The Brothers of Gwynedd (175 page)

  "I, too," said Llewelyn. "But I do not think it severs us two. For my part, I feel no gulf between. I am too conscious of your former benefits and ever-present goodwill. Such other duties as I bear, however sacred, do not obscure these."

  "You greatly encourage me," said Peckham. "And now that we meet again, I beg you'll let me say how much it grieves me that we miss one face that graced our last meeting." He was hesitant and soft of voice, the only time I ever saw or heard him so. "I have sorrowed greatly," he said, "for your untimely loss in the death of your lady, the princess. God's purposes are sometimes cloudy to us, but doubtless he best knows his own way, and we see but with imperfect vision."

  "Doubtless," said Llewelyn, courteous and patient as always when any tried to speak to him of her, and he gave thanks, but as always with a closed and forbidding face, so that the archbishop forbore from treading in further, but sighed and shook himself, and turned to business.

  "I have studied all those
rotuli
you sent me, and I grant that these are very grave complaints. I brought them to the king's notice, and begged him to give them judicial remedy, and to hold them as sufficient excuse for the faults committed. I fear his Grace did not receive my intercession with any favour, for in his view the offence is inexcusable, since these grievances were not first referred to him as the head and fount of justice. If they had been so referred he would have been ready, as he always is, to give proper remedy where it is due, and no honest supplicant need fear rebuff, or resort to other and lawless means of redress."

  At that his fine delivery, which was by then assured and sonorous, was broken by the stir of indignation that rippled through all of us, and by David's gasp of unbelief.

  "He dared say so?" he cried and drew in furious breath, but Llewelyn laid a hand on his arm, and he recoiled into angry silence.

  "His Grace's memory," said the prince hardly, "is at fault. Every one of those matters of which I, personally, complain has been referred to him for redress time and time again, in his courts, yes, but also directly to his own hand and ear. In letter after letter I have informed him in every detail of my frustration over Arwystli, and let him know that I held it gross injustice, and required a remedy. Every one of those other wrongs I have brought to him, cited the treaty to him, demanded justice, but never obtained it. If now he claims I have passed him by, and makes that his reason for finding this insurrection inexcusable, then I say outright, he says what is not true. And since justice has been refused me at his hands a score of times already, if he expects me to put more trust in it the one-and-twentieth time, he insults both my wit and your credulity. As for my magnates, they will answer for themselves."

  And so they did, David first and most fiercely, recounting almost word for word the letters he had written to Edward, complaining of law that cited him to the Chester shire-court to answer for land purely Welsh. He spoke also for all the men of his two cantrefs, in whose name he had many times raised the issues that troubled them, but always without redress.

  "To claim now that these have never been brought to him requires more effrontery than a king should use even towards his brother-kings, let alone those people over whom he has sovereign power, and towards whom he carries a sovereign's responsibility. It is unworthy to resort to lies," he said in a steady, black blaze of rage, and his voice low, deliberate and sweet, as always when he was most deadly in his anger.

  I must say of Peckham that he would listen as well as talk, even when his own indignation was rising. He did not then rebuke David for alleging that the king lied—it may be that his native honesty could not well deny it, and that he had encountered it himself in other connections—but invited those present to testify to the end on this point, and when both Tudor and young Llewelyn had had their say, Goronwy ap Heilyn ended those declarations with a very measured and reasoned recital of his own experiences as a judge of the Hopton bench and bailiff in Rhos. Many times he had witnessed miscarriages of justice and breaches of the rights guaranteed by treaty, and many times, sometimes to the king in person, he had pointed out the unwisdom of official procedures which were driving the Welsh to anger and despair. His moderation was as impressive as David's fury, and did our cause better service, besides sparing us all a long homily.

  "This evidence," said the archbishop earnestly, "I accept as sincere, but remember that you have spoken of many and diverse incidents and cases, scattered throughout the land and arising at different times. Those of such pleas are remembered which have been unsuccessful, while where redress has been granted the mind keeps no record. To say that his Grace has been informed on so many occasions of so many matters, minor when looked at singly though hurtful when regarded in the sum, is not the same as claiming that he has ever been presented with such a detailed and reasoned schedule of complaints as you have provided now, where the magnitude of the disquiet and grievance is made plain. I think his attitude natural enough, indeed justified, but I understand also the depth of your resentment and distrust. What needs to be done now is not to hurl further charges, but to bring about a reconciliation. I am doing my best to that end."

  "I acknowledge it and am grateful," said Llewelyn, "but I cannot relinquish my wrongs on that account. But I think you must have achieved some better hope than this, or you would not be here among us now."

  "I begged the king," said the archbishop, "to allow you to have free access to him at Rhuddlan, and freely return so that you could discuss your grievances with him face to face. I will not say that he gave me the answer I hoped for, all he would say was that you could come, and return without hindrance if you earned that right
.
It is not absolute refusal, but for the sake of swift reconciliation I resolved rather to come myself to talk with you, and try to bring you to a degree of reason and goodwill that may admit you again to the king's grace. For I am sure he is not fast shut against you."

  We were less sure, but this ardent busybody had a strong compulsion about him, and as long as he sat here with us arguing and preaching and scolding, there was hope that he would bring forth a minor miracle. So we settled to enjoy, enlighten and convince him, as he strove to comfort, chasten and pluck us from the burning.

  Three days the archbishop stayed with us, and during that time had several conferences with Llewelyn, alone and in council, and with David also. And strange it was to see how, as that celibate innocent with his warm, intrusive kindness disarmed David, so did David's insinuating charm melt the archbishop, as it had many another. So that when they parted at the end it was with a wry grace and affection, David pretending a humility he did not feel, Peckham forgetfully blessing the foremost of those he had consigned to outer darkness with his general excommunication, issued from Devizes when the war first began.

  At his last full conference with prince and council, the archbishop again exhorted us to humility, and a return to the fealty sworn at Westminster after the previous war, reminding Llewelyn that he had then consented to a form which entailed submitting himself without condition to the king's will—this for the sake of the king's relations with his own barons, which he dared not compromise—but on the tacit understanding that in fact the terms behind the phrase would be honourable and fair. And would he not, he said almost wistfully, again submit himself in the same form.

  "The terms behind the phrase then," said Llewelyn, "were not merely promised as acceptable, but argued out through a whole month of bargaining, and known and agreed by both sides, so that I knew precisely how that clause of absolute submission was limited and conditioned by all the clauses that followed. So did all those who took part in the negotiations, there could be no withdrawal. I should require as clear an understanding of the limiting clauses this time, before I would consent to the form of unconditional submission. I am the sovereign prince of a free and sovereign state. I am willing to return to the homage and fealty of the treaty of Aberconway, provided its terms are observed, as heretofore they have not been. I am willing to make submission as I did then, the terms of that submission being understood and agreed by us both, and in that case I will keep them, as I kept the others. But always saving my right as prince of Wales, and my responsibility to my people."

  "But you do not refuse," said Peckham, pleading and urgent, "the same fealty you pledged before."

  "No, I do not refuse it," said Llewelyn. "I incurred it, and I was bound by it. I was not the first to break it then, and if it is renewed in good faith, I shall not be the first to break it now."

  It was not all the archbishop could have wished, but it was enough to encourage him, and send him back to Edward with word that the Welsh were not irreconcilable, if they were offered honourable terms. And he thanked Llewelyn, I am sure sincerely, for his hospitality and patience, and assured us he would return to Rhuddlan to do his best for us.

  "I was so unused to these wild lands," he said, "and to venturing among men at war, that I thought myself gallant to set out from Rhuddlan, and held my life to be at risk. I even appointed Bishop Burnell, the king's chancellor, to be my vicar in my absence, for fear I might not return. But I find sons here in Snowdon as in Westminster, or Canterbury, and am confirmed in feeling myself bound to all the sheep of my flock."

  And he took leave of us kindly, and Llewelyn sent a princely escort to see him safely on his way as far as the Clwyd, as much to show his faith in the truce as to honour the archbishop.

  David stood at the outer gate and watched them go, down through the furze and heath that skirted the pathway. "Well, I have bleated my sweetest for him," he said, mocking himself and Peckham both, but somewhat ruefully. "Who would have thought that office could truly confer fatherhood upon one so childlike? And he barely my age."

  "He is a good man," said Llewelyn, but in a manner detached and almost indifferent. "Honest and kind."

  "By that measured and measuring voice," said David, "I read your mind. Honesty and kindness will hardly be enough."

  I do not know, but I think we prayed, all three, from that day, for Peckham's courage, perseverance and eloquence, for the pope's lightnings to strike through his uplifted forefinger, and God's through the pope, loosing angelic justice and truth upon the earth. But we kept all our armouries busy, none the less, fletching arrows and honing steel, hammering blades and repairing mail. And the quiet continued, and the weather wavered between calm and storm, smiling and frowning on our hopes by turns.

  "One thing at least he brought us," said David, "he and his crusading into savage territory where men eat men, and even priests take their lives in their hands. Not that I underrate his bravery! This is a gallant little innocent as ever was. He told us Burnell is his vicar in his absence. And where the chancellor is—and plainly he's in Rhuddlan now—there Cynan is likely to be, also. We have an ally in the king's camp. We may get useful information yet, if this truce fails."

  As it fell out, the first news we got came back to us with the escort, when they returned from seeing the archbishop safely to within a few miles of Rhuddlan. For the captain who had borne him company sought out Llewelyn immediately on his return, to recount what had passed on the way.

  "We were well beyond Conway, my lord," he said, "when suddenly the archbishop clicks his tongue and snaps his fingers, and says he, he has done ill to let it slip his mind, he should have offered you his sympathies on the death of your cousin Mortimer—"

  "Mortimer dead?" said Llewelyn, astonished and dismayed. "When? This must be new, or word would have reached us somehow."

  "The twenty-sixth of last month, my lord, at Wigmore. Gently in his bed, it seems, after a fever. I made bold to ask further, and he said he knew you two kinsmen had a respect and liking for each other, war or no war, and he was sorry he had failed to speak of it to you. I tried what I could get from the groom, privately, for if Mortimer's gone so unexpectedly there may well be disarray in the middle march. What with the court being at Rhuddlan and the king preoccupied, it seems nobody's paid much attention to young Edmund's claims. Sprenghose, the sheriff of Salop, has all the Mortimer lands in his charge meantime, and the heir can wait for his seisin until Edward pleases to have time for him, and that goes down very ill. You know both the sons better than I, but I know enough of them to know they're like their father, and think a Mortimer equal to a king, any day of the year. They say there was a good deal of sympathy for the Welsh cause round Wigmore and Radnor and Builth already, among the tenants, there may well be a measure of feeling even in the castles now."

  "There well may!" said Llewelyn, remembering his last meeting and compact with his cousin.

  "And the groom let out that the king's been none too happy with the way the war was being conducted in those parts, what with the old lord ill, and very little being done to hunt the Welsh out of the hills. I don't say he suspects any man's loyalty, but he has no high opinion of their zeal, that's certain. Yes, and one more thing that will madden the Mortimers above all—Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn is already reviving his old claim to the thirteen vils against the heir, now the old lord's gone, and he thinks better of his chances."

  That was the very cause that Mortimer had successfully defended by Welsh law, when the same was denied to Llewelyn. By Roger's death these townships came formally back into the king's hand, along with all the other Mortimer lands, until seisin was granted to the heir, and doubtless Griffith thought this was his best chance to regain them, seeing they were now at Edward's disposal, at least on parchment. But even Edward would stop to think very carefully before withholding part of his inheritance from a Mortimer, even if he failed to comprehend the degree of offence he could give by delaying the grant of seisin, as though it was of little urgency, and could wait his leisure.