The Brothers of Gwynedd (4 page)

I had not been on a horse since the day I was brought to Aberdaron, pillion behind a groom, for the brothers of the pure communities abjured not only women, and the eating of flesh, but also riding on horseback. And I was awkward enough, and before we reached Neigwl sore enough, on that broad-backed hill pony, but I kept my seat with some pleasure, and my head high and my back straight with more obstinacy, riding beside this man who hated me, in such mourne silence. I had then no fear of him, and that was surprising to me, though I knew the good reasons for it. He dared not now touch me, if he had been sent to bring me to the Lady Senena. She would expect to see me in good health and good heart, moreover, I was now of an age to speak out volubly against any ill-use. Yet he was double my size, and hate might prove stronger than caution. There was more than wisdom restraining him from laying any hand on me, more even than the witness trotting behind us. He saw now no gain, not even any satisfaction, in killing me. I began to be a little curious about him, and a little in awe of him, as of the tragic and the accursed, from that moment. It is not far from awe to pity, but it was so far then that the end was out of sight, my stature being low, and my vision short.

I asked him, as we breasted one green crest of the hills, and looked upon another

valley: "What does she want with me?"

He said: "She?" and looked darkly into the sunlit distances and terribly smiled.

  "The Lady Senena," I said, suddenly trembling, because I had not known so clearly until then that for him there was only one she.

  "You're wanted," he said grimly, "because she will not go without you." And that was the same she, his, not mine.

  "Go where?" I asked. In all these years she had visited me only three times, for to her a journey, even of twenty miles, was a traverse of the world. Yet she had not wished me back, or tried to uproot me out of my green garden of books and vegetables and saints, content to have me content, and still in the same cantref with her. "Where is it she must go," I cried out to know, "with me or without me? How far?"

  "Ask the lady," he said. "I'm but the messenger. I go where I'm sent, like you. All my task is to bring you."

  "But you know," I said, insistent.

  "I've heard a name. It might as well be the holy city of Jerusalem. I never was beyond Conway," he said, "in my life, what are names to me?"

  So I asked him nothing more, for he was as lost as I was. Only after a while I asked for my mother, if she was well, and he said, well, so dourly that I ventured to ask no more as long as we rode together.

There was nothing strange to be seen round the llys at Neigwl, when we came there. In the village and the fields men were working as ever, and there was no more bustle than usual even inside the walls. It was always a lively place. But when we came to stable our ponies I saw that there were more horses within than ever I had seen there in the old days, or even at Nevin, and moreover that there were great bundles and saddle-bags already packed and waiting, covered over with hides and stacked along the wall. If there was no great to-do at this hour, it was because the Lady Senena's plans, whatever they might be, had been made some while since, and now only awaited the right moment for execution.

  My mother must have been listening for the sound of hooves, for she looked out from the hall as we clattered across the courtyard, and came hurrying to kiss me. She had a child by the hand, a boy about five years old, who clung to her confidently, and stared up at me with shining curiosity. Very dark he was, with broad cheekbones and wide eyes of a blue like harebells, soft and light, under straight brows as black as his blue-black hair. He was tall for his age, and well-made, and of a bold beauty, and he gazed at me unwaveringly in silence, for so long that I was forced to be the first to turn my eyes away. And I knew this boy for my breast-brother, the youngest of the Lord Griffith's four sons, who bore his detested uncle's name of David.

  A second boy, a year or so older, came trailing out from the hall after them to stare at us from a distance before he made up his mind to come close. He approached a little sidelong, hesitant and unwelcoming in his look. This one had something of the colouring of Owen Goch, but as though bleached and faded in the sun, for his hair was of a reddish straw-colour, and his cheeks pale and freckled. When he saw my mother kiss me he came the rest of the way across the dusty court to us in a rush, and laid hold upon her skirt as if to assert his ownership and my strangeness. But in a moment, as she only gave him her free hand without a glance, and continued speaking with me, he lost interest in us both, and looked round for other entertainment, and pulling away his hand again, ran off after one of the maids who passed from the kitchens with her arms full. The youngest stood immovable and watched, saying never a word, and missing nothing, until my mother leaned down to him cajolingly, and turning him after his elder, urged him to go with Rhodri, and Marared would give them some of the honey cakes she was baking. And then he went, at first composedly, and then breaking into a hopping dance of his own, to which he seemed to want and need no audience.

  This was the first time that ever I saw the two youngest of the brothers of Gwynedd.

  My mother drew me with her into the store-room, I think to be out of sight of her husband when she embraced me, and there she held me against her heart, and said over and over: "I could not go without you! How could I? I would not go so far and leave you behind." Then she held me off from her to search my face more earnestly, and asked, almost as if in fear, whether I had been happy at Aberdaron, and whether I was not glad rather to come with her, and travel so far into the world. And I swallowed my regrets, since there was no sense in two of us grieving when only one need, and told her that I was her dutiful son, and I willed to go with her wherever she must go, though God knows I lied, and I hope forgives me the lie. Could I have had my way without hurt to any other, I would have begged a fresh pony, all stiff and sore as I was, and started out on the instant back to my cell and the unfinished haymaking, and my master Ciaran. But since that could not be, for neither she nor I was free, or had any support but in the Lady Senena's service, I comforted her as best I could, myself uncomforted, and asked her where it was we must go, and for how long a time, to make it necessary that I should be recalled. For often enough the court moved between three or four maenols, but none so distant that it implied a parting between us.

  "We are going further," she said, "very far. She has sent couriers ahead days ago, to have changes of horses ready. And we leave tonight, after dark."

  "But why after dark?" I questioned. "And where do we go?"

  "Eastward," she said, "to England. But in secret. No one outside these walls must know."

  "To England?" I said. "What, all? The children, too?" A foolish question, as I saw, for it was because the children were to be of the party that she, their nurse, must go with them, and would and must take her son with her. And if the lady was thus preparing to remove herself and what family she had about her furtively into England, it could only be into King Henry's care, and there could be but one reason. No wonder the expedition was being mounted by night, and in the expectation of a long exile. How long, the king's army and the Welsh weather must decide. Only dimly did I grasp the meaning of this move, but she did not question it at all. What the lady ordered was her law. "How many go?" I asked her. "She and the children, and we—how many more? The steward? And a guard? She'll never ride unprotected."

  "Twenty are gone ahead," my mother said, "to make ready and meet us along the way. Three officers ride with us, and ten more men."

  A large party to make so secret and desperate a move. She did not mean to appear

before the king of England without some remnants of royal state.

  "And Llewelyn?" I said, for I had not seen him yet about the llys. "Is he in this, too?"

  "He is on his way now, he should have been here already. She sent for him yesterday from Carnarvon. And you are to go to her," she said, "and she will tell you what your part is to be. Go to her now, she will have heard you are here, she does not like to be kept waiting."

  So I went, for indeed that lady was not one to be trifled with, especially with so grave a business in hand. But as I turned to go on past the hall to the lady's apartments, my mother suddenly called after me, in the child's voice that suited so ill with this learned-by-rote business she had been expounding for me, and with the most hushed and bitter awareness of having somehow offended: "Child, forgive me—forgive me!"

  I went back to her, greatly shaken, and held and reassured her that my only wish was to be with her, that I had no reluctance or regret, while my heart wept in me for longing. There was something deep within my mother that understood more than other men do, while all the shell of her mind was without understanding.

  Then verily I went. The Lady Senena was sitting in a great chair in her solar, with a coffer before her, into which she was carefully laying away small packets of valuables, while her steward came and went with certain parchments and consulted with her, discarding some for burning, and adding others to those she would take with her. When I came in she looked up, and I louted to her, and signified that I had come, in duty bound, in answer to her summons.

  She was not a tall woman, nor beautiful, but she had a great dignity about her, and was accustomed to being respected and obeyed. She had thick brows that all but met over her nose, and made her seem to frown, and her voice was cool and strong, so that I had always been in some awe of her, and still was, however good she had been to me.

  "So you are here," she said, considering me. "Have you spoken with your mother?"

  I thought it best to know nothing but what the lady herself chose to tell me, so I said: "Madam, I have, and she sent me here at once to hear what your wishes are."

  She began then to question me closely about my studies, and all I had learned at Aberdaron, and what I told her seemed to content her, for she nodded repeatedly, and twice exchanged glances with her steward and they nodded together. I was indeed more forward in letters than most about her court, and might be of use as a clerk, she said, but in particular I was to earn my place, since her children's nurse would not go without me, as groom and attendant to the young princes. I said I would do my best in whatever work she chose to give me, and go wherever she willed that I should go.

  "You do not ask me where," she said drily.

  "Madam, if I am to know, you will tell me."

  And tell me she did, and set me to work then and there, helping the steward to sort out and burn those parchments she did not need, and wished not to leave behind her for others to see. For my eyes were younger and sharper than the old man's, and even in the bright summer the light was dim within the room. So it happened that I was crouched by the hearth-stone, feeding roils of vellum into a sluggish fire, or laying out those harmless and only once used for cleaning, when there was a rush of loud young footsteps outside, and Llewelyn flung the door wide and came striding in.

  I saw him first only as a dark figure in outline against the brilliance of the day outside, and saw him so, in stillness, for a long moment, for he had halted to get his bearings in the dimness of the room, after his ride under that radiant sky. Then he came forward to plump heartily down on his knee and kiss his mother's hand, though so perfunctorily that it was plain he saw no reason for more than ordinary filial respect, and knew nothing as yet of why she had sent for him. And very straightly he went to it and asked, as though, whatever it was, he would see it done, and then be off again to whatever employment she had interrupted.

  "I came as soon as I could, mother. What is it you want of me?"

  The flames of my small fire, burning up to a brief flare as I forgot to feed it, lit him clearly as he bounded up from his knee. He was then no taller than I, though afterwards he shot up to gain half a head over me. But he was sturdier and squarer than I, and perhaps because of this, perhaps because of that glowing, carefree assurance he had, being born royal, he seemed to me my elder by a year or two, though I knew that to be false. He wore no cloak in this high summer, he had on him only his hose and a short riding-tunic of linen, that left his throat and forearms bare, long-toed riding shoes on his feet, and round his hips a belt ornamented with gold, from which a short dagger hung. And wherever his skin was bared he was burned copper-brown by the sun, so that his thick brown hair seemed only a shade darker. He looked at the coffer his mother had on the table, and at the pieces of jewellery and the documents laid away in it, and his smile of pure pleasure in sun and motion and his own vigour faded a little into wonder and puzzlement.