The Brothers of Gwynedd (80 page)

  He sent Llewelyn the terms of his settlement with the marchers, for we also were concerned in them. The offenders agreed to withdraw into Ireland for a year and a day, surrendering those royal castles they still held, and releasing at last the unfortunate prisoners of Northampton. Mortimer was allowed to visit Edward with the terms, for the exchange of lands required his consent and charter. And since his release from strict confinement, if not from all surveillance, depended upon his agreement, he had little choice but to agree. At least he might, at the cost of that exchange, be able to see his young wife again, and the infant daughter she had borne him only a few weeks after Lewes.

  "Chester!" said Llewelyn, rearing his head suddenly, at gaze into distance, when he heard the terms of the submission. "If the earl is to have Chester, where does David go?"

  There was in his voice and in his eyes a kind of mild astonishment, as though he had remembered something from long ago, once taken grievously to heart, and now recalled as curiously small and distant. He had not thought of David for so long that all the crust of hatred and hurt and resentment that had made his desertion bulk so large had dwindled away, and left only the human form, slighter than his own, of the young brother he had loved and indulged, and by whom he had suffered what now seemed only trivial wounds. Forgetfulness is sometimes easier than forgiveness, and achieves the same end.

  "He is still there?" I asked, for I, too, had almost forgotten him. Strange, for he was memorable, if there had been no giants blotting out the light.

  "He has been there with Alan la Zuche all the year, holding the town and county for the king. There'll be a new justiciar now, and a new garrison. And he has lost so much, and been left so far out on the fringe of events," he said, almost with compunction. "He could never abide to be out of the centre, and here he lies washed up on the rim. And his Edward baulked and prisoner. Poor David!" said Llewelyn, marvelling at the revenges of fate and at himself. "I could be sorry for him! He is so torn. How could I ever have hated him?"

  "I doubt you ever did," I said in all honesty. "It is not among your gifts."

  "It could be," he said with a startled smile, "if it were not such a waste of time. But with so many things better worth doing, hate is a luxury must wait its turn, and it dies of waiting. I wonder," he said more sombrely, "if his is dead, as mine is?"

  And for a while I think his mind was again upon his brother, and the wrongs he had suffered of him, and also, perhaps, those he had unwittingly inflicted upon him. But that lasted no long time, for the very reason he had given. The fortunes of Wales were always foremost in his thoughts, and thrust David out of mind. Whatever the force of Llewelyn's sympathies in the long contest between king and barons, and with whatever willingness he took sides, there was no question but he meant Wales to do well out of the conflict, and intended to exploit it to the limit for her sake. And this was the greatest opportunity of all to secure his northern conquests, and make his boundary there inviolable, now that all the former earldom of Chester was being transferred into the hands of his ally, who owed him a share in the benefit.

  "We'll turn homeward for the Christmas feast," he said, "and we'll see who comes to garrison Chester and rule as justiciar in Earl Simon's name, and what message he has for me."

  He left a moderate force in Maelienydd when we turned northwards, and since it seemed that we were somewhat ahead of the new officials at Chester, we went home to Aber for the Christmas feast, and then repaired to the castle of Mold, to be in close touch with events in the city. The word went round at the turn of the year that all the tenants of the county and honour, as well as the officers of the castle, had received their orders upon Christmas Eve to serve the earl of Leicester as they had been wont to serve the old earls palatine in the former days, before the line of Blundeville died out and the honour reverted to the crown. And Earl Simon's new justiciar was come, in the person of Luke Tany, and la Zuche, the king's partisan, was about to march out with his men and betake himself elsewhere, perhaps into the lands given to the Lord Edward in exchange. We waited but a day more, and a courier came from Luke Tany, bearing a letter from Earl Simon himself, appointing a day when his envoy would meet with Llewelyn at Hawarden, on the business of the northern march.

  Mold is no more than twenty miles or so from Chester, and Hawarden halfway between. We made our way there in advance of the day, and the weather then being fine, with only light frost in the mornings, we had good riding in that pleasant, rolling land. Llewelyn was withdrawn and quiet, but restless and unable to settle, and turned his mount and his gaze towards Chester, and there being no enemy now to hold us at distance, rode as far as the river and lingered there, walking his horse under the very walls of the town, and watching the road that led south from the gate. Then I knew what had drawn him there, and that he had knowledge of it beforehand.

  From our place in the rimy meadows we saw the long file of horsemen issuing from the bridge gate, the sun picking out their lance-heads and pennants in a shining play like little flames. We could even hear the drumming of the hooves across the timbers of the bridge, so clear was the air, and pick out the devices of la Zuche and his knights, Edward's knights, banished to some less vital castle in the south. Llewelyn reared his head to stare upon all those riders, narrowing his eyes to bring them close, and I knew that he was looking for his brother.

  So, indeed, was I, but it was Llewelyn who first found him. I knew it by the stillness that fell upon him, and following where he gazed, I saw David riding somewhat aside from the deposed justiciar, but level with him. He was not in mail, but cloaked in fine cloth and fur, and very handsomely mounted and equipped, and though he was but a small figure to us, too far off for his face to be more than an oval mask, by his seat and his carriage in the saddle there was no mistaking him. There was no reason why he should already have observed us, and he would have had to turn and look round over his right shoulder then to do so, since the cortege was moving away from us towards the south. Yet I believe he did know that we were there. Two horsemen motionless in those meadows against the pallid winter turf stood out like trees, and he knew Llewelyn's manner and bearing as Llewelyn knew his. If he was aware of us, he gave no sign. The tilt of his head and easy sway of his shoulders were as always, proud and assured.

  They passed, and he dwindled gradually out of our sight, and it was over. Llewelyn wheeled his horse and rode back without a word until we drew near to Hawarden.

  "Well," he burst out then, between self-mockery and a kind of quiet fury, "I have seen him! Neither sick nor sorry! I need not have troubled!" And he set spurs to his horse, and led the way in a gallop the rest of the journey home.

Earl Simon's envoy rode into Hawarden the next morning, well attended with knights, clerks and lawyers, and we saw with pleasure that the earl had sent us his eldest son to deal in his name. Llewelyn went out to meet him gladly, and embraced him.

  "I thought," he said, "they had you walled up in Kenilworth as keeper to your cousins since you left Dover. There is no man I would rather see here in your father's place."

  Young Henry was grown and matured since first we had seen him, yet not changed. He had had to deal with many grave matters, and to make decisions even more perilous than the generously wrong decision he had made in trusting Edward at Gloucester, but still he had that straight and confiding eye, and the brightness that grave children have, willing at all times to seek and believe the best, and by reason of their own truth slow to look for lies. And I thought then that such creatures, whatever their gallantry and skill and wit, are at disadvantage in this world, where the current kind are wiser than the children of light. Yet he had learned, and his learning had saddened him.

  "If all goes well," he said, "my cousins will soon be let loose to the king's care under surveillance, and even if I must still be watchman, I need not be gaoler. At the parliament that's called for later this month we hope to find a form for easing Edward's captivity and mine."

  Llewelyn asked him of this parliament, for the writs sent out for it appeared to be on a wider ground even than in June, and clearly the impulse came from Earl Simon. All the bishops were called, said Henry, more than a hundred heads of the great religious houses, all those barons who were in due obedience and had not flouted previous calls to court, as the marchers had, from every shire two knights respected and trusted, and from a large number of boroughs two burgesses, for the towns had taken active part in the struggle for the Provisions, and willed to continue their aid, as Earl Simon was heartily glad to encourage it. Sandwich and the other southern ports were also sending four men. Though only God knew, said Henry, in the troubled state of many regions, whether all the members would reach the city on time, for the year, in spite of the welcome silence from France, opened in fearful uncertainty, and the marcher lords who should already have withdrawn to their banishment in Ireland were still in their liberties, upon one pretext and another. Nevertheless, a parliament there would be, and upon the writs issued, even if it meant delay.

  "The boroughs, too! I see," said Llewelyn, smiling, "that your father's body politic grows more, and more agile, limbs with every year."

  "And all function," said Henry. "The lowest of men
are men, of the same affection
s and infirmities as the highest. I have learned to marvel at what they can do. In the world of the saints and the religious there have been great men raised from the sheep-fold and the plough. I think there is too much waste of many who are wise without learning, and many who are able without power. We have leaned on such at need, in this cause, and they have not failed us. Only the great, established in power, have let us fall."

  That he could not have said, two years ago. He said it now with all his old simplicity, but the matter was new. And since I was come of the lowest, son of a waiting-woman and by-blow of a passing knight, I remembered his saying, and thought upon it often. I have seen dead bodies of the great and the mean stripped naked for tending to burial, and I know there is no way of knowing which is the prince and which the ploughman. Wherefore I think there are princes in all estates, and doubtless in all estates slaves also.

  "And I?" said Llewelyn, eyeing his young friend narrowly.

  "You have not let us fall," said Henry, and smiled. "I say no word of small or great to you. You have another way of ordering your realm, as it were a family, but carried to the ultimate degrees. Who is great or little in a family but by his generation? I think we have something to learn from you."

  "Not if you look for unity," said Llewelyn fervently, and laughed, and went in with him. And I know they talked much and ardently of those matters at night, after the business was done and the clerks busy copying.

  I would not say there was hard bargaining at that conference, for each side had an urgent end to gain, and they so marched together that the outcome was certain. Llewelyn gave what was required of him, and got what he required. What Henry wanted for his father was an absolute and assured peace along the Dee, so that Earl Simon need lose no sleep over his support in that region. And that he had, most willingly. What Llewelyn wanted was recognition for all the conquests he had made in these parts, and renunciation of all English claims upon them, his Saxon neighbour now being the earl himself, an ally instead of an enemy. And that he had.

  "For every yard that I have taken back by force in my lifetime," said Llewelyn, "was Welsh land from time beyond memory. No part of it English but by seizure."

  "I am empowered," said Henry, judicial and grave on his father's business, "to acknowledge that ancient right, and leave in your hands all that you hold along this march." And so it was sealed and delivered in the agreement.

  "And I wish to God," said young Henry passionately in private, afterwards, "that the southern march were as securely in your hands, my lord, as the northern, for so we should have quiet minds. If there were no marcher lordships between your power and the Severn in the south, with all my heart I believe we could control the entire border between us. But the marcher hold in the south is so strong, I dread what may go forward there."

  "I see," said Llewelyn seriously, "that you rate the vital balance as lying here in the marches. For you as for me."

  "In the name of God!" said young Henry devoutly. "They are a third country. Except to themselves, they have no loyalties, and except for their own, no law. I am afraid of them. If that is cowardice, I have the wit to be a coward. And the need, bearing as I do this responsibility. United, there is very little they cannot do, to the west as to the east, to you as to me."