The Brothers of Gwynedd (159 page)

  "Who else," said Tudor, "but your brother, the Lord David?"

Within the hour I was in the saddle, with the prince's writ to commission fresh horses wherever I needed, and his orders to bring David to him as fast as we could ride. I rode alone. Tudor wondered at that, I think. If Llewelyn was to have his brother brought into his presence, it would have seemed to Tudor more reasonable to send a strong party, and bring him by force. Llewelyn thought otherwise. The night of reconciliation at Worcester he remembered, and every word of his last interview with his brother here in Aber, in January, only two months past, and there was a manner of doomed, disastrous sense in all.

  "He has set himself up to speak for Wales," he said, "and now he has dared to strike for Wales. Very well, let him answer to Wales. I have no authority at law to drag him here in chains, he is no longer my man according to any known code, feudal or Welsh. But he has put his hand to a plough that is mine, and I will hold him answerable in the only manner he will acknowledge. Go and find him, at Flint or wherever he is, and bid him here to me on his fealty, not to me, but to Wales, unless his vaunted indignation for this land is a shabby lie like all the rest."

  Tudor said warily, for we trod through a legal marsh that sucked dangerously at our feet: "There is no man has drawn sword yet within your principality. The Middle Country is no longer a part of Wales by law, whatever it may be by right."

  "And I can therefore abandon it?" said Llewelyn, with a brief and bitter smile. "My brother by his act has declared that it is. He will stand by what he has done. And I cannot evade it."

  "And if he will not come?" said Tudor.

  "He will come," said Llewelyn with certainty.

  I had no means of knowing, until I crossed the Conway, where I should find David, or how general was this call to arms. But as soon as I was out of the principality I saw for myself that not only David's two cantrefs, but also the two seaward ones which were retained in the king's own hands, had risen to the call, every hamlet was mustering men and weapons, and moving to encircle those points from which the royal bailiffs operated. And there was such exultation and such hope blazing across that countryside that I felt my own heart uplifted, against all reason, for dimly I knew, even as I rode, that by this headstrong and passionate act David had endangered and perhaps destroyed everything to which Llewelyn had devoted his life. Still, they cried greetings to me, and sped me on my way with directions and blessings, and the heat and ache of it got into my blood, and I exulted with them.

How could I not, being Welsh?

  David, they said, up to the last word they had of him, was at Flint, and the town there was his, and the English, such as were in the town and not the castle, dead or captive. But the castle, being so placed on that great plain of rock jutting out into the estuary, was strongly held, and could be supplied by sea from Chester, and they doubted if any attempt would be made to take it, for since it could be isolated and passed by at will it was not worth the men it would cost in the assault, or, above all, the time, where time was more precious than gold. For in the surprise of this rising lay its best strength. So it was possible, they said, that David had left force enough to hold down Flint from the landward side, and himself rushed on to Rhuddlan, where the Welsh of the surrounding trefs were penning the garrison into the castle, and picking off such of the defenders as they might, leaving the sea-way open, for they had no force as yet sufficient to block it. For Rhuddlan, then, I rode.

  Other news I gleaned as I went, and could not choose but marvel how well he had done his work. It was no botched and misshapen rebellion he had offered Llewelyn at that last meeting, but the entire fruit of his able and fiery mind, and all those journeys of his had been threads in the web he had woven, and all held firm when the moment came. Not only here, they told me, but in the west, in Cardigan, in the vale of Towey, everywhere Wales was in arms. The men of Maelor were raiding Oswestry, in the west the Welsh of Llanbadarn had attacked the castle, and in the south David's nephews had raised their standards in Iscennen. And it was terribly sweet to me as I galloped to behold this red blaze sweeping across the whole face of my country, lighting up what had never been offered to Llewelyn before, a Wales entirely and passionately at one. And terribly bitter that it came at the wrong hour, called forth by the wrong man for the wrong reasons, and to what consummation I dared not guess. One half of me boiled like fevered blood, exulting in David's prowess, and one half raged and mourned that when Llewelyn, the true creator of this shadowy nation, cried out to it for fealty and heroism, then it fell short and played him false. For he asked that men should see beyond their own small boundaries, and they could not. And David cried out to them now that within those narrow fences their rights and interests were affronted, and they rose to him as one man to fight for them.

  He had not lied to me, when he promised he would do nothing, utter nothing, write nothing, without due consideration of the consequences for Llewelyn and for Wales. He had considered, he had calculated, he had made his own judgment, and acted accordingly. Moreover, his tactics were right, for by striking the first blow at Hawarden, as close as possible to the borders and Chester, he ensured that no royal troops from Cheshire should be able to move west and interfere with whatever was toward in the rest of Wales. With Flint and Rhuddlan besieged, it would be all they could do to cling to the sea-ways and keep the garrisons fed, while David and his allies secured as much as possible of west Wales and the south, and—for I foresaw that this had all along been included in David's plans—gained time to raise also the levies of Gwynedd, which alone had been kept in the dark until the hour struck. After Christmas he had sounded out the prince's mind, and found it absolute against action, and therefore he had shut us out of the secret, and acted alone. Allies, yes, he had allies, enough, but there was but one mind and one will directing that

insurrection, and one soul that must answer for it in the judgment.

  I had thought to ride well into the night, take but a brief rest, and come to Rhuddlan in the dawn, for the soft days were lengthening, and the frosts were gone. But it was no more than deep of dusk, and I was still far from the valley of the Clwyd, when I saw a small knot of horsemen galloping towards me in purposeful haste, and made out one who led, and three who followed. It was then twilight, but with that gleam about it that draws light from every outline, so that flowers shine like faint lamps, and faces have the pure pallor of saints, and though the foremost rider showed under his blown cap of black hair only such an oval of light for a countenance, yet by his seat in the saddle, and the set of his shoulders and head, I knew him for David, and drew rein and waited in the middle of the way, for the man to whom I had been sent was coming to me of his own will.

  I watched him come, and it was as if some years of happy and tamed living, wife and children and all, had been blown away by a wind out of time, and left him the David of my old remembrances, as bright and deadly as a lance, and miraculously young. The horse under him went as eagerly as if the two had been charmed into a centaur, and shared the same burning blood. He had been happy with his Elizabeth and her darling brood, but this was a different happiness that drove him at a gallop towards his judgment. I think he was never quite complete when he had not a battle on his hands, and the life he valued and delighted in was not at risk.

  Even from the distance he knew me. I recognised it not by any change in him, but by the very omen that there was no change, that he drove on at the same speed, without even a tightening of his hand on the rein, until he was within twenty paces of where I sat in his path, and then checked his tall roan horse smoothly with hand and knee, and brought him to a stand almost within touch of me, so that we two sat side by side. He was light-armed, in a short tunic of mail, and his head bare, and the speed of his ride and the sharp evening wind had drawn back the blue-black locks from brow and cheek, and tangled them high on his crown. His face had a blazing, blanched brightness, half happiness, half desperation. He could have been angel or devil, but either of terrible beauty.

  He smiled at me, distantly, as though I had come between him and a dream, and myself showed but like a shadow, and he said: "Samson, here? Are you sent to me?"

  "I am sent," I said, "to bid you come to the prince at Aber, upon your professed fealty not to him, for you owe him none and are no man of his, but to Wales. If your newfound devotion to Wales be not a lie like all the rest."

  "Then you call me where I am already bound," said David, unmoved by any word or tone of mine, "and never think but I've left all my fires well-fed behind me. And you'll need to ride hard to keep pace with me into Aber."

  I wheeled my horse and spurred after him, for he waited no longer, but galloped on. I fell into line beside him, and those three knights of his escort, mute and watchful, kept their station behind us as we rode.

  Never a word more did we have to say to each other while that journey lasted, until we crossed again into Gwynedd, left the Conway behind, and changed horses on my authority in the dawn. For while the night lasted he set such a hazardous pace that we had no thought or care to spare for anything but the way. When we reached the first vil where Llewelyn's men kept guard I offered the prince's writ, and David was prompt to take advantage of it, as though he accepted, along with the fresh horses, the entire terms on which he was summoned. Then for the first time, as he tightened the girth and tried the length of the stirrup, he looked me in the eyes and said: "Well, have you nothing to ask me? Nothing to say in praise or blame?"

  I said there would be a time for that when we came to Aber, my part was simply to summon him, and that was done.

  "As well!" said David. "I will not make my defence twice over, I have urgent business waiting. Once must do both for you and for him." And he was in the saddle again lightly, and away for Aber, with his back turned to the pale eastern sky where the sun just showed a golden rim. And as I rode after him I knew, from those few words, that he expected to have to defend what he had done, though he felt no guilt concerning it, and no doubt of its blazing rightness and wisdom. But I felt doubt, and could not get the weight of it off my heart. For this was the first time that David, three times false to Llewelyn and three times restored to grace, had turned traitor instead to Edward, who never forgot an injury, and never forgave, and who recognised, as David himself had said, only one loyalty, to Edward, and only one treason, against Edward. The king had twice embraced and sheltered Llewelyn's renegade, and seen no treason in him. He would not be so complacent now the same treachery had been used against his own head. For David, though not a principal party to the treaty of Aberconway, had sworn fealty and done homage to the king as Llewelyn had, and the breaking of that oath was unforgivable sin.

  We eased our steaming horses as we approached Aber, and slowed to a walk when the outer wall of the maenol came in sight. It was a clear morning, not even cold, and the gulls were wheeling and spinning high over Lavan sands. So calm it was, the light breeze setting from the north-west, that I fancied I could hear all the little bells in the hermitage of Ynys Lanog chiming softly in the distance, across the strait. I remember no more peaceful morning than that, when all Wales outside Gwynedd was already at war.

  "I hope to God," I said, suddenly chilled, "that you know what you are doing, and what you have done."

  "I do know," said David. "No man living, not even my brother, understands so well what I have done. I have burned down behind me all the bridges, holed all the boats, pitted all the fords, stopped every way and filled up every bolthole. I have made it certain that I can never go back. Now there is only one way to go, and that's forward. Now let's see if Llewelyn has learned as much."