The Brothers of Gwynedd (158 page)

"I see he keeps it guarded now, as well as barred," he said, deliberately probing

his old wounds and mine. "God put a moat about it, that night. As well to be sure. There will never again be anything to fear from me, but who knows, there may be other Davids at large." He turned his head suddenly, and stared into my face. "You are still unsure of me, Samson, own it! You may, without penalty. I have not been notable for constancy. If you think I may still play him false or work to his harm, say it openly."

  Truth to tell, many a time I had asked myself that same question, and found no certain answer. Yet when it was he who asked, I found myself clear in mind, with no need to hesitate.

  "No," I said, "I do not believe you will ever forsake him again. For better or worse, you said, he had won you. I never knew you to mean anything as solemnly as you meant that. But time and chance and a single moment of anger or folly may still work to his harm, even against your will."

  "And you do not trust my temper or my wisdom," said David, without resentment. "I think you trouble needlessly, seeing I am no vassal of his now, and nothing I do reflects on him—even though
you
may know, as I know, that at heart I am more his vassal now than ever in life I was before. My formal fealty is to Edward, and with Edward I have to deal, whether I keep it or break it. But if you need reassurance, I swear to you, Samson, I will not take one step before me, write one word, or so much as open my mouth, without weighing the consequences to Llewelyn and to Wales. Tongue and temper I'll watch, if you'll credit me I can, and for his sake above all. There, are you content?"

  No question but he was in grave earnest, and I could not doubt him. On that note we parted and went to our beds. And from that night he made no more mention of the discontent that boiled through Wales, but came out of his abstraction and was very good company, merry without fever, even-tempered, resolute and amenable, as though he had put off a shadow. And when they left us to return to Denbigh, he kissed his brother and made his goodbyes with a bright, quiet, cloudless face, and a particular and solemn affection.

  Cristin, carrying Elizabeth's youngest girl, warmly wrapped in woollen shawls, gave me her hand through the curtains of the litter, and drew eased and thankful breath as she watched him mount.

  "He speaks now of taking up his men's case at law, since they were seized in land which is Welsh, even if it is not part of the principality of Wales. Not that a blood-price will bring them back, but at least it will provide for their families, and go some little way to vindicate and avenge them. And who knows, perhaps help to protect others who may get embroiled in the same way at Chester market. He may even consider appearing the next time he's called to the shire-court, if only to claim Welsh law and fling out again, as he did once before. By Welsh law he is not yet in default. And yet," she said, drawing her slender black brows together in frowning wonder, "does this sound like David to you?"

  "He has promised," I said, "to do nothing without considering its prudence, for the prince's sake."

  "As a judge of what's prudent," said Cristin, reluctantly smiling, "David is likely to prove the most perilous justice on any bench. Yet it's something if he'll make

the attempt."

  He was away out of the gates then, Elizabeth riding with him for the first few miles, and after them went the litter with its nest of furs, and the little rosy girl half-asleep in Cristin's lap. I watched until a hand waved from between the curtains at the gate, and then they were out of sight, and we were left to turn our attention once again to the long struggle, courtly in more senses than one, that showed now so urgent a face.

  I think I had not fully realised how urgent, until I was at Llanfaes on Llewelyn's business, towards the end of January of that year twelve hundred and eighty-two, and Brother William de Merton spoke to me of his great disquiet at the way the prince was being treated, and told me, in confidence, that he had ventured to write directly to the king a strong protest and a stronger warning, urging the damage that must be done to relations between Wales and England if the injustices continued. For the prince, he said, had faithfully kept his side of the treaty, and had great occasion for complaint at the delays and obstacles impeding his lawsuit over Arwystli, since these clearly constituted a breach of the terms of the peace, just as the distraints made on behalf of Robert of Leicester infringed the prince's sovereignty in his own lands, the merchant never having brought suit in Wales, as he should have done. As Archbishop Peckham had brought his weight to the king's support, so Brother William came sturdily to the defence of Llewelyn's right, and that unasked, out of his concern for the peace, in part, but most of all for justice.

  Llewelyn and Eleanor were at Nevin, in Lleyn, at that time, and thence the prince also sent a long, considered letter to Edward, protesting at the Chester distraint, and requesting the release of the detained goods. Then he came to the matter of Arwystli, strongly contesting the latest device for delay, and demanding a just remedy.

  "For your Grace may be assured," said Llewelyn in conclusion, "that in this matter we are far more concerned at the humiliation to ourselves than about any profit that can possibly accrue to us from the impleaded land."

  For all its force it was not a letter composed in anger or despair, but in stern dignity, and for all its admission that he recognised and resented the humiliation put upon him, it was a proud and princely letter, a reproof from one monarch who kept treaty strictly, to another who misused it. We did not then know it, but it was the last letter the prince of Wales ever wrote to the king of England. He thought of it then rather as a new beginning, setting out the ground on which he was prepared to fight with fresh heart for his son's inheritance, but certainly not to imperil it.

  By the same courier Eleanor also wrote to her cousin. It was the second day of February, and she was in the fifth month of her pregnancy. But she still had time and thought for those unfortunates of her former household who remained prisoners after so long. One John Becard, as she had recently heard, had been pardoned and released at the entreaty of one of the king's magnates, and though she was glad he should have his freedom, it hurt her that her own frequent pleas for him should have been passed over, and his liberty restored only at someone else's instance. And so she told the king roundly. It was to me she dictated that letter, and though I do not recollect it word for word, after all this time, I have the gist of it by heart for ever.

Somewhat thus it went:

  "I should be glad to have some word from your Grace, and beg you to send me news of how you do. I have been surprised and grieved that your Grace allows my husband, the prince, to be annoyed by this merchant who still persecutes him, for as the prince is ready to show justice to every comer, according to the laws and customs of his land, I find it strange that credence should be given to such a complainant, before ever he has brought suit in the prince's own court, where this case by right belongs. I beg your Grace to give us a just remedy in this affair. I have also heard that certain of my men, captured with me, have been restored to your peace through the pleas of others, when I myself have often petitioned your Grace on their account, and have not been heard. I had not thought I was so estranged from you that you would turn a deaf ear to my prayers, and rather restore these men to your peace for the sake of others. Howbeit, by this writing I once again pray your Grace to receive to your peace Hugh de Pomfret, Hugh Cook, and Philip Taylor, for since these are poor men, and English, it will be easier for them to make a living here in England than elsewhere, and it would be cruel to send them into exile from their own land.

  "Dated at Nevin, on the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin."

  "Now take heart," said Eleanor, when these letters had been despatched, "for if Edward opens his prison at my urging, we may receive it as an omen of good. His grip is tight indeed, but one by one we have won my men out of his hold, and if he lets these go, then I'll press again for Amaury. They have suffered long enough, all of them, for the crime of escorting me to my marriage."

  It was in this spirit that they waited, so immovable in their resolve to hold station, and neither give way a step nor encroach a step, that I had to recall the grave and ominous face of Brother William de Merton before I could truly assess that point to which we were come. And within two weeks, as though heaven itself could not deny Eleanor her will, we received word that the three men she had prayed for had been granted their pardon and set free, at the instance of the princess of Wales.

  "Now I believe," said Llewelyn, clasping her gold head joyfully between his hands, "that we shall make him into a feeling human creature yet, between us. Still a cheat and a manipulator at law, I don't doubt, but I can excuse a man for holding on tightly to what he hates to lose, provided there's a limit somewhere to the means he'll employ. And I mean to outstay every pretext he can raise against me. He shall wear out before I will."

  But still I could not forget Brother William, whose solemn view it was that Edward's means had already gone beyond all fair limits, and would not scruple to go further yet. So it came to this, that we might well lose Arwystli to Griffith, the arch-traitor, in defiance of all legal process whatsoever, the issue being decided in advance of law and outside law, in the king's mind and will. And though Gwynedd could stand without Arwystli, yet the omen was very evil even for all that remained. For where would legal contrivance end, if it succeeded here? So I was less happy than they, even in this one earnest of Edward's grudging goodwill, though grateful even for that.

  Thus we came back in March to Aber, to prepare for Easter. Some days before Palm Sunday we rode in, and it was early spring, very moist and mild and sparkling, and in such days, bright with the palest green of young leaves and the first buttergold of flowers, there was no man living could resist the burgeoning hope that things must yet go well, that wrongs would be righted and enmities turned to friendships, and men and nations find a way of living in peace.

Tudor ap Ednyfed, the high steward of Wales, had a manor in Tegaingl. And that being one of the cantrefs of the Middle Country retained by King Edward in his own hands, Tudor now held his lands there of the king, and had all the vexations common to all those in that situation, wholly loyal to the prince but owing formal fealty also to Edward for one manor. Such were the complications that he was forced to pay frequent visits to his tenants there, and at this time he rode thence to join us for Easter.

  He was not expected until the eve of Good Friday, but instead he rode into the maenol in the afternoon of Palm Sunday, and in great haste, flung his reins to a groom, and came striding into the high chamber where Llewelyn was.

  "My lord," he said, hoarse with long riding and the dust of spring, "I pray your pardon, but this cannot wait. The word that came into my hall this morning I've ridden to bring you as fast as I could. There's battle and slaughter broke loose at Hawarden! In the night a Welsh force has stormed and sacked the castle. Clifford is prisoner, and all his garrison killed or captive."

  Llewelyn was on his feet by then, with a cry rather of impatience and exasperation than dismay. "They are mad!" he said, and wrung his hands over such suicidal folly, seeing in this no more than a sudden ill-judged blaze of anger among the local tenants, unable any longer to endure submissively the exactions of Edward's bailiffs. "The poor fools will pay for it heavily. What can they hope to do, a handful of halfarmed men, without leaders and without plans?" He clenched his fists and shook them in despair at his own helplessness. "And I can do nothing for them, to make their peace again after such a madness!"

  "No," said Tudor, "it is not as you suppose! These are not half-armed farmers breaking out in rage, they are not without leaders, they have not struck without planning in advance. This has been very well planned, and very well done, but that it should not have been done at all. Hawarden fell like a felled tree, and they are marching on Flint, the town of Flint is rising to join them, the town of Rhuddlan is massing men to encircle the castle. I tell you, my lord, the whole of the Middle Country has risen in the night, at a planned hour, with a planned purpose. Villagers, tenants, lords, all are up together. My own people were left out of the secret to keep it from reaching my ears and yours too soon, but no question they're out with the rest by now. This is no border raid. It is war."

  Llewelyn stood braced and still, and looked upon him for a long moment without words. When he spoke again his face was set like stone, and his voice low, level and chill, for though he questioned, he already knew the answer. And so did I. "Who made the plan?" he said. "Who raised the cry that brought them out in arms, to their destruction and mine? Name him!"