The Brothers of Gwynedd

by Edith Pargeter

  He was spending wisdom only to see it blown away down the wind. For King Henry, who was always exalted into the clouds or abased into the kennel, was in his glory now, and no way disposed to be lenient to his enemies. In the summer he set off for France, to clear up matters of family business and to employ King Louis' good offices in making the advised overtures to Earl Simon. Louis urged moderation, as Richard had done, and with as little effect. Instead of approaching his sister's husband in conciliatory mood, King Henry dragged out of the past all his old hates and complaints against the earl, and instead of appeasement there was nothing but bitter rancour, which Earl Simon's hot nature could not but reciprocate. So nothing was healed, and nothing satisfied, and the wounds festered.

  As for us, we kept our household and minded our own business, to good effect, for without difficulty we procured a renewal of our truce in the month of May, on the same terms as before, and again we gained not one year of grace, but two.

  That summer was the time when Richard de Clare, the great earl of Gloucester, died in the month of July, a few weeks short of his fortieth birthday. He left a son turned twenty years, Gilbert, ripe and ready to be an earl, and fretting and furious when, because of the king's absence, he was kept out of his honour month after month, and received no seisin of his right.

  David came visiting as soon as he had word of the earl's death, very bright of eye and expectant, for he was restless for action, and weary of the mere daily labour of managing his lands, which, though he could do it very shrewdly if he pleased, he could as well leave to his mother. He had Godred among his retinue, as eager as himself.

  "I thought I should have found you in arms," said David. "Here's Richard of Clare gone, and no provision made for proper rule in his lands without him, and young Gilbert disparaged and kept waiting. The whole march is in disarray, we could pick off all the Welsh edges of it without trouble or loss, and an occasion for shaking the truce a little is not far to seek; you have only to goad Gilbert into lashing out first. I could do it within the week, and put him wholly in the wrong."

  "You'll do no such thing," said Llewelyn smartly. "There's a small matter of my word and seal in the way, even if we had anything to gain by setting the march on fire, and we have not. If I wanted occasions, there have been any amount without goading from me. So far I've had satisfaction by legal means. They meet us, on the whole, fairly enough; the measures of conciliation work."

  "They've worked in the past," said David, discontented. "Things are changing in the march, or have you not been informed? There's something in the wind among the young men. There isn't a castle down the border you could not pick like a flower now if you had a mind to."

  "I know it," said Llewelyn calmly. "I have been following affairs, as well as you. Old men are vanishing from the scene, and young men take views of their own, and are less happy with King Henry's ascendancy than their elders. Certainly this is an opportunity, if I had no restraints. But I have. A few months ago I pressed the king again to come to a formal peace with Wales. I know he is holding me off, with excuses about Prince Edward's absence and the need to consult him, and I know I could go on taking what I want, while I wait for him to recognise me and all my gains. I choose not to, for more reasons than one. But one is enough. It is barely two months since I set my seal to the new truce."

  David gave him a sidelong glance, and said provocatively: "The king thanked you in so many words, did he not, for refusing to take advantage of England's household troubles? Are you so anxious to stand well with him?"

  "No, with myself," said Llewelyn, undisturbed. "Though I believe he has done his best to keep the truce and make amends for infringements. Take him all in all, he has played reasonably fair with me, and so will I with him. Let Gloucester's lands alone."

  "He is not Gloucester yet," said David, "and they're in no hurry to invest him. That's one more disaffected lordling their side the border."

  "And one on mine?" asked Llewelyn, and laughed to see him flush and bite his lip, until suddenly David laughed, too.

  "Not so bad as that! But I could be at home in such company, I don't deny it. You know they're ranging about Kent with Roger Leyburn at their head, holding tournaments? And in the marches, too. The justiciar is in a sweat about it, with orders to call in the churchmen wherever they plan a round table, and try to prevent it, but he has his work cut out. There was a great meeting at Gloucester itself—I tell you, I was in two minds about putting on false coat-armour and riding to issue a challenge there, as in the old tales. If you won't find me work to do, why, they might find me very good play, and nearly as rough."

  "Rein in for a little while," said Llewelyn, "and there may well be both work and play rough enough even for you."

  This movement of the younger barons had begun in the general uneasiness and discontent after the Provisions were seen to be enfeebled and abandoned, but the spark that set light to the disquiet was a personal one. The Lord Edward had the very able and fiery Roger Leyburn as his steward, and had some cause in his absence, or had been led by his mother to believe he had cause, to suspect his officer of peculation. Roger being of no mind to be made a victim, and stoutly asserting his own good faith, had returned to his estates and drawn round him all the restless young lords like himself, many of them from marcher families. Roger Clifford of Eardisley, John Giffard of Brimpsfield, Hamo Lestrange of the Shropshire family, and Peter de Montfort the younger of the English house, son to that Peter de Montfort who had conducted us to the parliament of Oxford—these were among his allies. Now, according to rumour, Gilbert de Clare was joining the brotherhood, and even the name of Henry of Almain, Richard of Cornwall's son, had been mentioned. There were northerners, too, a de Vesci of Alnwick, a Vipont of Appleby, all young men who had not accepted, as their elders had, the revocation of all the measures of reform. Most had been friends and companions of Edward, many David had known at court, as mere boys. If these young sparks were at violent play in the marches, and David was prevented by truce from working off his energy against them in honest battle, what wonder if he ached to go and join them and spend his fire in their company? Yet their movement was not play, and it had another effect, upon men graver and more earnest than they, for it drew into its current the hopes and longings of the small gentry, the yeomen, the citizens, all of whom had accepted the proclamations of reform with faith and eagerness, and then seen King Henry dash the cup from their lips.

  Thus a casual confederacy may become a party almost without its own knowledge, and grow into a cause almost without its own will.

  For want of warfare, at least Llewelyn found David some good hunting. They were often out together late into the evening, and ranged far in the hill forests with the hounds. So it happened that when the weather broke suddenly after a clear day they came home drenched and cold, as often rain brings on great cold after a long settled spell. In hall afterwards Llewelyn ceased to eat, and put his hands to his head, and before we left the table he began to shake with the marsh sickness, and soon fell into a terrible sweat. He was unused to illness, and would not believe or tolerate what was happening to him, until he fell in the drooping fury of helplessness, and had to be carried to his bed.

  David sat by him into the night, and so did I, for it took him hard, so that he sank away from us and lost his senses at times, and again returned into shuddering consciousness, turning and tossing, muttering through chattering teeth, and ever soaked in sweat. His face grew hollow and grey, and his eyes sunken. When he opened them it was clear from their burning light that he knew us, but the words that came from his lips were broken and meaningless.

  "This is my fault," said David, distressed and bitter with himself. "I wish to God I had agreed to turn back earlier, and get home out of the storm. Why should it fall on him, and not on me? There's no justice in it."

  Towards morning he said, as he wiped the sweat from the prince's forehead: "It is very evil. He may die! I should go for our mother, she will be his best nurse."

>   So he spoke with Goronwy, and as soon as it was light he rode, not entrusting the errand to any other. But it was a day before the Lady Senena came, and a grim day for us, for the prince sank even deeper into his wanderings, and the flesh watered away from his bones as fast as ever I saw. I stayed with him all the time, for he had about him at this pass no mother nor brother nor sister, and never had I felt him so solitary and so committed to my care. His physician came and went, but Llewelyn was past swallowing draughts, and we knew there was little to be done but help his strong and resolute body to do its own fighting. So we continued stubbornly replacing his soaked bedding and bathing his tormented face, keeping him wrapped when he was racked with shivering, and cooling his body with distillations of herbs when he burned. When he could not endure the heat of the bed I held him raised against my shoulder, and was nursing him so when for the first time he fell into a shallow but real sleep.

  Afraid to stir for fear I disturbed this respite, I held him more than two hours, while his sleep, though troubled at times, yet continued. In the dusk of that day he opened his eyes, that looked at me with recognition, and essayed to smile, saying: "Samson?" And when I answered, low, that it was I, he whispered: "Again the same small favour! Harder than parrying a knife!"

  Before it was fully dark David returned with the Lady Senena and they came in at once to the bedchamber. And with them, entering silently on her lady's heels, came Cristin. The Lady Senena came to her son's bedside, felt his brow, and turned back the covers from his throat, that was still and ever running with sweat. But I saw by the way her grim face eased, no matter how slightly, that she found him in better case than she had expected, and that she would fight for him with a good heart. I looked beyond her, and found Cristin gazing with a still and serious face upon me, and upon the sick man in my arms. Her eyes smiled. Not her lips. She spoke no word to me, but I knew she was remembering another bedside, in a hut among the snowy woods of the Black Mountain. That patient had been past our saving. This one I knew then would not be lost to us.

  "It is not so bad as it might be," said the Lady Senena, turning back her sleeves. "He has slept? An honest sleep?"

  I said that he had, for two hours, and that he shook now less than before. "You have done well by him," she said, "but now lay him down gently and leave him to us."

  So I did, and myself slept for a while, being sure in my heart by this time that I might do so without fear, for he would live. The attack, which had been rapid and violent in its development, passed no less switfly from him. Within three days he was able to get up out of his bed and walk a little in the sun, gaunt and shaky, but again his own man. When first he arose, uncertainly smiling like one entering in at a doorway to a world unknown, or almost forgotten, he leaned upon David, whose steely, arrogant strength was well able to sustain him. But before he lay down again he called me to him, and asked me to play my crwth, since he was too weak to put his senses to any harder work than listening to music. And so I did, and to my music he slept, which his mother said firmly was the best occupation he could have for some days yet.

  So it went until he was stronger, his mother and David and I vying for the frail attention he was able to bestow. Only Cristin fetched and carried, cooked and nursed, without any ambition to take him from us. And she gave orders, too, with authority, to me as readily as to another if I happened to be at hand, as often I was. And that companionship in his service, quite without greed or insistence on personal recognition, was marvellously reassuring to me, and beyond belief rewarding.

  But it was not long before the prince himself undid the half of our good work. He would ride before he was well fit, for it enraged him that his body should have the mastery over him, and he came back from his ride sweating again and shivering, tried too far too soon. Then there followed an anxious night when the fever racked him again, and at intervals, as before, he wandered, muttering confused words. His mother would have insisted on watching the night through with him, had not Cristin with authority taken her place, and even then she would have a man stand by, for should his state become worse he was too heavy for Cristin to lift and handle alone.

  That duty she laid, by custom and without question, upon me, and without question I accepted it. And this befell in hall, before the Lady Senena withdrew to her rest, and all those about the tables above the fire heard it, among them Godred.

  His duties being with the guard, and not within doors, I had seen but little of him during those days, yet I knew that when the whole household gathered his eyes were constantly upon me. So they were then, and I saw their knowing brightness. He came to my side as we left the hall, stepping lightly and walking close, and looking at me full with his open, round-eyed smile he said softly:

  "I trust you'll have quiet watch tonight. And no occasion to call for other help. No one will dare disturb you uncalled, that's certain, not in Llewelyn's own chamber."

  I understood but would not understand him. And he, as though he talked at random and lightly, following a wanton thought that touched us only by chance, laughed and said: "That would be a fine romantic scene for a geste—two secret lovers set to such a night-watch together! I wonder how long their continence would last through the night!"

  I would not follow him down any of these devious ways he led me, but took my arm from under his hand, and said I had no time or mood for fooleries while the prince was sick, and I must be about my business for him. Godred laughed again, very confidently, and laid the hand I had rejected upon my shoulder for a moment. "Ah, there'll be time for plenty of changes of mind before morning," he said in my ear. "No need to carry your sword for a cross all the hours of darkness, like a new knight at vigil, nor lay it between you and temptation night-long, neither. Life owes you a sweet bed and a warm one now and then. I am expert in your deserts. I owe you so much myself, and you never will give me occasion to repay." Still softer he said, and giggled: "Nor her, either! We feel our indebtedness, indeed we feel it!"

  And he dug his hard fingers into my shoulder, and so slipped away from me without looking back. And I went to watch by Llewelyn's bed with a chill of misliking about my heart, for there was something changed in Godred and not for the better, something that went even beyond his shameful urging of me towards his wife. That I had heard from him before, but in a fashion somewhat different, lightminded and fulsome at the same time, anxious to have my favour and stand well with me, by whatever means served. All this was present still, but with a bitter after-taste, all the sweetness somehow underlaid with a note of cruelty and spite. Towards her? I could not think so. Towards me, then? He had no occasion more than before, and if he had spied on us at Carreg Cennen he knew it. Nor should he have any occasion this night, or any night to come.

  So I put him out of my mind, and went to my duty. And I forgot him in my lord and my love, those two people I most revered in this world. Llewelyn lay uneasily between waking and sleeping, now and then babbling into his pillow and tossing weakly, great beads of sweat gathering and running on brow and lip, but this time he was not turned inward away from us. He knew us, and at moments spoke to us, feebly but with knowledge, even with kindness and humility, begging pardon for the trouble he gave us, and the grief, and thanking us for our care of him. Towards midnight he panted and sweated most, and I lifted him into my arms and held him so, while Cristin bathed his face and neck and shoulders and breast with a cooling infusion of herbs, time after time until his shivering stopped, and he breathed more deeply, and lay more easily in my arms. And so he fell asleep as before, truly asleep, the fever ebbing away. Cristin spread a clean linen pillow under him, and I laid him down, never breaking his sleep.

  "It is passing," she said almost silently over his body. "Now he will rest."

  In that bedchamber, small and bare enough, there was a little rushlight burning, set back behind his head that it might not trouble his eyes. The hangings on the walls were of woven wool, and we had young branches of pine fastened there, to make the air sweet and spiced. The
summer was mild, with little troublesome heat, but the curtained door we left open, to let in air. The window-opening was full of stars. There she and I hung over Llewelyn's sleep together, one on either side of the bed. And by the grace of God we thought not at all of each other, but only of him, until his sleep deepened and eased into a wondrous freshness and grace, and the fever ebbed even out of his bones and left him clean. Then we looked up, our faces but a little way apart, each into the other's eyes.

  In the anteroom to the bedchamber, scarcely wider than a passage, there was a brychan drawn close up to the doorway, put there when first Llewelyn began to mend, so that whoever watched with him overnight could get some rest and yet hear any sound from within the sickroom. I said to Cristin in a whisper, rather by signs than by words, that she should go and lie down there, for she was weary, and I would sit up with the prince, and call her if there were any need. But she only smiled at me and shook her head, feeling no need to give any reason, as I felt none to ask for any. I could as well have withdrawn into the outer room myself, for the protection of her good name, even though none but the one person in all the household would ever have dreamed of calling it in question, and there watched out the night at her call, but I did not do it. For such moments as we might have together lawfully were beyond price, and the gift of a night was food for a hungry year to come.