The Brothers of Gwynedd

  So at this meeting, though I knew well that he was there among the company of knights and squires that followed David into the maenol, and needed no telling that he would be looking for me as hungrily as ever I looked for Cristin, I made no ado about going to her directly and with open gladness, and she gave me her hand, and said the same current words that I was saying to her and let me help her down and take the bridle from her. Assignations we never made, but met when we met, and were glad. Surely we had, after our fashion, a compact with God to be endlessly grateful for what had been given us, and not to grasp at more. But we had never undertaken not to hope.

  She had barely set foot on the ground, and her hand was still in mine, when he was there between us, clasping an arm of each in his long hands, and deliberately scoring against my wrist the silver ring he wore, the fellow to one I had once worn. His father and mine had long ago given the second ring to the girl he took for one night in the rushes of the hall at Nevin, and she, years afterwards, to her son, the fruit of that union. By that token I had known my half-brother when we met. He had not then known me, nor for some time after, nor had any word ever been said, even now, to make it clear that he knew me for his father's bastard, yet always, when most he willed to remind me how we three were bound together, and how I might, if I willed, draw even closer, make myself his familiar and equal, and enjoy what now I only revered, always he contrived to twist that ring before my eyes, with its little severed hand holding a rose. But he had no power even to make us start, or loose too soon the clasp of our hands. With nothing to hide, why should we hide it?

  "Well, Saint Samson?" I said Godred, in that high, sweet voice of his, and linking his arm in mine. "We are to go on pilgrimage together, it seems, to the Confessor's shrine. Three or four weeks of sweet companionship and easy living! I mean to enjoy you to the full, this time." And with the other arm he encircled Cristin, and so drew us with him towards the hall, leaving the grooms to lead away the horses.

  I am swart and plain, and he was lithe and fair and comely, with curling hair the colour of ripe white wheat, and round, gold-brown eyes. Yet she loved me, and not him!

  "And Cristin shares my pleasure," he said, closing his fingers possessively about her shoulder, "though she is not so quick to utter it as I. We never forget, Samson, that it was you who restored us to each other, when we never thought to meet again. I speak for both—do I not, my love? This once join your voice with mine!"

  She looked straight before her, and smiled. "Samson knows my mind," she said. "There is no need to look back so far. He knows I forget nothing. But if you want me to say it, yes, I shall take pleasure in this journey together. Yes, I am happy."

  So he had his answer, but it was not the right answer, though he swallowed it with grace. For it was not what he wanted, it was outrage to him, that she should be happy, when he, though through his own curst nature, was surely among the unhappiest souls on earth.

  During the days of our preparations it did happen now and then that I had speech with her alone, while he was busy with his own duties. It was not that at these times we spoke of our own affairs, but there were other things I had to ask of her that needed a degree of privacy, too. David was my breast-brother, my mother's nurseling, my own charge in his childhood, as now Cristin cared for the child he had taken in marriage, and I needed to know the best and the worst concerning him, for no matter how often he offended against Llewelyn and discarded me, yet I could not but love him.

  "He is still sore," said Cristin, "and still denies with anger that his wounds are selfinflicted. He knows his own sins, but will neither repent them nor accept forgiveness for them. Edward embraced him when he deserted Llewelyn, and he despises Edward in his heart for embracing a traitor. Llewelyn in honour of his triumph tossed David's offences out of mind, and haled him back openly without penalty, never denying he deserved it, and David worships him for it because he could not have done as much himself, and hates him for it because so easy a forgiveness slights both the offence and the offender. They are two creatures made in moulds so different, and yet so linked, they cannot touch without hurt, nor be apart without loss. And yet he does love his brother! Sometimes I doubt he loves Llewelyn more than Llewelyn loves him. He could not so hate him if he did not."

  I asked, for God knows I had good reason to understand the power of personal happiness, what was to be hoped from this marriage Edward had made.

  She was standing beside me in the twilight when this passed, having put her lady to bed, for that shy royal creature awoke with the light and tired with the fail of darkness like all children. From the portal of Elizabeth's apartments we could see the silver of the lake like a spilled coin in moonlight. My sleeve was against my love's sleeve, and we were at peace, but for all these souls we loved, and for whom we desired the same peace.

  Cristin said: "She has tamed him. She does not know it—how could she? She is still half a child. There is no one so astonished as David. And how is that possible, since he knows his own beauty? None better! I think he never considered that a wife should look at him and find him beautiful. He took her as a chattel, a means to lands, and to the Lord Edward's continuing favour. I doubt he ever looked at her, until she had looked at him, and gone the way of most women who look at him. Half child she may be, but she is half woman, too. She looked at him, and she loved. Is it so strange? And you know him, he is gentle and playful with children, he awoke only when he found himself clasping a woman he had warmed into life, roused and ready for him."

  "He has bedded her, then?" I said.

  "Surely! You have only to look at them. There have an understanding of the flesh." It was true. There was no mistaking that radiance that shone out of them when they touched each other. She spoke of it with a calm face but a careful voice, regarding without envy but with secret grief what they had and we could never have. "Her women told her, when they married her the first time, child as she was, what would be expected of her some day as a wife. She was prepared. And did you ever hear of a woman who complained of David's loving? He would have let her alone a year or two yet, I judge, if she had not stirred him. It charmed and moved him that she should love him and show her love."

  "And he," I said, "does he also love?"

  "He is pleased and disarmed and startled, how can he choose but respond? It's a new delight and a great flattery. Whether it will last, and keep its power, who knows and who can ever know with David? But yes. I think I would call it love. Whatever he does, he will never wilfully hurt her. But without willing it he might destroy her," said Cristin with great gravity. "Whoever loves David is in danger."

  And that was truth. And I was all the more glad that this proud, confiding and sensitive child should have Cristin watching over her. The time might come when she would need a friend, and nowhere could she have found another so brave and so loyal.

  We rode for London at the end of September, a great party, not only to do credit to the royal house of Wales, but also to pay honour to King Henry, who by and large had played fair with us since the agreement, and who deserved his triumph. We crossed the Berwyns in brisk, bright weather, and had good hawking there. Llewelyn's falconer had in his charge not only the prince's own birds, but several he had been training as gifts for the king and the Lord Edward, and they made splendid proving flights along the way, and showed their mettle to such good effect that he was in high content with the fruit of his labour. We carried with us also venison for the feasts and for the king's larder.

  At Oswestry we crossed into England, with no need of the letters of safe-conduct sent from the court, and that was pleasant indeed. So it should always be, yet men have free passage so seldom, and so briefly. But this autumn was blessed, even to the weather, and the ride into Shrewsbury, where we halted overnight at the abbey, was truly as serene as a pilgrimage, a dream of ease in those lush fields and softly rolling valleys. Yet on this road I had memories, too, for I had ridden it once in Llewelyn's service on the way to the parliament of Oxford, thus f
ar the same road, and there was no evading the reminders of that journey, or the remembered face of the man I had seen at the end of it, kneeling in grand, contained and private prayer at the shrine of St. Frideswide. And Llewelyn, too, felt his presence, for I saw how he watched me, and willed not to be seen watching me, and hesitated whether to speak or be silent. Silent he was in the end, for of speech there was no need. He knew and I knew that the image of Earl Simon rode with us all the way.

  After Shrewsbury we were on a way new to me, for we took the king's great highway called Watling Street, which they say the Romans made, and which drives by long, straight stretches headlong for London. One night we passed at the priory of Lichfield, and the next at Coventry, no great ride, for we had time and to spare. And when we were private after meat at Coventry, Llewelyn suddenly raised his head and turned to gaze to the south-west, and said, so low that I knew it was for none but himself and me: "We are very close, are we not, to Kenilworth?"

  I said that we were, that if he willed we could linger here a day, and he and I could ride there. If he so willed, alone. His face was fixed and bright, still as a royal head upon a gold coin, and even so coloured, a tissue of fine drawn lines in gilt and umber. Those who thought him moderate and tempered and equable, a man wellset in the cautious craft of state, did not know him as I knew him. He and I were born in the same night, under the same stars, his mother was my mother's patron and mistress, there was no dividing us. And I knew him possessed and inspired, a soul like the flame of a candle on an altar, kindled and unquenchable in dedication to the cause of Wales. Yet in pursuit of that passion he had encountered one perhaps greater than himself, burning with a grander vision, and for a time those two flames had been one. If I forgot nothing, how could I conceive that he should forget?

  "No," said Llewelyn after a long thought, and in a voice so low I strained to hear. "Not here! Kenilworth is not the place."

  In London we were very honourably lodged, the princes with their immediate households in King Henry's own palace of Westminster, some close officers, of whom I was one, in the guest-halls of the collegiate church of St. Peter, the object of our pilgrimage, while the knights of the escort were sent on to that Tower of which I had so many old memories. Thus Cristin, being tirewoman to Elizabeth, remained in the royal island of Westminster close to me, while Godred was removed to the Tower, and both she and I could breathe freely and look each other in the eyes when we met with gladness and calm, untainted by the poison of his misery and malice; which neither of us knew how to cure. And by that blessedness, in part, I remember that great celebration of St. Edward's day.

  That is a wonder, that city of Westminster, in extent so small, in beauties so great, so teeming then with all the nobility of the land, for there was no earl nor baron nor cleric who did not wish to be present at the translation of the saint. In shape almost square, it is rimmed with water on every side, for on the east lies the Thames with all its ships and barges, while from the west flows in the little river Tyburn, to fill the long ditches that close in the royal enclave from north and south. And all this moated town is filled with the many and splendid buildings of palace and church, colleges and dortoirs and hospices and chapels, the gardens and orchards and cloisters of the monks, the stables and boat-houses and offices of the king, and everything needful to life, bakehouse and farm and fisheries, lodgings for good poor men, alms-houses and mews and kitchens. I marvelled at the great press of guests this city could receive and accommodate, and yet at this time it was full to overflowing, and so glowing with ardour and excitement, so full of voices and music, colour and movement, that the dullest heart could not but be stirred.

  And there in the midst of this island city rises the long, lofty roof of the great church, visible from every part, from every part commanding and drawing the eye. The marvel within we were not to see until the great day of the translation and the first mass, but the marvel without was enough to hold us at gaze all the days we spent there in waiting. Such noble, springing tracery in stone, such grace of windows and portals, I had never seen. The monks, before their coffers ran dry, had themselves built the Lady Chapel they desired at the eastern end of the old church, and the form of this was fine, but time and the king's passion for his act of piety had outrun it far, and the body of the church which he had now completed, transepts and apse and choir, soared above incomparably tall and fair.

  King Henry received Llewelyn and David in audience as soon as we came there, but I did not see him close until the day of the feast, only now and again running about his creation and vanishing again into his palace in transports of excited happiness, his master-mason and clerks and familiars hard on his heels like a swarm of bees. He was then sixty-two years old, and had lived through a long and war-torn reign that had destroyed many a stronger vessel, and though he had ridden out all the tempests he bore the signs upon him. Slender and graceful always, he was now very frail in appearance, his face worn and transparent, his fair, well-tended hair and beard blanched to an ivory-grey, and doubtless he was very weary, but the rapture of his achievement filled him with force and energy. If he had laboured on his kingdom with such devoted concentration of mind he would surely have been the best of kings. But at least, if his talents had not gone into statecraft, they had spent themselves on something lasting, lovely and worthy in the end, and I give him the credit due.

  It had been the king's intention that he and his queen should wear their crowns of state upon the saint's feast, and that all things should be ordained in the same fashion as at a coronation, which meant that the customary writs had been sent out to all those who had special ceremonial rights and duties, and for some weeks they had been making great preparations for the occasion. But on the vigil of the feast King Henry made belated proclamation in Westminster Hall that he had had better thoughts in the matter, and deemed it presumptuous to assume the crown a second time, and especially felt it his part rather to be humble and joyful in his service to Saint Edward, than proud in his own estate. So the formal ceremonies were remitted, though all who cared to come to the festival might do so, and after the translation and the mass might remain to share in the banquet.

  "That's but half the story," said Llewelyn, when I attended him in the evening to make preparation for next day. "It seems he's still beset with civil wars, though minor ones now. The citizens of London had laid out lavishly on plate and robes, since they owe service in the butlery on such state festivals, when the crowns are worn. But then the men of Winchester also laid claim to the butlery. It's a costly business, and no doubt either city would have resisted if it had been exacted from them as a duty, but neither was willing to relinquish it as an honour. There would have been quarrels, at the least, maybe a little blood-letting. He thought wiser to bow out of his crown gracefully and avoid the contention."

  It was too much, I said, to suppose that anything could ever go altogether smoothly and decorously with King Henry. Nothing he touched ever came finally to ruin, but always he walked creaking ice that cracked behind him, and came to land again safely by something a little short of a miracle.

  "Ah, he'll ride this little storm," said Llewelyn, "at no more cost than the meat and wine he provides them. But he has graver matters on his mind, too, when the light of his shrine is not too brilliant to let him see them. Gloucester has not come to the festival. And tomorrow being the great day, clearly he does not intend to come."

  From our view it was no bad thing that Gilbert de Clare should put himself in ill odour with both king and prince. All the more would they be disposed to listen, in the matter of the rape of Senghenydd and the building of Caerphilly, to the protagonist who did come at the king's invitation, and was prepared, as clearly Gilbert was not, to meet his opponent and consider sensible arbitration. By his intransigence and disobedience we could not fail to gain credence.

  "He is mad," said David, who was with us that evening, and throughout showed a front of unity with his brother, though during the past days he had been
much in the Lord Edward's company. "If he does not come he turns the king into an enemy for the sake of his favourite saint, let alone the matter of the crusade. And Edward is already bitterly angry with him for trying to slide out of his obligations. He took the oath of his own free will, like the rest, and Edward will hold him to it. Gloucester's party should provide one of the strongest companies. Edward is absolute that he cannot fulfill his undertakings to King Louis and to God properly if Gloucester breaks his oath. If he does not come in time for tomorrow, the king will send for him, and he had better pay heed. But my guess is, he'll come. At the last moment, with the worst grace, and insolently, but he'll come."

  But the morrow came, and the whole court and its guests rose with the dawn to make ready, but Gilbert de Clare did not come. Nor, in the end, was this the only vexation King Henry had to contend with on the supreme day of his life, for not only did the citizens of London stand so rigidly on their dignity as to withdraw after the great mass ended, and refuse the feast, while the men of Winchester crowed over them and stayed to eat and drink their fill, but there was also a grander and more bitter contention, which ended with London laid under an interdict for a time, though for all I could see it made little difference to life in the city, and no one fretted overmuch. The trouble arose out of an old rivalry between the two archbishops, for he of York had always insisted that he had the right to have his cross carried before him in the province of Canterbury as at home, and his brother of Canterbury had always resisted it. Now the archbishop of Canterbury at this time, the queen's uncle Boniface of Savoy, was very old, and too frail to be present at the great ceremony, and so his brother of York, Walter Giffard, had his way at the translation, and had his cross paraded before him, to the great offence of all his fellow-bishops, so that they made no move, when the time came, to join him in the procession round the new church, but sat implacably in the stalls of the monks, and let him cense the shrine alone. And old Boniface, when he heard of it, was so resentful that he placed London under interdict, and a month later he said his last mass in England at the coast, before sailing home to his native Savoy, where he died a year afterwards.