We gave the wounded man the masterless horse we had led along with us, and mounted him, and sent him back to the safety of Dynevor, telling him he had nothing to fear if he would serve Meredith ap Rhys Gryg as he had served Rhys Fychan heretofore. And he went very gladly, for lamed as he was, he would have had hard work of it to get forward to Brecon or back to Llandeilo on foot, and one more night of frost might have been his death, as doubtless it was the death of many more who had scattered wounded from Cwm-du. And we hurried on, in high hopes now, and presently spied, in a place where the snow had creamed and drifted, the gashes where several horsemen had driven through the wave. The crude edges they had cut were already softening out again into curving shapes the wind might have blown, but Hywel recognised them still for what they were.
We spurred the more at the sight, and traced the same passage here and there along the forest track. Then, crossing a crest and having an outlook beyond for perhaps half a mile, and in a lull when wind and snow had eased, leaving the air almost clear, we caught one glimpse of them in the distance, as a knot of dark movement upon white, between the dappled darkness of the trees. By the same token, they glimpsed us, and knew they were followed. I suppose they had been casting glances over their shoulders at every stage of that upland journey. They set spurs to their mounts at once, for we saw their speed quicken.
So, too, did ours. Had the snow held off longer, I would have galloped on ahead alone, leaving the rest to follow me more steadily, to show that I came with no ill intent, however urgently. And I think by the time I had drawn clear of my own men and nearer to those who could very easily deal with one lone man if they so pleased, she would have considered, and wondered, and been willing to listen, even before she knew me or I could name myself to her. But I was not many paces ahead of my company when the wind rose again, and drove the renewed snow in white clouds across the forest track, so that we could see but a few feet before us, and must not only ride blind, but check our speed a little or come to grief. Nevertheless we made what haste we dared, and ours was the downhill run, while they would soon be climbing again, and I knew we could overhaul them.
But when next the torn curtains of white parted for an instant, the track before us, an uneven ribbon of white between two belts of black, was empty of them.
"They'll have taken to the forest," cried Hywel. "There's a track down through the woods, by the brook-side to the Usk valley. They'll be hoping for a faster and easier ride by that road, now they know we're after them. It's longer by a few miles, but better going once they're in the valley."
We came to the dip where the brook crossed, coming down from the higher mountains on our right, and a narrow track bore away downhill to the left beside the water, which was no more than a trickle wandering through the icy stones. The snow lay more thinly there, by reason of the overhanging trees, which carried the bulk of the fall, and under the layer of white the leaves and pine needles were thick and springy, dulling the sound of our hooves, so that we hardly wondered at hearing so little from those ahead of us. We halted for a moment and held quite still to strain our ears, and caught the sharp snap of a fallen branch trampled and broken, and then the distant clash of a hoof against stones, where rock broke through the litter of needles for a moment.
"There they go!" said Hywel, satisfied. And there went we after them. The path sloped but gently at first, and was much smoothed out by the silt of years under the trees, making very passable going. And we were somewhat sheltered by the closer stand of firs and bushes from the coldest of the wind and thickest of the snow. Sometimes we caught again the sound of hooves on stones, ahead of us, or plunging dully into earth where the slope grew steep. And once, where the trees fell back, and the torn veils of snow whirled away from us for a moment, I had a glimpse of horse and rider between the trees ahead, and caught my breath in too hopeful relief, seeing the fold of a long skirt swaying beneath the hunched cloak, and above the collar, which I thought to be furred, the drift of a white scarf tied over a woman's head against the rudeness of the wind.
I said, though surely no one heard me, for we had not slackened: "It is she! She is there ahead!" And I shouted after her against the wind at the pitch of my voice: "Lady! Wait! Here are only friends!" But I doubt those ahead did not hear. Or if they heard, they did not trust. So we continued this strange pursuit. "I am Samson," I bellowed, "the servant of your house! Wait and speak with us!"
But ahead, the trees had taken the one glimpse I had of her, and now the wind rose, and we could not even hear mark or sign that those we followed still lived and moved before us.
Then I dreaded I did wrong to follow and affright her, since she rode so fearlessly and well on this downhill path, for by her vigour and resolution it was plain that she would endure into Brecon, and I need have no misgivings concerning her. Yet I remembered Llewelyn, and the hurt he felt in being so divided from his only sister, and above all I was his man, as David had once said of me, and wanted no release from that bond. So we followed still, and harder than before, to reach her at last with voice and spur.
"Now I hear nothing," said Hywel, checking in the middle of the way, with ears pricked and head reared. "Halt, and listen!" And so we did, holding our breath, but there was not a sound ahead, though the wind had somewhat veered, and blew towards us. "They must still be ahead," he said. "Where else could they go? The going is softer below, they'll have reached the open turf."
So we went on, to the meadow levels nearer the Usk, where the forests fall back, and the track opened into a valley road, easy to ride. But we saw and heard no more of them.
"They'll have gained," he said, "once down here. We'd better ride hard."
My heart misdoubted then that we had somehow been deceived, but we had no choice but to pursue it to the very walls of Aberhonddu, below Brecon castle, for whether our quarry had shaken us by one route or outrun us by the other, I had to know the end of it. So we galloped, for in caution there was now no gain.
Thus by the valley road we came within sight at last of the bridge over the Usk, across which was our one approach into Brecon. The snow had all but ceased then. We could see the terraces of the hills declining on our right hand towards that same gateway, and we knew that the direct track descended by that ridge. Very plainly, and much ahead of us, we could see the little group of horsemen and horsewomen—for there were several women—galloping down that pathway and on to the approaches of the bridge, where there were other horsemen waiting to receive them and escort them within. There was no longer any sense in haste, we were out-distanced. To go nearer would be only to invite pursuit in our turn.
I drew rein, and so did all those with me, and we watched that reception at the bridge-head, and it was courteous to reverence. Among the several women there I could not distinguish, from the distance where we sat at gaze in the shelter of the trees, the one I had been sent to solicit, but of her welcome into Brecon I could be in no doubt. Whether her lord was there before her was something I could not know. I knew I had lost her. But also that I could at least report her safely in haven with the children.
"In the name of God, then," said Hywel, staring, for he had seen what I had seen, "who was that woman we followed down the stream? And was she, God forbid, alone? For in that soft nibble and snow we could have been riding down one horseman or ten."
I had the same thought in my mind, for it was clear enough how we had been fooled. Under cover of the squalls, and knowing that with the children to carry they must be overtaken before they could reach Brecon, the company had drawn off into the trees on the hillside above the track, while a decoy lured us away down the valley path. And when we had taken the bait and were in full cry towards the Usk, with a glimpse of a woman's cloak to keep us confident, they had returned to the hill track and ridden hard for the town. But if that was true, then one person at least had been abandoned in the forest. And if only one, then a woman. Not one of us, as we agreed, had seen a second figure.
"But more there could well h
ave been," said Hywel. "Or if she ventured alone she must have some shelter she knows of in these hills, for I'm sure she's not ahead of us now. She's let us by somewhere on the road."
I hesitated long what we ought to do. For with our errand thus completed, however lamely, we were committed to riding north to rejoin Llewelyn at Cwm Hir, and our fastest and safest way, considering the weather, would have been to skirt Brecon with care by north or south, and reach the valley of the Wye, and so press on northwards by Builth. True, there were castles on the way that were held by men no friends to Llewelyn's cause, but I had companions with me who knew those ways well, and in the sheltered valley we should do better than over the wild, bleak uplands of Mynydd Eppynt, exposed to every wind. Every other road open to us was a hill road, even if we circled Eppynt by the west. But I thought it preferable, all the same, to make the blizzard an excuse for turning back to spend the night at Dynevor, and making an early start by Llandovery. To this day I do not know how far it was an honest decision, and how far a means of retracing the way by which we had come, and so keeping a watch as we went for the woman who had duped us. For if she was indeed alone and lost in the woods, with the night coming on, and the snow obliterating paths and landmarks, she was in sorry case.
So we turned back and rode along the valley with less haste than when we had come, the leaden afternoon closing upon us. Hywel could find his way in these parts by night or day, and in any weather, we had no fear for ourselves however deep the snow. But I think that when we came to the climbing path we slowed still more, and not all in mercy to our tired horses. Also we spread out into the fringes of the trees, for there she must surely have withdrawn silently when we lost her, and let us pass without a word.
I cannot say that we found her. We had made but a quarter of the climb to the ridge track when she came out of the woods before us, slender and dark against the snow, not avoiding but advancing upon us, with her pale, bright face uplifted. Most strange, she was on foot now, and the furred cloak she had worn was gone from her shoulders. Very small and young and slight she looked, wading through the deep snow with her skirts gathered high in her hands. And as I halted my horse beside her, she said the most unexpected words I could then have heard, the first ever I heard from her:
"Sir, is there any among you is priest or clerk?"
I think we all stared and gaped for a moment, yet her face, which was oval and fierce and fair, with great eyes intent, demanded instant answer, and the questions we had for her fell by the way. I told her we had no priest among us, but I had gone some way in my boyhood towards minor orders, and knew the office. I do not know how it was, but from the moment she appeared before us and spoke so, there was no business we had of any urgency but her business. For in her face, though young and glowing with vigour, there was also, even before she spoke again, the close shadow of death.
"Come with me," she said. "There is a man dying."
I lighted down and offered to lift her into the saddle, for she was soaked to the knees and pinched with cold she seemed not to feel. But she shook her head, saying: "It is not far," and turned and plunged again into the trees, and we, picking our way and leading our horses, followed her. Snow shook down upon her and us from the trees, and she shrugged it off and paid no heed.
It was not far. Three hundred paces at the most into the thick and deepening darkness of the trees, invisible from the track, there was a wooden hut, low and leaning, but sound of wall and roof. She led us straight to the doorless opening, and I went in with her.
"He is here," she said.
It was so dark within that but for the shining whiteness of the snow that had drifted in through the doorway I should not have been able to see him. It gave a kind of light that came from the ground upwards, not from the sky down. The first thing I was aware of was a wave of surprising warmth that met me out of the dark, and the vast, deep sound of breathing that made a part of the warmth, misty and moist on the air. She had left her dying man the great, vigorous body of her horse to warm him, wanting the means to make a fire. More, she had left him the cloak she had worn, and run out into the blizzard without it when she caught the sound of our movements below on the path. I found him by the gleam of the snow that just touched one lax hand with its feathery fringe. He lay on his back, both arms spread at his sides, his eyes wide open, for their glare had a light of its own. He made no sound, but he was not sleeping or dead, or so far gone from the world as to be indifferent to us who came in. He was stiff with agony. I quivered at the very sight of the lines of his body, straight as timber under the cloak she had spread over him.
The woman said, in a whisper for my ear only: "He crept here when his strength failed. I do not know how he got so far after Cwm-du. He is thrust clean through the bowels, and has a wound in the armpit besides. Take care how you touch him. He cannot last long."
"You knew of this place?" I said as softly.
"I knew of it. He happened on it. I found him here when I came."
I said over my shoulder to Hywel: "Elis has flint and tinder. Get me a torch alight as fast as you can. Then find dead wood for a fire." And they went, silently. She was quite still there, one step before my left side, her shoulder on a level with my heart, her waist almost between my hands. I said into her ear: "Has he spoken to you?"
"Not to me! He has said: I have sinned! He is in torment. I would you were a priest," she said.
Hywel came then at my back, very softly, with a dried branch of pine already sputtering, casting a fitful yellowish light inside that shelter, and peopling it with all its living and dying. He held it before me, stepping over the living body and reaving the torch into the rough boarding of the timber wall. The horse steaming gently into the cold, its neck bowed meekly towards its feet, heaved up its head in mild astonishment, and stared at us with great globes of eyes. And the shape and lineaments of the mortally wounded man sprang into the flickering light, and showed me a face I knew from long since.
I went on my knees beside him on the hard earth floor littered with pine needles, and searched the visage that glared up at me with open and recognising eyes. It was more than twelve years since I had seen him, or he me, but when those great, chill eyelids rolled back he knew me as I knew him. One step from the threshold of death he was still a comely person, my mother's husband, Meilyr.
"Samson?" he said. His voice was thick and harsh from the pain he contained with so much bitter force, but it was clear enough, like the mind that drove it. "Is it you indeed? Has she sent me her half-priest to make certain I die unshriven and unforgiven?"
Once again, as of old, I saw that for him there was but one she, in this world or another, and his whole being was still cleaving to the memory of her at the edge of death.
"Not so," I said. "What was there for her to forgive you but years of love never repaid? Lie still now, and let me see if there is anything man can do for you alive, for of what God in his goodness can do for you after death you need not doubt."
He said no more for a while, only watched me at every move with those smouldering eyes of grief and rage that I remembered now far better than I could call to mind any of the blows he ever dealt me. I lifted the cloak that covered him, as gently as I might, but the clotted wreckage of his body was past any aid of mine, and the only hope was to let him lie motionless, that the riven flesh, weakening, might slacken its grip of this ceaseless pain. So I covered him again as closely as I dared, and we made a low fire between him and the doorway, so laid that it should not blow smoke over him, but give him its warmth. I took his hand in mine, and it was stiff and cold without response, and yet I knew there was still some force in the hard fingers if he chose to use it. We had wine in a flask, and gave him a little to moisten his mouth, but because of his broken belly I dared not let him drink deep. And when I looked round for the girl, who had said no word and made no sound since we came in, I saw that she was on her knees, and had taken his feet into her lap and wrapped them in the folds of her skirt, and was softly knead
ing and chafing them at ankle and instep. Her face was quite still and calm, and her eyes were on me. She neither offered nor asked anything, but like the angel of the archives she watched and listened, recording everything for the judgment.
Meilyr lay and suffered this handling, but nothing of him moved except his eyes that followed all we did, and the thin-drawn lips that smiled terribly at our vain endeavours. And once he said: "You trouble needless. I am a dead man." And again: "Elen!" he said, as though to himself. "She died. The only word I ever had of her, that she was dead. When I heard the girl had married into Dynevor I came to serve here, thinking I might get word…thinking she might even come. Why try to mend me now? To what purpose? I have been a long time dead, ever since the fever took all that beauty out of the world, and my hope with it. If I ever hoped!"
But when we had done what little could be done to ease him at least of the worst of the cold and darkness, there was nothing left for us to do but stay beside him, that be might not die alone. Though if ever man lived alone, from the day that first he set eyes upon Elen's beauty the man was Meilyr. And I had thought that he wronged me, not understanding how direly he was wronged! So I sat beside him, having covered him up from the cold, and held his right hand between my palms. And as Elen had used him, so he now used me, for he neither accepted nor rejected, but was utterly indifferent.
The Brothers of Gwynedd Page 23
