The Brothers of Gwynedd (168 page)

  And like Cristin, I could not but feel it as a kind of victory that the princess, at least, was safe for ever, that Edward had not and never again would have any power to touch or trouble her. But never could I face that thought without feeling like a traitor to her, for when had she ever turned her back upon any of the battles and agonies of living, or thought it better to be in quietude and hide from the storm? She would rather have been here at Llewelyn's side if she could, and shared every danger that threatened him. What right had I to be grateful for the safety she would have rejected with contempt? Yes, even knowing Edward as Cristin knew him, and having no illusions concerning the malignant extremes of which he was capable?

  Her death was back with me in all its bitterness as I stood by the little river, peering down into the eddies that span about its pebbly bed under the overhanging turf of the bank. The drier grass on the uplands beyond was thick and spongy, and the little knot of riders that passed along the ridge at some distance made no sound. It was not until one of them wheeled out of line and began to wind his way down the slope, and the jingle of his harness reached me, that I looked up.

  There were four of them, in David's livery, riding the crest above the Dee on patrol from Dinas Bran. Three had kept their station on the ridge, and were walking their horses easily eastward towards the castle, and the fourth, leaning lightly back in the saddle, was turning his mount with casual pressure of his knees down the slope, towards the river-bank opposite where I stood. And the fourth was Godred.

  It was so long since he had approached me of his own will that I was curious, and stood to watch his approach warily enough, but without animosity. Whether we would or not, we were comrades in arms. His eyes were on me, and he was grinning in that private way he had, as if only he knew and could savour the sour joke the world presented to view. The rein lay easy in his hand, only his knees guided his thickset pony down the rough descent. Godred rode well, and knew it.

  "Well, well!" he said, checking the pony on the level turf across the water from me. "It
is
you! I thought I should know that priestly tilt of the head. So those were the prince's turfed fires we saw downstream. They show, Samson, my friend, you'd be at an enemy's disposal with no better care than that."

  "With you between us and the border," I said, "what need have we to fear an enemy? Five leagues at least to Oswestry and the Berwyns in between, besides your good sword. No prince was ever safer."

  "Pleasant," he said, idling along the edge of the water and eyeing me with that small curl of his mouth that was barely a smile, "pleasant indeed to know you have such faith in me. And how did you leave Cristin, when you rode from Denbigh? In good spirits?"

  "As good as the rest of us," I said. "We're none of us making merry."

  "Shame," he said, "that her best and truest friend should be forced to leave her, just when her husband's away. She'll be quiet and solitary without the both of us." And his light, sweet voice turned sharp as gall, yet soft as silk, as it always did when he was casting for me as for a fish. And I marvelled, for this he had not ventured of late, I had thought because his hatred had taken a more extreme turn that found no pleasure in baiting me, but perhaps, after all, rather because he had some qualms as to its safety. For now the river was between us, and he licked his lips, savouring the steps by which he tested how far he could go.

  "Hardly quiet or solitary," I said, "with eight children round her skins and another nurseling on the way." For Elizabeth was also with child, her normal and happiest state. And the first and last fruit of love had been the death of Eleanor! I was thinking only of that sorrow, still so large and heavy on my heart, and did not consider how he might take what I said to himself, and count it as a stab in return for those he dealt out, seeing his own son had been still-born. It was perhaps the only grief he ever felt that was not all on his own account, and I had not meant to revive it.

  "Some can breed, and some cannot," he said, showing his even teeth in a snarling smile. "Like the prince, poor soul! I hear he's lost his wife, and got him a daughter. Well, there's always a grain of good in every evil. Take heart, Samson, there's room again in his confidence for another favourite now, your nose may be back in joint soon enough. Even room in his bedchamber for a little sweet music at nights!" He laughed, seeing me stiffen, for though he never believed the foulness he invented, nor used it upon any but me, and therefore I could let it go by me with little feeling but contempt, yet there was a bound set to what my heart could endure at this time from him or from any.

  "Keep your tongue within your teeth," I said, "and drink your own poison. I am not now in the mood to listen to frogs croaking."

  "Oh, you take me wrongly," he protested, still grinning. "Who is more concerned for my prince's consolation and my friend's than I? If I cannot rejoice in the advancement of one close to me as a brother, I am a poor-spirited creature." And he made a smooth, round gesture with his bridle-hand, to let what light remained gleam for a moment on the silver ring by which I had first known him for my blood-kin. "And what better promotion than to your old intimacy? A pity about the lady, but at least, if she could not give him a son, he has got a daughter. If indeed it was he who got her!" said Godred, and giggled, a bloodcurdling sound. "After so many years of celibacy, I tell you, Samson, there were some of us had doubts of him, more ways than one! And she so loving and anxious to oblige him with an heir. Do you know of any who may have lent her a little help in the business? But there, they say
you
were the one closer in her secrets than any other."

  I heard him through a roaring in my ears, and saw him through a red blistering darkness, and went lunging towards him half-blind, through icy coldness. When my eyes cleared, he was away in a long traverse up the steep hillside, his malignant laughter drifting back to me like the clatter of small, cracked bells, and I was thighdeep in the river with my dagger out, the deepest stony gully of the bed before me, and the sudden cold of mountain water gnawing my bones to the marrow, even in the summer night.

I watched him go, no help for it, he was away to his fellows, and among them no doubt circumspect and clean-mouthed. But if I could have got my hands on him then, I should have killed him.

  I said no word to any other, then or ever, of what lay only between Godred and me, and to tell truth, I was half ashamed of having let him get under my guard, even with so gross and unexpected a profanation, for whatever weapon he clutched at, I was his mark and no other. If he spat his slime upon names dearer to me than my own, it was not because he believed one word of what he alleged, or had any malevolent intent against them, but only because he knew all too well where my armour was penetrable. And after we mustered at Bala the next day, and moved south at speed, I put him out of my mind and out of my hatred, for he was safely left behind in the Middle Country, and for many weeks I was to see no more of him.

  It was the prince's intent to make rapid contact with his most effective allies rather than harry the marcher lands as we went, for once we were securely based in Ystrad Tywi, and knew what forces we had to contend with in the three royal bases ringing that region, then we could expand our action to strike outwards as chance offered. So we wasted no time in crossing eastward to the central march to probe Mortimer's defences on the upper Severn, or Lestrange's at Builth, but from Bala swept southwest through Merioneth, and crossed the Dovey to join hands with Griffith and Cynan ap Meredith in Llanbadarn.

  Those two princes had had their hands full, until the battle of Llandeilo, in resisting constant English attacks, meant to re-establish the foreign settlers who had been ousted from the region, and by the detailed account they gave us of the large scale of this settlement it seemed clear that the king had intended to turn the castle of Llanbadarn into such another centre of royalist power as Carmarthen in the south. But since Llandeilo the attacks had ceased, and the remaining English troops been withdrawn into the castles, where they were safe, and there was hardly a skirmish to be hoped for on their side of the Teifi.

  The same situation we found as we moved through the western lands. Everywhere the English were shut up within their castles, and came out only very cautiously and briefly to try how hot their reception still might be. But everywhere Llewelyn gave grim warning that this would not long continue, and meant nothing more than a temporary lull, which we would do well to use by strengthening our own resources of men and supplies, for it was only a matter of time before Edward's reserves came into play. The date fixed for the massing of the feudal host was still a month away, the second day of August, and once that was reached the king would have immensely greater numbers at his disposal for the statutory period of service, and would certainly retain most of them at his wages afterwards, besides what he might recruit at pay from the marches and from France. We were quick to muster and quick to move, and they were methodical, cumbersome and slow, but like a heavyarmoured horseman on a barded horse, once in motion they were desperately hard to halt or withstand. So the prince warned, and was hard upon all complacence.

  From Llanbadarn, seeing they were alert and well-found there, we turned inland, still moving south, and crossed the watershed to reach Llandovery, where Rhys Wyndod, eldest of the prince's three nephews, was again installed since he had recovered it from Giffard. Rhys, like his uncles, had suffered the delays and humiliations of English law over this same Llandovery, to which Giffard laid claim through his wife, and that case, like the prince's, had dragged on through plea after plea for three years, and died at the outbreak of war, when the king handed over to Giffard the custody of the castle and the commote, though he did not hold it long. Rhys had fought as doughtily for Welsh law as had Llewelyn himself, and with the same lack of success. For him, at least, arms had proved more effective than words.

  He was a man then thirty-three years old, fair and tall like his father before him, and a good fighter when he was roused, though in the previous war, hard-pressed and ill-prepared, he had surrendered to the English, while his younger brothers fled to the north and continued to fight for their uncle. This time, as Rhys himself bluntly said, he had not only seen sufficient cause to steel him to fight to the end, there being nothing to gain by compromise if the English were determined to put an end to Welsh law, but also he had burned his boats to settle the matter, and was committed for life and liberty and all. Of Edward's clemency to Welsh chiefs who had once resisted him he entertained no hope whatever.

  From him we learned how those royal forces remaining in Ystrad Tywi were disposed.

  "They are on the defensive now," he said, "and hardly stirring out, for they have enough supplies for the men they carry, and they are surely waiting for reinforcements, and expecting them soon. So far as we can determine, they have about seventy paid lances left, and have split them between Cardigan and Dynevor. Since Llandeilo we've seen nothing of the earl of Gloucester, but we heard that his own tenants in the march, all the Welsh among them, are up in revolt, and so are Hereford's, so he may well have been withdrawn and told to go and set his own house in order. The whisper is he's lost his command, but we've heard nothing of a successor yet. They're hanging on by their teeth and waiting. As soon as the feudal levies come in, they'll get the men they want. I doubt if the king will even wait for the day of his muster, but send them their orders in advance to report here in Carmarthen instead of Rhuddlan."

  "Then we'd better be about giving him even more reason to spread them over the whole country," said Llewelyn briskly, "and prevent him from getting the numbers he needs to break Gwynedd."

  And so we did, all through July and into August. We left the castle of Dryslwyn alone, with the traitor Rhys ap Meredith and his half-English garrison within it, for it was strong, and would have needed siege engines to break into it. But we left him little else. We kept a close watch on Dynevor and Carmarthen, on the alert for any sallies they might make to replenish supplies, and when they did venture out we did our best to lure them further from their bases by exposing some pitifully small party of our own, but they had their orders, and were seldom to be drawn. Very rarely did we get to grips with them, and then but briefly, for they stayed very close to home.

  During this month of July we lived most of the time wild. We had Llandovery as a convenient rallying-point for the exchange of news and plans, and from there covered not only the vale of Towey, but also began to move out and rattle the teeth of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford and constable of England, at Brecon and the countryside round it, and to harass Lestrange at Builth, for there the Welsh of the region were always heartily glad to rise against their English masters. We kept in touch also with Griffith and Cynan ap Meredith, and sent a flying company to their aid whenever they required it. But for the most part we had little fighting. They dared not move from their castles, and we knew them too strongly positioned there to try storming them.