The Heirs of Owain Glyndwr (3 page)

PART 1

RHAN 1

4

October 1961

After some forty years,
it was not easy for Madog to hand the shop over to anyone else, especially to someone about whom he knew so little. The
Siop Llyfrau'r Tywysog
had been his life for so long that he could hardly imagine any other, including the life of retirement he was about to embark on. Throughout those long years, on six days of every week, barring Christmas, New Year and short family holidays, he opened religiously at 9 o'clock in the morning. He chatted with delivery drivers, the postman, and customers, ate a sandwich for lunch at his desk, and sometimes even sold a few books. Once or twice a week, he took the contents of the till to the bank, barring a few pounds and some change for a float. When he closed the shop at 6 o'clock, he climbed the stairs to the flat above the shop, where he lived. When he looked back over those years, much of the time was a blur. There were special days which stood out. But there were also so many days, spent in the same way, of which he had no memory at all, which ran together and merged into each other without differentiation, like paints on a watercolour left out in the rain.

Nonetheless, he could boast of a life's work well done. The shop was a modest enough establishment. The faded brown sign above the front window offered only the most basic information – the name of the
Tywysog
itself, Madog's name as the proprietor, and a telephone number. But in an age of struggling independent book shops, the
Tywysog
was alive and well, and known far and wide, even to many outside Wales. Even after all those years, his spirit willed him to carry on. But he was getting older, and his arthritis was making it more difficult to get around, especially to climb the steep flight of stairs up to the flat. If Rhiannon had still been with him, he might have managed for longer, but she had been gone for almost ten years now. His daughter and son-in-law had more than enough space for him in their house in Cardigan, and they had been trying to persuade him to sell up and come to live with them there ever since Rhiannon had passed. He had resisted for as long as he could, but he had always known that, eventually, the time for resistance would end, and now it had.

The speed with which the sale went through came as a surprise, though, if he was honest, not a wholly welcome one; a stubborn part of him secretly hoped that the process of sale would drag on and allow him to linger for a little while longer. Still, the ease with which the sale was accomplished, and the absence of any haggling over the asking price, came as a relief and seemed to him to be some vindication of the work he had put into the shop over so many years.

When he first met Trevor Hughes, Madog was not sure whether he was the man the
Tywysog
needed. He certainly had the credentials. He had worked for many years at Foyles in London, and his knowledge of books and the book trade could, therefore, be taken for granted. He spoke Welsh, of course. That was essential. Welsh was the language of everyday discourse at the
Tywysog
. English was tolerated politely when spoken by tourists, and even when spoken by transplanted newcomers to Caernarfon; and with commendable broad-mindedness, the shop sold books in both languages. But Welsh was the heart and soul of the
Tywysog
, and Madog would never have sold the shop to anyone who was a non-speaker. Trevor's Welsh was not the best or the most fluent Madog had ever heard, and he had a South Wales accent, which sometimes meant you had to concentrate on what he was saying if you were a native of the North. But you couldn't blame him for that. His parents were from Cardiff and they had been moved away from Wales during the War, when his father worked for the Home Office. Trevor had spent most of his life in England and, given that history, his Welsh was by no means bad. After a few weeks, he would be speaking as though he had lived his whole life in Caernarfon. The locals would see to that.

All the same, Madog had a doubt at the back of his mind. It was a doubt which concerned, not Trevor's ability to run a book shop, but his commitment to what the
Tywysog
stood for: its willingness to provide a platform for voices raised in support of controversial and uncomfortable causes, voices outside the political mainstream, even voices raised in support of the grail of independence. It was a commitment which had always been low key and understated and which mainly inhabited the shop's basement. But it was real, and if that commitment left the
Tywysog
with Madog, there would be some who would not forgive him for selling to the wrong buyer. It was a doubt he could not raise with Trevor directly, and one he certainly could not raise with his agent, who was absurdly pleased with himself for landing a buyer who wanted to complete as soon as possible and who did not even need a loan to fund the purchase. Madog reassured himself with the thought that Trevor could not possibly be ignorant of what the
Tywysog
stood for. He was knowledgeable about the shop and he was obviously very keen to take it on. That would have to be a sufficient guarantee.

When it came to the painful procedure of moving out, Trevor put no pressure on Madog at all. He had travelled to Caernarfon a week before he was due to take possession, and had installed himself at the Black Boy Inn, just a couple of hundred yards along
Stryd y Plas
– Palace Street – from the
Tywysog
. He told Madog to take all the time he needed. He allowed Madog to give him his personal tour of the shop, even though he had seen all there was to see when the agent had showed it to him; and he listened attentively to Madog's stories of the special days, days when Welsh politicians, writers, international rugby players, and celebrities such as Richard Burton, had visited him to buy a book, or simply to hear Welsh well spoken. He even offered to help with the packing, if needed, but Madog had his daughter to help him, and he preferred to keep that last intimacy within the family. When the day came, Madog took one last look, remembering the day when he had first entered the shop with Rhiannon, then turned his back and walked away.

5

After 5 o'clock on
the afternoon when Madog left, when it was already dark and there were storm clouds moving in from the Menai Strait, Trevor Hughes walked unhurriedly along
Stryd y Plas
from the Black Boy Inn to the
Siop Llyfrau'r Tywysog.
He took his new set of keys from his coat pocket, the key ring still bearing the agent's tag with the address written on it, opened the door of the shop, switched on the lights, then turned and locked the door. He looked around him. The shelves were still fully stocked, and the notice board by the door was still filled with notices advertising local events, from theatrical productions and concerts to readings of Welsh poetry and harp recitals. Others advertised Welsh lessons and rented accommodation. As promised, Madog had left his directory of phone numbers, suppliers, other book shops, publishers, and important customers. The space at the back of the shop for making tea was still fully equipped. But there was an emptiness, a profound silence, about the place, and he wished very much that it was already 9 o'clock the following morning, when there would be daylight and when the
Tywysog
would have people browsing and chatting again.

He began at the top, with the flat. As he had expected, there was no trace of Madog left, but there was a card with red roses on the front, in which someone, the daughter, he suspected – the hand was too young for Madog, and in any case did not match the phone directory – had written a warm message of welcome in Welsh. Standing beside it was a bottle of white wine. He put the card up on the mantelpiece in the living room, and the wine in the small fridge in the kitchen, a recent acquisition Madog had made at his daughter's insistence and against his better judgment, he having lived without such a contraption for most of his life. The living room and bedroom were just about large enough for Trevor's needs. The kitchen and bathroom were small, but functional. There was a very small storage area off the bedroom. Trevor had made no decision about how long he would occupy the flat. Nowhere near as long as Madog had: that was certain. It was a pleasant enough flat, and obviously convenient, but he would lose his mind eventually. He could not comprehend how the old man could have endured being cooped up in such a small place for so many years, with no home away from work. Inertia, perhaps? Being there so long that moving somehow seemed impossible? He would not fall into the same trap. But there was time enough to think about that.

Locking the door of the flat, he walked downstairs to the upper floor of the shop. This, according to Madog, was where the more serious books were kept. A large section was devoted to Welsh historical and literary works, with dictionaries, grammar books, and books about topics of cultural interest, such as national monuments, the National University of Wales, and Welsh music, including a history of the National Anthem. Another section contained poetry and novels in Welsh. But there was also a decent-size English section with English and American literary classics from Dickens to Scott Fitzgerald, and a smaller collection of philosophical works, translations of Plato and Aristotle, works by Locke, Hobbes and John Stuart Mill. In the middle of the room stood a large rectangular table and several chairs, where customers could sit and read a variety of Welsh and English periodicals.

On the ground floor was a wide variety of books of general interest, including travel books, biographies and autobiographies of well-known personalities, books about sports and hobbies, cooking and diets, and crime and espionage novels of every kind. Opposite the desk at the front of the shop was a selection of records featuring Welsh music, from traditional choirs to brass bands, operatic soloists to contemporary rock groups.

A door at the rear, which was kept locked, led down to the basement.

Madog had taken him down to the basement, but he had seemed reluctant to talk about it in any detail, almost as if he assumed that Trevor already knew what was to be found there. To some extent, in a general sense, he did. It was no secret that the
Tywysog
catered for those with nationalist views, including some at the extreme end of the spectrum. Trevor was aware that it was a favourite haunt of activists, some of whom had interests that went beyond conventional politics. So, somewhere, there had to be some books, periodicals and pamphlets which would be of interest to this kind of customer, the kind of stuff Madog presumably thought was better locked away in the basement – and certainly there had been no sign of any such materials on the two floors above. That made sense. You wouldn't want to risk upsetting the more conventional customers, he reflected. It was rather like having a stash of pornography. You would keep it hidden away in a discreet place, to be revealed only on request.

Madog had whisked him around at such a speed that he had not been able to study the contents of the basement to confirm his assumptions. Now, he took his time, going slowly from bookcase to bookcase. The basement was less organised than the two above-ground floors. It had no signs to divide it into sections, or to provide a customer looking for something specific with a hint about where it might be found. Trevor speculated that those interested in the materials in the basement had to ask Madog to show them. In any case, there was no access to the basement unless Madog unlocked the door.

Two large bookcases held books and privately printed pamphlets about Welsh nationalism dating from the nineteenth century and going forward. Many were in a poor condition, some even bearing traces of mildew, and looked as though they had been stored in the slightly damp atmosphere of the basement for rather too long. In two more bookcases were treatises dealing with historical subjects. A number concerned the historic princes of Wales – fair enough, given the shop's name, Trevor thought – and the princely houses of Gwynedd and Powys. There were biographies of Owain Glyndŵr, some professionally published, and others which might have been someone's doctoral thesis, or papers published by a private society. Several volumes were diatribes against Edward I for his military invasion of Wales, his use of the castles at Caernarfon and elsewhere in North Wales as bastions of English power, and his blatant treachery in foisting his new-born infant son on the Welsh as their prince. A quick glance inside suggested that the authors' opinion of the British monarchy since Edward I was not a great deal better than their opinion of the invader himself. A number railed against the Investiture of the future Edward VIII at Caernarfon Castle in 1911 as a further violation of the integrity of the Welsh nation.

A handsome wooden cabinet stood against the back wall of the basement. It had three drawers, all of which were locked. Trevor examined his key ring again. He had wondered what the smallest of the four keys he had been given was for but, despite reminding himself several times, he had somehow forgotten to ask either Madog or the agent. Now he knew. He opened the cabinet gingerly and began to sift through the contents. These contents did not exactly come as a surprise, but they were disturbing, nonetheless. The cabinet contained a number of military-issue technical documents for weapons, mostly high-velocity rifles and side-arms, but also one or two devoted to hand grenades. There were also some items, quite obviously not military-issue, privately and badly typed on cheap paper, which contained some very specific instructions for making your own explosive devices. They were mostly in English, although one or two were in German. He spent a few minutes flicking through them. Trevor was no expert on such things, but even to his eye the diagrams seemed crude and simplistic, the kind of thing which would be at least as dangerous to someone making or activating the device, as to anyone against whom the maker might try to use it. Yet there they were, in a cabinet in what was now his basement. He locked the cabinet before making his way back upstairs.