The Brothers of Gwynedd (49 page)

  Yet on that ride, though Rhys's lancers were but shapes to me, being helmed and mailed, still I looked about me covertly in constraint and dread to find among them a certain fair and lofty head, and a comely, easy face ever ready for laughter. No friend to me, though he willed to be, and I had no just reason for resisting. And no enemy, either, for he wished me well, and I, if I could not do as much for him, at least prayed earnestly in my heart that I might keep from wishing him ill. For Rhys Fychan's knight, Godred ap Ivor, was my half-brother, though he was not aware of the blood tie as I was. He was lawful son to the father I had never known, and who had known my mother but one night of her life, the night that brought me into being.

  God knows that was not to be held against him. Had he come to me otherwise, I might have welcomed a brother. But he had a wife, and his wife was my Cristin, whom I had found in innocence when he was thought dead, and in innocence loved, and in anguish resigned to him when he returned from the dead. God so decreed that it should be I who discovered and restored her her lord. In my life are many ironies, but none greater than that. And three kinds of brothers have I had, and he the only one bound to me by blood, and the only one alien in my heart and mind. For Llewelyn was my star brother, my twin born in the same night, and David was my breast-brother, my mother being his nurse from the day of his birth. And to both my love flowed freely, but to Godred it would not flow. He had but to come within my sight and it froze, and was stilled, proof even against the warmth of hand or breath. For Cristin's sake I could not love him.

  In this country I was always aware of him, even as I was of her. On that night ride I looked sidelong at every man who drew abreast of me, and the hairs stood up on my neck like hackles as I peered after the features of faces half-glimpsed under the stars. But he was not there. That was not asked of me, that I should suffer his gladness at sight of me, and bear to ride beside him in the bitterness of fellowship. Surely he was left behind with the garrison in Carreg Cennen.

  I gave thanks to God, too soon. And God visited me with another torment, I doubt not well-deserved, seeing how ill I used a harmless, well-intentioned man. It was but nine months since I had turned without a word in the bailey at Dolwyddelan, and left those two together. Just enough time for a child to be conceived and carried and brought into the world! And man and wife reunited after parting and sorrow commonly beget and conceive in the first joy of reunion.

  With such piercing thoughts I tore my own heart, well knowing that with her it was not so. For there had been no joy. It was my ultimate grief that I had bestowed on her no blessing, but a curse. For the last glimpse of her face had told me clearly enough where Cristin's joy lay, and where her love was given.

  It was ill thinking of these things for which there was no remedy, but I had not long for fretting, there being work to do very soon. For in the haste and turmoil of an alarm at earliest dawn, Meredith ap Rhys Gryg and Patrick of Chaworth brought their armies fumbling and hurtling out of the town of Carmarthen to fend us off, just as we massed and moulded our first charge to shatter them.

  The light, everywhere but in the east, was still dove-grey and secret, the eastern sky was a half-circle of palest primrose, with a drop of molten gold at its centre. We came out of the gentle slopes of woodland and over the meadows, driving at the end of the bridge, and across the river from us lights flared and flickered in the town. We saw the half of de Chaworth's host spreading like spilled water from the narrow bottle of the bridge, and galloping wildly into station to hold us off, turgid with haste and confusion, but so many that the heart shrank, beholding them. We saw their numbers multiply, pressing across the bridge. We saw Meredith's banner, and found his thick, hunched body in its leather and fine mail, leaning forward into the thrust of his lance before he so much as spurred to meet us. We struck them while they were no more than half poised, and recoiled, and massed to strike again, before they were well set to stand us off.

  That was no very orderly battle, but a violent assault and a rapid withdrawal several times repeated. For a brief while we stripped the bridge-head of its defences, but we had no will to cross, for their numbers, as well as I could estimate, were nearly double ours, and those are odds not acceptable for long to a wise captain. Nor did we want Carmarthen, no doubt rich and profitable to sack, but we had other business, and in this land, where we were welcome to live freely off the tenants, we had no need and no incentive to plunder the townspeople. Many of them might well be of our party, if they had the means to show it. We aimed rather at those persons we most needed to disarm and unman.

  For my part, I did my best to keep always in that place I had made my own, at Llewelyn's left quarter, another shield covering his shield. I drove with him against Patrick of Chaworth, whom he singled out from all. And it seemed to me, as I kept station beside him, that he saw in Patrick an image of the king, who was England, and held status as the enemy of Wales. He could better tolerate Meredith, the seduced, than Henry the seducer. It was left for Rhys Fychan, who had the best right, to level his lance at his uncle, and in the shock of their meeting Meredith went dazed over his horse's tail, but his mounted men flowing round him covered him long enough to let him remount, and in the mêlée, which was tight and confused for a while, those two enemies were forced apart. So was I separated from my lord's side, for our two hosts had meshed like interlaced fingers and clung fast, and even at the command of the horn we had some ado to draw off and stand clear to strike again.

  It was in this pass, while we heaved and strained with shortened swords and axes at close quarters, that I saw from the comer of my eye Rhys Fychan's livery ripped sidelong from the saddle and crashing to the ground among the stamping hooves, where there was scarcely room to fall. And, wheeling that way, I heard the felled man cry out, clear and shrill in terror even through the clamour that battered our ears, and saw his body, young and lissome, slide down between the heaving flanks, catching at stirrup and saddle and finding no hold. And I saw that the stroke that swept him from his horse had burst the thongs of his helm and torn it from his head, and the hair that spilled out over his face was fair as wheaten straw, or barley-silk in the harvest. So I saw again my half-brother Godred, and terrible it was to me that he should appear to me only at this extreme, for his every danger was my temptation. Once I might have slain him, and no one any the wiser, and I did not. But this time I had only to let him be, and he was a dead man, and my hands unreddened.

  So the mind reasons, even in an instant briefer than the splintering of sunlight from a sword. But happily the body also has its ways of thinking, which are all action, too fleet for the mind to turn them back. So I found that I had tugged my pony's head round and urged her with heel and knee, and like the clever mountain mare she was, used to riding tightly with hounds, she straddled Godred and stood over him without trampling so much as one pale hair of his head, while I swung left and right about me to clear a little ground for him to rise, and having won a meagre, trampled space of turf reached down a hand to him to pull him to his feet.

  He rolled from under her belly heaving at breath, and grasped my hand and clung, leaning heavily on my knee a moment before he lifted his head and knew me. The spark of recognition lit in his round brown eyes in two golden flames. There was time then for nothing more than that, for the mêlée had broken apart, and we made good haste out of the press, he clinging by my stirrup-leather and running beside me, for my pony could not carry the two of us. He was unhurt but for the bruises of his fall, and quick to borrow the first advantage, for when a riderless horse trotted by us close he loosed his hold, clapped me on the thigh by way of farewell, and caught at the trailing bridle. The beast shied from him, but not for long, for by the time I was back at Llewelyn's side and poised for a new assault I saw him come cantering and wheeling smartly into the line. Bareheaded he went into battle with us that time, and so contrived that he rode close to me, and from his place saluted me with raised hand and a flash of his wide eyes as we leaned into the charge.

  In that bout we struck them from two sides, sharply but briefly, for there were new reserves still crowding over the bridge to their support. So we drove in vehemently wherever we saw a weak place, to do them what hurt we might while we might. Rhys Fychan sought out Meredith ap Rhys Gryg yet again, and that time I saw the sword cleave through his shoulder harness and into his flesh, and he was down again in the lush grass of the river bank, turning the bright blades red. When we obeyed the prince's signal and quit the field, we turned before dissolving into the cover of the woods, and watched Meredith taken up and carried away in his blood, over the bridge and into the town.

  "Not dead nor near it," said Llewelyn, lingering to see the last of him. "The old bear will live to fight again many a day." And I think he was glad. But for this long while Meredith's right arm would strike no blows in battle, and as I knew, having seen him in combat many times, he had but an awkward use of his left, like most men who have not strenuously practised the exercising of that member.

  A few dead we left behind us there, but no prisoners, and, though we took some minor wounds away with us, none were grave. We reckoned it, in its measured fashion, a victory, as we rode back towards Dryslwyn from the bridge of Carmarthen. With de Chaworth's hands full, as they surely were, with the salvaging of wounded men and scattered horses, and the shattered order within the town, it was the best time to test out the defences of the castles along the Towy.

  Well I knew that I could not escape company on that ride. From the moment we formed and marched, Godred took his captured mount out of the line, and watched our ranks pass until he found me, and then fell in at my side. His yellow head was bared to the early sun falling between the trees, and though his face was bruised, and bore a pattern of shallow scratches over the cheekbone, where the metal of his helm had scored him as it tore free, his youthfulness and brightness were no less than when last I had seen him, the greater part of a year ago. No, they were still more marked because of the lining of the passing shadow of death. I had heard him cry out against it; I knew he had recognised it as it stooped upon him. I have heard a hare scream so before the hawk struck.

  I do not know if he looked sidelong at my face and found in it something that made him approach warily, or whether it came naturally to him at all times to touch lightly and turn gravity to gaiety, even in matters of life and death. For he leaned down first from his taller mount and patted my mare's moist neck, fondling along her mane.

  "I owe you as good a fill of oats as ever a pony ate," he said to her twitching ear. "Remind me to honour the debt when we halt at Dryslwyn." And to me he said, no less lightly and agreeably, yet with a note of carefulness, as if he felt some constraint: "And to you, Samson, I owe a life. When will it please you claim it back from me?"

  I could not choose but think then how I had once been tempted to take it from him unlawfully, and how I had now but rendered him in requital what I owed to him, leaving him no debt to me. But I said only, I hope truthfully, that I was thankful indeed to see him none the worse.

  "Faith," said he, "you come always to be my saving angel. I thought my last hour was come and, I tell you, a good clean lance-thrust would have been welcome, rather than be pounded to pulp among the hooves. Make as little as you will of it, you cannot make it less than a life to me, and I shall follow you round with my gratitude until I can repay you, though I promise to do it without overmuch noise or importunity. I know you have no appetite for being thanked," he said, watching me along his wide shoulder with a gleaming smile, "or you would not have ridden away from Dolwyddelan without a word, and left Cristin and me to hunt you in vain, last year when you brought us together again. That was a great grief to her."

  He had a gift for double-edged words. Surely if he had known of my grief he would not have probed my heart with hers. He spoke of things he believed he understood, though he knew no more than the surface. And that was his strength and my weakness, that he could prattle by my side of Cristin, and the time of her loss, and the bliss of her recovery, without one tremor of pain or uneasiness, while every shaft he loosed pierced me to the soul. All his honey, which he poured innocently and assiduously, was gall to me. And in my agitation of mind I began to suffer another disquiet, for now I could not be sure whether I had indeed wheeled my mare astride him on the ground to save or to trample him. Such doubts he never failed to arouse in me, because he sought and praised and affected me, and trusted in my returning his kindness, while to me he was hateful, and his presence a torment. That undoubted guilt tainted all my dealings with him, even those which were clean in intent.

  He rode beside me all that day, as good as his word in pursuing me with attentions and thanks which were more than I could bear. Even the work we had to do could not long shake him off from my neck. We circled Dryslwyn castle in cover, hoping the garrison would think us departed and send out some party we could pick off, perhaps with profitable prisoners. If King Henry could persuade Welshmen to his peace, so, perhaps, could Llewelyn recover the fealty of some thus handed over against their will. But the castellan continued very wary, and clearly had no lack of provisions within.

  "We should have brought siege engines," said David, scanning the towers and fretting for an opportunity lost. "There would have been time."