The Brothers of Gwynedd

  "I did not come," said the king, goodhumouredly enough, "to ask your advice on policy, madam. I am sorry that you should be the victim in a matter in which you have been no more than the innocent tool, but I need you here as hostage for others less harmless than you, and here, I regret, you must reconcile yourself to staying until I can safely release you. I came, rather, to see for myself that you are in good health and spirits, and have everything you need for your comfort and maintenance."

  "I have not," she said with emphasis.

  "You have only to ask," he said, and bethought him in time, and added with the surprising echo of her wry smile: "—within reason!"

  "Mine is a request eminently reasonable," said Eleanor, "in a new-made wife. Nothing can ensure my comfort until you restore me to my husband. No!" she said in a sharp cry, seeing him open his lips to refuse her out of hand. "Do not so simply dismiss what I am saying! This once let us talk like sensible cousins at odds about a matter which is subject to reason, and try to find where we can meet, and how we can dispose of those misunderstandings that divide us. You are my cousin. You used to call me so. You would not deny that I have never done you any wrong, nor wished you any. Whatever you may have against my house, do not make me the scapegoat, nor, above all, read into my marriage any sinister designs that have no existence but in your thoughts. Sit down with me, cousin, and pay me the compliment of listening to me, for it is my life you are playing policy with now, and you have no right to use me as a chessman, no right to make or unmake my marriage, no right to tell me whom I shall love. You have might, and that is all. It would be better to use it sparingly, and let reason have its say, too. Then, if you withstand me, having heard my arguments, you need never hear them again, for I will never again ask of you what I am asking most gravely now."

  "I have nothing against you," he said, reluctant but dazzled. "I have said so. But I will not countenance this marriage until the prince of Wales has regularised his position, and done homage as my vassal."

  "You are not asked to countenance it," she said calmly. "God has already done that. You realise, do you not, that I am his wife?"

  "The marriage is not yet consummated," he said bluntly, "and can be annulled. Indeed, cousin, you might even thank me some day for giving you the opportunity to think again. With your person, and your lineage…"

  She smiled then into his face, with a spark of real amusement. "So might many a good Christian count or baron have whispered into the ear of your Eleanor, through all those five years or more she lived with you virgin as a child. Would you have liked that any better than I like your suggestion now? No, believe me, this marriage will never be undone by anything short of death. I promise you that. Come, now that you are here, give me twenty minutes of your time, drink wine with me, and listen. Then, if you are not moved, I am done."

  He gave in to her then, though with a guarded face and wary eyes. And certainly he did listen, and certainly he watched her steadily, and with both eyes wide open, too, which meant that he was shaken out of his common granite assurance, though there was no telling what the result would be. And she, making her one great bid, the first and the last, to bring Edward to terms which should make a common future possible, used her marvellously pure and honest face and her lovely voice to charm and convince him, and wore out the very fibres of her heart in the effort. Even then I was curiously aware, without understanding fully, that she was fighting as much for Edward as for herself and Llewelyn. And, oh, if she could have triumphed then, she could have changed the world.

  She told him exactly what her marriage meant, what it was and what it was not, how she had clung to her betrothed as a matter of faith pledged, how constantly Llewelyn, too, had sought to renew and complete the contract, not suddenly now, as a gesture of defiance against England or an attempt to revive a rebel faction, but year after year throughout, before ever Edward came to the throne, when Welsh relations with King Henry were at their best and most cordial, and it would have been lunatic folly to attempt or desire disruption. She showed him, beyond all rational doubt, that it was a match made out of mutual love and desire, and contained within it no dark designs to trouble the peace of any man, but concerned only two people in the world, and further, that to attribute to it such unworthy aspects was mortal insult to those two people, besmirching what was to them sacred, and multiplying for the future all the possibilities of misunderstanding and ill will. She told him what damage he had already done by his act of piracy and abduction. And then she showed him how by releasing her he could more than make amends, for she, of all people who might attempt it, was best equipped to undo the present wrong without revenges, and more, to interpret him to Llewelyn as now she was interpreting Llewelyn to him, with every hope of convincing each of the other's integrity, and bringing about a better-grounded future.

  She had the eloquence of angels, and their immense, compelling gravity. I saw her father looking through her face. But she was talking to a monarch, not a man.

  When she had done, and it could not have been better done, she was so drained that her face was whiter than snowdrops. He sat gazing at her still, and he said: "That you are saying what you believe, that I grant. I never held you to blame for the use others might make of you. But I cannot accept your truth as justifying those behind you. You have lived a cloistered life, you know nothing of this rough world, or what men are capable of. I will say of Llewelyn that he could not have a better advocate. But I'll keep the weapon I have. I am sorry that you should be the sufferer. I will do what can be done to make your stay less irksome. If there is anything that can give you pleasure, ask for it." He was rising as he said it.

  "I have asked," she said, "and you have refused. I shall not ask again. There is nothing else you can offer me to compensate."

  He looked about the room as he crossed it, marking the lights, the furnishings, to see if anything was missing. "You could have the freedom of Windsor," he said unexpectedly, "if you would give me your parole."

  Out of her languor and weariness she smiled. "You are paying me half a compliment. Did you realise that?" It was true. When in his life before, or perhaps after, did Edward ever offer to accept a woman's parole? Or so much as realise that she might possess honour, as surely as a man? "But only half," she said, "or you would know what my answer is. No, I will give you no parole. If I can escape you, I shall. But be easy, I shall use no murder, nor piracy, nor violence as the means."

  He did not wince at that. He was never ashamed of anything he did. But he did pause at the door to look at her again, with a kind of grudging wonder. "Very well!" he said. "Then I regret you must stay in close ward. A pity! You could have made your own lot so much easier."

  "Well, if you dare not let me out," said Eleanor, "you may let others in. I can be visited, if you trust your castellan to use discretion. It would pass the time for me, and we may as well put on some show of civility. I do not intend to make my visitors listen to my grievances, your queen and her ladies need not fear, if they are so kind as to come and see me."

  "You shall not be neglected," he said, "while we are here."

  "And something else I can and will beg of you," she said, "and that is mercy for my people. Their only crime has been to follow me. If you will not release my knights, at least ease their captivity. And my brother.…"

  He cut in upon her there with a darkened face. "Ask nothing for your brother! Keep to your own distaff, and leave the men of your house to me." And he turned

  and went out from her without another word.

  She sat for a long time tired and sunk deep in thought after he was gone. "Strange!" she said. "He does believe it! He is still afraid of us. He still hates us. He can credit the impossible, provided it discredits a Montfort. I fear I have done my lord a very ill favour by linking him in marriage with a woman of the house of Ganelon."

  Nevertheless, after that day she was visited, for the queen herself set the pattern, and it was certain that the queen did nothing without the king's leave
and approval, more likely at his orders. Eleanor took the opportunities she was given, and set herself to win the good opinion of all those ladies who came to see her, and presently, having the management of her own household within her constricted quarters, herself began to invite and to entertain, to cast a cloak of normality about her unhappy position. Having her nature, it was hard indeed not to be liked. Before the Easter parliament was over, at which Llewelyn certainly sent by his envoys the same adamant reply, the same terms for his homage, and the same indignant demand for his wife's release, Eleanor had won over most of the women who frequented the queen's society, and made the queen herself a half-unwilling friend.

  "If he cannot love us," she said, "at least let's see if I can make it harder for him to hate us."

  She kept her word, and never, to any of her visitors, said one word of complaint, or anything that could embarrass those who were free while she was captive. And Edward could not choose but know how gallantly and gently she bore herself, and with what arduous patience. But while I was there he did not come again.

  Late in April, after the day Edward had appointed for Llewelyn's homage at Westminster was come and gone, as vainly as its predecessors, we had two other visitors, however, even less expected than Edward. There was a spell of mild, fair weather about that time, and as the little courtyard and garden were well sheltered but admitted the southern sun, we had carried out benches for the women to the grassy patch, and they were sitting there with the sweet spring light upon their embroidery, while Eleanor tried out softly upon the lute a tune she was making to a French love-song. Her two ladies bore captivity more lightly than she, living much as they would have lived anywhere. But she had lost flesh in her waiting, for all her gallantry, and the sweet, vivid face was closer every day to that glorious mask of bone and intellect I had first seen solitary among many, in prayer at St. Frideswide's tomb in Oxford. Nor was her ordeal yet near its end.

  The single gateway that admitted to our court clashed open while she was fingering out, with a private frown, a difficult vocal line, and marking its notation on a leaf beside her. She did not immediately notice, but I did, and looked round. Eleanor's chamberlain, old in the service of her mother, came trotting across to her from the portal, and stooped to her ear. She looked up, turning her head towards the gate, and she was smiling, and a little surprised. She laid the lute aside, and got up to meet her visitors. Under the stone archway David walked, stooping his head where the roof leaned low, and holding Elizabeth by the hand.

  I never was more confounded, even knowing him as I knew him, which was to know that no man on earth could ever know him and be secure of what he knew. He had envied his brother, grown impatient with waiting for the succession, let himself be seduced into a dream of murder—I say a dream, for I do not know if ever he truly contemplated the reality—fled his brother's judgment, and from the shelter of Edward's shadow done his worst and bitterest to stamp out of existence any remnants of their feeling as brothers, avenging himself on David no less than on Llewelyn. And now he came visiting to his brother's wife, wronged and captive as she was, bringing his own most innocent, loving and bewildered child-wife as unwitting advocate for him in the approach. He came with a white, taut face, deepeyed, solemn and brittle, most delicately groomed and dressed, David inviolate in his beauty, so clean after all his flounderings in and out of the mire, and so vividly coloured, the blue-black hair curving in blown sickles round his cheeks, and the raven lashes curling back widely from his harebell-blue eyes. He was near forty, and still he kept his wild, vulnerable face of a clever boy, and not one of his scars showed in him. Never, life-long.

  And Elizabeth, herself immaculate in valiant innocence, went bravely with him wherever he led her, and never knew she was his armour against all threats, and namely the threats from his own nature and his own memories. While he clasped her hand, he could believe in himself as she believed in him, whether she understood or no. The sweet brown mouse with the shrill, child's laughter was grown into a woman now, a little thicker in the body, a little rounder in the face, mother of four children, still giving birth as neatly and smugly as a cat, and every bit as ready and protective of all her brood, including her spouse.

  I never asked and cannot claim to know why he came, whether in pure curiosity to see what manner of woman his brother had chosen, or to preserve a position of his own in balance between the courts of England and Wales, or whether in truth he felt compunction towards this girl who had never wronged him, and had no part in the tangled fury he felt towards Llewelyn, and desired at least to touch hands with her and exchange some human words, even if he could not avow his guilt and ask her forgiveness. I did not linger to hear, though I think it was a very formal and restrained visit, in which Elizabeth played the chief part. But what did flash into my mind at the first sight of them approaching was the use that I might make of them, and I stooped in haste to Eleanor's ear, and said to her:

  "If she speaks of her children—and she will—ask her to come again and bring them to see you!"

  Then I went away out of earshot, out of sight of them, for fear David should call too much attention to me, since so far I had escaped Edward's recognition, and passed simply for Eleanor's Welsh clerk. If Elizabeth came again with her children, in all likelihood so must Cristin come as their nurse, and so I should not only gain a spring of cool water for my eternal thirst, but with God's help get some word of what went on outside the walls, and send a message to Cynan.

  I kept out of sight until they were gone, and then went to Eleanor, who sat looking after them very thoughtfully. "So that is David," she said slowly. "Now was it at his wish they came here, or did she compel him to it out of the simple kindness of her heart? She was happy when I asked if I might see her children. She likes to give pleasure. And she will bring them. Now what is it you hope for from that?" And when I told her I hoped for a chance to send word out to be carried to Llewelyn in Wales, she quivered as a high-bred hound quivers, waiting for its release. "Oh, if I could but tell him that I stand with him, that I have no regrets, that I ask nothing of him but to maintain his truth and his right, as I will mine here. Yes, it would be worth anything. Better yet if I could send you safely back to him, you who know my mind better than any."

  I said I should be loth to leave her, but most vehemently she urged that he had the greater need of me, for hers here was but the passive part, and all she had to do was to refuse to be moved, while he had to sustain his country and his cause, even to the edge of war if need be. For to give way once to Edward was to be condemned to give way eternally. And she made me promise that if ever the chance offered, I would take it, as in duty bound to rejoin my lord.

  After two days Elizabeth came again. The good weather still held, and Eleanor with her ladies was again in the garden, which began to seem very cramped and poor in that blossoming spring. The guard at our gate opened for Elizabeth without question. Clearly David was well installed in his old place at Edward's side, and Edward's bounty was paying for David's household. But he did not appear with his wife this time. She came in flushed and proud and glowing, with her two little girls dancing beside her, one clinging by either hand. The elder was then approaching five years old, the second turned three, and both as active and bright as butterflies. And behind this trio came in my Cristin, in a loose grey gown, bearing in her arms David's son and heir, Owen, then within two months of his second birthday. There was a third daughter left behind at home with the younger nurse, for she was only five months old, born in Shrewsbury.

  Our eyes met the moment Cristin came in. It was always so. But I was aghast at what I saw, in spite of the radiance of her look, that told me there was no change within, for without she was so direly changed. She carried the little boy as lightly on her arm as once I had seen her carry a new lamb down from the hills of Bala, but her step was heavier and slower, and her face was fallen hollow and white, her eyes sunk deep within her head and the eyelids faintly puffy and soft, her lips also a little s
wollen. I could not move nor speak for dread that she was fallen gravely ill, and she so cut off from me and from all who knew her best, all but this child-woman Elizabeth, who lived only for her children, and did not seem to see the change in their nurse.

  Eleanor and Elizabeth sat down together in the sun, and the two ladies-in-waiting came in haste to enjoy the novelty of the children, and began an animated game with them on the grass. Elizabeth held out her arms for her son, and Cristin gave him to her. I had my freedom and opportunity, for she could very well hold this little group together and happy.

  Cristin drew back from them gently, and turned and walked with me, away beyond the shrubs and bushes, into the cool of the ante-room. I watched her poor, fallen face and ached for her. Even when we sat down together, we who for years had so seldom been alone with our love, for a while I could not speak. Then I got out in dread:

  "What is it with you? Are you ill?"

  "No," she said, and smiled, and even her smile was pain. "No, not ill. Listen, Samson, for we may not have long. I am charged with a message to you. You have friends here, others besides me. They have a plan to bring you safely away out of this place, and home to Wales. If you will go? Will you go? We dare not attempt more. Her they will never let out of these walls, nor out of their sight. You they may."