The Brothers of Gwynedd (51 page)

  "His Grace's council are very considerate," said Llewelyn with mild irony. "And very anxious to have me quieted and still, at some cost, it seems."

  "I think," said the boy steadily, "it suits us both to have truce."

  "I don't deny it," the prince said. "Yet it did not suit King Henry last year, upon much the same terms. We do know something of the troubles under which he labours. Now tell me, and I shall trust your account, how do things stand between king, magnates and people at this coming parliament? It is not in my interest to add to England's difficulties, and I covet nothing beyond my own borders. The better I understand, the more likely are we to come to a mutual understanding. What has befallen since the great council of April, to bring about this realisation that war between us is more than either of us can well afford?"

  And Henry de Montfort answered him, with confidence and address. How the seven magnates, of whom his father was one, had drawn up and presented to the king their aims and ideas for the reform of the state, with the promise that if he would accept their guidance on these matters, then they would stand by him to the best of their power in the matter of the Sicilian adventure, would raise an aid to help him, and send envoys to persuade the pope to abate the severity of his demands, and withdraw the threat of excommunication if they were not met. And the king and his son, the Lord Edward, and even the Poitevin nobles had agreed to what was rather an offer and appeal than a demand. Twelve councillors chosen from the king's adherents and twelve by the magnates formed the new reform council, which was to meet for the first time in full session at Oxford.

  "And what has been done thus far?" Llewelyn asked.

  "First, a group of envoys, my father among them, is now accredited to King Louis' court, to negotiate peace between England and France. They make good progress, my lord. Then letters have also been issued for proctors to go to Rome. Besides pleading for an abatement of the heavy terms under which his Grace labours in the Sicilian agreement, they will also ask for a papal legate to come to England, to help and guide us in all the adjustments that have to be made. And thirdly, as my errand proves, we desire a relationship of tolerance, at least, with you, my lord. The greater enterprise is England itself," said this youth of twenty with noble solemnity. "It is a duty to extricate the country's honour and the king's from this unhappy affair of Sicily, but also to amend the many things that are wrong in the realm, where we lack a fit system for hearing the pleas of the lesser people, and labour without a justiciar, and with sheriffs irregularly appointed and not easily displaced. I see no reason," he said, "to conceal that your forbearance on our borders is necessary to us, if we are to have time to create a just order in England, and a right relationship in Christendom."

  "You speak," said Llewelyn, a little laughing at him, and a great deal admiring, "with the tongue of prophecy. Whose is the voice? Your father's? For we have heard, even in Wales, something of the earl of Leicester."

  "The voice is my own," said the young man, with a fleeting and impish smile. "My father's is less voluble. But louder!"

"Yet of all voices," said Llewelyn, "I think it is not King Henry's."

  The boy leaned to him earnestly, and jutted his rugged Norman chin at him half in offence and half in amiable resolution to convince him, as past question he was himself convinced. He might have practised reserve and recoil very fastidiously, but deceit was not his gift. "You mistake, my lord," he said, "we are all of one mind. King Henry has accepted with relief and gratitude the goodwill and help extended to him. Well I know there have been dissensions enough, but they are put away. One of the greatest of our French noblemen, Peter of Savoy, the queen's uncle, is among the movers of the reform. The magnates, the bishops, are earnest for it. The king, who is always good though not always wise, admits his need of it and embraces it. His Poitevin half-brothers accept it. Oh, my lord, you who have been praised—yes, even in England!—for uniting all the warring clans of Wales, you of all men should be moved by the singular unity of England at this pass. Two unities can rest side by side, to the enrichment of both."

  "If it lies with me," said Llewelyn, touched and amused, "they shall." And he made much of the young man, and talked with him freely of lighter and more personal things until he dismissed him, already yawning, to his lodging. Among other things I remember Henry talked affectionately of his family, of his four younger brothers and his little sister, then five years old, on whom he doted, she being the only girl and the youngest child. Very close and loyal were these de Montforts, thus poised between England and France, and choosing England. No more deliberate choice ever was made, though I think it was made by divination of blood and bowels, and not by conscious will.

  After the young man had left us, Llewelyn looked after him for a long moment, thoughtfully frowning, before he asked of me: "Well, what do you make of him?"

  "He is patently honest," I said, "and someone has certainly shown him a vision."

  That I believe," he agreed. "But are you telling me King Henry, at his time of life, has taken to seeing such visions, too?"

  I owned that was unlikely, but argued, none the less, that what the boy said might well be true, in that the king had known himself in difficulties from which he saw no escape, and might indeed be profoundly glad and grateful if his barons had banded together to attempt his rescue. Without their stern purpose or this boy's fervent exaltation, after his own fashion he might be equally sincere in his adherence to this new-found unity. But whether we should fear it or hope for it was more than I could yet determine. Their mind to us at this moment, it seemed, was clear enough, and we would do well to take what advantage we could of it, while we could.

  "So I think, too," said Llewelyn. "Though we have seen already how long the unity of Wales remained immaculate, and can England do better, with so many warring interests? A pity if this boy's faith were shattered too soon! I tell you, Samson, I wish it were politic to go myself to Oxford. I should like to see this new council at work with my own eyes, and see what manner of men I have to deal with, if they can mould and master the king's actions as it seems they have done. And I should dearly like," he said, "to see the oak that dropped the acorn from which that sapling grew."

On the day following, the council of Wales met and formally approved acceptance of the invitation to Oxford, and Llewelyn issued his letters of procuration for the parliament, appointing Anian, abbot of Aberconway, and Master Madoc ap Philip, his most trusted lawyer, to attend as his proctors, with full powers to negotiate peace or truce. And Henry de Montfort departed, I think very well pleased with his visit and much interested in all that he had seen at Aber, with the reply to king and council in England. He took leave of Llewelyn with due ceremony, mindful of the dignity of his office, but also with a fresh warmth that was pleasing to see.

  I had thought no more of the prince's regrets that he could not be his own envoy and go to observe the procedures of these reforming earls for himself, but after the messenger was gone he came to me with a bright and resolute face.

  "Will you go with Madoc and the abbot," he said, "as clerk and copier? I shall have as good an account in its way, perhaps, from the two of them, but they will be preoccupied with law and arguments and bargaining, and in any case it will be impossible for a Welsh student or groom to approach them while they are about the court. But while all eyes are on them, you can move among the humbler sort and use your eyes and ears, and you, I know, will be quick to think and feel as I, and settle on the details I should best like to know. Will you do this for me?"

  I said I would, and gladly, if I was indeed the best instrument to his purpose.

  "You are," he said. "You know my mind as you know your own, and your judgment of men I will trust to measure very close to mine. And, see, I have sent word to Meurig in Hereford, concerning that Welsh chancery clerk of his acquaintance, and told him you will be in attendance on my proctors. Besides what you can observe for yourself, he will find some means of coming to you with all he knows of what goes on among the king's officials. If they will abide by this concern with procuring good order at home, then I will keep any truce I make, and pay any indemnity I promise, and take care of my own household. But I greatly need to know."

  So I promised, though with some misgiving, for I had not been in England for twelve years, and had not thought ever to return there. And the memories I had of that time, long overlaid with the business of living here in Wales, were disturbing when they moved in me again, full of reminders of my dead mother and her most unhappy husband, and the imprisonment and death of my lord's father. Old tales, but not so far removed into the past as to be kindly hearing and easy tears. But I fretted vainly, for I was going where I had never been, and into a changed and seething land, frantic with new ideas and hopes, like a pot boiling, and in the event there was nothing to tug me back into the past, and everything to urge me forward towards the future.

  On the second day of June the letters of safe-conduct were issued to us from the king's court and some days later were received at Aber. And then we set out, the two proctors with their body-servants, and I as a clerk to them, and crossed into England at Oswestry on the day following. And there we were met by a very gallant company as escort, more nobly led than I had expected, for we were to be accompanied to Oxford by one of those very seven lords who had begun this new enterprise of England.

  This name came ever new, like a charm, the name of de Montfort. For our sponsor and escort was none other than Peter de Montfort who was head of the English house, the lord of Beaudesert near Warwick. No close kin to the young man Henry, and of an older generation, I suppose well into his fifties, but almost a neighbour, his Beaudesert being none so far from Earl Simon's Kenilworth, and certainly a loyal adherent and true friend, as after he proved. Thus in all that followed I could not keep from thinking of him as one of that same splendid and fatal family, and so I think of him still.

  He was a tall man, of commanding figure but unobtrusive presence, his gestures spare and few, and his voice quiet. His colouring was florid, and his hair and clipped beard a rich russet red, as yet only touched with threads of grey, and he had very grave and considerate eyes which spared, rather than avoided, observing us too closely on that ride together, as also he said no word of the business on which we rode. His courtesy, though doubtless habitual with him, nevertheless underlined for me yet again the importance they set upon this agreement, and I grew ever more certain that our proctors would be able to secure truce at least, if not peace, for a merely nominal sum.

  Very pleasant it was, in that warm June weather, riding through the western parts of England, where the gently folded land was softer, the rivers bluer and the watermeadows greener than in our harsh and rocky homeland. Again we rode through Shrewsbury from the Welsh gate to the English bridge, and passed by that great abbey where first I set eyes upon England's king. But after that I was upon unknown ground, as we followed the Severn southwards to Worcester.

  Riding behind my masters thus, and having before me the baron of Beaudesert's long, erect back, and his russet head courteously inclined now to his guest upon one side, now on the other, I saw him as greater even than he was, for both our proctors were meagre men to view thus from behind. Face to face was another matter, and I think de Montfort was in no delusion concerning the tough quality of those two with whom his fellows would have to deal.

  Abbot Anian was an ascetic of the old, heroic kind, worn to spirit and bone but very durable, and where Llewelyn's interests were at issue, his grey and gentle face was but a weathered scabbard for a steely and resolute mind. For Llewelyn was sometimes at odds with his bishops, whose first loyalty was to the church, and who were in any case more worldly, quarrelsome and litigious men, insistent on rights and privileges which often clashed with those of the prince's under Welsh law, as well as quick to shake the threat of religious sanctions at any who crossed them even on very trivial secular matters. But with all the orders, whether the great Cistercian houses or the older blessed foundations of the clas and college, and the solitary hermitages of those withdrawn from the world, he was always on terms of love, trust and deep respect, like his grandsire before him. To the bishops the vision of a united Wales was in some degree offensive, even heretical, since they drew their authority from outside Wales. But those who were rooted in the land and had chosen the place of their ministry once for all, whether born Welsh or no, had no such severance within them, and were at one with us.