He kept only his mounted men for this party which was to spring the trap, and sent all his archers with the flanking companies. Goronwy he sent with David, and gave the steward the command, to temper David's boldness and audacity with Goronwy's patience and wisdom. And after they had withdrawn into cover and moved well ahead of us, we rode softly on, and having breasted the rise, where there was an open space as Meredith had said, and therefore some limited view ahead, we let ourselves be seen moving down at leisure and sought for the slight shiverings of the bushes that marked where the woods were occupied on either side by more than foxes and deer.
"Two hundred paces, and we're in range," said Llewelyn to himself, fretting. "Where is the horn?"
Then we heard the green woodpecker's raucous laugh, far before us, and he uttered a muted cry, and spurred again, to be at the point he desired when the horn sounded, as it did a moment later. And on that he cried the order for which we waited, and our ranks broke apart and plunged to left and right into the trees. The judgment was good, perhaps forty paces or so short, but our impetus was such that we made good that distance, perilously crouched over our horses' necks with swords out, before they well knew what was happening, and spread out among them, choosing each his path and meeting whatever enemy sprang up in his way. The archers were bereft of their targets and helpless from the start. Distantly we heard the clamour and tumult of the two flanking parties, closing in from the slopes. If Rhys had hoped for a surprise, it was he who was taken in his own trap.
The daylight was dim among those trees, but the outlines of powdered snow made it possible to avoid the branches that swept down at us, and preserved a kind of subdued light that was enough to distinguish friend from foe. To do him justice, Rhys fought well, and used his head once he had recovered it, for he drew out such of his horsemen as were able to rally to the horn, and pulled them back to try and block our way, beyond the jaws of the trap now closing about him. But Meredith was swarming down the slope on the one hand, and David on the other, pushing forward as vehemently as Rhys drew back, and being now clear of our confused battle among the trees, their archers could choose their stance and fit and draw without haste or fear, and did great slaughter. Indeed, those on the flanks outran us, and left the way clear behind them for many of Rhys's men, both horse and foot, to get clear away out of the fight by climbing up the slopes and taking to their heels among the trees. But for some time they held their ground bravely enough, and in the twilight and tumult of the woods there was a long and bitter struggle that swayed now back and now forth, without direction, for in such conditions we could but find our marks where they rose at us, and take them one by one. So none of us knew how the others fared, or what carnage was done on either side, until the battle was over.
It was my wish to keep close at Llewelyn's quarter, as always I did, but such was the tangle of men and horses, archers and lancers, among those thickets that I lost him quite. I was busy about the keeping of my own life, where even the shadows swung swords or drew bows at me, and I laboured after him but slowly and without direction. I did not then know what was happening ahead, where David, at his own suggestion but with Goronwy's hearty blessing, had taken the mounted part of their troop far forward under cover of the trees, and occupied the track at Rhys's rear. So when the issue was decided, and the men of Dynevor broke and began to scatter and run from us, and Rhys sought to rally to him all those remaining who could reach his banner, they found David blocking their way back home, and penned between his audacious challenge and the pursuit that massed out of the woods to follow them, they scattered and ran, slipping away singly into the forest, where we hunted them for a while only, and then were recalled by Llewelyn's horn.
Some of those fugitives, breaking away to our right, certainly made their way safely to Carmarthen, where the king's hand was over them. Others, driven eastward instead of west, made for Aberhonddu, and drew off even further, into the security of Gwent. A few managed to get past us in cover, and fled to Dynevor to give the alarm. For Rhys had ventured most of his garrison, and the castle was left defenceless without them.
We rode back, obedient to the call of the horn, in the heavy, late afternoon light, and the ground was crisping under us with frost, the leaves crackling, that had been moist and soft but an hour ago. We mustered to Llewelyn's summons, and salvaged our wounded, who were many, but few in serious case, for that was a battle of wrestling and scratches on our part. Yet there were dead, and not a few. We left them. We could do no other then, for the day was dying above us, and we had a castle to possess. Two, indeed, for David was sent forward to demand the surrender of Carreg Cennen, a few miles beyond Dynevor, while Llewelyn took his main party directly to Rhys's court. And as I know, he had his sister heavy on his mind, she who was but a year older than he, and utterly a stranger and an enemy, and now, for all he knew, widowed and bereaved, her children orphans. For Rhys Fychan was not made prisoner in that affray, nor did we find his body, though we sought for it close about the track until the light was failing. And doubtless many who fled, being hurt and having lost blood, benighted in the forest, died before morning.
Howbeit, we mustered and rode. For however shaken he might be, he was not shaken in his resolve. And before we crossed the last gentle rise and looked down over the broad, gracious valley of Towy it was twilight, and only dimly could we discern, heaving out of the grey-green levels beneath us, the great mound with the river coiling beyond it, a moat to its southern approach, and on the mound the towering shape of Dynevor, the greatest and most sacred of all the castles of the line of Deheubarth.
From that vantage-point it was but a mile. We came with the night, and challenged with horn and voice under the lofty gatehouse, and a trembling castellan, old and surely abandoned to this charge after the active had fled, came out to us from the portal with a flag of truce, and surrendered the castle to Llewelyn.
I remember the hollow sound of the cobbled courtyard under our horses' hooves as we rode in, and the sparse gleam of torches and pine flares in sconces in the walls, and the few frightened domestics who peered out at us from doorways as we passed to the inner court, and drew back hastily into cover if we glanced their way. And the great, empty silence that hung about every tower and every hall like a heavier darkness, so that we knew before we asked that the soul was fled.
The first thing Llewelyn said to the old steward, as he came anxiously to his stirrup to deliver up the keys, was: "Where is my herald?"
The man had some dignity in his helplessness, though he was greatly afraid. He said that the herald was within, and safe, that the Lord Rhys had meant him no harm, nor discourtesy to his errand, but had ordered his detention until the army should have marched, when there was no longer anything to be gained by riding out, since he could not overtake the host.
And the second thing my lord said to him was: "Where is your lady? Tell her that her brother is here, and begs her, of her grace, to receive him."
Some of the womenfolk had crept out from the doorways to gaze at us by then, all in mourne silence and ready for retreat. A few young boys and old men were left to guard them, and stood as wary and irresolute as they, waiting to try the temper of this new master, of whom doubtless they had heard much, most of it blown up out of knowledge, like tales to frighten children.
"My lord," said the steward, "the Lady Gladys is gone. There is no one here but myself to deliver the castle to you, as I was charged to do."
"Gone?" said Llewelyn, shaken and dismayed, for though in a sense he feared this meeting, yet with all his heart he had also hoped for it, and to turn it to better account than conquest and dispossession. "She is in Carreg Cennen?"
"No, my lord, she was here. When the first wounded man came down from the hills, with the news that the Lord Rhys's war-band was scattered and defeated, she had horses saddled, and left at once with her children, and a small escort."
"What, now?" cried Llewelyn. "In the frost, and with night coming on? And to snatch away the children, too! Does she th
ink so ill of me that a death of cold in the forest is better than shelter of my giving?" Whatever else he would have complained in his resentment and hurt he caught back and closed within himself. In a voice dry and calm he asked: "Which way have they gone?"
"Eastward, towards Brecon. She hopes," said the old man sturdily, "to find her lord there, if he lives."
Llewelyn looked up at the sky, where the stars were sharp and steely with frost, and eastward at the rising hills she must cross. "Very well," he said, "since she will have none of me, there's little I can do to aid her." He looked down at the offered keys, and turned to reach a hand to Meredith's bridle. "Here is your lord, make your obeisance to him." And to Meredith ap Rhys Gryg he said: "Take possession of your castles and your cantrefs, my friend, and I give you joy of them. Dynevor is yours, and by this time, I doubt not, Carreg Cennen also. Cantref Mawr and Cantref Bychan, the great and the little lands, are yours. Look well to them."
Thus was Meredith restored to all those lands he had held before, together with the appanage of his nephew, of whom we did not then know whether he was alive or dead. And for his part Meredith acknowledged Llewelyn as his overlord, and undertook to be always his faithful ally and vassal.
Then, the night being upon us wholly, we dismounted and went in, and the grooms who remained, together with our men, saw to the horses. Within Dynevor all was in good living order, but with some sign everywhere of that abrupt departure, a coffer open and clothes unfolded in the high chamber, where the lady had hurriedly put together such warm cloaks and furs as she most needed, and left all else behind, even a ring, forgotten, lying by her mirror. And though Llewelyn did not in any way abate his personal care for all the detail of our living, even seeing to it that the kitchens were manned and the proper order of the hall maintained, yet many times that evening he looked out at the darkness and frowned, and said, as if more to himself than any other: "To take such young children on such a night ride! And by mountain roads, mile on mile without even a hut for shelter!" And again: "I would go after her, but to what purpose, if she fears me so much, and wants none of me? I should but frighten her into worse folly."
In the morning early came a messenger from David, to say that Carreg Cennen was ours, surrendered without resistance, and waited only for Meredith ap Rhys Gryg to choose a castellan and put him in charge there, and upon the arrival of his party to garrison the place, David would rejoin us at Dynevor, or repair wherever his lord and brother pleased to send him.
"I please," said Llewelyn, "to send both him and myself home, in time to keep the Christmas feast at Aber, as is fitting when we have so much cause for thanksgiving. What we set out to do here is done." And though Meredith pressed him to stay longer, he would not, but set all in train for the march northwards. "We'll go by Builth," he said, "where we can move fast and freely, and have another good ally. And it may be we'll give Roger Mortimer something to think on with his Christmas cheer, as we pass through Gwerthrynion."
But me he drew aside, before the bustle of preparation began, and with an earnest face committed to me a special charge, "I cannot rest," he said, "for thinking of my sister and her boys riding friendless through the hills in such weather, for surely they can have but a feeble escort, and with women and children they'll make but slow speed, and may meet God knows what perils. I cannot go after her, she would only fly me in greater anger, it seems, and I must take my army home. But you—you are not so changed that she will not know you, and you she has no reason to hate or fear. Take ten men, choose whom you will, and take the pick of the horses, for I want you fast and safe, and go and look for her along the roads to Brecon, and offer her safe-conduct wherever she may choose to go. But not like this, running like hunted hares, that I cannot abide. If she will not meet me, see her safe into Brecon, for her word should give you a courier's right to get safe out again. But if she will come, bring her north with you, and reassure her she shall have all possible honour and respect at my court, and her children also. They are princes of my grandsire's and my father's blood, and dearly welcome to me. Bring her if you can. Bring me word of her if you can bring no more. And say that I am sorry we were ever divided."
I wondered, and then did not wonder, that he chose to send me rather than David, who equally would know and be known to the Lady Gladys. But David was a prince of the royal blood of Gwynedd, and should be venture his head into a castle held by the English, might not get out again so easily as a mere clerk of no importance to them. And Llewelyn, not to speak of the risk to David, would not give them a hold upon anything that could be used in bargaining against him. It was strange that he had so shrewd a grasp of the devious mind of King Henry, whom he had met but once, and under great stress. But without hate or bitterness he had always a very accurate understanding of his opponent. With other opponents, later and of greater malevolence, he was less expert, having no such qualities within himself as those he was required to combat in them, and having to guess at malignant strengths instead of weaknesses, for which latter he had always a humble man's compassion and generosity.
So I said, glad beyond measure to be so trusted by him, that I would do all I could to be of service to the Lady Gladys and to him, and would find her if I could, and if I could, induce her to come home to his court. That phrase pleased him, for he would have liked to believe she might look on it as a home. He had it always in his mind that he might have been the death of her lord, against whom he bore no malice, but whose challenge he could do nothing but accept.
"Do not come back here," he said, "for we shall be gone. But make your way northwards to Cwm Hir, for we'll make a halt at the abbey there. And if we're gone from there, they'll furnish you with horses and provisions, and come after us to Llanllugan and Bala on your way to Aber. Somewhere along the road you'll overtake us. For," he said very sombrely, "if you do not find her today or tomorrow, I fear she is lost to us both. And when you are certain of that, then come, even without her. For you I cannot spare."
Then I kissed his hand, which was rare between us, and always at my will, and I went.
CHAPTER VIII
I took with me as guide one of Meredith's drovers, a man named Hywel, who knew that countryside from Dynevor to Brecon and beyond like the lines of his own hand, and we rode hard over the first stages of the journey by the nearest and openest road, for the Lady Gladys had a night's start of us, and to the castle of Brecon it was but a matter of twenty-seven or twenty-eight miles cross-country. My hope was that with the night and the cold coming on, she would have taken the children but a part of the way, to get them safe out of our shadow as she thought, and then sought shelter until daylight in some homestead, for after our Welsh fashion the households there were scattered widely rather than grouped in villages, and hospitality would be given without question to any who came benighted. So I trusted by pushing quickly over the first ten miles either to be ahead of her, and intercept her nearer Brecon, or at worst to overtake her before she withdrew into its walls.
It was barely light when we rode, and the sky was heavy and leaden-grey with the threat of snow, but in the night there had been only sharp frost, and riding was easy. We climbed out of the vale of Towy, up on to the hill ranges where Hywel led us, half heath and half forest, according as the ground folded and the winds swept it. For wherever there was a hollow or a cleft, there the trees grew dark and thick. Twice we encountered shepherds, and twice passed homesteads, and wherever there was creature to ask we asked for any word of our party, and at the third asking, at a hut in an assart of the heathland, we got an answer. They had passed that way indeed, some hours into the darkness, and halted to ask milk for the children, and a warm at the fire. The woman of the house had begged them earnestly to bide the night over, but they would not. She knew her lady, and was in no doubt what visitors she had entertained at her fireside. Nor had she any fear of us, to urge her to silence. They were then, it seemed, some ten hours ahead of us, and had not thought fit to brighten my hopes by halting for the night, at lea
st not so soon. So we pressed on again as hard as we might. And then, with the rising of the sun, though veiled, towards its low winter station, and the change in the frosty air, the threatened snow began to fall.
We left the bare uplands of the Black Mountain on our right hand, and kept to the shoulder track, for much of the way in thick forest. And there we found grim traces of the fight of yesterday, though not, at first, of those we pursued. Among the bushes we came upon a riderless horse, wandering uneasily and cropping, and then stumbled upon the body of his rider, fallen weakened by loss of blood from a great lance-wound in his side, and dead of cold in the night. A second dead man, an archer, a mere hummock in the new-fallen snow, we stumbled over at the end of another mile. These, too, had fled the field and made for the distant shelter of Brecon, only to die upon the journey. We saw in many places the traces of harness flung away to lighten the load as the horses tired.
Then we sighted among the bushes a man who went sidelong and in haste from us, clutching his thigh and hobbling from a lance-thrust in the flesh there, and him we encircled and brought to a stand, and so got word of our quarry again. For he had seen them pass, as he told us readily once he found we meant him no further hurt. He was one more who had fled the field, but he did not know what had become of his lord, for in that falling night every man had made his own way as best he could. He said he had seen and heard a company ride by towards Brecon, briskly but not at a great speed, nearly an hour ago, but had not known who they were, except that there were women among them, and he thought children. We supposed they could be no other but the party we were seeking. The snow being now a fair depth, we might even be able to follow their tracks if we made haste, though the flakes were still falling, and in half an hour or so might obliterate all. They must have rested for the night, as I had hoped, but at some refuge of which we did not know, to be now so close.
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