Then remembering what the girl had said of him, that he was in torment and had cried out under the burden of his sins, I asked him if he willed to make an act of contrition and confession, for though I was no priest and could not absolve, yet the voluntary expression of his penitence was the true motion of grace.
Terribly he smiled, his eyes devouring me, and he said: "I have sinned. Against you. When you were weak and at my mercy, I had no mercy in me. But as I did, so has it been done to me, and more also. She avenged you a thousand times over. Where is the debt now?"
"There is none," I said. "It is past and over, and I have forgotten it. So, too, should you."
"Forgotten," he said, "but not forgiven."
"There was no need, once I understood what trouble divided us. But if you set store upon the word, then yes, forgiven also, long ago."
"By you," he said, "but not by her. When the girl came here to her bridal, she could have sent me her pardon, if she had indeed pardoned me. But never, never a word. Never any, until the word of her death."
"You do mistake her," I said, for I was possessed by the awareness of his anguish, and wanted nothing in that hour but to take away the great bitterness of it, if I could not take away the pain. And I began to remember all those things I could tell him truly, of how she had changed after his going, of how, with love or without it, he had become for her the single he in this world who needed no name, as she had always been for him the only woman. So I held fast his hand, and leaned over him that he might see my face by the firelight, and know I was not afraid to have it searched for truth or falsehood. And I began to tell him. Of how she froze in dread for him whenever she heard horsemen riding in, until it was certain that he had got safe away into Wales, or elsewhere, and she need fear no more. Of how she had changed, growing warmer and more like human flesh. Of how, when he was gone from her, she spoke of him constantly, and always with solicitude, troubled and anxious if the weather was stormy, grieving to know if he had a roof and a bed when the nights were cold. Of how he had only become real and close to her when he was lost to her and very far away, and only after they were parted for ever was he constantly at her side. And I said that she was strange, and it was not her fault if she could not love after the fashion of other women, but only in some secret and distant way of her own. Most women's love cries out for presence, and cannot survive without the food of glances and caresses and words. Hers awoke only in absence, and lived and grew without sustenance. I told him, last, how she had cried out like a saint at a vision: "He loved me!" and lamented like a penitent at confession: "I was not good to him!"
All this he heard unmoved, except to a dreadful grin of scorn, his lips drawn back from his teeth in agony. He said: "You lie! In all her life she felt nothing for me, neither love nor hate. What you offer me is out of pity. I need no pity, and no lies. I am too far gone for lies to help me."
Then I swore to him that all I had said was true, and I would take whatever oath he laid upon me, but still he would not believe, and at my insistence he did but turn his head away, and draw his hand suddenly from between mine, so that the movement troubled his shattered body, and he loosed a great moan. But when he was quiet again he said with certainty: "If this were true she would have sent me a token. No, I go out of this world damned because of her. What is the mercy of heaven to me if she has none?"
I looked then from his soiled and frost-drawn face, that was growing hollower and greyer before our eyes, to all those, who sat and stood around us, watching in silence, feeding the fire, and listening in dread and awe to every word that passed. And I was greatly afraid for his soul if he departed thus stubborn and mute, and greatly I cared, who once had hated him, or thought I hated him, that after a lifetime of loss in this world he should not suffer eternal loss in the next. And I thought how I had at least time left me before my going to cleanse my bosom, if I sinned now in taking his burden upon me, and how I had the means, if I willed, to try at least one more way to the heart he guarded so bitterly. Until then I had not remembered it.
"I swear to you," I said earnestly, leaning over him so that he must see me, whether he would or no, "by my mother's soul that I have not lied to you in any particular. And I will prove it. For she did send you a token, but not by any other, only by me. You know her, when did she ever send letters? But when I left her to go to Chester with the Lord Owen she gave me a thing to bring with me. For you! For, said she, when he hears that Owen is raising his banner, he may come, and you may meet him again. Look, do you know this for hers?"
Since I had my full growth the silver ring was tight and irksome on my finger, and I had taken to carrying it rather on a string round my neck, hidden in my cotte. I drew it out and broke it loose from the cord, and held it before his eyes. And I saw by the sudden bright, incredulous gleam in them that he had seen it among her possessions, and knew it for hers indeed. A great, strange softening came over all the lines of his face, that had been hard and white as bone. His lips fell gently apart, as though he drank and was refreshed. I think I never had seen, and never have seen since, a lie so singularly blessed. I went to take up his hand, to put the ring safely into his palm, and both his hands rose of themselves, carefully cupped as if for a sacrament, to receive it. I kept my own hands close, ready to catch the little thing if it fell out of his cold fingers, but he held it delicately and steadily before his eyes, taking it in like meat and drink both, and of the soul rather than the body.
"It is hers," he said in a whisper. God be praised, she can never have told him how she came by it, that it was hers was all he knew, and that was enough. "She sent it to me?"
I said quickly: "You did not come, and I did not know where to find you." For I was mortally afraid that he would turn on me and ask why I had not discharged my errand to him at once when we found him here, without such long trial before I gave him ease. But for him the act was enough, he cared for nothing more, he had his proof. So easy it was to prove with a lie what he would not believe when I told him truth!
And still he held it before his face, the little severed hand holding the rose, and his lips moved without sound, shaping her name over and over: "Elen…Elen… Elen…" more blissfully than ever saint offered prayers. And then he said: "I do repent me of all my hardness of heart, of my doubting, of my greed…Hear me my sins, Samson!"
"In the name of God!" I said. And he spoke, and I listened. With long pauses he spoke, and for pure thankfulness I hardly knew until the close how his voice grew fainter, and laboured ever more arduously and faithfully to reach a fair end, for he was so lost in content that the feebleness of his body passed unnoticed. And greatly I marvelled at the modesty of those sins he spoke of, and at the strange depth of his humility, so long and painfully disguised within the armour of obduracy. For he was as clean as most men, God knows, and cleaner than many. I pray I may have as little on my conscience at the departing as he had, for the greater part of his burden was his own pain, and the greater part of the evil he had done was but the convulsion of resistance against the evil that had been done to him. I was assured, as I heard him out to the end, that if I could be so moved by grief and compassion for him, how much more could God have pity on his creature. And it was in my heart that Meilyr's rest was sure.
I had no power to absolve, but I said for him the prayers due to the dying, and with him the sentences of contrition. And at the end thereof I said: "Amen!" But my mother's husband, with the ring held up before his eyes, very close because by this he saw but faintly, said: "Elen!"
After that he spoke not at all, but he folded his hands upon the ring, and held it to his heart, for he could no longer see it, and experienced it rather by the touch of his fingers to the end of his life. With what rapture, the withdrawing exaltation of his face gave witness.
We stayed with him perforce, through the night, keeping the fire fed, and making a bed for the girl with such dry bracken and litter as had been left in the shed, though I think she watched with us most of the time. Some br
ead and meat we had with us, and with the warmth of the fire and the horses and our own numbers, we did well enough, for all the snow and frost outside.
As for me, I sat all the night through by the only father I had known, and he heretofore an enemy. And in the greyness before the first light of day he died, still clasping the ring I had given him. After death, as happens sometimes, all the lines of his face, that was worn and aging, smoothed out into a marble calm and became by some years younger and fairer. And I began to marvel within myself whether indeed I had lied at all, and whether I needed to confess what I had done as a sin. For more and more clearly I remembered my mother dwelling, at my departure, on how I might well encounter Meilyr in Chester, and how it was too late for her to send any message, for she would never see him again. And how then she gave me the ring, saying with such careful truth that it was my father's, and that—who knew?—it might yet bring me in contact with him. I have said she had but one he. So two-tongued and two-voiced are words, whoever writes or speaks them takes his life in his hand. And whether I was a liar, or had told truth believing it to be a lie, I no longer knew then, and have not discovered to this day. God sort all!
I looked at my old enemy, and he was dead and in peace, clasping the treasure I purposed never to take back from him. What was that unknown father to me, beside this father I had learned to know all too well for comfort, whether he was mine or no? Let him keep his talisman in the grave, it was of more value to him, misunderstood, than to me who knew its significance.
I got up stiffly, and went out into the forest. There was no new snow, and between the tree-tops the sky was clear and encrusted with stars.
As I came back towards the hut I saw the woman come from among the trees, and strip from her head the scarf and the wimple she wore, letting her hair stream down about her shoulders. Long and dark it was, and fell in heavy waves almost to her waist, and between the swinging curtains of silky black her oval face looked pale but lustrous like a pearl. She had not observed me, and I drew back into the bushes to look long at her without offence, for until now, though I had seen much, I had had no leisure, and no peace of mind, to realise what I saw. First she appeared like a visitant from God to demand our presence where we were needed, and that in a manner to remind us that the time of the birth of Our Lord and the apparition of angels was very close upon us. And then she had withdrawn into silence and watchfulness, unwatched, while Meilyr lived out his last hours in this world. Now at this second coming my mind was as open as my eyes. I saw her in truth for the first time.
I have said of my mother that she was beautiful, and of others have been as certain that they were not so. Of this girl I can never say whether she had beauty or no, for never could I pass beyond seeing into describing. Always there was something to arrest me and put all critical thought out of my reach. She was not tall, only a few inches higher than my shoulder, but very slender, and I thought now, for the first time being in any case to judge, that her age was no more than one or two years past twenty. She had a broad, clear forehead, with straight, thoughtful black brows, and her eyes were of a dark colouring which at a distance I took to be a very dusky blue, but which I found on closer view to be sometimes deep grey and sometimes, according to the light, royal purple, for the black of their lashes caused them to change with the changes of daylight or torchlight wherever she was. The lines of brow and nose and cheek were very pure and spare, with that lustrous sheen that came from the pearly translucence of her skin. And her mouth and chin were shapely, generous and resolute. I could never like the prim, tight, small mouths that were the courtly fashion, so that even those lavish-lipped and open by nature copied the pursed look to be in the mode. She was not so. Wide of mouth she was, and full and passionate of lip, but with such composure about her as to keep all in discipline and balance. But above all, she had a way of doing whatever she did with every particle of her attention and her being, and a way of looking a man in the eyes that both pierced him through and opened her own heart to him, if he had a mind to accept the welcome with reverence. And if he had not, she could do without him. Or if he misunderstood and presumed too far, I doubt not she could close the gates against him too tight for his unlocking.
She neither saw me nor looked round at all to see if she was seen. She stooped to the highest and purest bank of snow under the bushes, filled her hands with it, and washed her face in its coldness, her pearl-whiteness emerging stung into rose. Then she dried herself upon her scarf, and taking a comb from her sleeve, began to comb her long hair, patiently coaxing out the tangles left by her night in the bracken. When she had done, she coiled it up again and pinned it, and covered its darkness with wimple and scarf, until she was as neat as if she had slept in her own bed and made her toilet at leisure in the comfort and safety of Dynevor. And so intent was I that only when all was finished did I think to remember how she had come out here into the frosty dawn without her cloak, for still it lay with mine, covering Meilyr's body.
I went into the hut in haste, and brought out the cloak to her and wrapped it about her shoulders. She turned, holding the folds together at her throat, and looked at me, and for the first time smiled, though briefly and faintly. She shook a little with the cold, as though only now could she feel it, and hugged the fur of the high collar against her cheeks.
"It is not mine," she said, "but hers. We exchanged. Someone among you might have known it by sight."
"As I remember her," I said, "though that's some years gone by, you are not even like. The same figure and height, perhaps, and the same bearing and gait. Yes, from behind you could pass. You are one of her ladies?"
"The least of them," she said. And all the while that we stood close her eyes were searching me through and through.
"Both you and she," I said, "mistook my errand, and gave me no chance to reach a better understanding. I was sent after the lady and her party, not to threaten or harry, but to offer her shelter and safe-conduct wherever she would be. In the name of Prince Llewelyn, her brother. But chiefly to entreat her, as he very earnestly desired, that she should place herself in his hands and come with him to Gwynedd, there to use his house as freely as her own, and enter and leave it whenever she pleased. But if she would not give him countenance, then I was to see her safely into Brecon, or wherever else she thought fit, so I could report her safe and well."
I saw her eyes, that were large enough, God knows, in that young, weary face, dilate and glow into silvery grey within their black nests of lashes. She said, very low: "Is that why you rode so hard after us?"
"It is. I lost my chance. And since I lost it through your gallantry and wit," I said, "I pray you at least to believe what I tell you of my lord's mind and my own."
She looked at me long, and she said: "I do believe it, if your lord's mind is as I have seen yours to be." And after a moment, and ruefully: "I doubt she would have rejected any advance of his, she's so set against him for her lord's sake. It is a pity!" And again, still pondering: "It was told us of him, by messengers from Llanbadarn, that he did there no needless violence after victory."
I understood that she spoke, not of her own lord, but of mine, and that she wondered about him, and in particular about me, being here his envoy. For all night long she had remained silent, only warming the dying man's feet in her lap and cherishing them from movement, but there was nothing had happened in that hut that she had not seen and noted, and made more of than any man could. And I knew this of her not because she was woman, but because she was this woman. "I see," she said, "that I did not at all so well as I intended, by her or by you."
At that I shook my head. "By me you did better than well," I said, "and by him that's dead within best of all. It is due to you only that he did not die alone and uncomforted, and for that I shall thank you to the day of my own death."
Her lips moved, but upon so slight a motion of breath that I could not be sure she said: "And I you!" But thus I think she spoke.
"And now," I said, "frost or no, it rem
ains for us to bury him, and that we shall do here, where he died. But your part is done, and nobly, and I would have you safe with your own people. I will give you a reliable escort to bring you into Brecon to join your lady."
She looked at me steadily, and jutted lip and chin for a long moment, considering. Then with a resolution as final as it was quiet, she said: "No!"
I was at loss here, not understanding what she meant or what she wanted of me. And I began to say patiently that I could not abandon her here in the forest, or leave her to the mercy of possible unwounded and desperate fugitives from Cwm-du. Leave alone the cold and hunger of winter, her horse being in as great need as herself. And mistaking her reserve, I told her earnestly that she need have no fear of riding with my men, for I would take whatever oath she required that she should be respected in every way among us, by the last and least of our party as surely as by myself. But the dead man I must see decently into the grave here, however temporary his stay, for though he was not blood kin to me, yet in a manner he was closer than blood kin, and I would not move from this place until I had said the office over him for his rest.
The Brothers of Gwynedd Page 24
