave him.
Afterwards he came into my little office and flung his arm about my shoulders in his usual impulsive way, and: "Find me another such phoenix," he said, "since it seems you have the happy gift of plucking them out of the snow. For I won't wrong you by taking yours."
"She is not mine," I said patiently. "She is waiting for news of her husband, and the prince has promised all possible efforts to discover whether he lives or not. With half of Rhys's force gathering alive and angry in Carmarthen and Brecon, there's every chance Godred ap Ivor is somewhere there among them, and waiting for news of her as she is for news of him."
So I said, though it made my throat stiff and sore to utter such things reasonably, as though I hoped for them, and daily it became harder not to wish her landless knight dead and buried.
"Waiting, perhaps," agreed David, "but not greatly exerting himself, surely? Look, this lady was not scattered and lost from a confused fight, as the men were, she rode with my sister's party for Brecon, and left it only to ensure her companions should get safely within. She knew of a hut in the forest, where she could take shelter. Do you suppose Gladys did not know the whole of it, where she would be, where to send for her? You were lucky they left you time for that dawn burial, I dare swear they were not far behind you when you left. If this Godred of hers is in any one of the royal castles along Towy, then long before this he knows what befell her, he'll know what they found in the woods, the ashes of your fire, the staff of your torch, the droppings of your horses. He'll know, or as good as know, since she is not in any of the English fortresses, nor in Dynevor or Carreg Cennen—"
"He may be too notoriously of Rhys's party and in Rhys's former counsels to go asking questions in Meredith's castles now," I said.
"He would not need to. My sister could and should be doing it for him, under safe-conduct. What's to prevent? So since he must know she is not there, what's left but that she rode north with you, willing or unwilling? He could very well have got Gladys, or Rhys if he lives, to send an envoy here to ask for news of her, who would grudge it? No, either this is a very indifferent husband for such a spirited wife," he said warmly, "or else he's dead indeed."
He stirred out of his serious reasoning suddenly, and looked at me along his shoulder with a sharp and challenging smile. "Have I comforted you?" he said.
Doggedly I answered him: "I wish her whatever is for her happiness. Why should I take comfort in any man's death?" But even that was to say too much, for David was very wise in me. Always he knew my mind earlier and better than I knew it myself, except, perhaps, for what I thought and felt concerning him; and even there I would not be certain he was often deceived.
"I know of several reasons," he said, still smiling. But he did not think it needful to name them. He got up from sitting beside me, leaving a hand upon my shoulder, and its grip was warm and vital, as though some part of his superabundant life flowed through his sinews into mine. "Take heart!" he said. "Your Cristin may yet find herself a free woman."
"She is a free woman now," I said obstinately. "And she is
not mine
."
not mine
."
He was moving towards the door then. He turned with it open in his hand, and the wintry light spilled over him from outside, glittering and chill, turning his smile to a starry brightness, as pure as ice.
"You think not?" he said, and closed the door softly between us.
Nevertheless, as I know, on the eve of Christmas Eve, after the harpers had played us into a daze in hall, and the wine and the wood-smoke had made us slow and heavy with pleasure and sleep, David did make a certain advance to Cristin, I think without expecting more than a refusal. Perhaps even for the strange, sweet sensation of being refused. I saw him draw up a stool at her shoulder at high table, and lean upon the board beside her, speaking long and persuasively into her ear. And I saw her smiling and calm, no way displeased or tempted, replying to him gently without turning her head. He kept up his siege for a long time, and when he left her at last he took up her hand, that lay easy and empty upon the table, and kissed it with his usual considered and winning grace. Then she did look up at him, with that wide and generous glance of hers that went in deep through a man's flesh to his heart and spirit, and serenely she smiled.
When he had left her, I got up from my own place and went and sat beside her, which I felt to be folly but could not forbear. It was growing very smoky and a little drunken below the fire in the great hall, and there was some singing between the offerings of the bards, and some coupling in the dark corners or where the hangings were ample. Cristin looked round at me, and understood my coming very well.
"Do him justice," she said, low-voiced and wryly smiling, "he takes no for an answer. Ah, you need not be anxious for me, not with your foster-brother."
"He is not used," I said, "to being refused."
"The better for the first to refuse him," she said. "But you trouble needless. I am not so beautiful that he need strain against his usual habit to win me, and he has no will to pursue those who are unwilling. Why should he, when he has only to lift a finger to draw nine out of ten after him?"
So much she had learned of him in hardly more than a day, and yet she was the tenth, no, the thousandth, woman, and he moved her only to an open and uncritical liking. But of his complacency I was less sure than she.
"You need not trouble about Prince David," she said, "while he has his hands full with work that stretches him mind and body, fighting or ruling or hunting or what you will. But when he has not enough work he will turn to playing. And his games could be dangerous. Oh, not to women! The only grief he will ever cause to women is the grief of losing him. But to you, to his brother, to all those nearest and dearest to him, he could do great damage. And to himself. To himself most of all."
The women were leaving the high table then, and she also rose to go to her bed. I went with her down through the hall, and out into the frosty courtyard, for her lodging, like mine but in another direction, lay in the sheltered dwellings along the curtain wall. It was the eve of the eve of Christmas, as I have said, and sharply cold, and those who left the warmth of the hall to seek their rest crossed the rimy spaces quickly, huddled in their cloaks. But we two slowed and went side by side out into the centre of the courtyard before separating, as though we had both more to say before we could part, and found no right words. There was bright moonlight once we were out of the shadow of the hall, that silvered her from head to foot, like a virgin saint on an altar.
I said, not subtly, for I was in torment: "And did you truly feel no desire to go with him, as he wished? For all that beauty and vigour and grace of his, no desire at all?"
She halted, and stood still before me, within reach of my hand if I had but stretched it out from my side. With her great eyes dark and clear upon my face she said: "None."
"God knows," I said, "you need hardly wonder or blush if you had. When he wills, there are few can resist him."
"You forget," she said, "that I am already bespoken."
"Your heart also?" I asked her, low and hoarsely.
"My heart first, most, and for ever," she said. And all the while she gazed unwaveringly at me with that mute face and those searching eyes. So then I had my answer.
I lowered my eyes from her, her brightness and stillness gave such pain. I said my goodnight, softly and faithfully, for she did me no wrong, and even to have known and served her was great joy. And I went away from her to my own small chamber, there to pray for continued grace to serve her still as best I might, and to wait with patience and resignation for news of the man who had her heart. For still, if he was dead, for which I must not hope, some day there might be for me the grace of a nearer service. But when I looked back out of the sheltering shadow under the wall she was still standing where I had left her, and looking after me, and only slowly, now that I had vanished, did she also turn away to her own place.
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