The Brothers of Gwynedd (149 page)

  I made for Stafford, as Cynan had advised, and was much interested along the road, for I had never seen so much of England alone. At Stafford they directed me on to Eccleshall, where the bishop of Lichfield had a castle, and there at last I found Archbishop Peckham in residence, on Palm Sunday. Between the services of the church I asked for an audience, by no means the only one thus asking, and late in the afternoon I was admitted to his presence.

  He was sitting in a round-backed chair at a table in a small, dim room, a man barely of the middle height, and round of body, though not fat. They said he practised great austerity, and recommended it to others, though he did not impose it, and therefore his rotundity must have been by nature, and not at all the fruit of indulgence. I never doubted that if he bore the reputation of abstinence, it was deserved. That man's sins were not of hypocrisy. His face, too, was round and ruddy and candid, shaven very smooth, with an effect of great friendliness and infinite curiosity towards all men, though then he looked tired and vexed and discouraged, as well he might. He measured me, and pondered. His eyes were kindly but harried.

  I made my reverence, and first presented him the prince's letter of invitation, telling him how I had enquired for him in London in vain, and therefore made bold to follow him to this place. He thanked me for my errand, and did not then immediately unseal the letter, having other unfinished business, but said that if I would wait he would send for me again in the evening. And at that I begged his indulgence a few minutes longer, and made my prayer for Amaury, telling him as in innocence what the king's answer had been.

  "You speak," he said, "as one not altogether unmoved by the thought of this prisoner. Perhaps not simply a messenger?"

  Feeling myself safest as well as happiest in speaking full truth to this man, I said: "I have known the prisoner from a boy. I care for him, having so known him, and for the princess, his sister, more, knowing her as a loyal servant may. There is here no design but to comfort all those who grieve apart. Your lordship knows better than I what such severance can mean."

  "I commend your loyalty," he said. His voice was warm and brisk and very firm, the voice of a kindly, choleric man. "His Grace did not forbid," he said thoughtfully.

  "No, my lord," I said. "He said only that the Lord Amaury is in your charge, not in his, and therefore he could not presume to give or to deny."

  "And you are willing to submit all that you carry to scrutiny by the king's castellan at Corfe?"

  "Most willing," I said. "And further, my lord, if it be thought wise, I would welcome a witness to the interview, who could report all I may have to say or to hear when I speak with the Lord Amaury. It may be that the chancellery would wish to have such a report, for the sake of us all."

  I saw his eyes gleam at that, and knew that he had taken the point at vantage, for such a presence would not only protect him from possible blame, but involve the chancellor Burnell in the decision, Edward's most trusted officer. According to Cynan, who missed nothing that went on about the court and its offices, the relations between Peckham and Burneil were civil, but watchful and armed, and I think not as a matter of jealousy—for Burnell had been Edward's candidate for the vacant primacy, and warmly urged, and Peckham appointed by the pope in the king's despite—but because those two were of such opposed natures that they could not get on together. Indeed, as it proved later, a great many men, saints among them, found it very hard to live in amity with Peckham, even though the man at his best could get halfway to being a saint himself.

  "You deserve," said the archbishop, "that your prayer should prosper. You carry no letter of authorisation from your prince?"

  I had no such letter of credence, for we had not thought it necessary, but I had my own seal which carried the prince's sanction, and I said that the princess's gifts to her brother were open to inspection if he should require. He said, very kindly, that he himself was perfectly satisfied, but that for the sake of complete openness my suggestion that a clerk should accompany me might be a good one. Then he asked me to wait upon him again in two hours, when he would give me a letter to carry to Corfe, and also whatever was needed in reply to the prince's message. And so I left him.

  When he sent for me again it was to present me not one letter but three. He was as instant in appreciation and acknowledgement as he was in complaint and reproof where he thought it due, and it was plain that the prince's invitation, indicating his desire to be reconciled with his bishop, had given the primate pleasure.

  "This," he said, "I can despatch directly to the lord prince, if you are likely to be absent from him for long. Though I dare say there is no great haste, for the visit cannot take place for a few weeks."

  I said that I would gladly be the bearer, and intended a return to the Welsh court as soon as my errand to Corfe was done.

  "Very well," he said, "I entrust my answer to you. This second letter you will take to the chancellery on your way through London, and wait to know if the chancellor wishes to send a witness with you, as I have suggested to him. And this third you will deliver to John de Somerset, who keeps Corfe castle for his Grace. I have recommended the bearer to him, and myself given approval to the visit, but he is still the person responsible for the prisoner's safe-keeping, and you will observe any conditions he imposes, and accept his veto should he feel unable to admit you." But his manner said that, however his recommendation was worded, it would hardly be for the castellan of Corfe to overturn the arrangements Archbishop Peckham had approved. And very devoutly I thanked him, made all my precious missives secure in my saddle-bags, and set off on the long ride south again to Westminster.

  I presented my letter at the chancellery as soon as I arrived, and was not surprised at being told to come back next day. No doubt the matter would have to be referred to Burnell himself, but I did not see him on this occasion. He was a busy man at all times, and the preparations for parliament kept him occupied. When I returned to the same small, dark office next day, the official who had my business in hand was writing busily, and gave me but the edge of his attention.

  "Ah, yes!" he said. "You are the envoy who wishes to speak with the Lord Amaury. The chancellor has agreed to the provisions suggested by the archbishop, and you already have his letter to de Somerset." He rang the handbell he had on his table, and in a few minutes Cynan came in, large and dignified and demure, and stood eyeing me steadily while he waited for his orders, like one measuring a new acquaintance with whom he is to spend a few days of his time. "Master Cynan will accompany you," said the officer, returning to his writing. "I see you understand English well enough, but should you need it, he speaks Welsh. If your errand is honest, he'll be of assistance to you."

  "Unquestionably he will," said Cynan, as we went together out of the chancellery. "No need to look over your shoulder on this journey, no one will be following or watching you, that is my business. No need even to guard your tongue. I've had long experience in rendering reports acceptable from very unpromising first drafts."

  I asked how he had contrived the matter as he wanted it, and how, indeed, he came to be advanced so far into Burnell's confidence as to be in a position to know of all that went on.

  "Oh, it's policy to select Welshmen for advancement now," he said, "wherever it can be done with safety. See how many of us the king is employing about his private business, and into Welsh lands especially. The best of his advisers have told him plainly that it takes a Welshman to rule Welshmen, and if suitable Welshmen run short, a seasoned, hard-headed marcher is to be preferred to some imported baron from Essex or Kent. There's good sense in that, if his Welsh bailiffs were not compelled to enforce English law, and answerable to English masters. Oh, Edward means to hold on to what he has gained, and tie it down by every manner of chain he can devise, but he would like to keep a measure of goodwill where he can."

  I said that from what I could hear he was having very little success, for the Middle Country was seething with complaints against his officers and their arbitrary ways. In choosing his Welshmen he was all too given to preferring renegades to the honest men.

  "True," said Cynan, "and doubly foolish, for the honest men resent them for turning their coats, and the renegades set out to be doubly zealous, to prove their new loyalty to the king, and make themselves even worse hated. I will say for the chancellor that he knows how to pick his men—and I should know, being one of them. But kings are expected to reward service, and the renegades look to be paid their price. How did I get my way? It was no great trick, I took care to put myself markedly into Burnell's notice yesterday, when you brought the archbishop's letter, and hinted that knowledge of Welsh might be an asset, from every view. I think he would be glad to have de Montfort freed and sent back to Rome, for his part. The young man is a stumbling-block to bishops."

  The next day we rode together from London, with a pale, bright sun rising, and had very pleasant travel on our way south to Guildford and Winchester, and so southward and westward still into the high heath of the Purbeck hills, where in a cleft of the downs Corfe castle rises on its high mound, a very formidable stronghold. We had much to talk about on the way, for he would know how his young nephew Morgan did, who had come to lend one more right arm when we were at war, forsaking his service under the crown, and was now well established in Llewelyn's body-guard. And I was greedy for all he could tell me of those manipulations of law which plagued us, and how far they were honest, if infuriating to us, and how far calculated to serve some darker purpose. Cynan owned he was himself in doubt. Of the king's zeal for codifying and reforming there could be no question, but where a passion for order ended and a lively and unscrupulous self-interest began was a matter hard to determine.

  "His father," said Cynan thoughtfully, "had a gift for turning everything to his own account in conscious virtue, and convincing himself into the bargain, and there's more of his father in Edward than most men think for. I would not say but his law may prove every bit as pliable as his use of words." And he stroked his full, smooth chops, and pondered. "I tell you this," he said, "the more it may seem to your prince that his Grace is pushing him to the limit of his endurance, the more stubbornly he should endure. For whether it has yet entered Edward's head to
drive
him to revolt or not, very surely it would occur to him to make the utmost use of the first act of rebellion. I will not say he wants it, seeing he's hard to read, but I will say if it came he would welcome it. It's all he needs by way of excuse and opportunity, to finish what he could but half-do last time."

  I said he need have no fear where Llewelyn was concerned for he was well aware of the danger of allowing himself to be provoked, and was resolved to fight only with the legitimate weapons of law, which were not forbidden to him. This in addition to what bound him more than caution, his seal upon the treaty of Conway.

  "I know, I know," said Cynan, sighing. "God knows no man has the right to question the prince's patience. But every man has his breaking-point. Bear it in mind, at least. Bear it in mind!"

At Corfe we wound our way up to the castle gatehouse, and I presented my letter for John de Somerset. The castellan kept us waiting some while for his decision, but the archbishop's consent and the chancellor's vicarious presence, to say nothing of Cynan's impressive person in itself, made up his mind for him at last. Once admittance was gained, Cynan improved the occasion and his own image by laying claim to more than the hour's visit at first ordained, and hinting plainly that no other attendance was required, since he alone bore the chancellor's charge to hear what passed and render account of it. So after some delay we were brought into the tower room where Amaury spent his solitary days, and there shut in with him.

  A very lofty room it was, far too high for hope of escape, even if ropes would have brought the captive down to better ground than the inmost ward, with many more walls between him and freedom. He was immured here almost within sight of the sea, with the soaring air of the Purbeck hills, open and heather-tinted, and cloud-shadowed, for ever outspread to view from his narrow window, and for ever out of reach. That added a dimension to his grievance, as though hell had been lifted and propped on high above paradise, to refine the torments of the damned with the constant vision of bliss. But for the rest, once the eyes could leave that outer radiance and look round within, he was lodged in decent comfort, and with many refinements, though of little worth to him, no doubt, after four years.