"Well? What news? How is it with your wife?" Surely by then he knew, but there was no keeping the silence for ever. Elizabeth was out on the steps of the hall, anxiously watching them.
"She is dead," said Llewelyn," and I have buried her."
"Oh, God!" said David in a whisper, and clung hard when his brother would have put him by and walked on. "The boy did warn us! But she was in such blossoming health, I could not believe it would go badly. Oh, brother, I am sorry!"
What is there to be said? Every day there is someone, somewhere, to whom the same words have to be offered, and I suppose they serve the same purpose as the words of the burial rites, a kind of incantation reconciling man to man, and man to his fate. It is hard to find any other form.
"She was beautiful and generous and brave!" said David in a sudden helpless rage. "How can God justify it? Even men do not tear out flowers for sport! Oh, Llewelyn, I so grieve for you!"
"I know," said Llewelyn, bearing with him at some cost, for with him all the words were spent, and even the best at little value. "I know, you need say nothing. I take your grief as it is given, and am grateful. She is gone. It's over."
Elizabeth was at his side then, the little thing so prolific and so joyous, teeming like the earth and with as slight effort. Great piteous eyes she fixed upon him, and said, true to her nature: "And the child? The child lives, and is thriving?"
At her he looked with seeing eyes, and even smiled, for she had that singleness and innocence that spoke closely to his heart. "I have a fine daughter," he said, "with eyes like her mother's eyes. Yes, she thrives, she will be beautiful."
"Poor motherless babe!" said Elizabeth with starting tears. "If ever it is needful, I would take her with mine, one more would be no burden, and here she has close and loving kin."
He said that Gwenllian could have no better mother than the mother of all her cousins, wanting her own, but that he dared not for his life take her from Alice and Marion and their waiting-women, who had lost one princess and could not be robbed of a second. And Elizabeth wept, and embraced him, and said he was right to regard their grief, for it must be great indeed. And David looked upon her as she spoke, with eyes fixed and hungry, as though he had but now been taught that worshipped wives can die, and husbands can be left desolate.
Llewelyn, for his part, suffered them as then he suffered all, patient under sympathy which could change nothing, and indignation which could restore him nothing, but with his eyes for ever fixed upon the only passion he had left, and that consecrated to her memory. And as soon as he could he turned Elizabeth aside to her own cares, and shook all the womenfolk bustling in her train, and turned upon David and Tudor, and the captains and commanders who waited apart to know his will.
"I have been absent more than three days," he said, "and much may have happened without my knowledge. Call such of the council as we have at hand. I want full reports from every part. We have struck for a country, and we have a country to keep."
Thus plainly but without emphasis he made clear to us all that he had returned to take upon himself the whole burden of his principality, that this war which had been forced upon him against his will was now irrevocably his war, a national war, and to him as the prince of this nation belonged the supreme command of it. And that "we" he had uttered, though by it he meant to include his brother and all those like-minded in the fight, was nonetheless royal.
"At your orders, every man of us," said David, and went with Tudor to do his bidding.
That afternoon he presided over the council, and David presented him the report of all that had happened in his absence.
"There is indeed news," he said, "of the greatest importance, brought in two days ago, and sent here to Denbigh, naturally, in the belief that it would find you here in person. If I was wrong in not sending it after you to Aber, pardon me the error. I knew it would keep, for it is good news, not bad. All through May and into this month, Gloucester has been building up his forces in the south, in Carmarthen and Dynevor, with orders to reconquer Llandovery and establish Giffard there again, and put the English settlers back into the country round Llanbadarn. They've had no success. A few raids, and some looting, but very little gained. Our people there have held off from pitched battle, rightly, and avoided losses, and struck back wherever they could, staying mainly in the hills and forests. So to the main matter. About the tenth of this month Gloucester sent out a large force from Dynevor to raid towards Carreg Cennen, which they did for some days, and took a great deal of plunder along the valley, but on the way back to Dynevor our nephews on the one side and their allies on the other fell upon them unexpectedly at Llandeilo, and broke them utterly. A great victory, and a great slaughter, and all that booty regained. William of Valence has lost his son there, and a number of knights were killed with him. And if Gloucester has not lost his command, he has his reputation. We have good reason to be pleased, this clash has set him back two months or more."
"How great," asked Llewelyn, "was this force?"
"Rhys Wyndod reckons at least fifteen hundred foot, and maybe a hundred horse, counting Gloucester's own retinue and that of Valence. They left a garrison of fifty or so and a gang of labourers in the shell of Carreg Cennen, as if they meant to repair it and occupy it as a fortress again, but now they'll be hard put to it even to get their men out, much less reinforce them. Rhys can pick them off at leisure."
It was indeed a victory, and promised a respite of some weeks at least. Llewelyn burned, hearing it. "That can also give us breathing space here. They'll not move a man from the south to add to the Chester army, far more likely to send some of the next levies into Ystrad Tywi, and try and hold the position there. Good! Rhys Wyndod and his brothers have done well by us. And what goes forward at Hope?"
"Very little, and very slowly. The companies we left there cannot delay the rebuilding indefinitely, but they are making it slow and costly. I have an eye," said David, "to Hawarden also, for I doubt if that can be held, once Edward gets into motion, but I'll hold it as long as I may. The king has made no move from Chester so far."
"He will not move," said the prince with certainty, "until he gets his ships round Wales and lying off-shore in the Dee. In any case he needs the time. With the numbers he has to feed, and the distance he hopes to take them, he cannot yet have amassed half enough stores of food or arms, or made sure of his lines of transport. He'll be doubly careful of his organisation this time. There's no word yet of the ships being sighted at sea?"
"We may not sight them until they near Lleyn," said Tudor, "but there we shall certainly get news. I doubt if his first fleet is out of the Channel yet."
"Edward will follow his old way," said Llewelyn, "by the new roads to Flint, and so to Rhuddlan. I doubt if we should put ourselves in his way before Flint, but we'll make him pay dear for the miles to Rhuddlan. But since he has the sea, in the end we cannot halt his advance, we can only pin him to the coast. How long have we? Five weeks—six?—before there'll be any action here in the north?"
David reasoned that it would take five weeks at least before the king was ready to attempt anything more than moving up to his two advanced bases, for it would take him all that time to ensure his commisariat and his supply lines, and have his ships at hand.
"And we have all our men in arms and ready," said Llewelyn, "and no prospect for that time of much work for them here. It is not good policy, once Welshmen are roused, to keep them waiting in idleness, their fires burn down if they are not fed. I think we may well make good use of those five or six weeks. If the south is in this disarray, Gloucester discredited, a new commander not yet appointed, and the troops disheartened after Llandeilo, we could do them further hurt while they're shaken, and make sure none of them can be spared to join Edward here. If we can force him to pour in more men in the south, so much the better. They cannot be in two places at once."
"Would you have me go back there?" asked David readily.
"No, your men of the Middle Country know this
region best, and can best hold it if the pressure does begin. Gwynedd beyond Conway he will not reach yet, and if he does—before he does—we can be back with you in three days whenever you call us. I am going myself," said Llewelyn.
His dispositions were made the same day, and those levies of Gwynedd that he proposed to take with him detailed. He had with him then only his own household guard and a small company of horse, and with the rest we mustered two days later at Bala, on our way south.
Cristin came to me in the armoury, the evening before we marched, and wished me godspeed and a safe return. I had not realised until then, being too much concerned with Llewelyn's weal and woe, that I had not laid eyes on Godred since we returned to Denbigh. She moved and spoke and looked with that eased freedom she had when he was absent.
"He's gone with one of David's patrols to Dinas Bran," she said. "They'll be prowling the borders and the Dee valley, you may even run into them on your way south if they happen to be upstream just now. But they'll be back here in a week or two. Dinas Bran is well garrisoned, and the local men are jealous of their privileges. David well understands the border Welsh. He has made himself their pattern, his reputation stands high with them. But I wish to God," she said, suddenly vehement, "he had been content to be a good husband and father, and let go even of Hope in the shire-court if he had to. Oh, Samson, I dread the ending! I've seen Edward, as you have, and watched how he works. When we were in England, under his protection, I got to know that monumental face. Where his sovereignty is touched, his supremacy challenged, there is no compassion there at all, no human kindness. Whoever presumes to have rights level with his, is traitor and blasphemer. God knows he cannot help it, God made him so! But why?
I said that doubtless God had his reasons, who balanced all and apportioned all, but I saw by her face that she questioned whether the balance was always just or the apportioning equitable.
"He has his own land," she said, "why must he also grasp at everything within his reach? Oh, he preferred law to the sword, while he was allowed the choice, it costs him less and is just as effective, if slower. But sooner or later, I tell you truly, he would have begun to devour us, by one means or another. He is a gluttonous appetite, and nothing enclosed in the same seas with him will be safe from him in the end. So I am wrong to blame David for striking first. It would have come, whether he had held his hand or no. He may even have done Wales good service by forcing the issue now, before Edward was quite ready."
I had been thinking much the same, and admitted it. And now there was nothing for us but to fight to the end with everything we had, and deserve victory, and if we could, wrest it from Edward and from God himself at whatever cost in our lives and souls.
"Do you know, Samson," said Cristin, drawing close to me and raising to my face great eyes purple almost to blackness in the dim light within the armoury, "what I have been thinking? It may well be a cowardly thought that I should put away, but it will not leave my mind. It is there every time I look at Elizabeth, or watch the children playing. In the grief I feel for your princess it mingles always, like a voice overriding grief. If we fail, she at least is safe. There is nothing Edward can do now to hurt Eleanor. She is with God, and out of his reach."
On the way south to Bala we made a single night camp after we had crossed the Dee, for the weather was still so hot and fine that it was pleasure to lie out in open woods, above the grassy bank of a tributary stream that offered cool bathing after the heat of the day. The water came down clear and fast from the Berwyns, and the bracken on the slopes above was full green and half-furled, and the gorse in the gullies deepest gold. In the dusk I went some way along the waterside to stretch my legs after riding, and left all the sounds of the camp behind me.
I was thinking, none too happily, of all that Cristin had said, for there was that about her at times that reminded me of my mother, who had strange insights, and knew things the rest of us were not permitted to know. And it was true, and in my heart I knew it, that Edward's power, once roused, was far greater than anything we could muster, at least in arms and men and ships and horses, and against these weapons truth and justice seemed to carry but little weight. And still I feared the ancient enemy, bred from old loyalties and old customs that took no count of the idea of a nation. For we knew only too well that Edward had already issued the usual orders to his bailiffs and officers everywhere, to receive such of the Welsh as would come to the king's peace, and show them grace. When the fight became bitter and the way hard, many might well heed that offer. But this time there was a sinister change, for the offer of clemency applied only to the common people. For their leaders there was to be no such mercy. And to me it seemed that this was more than a mere matter of policy, to sift the genuineness of those captains who sued for grace, before granting it. No, it was the king's warning to us that this time he meant to sever the Welsh from their own princes and barons, and take them bodily into his own administration.
And like Cristin, I could not but feel it as a kind of victory that the princess, at least, was safe for ever, that Edward had not and never again would have any power to touch or trouble her. But never could I face that thought without feeling like a traitor to her, for when had she ever turned her back upon any of the battles and agonies of living, or thought it better to be in quietude and hide from the storm? She would rather have been here at Llewelyn's side if she could, and shared every danger that threatened him. What right had I to be grateful for the safety she would have rejected with contempt? Yes, even knowing Edward as Cristin knew him, and having no illusions concerning the malignant extremes of which he was capable?
Her death was back with me in all its bitterness as I stood by the little river, peering down into the eddies that span about its pebbly bed under the overhanging turf of the bank. The drier grass on the uplands beyond was thick and spongy, and the little knot of riders that passed along the ridge at some distance made no sound. It was not until one of them wheeled out of line and began to wind his way down the slope, and the jingle of his harness reached me, that I looked up.
There were four of them, in David's livery, riding the crest above the Dee on patrol from Dinas Bran. Three had kept their station on the ridge, and were walking their horses easily eastward towards the castle, and the fourth, leaning lightly back in the saddle, was turning his mount with casual pressure of his knees down the slope, towards the river-bank opposite where I stood. And the fourth was Godred.
It was so long since he had approached me of his own will that I was curious, and stood to watch his approach warily enough, but without animosity. Whether we would or not, we were comrades in arms. His eyes were on me, and he was grinning in that private way he had, as if only he knew and could savour the sour joke the world presented to view. The rein lay easy in his hand, only his knees guided his thickset pony down the rough descent. Godred rode well, and knew it.
"Well, well!" he said, checking the pony on the level turf across the water from me. "It is you! I thought I should know that priestly tilt of the head. So those were the prince's turfed fires we saw downstream. They show, Samson, my friend, you'd be at an enemy's disposal with no better care than that."
"With you between us and the border," I said, "what need have we to fear an enemy? Five leagues at least to Oswestry and the Berwyns in between, besides your good sword. No prince was ever safer."
"Pleasant," he said, idling along the edge of the water and eyeing me with that small curl of his mouth that was barely a smile, "pleasant indeed to know you have such faith in me. And how did you leave Cristin, when you rode from Denbigh? In good spirits?"
"As good as the rest of us," I said. "We're none of us making merry."
"Shame," he said, "that her best and truest friend should be forced to leave her, just when her husband's away. She'll be quiet and solitary without the both of us." And his light, sweet voice turned sharp as gall, yet soft as silk, as it always did when he was casting for me as for a fish. And I marvelled, for this he had not
ventured of late, I had thought because his hatred had taken a more extreme turn that found no pleasure in baiting me, but perhaps, after all, rather because he had some qualms as to its safety. For now the river was between us, and he licked his lips, savouring the steps by which he tested how far he could go.
"Hardly quiet or solitary," I said, "with eight children round her skins and another nurseling on the way." For Elizabeth was also with child, her normal and happiest state. And the first and last fruit of love had been the death of Eleanor! I was thinking only of that sorrow, still so large and heavy on my heart, and did not consider how he might take what I said to himself, and count it as a stab in return for those he dealt out, seeing his own son had been still-born. It was perhaps the only grief he ever felt that was not all on his own account, and I had not meant to revive it.
"Some can breed, and some cannot," he said, showing his even teeth in a snarling smile. "Like the prince, poor soul! I hear he's lost his wife, and got him a daughter. Well, there's always a grain of good in every evil. Take heart, Samson, there's room again in his confidence for another favourite now, your nose may be back in joint soon enough. Even room in his bedchamber for a little sweet music at nights!" He laughed, seeing me stiffen, for though he never believed the foulness he invented, nor used it upon any but me, and therefore I could let it go by me with little feeling but contempt, yet there was a bound set to what my heart could endure at this time from him or from any.