The Brothers of Gwynedd

  Sometimes by our camp fire he sat turning and turning the silver ring on his little finger, until it seemed to me that he and I were bound within just such a circlet, breast to breast, and could never get free one from the other.

  But this uncomforted companionship ended, mercifully, earlier than we had expected, for at Strata Marcella, expecting still to have a day's march between us and Llewelyn, we rode into a courtyard full of his men, and a guesthouse peopled with his officers. The first we encountered in the stables told us that all the river crossings were secured, the army of the reform moving methodically eastwards into England, and the prince, at their earnest desire, was pushing north by forced marches to besiege and destroy the long-spared castle of Diserth, to prevent the garrison of Chester from making any move to alleviate the pressure on the royal forces elsewhere.

  "He has been asking for you at every halt," they told me. "Go to him quickly, he'll be glad of you."

  But not of my news, I thought. And then, as I had not earlier because of my confused brain and the grief of my body and mind, I realised how slow we had been on the way, and knew by their faces that there was very little I had to tell Llewelyn. The news had reached him first not from Wales, but from England, by word from his allies in the march. What I could add might well be some alleviation of what had been done to him. For I knew, better than any other, that it had been done not in self-interest, and utterly without joy.

  "Take me in with you," said Godred eagerly in my ear. "Speak for me now!"

  I said I would speak for him, but not now, that for this moment he had no part. But only very reluctantly did he leave go of my arm, and let me go in without him to the guest-hall of the abbey, where Llewelyn was.

  He had left the great chamber, and made use of a small office there, for there were some civil complainants from those parts who prayed audience with him. When I came in he sent the last of them away, and made me sit down before him, for I was still bandaged about the head, and no doubt showed in no very glorious case. He held me pinned to face the light, and eyed me hard, and when he took his hands from my shoulders and turned away from me it was with a rough, abrupt movement, as though in anger.

  "There is little you have to tell me of him," he said, not looking at me. "I know where he is. The word came into Shrewsbury faster than you could bring it, marked as he has marked you. My bailiffs already administer his lands, and his tenants have pledged me their fealty. Nevertheless, speak, if you have anything to tell me. I am listening." And again he said, not harshly but with a bleak simplicity that pricked me more deeply: "The truth, this time. I want no shielding lies."

  I said, with a steadiness at which I myself marvelled, that I had never lied to him but by silence, never even kept from him what was knowledge, only what was misgiving and suspicion.

  "Have I no rights even in those?" he said.

  It was just, and I was ashamed. For if I was indeed his man, as David said with bitterness, I owed him even my doubts and fears, and his armour was incomplete without them. I said, faintly by reason of my weariness and self-reproach: "In anything that is mine you have rights, and nothing that is mine will I ever again keep from you, not even my despair."

  "God forbid," he said, "that you should suffer any so extreme grief as despair, and not share it with me. Never deprive me, Samson, of what is mine by alliance. You are the closest friend I have, and damage to you is damage to me."

  I said that I accepted that gratefully, but that I had yet somewhat to say to him, in all good faith both to him and to David, as God watched and judged us all. And thereupon I told him, as fully as to my own soul, all that had happened between David and me. What there was to say for him, I said, yet not urging. Llewelyn must take his own stand, but at least upon all the evidence.

  He heard me out without question or exclamation, with darkened but quiet brows and attentive eyes. He said: "You know where we are bound now?"

  I said that I did, that we went against Diserth and Degannwy, to destroy them, and to pin down the garrison of Chester from moving south to King Henry's aid. And David was in Chester and a part of that garrison. By the prince's face I knew his mind.

  "With the better will," he said, "since he is there. I am a bolt loosed at his heart now, for your sake and for mine, and no use to tell me that you forgive him, for I do not forgive. Both those castles I will raze, and drive on to Chester if I can, and if he move on somewhere else I will go after him there. Once he stirred up civil war against me, and I mistakenly held him a misguided tool, who by his own confession was the contriver of all. Now he betrays me and Wales together, and if you think I burn only for Wales, Samson, you do me too much honour, for I am flesh like you. He has not only turned his coat and discarded his fealty, he has preferred Edward before me when it came to the proving. And if he come forth out of Chester in his new cause," said Llewelyn with soft ferocity, "and cross my path, I will kill him!"

  And truly he believed utterly in what he said. I was the one, not he, who knew that he neither could nor would be the death of his brother. Far more likely, far, that by some fatal, circuitous road David would be the death of him. And since I was pledged now to keep nothing from him, and he to receive and consider whatever I so delivered, I spoke out what was in my mind.

  "Have you still in remembrance," I asked him, "what he said to you after the field of Bryn Derwin, when he stood unhorsed and bruised and at your mercy? "Kill me!" he said. "You were wise!" Not defying, not challenging, rather warning and entreating you for your own life, knowing what he had done against you, and might do again. Do you remember?"

  He said: "I remember," and his eyes burned upon me, their deep brown quickening like fanned embers.

  "So much he knew of himself," I said, "even then, and so much he valued you and desired your better protection in his own despite. It is all the justification he has, but it is enough. He knows himself and you. Neither you nor I will ever know ourselves as he knows David, or each other as he knows Llewelyn. As often as his right hand launches a blow against you, his left hand will reach to parry it, and his voice will cry you warning: 'Kill me! You were wise!'"

  "You read this," said Llewelyn darkly, "as a reason why I should not kill him?"

  "Far be that from me!" I said. "It is fair warning enough of perpetual danger, and the best reason why you should! But it is also the absolute reason why you never will."

  Howbeit, we marched upon Diserth, which the men of the Middle Country were already joyously investing, having leave now to go to extremes. That unlucky garrison had stores for a few weeks, but no more, and their courage was not heightened when they heard how the government of the reform, strongly in command in London, had diverted the king's muster against the Welsh to London itself instead of Chester, to ensure against a defiant stand by the Lord Edward in Windsor, and to enforce the evacuation of all his French mercenaries from England.

  That was the most ferocious insult so far offered to the crown, though phrased in the king's name. And Edward, with what bitterness I could imagine, did not wait to be besieged and declared a traitor, but surrendered Windsor and saw his paid soldiers ushered out of the country, and himself stripped naked and helpless. By which time we had taken Diserth, escorted the captive garrison out of it, and razed the walls. Thence we went on to Degannwy, but by September, when we were encamped around that fortress, Earl Simon's party was in complete control in Westminster, King Henry had accepted their demands, and both parties were willing to halt all warlike operations, and spare Degannwy the fate of Diserth.

  They urged a brief truce with us. Had it been any other voice that spoke then for England, I doubt if Llewelyn would have heeded or agreed. But though the seal might be King Henry's, the message was Earl Simon's, and the charm of his name and person worked magic wherever it reached. Llewelyn agreed that Degannwy should be revictualled at need, and he would not hinder. But so far was England gone in confusion then that it was never done. We offered passage, but no stores came. By the end of September
the starving garrison surrendered, and Edward had not one yard of ground left him in north Wales.

  Then there was peace, or at least a great quietness.

  And all this time such forces as ventured out from Chester against us were English, every man. They never let David come forth to fight; he ate out his heart within the city. Doubtless at that stage they feared to use him here against the brother he had abandoned, for fear some of those with him might think better of their wager, and turn their coats again. Such was David's fate, that always he sold himself at less than his value, and redeemed himself at more. But what his value was, if every man had justice, that I dare not essay to judge. I leave it to God, who has better scales for weighing, and a more perfect law.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Now concerning the final months of that year twelve hundred and sixty-three, and what befell then in England, I tell only with the wisdom of hindsight, for to us, patrolling the rim of the march, it seemed then that nothing at all was happening, beyond a confused harrying of individual lands according to the harrier's allegiance or, all too often, according to his hopes of a quick gain at his neighbour's expense. For Earl Simon's terrible uprightness was no bar to the lawless ambitions of lesser, greedier and more unscrupulous mortals, such as mount in the train of every successful movement merely to share in the pickings. And much injustice was done, some in too hot enthusiasm, some coldly and cynically, to lords who had never turned against the Provisions, but only held back in doubt or timidity from too much zeal in their cause.

  After September, when king, bishops and magnates met in St. Paul's, and the king's consent to the settlement laid before him was published and approved, it seemed for a time that Earl Simon had truly won, and that the new parliament called to meet in October offered a blessed prospect of repeating the fervour, unity and reconciliation achieved, for however short a time, at Oxford. But aside from the many grievances by that time clamouring for redress, and the many defections and changes of heart caused by them, there were other factors making against the earl, and eating away at the supremacy he seemed to enjoy. For timid and pliable men like King Henry, who cannot be broken, cannot be defeated, either, since they are incapable of despair.

  With all his soft, uncrushable obstinacy he clung to hope, and wound about to clutch at every thread that offered. He was tired and in distress, he said, and he desired above all to confer with his dear cousin of France. And to maintain his position he declared, over and over again, publicly and in private, his adherence in principle to the Provisions, the sacred book of the reform. He did so because he had a quick ear for the public pulse, and he knew that the great mass of the people clung to that hope as to holy writ, and if he declared openly against it even that support he enjoyed must dwindle rapidly away. But by affirming piously his own faith in it, and asserting only that it must be subject to discussion and amendment by consent, he was able to show as a harassed and hunted monarch of goodwill, pressed unreasonably hard by men more unbending than himself.

  He had his own mild, devious wisdom, for this stand began to work effectively upon many of the older barons close to his throne, who felt affection for him as a man, and some compunction at seeing him hustled and bewildered. So many turned gradually to the king's side again.

  I think no man knew better what Henry could do in this kind than Earl Simon himself, but he was utterly bound by his own nature and his own inflexible honour. He could not be a tyrant, and he struggled with all his powers against those hard circumstances that were forcing him into tyranny. So though he knew how the king could twist and turn and break his word, he was compelled to take that word as he expected his own to be taken, and he accepted Henry's promise to return faithfully for the October parliament, and let him go to meet King Louis at Boulogne. And he himself with his foremost allies also crossed the Channel to that meeting, believing in Louis' goodwill and influence, and earnestly desirous of coming to a genuine reconciliation under his guidance. For since Earl Simon could not move against the king's person, to take his royal prerogative from him, it was clear that no order could be restored, no progress made, until king and earl could work together in amity.

  Such were his hopes and aims, but it fell out very differently. For in France the Savoyard and Poitevin exiles had for months been building up a strong party of royal feeling, and as soon as the emissaries of the reform landed they were arraigned as in a court of criminal justice, and found no goodwill at ail to discuss or compromise. I will not say this was done with King Louis' approval, but certainly his efforts at mediation did little to amend it. The Pope also, who had coldly refused the appeal for a papal legate to give spiritual aid and wise counsel some years earlier, now hurriedly appointed Cardinal Gui to that office, and despatched him to the coast, not, I think, as a mediator, but as accuser and judge. And so thought the barons of England, for they made shift by legal delays to deny him entry to the realm, and he never got nearer England than Boulogne, for all his credentials.

  In the face of this treatment Earl Simon repudiated all dealings and returned home. And so did King Henry, in time for parliament as he had promised, but he left the queen in France to work with the exiles. Nor did the parliament produce any relenting on either side, but only bitterness. That, and the first revelation of a third power looming large beside those two who already held the eyes of all men. And that was Edward.

  It was Earl Simon himself who provided Edward with his first weapon. He was deeply anxious to have a better understanding with the prince, whom he respected and liked. So during that autumn the earl made many approaches through the young men of his party who had been Edward's closest personal friends, Henry of Almain, Roger Leyburn and such, several of them from marcher families. But instead of these persuasions working upon Edward, Edward worked upon them, and to such good effect that he won most of them back to his side. And as I know from Cynan since that time, his best argument in their ears was the threat from Wales. For a shadow they were throwing away the substance, leaving the way open for the constant enemy. So he prevailed and convinced them where their true interest lay, with him and with the crown. Man after man he wooed back to him, in and out of that parliament. And when he was ready, having quietly prepared and provisioned Windsor, he withdrew there and took his father with him, leaving Richard of Cornwall and certain others, chosen in desperation as mediators, to try to arrive at some compromise that should at least make government possible.

  Doubtless Richard tried to be fair, but his judgments came down heavily on Henry's side, yet again restoring to his hands the main offices of state. Thus Henry won the compunction and loyalty of the old, and Edward seduced the affections and ambitions of the young. And from this time forth it was not Henry who ruled and schooled Edward, but Edward who nursed, cherished and governed Henry. So much must be said for him, in extenuation of the deceits and lies he employed without shame later, that he was fighting for his father, and made use of whatever weapons came to his hand.

  I remember what David once said of Edward, after we had ravaged the lands bestowed upon him in Wales. "He has had his nose rubbed well into the mire," said David, "and that was never a safe thing to do to Edward, man or boy." So it was now. All that had been done against him, by the citizens of Bristol who locked him out of his own town, by the order to the host to muster against Windsor if he did not surrender it and disband his French mercenaries, by the London mob that chased his mother into sanctuary in St. Paul's, by us who had captured and razed his last two Welsh castles, everything any man had done against him and his he remembered and recorded, and for every act he would have revenge. But all he attributed to Earl Simon, whom once he had followed and admired. And now that he had turned against him there was no limit to his animosity. The measure of his former love was the only even approximate measure of his new and implacable hate, and that measure fell far short.

  Safe in Windsor, King Henry issued letters under his privy seal, and took back the chancellery and the exchequer into his own hands, w
hile Earl Simon held the Tower. They say that Henry of Almain, the best of those young men, at least faced the earl and took a personal farewell when he deserted him, pledging himself with earnest grief never to bear arms against his former idol. But Earl Simon was without tolerance for those who looked back, once having set their hands to the plough, and he told him with cold contempt that it was not his prowess in arms for which he had been valued, but the constancy with which he had once been credited, and that he was at liberty to go, and to take his arms with him and use them as he would, for they inspired no terror. So he departed, and went to Edward.

  In spite of his protestations and pieties, King Henry showed his hand early in December, when he suddenly made a sally to the south from Windsor, most likely at Edward's urging, to attempt to regain Dover castle, so precious to any monarch hoping to import soldiers from France. But Richard de Grey, who held the fortress, would not hand over his trust, and the king was obliged to retreat again upon London. Earl Simon at this time had retired to his castle of Kenilworth, to leave the mediators free from his shadow, but when he heard of the king's journey he hurriedly came south to London to see what lay behind it. He had the earl of Derby with him, and a limited following, and as they entered London from the north, the king, returning empty-handed, approached from the south.