The Brothers of Gwynedd (123 page)

  "Amaury would say," I told her, "that on that subject Edward
is
a little mad. Especially since the death of Henry of Almain."

  "Yes," she owned sadly, "For that indeed he may hate us, but it surely gives him no cause to fear us. I could believe that he might strike against me for his revenge, if I was the nearest de Montfort. But out of genuine fear of some conspiracy against him…? Amaury believes this," she said, considering. "Do
you
believe it?"

  "No. Edward is as shrewd a judge of possibilities as most men, he knows he is as firmly seated on his throne as any man who ever occupied that seat. He knows the old baronial cause is dead, he cannot be genuinely afraid of its revival. But he may very well use that as his pretext for what he wants to do."

  "And that is?"

  "To break Llewelyn," I said. "To force him to concede everything, to swear fealty and do homage without guarantee of any recompense, any reaffirmation of the treaty, any correction of the present abuses. He has tried already with threats and demands, but he lacked a weapon terrible enough. Now he believes he has one."

  "So I am to be the means of bringing my husband to his knees in total submission, am I?" said Eleanor, opening her gold-flecked eyes wide. "My cousin may even expect me to add my own pleas to his open threat. Does he know how long we have waited already, without being broken by worse threats than his? A year or two in Edward's prison I can bear. I could not bear it if Llewelyn so mistook me as to think I valued my freedom above his honour and dignity. If we had some means of getting word to him!"

  I said that with patience and care, so we might have, once we were in Windsor, for the court must come there now and again, and even in the king's retinue there were quiet Welshmen like Cynan and his nephew, who had not forgotten their origins.

  "If only I could send you back to him," she said, "I would, but I dread there'll be no chance of that. We shall be well guarded. I must deal as best I can. I could be angry, but anger is waste of time and passion, when it changes nothing." And by some steely magic of her own she did abjure anger, she who was Earl Simon's daughter, and had inherited his scornful intolerance of the devious and unjust. She steered her solitary course with resolution and method, winning over one by one those persons who came into close contact with her, and who, from castellan down to turnkeys, had surely expected very different usage from her. As at Bristol, so at Windsor, when they brought us there, Eleanor conducted herself as would a state guest, gracious and gentle to all, with never complaint or mention of her wrongs, as though they fell beneath her notice. Nor was this course one merely of policy, for as she said, these simple people who brought her food, tended her fire and guarded the enclosed courtyard where her apartments were, were none of them blameworthy, but forced into this confinement as she was, and they deserved of her, and received always, the great sweetness of address and courteous consideration which were natural to her. It was not long before they began to love her.

Within the suite of rooms in that closed yard, the princess's household moved about freely, for it was a corner walled in every way, with but one gate in and out, and that strongly guarded. Escape was as good as impossible, unless someone among the guard should turn traitor, and there was no hope of that. There was a little patch of grass, wintry and bleached in that January weather, and a shrubbery and garden. Some care had been taken to ensure her comparative comfort while keeping a very fast hold of her. The comfort she acknowledged with grace, the precautions for her safe-keeping she never seemed to see. When she asked for a lute, they brought it, and also at her request, a rebec for me, since I had told her I could play the crwth, which is not so different. If she wanted books, they brought those, also. For freedom she did not ask, or appear to notice her deprivation. There was only one person to whom she would prefer that request.

  She had her own chapel there, and was provided a chaplain, though she preferred the company and service of her own Franciscans. There she lived a confined and tedious life with her two ladies, and waited for Edward to acknowledge by his appearance in person the deed he had countenanced, and to demonstrate by his approach that he was not ashamed of it. I know that she wanted him to come, that even in such circumstances—in particular in such circumstances!—it was a discourtesy that he did not visit and face her after what he had done.

  "He
must
come," she said, reassuring herself when she doubted, "he is too proud to shun the ordeal for ever and leave me to his underlings. He will get no peace until he has faced me. Neither shall I. I want to make plain to him, to his face, what I took care to tell his jackal the moment he seized me, that I am already a wife. Whatever Edward can alter, and spoil, and frustrate by keeping me caged here, he cannot undo my marriage."

  But it was two months and more before the court came to Windsor. We had no news all that time, we lived in a bubble cut off from the world, like all prisoners, and for us, seeing in what situation I had left Llewelyn in the autumn of the previous year, it was an anxious matter to have this sinister silence veiling all. Unknown to us, his envoys were still at the papal court, but Edward's ambassadors had followed them there hot-foot with a long
ex pane
account of the worsening relations between England and Wales, including the statement that the summons to Chester had been at Llewelyn's request and to suit Llewelyn's convenience, which I knew to be untrue, for it came quite unexpectedly, without consultation, and Edward had already broken off in advance all his pretences at making amends in the borders. Pope Gregory took the Welsh complaints seriously, and did intervene with Edward, advising further arbitration and deprecating any hasty action. But that was a year of misfortune in Rome, and in the first few months the pope fell ill, and died, and the resulting interregnum left Wales without a protector at the highest court in Christendom.

  We were likewise ignorant that the king had again cited Llewelyn to go to Winchester to do his homage, late in January, at that very time when Master Derenne's crippled ship was limping into Bristol. Again the prince had replied that it was not customary to demand that he should go into England, that it was not safe for him, and that his council would not permit it. He had not then heard of the fate

that had befallen Eleanor.

  Edward's response was to summon the prince again at once, to appear three weeks after Easter, at Westminster, for which season and place a parliament had been called. Llewelyn as steadily repeated his conditions, and his refusal until they were met. But this time he did know of the gross offence offered to Eleanor, and wrote denouncing it, and demanding that she should be released and sent safely to him. If Edward had counted on forcing his submission by this means, he had judged very badly. It was impossible, after that monstrous illegality, for the prince to give way by one inch, or have any dealings with the author of such a crime but upon arrogantly equal terms of armed enmity, or finally with the sword in the field.

  But none of this did we then know. And when, in mid-March, the bustle of great preparations and the coming and going of many officers about the castle of Windsor made itself heard even in our fastness, we stretched our ears and gathered what we could from the servants who attended Eleanor, and guessed that King Edward was bringing his queen and his court to spend Easter there before parliament sat at Westminster.

  "Now," said Eleanor, "he cannot slight me further by leaving me unvisited, as though he had had no part in bringing me here. He
must
come!"

  Never until then had I known her to let her hunger and grief sound in her voice, and even then it was for no more than a moment, and she was almost ashamed of it, and flushed as she shook the weakness away from her. But I knew that her sorrow and longing were very great, as great as the acknowledgement she allowed them was small, and the crisis of meeting Edward face to face and maintaining her position was to her the first great step towards her ultimate victory, in which she never ceased to have faith.

  From beyond our walls we heard bustle and haste, fanfares and music and commotion all that day, and in the evening the merry-making in the royal halls sent its echoes to us in waves on the wind, but no one came visiting to our island.

  Not until the third evening did he come. She was pale with waiting then, and wanted to fill up the moments that brought no arrivals with whatever came to hand, for fear of their echoing emptiness. We were making music, she and I, and the girls with their sweet, light voices, playing and singing a French tune they knew well, I following by ear on the rebec, when the door of her parlour opened, and the doorway was filled with a man's giant shape. There had been so little noise, and we, perhaps, were making so much, that for some minutes we did not mark his entry, but went on with the song, and though that was honest, and not designed, yet it fitted very neatly with Eleanor's needs. Her head was bent with love over the lute, and her hands on the neck and strings were fleet, devoted and beautiful, when doubtless she should have been instantly at the king's feet with her mouth full of entreaties. By the time one of the girls observed him, and fell mute, we were close to the end of the refrain, and we three who were left finished it neatly, and looked up at one another, smiling, before we understood that we were observed, and by whom.

  That was an ample enough room, though small as palaces go, and its doorway just large enough to let in giants. His thick brown hair scarred the stone of the arch above him, and his great shoulders filled the opening from side to side. That night he was all sombre brown and heavy gold, with a thin gold coronal in his curls because it was a festival, and he presiding in state. In these years of his maturity his features were large, heavy, smooth and handsome, with a monumental stillness when he was not in anger. Of grace he had none, but he had a grand, practised command over every part of his vast body that caused him to move majestically, and passed for grace. His drooping eyelid was very clear then, and shocking in its furtive meanness. I understand that I do him injustice, but I do so in the truth of what I saw. So did nature do but dubiously by him, marking him with this flaw. And perhaps she knew her business!

  I never was so aware of the grand, wide honesty of Eleanor's eyes as when she laid aside her lute, that evening, and rose to meet him. Never so aware, and never so proud and glad. She barely came up to his breast, and she overmatched him with those great, golden eyes that mirrored to him, without any design of hers, his inescapable imperfection, where she was perfect.

  God knows what he had expected, but whatever the expectation, she would always come as an astonishment. She made him the deep reverence due, as did we all, but he had eyes for nobody but Eleanor.

  "I am glad," she said, "your Grace has the charity to visit your prisoners, since it is at your pleasure we are here. Your Grace's invitation to England would have been more appreciated if it had been rather more formally phrased."

  "Madam," said the king, in some constraint, as well he might be, considering the sting of her words and the sweetness of her voice. "I much regret the necessity for putting you to this inconvenience."

  "So do I," said Eleanor, "and I have no possibility of amending it, but your Grace has that option, if you care to use it. It would be a much simpler matter to unlock the doors and lend me an escort and horses, than to commission Bristol pirates to seize me in mid-ocean. And I think it would be more likely to win you whatever it may be you want of me and mine." Her voice was both brisk and serene. I would even say there was a faint, rueful smile in it.

  "I did not come," said the king, goodhumouredly enough, "to ask your advice on policy, madam. I am sorry that you should be the victim in a matter in which you have been no more than the innocent tool, but I need you here as hostage for others less harmless than you, and here, I regret, you must reconcile yourself to staying until I can safely release you. I came, rather, to see for myself that you are in good health and spirits, and have everything you need for your comfort and maintenance."

  "I have not," she said with emphasis.

  "You have only to ask," he said, and bethought him in time, and added with the surprising echo of her wry smile: "—within reason!"

  "Mine is a request eminently reasonable," said Eleanor, "in a new-made wife. Nothing can ensure my comfort until you restore me to my husband. No!" she said in a sharp cry, seeing him open his lips to refuse her out of hand. "Do not so simply dismiss what I am saying! This once let us talk like sensible cousins at odds about a matter which is subject to reason, and try to find where we can meet, and how we can dispose of those misunderstandings that divide us. You
are
my cousin. You used to call me so. You would not deny that I have never done you any wrong, nor wished you any. Whatever you may have against my house, do not make me the scapegoat, nor, above all, read into my marriage any sinister designs that have no existence but in your thoughts. Sit down with me, cousin, and pay me the compliment of listening to me, for it is my life you are playing policy with now, and you have no right to use me as a chessman, no right to make or unmake my marriage, no right to tell me whom I shall love. You have might, and that is all. It would be better to use it sparingly, and let reason have its say, too. Then, if you withstand me, having heard my arguments, you need never hear them again, for I will never again ask of you what I am asking most gravely now."