The Brothers of Gwynedd (20 page)

  I was in his close confidence. He spoke with me as with his own soul, and I with him as I had wit, for all my intent was to be of help to him if I might, in whatever enterprise he undertook, whether it was the better draining of a piece of upland bog that might be made to grow food, or the training of the falcons of Snowdon in which he delighted, or the glorious recovery of all the lost lands of Gwynedd, or, yet more wonderful, the reaching forward strongly into his grandsire's dream of a single and splendid Wales under one prince, which I knew to be also his dream. My will was always to see with his eyes, to divine his desire, and to lend whatever might I had to help him achieve it. Therefore I said without conceal: "The stone in your way is the Lord Owen. God knows I mean no ill against your father, but he had no such vision, and neither has his eldest son. With a great work to be done, he is not the partner you would have chosen."

  In this I was astray, for I believed he had young David in mind. And I think he saw my meaning, for he gave me a long, dark but smiling look, and answered only: "There are many men in this land I will gladly have as allies and officers, and I hope friends. None I would choose as a partner. The time I have waited for is coming. Slowly, but it is coming. And what I have to do, Samson, can only be done alone."

  "How, then," I said, willing to follow him into any extremes for that vision, "will you dispose?"

  "In his own good time, and with whatever instrument he chooses, God will dispose," said Llewelyn.

But the quietness and the waiting continued yet two years, and Llewelyn made no complaint, but went on with his work in orderly fashion.

  David visited us but little, busying himself with his lands in Lleyn, though I think with less joy than formerly. For the first lustre was gone from possession, and after his return to his old royal haunts the llys at Neigwl looked poor and rustic to him, and Cymydmaen shrunken and wild. I speak with the wisdom of hindsight, for we knew nothing then of any discontent and unrest in him, and thought it well that he spent so much time on his own lands, believing he cherished and improved, rather than fretting and brooding. Llewelyn had never but once seen the English court, and that was in somewhat diminished state at Woodstock, never at Westminster, and its glories had been as a front opposed to him, never as a warmth enclosing him, such as they had been to David. I, who had seen somewhat of London, though as a servant to my child lords, should have understood better the force of the contrast between David's two estates.

  I did not, and the more blame to me.

  We took good care, those days, to get regular news of all that went forward about King Henry's court. In February Prince Edward's portion was published, and contained all that David had said: Ireland, but for a few places held in reserve, Chester and its county, Bristol, where his exchequer and offices would be based, all the crown possessions in Wales, the Channel Islands, Gascony entire, with the island of Oléron. A vast endowment. The Welsh grant included even a part of the coast north of Cardigan, so that the powers of England closed their claws on Eryri from every side. And one Geoffrey Langley, a king's officer heretofore best known for his harsh dealings in the law of the forest, was given the Middle Country to milk for his masters, for they held that it could be made to yield a far higher revenue for the prince than it had so far produced. I doubt Langley in the first six months of office did more even than Alan la Zuche had done in several years, to make good Llewelyn's words concerning the raising of an army of embittered Welshmen who waited only for a leader.

  We had full reports also, and none so slow in reaching us, either, of the marriage in Burgos. Prince Edward crossed over to Gascony a little before his fifteenth birthday, which fell on the seventeenth day of June of that year, twelve hundred and fiftyfour. The queen travelled with him, and also Archbishop Boniface of Canterbury, uncle to the queen, one of those kinsmen of hers from Savoy who were causing so much jealousy and resentment among the English nobility, together with the king's Lusignan half-brothers, his mother's sons by her second husband, who came swarming over from Poitou to make their fortune by rich marriages in England. These foreign kinsmen were one of the chief causes of complaint against King Henry, and brought him into great difficulties in later years, but he valued and favoured them in spite of all blame.

  The marriage plans were completed at leisure during the summer months of June and July, and then the prince's party moved on to Burgos, and there King Alfonso knighted him, and towards the end of October the child Eleanor, the king's half-sister, was married to the heir of England with all ceremony in the cathedral of Burgos. Then King Alfonso formally renounced all claims to Gascony, having acquired a close interest in it by another way which suited him well enough, and cost no warfare and no bad blood. For his influence was great with both King Henry and King Henry's son. The prince took his little bride back into Gascony with him, and there they stayed for a full year before coming home to England.

  And there was more still to confirm all that David had told us. For King Henry on his way home after the marriage determined to make the first advance towards that composition with France which would set him free to pursue the Sicilian enterprise on his second son's behalf. King Louis was returned at last from his crusading adventures in the east. King Henry sent envoys to him, and solicited a meeting, a personal acquaintance such as could be sealed into friendship. And at Chartres King Louis met him most graciously, and conducted him to Paris, where he was royally entertained, and the queen's Provencal family were brought together in a grand reunion. For this King Louis was more than commonly wise and kind in personal matters, very skilled in turning to pleasure and ease a first meeting that might have been hard and painful. So those two met, and the seed was sown which should bring about a full settlement, a treaty of peace and harmony between their countries, formerly in enmity.

  Nevertheless, as Llewelyn had said, a compounding between those two kings boded nothing of benefit to us, for our enemy's rear was thereby secured, and he could turn his attention all the more freely to Wales. Yet such are the chances of the time, it fell out otherwise. For always there is some unforeseen mercy, or unexpected chastening, waiting to be manifested.

The Christmas feast that year was chill and bright and windy. Contrary gales kept King Henry from landing at Dover until the day after St. Stephen's, and went driving down the coast of Wales like silver lances, cold as ice. And yet the skies were cloudless and full of stars, most beautiful to see, and there was but a little snow, that dried up in the frost and blew like white dust about the flats. For we kept the feast at Aber, after the old fashion.

  We lacked only Rhodri and the Lady Senena at that feast. For Rhodri had at that time a certain lady who took up all his attention, and kept him at home in his own Uys, and the Lady Senena, though she made her stay mainly with David at Neigwl, having spent so much of her married life there and having a fondness for the spot, had journeyed in the autumn into the south, to pay a first visit to her daughter Gladys at Dynevor. Between that castle, willing subject to King Henry, and our princedom of Gwynedd, there was no contact, though before the Lady Senena came home to Wales the two princes, at Llewelyn's urging, had offered to Rhys Fychan and his house a compact of mutual aid and support, which remained, unhappily, no more than a parchment pledge, since the members of that house could not even agree among themselves. Yet I know that Llewelyn had blessed his mother's journey, and sent greetings in all kindness to his sister, whose stiff loyalty to her husband he did not any way blame. But no word came back, as he looked for none.

  In the brightness of the day the brothers rode much, and by night in hall there was good food and drink in plenty, and good harping, for our bards were famous, and so was Llewelyn's patronage, so that many singers came from other parts to entertain in his hall, and none ever went away empty-handed or discontented with his reward. That Christmas we saw David in uneasy mood, either wildly elated and gay, or withdrawn into a black depression. And often his tongue bit sharply, but both his elders, seeing how deeply he had drunk, bore with him good-naturedly, and always he sprang back into the light in time to disarm us all. So though it was unusual in him, we thought nothing amiss.

  He came to me late in an evening in the little chamber where I kept the rolls, and did my writing and reckoning on Llewelyn's business. I had left the hall early, having some matters waiting for me, and thinking this the best hour to withdraw and see the work done. There were certain complicated cases to be heard in my lord's commote court, two concerning the removal of boundaries, and also a matter of some wreckage cast up by the sea on the edge of the church lands of Bangor, the goods being in dispute between prince and bishop, for Bishop Richard was a contentious and obstinate man. Llewelyn relied on me to have all the needful information tabled and ready to his hand. True, he had also his chaplain and official secretary, but the clerking was left to me at my lord's wish, and it was I who accompanied him when he rode out to preside in all his district courts.

  Over this labour David came in to me, alone, and stood by me for a little while reading over my shoulder. He was flushed with wine, but quiet, and very well able to carry what he had drunk with grace, as commonly he did.

  "Samson," he said, after a while of silence, "you know Welsh law as well as any man here. Tell me, what is the law concerning the succession to a crown?"

  "You know it as well as I," I said, and went on writing, for I had much to do. "The wise prince names his successor while he's well alive, and sees to it that he's accepted by all."

  "And if the prince is less wise, and never names an edling to follow him?" he persisted in the same low and deliberate voice.

  "Then his realm is liable to division among all his sons. But in practice it's far more like to go by consent to the eldest, and see some minor lands given to the others."

  "True," he said, "but that's not Welsh law, and you know it, it's a convenience borrowed from the English. Four sons with an equal claim are entitled to fair shares of the inheritance."

  "If they care to stand on their rights, and tear apart what has been laboriously put together," I said, still paying him little heed, "they may say so. But with a greedy neighbour waiting to pick off their portions one by one, I would not recommend it."

  "Why, they could still work together and fight and plan together," he said, "each for all, could they not? And listen to me, if that is good Welsh law, and English law says the eldest takes all, and gives what he chooses and sees fit to the younger, then by what strange law, neither Welsh nor English, have we apportioned Gwynedd? Samson," he said reproachfully, seeing I still laboured to round off a word, "you might at least look at me! Time was when you were kinder." And he laid one long hand flat over the blank part of my parchment, and prevented me from continuing.

  I looked up into his face then, perforce, sighing for my lost time, and he was smiling at me, but darkly, with only the glimmer of mischief in his eyes, for his mouth was petulant and sad.

  "Am I your breast-brother, or no?" he demanded, and sat down beside me, leaning against my shoulder.

  "You are," I said, "and my prince, and at this moment a little drunk, and more than a little perverse. And I have work to do."

  "It will keep an hour. And I am not so far gone in wine as you imagine. Listen, Samson, for I'm in earnest. If law is to be respected, why have we neither gone by the old way, and parted everything fairly among us, nor openly adopted the new way, the English way, and given all to the eldest? By what rule can we claim this settlement was made?"