The Brothers of Gwynedd (121 page)

  "And if he had been less captured, and less constant?" I said. For marriages are made and unmade for many noble children, with old bridegrooms who die, with distant bridegrooms who are cut off by war or by changes of alliance, with opportunist bridegrooms who happen on a better match before the first can be completed. Few such arrangements, however sworn, would have survived the years and the disputes that had threatened theirs.

  "That was not how you had shown him to me," she said serenely, and smiled. "It was he who asked for me, at a time when others might well have been thinking better of the idea, had they toyed with it, for it was the last summer, and Edward was already loose, and the shadows gathering, and all those who looked first to their own security were drawing off and changing sides. If he pledged himself to me then, and was as I had seen him through your eyes, then he would not lightly turn from what he had sworn."

  We were sitting together on the stone rim of the fountain, before the evening came down, and she put out her hands and cupped them in the sparkling fall of the water, letting it fill her palms and spill over in silver. She gazed into the quivering pool as into a crystal, with a face grave, assured and tranquil.

  "But even if he had changed," she said, without sorrow or blame or wonder, "that could be no reason for me to change. A woman should have her own truth and troth, as well as a man. If I could not marry according to my father's will and my own, then there is room enough for me at Montargis, within the rule as without."

  "And did you never have any doubts of the ending?" I asked.

  "No," said Eleanor, and smiled, opening her fingers and letting the mirror of silver dissolve through them into the stone bowl below. "None. Never."

The next day, in the church of Montargis, in the presence of a great company of her kinsmen and knights, she was married in absence, and made her vows to Llewelyn, prince of Wales. And mine was the hand that clasped her hand, and the voice that spoke the proxy words for my lord, after so long of waiting.

  Before that celebrant company, with those vows in my ears, and that woman beside me, a woman like a lamp of alabaster shedding radiance, I caught my breath once on the words given me to say, and Eleanor's beauty pierced me through suddenly like a sword of flame, and for that one moment it was no golden girl of twenty-two years hand-in-hand with me, but a slender woman approaching forty, raven-haired and iris-eyed, and it was to Cristin, no less than to Eleanor, that I spoke the sacred vows of love, not knowing then if I should ever see her again, but knowing that I must never hope for more than the bliss and pain of beholding her face and standing ready to serve her, even if time turned back and restored her to Wales and me.

  So sudden and so keen was that visitation that I turned my head to look her in the eyes, those deep eyes that changed colour with the light from clear grey to royal purple. There never was a time that we two met, and I looked for her among many, but when I found her her eyes were already fixed and unwavering upon me, drawing me down into her being. But here I came to myself, beholding a different vision, the face beside me younger and lovelier, and not turned to me, but gazing straight before her towards the altar. A pure face in profile, clear as a queen on a coin, one large, confiding eye open wide to confront whatever came, a folded, dreaming mouth, Eleanor as Llewelyn had viewed her for ten long years of waiting, in the medallion her father had given him, looking with a grave, high confidence into her future, towards a bridegroom and an estate fitting her nobility. She, too, had waited, she who had never swerved from her certainty, and admitted no doubts. None! Never!

  She had me by the hand, and her clasp was warm and vital and sure. And I, too, believed. I was ashamed to disbelieve, having her silent faith like a pillar of flame beside me. So I completed with all my heart the words that justified her, and renewed and registered my own vows in heaven.

There was a week or more of preparation and packing after the marriage, for it is no light matter to get such a large household moving, with all the treasure and plate and clothing belonging to its members, and such a number of officers and servants in attendance, not to mention several horses belonging to some of Eleanor's knights, who had favoured and valuable beasts and would not leave them behind. There was also some discussion about the best way to proceed, for the distance to St. Malo from Montargis was much the same as to Calais, but to embark at St. Malo would shorten the sea route by several days. Amaury pointed out that to go by St. Malo it would be necessary to enter Brittany, and the duke of Brittany was close ally of England, and his son married to King Edward's sister Beatrice. He did not expect any interference with our passage, but had pricking thumbs about the advisability of letting any word of his sister's marriage reach Edward until we were all safely in Wales, and the whole matter an accomplished fact. But as against any risk from that quarter, we could save a number of days on the journey, and be in Wales the sooner. In the end it was agreed to send an agent ahead to charter two ships at St. Malo, while the slow cortege followed at leisure and halted at Avranches until all was ready. And that we did.

  Winter travel is no light undertaking, and that promised to be a hard and capricious winter, but Eleanor's party rode in very good spirits, and everything then seemed hopeful and bright. We were delayed at Avranches for most of November and into December, first by the need to find two good ships, and then by very contrary winds which kept us from embarking for some while longer. But before Christmas everything was ready, and the prospect of keeping the festival at sea did not in any way discourage Eleanor. All the lading was done before her own party rode from Avranches, and on the eve of Christmas Eve we put to sea.

  Eleanor would have me stay in the leading ship with her immediate household and officers, her brother, her two ladies, and some of her knights, the remainder with most of the friars and the minor officers and the horses being in the second ship. These ships of France were built somewhat higher out of the water than the Winchelsea ship in which I had made the passage over, and I thought were less manoeuvrable to the winds, and less speedy and stable, but they had more comfort for the ladies, the stern-castle having a very neat and solid cabin built within it, and the fore-castle the like, though smaller. We had good winds to take us out from the Channel westwards, the seas were not rough, indeed the master complained rather of lack of wind than of too much, and altogether, even in cramped quarters, Christmas passed in simple but devout good cheer. For Eleanor was happy, and her happiness made a glow all about her that exorcised all fears and doubts. There was never any lady so ready and careful as she—but it was not care, for it came to her by nature—to see to the comfort and content of all those who served her, and the more joy she had, the more did she wish to see every soul about her joyful.

  In those days, while we were making well out to sea to clear the toe of England, she would be always out in the weather, cold though it might be, with a cloak wrapped about her and a scarf over her hair, narrowing those eyes that never else were narrowed, to peer as far ahead as vision could carry her, towards Llewelyn and Wales. She walked unconcerned along the planking when the ship swayed, and balanced on the fore-castle like a willow, yielding and recovering, leaning her long fingers on whatever sailorly arm offered, and smiling towards her lord.

  "What is that land?" she said, pointing where a low blue line, heaving just clear of the long level of the waves, and barely darker and more stable than their flow, showed ahead of us. "Is that England? Cornwall, it would be here?"

  The master said no, not England, but the first glimpse of the nearest of the Isles of Scilly. "We'll round them, and keep well clear. You may not so much as see England, but only your granite cliffs of Dyfed, and the coast of Wales."

  "Soon, soon, I pray!" she said. But he said it might be several days yet, for the winds grew slack and capricious, and he could but do what was possible. And then she said, with that immense sweetness she had, that she was in his hands, and so rested, and would not for the world press either him or God, but was grateful to both.

  Such she was, this princess of Wales. And of such there are few. But shortly we learned even more of her, and she it may be, of herself. For we grow by conflict, and whatever challenges us calls forth what is within, and often we have guests dwelling with us we did not know until fate knocked at their door.

  It must have been about the turn of the year, though my memory here is at fault and I cannot pin down the exact day, while we were circling round those blue-green islands in the ocean, leaving England well away on our right hand and out of sight, that the look-out called down from his chilly nest above the mast to warn of two sail bearing south towards us, one upon either hand. It was no way strange that they should be here, in this stretch of sea, since the islands were furnished from Cornwall, but the separate courses of these two seemed to him to be curiously matched, as though they trimmed sail to keep abreast but apart. They looked like ordinary merchantmen, and he gave warning of them only for the steersman's information, lest he should be surprised by the apparition of one or the other on his flank.

  The steersman shouted back to him, and as the two shapes emerged a little larger and clearer out of the faint sea-mist, he shifted his course by a point to pass between and give them both a wide berth. It seemed to us, watching them grow from mere bobbing gulls to looming barques, lower-built than our ship but larger and faster, that they closed in slightly towards us as they came. And from the nearest of the islands, as I looked astern towards our sister ship, I saw a long, dark shape suddenly surge out from the hazy blue of the shore, like a sped arrow, one of those low, snake-like rowed boats such as the Norse raiders or stray pirates from Scotland and the northern islands used. The look-out noted it at the same moment, and sang out its discovery.

  "I do not like this," said Amaury, watching the three, and noting how they ringed us. "Surely the sea-ways are cleared of piracy since the peace?"

  "Never cleared," grunted the master, brooding, "but in more than four years I've met with none. This looks too planned to be honest."

  "Can we run between them and get clear? If they have to come about to chase us we may gain time enough to outrun them."

  "We can try," said the master, and try he did, with a rigged sail and a relay of rowers, but those two ships coming to meet us had gauged their own powers and ours, and had time and seaway enough to close in before we could slip between them. By this time, when we were forced to ease to avoid ramming or being rammed, or closing within their reach, we could see the men moving on board both of them, assured and intent, too plainly giving all their attention to us. They seemed well crewed, but showed no arms, and thus far no disposition to attack. Their tonnage, though, appeared to be considerably greater than ours, and very well tended and maintained, no beggarly keels such as prey on the lonelier sea-routes for a murderous living.

  There was a big fellow in a frieze cloak on the fore-castle of the ship closing slowly in on us from the left. I caught the gleam of mail when the wind ripped back the folds of the frieze, and saw that he wore sword and dagger. Eleanor's knights were all out on the deck with us, quiet and watchful, and more than one was already buckling on his own harness. Eleanor stood in the doorway of her cabin, her two ladies peering anxiously over her shoulders. She said not a word so far, she simply listened to what those said who knew the seas better than she, and watched the approach of those two unknown barques with measuring eyes, waiting for enlightenment.

  A long, echoing hail came to us across the water. The cloaked man cupped his hands into a trumpet about his mouth and bellowed down the wind: "Heave to! I have a message to you!"

  "Send it from there!" roared the master back to him in French for his English, and still we crept forward. They risked damage to themselves if they tried to lay alongside us too suddenly, without crippling us first, and now we were fully abreast of the pair, in between them, and even drawing past by inches. Amaury saw it, and hissed at the captain: "Now, break for it and row, we may clear them yet!"

  The captain bellowed an order, the rowers heaved mightily, the ship leaped under us, and indeed we might have got clear away, if we had not been so absorbed in the two large ships as to forget the long-boat from the islands. It had circled our sister ship, which was slower than we, and lain off at a small distance, watching and listening. It seemed harmless to us, formidably though it was manned, for it was so low that boarding us from that serpent-shape would have been impossible. But that was not its purpose. As our rowers bent into their oars, so, with a sudden shout, did theirs. The boat sheered forward through the water like a dart, overhauling us at speed. Its raised, iron-shod prow sliced through our steering-oar, severing it with a violent shock and flinging the steersman across the deck to lie stunned under the gunwale, then plunged on, hardly checked, to tear all the oars on our steerboard side to flinders. The ship was brought up shuddering, and heeled about round its crippled side, splinters of wood flying. In the island boat, as it sailed past us and drew clear in a flurry of spume, the crew shipped their oars and stooped their heads low for protection, letting their razor-sharp prow do the work of destruction for them.