The Brothers of Gwynedd

by Edith Pargeter

  I said, and it was true, that had they been other than they were, they, too, might have set the needs of Wales before their own. But by his tight smile I think he still doubted. Yet even in self-appraisal, and in his rare moods of self-blame and disgust with the shifts to which he was put in his quest, he never took his eyes from his grand aim, the establishment of a Wales solid and secure enough to survive its founder, and in pursuit of that aim he never repented anything he did, whatever its cost to him or another.

  In the castle of Dolwyddelan Rhodri had a chamber high in the great keep, but he was allowed the run of the wards for exercise, under guard, and as prisons go, his was by no means of the worst. Sometimes he was even permitted to ride out in the hills, though safely escorted, for the castle stands high on a steep place, and the space within the walls is somewhat cramped. He had been visited, often by myself, once or twice in every year, and his wants and complaints, within reason, were attended to good-humouredly. Owen Goch at Dolbadarn was more closely kept, being a far more formidable person. Rhodri was querulous and critical, but not given to bold or decisive action. The marvel was that he ever brought himself to make that one rash raid, in the attempt to snatch Owen from his escort, though even that he did mainly for his own ends, needing an ally more robust than himself.

  Llewelyn had him brought down from his tower apartment into the great chamber, where there was a good fire. Rhodri halted for an instant at the sight of his brother, and then came forward into the room with a wary and suspicious face, looking at us a little sidelong, which was a way he always had, from a child. Sometimes he even walked with a sidewise gait, as though too wary and secretive to approach people straight. He was not greatly changed after his long confinement, by reason of the air and exercise allowed to him. His reddish fair hair had no grey in it as yet, and he looked no older than his years.

  "What, in person?" he said, curling his lip. "I had not looked for such an honour!" He was not feeling as bold as his manner and words suggested, for I saw the rapid, nervous fluttering of his eyelashes, which were of a colour almost rosy. "You've left me long enough unvisited, there must be some important reason for this visit now."

  "There is," said Llewelyn bluntly. "A matter of business. I have a proposal to make to you, and we may as well sit down and be civil together while I make it." And he sent for wine, and made Rhodri sit beside the fire, close to him.

  "I look for no good," said Rhodri sullenly, "from any proposal of yours. You have never wished me well, or done me justice, why should I hope for better now? If you had any brotherly feeling for me you would have set me free long ago. What do you want with me more? You have done to me all that is needful, your princedom is safe enough, at my cost, and at Owen's. Go and enjoy it!"

  It was David's complaint, though never voiced to Llewelyn, that the prince held him too lightly to care either for his love or his hate, which in his case was never true. But of Rhodri it was true enough. There was no way he could either anger or please my lord, never anything larger than irritation and weariness. So Llewelyn sat back among the fur rugs of the couch, and let his brother's petulant grievances flow over him and pass, like the humming of midges in the high summer. Neither smiling nor frowning, he waited for the feeble shower to spend itself. Then he said mildly:

  "Hate me as well as you will, but listen to me, if you want your freedom and a life at large. For you can have it, but at a price. No, let me hear no exclamation, you know only too well there must be a price. We need not go into repetitions of what has been said often enough. Wales is one, and I made it one, and if it cost your life, and Owen's, and mine, I will keep it one. There is no change there; there never will be any change. But short of letting you or any break that unity apart, you wrong me, I do wish you well. I am here to prove it. Will you listen?"

  Rhodri was so at loss, and so seeking within his own mind for perils that might still be threatening him, that it took some minutes to awe him into calm, and be sure of his attention. Then Llewelyn told him the entire bargain, bluntly and short, to leave no doubt.

  "The father is favourably disposed. The lady is very comely, and a considerable heiress. And I will see that you are set up in a sum fitting to advance this marriage. The price is large. I own it. It is the only price that will buy you this opportunity. I want from you in return a quitclaim of all your hereditary rights in Gwynedd—for in the rest of Wales you have none, and never had any."

  Rhodri gulped, and gazed, and writhed, his breath taken by so unexpected a visitation. I saw how he leaned to the hope of freedom, recoiled from the surrender of his grievance and his claim, and yet could not but realise that the grievance had no hope of being recompensed, the claim no possibility of being acknowledged, whether he took this price or no. There was against him a mind far stronger and larger than his, and a cause not all, not chiefly, selfish, against which his own small struggles were vain. And he was being offered a very fine and comfortable position in the world, a wealthy wife, and his liberty. He leaned and clutched, and started back in dudgeon, and grasped again frantically before the hope escaped him. And Llewelyn let him sway back and forth in anguish as long as he would, without pressing.

  "In return for the quitclaim," he said, "I will pay you the sum of one thousand marks to acquire this marriage, but the quitclaim I must have."

  "And if I refuse?" said Rhodri, quivering. But to me, at least, it was already clear that he would not refuse.

  "Then you remain here as my prisoner, and you have quitclaimed to me all that I require of you, but without any repayment. Let us say," said Llewelyn, in the gentlest and most reasonable of voices, "that I stand to gain what I need, whatever your answer may be, but if your answer is yes, and if you make it good, then you also stand to gain a wife, an estate, and a figure in the land. It is not an even choice," he said, with some distaste, "but at least it is fairly stated. And you know, for all your grudges, that what I swear to, that I perform."

  And Rhodri did know it, as all men knew it who dealt with Llewelyn, for after he had wrestled with his venom a while, and we had kept silence and borne with him, he said in a strangled voice, and wringing his hands together in rage and relief equally mixed: "Very well, I agree! I will give you the quittance you want."

  The agreement was drawn up and sealed at Carnarvon on the twelfth day of April, with the approval of the council, though since it was a personal bargain, accepted upon both sides, they had no call to sanction or prohibit. Nevertheless, their blessing, given with great relief at the solution of one long-standing problem and reproach, was worth much, and their witness to the deed far more.

  Rhodri was brought down from Dolwyddelan to Carnarvon still under guard, for Llewelyn would not quite loose him out of hold until he had his quitclaim safely sealed. But it was not difficult to see the lavish company that attended him as escort rather than guard on a prisoner, and from the day of his acceptance he had been allowed the services of his own household and clerks, so that there should be nothing underhand about the bargain. By the time they rode into Carnarvon Rhodri was no longer a pressed partner in the deal, having conned over all its advantages to himself at leisure, with no envied and resented brother by to poison the picture for him, and the prospect of an Irish heiress, with a goodly estate in trust for her, and a pretty face to match, had begun to seem far more desirable than a tenuous claim that grew every year more impossible of realisation. So it was no sullen and reluctant prince who brought his retinue into Carnarvon to seal the bond, but a cheerful giver who went about with a small, sidewise, sleek smile, as though he had reached the conclusion that he was not doing at all badly out of the exchange, but had better not reveal as yet that he was aware of it.

  In a great conference of council and clergy Rhodri and his clerks delivered the prepared deed, by which he quitclaimed, for himself and his heirs after him, to the prince and the heirs of his body, all his rights and claims by heredity in the lands and possessions of north Wales, and elsewhere throughout the whole principalit
y— though naturally this need not preclude the grant of lands to him to be held of the prince by homage—in consideration of the payment of one thousand marks sterling with which to acquire the marriage of Edmunda, daughter of John le Botillier. The deed also made solemn promise that he would not disturb, or procure others to disturb, the peace of the prince's realm, against his present willing surrender and quitclaim. And to this document he added his seal, together with the seals of the bishops of Bangor and St. Asaph, and the abbots of Aberconway, Basingwerk and Enlli, with leave to add also the seals of the archdeacons of the two northern sees. A great number of witnesses, headed by Tudor the high steward of Wales, and including Llewelyn's own law clerks, subscribed to the agreement. Rhodri was at the same moment fast bound, and utterly free. From the time the deed was concluded he was at liberty, and a first payment of fifty marks was made to him at once, to pay his expenses in opening negotiations with le Botillier. Which he set about eagerly, with every prospect in his favour.

  And indeed he was not so bad a match for the lady, and not an ill-looking fellow, though vague and colourless beside either Llewelyn's glowing brown or David's raven blackness and brilliance. And in the first exchanges everything went well with his suit, and the father, certainly, was in favour of the marriage, and exactly what befell to break off the arrangement we were never told, for by then the matter had naturally passed completely into Rhodri's hands, and whatever it was, it caused him great chagrin and anger, and he was in no mind to share it. By such grains of gossip as leaked out, it seems that though le Botillier was in favour of accepting Rhodri, his daughter had other ideas, having both a lover and a mind of her own, and contrived to place herself in a situation so delicately compromised that her parents found it wise to let her have her way, and betrothed her to the young man in question. Whether this is true or not, certainly she was married, shortly afterwards, to one Thomas de Muleton.

  Now perhaps Rhodri could have borne this rebuff somewhat better if his marriage plans had not been made so publicly and before so great and solemn a concourse, but as it was, the collapse of his hopes could not but be noised abroad just as publicly, and he took it very hard, for though marriage plans are made and unmade in businesslike fashion all the year round with no heart-burning on either side, yet to be the favoured suitor with the parents and to be rejected and outwitted by the girl is less common, and very shaming. From the moment he got the news of the final break Rhodri shut himself up from sight, fearful of covert smiles and castle jokes such as follow the unfortunate, and brooded in the blackest of moods. And within a week he vanished from among us, took his portable treasure and rode away in the night, and the next word we had was that he had entered Chester and confided himself to the justiciar there.

  Llewelyn made mild enquiry, not anxious to interfere with his brother's plans, if Rhodri intended to shake off the dust of Wales, only wanting precise news; and I think he would have been willing then to pay a further instalment of the money due, but Rhodri had already ridden south, presumably to London to ask hospitality and service at court, so as we had no further word the prince shrugged, and let him go.

  "With goodwill," he said, sighing, "if he intends to settle in England, for I am rid of him, and he may do very well there, where he has no claims and no grievances, and no ambitions beyond his reach."

  None the less, it had an unpleasant flavour for us that a prince who found his life soured in Wales should naturally make for King Henry's court, as if fleeing for refuge to the enemy, whereas we had been at peace and in very reasonable friendship for five years.

  "It seems we have not yet succeeded in changing men's minds," said Llewelyn soberly. "He could have gone openly for me, why should I hinder him?"

  "Why, indeed?" said David to me, after hearing this. "He has what he wanted from him, signed and sealed, with a dozen or so reverend churchmen as sureties, and half the nobility of Wales as witnesses. There's nothing any lawyer, English or Welsh, can do to break that bond, and nothing left to fear from Rhodri. Now he has not even to pay him or feed him. Why hinder his going, indeed!"

  He had come to me, as he used to do years before, in my copying-room, where I was busy with some documents concerning cases to be heard in the prince's local court. We were sitting by candle-light, for I had worked so late that even in August the light was gone, but for a violet afterglow over the sea. Elizabeth was not with him on this visit, and without her he was restless and out of humour. The black mood could not endure in her presence, at least not thus early in the charm of their marriage, but now it sat upon his shoulders for want of her, and perhaps in some measure for shadowy regrets and remembrances concerning Rhodri.

  "Both you and King Henry," I said, "have good cause to know and admit that the prince pays what he pledges. You have no call to speak slightingly of his usage, whatever Rhodri may claim. Take care your own debts are paid as punctiliously as his."

  I meant debts not in money, and he so understood me, for he smiled at me darkly across the table, his elbows spread among my parchments and his chin in his cupped hands. His finger-tips pressed deep hollows into his lean cheeks below the rounded and polished cases of bone out of which his eyes shone so wildly pale, clear and bright.

  "Ah, now you preach like my true priestly breast-brother," he said. "I have heard the note before, I should miss it if ever you gave me up for lost, and cast me out of your prayers. Oh, yes, I have debts still undischarged, have I not, Samson? Twice forgiven, twice restored. I have a great load of amends to make, and gratitude to show, and service to render yet before I shall be clear of my indebtedness. Do you know of a slower and a deadlier poison," he said, pressing his fingers deeper, so that his long lips were drawn up in an angry smile, "than having to swallow favour undeserved? Never to be able to find gratitude enough to buy it off, and never to be able to spit it out in rank ingratitude? I'd liefer be treated as an equal and slung into Dolbadarn for twenty years with Owen!"

  Knowing him, I said without excitement: "That is a lie. And you know it."

  He drew exasperated breath, and gnawed his lips for a moment, eyeing me glitteringly from under his long black lashes, and then he laughed.

  "Yes, that is a lie! I might wish to prefer such dire payment, but in truth I like my freedom, and my comfort, and my own will, and I suppose if my deserts threatened me again I should again use my wits to cling fast to all those good things, and slip sideways from under the lash. Sweet Samson, I shall come to you no more for confession and absolution. You know me too well. I get no flattery."

  "No penance, either," I said.

  "True, that should bring me still," he owned, "seeing what I've just admitted. I wonder if I could ever take to hating you, Samson, for letting me off too lightly?"

  "As you hate him?" I said, and watched him flinch and frown blackly, and clench his even white teeth hard upon his knuckle, but never for all these writhings take his eyes from mine. Such he was, he could look you in the face as clearly and challengingly as an angel, both while he lied to you and while he told you blazing truth. If he could not come to terms with a man, or a cause, or a world, still he would not turn his face away. Once he told me outright that he was afraid of death, but he never averted his eyes, not even from that enemy.

  "You deceive yourself," I said, "you do not hate him."

  "Do I not?" said David mildly, still gazing like one interested and willing to learn.

  "Think, sometimes, that you have what he lacks and envies you, married happiness, and a child…"

  "Children!" said David, and let his lip soften into quite another smile, thinking of Elizabeth. "She is again with child. But no one knows it yet but you, Samson. She says it will a boy this time. She says it as if God had told her. Yes, I have what he may well envy, have I not?" And then he did lower his eyes, but to look within, at this mystery he hoarded within himself, as if he watched the seed burgeon. And more than that, a mystery beyond that mystery. The slow, deepening curl of his lips was triumphant. He enjoyed, he delig
hted in, his victory over Llewelyn; he prayed it to continue. It was a large and crushing revenge for every real and imagined injury.

  "You teach me," said David, softly and sweetly, "where gratitude is truly due." And he rose, the candles quivering faintly in the wind of his movements, and stretched at large, and smiled down at me. "I will remember it in my prayers," he said, and turned to the door. "I'll leave you to your labours now. Good-night!"

  In the doorway, the soft blue light from the summer sky flowing down all the outlines of his dark figure like moonlit water, he turned and looked back. "To think," he said, wondering, "that he had always this weapon of the quitclaim, if he had cared to use it! They say every man has his price. I wonder what he would have had to offer Owen? Or me, for that matter?"

  "He has never asked you," I said, stung, "he never will ask you, for such a quit claim."

  "As well!" said David, soft and muted in the doorway. "I would not give it to him if he did."

  In October of that year Pope Gregory X, that Cardinal Tedaldo Visconti who was recalled from the crusade to take up his office, and there in the east had become close and faithful friend to the Lord Edward, examined and rejected the prior of Canterbury as candidate for the primacy of England, looked warily but briefly at Edward's choice, Robert Burnell, that formidable cleric of affairs, and passed carefully over him to choose Robert Kilwardby, the Dominican. So the national province had an archbishop again after two years, a man of scholarship, piety and intellect.