The Brothers of Gwynedd

  "I can but give you my judgment," said our courier when he left us. "There'll be no surrender. Not this year."

  Nor was there. And at the end of October King Henry realised it and made the best of it. He could no longer sustain his exposed position, with such numbers to feed. But he could and did raise Degannwy to a point where it could be garrisoned and supplied, by sea and land, before he ordered withdrawal. It was understood that this campaign was to be resumed and finished, with total victory and Eryri conquered, the following year. But that had been the understanding also this year, and God and his servant, the cold, had disposed.

  The king also set up a new justiciar in Cheshire before he went south, one John de Grey, and gave him orders what was to be done by way of strangling Wales indirectly, since he could not do it honestly with his hands. Trade with the land was to cease, totally. In particular there were certain things Wales could not provide herself, as salt, iron, woven cloth, and a sufficiency of corn, and these at least could be denied her.

  Then he went south with his army.

  An idle winter we passed that year, waiting for the battle-time to come round again, though to my mind fighting is an ill use for the kindly summer. After the early frosts and snows the weather proved less severe, and we had good riding there above the Dee when the salt marshes were hard and firm, and for want of real employment spent much time in the saddle. True, de Rohan's guards were always close, our household was all English, and there were archers among the escort, who could as well bring us down, if we showed a disposition to play King Henry false, as ward off Welsh attack from us. And to tell truth, it irked me that I should have to expect execution from either side at the first free move, as though I had no real place of my own, and no cause, anywhere in this world. But if it irked Owen, he gave no sign. All his impatience was for the seasons to turn, so that the king's unwieldy muster could be on the move again, and hurry to bring him his princedom. He fretted all the winter, gazing westwards.

  As for me, I was in two minds. I had been too long in the service of the Lord Griffith's family to feel at ease when my vision showed me black, or even a dubious shade of grey, where they saw white. Yet I was not happy with the letter of the law, and the narrow knife-edge of justice that was slitting so many Welsh throats to uphold a Welsh prince's right. And I had been glad in my heart of the iron winter that had caused the king to withdraw before he suffered worse losses than those already sustained. And I was glad now of every storm-cloud that threatened, and held back the new campaign. Even so, this waiting had to end.

  It ended as none of us had expected. On the last day of February a messenger came riding from Degannwy, and turned aside to cross the Dee and come to Shotwick for a fresh horse before hurrying on to Chester. It was pure chance that Owen and I were out in the mews when he came, and so we heard his news before he took it in to de Rohan. For Owen, ever greedy for any word from the west, began to question him at sight, and the rider—he was an Englishman of the garrison, and known to us—saw no reason for denying him.

  "My lord, the case is altered with a vengeance," he said, big with the import of what he carried. "You've lost a kinsman and an enemy, and what's to come next is guessing, but it's thought in Degannwy we're a great leap nearer getting by luck what we failed to get last year by fighting. We got the word yesterday, and from a sure source: the Lord David's dead!"

  "Dead!" cried Owen, and paled and glowed, tossed by a tangle of emotions like a leaf where currents meet. "My uncle dead? In battle? There's been fighting, then, already?"

  The man shook his head, stripping the saddle-cloth from his steaming horse and letting a groom take the bridle from his hand. "In his bed, at Aber. The sweating sickness did what we failed to do by the Conway. He's dead, and Gwynedd in disarray. They've taken his body into Aberconway, to lie by his father, and the bards are tuning their harps over him. And I must get on to Chester, and let Lestrange know."

  And he went in haste to the house, while the grooms led in his blown mount and began to rub him down and water him sparingly, and saddle a replacement for the ride to Chester, which was no great way. But Owen took me by the arm in mute excitement, and drew me away into the mews, out of earshot.

  "Samson," he said in my ear, quivering, "saddle up now, for both of us, while they're all taken up with this news. Openly, as always when we ride. Saddle up and lead the horses out, and not a word to anyone. Now, while he's setting their ears alight within!"

  I was slow to understand, for he was not wont to be so decisive, and his whims usually made more commotion. I said foolishly: "What do you mean to do?"

  "Slip my collar, now while I may, and ride to Aber. Do you think I'll sit back and let King Henry pluck Wales like a rose from a bush, while she's lost for a leader? If my uncle's dead, childless as he is, Gwynedd is my inheritance. I am going to claim it. Get the horses! Quickly!"

  "Thus?" I said, "without clothes or provisions?"

  "If we carried a saddle-bag they'd know, fool!" he said, I own justly.

  So I went as he had said, where they were bustling about the courier's beast, and with no concealment or haste, though losing no time, either, I saddled the horses we usually rode, and led them out. The sun was breaking through early mist and cloud at the rise of a fair day, good enough reason for us to change our minds and ride, and unless the grooms thought to come out and watch us depart, how could they know that this time we had no escort riding behind us within easy bow-shot? We had been there among them so long, and seemed so content to leave our future to them, that I think their watch must have been slack enough for some time before this, had we realised it. And within the house they had ears for nothing but the news from Aber.

  We mounted and rode, and no one loosed a shout after us. And give him his due, Owen walked his mount down the gentle slope and into the coppice that gave the nearest cover, riding as loose and easy in the saddle as if he meant nothing more than a little lazy exercise over the salt-flats. But when the trees were between us and the manor he set spurs to his horse and steered a course that made good use of ground cover, putting several miles behind us before he uttered a word or drew rein.

  "God give us always such luck!" he said then, drawing breath deeply. "I had not thought it would be so easy. We'll need to cross the Dee above Hawarden, and give Mold a wide berth. Degannwy, too! I won't be rounded up by English or Welsh short of Aber. If they follow, they'll keep to the roads, they'd not be safe else. But we'll do better and move faster. Better than owing any rights of mine to King Henry, now I'll take them for myself, and owe him nothing."

  I thought, as he did, how easy this beginning, at least, had been, and how we might have ventured the attempt, with better preparation, long ago if he had been so minded, and how we had never so much as considered it. The case was changed now, and not only because David was gone, but because Llewelyn remained, already a magnate, acknowledged, followed in war, there on the spot to catch the talaith as it fell, and with it, very logically, the consent and approval of all the chieftains who had followed his uncle into battle. For he was the only prince of his blood there to take up the burden and the privilege. And he the second son! Yes, Owen had good reason for the frantic haste he made on that ride.

  We had good going between Dee and Clwyd, and crossed the latter river at Llanelwy, and nowhere did we excite any interest more than other travellers, for Owen was plainly dressed. Beyond Clwyd we took the old, straight road they say the Romans made, keeping well away from the coast and the castles, and prayed that they had not discovered our flight in time to send a fast rider by the direct road to Diserth, to start a hunt after us. But we saw nothing of any pursuit. Once we made a halt and took food at a shepherd's holding in the uplands, and got rest and fodder for our horses, but Owen would finish this ride before night, instead of breaking the journey, so we set out again as soon as the jaded beasts could go, but now in somewhat less haste, for at least we breathed more freely here.

  We crossed Conway at Caerhun, and took
it gently on the climb beyond, through the pass of Bwlch y Ddeufaen and along the great, bare causeway over the moors. When this track brought us down to sight of the sea we were but a few miles from Aber, and land and sea were growing dark. But the night came clear and bright with stars, and I could still see, across the vast pale stretch of Lavan sands, and the deep water beyond, the long, jutting coast of Anglesey, and the solitary rock of Yyns Lanog, an island of saints as holy as our own Enlli.

  We came where the wall of the llys reared beside the track, under the shoulder of the mountains and staring across the sea. I had never before been in Aber, the favourite court of Llewelyn Fawr and his son, the noblest home of this noble line, and I was moved and awed, so grand was the soaring height of the mountains on one hand, and the sweep of the open salt-marshes on the other, melting into the distant glimmer of the sea. It was then so nearly dark that I could not see the timber keep on its high motte towering over the wall, or the roofs of the many buildings within, but the wall ran tall and even beside us until we drew near to the gate, and figures rose out of the dark to halt us. They were calm and made little sound, for they were on their own ground, in the heart of their own homeland, and the court they guarded was in deepest mourning for a chief dead as surely in battle as if he had perished by the Conway red with blood, with his slain heaped around him.

  "Where are you bound, friends, by night?" the officer challenged us, and took Owen's horse by the bridle, for we were so nearly foundered by then, or our beasts were, that he knew well enough where we were bound, and turned us in towards the gate without waiting for an answer.

  That vexed Owen, weary as he was, for he had forgotten the free ways of Welshmen. He took the man's hand by the wrist and ripped it from his rein and flung it aside. "Take care whom you handle!" he said. "I am Owen ap Griffith. Best stand out of my way. I am here to consult with the royal council of Gwynedd and with Ednyfed Fychan, the high steward. Send and let them know that Owen Goch is broken free from imprisonment in England, and come to take up the charge that belongs to him."

  The officer stood back and looked up at him long by the light of the torches his men had brought forth. He was a local man, most likely born in the tref outside the gate of the maenol, and he went bare-legged in the cold and in linen clothing, with only a light leather jerkin on him by way of body-armour, and a coarse cloth cape over his shoulders. He had a great bush of black hair, and another of beard with red in the black, and eyes like arrow-points in the torchlight.

  "Ride in, my lord Owen," he said, when he had mastered the look of us and memorised it. "But slowly, and my runner will be before you. Follow him to the hall, and ride softly past the lady's apartment, for she's in mourning for her lord and ours, and it's late to trouble her tonight. I'll send word to the Lord Llewelyn that his brother is come, and doubtless he'll be ready to receive you."

  All the household of Aber, the young men of the war-band, the archers and menat-arms gathered about the great hearth in the hall, the maidservants, the scriveners, the bards, the children huddled cosily in the skins of the brychans by the wall, fell silent and watched us as we went by. In the vast, blackened roof the wisps of smoke hung lazily circling like the eddies of a sluggish river, and rivulets crept upwards to join it from the pine torches in sconces on the walls. The smell of resin and woodsmoke clung heavy and sweet. I think there had been music before we entered, and a murmur of voices but where we passed there was stillness and silence.

  So we were brought into another room, smaller and withdrawn behind hide curtains, where a brazier burned. The walls were hung with tapestries, and skins of bear and wolf were laid on the beaten earth of the floor. The lost imprint of the hand of King John's daughter lay softly on all in that chamber. The torches burned in tall holders of silver, but they were few and dim, only enough to light the way for those passing through, for who had leisure to sit down over wine or warm his feet at a fire in Aber at this time? The young men of the bodyguard, having conveyed their lord with grief and solemnity to Aberconway, might lie down and sleep until they received other orders, but all the solid men of the council must be in almost constant debate over the desert he had left behind, the legal rights of his young widow, the state of readiness of the land for King Henry's next move against Gwynedd, now that its buckler and sword was laid low, with no son to take up the fight after him, not even a daughter to bear princes hereafter.

  There was one great chair, higher than the rest on the dais by two tall steps, and carved and gilded. And I had half-expected that Llewelyn would be braced and ready for us there as on a throne already claimed. But the room was empty and silent. We waited some minutes, Owen with mounting impatience and rising gorge, before the curtains swung behind the dais, brusquely and suddenly, and a young man came shouldering through and let the hangings swing to behind him. I have said it was dim within the room, dulling even the red of Owen Goch's hair. The boy came forward a few quick steps before he halted to peer at us, standing there a foot or so lower than he stood. The light of the torches was on him, we saw him better than he could distinguish us.

  I knew him to be but two months past seventeen then, for so was I. He had shot up by a head since last I had seen him, and stood a hand's-breadth taller than I, but well short of his brother, and his shoulders were wide and his limbs long, but he carried little flesh upon him. His face was as I remembered it, all bright, gleaming lines of bone starting in the yellow light of torches and candles, with those fathomless peat-pool eyes reflecting light from the surface of their darkness. And the longer I gazed, the younger did he seem, this boy burned brown with living out of doors in all weathers, so that even in winter, in the long evenings shut within walls, his russet only fined and paled into gold. But what I most remember, beyond the careless plainness of his dress, which was homespun and dun, is the healed scar slashed down the inner side of his left forearm, and its fellow, a small, puckered star under the angle of his jaw on the right side, mementoes of Degannwy in the frost six months ago; and with that, the slight reddening and swelling of his eyelids, that might have marred him if I had not known it for the stigma of private weeping, some two days old.

  He said clearly: "They tell me there is one here claims to be brother to me. Which of you is he?"

  I own I thought at first that this was policy, a move to affront and repulse the returned heir, but then I recalled that it was seven years since these two had stood face to face, and those perhaps the most vital seven years of Llewelyn's life, all the time of his enforced growing-up, under angry pressures in which Owen Goch had had no part. I do believe that he was honest. For never have I known him go roundabout of intent, but always straight for his goal. And before Owen could blaze, as he was willing to do, Llewelyn came closer, voluntarily surrendering whatever advantage he had in the height of the dais, and swinging down to look at us intently. I saw his eyes dilate and glow.

  "It is you!" he said. "I had thought it was some trick. Well, what's your business with me?" And after a pause, very brief and chill, he said: "—brother!" as though he tried the savour of the word on his tongue, and found it very little to his taste.

  "My business is hardly with you," said Owen, stung and smarting, "but with the council of Gwynedd. You know me. I am your brother, and since you will have me say it, your elder. The prince of Gwynedd is dead, and there is no heir to succeed him. And mine is the next claim."

  "You must forgive my being slow to recognise you," said Llewelyn. "I have been so long brotherless here, when I could well have done with a brother. Yes, the prince of Gwynedd is dead. No doubt you came to mourn him, you should have halted at Aberconway for that. As for an heir to succeed him, the council are in some dream that they have one ready to hand." He drew back a short step, and looked Owen Goch over from head to foot and back again, and his face was bleak, like a man wrung but unwilling to weep. "Who gnawed through your leash," he said bitterly, "you or King Henry?"

  At that Owen began to smoulder and to threaten a blaze, and but t
hat he found himself somewhat at a disadvantage, here, there would have been an outburst on the spot. "What are you daring to charge against me?" he cried. "If the king's men could have got their hands on me this day, do you think I should not have been dead by now, or on my way back to the Tower? He had no part in my coming."

  "So you say. But you have been his lapdog too long to be easily credited, and it makes good sense that he should toss you in here at this pass to break Gwynedd apart for him, so that he can devour piecemeal what he found too big to swallow whole. Strange chance," said Llewelyn hardly, "that offered you a way of escape now, after keeping the doors fast shut on you so long."

  "Well for you," flamed Owen then, "who have never been a prisoner! Can you not understand that I have been dogged at every step, never gone from room to room without a shadow on my heels, or ridden out without archers at my back? I broke loose as soon as I could, and I am here, and it is my doing—none other's!"

  "A year too late," said Llewelyn. "Where were you when your masters sacked the church at Aberconway? Where were you when they hanged Edynfed's boy, the child of his old age, high on a tree by the shore of Conway, and stood Welsh heads in a row to freeze along the edge of the tide? Do you think," he said, "that we have not your fine proclamations by heart, every word? We know where you were, what you were doing, how you were living princely while we sweated and drowned and died. And we know who paid for it all, the very clothes on your back! And we know what you pledged for it, the future of Gwynedd and of Wales! To hold direct from the king whatever he could get for you!"