The Brothers of Gwynedd (186 page)

  "You know better than that," he said. "This is a great man certainly—in all but three particulars, without which there can be no greatness. He lacks humility—oh, so do I, I know it!—but he is also insensible, as I am not, of other men except as objects for his own use. And he is utterly without magnanimity."

  He spoke as one having weighed and considered, and sure of his ground. And all his life long, David knew himself and other men through and through, and never blinked what he saw.

  It was past the onset of twilight then, the glow of our camp-fires was turfed down to be invisible, but the sky above, a May sky of spring and blossom and promise, was clear and pure and full of soft light, untouched by our trouble. In that light I saw his face clear, honed to a finer edge by abstinence and exhaustion and the unflinching acceptance of the fear of death, his eyes bluer and larger within their fringed black of lashes and hollowed blue of sockets, his cheeks drawn smooth and gaunt beneath the jutting bone. And I ached for him then as I had never thought to ache again for any lord, since my own lord died. The one anguish I knew for an echo and reaffirmation of the other. Surely they were brothers, those two as far apart as the east from the west, and as close as two buds on the same branch.

  "I am prepared for Edward," said David, watching with some wonder the bowl of the sky that poured such distant lustre upon us, and would not darken in spite of the descending darkness. "As for the children," he said, feeling his way implacably along a planned course, "they are his blood, and not through me, and therefore, I trust, sacred. Can Edward's blood err? They never chose their sire. And for Elizabeth, she is his close kin, he'll let her fret a while, and then make use of her, as he does of all who come within his grip. She is royal and valuable. He'll punish her some months, maybe as long as a year, for loving me, and then marry her to some prince or baron he needs for his own purposes, and proposes to buy, and be gracious at her marriage…"

  He put up his hands suddenly and clutched his lean cheeks between them, and the wild black hair fell over his eyes, but even so I saw his face shattered as by a mailed blow, fallen apart in terrible grief, that had not quivered for his own doom. He said: "Lisbet!" through his teeth, in a soft, whining moan, like a wild beast in pain, and then he folded forward into the thick turf, and wept like the breaking of the spring rains after long frost. And I held him, who had nothing else to give, hard on my heart, my head against his head. My mother's nurseling, my charge when he was five years old. God knows what I uttered into his ear. It can have had no mortal sense, I pray God it had some sense beyond mortal. One thing I know I said, like the voice of prophecy, for this I knew to be truth.

  "Never fear for Elizabeth! You know her! That lady will never love any man but you to the day she dies, never regret anything done in loyalty to you, or anything suffered for your sake. And to her, if you are gone first out of this world, death will be only a leap into your arms." We came into June again, the height of the summer and the beginning of the end.

  After many days of absence, David went again, with only myself to bear him company, to visit Elizabeth in her lonely hermitage. The guard in hiding at the outer end of the path passed us through, and returned to his place among the bushes, and we made the winding journey from rushes to heather clump, to the firm rim of a sullen pool, and so by those small marks of nature we had learned by heart, into the rising turf before the huts. The two little boys, brown and half-naked, came rushing out to fling themselves into David's arms, several of the girls like a flurry of butterflies after them, and Godred and his fellows, who had stood to alertly at the first sight of us in mid-passage, went back satisfied to their work. When he came to his family, David took pains to make himself fine and princely still, and wore jewellery, the great gold torque he most prized, and rings in his ears. The rest of his treasury, money, jewellery and plate, was hidden securely in the sand of the floor at the back of the cave.

  We slept there the night over, the last night David ever lay with his Elizabeth. By night three guards kept the outer end of the path, ready to give warning at the first approach of any stranger, and all within could sleep in peace. For none but we and half a dozen, perhaps, of the men of those regions knew the place or the way in.

  In the darkest of the night, before the dawn hours, we were startled awake by sudden alarms of steel clashing and voices shouting, and sprang up in confusion to reach for our weapons. We in the hut that covered the mouth of the cave were groping to our feet hastily when David burst out upon us from within, sword in hand, and behind him we heard one of the children crying, and the women's voices raised in comfort and reassurance, though God knows they themselves had little enough of either. We gathered to David, and would have fought it out there and then, as he may well have longed to do, but we waited on his order, and he never gave it.

  They were there in the hut, blocking out the faint light at the doorway, two braced lances fronting us, and several bared swords, and behind them others, too many by far for us to kill and break loose through their ranks. And the little boys came crowding behind their father, and their sisters peered fearfully, clasped in the women's arms. He could have struck then, and forced them to give him a quick death, but he would not, with those beloved creatures watching. He laid a hand about the head of his heir, who bristled at his hip with his own small dagger in hand, and drew the boy close against his side, and said: "Hush, now! Put up your bodkin, no need for that." His voice was soft and even for reassurance.

  He regarded the men before him, black against the paler space of sky, mere shapes to him, and said: "You are looking for me, I think. Have the goodness not to alarm the women within, and my daughters." And the hand that caressed and gentled his son pointed the exception he made for his menfolk, who were not of a mettle to give way to alarm.

  "You are David ap Griffith, the king's rebel and felon?" said the foremost shadow, gravel-voiced.

  "I am David ap Griffith, prince of Wales and lord of Snowdon," said David, and with a deliberate movement, made slowly to be seen and understood as well by us as by them, he reversed the sword in his hand and proffered the hilt in surrender.

They herded us out at lance-point, man, woman and child, to the half-circle of firm grassland, where the men of the body-guard were already overpowered and disarmed, two of them dead, others dripping blood from gashes got in the sudden onset, Godred among them. There must have been thirty at least of Edward's men in that hunting party, and others stationed at those points across the bog where the path turned, marking the way for the return journey. This was no chance discovery, someone who knew the track had taught them every step of the safe crossing.

  They mounted us, the men with hands tied, the women free, of necessity, since they had to carry the babies in arms. Elizabeth, pale as death but mute and proud, never uttered complaint, and her sons did as she did. Some of the English troopers took up the other children to ride with them, and to their greater honour than their master, were gentle and soothing to them, even playful. But David they bound hand and foot with leather thongs, lashing his feet together under the horse's belly. Throughout that journey, Elizabeth never took her eyes from him, pouring towards him the whole force of the pride and courage and love that was in her, when she herself went in such dire need. Thus we set out on our dolorous ride into captivity.

  We saw the three men of the outer guard as we passed, tossed bloodily among their hide of bushes, knifed down in the darkness by men who knew where to find them. The traitor had taught these English everything they needed to know. David marked the discarded bodies as he passed, and the frozen stillness of his face shook with grief and anger. And before we had gone far, the first rays of the sun broke clear of the peaks, and levelled like lances across the upland, glittering on David's golden torque, and gilding all the doomed beauty of his countenance, and all those hapless, lovely echoes of his grace that followed him, all those dark girls, fit brides for princes, and the two boys, heirs of the royal line of Gwynedd, themselves princes if there had been any justice left in the world. All of them passing through this mocking radiance of dawn into the darkness of Edward's shadow, and the stony coldness of his prisons.

They made a savage show of us in Rhuddlan, parading our chains through the town and into the castle, with the whole garrison, menials, hangers-on and all, crowding to gaze at the arch-enemy in thrall. But there was one who did not come to feast his eyes, whether out of haughtiness or fear and guilt I cannot say, and that was Edward. Surely he savoured his poisoned joy in private, but from first to last he never showed his face.

  In the wards of the castle, above the placid tidal waters of the Clwyd, we were torn apart, we men flung into tiny cells below ground, two by two where there was barely room for one, and the devil so contrived that I had Godred for partner. The women were also hustled away into close captivity, but above-ground, with the children to keep them living and believing in goodness, and with their needs supplied. It was but a veil of grace over an implacable purpose, but for all that we were glad of it then.

  As for David, he vanished out of our knowledge and out of our sight, loaded down with chains. They say that he urgently prayed the king to give him audience face to face, but if he did, it can only have been for the sake of wife and children. Edward refused him. From the first he was resolved on killing, and memorably, and proceeded accordingly, sending out writs for a parliament to meet in Shrewsbury on the thirtieth day of September, to deal with "the matter of Wales." But no writs were sent to the bishops and abbots, for they, as is well-known, have no vote in cases of blood, and "the matter of Wales" meant, first and last, the destruction of David.

  The only one who did find her way into Edward's presence was Elizabeth, for at his peremptory summons she was brought before him in chains. She stood alone and small in face of that giant, and pleaded with dignity for husband and children, though never did she acknowledge, life-long, that David had ever done wrong, since for her he could do no wrong. All the king had to say to her was to upbraid her savagely for her treachery and ingratitude to him, and her guilt in countenancing David's rebellion, and not repudiating the sinner and blasphemer. And she reared her head and looked him in the eyes, that little brown mouse, once so demure and silent with others, and so loud and gay with David, and said in her mild, steely, deliberate voice:

  "How have I offended against your Grace? You yourself gave me to my husband, with your own hand, when I was still a child, and taught me that my duty was to love and be serviceable to him all my days, to cleave to him loyally and be obedient to him. And so I have loved, according to your orders, and so will love him while I have breath. It was your gracious bidding I did throughout. How, then, have I been false to you?"

  He did not strike her. No, not quite that, but he made her pay for her defiance, and dearest of all for the love she proclaimed and gloried in, even in her anguish. For he took away from her not only the children, but also Cristin and Alice, and every other soul who was familiar and dear to her. David she never saw again in this life. Edward knew how to punish. Her chains, after that public display of her servitude, were removed, but she remained solitary in close confinement.

  Two months we lay thus out of the world, knowing nothing of what was happening outside our prison, not even whether David still lived, nor what had become of the children. And Godred and I, perforce, learned to sit side by side and exchange words without sickening or snarling, and I could feel at last nothing but grief and kindness for him, now we were both severed from Cristin and both prisoners. Sometimes he even sounded like the Godred I had first met, sharp-eyed for his own interests, wry in comment.

  "God knows," he said, "I must have lost my gift for self-preservation, or I should have been off out of this long before it got to this pass. Why did I not take to my heels while the going was good?"

  But he had not, and that was commendation enough. Truly I began to feel to him as to a brother, and even that was a possession to be valued, the awareness of another living creature. For there was nothing left after David was taken, nothing to hope for, nothing to fight for. In the south his three nephews, exhausted and forlorn, at last surrendered to the earl of Hereford, and were sent to imprisonment in the Tower of London. Everywhere the cause of Wales was lost, and in the bright summer the winter darkness fell upon us.