The Brothers of Gwynedd (104 page)

  In a great conference of council and clergy Rhodri and his clerks delivered the prepared deed, by which he quitclaimed, for himself and his heirs after him, to the prince and the heirs of his body, all his rights and claims by heredity in the lands and possessions of north Wales, and elsewhere throughout the whole principality— though naturally this need not preclude the grant of lands to him to be held of the prince by homage—in consideration of the payment of one thousand marks sterling with which to acquire the marriage of Edmunda, daughter of John le Botillier. The deed also made solemn promise that he would not disturb, or procure others to disturb, the peace of the prince's realm, against his present willing surrender and quitclaim. And to this document he added his seal, together with the seals of the bishops of Bangor and St. Asaph, and the abbots of Aberconway, Basingwerk and Enlli, with leave to add also the seals of the archdeacons of the two northern sees. A great number of witnesses, headed by Tudor the high steward of Wales, and including Llewelyn's own law clerks, subscribed to the agreement. Rhodri was at the same moment fast bound, and utterly free. From the time the deed was concluded he was at liberty, and a first payment of fifty marks was made to him at once, to pay his expenses in opening negotiations with le Botillier. Which he set about eagerly, with every prospect in his favour.

  And indeed he was not so bad a match for the lady, and not an ill-looking fellow, though vague and colourless beside either Llewelyn's glowing brown or David's raven blackness and brilliance. And in the first exchanges everything went well with his suit, and the father, certainly, was in favour of the marriage, and exactly what befell to break off the arrangement we were never told, for by then the matter had naturally passed completely into Rhodri's hands, and whatever it was, it caused him great chagrin and anger, and he was in no mind to share it. By such grains of gossip as leaked out, it seems that though le Botillier was in favour of accepting Rhodri, his daughter had other ideas, having both a lover and a mind of her own, and contrived to place herself in a situation so delicately compromised that her parents found it wise to let her have her way, and betrothed her to the young man in question. Whether this is true or not, certainly she was married, shortly afterwards, to one Thomas de Muleton.

  Now perhaps Rhodri could have borne this rebuff somewhat better if his marriage plans had not been made so publicly and before so great and solemn a concourse, but as it was, the collapse of his hopes could not but be noised abroad just as publicly, and he took it very hard, for though marriage plans are made and unmade in businesslike fashion all the year round with no heart-burning on either side, yet to be the favoured suitor with the parents and to be rejected and outwitted by the girl is less common, and very shaming. From the moment he got the news of the final break Rhodri shut himself up from sight, fearful of covert smiles and castle jokes such as follow the unfortunate, and brooded in the blackest of moods. And within a week he vanished from among us, took his portable treasure and rode away in the night, and the next word we had was that he had entered Chester and confided himself to the justiciar there.

  Llewelyn made mild enquiry, not anxious to interfere with his brother's plans, if Rhodri intended to shake off the dust of Wales, only wanting precise news; and I think he would have been willing then to pay a further instalment of the money due, but Rhodri had already ridden south, presumably to London to ask hospitality and service at court, so as we had no further word the prince shrugged, and let him go.

  "With goodwill," he said, sighing, "if he intends to settle in England, for I am rid of him, and he may do very well there, where he has no claims and no grievances, and no ambitions beyond his reach."

  None the less, it had an unpleasant flavour for us that a prince who found his life soured in Wales should naturally make for King Henry's court, as if fleeing for refuge to the enemy, whereas we had been at peace and in very reasonable friendship for five years.

  "It seems we have not yet succeeded in changing men's minds," said Llewelyn soberly. "He could have gone openly for me, why should I hinder him?"

  "Why, indeed?" said David to me, after hearing this. "He has what he wanted from him, signed and sealed, with a dozen or so reverend churchmen as sureties, and half the nobility of Wales as witnesses. There's nothing any lawyer, English or Welsh, can do to break that bond, and nothing left to fear from Rhodri. Now he has not even to pay him or feed him. Why hinder his going, indeed!"

  He had come to me, as he used to do years before, in my copying-room, where I was busy with some documents concerning cases to be heard in the prince's local court. We were sitting by candle-light, for I had worked so late that even in August the light was gone, but for a violet afterglow over the sea. Elizabeth was not with him on this visit, and without her he was restless and out of humour. The black mood could not endure in her presence, at least not thus early in the charm of their marriage, but now it sat upon his shoulders for want of her, and perhaps in some measure for shadowy regrets and remembrances concerning Rhodri.

  "Both you and King Henry," I said, "have good cause to know and admit that the prince pays what he pledges.
You
have no call to speak slightingly of his usage, whatever Rhodri may claim. Take care your own debts are paid as punctiliously as his."

  I meant debts not in money, and he so understood me, for he smiled at me darkly across the table, his elbows spread among my parchments and his chin in his cupped hands. His finger-tips pressed deep hollows into his lean cheeks below the rounded and polished cases of bone out of which his eyes shone so wildly pale, clear and bright.

  "Ah, now you preach like my true priestly breast-brother," he said. "I have heard the note before, I should miss it if ever you gave me up for lost, and cast me out of your prayers. Oh, yes, I have debts still undischarged, have I not, Samson? Twice forgiven, twice restored. I have a great load of amends to make, and gratitude to show, and service to render yet before I shall be clear of my indebtedness. Do you know of a slower and a deadlier poison," he said, pressing his fingers deeper, so that his long lips were drawn up in an angry smile, "than having to swallow favour undeserved? Never to be able to find gratitude enough to buy it off, and never to be able to spit it out in rank ingratitude? I'd liefer be treated as an equal and slung into Dolbadarn for twenty years with Owen!"

  Knowing him, I said without excitement: "That is a lie. And you know it."

  He drew exasperated breath, and gnawed his lips for a moment, eyeing me glitteringly from under his long black lashes, and then he laughed.

  "Yes, that is a lie! I might wish to prefer such dire payment, but in truth I like my freedom, and my comfort, and my own will, and I suppose if my deserts threatened me again I should again use my wits to cling fast to all those good things, and slip sideways from under the lash. Sweet Samson, I shall come to you no more for confession and absolution. You know me too well. I get no flattery."

  "No penance, either," I said.

  "True, that should bring me still," he owned, "seeing what I've just admitted. I wonder if I could ever take to hating
you
, Samson, for letting me off too lightly?"

  "As you hate him?" I said, and watched him flinch and frown blackly, and clench his even white teeth hard upon his knuckle, but never for all these writhings take his eyes from mine. Such he was, he could look you in the face as clearly and challengingly as an angel, both while he lied to you and while he told you blazing truth. If he could not come to terms with a man, or a cause, or a world, still he would not turn his face away. Once he told me outright that he was afraid of death, but he never averted his eyes, not even from that enemy.

  "You deceive yourself," I said, "you do not hate him."

  "Do I not?" said David mildly, still gazing like one interested and willing to learn.

  "Think, sometimes, that you have what he lacks and envies you, married happiness, and a child…"

  "Children!" said David, and let his lip soften into quite another smile, thinking of Elizabeth. "She is again with child. But no one knows it yet but you, Samson. She says it will a boy this time. She says it as if God had told her. Yes, I have what he may well envy, have I not?" And then he did lower his eyes, but to look within, at this mystery he hoarded within himself, as if he watched the seed burgeon. And more than that, a mystery beyond that mystery. The slow, deepening curl of his lips was triumphant. He enjoyed, he delighted in, his victory over Llewelyn; he prayed it to continue. It was a large and crushing revenge for every real and imagined injury.

  "You teach me," said David, softly and sweetly, "where gratitude is truly due." And he rose, the candles quivering faintly in the wind of his movements, and stretched at large, and smiled down at me. "I will remember it in my prayers," he said, and turned to the door. "I'll leave you to your labours now. Good-night!"

  In the doorway, the soft blue light from the summer sky flowing down all the outlines of his dark figure like moonlit water, he turned and looked back. "To think," he said, wondering, "that he had always this weapon of the quitclaim, if he had cared to use it! They say every man has his price. I wonder what he would have had to offer Owen? Or me, for that matter?"

  "He has never asked you," I said, stung, "he never will ask you, for such a quit claim."

  "As well!" said David, soft and muted in the doorway. "I would not give it to him if he did."

In October of that year Pope Gregory X, that Cardinal Tedaldo Visconti who was recalled from the crusade to take up his office, and there in the east had become close and faithful friend to the Lord Edward, examined and rejected the prior of Canterbury as candidate for the primacy of England, looked warily but briefly at Edward's choice, Robert Burnell, that formidable cleric of affairs, and passed carefully over him to choose Robert Kilwardby, the Dominican. So the national province had an archbishop again after two years, a man of scholarship, piety and intellect.

  And one month later, in his palace of Westminster, King Henry died as he had lived, among the turbulent outcries of a populace preoccupied with a minor quarrel over the mayor of London. His death was hastened, as many believed, because of his hurried pilgrimage to calm another local disorder in Norwich, which otherwise flickered out without great damage. All his life he was haunted and hunted by such annoyances, yet he had reigned for fifty-six years, and survived everything life and England could do against him. He lived to see his dearest dream take shape in this world, in his church at Westminster, and few men have that joy. And he died, for all the turmoils he had provoked and suffered, better regarded than in his youth, and the mourning for him was not feigned nor formal, though muted by the natural erosions of time, for he was old, and had had his span fairly.

  Since the deaths and burials even of kings give but very brief warning, Henry was in his tomb before ever we heard of his departure. The official word from the regents and the royal council did not reach us until the twenty-sixth day of November, being sent out along with the formal letters in the new king's name to all his sheriffs and officers in the land. But we had fuller information three days before that, for Cynan sent his lively Welsh groom to bring us the news, his master's letter supplementing his own account.

  "His Grace was buried," Cynan wrote, "in his abbey church four days after his death, and they have laid him according to his wish, in the tomb from which the relics of Saint Edward were translated three years ago. By one means or another he will make his way into heaven. The Lord Edward being absent, the council and his own proctors have taken charge, and for four days England had no king, though there was never any question of his peaceful succession or his welcome. After the funeral mass, before the tomb was closed, all the bishops and barons and others present went up to the high altar, and took the oath of fealty to King Edward. A new seal has been made for him, and King Henry's seal was broken by the archbishop of York after the oath had been sworn by all. The first to swear was Gloucester, who was sent for to the king on the day he died, and has pledged himself to forgo all old grudges against Edward, and guard the kingdom for him until he comes, and all the signs are that he means it and will do his best. They have written to Edward to let him know of his father's death, and urged him to return quickly. By this time his term in the east is over, and he must be on his way back, but as far as is known it was his intention to winter with Charles of Anjou in Sicily, as he did on his journey east. Now he may change his plans, but equally he may not, for he made good certain of his arrangements before sailing, and has absolute trust in his proctors to act now as his regents."