The Brothers of Gwynedd (15 page)

  This was his matter, if not his words. Indeed, I think he had to use, and repeatedly, many more words to bold this balance. And his son ably backed him, for the minds of these two worked almost as one. Moreover, there was no alternative to what they advocated. Those two, with whatever doubts and misgivings they felt, agreed to divide Gwynedd between them, in order to hold it as one against England.

  Among his share, when the division of commotes was arduously worked out, Llewelyn kept his old lands of Penllyn, to which he had become attached as being his first appanage received from David at his majority, and there we spent much of that summer at his court of Bala, though he came several times to Aber to pay visits to his widowed aunt, Isabella, for whom he had some fondness. I saw her several times before she withdrew into England in August, a slender, dark, sad girl, never truly at home in Wales even after sixteen years. She had been but a child when they married her to David, and without him, and lacking children, she had nothing now to bind her to this land, for she was a de Breos by birth, and all her kin were Norman. As a widow she was entitled under Welsh law to a part of the royal stock, and in August these cattle and horses were shod and taken away by drovers to the lands of the earl of Gloucester, and into his protection the lady followed them very shortly after. Her mother had been one of the daughters and heiresses of the Marshal estates, and through her the castle of Haverfordwest came to Isabella, with lands in Glamorgan and Caerleon. So she was provided for amply, and passed out of our lives.

  There remained to be decided in this year how Gwynedd should deal with the still outstanding issues between Wales and England, for though the full feudal host was not called out against us this summer, yet we were still in a state of war, and the king's wardens of the march and others were free to make inroads where they could. The council argued for caution and waiting, for the last year's main corn harvest had been lost in Anglesey, and stocks were low for feeding an army in the field. Nor was this a fat year for crops. Better to make the castles secure and provision them well, and be content to hold fast what we held. So we did, and as well for us. At least we lost few men, and no territory, if we gained none.

  Yet there was one happening in the late summer that painfully displayed our weakness and helplessness. King Henry had installed one Nicholas de Molis as custos of his castles of Cardigan and Carmarthen, and this was an energetic and ambitious person who had formerly been seneschal in Gascony. During these summer months he launched a successful campaign in South Wales, greatly consolidating the royal holdings there, and then, swollen with this triumph, crossed the Dovey with his army and marched them north through Merioneth and Ardudwy to the Conway valley, and so without hindrance to join the garrison at Degannwy. There was some heat between Owen and Llewelyn once again over how to meet this impudent march clean through the middle lands of Wales, for Owen was ever fierce and rash, and thought every man a coward who was not ready to rush upon a superior host with him. But as for Llewelyn, it was clear to him that this army, in such circumstances, hardly dared delay its passage by essaying much diversion or damage on the way, and that the Welsh forces could be more effectively used where they were finally most needed, in keeping the Conway and ensuring the stronghold of Eryri itself should be held inviolate. He therefore advocated the usual Welsh tactic of withdrawing our people and valuables into the hills, and suffering the intruders to pass, while denying them everything that was movable by way of provisions. And the council sided with him. Thus de Molis reached Degannwy, which in any case was strongly held, but we massed our defences there opposite the castle, and threw back all his attempted raids from that vantage-point. Never once did he get across the river, and of bloodshed that year there was very little.

  Howbeit, this unimpeded march, which had crossed lands untroubled by an English army for a century and more, had showed all too clearly how thoroughly King Henry had the more accessible parts of Wales in his power, and how little we could hope to do against him if he decided to put his entire host into the field. And there was very earnest discussion in council as soon as the winter began to close in, and raids and skirmishes ceased. For the drain on the land was remorseless in labour, resources and livestock, and two more such years would be hard to endure.

  And that was the last council of all for Ednyfed Fychan, and the last service he did to the land he had served lifelong. Llewelyn spoke his mind, with what reluctance and grief I knew, for we had talked of it beforehand. And he bore to be called timorous by Owen, for whose opinion he cared little, so long as Ednyfed's ancient eyes watched him steadily and did not disapprove.

  "There are but two choices before us," he said, "and the first is to continue as we are, at war but without fighting, so far as we can avoid it. True, we can hold our losses in bounds by these means, so long as the king also holds back from fielding his host against us, but such a country as ours, barren of grain, wanting salt and a hundred other things that are now denied us, can bleed to death slowly and find that death as mortal as any other. And should King Henry decide to make an end, with such stocks as we have now, and so stripped of allies, fight as well as we might, we could not prevent the quick death from sparing us the slow. And the other alternative—to be blunt—is surrender. I call it so, that we may not imagine its countenance as any more comely than it is. We sue for a truce, and ask for terms of peace, and on the face of it we may reject them if they bite too deep, but to be honest, we cannot afford even to play hard to please. And I am for the second way."

  Owen cried out indignantly that this was abject surrender.

  "I have said so," agreed Llewelyn grimly.

  "If you are ready to bow your neck to King Henry's foot, I am not," protested Owen.

  "Times are changed," flashed back Llewelyn, for he was human, and almost as quick to hit out as his brother, "since you bowed your neck low enough for his gold chains and his ermine. Not long since, your head was in his bosom, now you have less trust in his mercy—or at least his caution—than I have. Our mother and sister, our brothers, are still in his court and under his protection, and he'll hold back from putting us too openly to shame, for the sake of his own face. Not that the draught will be any the sweeter for that, but there'll be a cloak of decency. He has his pretext—Prince David was his enemy of some years' standing, whom he was sworn to bring to book. We are the innocent inheritors, to be plundered, yes, but not picked clean to the bone or made mock of, provided we behave ourselves seemly. You have nothing to fear."

  Owen flared that it was not he who was fearful, that he was willing to put all to the issue, that there was a time for valour.

  "So there will be," said Llewelyn, with a spark of golden anger in his eyes. "It is not now. Fortitude, perhaps. And patience. And humility."

  Then Ednyfed spoke. He set before the council all the state of their arms, men and stores, and their nakedness of trustworthy allies, for in Wales then it was every chief for himself, and those who were not demoralised by the too close presence of marcher neighbours, or royal castellans armed with carte blanche to raid and despoil, were quarrelling among themselves, or had been seduced by the king into promising their homage directly to him in return for his protection. Not now, not for many years, could that unity be restored which had almost been perfected under Llewelyn Fawr. And at this present time, he concluded, it was a different service and a different heroism that was required from the grandsons of that great prince.

  There was no man there who was happy with the verdict, and some disagreed, and many doubted and feared, but the sum of opinion was that there was no choice but to send at least for a safe-conduct to Chester, and despatch envoys to ask John de Grey for a truce, and a meeting with King Henry to discuss permanent terms of peace.

  We came out from the hall, after that council, to a grey and cloudy eve, for it was December, and the dark came early. In the chill air of the courtyard the old steward drew breath deeply, and heaved a great, wavering sigh, and fell like a drifting leaf into his son's arms. They carried him to his bed, and both the princes were with him through the dark hours, and in the first light of dawn he blessed them, and died.

  Goronwy, his eldest son, was distain of Gwynedd after him, and Llewelyn's bards made mourning songs for the father, and songs of praise and hope for the son, hymning their noble line as worthy to give birth to great and illustrious kings.

It was Tudor ap Ednyfed, the second son, who went to Chester in the first place, armed with the royal safe-conduct, to negotiate a truce with John de Grey, the justiciar and the king's representative on the border. And later, in mid-April, Owen and Llewelyn received further safe-conducts for themselves and their parties, to meet King Henry at Woodstock. There on the thirtieth day of April a very hard peace was made, too hard for all the civility and ceremony to do much to soften it. And those two, who rubbed each other raw did their sleeves but touch, endured to ride together, to stand together before a curious court, and to keep each his countenance calm and resolute through all, at least in public. I know, for I was of Llewelyn's party, and I witnessed all, and greatly I admired the stern control they kept upon themselves when the need was greatest.

  They were forced to give up much, in order to keep at least the heart of their land. All that Middle Country from Clwyd to Conway, the four cantrefs of Rhos, Rhufoniog, Tegaingl and Dyffryn Clwyd, was lost to them, and they renounced all claim to it. Also at last they surrendered Mold. King Henry maintained that the homage of all the minor chiefs of North Wales belonged directly to him, and ensured that any such chiefs who had been adherents of his cause against their own country should be securely established in the lands they claimed. In return for so much sacrificed, Owen and Llewelyn were acknowledged as the lawful princes of all Gwynedd beyond the Conway, but they had to do homage to the king for their lands, and to hold them of him as overlord by military service.

  But they got their peace. And it did endure for several years. Trade was delivered from its ban, imports flowed in again. Sad, slow gains to set against such losses, but Wales had been bled into weakness, and needed time to grow whole again.

  Thus being received into the king's grace, those two took their places for a few days among the magnates of the court. The queen received them, and among her noblewomen was the Lady Senena. That meeting, being matter for the nobility and not for clerks, I did not see, but as I have heard, she kissed her eldest son with warm affection, and her second son with markedly more reserve, even coldly, for she could never quite forgive him for taking his own way, and still less for being, as she secretly suspected he was, in the right. However, he had made his peace with Owen, she made peace silently with him, and there were never any words either of reproach or reconciliation.

  As for me, when I heard that the Lady Senena was in the queen's retinue, I went with an eager heart to make enquiry where she was lodged, for I thought my mother would be there with her. But the lady had left her daughter and her younger sons in London, and my mother was there in attendance on them, so I could not see her. For from Woodstock we rode for the border, and for home.

Those were years of labour and husbandry, and with little to tell, for we had a kind of peace that left us no field for action on any wider front than Gwynedd, and there Llewelyn occupied himself doggedly in raising stock and crops and making his lands as self-sufficient as he could. Owen surely fretted more and did less, for he had his father's lordly impetuosity and restlessness, not made for farming a cantref, nor was he infallible in choosing his officers. But except when the council met in full session we saw little of him, and what I most remember of the remainder of this year of twelve hundred and forty-seven is a steady drawing closer to my lord, until I was hardly ever from his side.