The Brothers of Gwynedd (83 page)

  Nevertheless, Earl Simon sent out more searchers before he questioned further: "How did it chance?"

  The young man told the sorry story, grinding his teeth over his own failure, and wiping away the trickle of blood from his cheek with a heedless hand when it vexed him. And the anger and bitterness that had not yet blazed in his father burned fiercely in him.

  "He had two spare horses with him, he wanted to try them over the hills there, so he said. He changed to the second, and only when we reached this place to the third. It was the best of the three, and of a creamy-white, a colour to show out well over distance. He tried its paces along the grass away from us, and came back to us again, once, twice, and then loosed it to a canter as far as the ridge, and there checked a third time where he had turned, as if to turn again. And on the top of the next hill, between the trees, a horseman rode out, and I saw him lift his arm and brandish a sword. And at that Edward struck in his spurs and was away headlong, and Thomas, who was close beside me, lashed out with his whip and struck my mare over the face and eyes, and she reared and threw me. When I got up from the ground the Lord Edward had vanished into the woods, and Thomas was over the ridge and climbing the slope, beyond, and my mare was halfway home without me," he said, writhing with fury. "I took Edward's horse and went after them. Some of the grooms were ahead of me, and of them I'm sure, they were honest, they had no part in this. But they were not so well mounted, and the start was too great. And there are some of the laggards among them that I doubt whether they were not in the secret. I take the blame upon me," he said with humble arrogance. "I have failed in my trust."

  I saw Earl Simon's lips shrink and curve, between a smile and a contortion of pain, but he was not yet ready to comfort his son. There were more urgent matters yet.

  "Thomas was in this, then," he said. "Surely not his brother, too? But they are gone north, you say."

  "Due north. He could not turn. I have hunters already on all the roads between here and where we lost him. To reach Gloucester, why start north? He could have chosen where he would for his ride."

  "And clean away from Pembroke and de Valence," said Earl Simon. "You are right. He is not gone to them. Well, let us improve on this hunt. We have sheriffs in the shires to the north, and a guard on the border."

  And he shook himself like a weathered and experienced hound surging out of the current of a river and questing afresh for scent, and set himself to cover all quarters leading out of Hereford that a fugitive prince might take. When all was done that he could do, he dismissed his attendants. But I did not go. I do not know whence I drew my awareness of privilege, yet I did not feel myself dismissed. I was still there, in the comer of his vision but not absent from his mind, when he sank back at last in his chair, and let his hands lie spread upon the table before him, great, practised, sinewy hands.

  It was then I saw that these hands were already old before his face, having experienced and suffered so much, and carried such immense weights. He was then fifty-six years old, and his body a vigorous and powerful instrument that might have belonged to a man of forty. But his hands acknowledged their years.

  His son had also remained, motionless and silent in the face of this calm. I believe I learned then how the sons of great men are themselves diminished below their own value, by respect, by fear of failure, by too great love and admiration. This was the best of his sons. Young Simon, the second, was then his father's deputy in Surrey and Sussex, busy watching the sea towards France, and he was bolder, more impetuous, and I think smaller than Henry, but he suffered the same diminution. It is not good nor easy to have a father who is both demon and saint. Had Henry been my son, as then and at other times I felt towards him the bowels of a father, I think he might have been happier, at least if ease is happiness.

  He moved with a heavy lameness, tired with his fury of hunting and riding and humiliation, and shaken and bruised by his fall, and came like a child to his father's side, and there fell on his knees and leaned his head against the arm of the earl's chair. I could not see his face, it was in shadow.

  "My lord and father," he said, "it is I who have failed you. I take the blame upon me."

  Earl Simon did not move his head or look down at his son, but I saw him smile, so marvellously and so mournfully I remember it yet. He took his left hand from the table, and folded it about the young man's head, holding him as in a bronze bowl.

  "That you cannot," he said, "unless you will to be recreant and forsworn in his place. Child, if a man is not bound by his own oath, believe me, there is no way on earth of binding him."

  He rested a moment, cradling his son, the eldest and dearest, and fashioned so closely after his own pattern. "Sooner or later we should have lost him," he said, and suddenly the great, arched eyelids rolled back from his deep eyes, and they were looking full at me, with the last glow of that all-illuminating smile in them.

  "If it were not for your presence, Master Samson," he said, "I should be saying: Put not your trust in princes! But since you are present, sit down with me, and write in my name to the prince of Wales!"

So began the last correspondence between Llewelyn and Earl Simon, through my hand. What the earl most wanted was reliable information as to where the Lord Edward was gone and who had been the instrument of his escape, beyond the suggestive complicity of Thomas de Clare. And Llewelyn, through his intelligencers in Knighton and Presteigne, might be better placed than we to get news of these matters, since the fugitives had ridden northwards. In the meantime, the earl took steps at once, calling up the entire knight service of England and bidding them travel day and night to come soon to Worcester. But the process of getting all those local levies into motion was always slow, even in emergencies, as the monarchy had acknowledged already by its increasing inclination towards paid soldiers, whose whole business it is to get into action with the least delay, and stay out their term without grudging. By the time the ponderous engine moved, there was a marcher army barring the passage of the Severn at Worcester, and the order to the knights was changed to call them to Gloucester, which the earl had left well garrisoned.

  Thus things stood when Cadell rode into Hereford, and delivered us by word of mouth the news Llewelyn had not stayed to have written down.

  "My lord, we have found him! The secret was well kept, but this is sure: The Lord Edward, when he fled, was met and escorted to Mortimer's castle of Wigmore, where the lady hid him while the hunt was up, and as soon as the way was clear sent him on to Ludlow. Geoffrey de Genevill is away in Ireland, and may not even know the use made of his castle, but his wife is a de Breose, and they are all kin, and all marchers. And there Roger Mortimer was waiting for him. And there, the next day, Earl Gilbert of Gloucester came to join them. Gloucester was in it from the beginning!"

  "Gloucester—hand in glove with Mortimer?" said Earl Simon. "It cannot be true! The man had agreed to parley with us! For all his waywardness, I trusted him!"

  "It is true, my lord," said Cadell. "He was never worth your trust, for all these weeks he has been playing his own game and Edward's, holding your eyes and ears upon himself while this plan was laid and hatched. They are in the field now, all their forces joined, and moving down the Severn valley, and if they are not in Worcester by this, as they are certainly between you and that city, it is no more than a day or two before they take it." And he said, awed by Earl Simon's face, which was still as stone and yet sick with grief, like a carved mourner on a Calvary: "The Lord Edward himself has taken over the leadership of the army."

  Earl Simon in his own unaltered voice, courteous and low, thanked him for his pains and dismissed him. When there was no other with us in the room he said, as though to himself: "Gloucester!" and hung upon the name again and again with incredulity and pain, for never had he learned to be prepared for the faithlessness of men. And suddenly he cried out against him, and against Edward, for the cheats, dissemblers and liars they were, and against himself for the trust he had placed in creatures so devious, and swore that Edward had deprived himself of all rights in land or revenue or privilege in England, and deserved to lose his claims to the realm, for he had of his own will taken the oath, under pain of that loss, and he must abide the consequences of his own act. And forthwith he burned into a passionate fury of activity, dictating letters setting out this same theme, and dispatching them to the lords of Ireland, to the men of all the shires, and to the bishops, on whom he urged the solemn duty of renewing the sentence of excommunication against those who had betrayed the cause and shattered the peace. He also redoubled his efforts to build up by loans and other means a reserve of treasure to be laid up at St. Frideswide's priory in Oxford, for clearly the greatest strength of his cause was in London and the cities and shires of England, and to reach London and rally all the scattered forces he must take the road through Oxford, which was invincibly friendly to him. The bitterness of his disillusionment never caused him to abandon hope or to give up the fight, even though he found the most of men hardly worth saving, and hardly deserving of the justice and good government he had wanted for them.

  But before he moved east into England, as he knew he must do, there were certain things he had in mind to set right, that he might leave no loose threads behind him.

  On the nineteenth day of June he sent for me. "Master Samson," he said, "do you know at this moment where to find your lord? I would have you go to him yourself with what I have to say, and present my envoys to him. And they will be not only my envoys, but the envoys of England and of King Henry."

  I said that Llewelyn was no more than twenty miles from us, with the greater part of his force then marshalled along the border. He was encamped at Pipton on the Wye, due west of Hereford by way of Hay, and he had with him there a good half of his council and several of his chief vassals, Rhys Fychan of Dynevor and both the lords of Powys among them.

  "So much the better," said Earl Simon, "if he is attended in some splendour. This is what I would have you say to him."

  And he taught me such a message as uplifted my heart with joy and eagerness, and had me also write a letter which should further expound his purpose, already in those few words made plain.

  That same day I rode, with Peter de Montfort of Beaudesert and certain knights of his train, and also various clerks and chancery lawyers, and we came to Pipton before evening, and to the prince's camp in the rich meadows above the river Wye. In that summer country, with no close enemy, the camp lay spread among green fields and uplands, most princely, and when our party was sighted and reported to him, Llewelyn came out to meet us, glowing with the weeks spent in the sun, and splendidly attended.

  When he saw me, and weighed the quality and gravity of those who followed me into his camp, I saw behind his composed and gracious face and warm welcome the wonder and curiosity that filled him, and I rejoiced to be the instrument of his glory and gain. For though he had waited a great while for this day, he did not foresee its coming even now, when it fell ripe into his hands.

  We dismounted, and when I had made my obeisance I stood before Llewelyn in all solemnity, as the messenger of another lord to whom he had lent me, and delivered with a swelling heart the embassage with which I was entrusted.

  "My lord, Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester and ancestral steward of England, sends his greetings to the Lord Llewelyn, prince of Wales. By that style and title he addresses you, and he desires that you will receive the mission of these lords from the crown of England with goodwill, to the intent that the king of England and the prince of Wales may compound for a treaty of peace between their two countries."

  The blood so left his face, all his bronze blanched into the palest and clearest of gold, and his eyes burned from deep brown into glowing red with passion and gladness. But the hour was too great and too sudden for elation. Princely he bade them in to lodging, when I had presented them all, and feasted and served them, and sat down with them to bear their business.

  Not then did I have leisure to tell him what the earl had said further when he sent me forth, though long afterwards I told him all. How he had said that before leaving Hereford to go to his testing, in the sure knowledge of his own mortality that ensured him here no steadfast stay, he would do right to the prince of Wales, whose loyalty to his word was a gem-stone in this wilderness of falsehood, who had never promised more than he meant to perform, or failed to perform what he did promise. Surely he meant to bind Llewelyn to him even more closely by this act, yet I believe it was not a price offered for future favours, but an acknowledgement of help already given, and more than all, a free act for his own soul's sake, as truly as largesse or prayer.