The Brothers of Gwynedd (151 page)

  It might have been David speaking, but that David would have been in a piercing, princely rage, and Adam worded with the sour humour lawyers acquire from long experience of justice and injustice dressed alike and indistinguishable.

  "At the end of it all," I said, "he must have declared
some
intent. What follows now?"

  "Why, he intends to send a commission into the Welsh lands and the marches, to enquire into exactly what are the laws and customs of those regions, by taking evidence on the spot. And also to cause the rolls of his own reign and the reigns of his predecessors to be searched for precedents that may be applied to this case. Though God knows they'll find none, for there are none. And when he has all the evidence from both enquiries before him, then he'll accept their findings and do justice!"

  "And when," I said, "is this commission to begin its work?" Though I knew already that this detail had been omitted. For I was becoming by degrees as black a cynic as Adam or David.

  "Ah, that is not yet stated! From parliament to parliament can be half a year. From the announcement of intent to the sittings of this enquiry can be stretched as far as Edward pleases!" said Adam. "And that is all we have to take back with us to the prince. But I tell you this," said Adam, suddenly both graver and brighter than throughout this exposition, "if he has not yet found a legal way of flatly refusing us Welsh law, but only delaying it, in my eyes that's a sign that in the end he has no way out but delay, for he knows he cannot, without showing as rogue and contemptible, declare Arwystli to be English or march land. If he could find against us he would have done it long ago. All he can do, with any appearance of decency, is fend us off with pious pretexts. And all we have to do, to win in the end or force his hand to plain roguery, is outlast him in patience."

  It was a good, sound legal thought, and went with me gratefully all that day. But also it put it into my mind that there had already been one such enquiry, taken in the year of Llewelyn's marriage, that inquisition of which David had spoken, held by Reginald de Grey and the king's clerk, William Hamilton. Its findings had never been made public. Because, said David, they must have proved simply that to Welsh lands Welsh law applied, and no other did or ever had.

  So I sought out Cynan again before we rode, the next morning, and asked him, if he might without risk to himself, to probe into the treasury records and discover what Grey's commission had reported, and send me word in simple code whether the verdict they gave was white, that being Welsh, or black, or some shade of grey between. It could neither hasten nor influence this new inquisition, but it could provide us with good armaments, if David's suspicion proved true, against any slanted verdict Edward might produce from his latest device.

  "Grey is a solid English baron, and true to Edward as any man in England," said Cynan, "but an honest man for all that, no liar. Hamilton—well, he's a crown clerk, a king's man. But if this enquiry was taken when you say, then he had no cause to believe his brief was other than it seemed. The treaty was new, the sides had not hardened, the arguments were legal, not partisan. None of the manipulators had yet got his bearings. I suspect people told truth, and truth was written down. Yes, I will get you these findings, these crossbow quarrels, if I can. But be careful," said Cynan, "how you shoot them! There may be fat, comfortable, cowardly men like me between you and your target!"

I had hoped that we might return to Wales by way of Denbigh, but it did not happen so, for Llewelyn had sent word that we should join him in Carnarvon, and thither we rode by the nearest and most convenient way, and for that while I had neither sight of Cristin nor speech with David, to tell him what I had asked of Cynan.

  Brother William de Merton reported to the prince all that had been said and done in Westminster, and more sourly, what had been said over and over while nothing was done. And I, more happily, gave him the archbishop's letter, heartily accepting his invitation and promising to come to Wales in June, and went on to render a full account of the conditions under which Amaury was held at Corfe, and all the messages he had sent by me, and the wishes he had expressed with regard to his lands and benefices, and his cousins in France.

  Eleanor took great comfort from all I had to tell, and found pleasure in writing his greetings and his commissions to John de Montfort in Montfort l'Amaury, happy to have something positive to do for her brother, and encouraged to believe that with Archbishop Peckham's help more might yet be achieved.

  I told them, also, of the undertaking Cynan had given me, to try to discover what report had been lodged and carefully forgotten in the treasury, after Grey's commission of two years earlier.

  "That was well thought of," said Llewelyn. "Provided he does not expose himself to suspicion with his probing! Even to have those parchments in my hands, I would not put Cynan's life in danger."

  He had swallowed Brother William's faithful recital of Edward's declaration in parliament with a wry face and a burst of exasperated anger, but certainly without much surprise.

  "He'll run out of the means of delay in the end," he said, grimly recovering himself, "and however he may wish to keep me penned into my present bounds, and have Arwystli held by a time-server deep in his debt, I fail to see how he can possibly deny me Welsh law in the end. He winds about the clear words of the treaty with so many more, and so obscure and devious, as to hide their meaning utterly, but he cannot change what he agreed, and I still do not believe he is prepared to go so far as to break his oath and dishonour his seal, when all his subterfuges are exhausted. I have only to counter every move he tries, and wait out every delay. I am skilled at waiting. I have studied the art for years."

Sometimes the princess came to my little copying-room to try over music with me, for that was one of the ways she had of making unexpected gifts to Llewelyn, all the more if he was weary, or vexed. And then she would talk freely, as once when I was in her captive household at Windsor, and the only servant she had there who knew the land to which her heart inclined, and the lord she longed to reach. So I had entered once and for all into her confidence, and that lady was gifted for friendship as she was for love.

  Thus she came to me on a June night, shortly before Archbishop Peckham was expected among us, and after we had tried over the song she was perfecting, she with voice and lute, I with the crwth, she sat considering our performance and nursing her instrument like a loved child, and then she smiled, and said: "I have become a maker of love-songs. That is his doing." A moment she was silent, then she said: "Samson, if my cousin held an enquiry only two years ago into the manner of pleading for barons of Wales in Welsh and marcher-land cases, why does he need to set up another one now?"

  I said honestly: "Not for anything it can uncover, only for the time it will take enquiring."

  "So I thought you would say," said Eleanor, and smiled. "And so says Llewelyn, and can even laugh, and own that sometimes he has not been above prevarication himself, when an immediate reply was inconvenient. But whether it is that I have an uncommonly black view of humankind, or whether I know my cousin too well for comfort, I see more in this new move than a simple means to delay. I think he needs a new commission because the first one did not provide him the answers he wanted, and this time he must and will take all the necessary steps to ensure that this one shall. There'll be a carefully selected bench, well-chosen witnesses, sessions will be held in the places most likely to be favourable to the king's wants, and the questions asked will be drafted to draw the right responses. I think, Samson, we should be well advised to be thinking out, and drawing up, a schedule of questions of our own, to supplement Edward's. Will his judges, for instance, ask whether there are in Arwystli duly appointed Welsh judges, properly authorised to administer Welsh law there, and exercising those duties regularly? I doubt it! But there are, and if Welsh law did not apply there, those judges would never have been placed in office, they would not be needed, and they would have no authority. I think," she said, stroking the strings of her lute with a small, wry smile, "we could be of the greatest assistance to his Grace in the matter of drafting apt and useful interrogatories. We might put them in as a petition from the prince, out of pure goodwill to be helpful."

  Enlightened and astonished, I said that she was like to prove the best lawyer we had among us, and that it should be done—out of pure goodwill!

  "In the meantime," she said ruefully, "We have not even a date for the commencement, and be sure he will give his men as long as possible before they must report their findings. Let's use the time to enlist Archbishop Peckham's good offices. We'll both urge his help for Amaury, and if Llewelyn is too proud to plead his own cause, well I am too proud not to."

  So quietly we made ready those pertinent matters that could with best effect be forced upon the commission's notice, and waited for the archbishop to come. It was the second week in June when he rode into Carnarvon, sparsely attended, and for such a prelate with very moderate ceremony, so that at first we thought him personally modest and austere, while in fact he was neither, except in his appetites. Pride he had, and proper respect he would exact to the last grain, but it was not expressed in haughtiness on his part, or demanded as servility from others.

  Friendly and inquisitive I had thought him, and so he was, and well-intentioned towards everyone, but for all that his kindly, sharp eyes could be steely and censorious if any resisted or differed from him, and his smiling, benevolent mouth was tight and obstinate in repose. The most diverse opinions were held of him. Some said he was a true saint, doing his best to follow his Saviour's commandments and tireless in his efforts for those who appealed to him in distress. Others that he would give and serve lavishly such as flattered and grovelled to him, and as readily out with bell, book and candle against all who dared to contradict him. Some revered him as a strong and able administrator and defender of clerical rights, others called him a meddlesome busybody who could not keep his fingers out of anybody's business. Some averred his compassion and sympathy were wide enough to encompass all who came, others said he was prone to favourites, and so narrow that his maledictions were more frequent than his blessings. Some thought he had a gift of delicate understanding which the ungodly could not appreciate, others said wrathfully that the man trampled in heavy-footed where angels themselves would have walked softly. And it can be said of Archbishop Peckham that almost everything ever said of him was true.

  He was of limitless energy, quick and agile in movement, and blew through the corridors of Carnarvon like a brisk wind. In the saddle he looked like a sack of Aberconway wool, but he rode fast and daringly for all that, enjoyed hunting, when he had leisure for it, and here he was removed from his pastoral cares for a while, and Llewelyn saw to it that he had good sport. At the high table in hall he was inclined to turn the talk into one long, benevolent homily, but benevolent it was, and we took it as it was meant. Indeed he made a very good impression, and if his well-meant interference in all manner of things not directly his province was sometimes maladroit, yet everyone accepted it with good humour for its evident kindliness. I have heard that others found him harder to bear, and he was always shocked and hurt at the resentment he could arouse at his worst, hurt as children are hurt when they have made an innocent advance and been rebuffed. We took care not to ruffle him, and not all because we had hopes of his aid. Both prince and princess liked him well.

  In his handling of Bishop Einion he must have been more adroit than usual, and doubtless it was flattering to have the archbishop of Canterbury busily trotting back and forth with soothing words. Also I think Einion in his heart wanted to be reconciled, and was glad to have the excuse of his clear pastoral duty to heed his primate's counsel. For though it took several visits to bring him to terms, he did gradually yield to persuasion, and agreed to compromise on some of the thorny issues that most vexed him, where the rights of church and crown clashed. Llewelyn in turn took conciliatory steps to meet him, and the archbishop, delighted with his success, brought them to sit down together in peace before he left us, and gave his blessing to the accommodation he had helped them to reach.