So he let her have her way, though not quite easy about her. But she shone so bright in those last days before we left that he was cheered and reassured. Whatever she wanted he would do, even if it severed him from her for as long as ten or fifteen days. As for me, I wondered, for it needed a powerful motive to cause her to leave his side, however little he, in his humility, questioned her ability to live without him so long. And perhaps I watched her even more devoutly than usual in those days, and noted that she kept her own apartment until well into the morning, upon various pretexts. But on the morning that we rode for Radnor she came down early to speed us on our way, and I saw her at the turn of the stairway pause and hold by the wall a moment, and marvelled at her look, for her cheeks were pale and her eyes heavy, and yet her lips so smiling, and her eyes so glad and hopeful when she believed no man was watching her.
And as I gazed, she laid her hand upon her body under the heart, and that was so tender and protective a caress that my heart opened and swelled with knowledge, and I stood so lost in enlightenment that I forgot to take myself out of her sight, but was still standing like a man in a dream when she came on down the stair.
Seeing me, she checked only for an instant, startled, and then smiled in content, and came on more slowly. And as she came she opened her eyes wide and wonderfully to let me into her mind, and laid a finger to her lips. So I understood what she felt no need to say, that she was not yet sure, that by the time he returned to her in Bala she would be sure, and then her news would crown his joy if he came triumphant, and be the blessed consolation for all losses if fate and Edward still denied him justice.
Thus she passed by me silently, and went out into the inner ward to kiss Llewelyn and speed him on his way. And I, as she had entreated me, held my peace and followed after like a biddable child.
At Radnor we had a hospitable welcome from Roger Mortimer and his lady, who was a de Breos, marcher through and through, like her husband. This cousin of my lord's, his elder by some years, was a gaunt, dark, fiery person, loud-voiced and impetuous, but large of mind, too, with true feeling for his lands and his people, who lay between Wales and England, torn both ways when there was dispute, and never utterly at home in either camp. There were two sons of the house, Edmund the heir, and Roger the younger, able, unchancy young men, like so many marcher sons not yet possessed of their own lands, and therefore full of all the enterprise and daring necessary to their kind, without the responsibility their father carried. They featured rather their mother, being fairer in colouring and slighter in build, while the lord of Wigmore and Radnor himself showed a strong resemblance to his Welsh grandsire, Llewelyn Fawr, in the shaping of his bold, thrusting bones and the taut flesh that covered them, in his hawk-nose, and the deep, bright caverns of his eyes. He was the blacker of the two, and the leaner, but when he sat beside Llewelyn at the high table the mark of their great forebear was clear in them both, and they might almost have been brothers.
What the lord of Radnor had to propose to his cousin we did not at first learn, though clearly he was blazingly scornful and bitterly resentful of Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn's overweening presumption, and the liberties that highly successful renegade took even with chancellor and king. But Roger's approaches were held in check until we who were bound to appear at Montgomery on the sixth of October had set out for that royal town. We went in high hopes, not because we were too easily elated and too trusting of Edward's honesty, but because we had that invaluable precedent of Mortimer's successful defence by Welsh law to prop us, and were willing to whip it out and flourish it before Hopton or any other royal justice if he barred our way. It was so recent that it could hardly be outweighed by any other precedent. We felt we had a shield that could not be penetrated even by Edward's arrows.
In this high mood we rode, I but a private observer for my lord, up the winding hill through the town of Montgomery, and out on to the high rock where the castle stands, and into the wards, and thence, having committed our mounts to the grooms, into the great hall.
There was no knowing from Hopton's bland face whether he had his orders in advance, as we thought probable, or even if he had, what they were, and we held our breath when Master William got up to make his formal claim on Llewelyn's behalf to the whole land of Arwystli, and the land between the Dovey and the Dulas, and that by Welsh law, as was implied from the opening of the cause, now nearly four years past.
When he sat down, that was the moment for Griffith to make his protest and claim the common law, so setting the old cycle revolving helplessly once again for four years more, or for the bench to demur that the rival claims of the two systems had never yet been settled. We waited, and Hopton sat mute, courteously waiting for the defendant to reply, either in person or by his attorney. The pause was long, I think now intentionally long, and we drew cautious breath and knew that one peril had passed. The Mortimer precedent was too recent and too famous to be denied, every man in the court knew of it. We felt safe then. No one was going to deny us Welsh law, and invite the obvious rejoinder. Yet I wondered, even before a word was said, why Griffith, hunched and hugging himself behind his sombre troop, had a small tight grin on his face, as though he enjoyed a joke very private and sharply sweet of taste.
For my part, I was shaken when he got up himself to make his counter-plea, instead of leaving it to his attorney. He hitched his furred gown about him at leisure, and ran a sharp glance along the line of us where we sat, and I dreaded then that after all he had something still hidden in that wide sleeve of his, but could not guess what it would be.
"If it please the court," he said, all reason and sweetness, "I am willing and ready to answer to the plea, in the proper form, and will not dispute the manner of procedure but in one point. Since the prince of Wales and I myself are both barons of the king, I ought not to answer unless the lord prince brings a writ to court."
We did not at first understand why he should be in such secret glee at having this defence in hand, for it sounded feeble enough and Master William rose to answer it, I think, in as great innocence as we.
"The prince's writ," he said, "was duly taken out and delivered into this court when this plea was begun. The date was the seventeenth day of February of the king's sixth regnal year. I myself delivered it."
Hopton pondered the date, or affected to, and said: "That was not, I think, before the present bench? I was not then in office."
"It was before Master Ralph de Fremingham," said the old man, still confident. That was the first presiding justice of this commission for east Wales, who held office but a few months, and was removed in somewhat dubious circumstances.
"We have no record of this writ," said Hopton smoothly, "and since the defendant pleads that as a baron he should not answer without a writ, it seems that we cannot proceed at this sitting, but must make enquiry further to try and recover it."
Now the pattern of deceit began to appear all too clearly, for courts surely keep records, and those records should be complete, and even if the clerking of the Hopton commission proved inefficient, the writ must have been listed in the chancery rolls. It should have been a simple matter enough to refer to chancery and prove the issue, though it was a reflection upon Hopton himself that such a reference should have been necessary. But he made no mention of chancery, and no apology for his inability to prove the writ by the archives of his own court.
"My colleagues," said Master William, "will bear witness that I brought and handed over the prince's writ at the first hearing. It must be in existence, and it should not be impossible to find it. I must protest against any further delay."
"It is regrettable," said Hopton magisterially, as though it reflected not at all upon him, "but since we have not the writ, and cannot proceed without it, there is no other course open to the bench but to adjourn until it can be recovered." And he ordered that word should be sent to Ralph de Fremingham, to enquire if he held the writ and the opening of the process, and bid him send them into court the eighth day of Dec
ember, by which date he trusted to be able to proceed with the case. And on that, with Griffith grinning like a gargoyle on a tower, Hopton adjourned the plea until December.
As for us, we went out dashed into a new kind of despair, not because the pretext in this case was itself so grave a matter, for writs can be taken out a second time if need arise, but because it came as a plain indication that however many obstacles we overcame in this cause, there would always be others raised to baulk us. The plain truth was, that Edward had served notice upon the prince that whatever happened, he should never have Arwystli.
"In the name of God," said Adam, as we went dispiritedly to the stables for our horses, "why should Fremingham have that or any other writ, or any part of the records? Is that how they run their courts, and Edward so proud of his gift for law? In Wales we should be ashamed of such wretched clerking."
"He will not and cannot have it," said Master William bleakly. "He may very well recollect that it was brought, and say so, but of course he'll say he has kept none of the records in his hands, and why should he? And he at least will be telling the truth. The prince's original writ will never be seen again. Nor, I warrant, will the entry of that first hearing survive long in the roll of the court after this, even if it has not already been removed. No, it is not a mere delay of two months they've secured by this stratagem, it is the time it takes to swear out a new writ from chancery and begin the process at law all over again. If," he said heavily, "the prince's heart can stand so grievous a mockery and humiliation. He has been bled slowly of his heart's-blood for years. Somewhere there is an end to what even the saints themselves can bear."
CHAPTER IV
That lamentable news we took back to Llewelyn at Radnor with very heavy hearts. He knew from our faces not only that his just hopes were dashed yet again, but that they would always be dashed, for the hands that held supreme power had themselves set up an impassable barrier against them, in Edward's interest and Edward's will.
He heard us in silence to the end, and then with an equable voice and a face chilled and stony said some words of reassurance and comfort to the old man, whose voice trembled in the telling, and who ended nearly in tears. Then he commended him for his courage and pertinacity in a very unrewarding cause, and dismissed him gently, and his colleagues with him. But he asked me to stay. We had found him closeted with Mortimer when we came, and there was then no other left in the room but we three and Roger's chaplain and secretary. The silence hung heavy upon us all for a while, and Mortimer leaned his elbows upon the table and watched his cousin's face doubtfully, as Llewelyn sat straight and still in his chair, following with fixed eyes the departure of an old regard.
Remembering, I find it astonishing how often his respect and liking for Edward received wounds that might well have been mortal, and yet revived to live again. Even after this, I know he had some illusions left, and still believed there were things to which Edward would not stoop. It took another and a stranger stroke, perhaps the only one Edward ever struck at him in innocence, to give his lingering liking the coup de grâce.
When the prince had thus sat still and alone among us some while, Mortimer reached out a lean hand and grasped him by the shoulder. "You are used very shabbily," he said bluntly, "and I am sorry for it. I tell you openly, if you had beaten Griffith at his own game, and whipped Arwystli from under his nose, I should have been as happy about it even as you. The man is insufferable to me and to many."
Llewelyn stirred into life again, the dark colour flooding back into his face. "Unhappily not so to the king," he said harshly.
"He has been useful," said Mortimer, and shrugged.
"In helping to contain and discipline me," said Llewelyn remorselessly, "and is still being used to the same end."
"His plea will stand," warned Mortimer with compunction. "The law will uphold him, he has a right to demur at answering without a writ. I don't presume to guess who was obliging enough to make away with it for him, since he could hardly get at it himself. As to the king's Grace, he is my liege, and I'll say no word of him. But what
will you do now? Will you send your men to court in December?"
"To be subjected again to what they have suffered so often on my behalf? No! I'll rather write yet again to the king, and deal directly with him, though in my heart I know it will be fruitless. At least he shall know that if I am cheated, I know it, and despise the act and the cheat."
Mortimer got up abruptly and began to pace the room, making two or three rapid prowls about the table, until he halted as suddenly behind Llewelyn's chair, and dropped both hands upon his shoulders. "I take it," said he, "that we are in confidence here?"
"You may trust Samson as you trust me," said Llewelyn.
"And that I do," he said heartily, "for though we've fought often enough and hard enough, I should be a fool indeed if I thought you could ever fight unfairly, with eyes in your head like yours. I am more likely to do a little conniving and insinuating myself, and I'm no great hand at it, either. I've been long in coming at what I had to say to you, chiefly by reason of this cause of yours. I waited to see what tricks Griffith would shake out of his sleeve this time, and whether you and I were as close in enmity to him as I thought. It seems you have even better reason than I to man your defences against him. But make no mistake, he has not done with me, either, he is only waiting for another chance. There's no end to his effrontery, and none to his greed. I am in fealty to the king, and I am his man, and there's an end of it, whether all his acts seem good to me or whether they do not. But as to Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, he is a very different matter. You and I have a common enemy, and a common use for reliable allies. Why should not we two enter into a treaty of alliance? To support and aid each other in all matters whatsoever, saving only our fealty to Edward? Old foes or not, we've dealt honestly with each other, and we come of the same blood, and I'm no happier when you fall victim to an overweening trickster than when the same snake comes striking at my heels. What do you say?"
"I say," said Llewelyn, flushed with surprise, for he had not guessed at this, and it had a warmth and candour about it that came very gratefully to him then, "that there's never an Englishman with whom I would rather be on good terms, and never one I'd rather have to keep my back against a false world. I have an oath of fealty to keep, like you, but you of all men are never likely to lead me into imperilling that. Yes! I say yes, such a pact I'll gladly make with you. As solemnly as you will."
"I mean it solemnly," said Mortimer. "I have a soul to stake, and I'm willing to take that load upon me, if you are."
"In time of peace?" said Llewelyn. "On what terms?"
"Peace and war and all," said Mortimer hardly. "Why not? Saving our vows to Edward, that goes without saying."
Llewelyn considered, and saw in his mind an embattled neighbour to Arwystli, and neighbour to him if ever he won Arwystli, a strong line of defence deep into mid-Wales, a way into the south. All the prohibitions against enlargement he knew, and all the dangers barring his way, and yet the offer was honest and greatly to be desired, and the ally, impetuous and ungovernable as he was, honest to the backbone. And that was pure delight to him, after so much dishonesty. He said: "Saving
our vows, yours and mine both, yes! I am your man, if you are mine!"
It was but three days later that they drew up between them, and sealed with the most solemn sanctions, their treaty of mutual assistance and perpetual peace and accord against all enemies, saving only their obligations to King Edward, and in Roger's case also to the Lord Edmund, the king's brother, under pain of excommunication if they failed of their promises. The bishops of Hereford and St. Asaph took cognisance of their vows, which bound them, as in peace, so in war, the one to the other.
Thus those cousins, one half-English, half-Welsh, the other wholly Welsh, were brought together by their mutual hostility to Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, and their common detestation of greed, malice and falsity. And fortified with this pledge, and embittered and stiffened
by the duplicity of Edward's court at Montgomery, we turned homeward in mid-October, to meet with Eleanor at Bala.
She came out to the gate of the maenol to meet us when we rode in, having caused the watch on the wall to notify her as soon as the prince's banners were seen in the distance. She was bravely adorned, and so beautiful with joy that the heart ached, beholding her. She walked like a queen, erect and ceremonious, her head raised and her gaze high and bright, as though she had been a crystal cup full to the brim of magical wine, and must not shake one drop from the rim.
When he set eyes on her he trembled and checked his horse, knowing that something miraculous had befallen her, but not knowing what it could be, and so dazzled that he had no heart to question or wonder. I was close at his side, and I saw the severity and sadness and dour resolution cast out of him in a moment, as though a fresh wind had blown drifts of cobweb and mist away, and left him, too, bright as the sun with the reflection of her certainty.
He lighted down to her like a man in a dream, and took her face between his hands and held her so, gazing at her face for a long time before he kissed. And she wound her arms about his body and strongly embraced him, and neither of them had a word to say, not then nor all the while they walked together, hand in hand, back into the maenol. On that occasion she did not welcome him home in words, for there was no need when her every look and movement and every thread of her vestments was a prince's welcome. Nor did he feel any wish to ask how she did, and how she had done those days without him, for that, too, was in her face. And if she had seen in his distant countenance, before he was transfigured, how his affairs had sped at Montgomery, she spared to ask and remind him, for she had other plans.