The Brothers of Gwynedd

  "But they still intend," I said, "to send a delegation to Rome to try to get easier terms for the king? And to ask for a papal legate to come over and help in the settlement?"

  "They intend, yes. But the pope has shown no relenting yet, and if Aymer is turned out of his bishopric that won't sweeten him. On the whole," said Cynan with chilly cynicism, "the pope has done very well out of holding our poor wriggling king to his bond. If he has not ousted the Hohenstaufen from Sicily, he has got half his crippling debts in the business paid by English tenths and aids. Never trouble about English pockets and English grievances, but leave them to it, take your truce home, and hope to keep it refurbished every year at their expense. What has Wales to do in this dispute but profit from it?"

  That was good enough sense, but either I had outgrown my own ideas of the world and the state during this stay in Oxford, or else some disturbing new vision that troubled our content had journeyed to Aber with young Henry de Montfort, and caused both Llewelyn and me to sicken with the same obscure longing. For surely those weighty men who had tried and were still trying to amend the England they lived in had seen a vision that had application even for us in Wales. True, our society was utterly different in its organisation from theirs, yet it could not remain utterly separate. The England we rubbed shoulders with in the marches was an abrasive force, and it mattered to us what manner of England it was. All the more since we must, in a changing world, adapt to it and borrow from it, for no border severs man from man, or one manner of living totally from another.

  So I asked what was ever on my mind: "And the earl of Leicester? What is his stand?"

  "His stand is upon the whole reform, and nothing less. He sees an England remade, where all members work together for the common good, guided by a ray of the spirit emanating from the pope, and one in a Christendom made in the same mould of service and selflessness. Never stare so," said Cynan, smiling somewhat bitterly, for indeed I had turned to examine him narrowly at this unexpected utterance. "I can recognise a saint when I see one, and a demon, too, and Earl Simon is both—or just falls short of both, and fits together the two halves of him into something unique among men. This is a man who will be cheated of a hundred marks rather than owe one. But also he will exact the last mark owing to him, or, even more strenously, to his lady, or die still dunning the debtor. He has had saints to his teachers, like Bishop Robert of Lincoln, and both his saint and his demon have drunk deep of them, and been exalted. He is all pride, and all humility. The king dreads him, and Friar Adam Marsh reproves him for his moods and his depressions, and is heeded as reverently as by a raw novice. But what can the common human experience do with a force of nature but take refuge from it? He will stand fast, but in the end he will stand alone."

  I said: "And I have never seen him!" Almost I added that I had never seen Cynan until now, for he spoke with a tongue not his own, inflamed by the spirit. And I had thought him a clever, loyal, limited exile, holding fast to an ideal of home for his own self-respect. "I must see this man," I said, "before I leave Oxford."

  "You shall," said Cynan.

  He took me—so simple it was—to the great church of St. Frideswide, to the chapel where her tomb was, forbidden to kings. That same night we went there, the light already failing, and the lamps about the tomb made a clear reddish radiance. We stood in the darkest corner of the chapel, and there were others going and coming, so that we were in no way significant, and no man marked us.

  A man came in from the evening, through the dark of the church into the ruddy light of the lamps, and went without haste to kneel at the tomb. Though he was unattended, there was no need to question if he were noble, and though he was soberly clad, dark-coloured and plain, his plainness had its own splendour. And when he was kneeling, upright and still with linked hands before his face, I had him in profile and saw him clearly. He was no taller than your middling tall man, he had thick shoulders and a powerful body, compact and at peace with itself, at least at this hour. For all his movements, and after, his stillness, were whole and harmonious. When he was not at worship, I could well imagine that same sturdy body knotted into tensions lesser men never know. The linked hands held so still I saw every sinew. They were large, strong and intense, of a braced sensitivity that caused my own hands to clench and quiver. And the head was a bronze head, cropped, naked, marvellous, like a Roman emperor of the nobler sort, with large, bright bone thrusting through flesh and skin and brown, glowing hair, that clung like a beast's rich fell upon the quiet skull. His face was shaven clean like a monk, and it seemed that it could not be otherwise, so pure was the line that framed it, and so fiercely still. He had great, loftily-arched eyelids closed over large eyes, like a prince already carven on a tomb, and a wide, austere, feeling mouth that formed the measured phrases of prayer with fine and private movements, and under this generous mouth a generous jaw graven in gold by the lamps about him.

  Cynan said in my ear: "You have your wish."

  It was not needful to tell me, the print of his legend was deep and clear upon him, and the young Norman vigour I had seen in his son Henry was but the lesser and lighter promise of what I saw now, yet the likeness was marked. Once seen, even at a distance there could never again be any mistaking this man for other than the earl of Leicester.

  We watched until he ended his prayer. When he opened his eyes, the great lids rolling back from them into the burnished sockets of bone, they were so large and so straight of gaze that they seemed prominent, though they were deeply set. Their colour could not be determined there in the church; what they had was rather a burning clarity. If, as they said, the king owned he was afraid of him, I think what he meant was rather the holy dread that small, spiral men feel in the presence of the towering and upright. And surely it was the king's saving grace that he could not only feel but confess it. This man might have fears, too, an obligation failed, a principle lowered, a point of honour in doubt, but never of another man.

  So we watched him rise from his knees, not with the spring of youth, for he was approaching his fiftieth year, but with a solid, powerful thrust, and pace firmly out of the chapel and out of our sight. And Cynan said: "Who knows but some day men will make pilgrimages to his tomb? They might get a better hearing from him than from St. Frideswide!"

  I saw Earl Simon again, the day we rode from Oxford, for he came in courtesy to bid farewell to the envoys. Seen by day, his eyes appeared a deep and luminous grey, more daunting than the blue gaze of his son's innocence, because the father was not innocent, but pure, and that is a more terrible and wonderful thing. Strange to be seen, there followed at his elbow one more accustomed to be followed, and hung attentive on his words and looks at every move. And that was something I had not looked for in the Lord Edward, the heir of England. When it was fixed upon Earl Simon's face, even that veiled left eye opened wide, and the lofty stone face quickened into warmth. Then I understood that the spell the earl had cast upon me by St. Frideswide's tomb, and upon Cynan, I know not where, beforetime, was nothing particular to us, but the enchantment he exercised upon most young men, even this royal giant who stood dwarfed beside him. And I thought then that this might be a bond more dangerous to the earl than to the prince, for unless I greatly mistook him the Lord Edward would not take kindly to being spellbound for one moment longer than the reflected magic nattered and enhanced him. And what he had once loved and admired, and then found proof against his possessive affection, he might resent and hate no less fiercely.

  Then we rode home with our truce and our thirteen months of grace, and told all that we had seen and heard in Oxford to Llewelyn. And Llewelyn, having put in order all the practical moves the report required of him, brooded long over the shadowy grandeur that hung over the future of England, like a morning too brilliant to promise constancy until nightfall, and ended saying, as I had said: "I must see this man!"

  CHAPTER III

  From this time we set to work to make the parchment gain effective, for even when a truce has be
en agreed by both parties with goodwill, it is no easy matter to guard a long and difficult border from infringement. No prince can be everywhere, or have his officers everywhere, and there are always plenty of roving men of independent mind on both sides of the barrier to make the occasional raid a tempting prospect. There need be no planned offence, either; it is enough if a hunted deer crosses into alien territory.

  The order went out to all Llewelyn's allies, castellans and bailiffs immediately the truce was ratified. But there were certain complications in the south, for Meredith ap Rhys Gryg, now healed of the wound he got at Carmarthen bridge, was not fully bound by the truce, being Welsh and not English. Insofar as he was vassal to King Henry he was bound, but in his own lands he had his own rights, and was in no mind to sit quietly after the knock he had taken. But he had David and Rhys Fychan keeping close watch on him from Carreg Cennen, and their power was enough to temper his grievance with caution. And as to Patrick of Chaworth, as the king's seneschal he was obliged to respect the king's truce, and was no longer free, at least openly, to aid his ally. His was a delicate situation, for even when all action between the two sides was halted, it was a matter for exact definition what territory each held, and the need to separate the armed bands was urgent. As long as men have weapons in their hands and an enemy within reach, peace is hard to preserve. But there was nothing to prevent de Chaworth from keeping close company with Meredith, and in force, too, so long as his avowed concern was the procuring of a sensible agreement on boundaries and the disengagement of the armies.

  Still, by the time July was past and August well forward, and still the king's seneschal kept the field with a formidable host, it began to seem as if he was more concerned with maintaining a presence in arms than with getting a settlement. Meredith and Patrick were at Cardigan, with a large force drawn from all the marcher lordships, and David and Rhys Fychan were joined by Meredith ap Owen in the cantref of Emlyn, though even so their numbers were much inferior to those Meredith ap Rhys Gryg could field if de Chaworth chose to risk aiding him in a quick assault.

  Llewelyn gnawed his knuckles over this threat, and was in two minds about what he should do, for he was unwilling to leave Rhys Fychan exposed to more loss by withdrawing David and his men, and yet a little apprehensive of David's high temper and taste for audacity if he remained on the spot, with the king's men close and ready to provoke him.

  Their mother, the Lady Senena, also felt strongly enough about affairs to leave David's maenol at Neigwl, which she controlled in his absence, to the steward's care, and come visiting to Aber, a thing she did less often as time passed. She was well beyond fifty now, and a little slower in her movements and more stooped in her person than of old, and very grey, but her thick black brows were as formidable and her spirit as imperious as ever, and still she gave orders to everyone with the same expectation of being instantly obeyed, except that from Llewelyn she never truly looked for more than the easy tolerance with which he listened and then did as he would. Yet at least he listened, for the Lady Senena, in spite of some past mistakes, had sharp good sense.

  "You should fetch the boy away from there," she said, rapping her stick smartly on the ground for emphasis, "before he puts your trace in peril, and his own head after it."

  "I have been thinking the same thing myself," Llewelyn, owned, "though it's rather Meredith I distrust than David, as long as they stand there forehead to forehead like two rams."

  "You should go yourself," she said roundly, "and see the peace enforced, and the men brought home."

  "Not for the world!" said Llewelyn. "I gave him the command, and I would not snatch it back from him. But I may go so far as to send him a mere suggestion, a word of advice. How if we ask Samson to be the courier? No one will know better how to manage David."

  So we went to work and prepared formal copies of the truce, for David to send to both Meredith ap Rhys Gryg and Patrick of Chaworth, as a courtesy to men standing against him in arms when the agreement was made. "Put it into his head," Llewelyn said, "if he has not thought of it for himself, to demand a meeting face to face to settle the details of separation, a meeting with both, mind, for de Chaworth will be a check upon Meredith if he does his proper duty. Since they hold off from the first move, we'll make it for them, and force a response."

  So I was his courier, and rode south alone. It was late in a hot August when I made my way into the commote of Emlyn, and after some enquiry found where the allies were encamped. In that summer weather they had no need to seek a roof at night, or far to go for food; campaigning was a pleasant and even an idle life while everyone held off from battle.

  David came out, brown and hard and burning with health, to embrace me heartily, and made no ado about welcoming his brother's counsel. Though Llewelyn did well to move considerately with him, for he could be haughty and quick to take offence when the mood was on him. Nor was it the first time I had been used to make some gesture of guidance acceptable, my privilege with him being curiously strong.

  "We are tangled in a net of legal quibbles," he said, "and to tell truth I have been looking for a way to bring the thing to a head. But one false move from us, and Meredith may very well cry breach of truce and drag in Chaworth, who by all we have seen is ready and eager for it. Let's try this means! As the king's proxy, Chaworth will be hard put to it to find an excuse for not attending to see fair boundaries drawn, when the parties are the king's vassal and the partner in the king's truce. Let's challenge him! We'll call him in as arbitrator."

  So we sent out those two invitations to conference, with the copies of the royal agreement by way of probe. And David chose to send me as courier to de Chaworth in the castle of Cardigan, to underline by my embassage as Llewelyn's clerk the royal nature of the agreement to which I had been a witness, and the penalties for breaking it. Which I greatly approved in David, in that he was willing in Llewelyn's interest to make use of the personal weight of Llewelyn's name. Every such evidence of the right relationship between the brothers of Gwynedd was sweet to me.

  "And a clerk," said David, sharply teasing me as he sent me forth, "is half-holy in all circumstances, and may go safely into Cardigan and come again. Still, keep your sword about you. I cannot spare my half-priest."

  I doubt I was more swordsman than priest by that time, having fought so often beside my lord, and never having gone beyond the first stage of seeking orders. But I went as he bade me, and bore myself neutrally and modestly in the halls of Cardigan.

  This Patrick the seneschal was a big, fine-looking black-avised man, very gracious but with uneasy eyes. He had got his great lands, like many another of his kind, through marriage to an heiress, his wife Hawise bringing him not only the lordship of Kidwelly, but also the castle of Ogmore, in Glamorgan. These gentry who held through their Welsh or half-Welsh womenfolk kept always a tighter and greedier hold on the soil than those born to it by right, and Patrick was little better liked than William of Valence in Pembroke. Still, he received me into his hall with ceremony, so I gave him back good value in the dignities and styles of those I represented. There were plenty of his officers and knights about him, but no sign of Meredith ap Rhys Gryg. But I had kept my eyes open in the baileys, and I knew Meredith's Welshmen when I saw them, even if they wore English arms.

  "My lord," I said when I had delivered him the scroll of the truce, "I am commissioned by my lord Llewelyn, prince of Wales, and by his brother Prince David as his lieutenant in these parts, to present you these letters, in token of their acceptance with a whole heart of the contents therof, and their confidence that you, as the seneschal of the king's Grace, will hold to the agreement as faithfully as they undertake to do. It is in the interests of both parties that there should be peace between us here as elsewhere. You know that this is complicated by the position of the lord Meredith ap Rhys. We desire that an impartial judge shall define where the line of demarcation between us is to be drawn, and we hold that there can be no fairer voice than the king's seneschal, in an issu
e between Welshman and Welshman. In the name of the Prince of Wales, Prince David invites you to preside at a conference to settle all disputed claims and bring about peace between our arms. And he sends, through your courtesy, this same invitation to Meredith ap Rhys Gryg. The time may be as soon as you will, and the place wherever you find just and convenient. If you will, we will move halfway to meet you."

  I could think of nothing I had omitted, to convince him that he had no choice but to accede. And if he accepted, then Meredith had no choice, either, since he was completely dependent upon the English muster to counter the force we could loose against him. It seemed to me that Patrick was relieved at being offered this way out of an uneasy situation, and brightened very thoughtfully as he read and considered. He took the scroll that was superscribed to Meredith, and did not deny that he knew very well where to find him. For all I know, he may have been behind the hangings of the dais that moment, with both ears stretched.

  Patrick said what it was incumbent on him to say, paying lip service to the king's will and the sacredness of the king's peace, and after some pondering named Cilgerran as the spot where we should meet, as being between our two stations along the river Teifi, and to that I agreed.