The Brothers of Gwynedd (133 page)

  "I never yet got a fair fall from a better lance," said Llewelyn clearly, "that I was not able to rise up, bruises and all, and give him credit for his skill. I might curse my own ill-judgment, but I should never grudge him his glory."

  The king turned to look at him with close attention, reserved of feature still, but with no droop to that tell-tale eyelid of his. And though I missed whatever he replied, it seemed to me that this forthright declaration gave him both satisfaction and thought.

  I was seated at one of the side-tables, no great distance from them, but withdrawn into shadow near the curtained passage by which the squires and servers went in and out. I had not heard anyone enter and halt at my back, until a low voice said in my ear: "If you are thinking, Samson, that his Grace the king could say as much, put it out of your head. He never took a fall from any man but it poisoned his life until he had paid it back with a vengeance."

  I knew who was there, before I turned my head to see David leaning at my shoulder, with the small, devilish smile on his lips, and the hungry, mocking blue brightness in his eyes. He had a cloak slung on his shoulder, with a fine shimmer of rain upon it.

  I said drily that the king had looked his approval, and should know his own mind.

  "He does approve," said David. "He approves such chivalrous usage in every other man breathing, but it does not apply to Edward. Others may fall, and rise again without malice and without disgrace. Edward must not be felled, ever. Bear it in mind for my brother's sake. The price would be too high for paying."

  He drew up a stool at my elbow and leaned in the old familiar way upon my shoulder, and smiled to see me search his face in mortal doubt and distrust. "And never think it was Edward who had the delicacy to find me duties to keep me out of sight at this feast. No, that was my doing. Doubtless we shall have to meet, before my brother goes back to Aberconway, but for tonight at least I can spare him the sight of me." He said it as one quite without shame, merely making sensible dispositions to avoid embarrassment on either part. "Well, we are both losers, are we not? He is back within the palisade of his mountains, and I am exiled."

  "Self-exiled," I said, "and to a fat barony."

  "Ah, but it was not a barony I wanted for my son! It was a kingdom. Will you teach me, Samson, how to take a fair fall as ungrudgingly as
he
does it?"

  I said he had no choice but to be content, and resign himself to a lesser estate. And once begun I said much more, how it was he who had made this war, how he was his brother's curse and demon, undoing all that Llewelyn did, unmaking wantonly the Wales that Llewelyn had made, bringing down all that splendour into the dust, so that the work was all to do again, if not by Llewelyn by his son or his son's son, when an honourable way opened. For now the prince was bound by his word and faith, and the dues he had acknowledged he would pay in full. Very softly I said it, so that no other ear should hear, and truly there was nothing to be gained now by anger or denunciation. And he leaned upon my shoulder and listened to all without resentment or defence, and though I could not bear to look at him then, I felt that all that time he was watching Llewelyn, and with what passion there was no guessing, but the ache of it was fierce and deep, and passed from his flesh into mine through the hand laid about my neck.

  "Sweet my confessor," he said, when I had done, in that soft voice that was music even in its malice, "never labour to find me a penance extreme enough to pay all my score. I have already done that. A kingdom is not all I have lost!" And in a moment he said, lower yet: "Do you hate me?"

  "No," I said, despairing. "I would, but it is not in my power. As often as I come near to it, I meet you again, and though all is changed, nothing is changed."

  "Does
he
?" said David.

  "God knows! He believes he does."

  "It would be something," said David ruefully, "even to be hated as is my due." He gathered his cloak over his shoulder with a sigh, and drew back his stool, rising to return to his watch, or whatever duty it was he had appropriated to himself. "I must be about my work. It was only to see you that I came."

  I knew better than that. It was to look at Llewelyn from afar, himself unseen, and to steel his heart before the ordeal of meeting face to face. Nor could I let him go like this, for my heart also had its needs. I caught at his arm and held him, before he could leave me. I said in entreaty: "But one word more! For God's sake give me some news of Cristin! How is it with her now—with her and the child?" The word so stuck in my throat, it was no more than a croak, but it reached him. He was still in my grasp, eye to eye with me, shaken out of all pretences.

  "The child!" he said, his lips forming the word without sound. "Oh, Samson, I had forgotten," he said with sharp compunction, "how much you must have seen in Windsor—and how little news of her can have reached you since…"

  "It must be a year old by now," I said, labouring against the leaden weight on my heart. "Is she well? Was it hard for her?"

  "Cristin is well," said David, with the swift, warm kindness I remembered in him from long ago, when he brought me the news of my mother's death, as now he sprang to ward off any dread of another death as dear. "Safe and well with my wife in Chester, you need not fear for her. Neither Elizabeth nor I will ever willingly let harm come to her. But the child.…She miscarried, Samson. The child was born dead."

There was enough to be done, in that last month of the year, to keep us all from fretting over losses and deprivations. Llewelyn had a great deal of business with the royal officers concerning the release of both Welsh and English prisoners, the handing over of Anglesey, and other such matters, as well as the necessary adjustment of his own administration to his new and straitened boundaries and circumstances. There was no time for repining, for at Edward's invitation—he might have made it an order, and it was understood to have the force of one, but he used the more gracious term—the prince was to make his state visit to spend Christmas with the court at Westminster, and there perform his homage to Edward with all due ceremony, and before that visit it was expedient that he should be rid of his prisoners, have the matter of Owen Goch settled, and be ready to make a fresh start.

  As for me, I had at least the peace David had granted me. I knew that Cristin was alive and well, and by a strange grief and a stranger grace delivered from her incubus, and that no guilt lay upon her, for the fault was not hers, only the peril and the suffering. And in London, God willing, I might see her and speak with her again. Of Godred I thought not at all, for there was no profit in it. I dreaded to think of him still pursuing her with his hatred, and trying to get her with child yet again, since this one poor imp had escaped him. I feared to consider the possibility that even Godred suffered, and could love a child of his own body, even one got for devilish purposes. In remembrance of my half-brother there was no comfort and no rest, nothing to benefit him or me, much less Cristin. My comfort was that she was dear to David, and David's loyalty, where it existed, was immutable. His own brother was not safe with David, but Cristin was safe. So I gave my mind and heart to helping Llewelyn in all that he had to do, to satisfy the terms of the treaty.

  "At least," he said, when he had sent for Owen Goch to be delivered out of Dolbadarn, "perhaps I shall get peace from all my brothers now. David is a baron of England, and what small adjustments need to be made to him for the land rights he's quitting in Gwynedd can be made and sealed by the king, and let him quarrel with that arbitrator if he dare. The matter of Rhodri's quitclaim and its price is in Edward's hands, too, and Rhodri has a wealthy wife in England, and employment in the queen-mother's service, where he's surely more use than ever he was to me or to Edward in war. Now let's lean on Edward for help with Owen! Why not? I shall have some good out of the evil, after all. It is not I who must confront Owen with the choice before him."

  And that was truth, for as soon as Owen Goch was brought out of Dolbadam and provided with a new wardrobe and household, he was handed over to the king's commissioners, in whose care he must have felt himself safe enough. So the choice put before him was not weighted either way, for it was the English who posed it. He could either be provided with a landed establishment agreed with Llewelyn and approved by the king, or else stand his trial for old treason by Welsh law, and bid for his whole birthright if he was acquitted. He chose to make peace with his brother, and let the law rest. It was no great wonder. Owen Goch was then fifty years old, and almost half his life had been spent in captivity. It is true that he could have gained his release long since, if he had been willing to accept the vassal status he was thankfully closing with now, but he had been more stubborn and unbending then, and would not consider any such concession. He was growing more lethargic now, and less combative. He came out of Dolbadarn morose but subdued, after his fashion still a fine-looking man, large and in good health but for his corpulence, but pallid from confinement and indolence, and with his fiery-red hair and beard laced with grey. He was insistent on good attendance, quick to regain the imperious temper of a prince within his own household, but he no longer desired to challenge his brother at the risk of being adjudged traitor. I think Llewelyn heaved a great sigh of deliverance when Owen made his choice for a land settlement, and then to be let alone on his lands.

  Llewelyn offered the whole cantref of Lleyn. Considering his own narrowed borders, I think it was generous, but he, also, was buying a measure of peace of mind. Owen jumped at the offer, astonished to be priced so high, after so many years. The king's commissioners solemnly considered and discussed, and came to the same decision. Owen was settled in Lleyn before the year ended, with Edward's officers to help him administer and rule while he was stiff from confinement still.

  The night after this was achieved, and very shortly before we prepared for the departure to England, Llewelyn sent for me to his own chamber before he slept, and had me play to him for an hour or more. He lay in this bed and listened, and breathed long and deep. All the burden of his royal line and his royal struggle, unblessed by Welsh law, borne virtually alone, lay so heavy on his breast that he heaved sigh after deep sigh against it, and could not heave it off his heart.

  When his breathing grew long and slow I ceased playing, thinking that he slept. But when I rose silently to steal out from him without disturbing his slumber, he made some small, involuntary movement among the furs of the brychan, and I stilled to listen, and knowing him awake, asked if I should leave the candles for his chamberlain to snuff.

  "No, quench them," he said. And when I had snuffed out the last, and the dark closed on us, I heard the faintest thread of his voice breathe, I think to God rather than to me, and with such resignation and pleading: "I am tired!" It was the saddest thing ever I heard from him, and the most solitary.

  I went out from him as softly as I might, and drew to the door.

  Then we set out for London to keep Christmas with the king.

  A great and glittering party that was, for we went more carefully splendid than usual, having a princely dignity to uphold in conditions possibly more difficult than at Rhuddlan. And I will say for him that Edward did his full part to make the visit outwardly royal, however hard the control he exercised behind the curtain. He sent a noble escort to meet the prince and conduct him to Westminster. Bishop Burnell led the party, and with him came the treasurer, who was the prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, and two of the greatest of the marcher lords, Roger Clifford and the prince's cousin Mortimer. Short of sending his own brother, the king could not have done the prince of Wales greater honour. Thus gloriously attended, we entered that island city of Westminster once again, on the eve of Christmas Eve, and were courteously received and splendidly lodged, Edward offering audience at once in greeting. And on Christmas Day in full court, before all the assembled nobility of England, Llewelyn was conducted ceremoniously into the king's presence, and did homage to him.