The Brothers of Gwynedd (38 page)

  Thus I did not avoid her, but made myself ever ready and willing when she sought me out, as often she did. And if there was great pain, there was great bliss, too, such bliss as Meilyr never had from my mother. And we came by a way of living side by side that was gentle and cordial and close, working together in accord, speaking freely of all the daily affairs of the court, but never now of Godred or of ourselves, while we loved and waited, she for him, and I for her.

There was little real fighting in the north that summer, only a reordering of the establishment of those parts of Powys we had taken from Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, and once in May, to trim straight a position that somewhat irked our forward movement, the taking of one more of his castles, at Bodyddon, which we stormed and razed, not caring to garrison it ourselves, for once emptied of his power it was of no significance to us.

It was elsewhere that the great things were happening, and so suddenly that

Llewelyn had no warning, and no time to be upon the scene himself, for the best was over before we even had word of any action in the south.

  It was in the evening of the fifth day of June that a courier rode into the llys at Bala, where we still made our headquarters at this time, and made himself known for one of the officers of the war-band of Meredith ap Owen, Llewelyn's ally in Builth and Cardigan. We knew the man, Cadwgan by name, for he had fought with us at Llanbadarn in the autumn, and he was a strong, seasoned man in his fifties, who had served his lord's father before him. He would neither eat nor drink until he had told his tale, though he had ridden since morning without rest or food. We brought him in to Llewelyn in the high chamber, where he was in council with Goronwy and Tudor, and David came running after the rumour of news as eagerly as a boy.

  "My lord," said Cadwgan, when he had bent the knee to Llewelyn and kissed his hand, and hardly waiting to rise again before he began, "we have won you and Wales a great victory, and dealt King Henry a formidable blow. Three days since, on the Towy, we routed the king's officer and a great host, pricked off their baggage horses, looted their stores, and smashed their army to pieces. What's left has made its way back into Carmarthen, but it's no more than a remnant."

  "They came out after you?" cried Llewelyn, taking fire from this jubilant outcry. "What possessed them, out of the blue, without fresh offence? I looked for Henry to call out the host against us this year, but here in the north, not on the Towy. Nor has he sent out any such summons, we should have heard of it long before." Which was true, for his intelligence by now was efficient and swift, and the feudal host ground out to its muster commonly with a month's warning and often more.

  "No, my lord, this was a great force, but made up from the garrisons of many castles and from the marcher lordships, and great gain that will be to us, God willing, for this defeat leaves many a good fortress but wretchedly manned, and ripe for taking. But hear me how this fit began, for it concerns your own kinsfolk, and it ends not at all as it began, but with some strange reversals. It's for your lordship to determine how best to use it
to
your gain."

  Always the first to leap to a hazard, David cried: "Rhys! I see the hand of Rhys Fychan again in this coil. Who else could have set them on?"

  "Hear me the whole story," said Cadwgan, flushed and grinning, "and judge. We got word only two days before the end of May that there was great activity about the castle of Carmarthen, and levies coming in from many parts there, so we made our own preparations. My lord, with Meredith ap Rhys Gryg, made all fast at Dynevor, and also placed all their host, a great number, about all the hills around, overlooking the river valley, with all the archers we could muster. But we did not know until they moved that Rhys Fychan was with them, with his own forces, nursed all this while under English protection. We have the truth of it now, past doubt, your lordship will see why. Rhys had talked the king's seneschals in the south into taking up his cause and setting out to restore him to his own. They put their heart into it, too, it was a great host that came along the valley to Dynevor the last day of May, with the king's own officer leading them. Stephen of Bauzan."

  "I know him," said David. "The king sets great store by him. He was his governor in Gascony aforetime."

  "He'll be less in the royal favour now," said Cadwgan heartily, "for he's lost King Henry a mort of men and great store in horses and goods. They came and took station around Dynevor to storm it, and we let them spread out about the valley meadows that evening as widely as they would, for well it suited us they should feel sure of their ground. We were sure as death of ours. The castle was held well enough to sit out the storm, and we others, the most of us, were all round them in the hills, and had had time enough to choose our cover and our field for shooting. We let them stir in their camps in the dawn of the first of June, and then we opened on them at will with arrows and darts, wherever a man came within range. And from all sides. They could not attack one way without exposing themselves on either flank, and all that day they spent trying to assemble into better positions, and to bring up their engines to break into Dynevor. We knew by then that there were Welsh with them, and they could only be Rhys's men. So then we knew what was afoot."

  "If they set out in such numbers, and so equipped," said Llewelyn, concerned, "it could still have been a grim business."

  "So it could, my lord, and we were taking it grimly, I warrant you. Not a man of us thought we should break them as we did, but we trusted stoutly enough we should keep them out and cost them dear. But hear what happened! At earliest dawn on the second day of June our lookouts suddenly cried a marvel, and we looked, and saw a small body of horsemen, who had gathered apart in cover of trees, ride out full gallop straight for the castle gateway, the foremost of them carrying a white surcoat threaded on the point of a lance. And it was Rhys and his Welsh knights, crying to the castellan to open quickly, and let them in, for they were sickened of their servility, and begged to be of our part, free Welshmen like us."

  David uttered a shout then that was half excitement and half derisive laughter. "And he did it? He opened the gates to such a bare-faced trick? How far were the English behind?"

  "My lord, I well understand you," owned Cadwgan warmly, "and I would not for my life have been in the castellan's shoes, for he had but a matter of minutes to make up his mind. You say right, the English had the measure of what was happening by then, and they came like devils after. But it was they who turned the trick, for by the very look of them Rhys would not have lived long could they have got their hands on him, and he had good need to batter at the gates and cry to have them opened. It was that, and knowing Rhys well by sight, and some of those with him, too. Whatever settled his mind for him, he opened the gates and they came tumbling and hurtling in and he got the gates to again in time, and loosed every archer he had until the English drew off. But the cream of the jest—and it was a good jest!—is that they had come out only to put Rhys back into Dynevor, and back in Dynevor he was, and the gates made fast behind him, so what were they doing there in the valley, on a fool's errand, and getting picked off by our bowmen as often as they stirred out of cover? I swear to God, if they had taken it the opposite way, and attacked then in a fury, we might have been hard pressed. But the ground had been cut from under them, and they let themselves be confounded. They began a retreat. And that was all we needed. All along the valley they drew off to Carmarthen again, and all along the hills on either side we went with them. First we cut off the heavier and slower, the baggage and the engines, the sumpter horses, and any stragglers who tired. And about noon, at Cymerau, where the Cothi comes down and empties into the Towy, we thought it time to make an end, for fear too many should get back to Carmarthen alive. We were either side of them, and our horsemen had followed lightly along, and were fresh, with the slope in their favour. We made our attack there. It was a slaughter."

  "How many," asked Llewelyn, glowing, "got safe away?"

  "My lord, if you mean in order, as a body of fighting men, none. As headlong fugitives, running every man for his own life, perhaps one in five who set out from Carmarthen won back to it alive."

  "And de Bauzan?"

  "We rode him down. I saw him unhorsed, I thought him wounded, and sorely. They got him away with them. It was the one ordered thing they did. But alive or dead, that we cannot know. They left arms and harness littering the fields. We made a great harvest."

  It was indeed a victory. My eyes were on David's face, and it was torn between delight and outrage, all his bones starting in golden tension, for the summer had gilded him over like precious metal. His eyes, blue and light and stony with rage, grieved helplessly that he had not been there at Cymerau, and I think in some sort blamed all of us for his loss. And I thought then that what Cristin had said of him was wise and true, that unless he was spent recklessly and constantly in action and passion he would turn that same wealth to bitter mischief, to his own hurt most of all.

  Llewelyn was other. He could take pleasure in another man's prowess, and never grudge that it was not his own, nor value it the less in the common cause because its credit shone on other men's arms. He sat with his chin on his fists and his eyes wide and thoughtful, and asked questions very much to the point.

  "And your losses? Our losses?"

  "My lord, a nothing! We were never exposed but in the last onslaught, and then we had the advantage. I count but eleven men dead, no more than twenty-five wounded."

  "Good! And this force was drawn from the castle garrisons in those parts? How far afield?"

  "As far as the coast, my lord. There were men there from Laugharne and Llanstephan. What remains of their force is in Carmarthen, and that they did not leave too ill-provided. Being so near us."

  "But the others! Meredith is following up his victory?"

  Cadwgan laughed gleefully. "My lord, by now I think we should hold Llanstephan at least, and some of the others will not be far behind. But Carmarthen we've let alone."

  "It was well done," said Llewelyn, and thought for a moment in silence. "And Rhys Fychan and his knights?"

  "They sat comfortably in Dynevor," said David bitterly and scornfully, "and had no fighting to do. And you, brother, are expected to extend your clemency to this so sudden change of heart." His voice was like an edge of steel, but more with his own deprived discontent than with any true hatred of Rhys or his sister. He could not endure that there should have been so glorious a turmoil, and he not in the centre of it. I could see with his eyes at that moment, and see the whole of our careful month's work, stiffening the bones of what we had won, drained of any worth or satisfaction for him.

  Llewelyn said mildly: "I asked a question of Cadwgan, lad, not of you," and looked at the messenger.

  "We also have been in great doubt," said Cadwgan honestly. "But one thing is certain. This rout would never have taken place but for what Rhys Fychan did. For it wholly overturned the minds of the English, and caused them to act like men defeated before defeat. And that I hold in credit. But what we should think of him, I vow to God, we cannot agree. And we would fain have you come and judge. But as for the present, he and his knights are honourably lodged in Dynevor, and have not been used against the English. Nor," he said frankly, "let out of the gates or out of sight."

  "Wisely!" said David. But Llewelyn took no heed of him.

  "Nor disarmed? Nor in any way confined, apart from being kept within the gates? And my sister has not been sent for, wherever she may be?"

  "Not yet, my lord."

  "That was also wise," he said with a wry smile. "We can ill afford to embrace false allies, but still less to discard true ones."

  "True?" cried David, smarting. "Need you debate concerning Rhys, after all that has passed? There is not a grain of truth in him!"

  "There is not a man on earth," said Llewelyn sharply, "of whom I would say such a thing. If we are never to write a quittance for things past, which of us will be out of prison?"

  He spoke still frowning over his own thoughts, and never so much as glanced at David, and I knew he meant no reference at all to what he had endured and forgiven from his brother. It was David's own heart that wrung the too apt sense out of the prince's words, and cast the hot colour suddenly upward from chin to brow in a burning tide. He was silenced. But Llewelyn was not looking, and noticed no change in him.

  "Say to your lord," said Llewelyn, when he had made up his mind, "and to Meredith ap Rhys Gryg also, that they should continue to hold Rhys Fychan and his men in honourable liberty within Dynevor, but allow them as yet no part in their campaign. He will know very well he is on probation, you may discover much by his bearing in the meantime. Before midsummer day I'll be with you. Until then he is, let us say, neither ally nor prisoner, but a guest, he and all his. So deal with him. Now take rest and refreshment, and I will write to Meredith."