The Brothers of Gwynedd

by Edith Pargeter

  Llewelyn did question a little concerning those four full days lost.

  "My lord," said Owen, who had led the unlucky expedition, "when we found the valley road impassable, rather than abandon the enterprise we tried to make a circle through the hills and come at Dolforwyn from the north side, and though we made a part of the journey, we crossed between the brooks that drain into the Bechan, and then we could go no further, nor get back with safety, and it took us two days to make our sorry way home to Pool. My lord, now in more blessed condition I thank God there was no harm but to us who invoked it." He was a smooth young man, and bent on salving his threatened prospects if he could by any means do it.

  "Well," said Llewelyn, "I have done. You are confided to your judges."

  Then those seven justices conferred, and with no voice dissenting—bear in mind always that Griffith's own justiciar was one of the seven—they accepted that plea of guilty, and gave their verdict that in view of the absolute confession of treason, the two accused were placed, as to their bodies, lands and possessions, at the disposal of the lord prince, to do with them and all things theirs whatsoever he would. Thus everything Griffith owned passed into Llewelyn's hands, to give back or retain, as he pleased. And what he pleased he had already considered, weighed and measured, to balance enforcement with remission, and penalty with clemency. He was as pale and grave as his traitors when he made his mind known. And they—I say it, who saw them then, and know what plaintive play they made thereafter with their wrongs— they were immeasurably happy with the outcome, having expected worse, even with their careful precautions.

  "The most of your lands and possessions," said Llewelyn, "I am moved to grant back to you. There are certain exceptions." He named them, all territories which had traditionally been in dispute between Gwynedd and Powys. They lopped Powys perhaps of one-quarter of its ground. "You may make your petition for the remainder," he said, "upon conditions." And those conditions also he set out in full. Griffith and Owen had every opportunity to protest against them, had they so wished. They were main glad not to make any such protest. I think they were astonished and gratified at the modesty of their loss.

  Nevertheless, I own it was not easy for Griffith to swallow the indignity, when he was forced to go on his sixty-year-old knees before the prince, and ask humbly for the restoration of the remainder of his lands, for him and his heirs, pruned of those small parts beyond the Dovey, in Cyfeiliog, and of thirteen vils near the river Lugg, and most of Arwystli. To the conditions attached he assented, not gladly, but that was not to be expected, and I do not think they were unjust or excessive. First, Owen was taken into Llewelyn's keeping as hostage for his and his father's loyalty. Then also twenty-five of the chieftains of the lands regranted to Griffith were to give their fealty instead to the prince, and swear a solemn oath to be faithful to the prince as against Griffith if he again offended. And last, all the parties had to agree that if Griffith or his heirs again attempted treason against Llewelyn, then the prince should have the right to take possession again of all the lands in the traitor's hold, and keep and enjoy them for ever. The compact was not complete until Griffith, with what grace he could, authorised this seizure in the event of his own default.

  On the following day he and his son executed a deed likewise rendering all their possessions forfeit to the prince if Owen should attempt to escape from Llewelyn's custody, and be lawfully convicted of such an attempt. His parole was thought hardly a strong enough guarantee and since it was far less trouble, and more agreeable for him, if he could be out of close ward and merely an enforced guest at court, a sanction of such severity might hold him as effectively as bars.

  We remained in Cydewain until the time came for the May meeting at the ford, where Edward's commissioners duly came, and some of the mutual complaints were dealt with by sensible give and take, though others proved more intractable, and there was little but parchment progress with the envoys of the Earl of Hereford. But something of interest we learned there, for it came out that Rhodri, who had shaken off the dust of Wales in chagrin after his marriage plans foundered, was now in London, in the service of the queen-mother, and moreover, had found a more complacent bride, and one just as profitable, for he was married to a lady who was an heiress in Gloucestershire.

  "Who would have thought it?" said Llewelyn, relieved and amused, as well as heartily glad for him. "Without benefit of my thousand marks, all but fifty, he has done as well for himself, after all. That's one load off my mind. Beatrice, she is called, it seems, and they say a pleasant lady. Who knows, he may have run at the right time for his own fortunes."

  There had never been any further mention of that debt owed to Rhodri, and there was little point in pursuing him with it, even had we known until then where to find him. And shortly thereafter he went abroad to France in the queen-mother's retinue. Llewelyn shrugged aside the commitment for the time being, since there had been no claim laid upon it. But for his brother, though the least to be remarked of all his brothers, he was pleased and assuaged. The old law of lands partible equally between brethren, though he stood out against it all his days for the sake of Wales, Wales as a people, a tongue and a nation, hung heavy upon his heart. Such a curse it can be, to be one of four brothers, in a land that keeps such customs. How much easier was Edward's lot, by all men acknowledged as the sole heir to monarchy, and even the lot of his brother, accustomed to accept and illuminate his lesser but glorious place, having its own rights and not encroaching upon the greater.

  "I have even heard," said Llewelyn, "that this lady is with child. Rhodri is from good stock. Who knows but my grandsire may repeat himself out of Rhodri's loins as well as any other? There may be greatness yet from what I fear I reckoned too small. Let's, at all costs, wish him well!"

  So we went home cheered rather than burdened, satisfied that the evil of Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn was curbed and frustrated, and that what ill effects remained from that collision could be softened and soothed away by our usage of Owen, while he remained with us. I know that Llewelyn had in mind a fairly early release, and reassuring patronage in the meantime. The young man went with us dutifully, nervous, attentive, almost obsequious in his determination to wipe out the past, and Llewelyn took care to pay him some civil attention in return, though they had little in common. Such relationships are not easy upon either side.

  On our way back into Gwynedd we halted overnight at Corwen, in the vale of Edeyrnion. Some of the solid men of those parts came to the prince with various pleas and petitions, and among them was a miller, a stout man and enterprising, who had his mill a few miles up the river from that place, and since there were often people wishing to cross the Dee by his boat and save themselves a league or two on foot, he came to ask licence to provide a ferry and man it at that spot. It was a reasonable request, and quickly granted, and I went to write him the needful licence and get it sealed, and afterwards walked up with him some way along the riverside, to take the evening air, for it was a fine night after a stormy day.

  It so happened that the river was running fairly high, and is always rough water there. I remarked that he would need a sturdy ferryman if his service was to operate on any but summer days, and he allowed that there were times when he would not ask any man to risk his life on that crossing, though most of the year he knew it himself well enough to master it, and he could find men at least as good to do the work for him. I said, eyeing the broken water, which was storm-brown, that I would not care to tackle it myself even now, in late May. And he laughed, and said this was nothing, this would not hinder him.

  "You should have seen it in those winter floods we had. Man and beast, we were up in the roof of the mill, though we stand high, and we had to wade to get out. I mind one night when it was at its worst, there came a company riding downstream and wanting to cross. What they were doing out in such numbers God knows, forty of them if there was one! But they came shouting, was there not a ford a little higher, for they must get over. And I laughed in their
faces, asking after a ford, when a man had to ford his own fields, let alone a torrent like the Dee. Then they would have me take them across in my boat, but I would not have attempted one trip, let alone the four or five I should have had to make. And with horses? Not for the world! I think they would have taken the boat by force, they were so urgent, but that they were afraid to handle it themselves when it came to it. They were even mad enough to think of trying to swim the beasts across. But not mad enough to do it!" he said, and laughed.

  All this I heard at first but currently, as of mild interest between two companions passing the time, but before he was halfway through his story I was sharply intent, and hearing echoes in every word, for could there have been two such parties out in such weather, and on such urgent business that only God could turn them back with his storms? I asked of him: "What night was this? Can you recall?"

  "That I can," said the miller confidently, "for the next day was the first break in the clouds, and by evening the rain stopped, though it was ten days before the Dee was back in its bed. It was the first night of February."

  Two days out from their muster at Pool, and two days before their draggled return. It was too apt to be untrue. The company that Owen had led out of the castle stealthily by night had ridden, not up the Severn or through the hills to the raiding of Dolforwyn, but hard towards the north-east, only to be turned back by the Dee in flood. And if that was true, then upon some blacker business than Dolforwyn, or why should they compound so willingly with that story and throw themselves gratefully on Llewelyn's mercy? If they had not had worse to fear by letting the case be pursued further they would have fought it out in the court and denied everything but some local brawl not threatening their fealty.

  "But I tell you this," said the miller with certainty, "though they rode on downstream to try elsewhere, I'm sure they never got across Dee that night, nor that sen-night, either.

  No, thought I, they never did. And I asked him, with no too great show of interest: "What could they have wanted so desperately on the way north, in such weather? Was there anything to be noted about them out of the ordinary?"

  "Out of the ordinary enough, come to think of it," said the miller, "when we have such order as the prince has made in the land. They were armed, every man, with bows or steel."

  After I had left the miller I took that singular story back to Llewelyn, and repeated it for his ear alone.

  "Have up young Owen," said Llewelyn at once, "and let's see what he has to say to this. But first ask Tudor to come to me. No one else."

  I took my time about finding and bidding in Owen ap Griffith, that the prince and Tudor might have time for consultation. For beyond question the boy would deny, and cling fast to his own story, but more depended on the manner of his denial. He went in with me very quiet and wary, but in his situation so he well might, and we did not hold that against him as proving or disproving anything. He saluted the prince very respectfully, and sat but gingerly and stiffly when he was bidden, eyeing Llewelyn with apprehensive eyes.

  "Tell me again," said Llewelyn amiably, "for I wish to be informed in every detail, all the course of that wild ride you made in the floods to try to reach Dolforwyn. We had but the outline before. Now fill in the colours."

  "I fear," said Owen, licking his lips, "the lord prince wishes only to remind me of an iniquity I already regret, and would wish out of mind. But I have deserved it." Which was no bad beginning, considering all things, and as I have said, there was more of his secret and guileful mother in him than his overbearing father. And he drew breath and described, with increasing confidence, in the end almost with relish, every mile of the way, which brooks they had crossed, where they camped miserably overnight, where they found themselves perilously bogged between rivers in flooded heath, never too stable even in better weather. A good story it was, all the more as he cannot then have expected to have to produce it, and must have been improvising.

  "That is comprehensive enough," said Llewelyn at the end, "and leaves not an hour unaccounted for of all those you wasted in this quest. So the miller from upstream here is wrong, is he, if he says you were ranging with this same band along the Dee on the first night of February, seeking a crossing, when by rights you say you should have been somewhere in the peat-bogs north-west of Dolforwyn? If he says that you, leading this migrant company, tried every means to get him to ferry you over? Mistaken, do you think? Or lying? Or dreaming, perhaps?"

  Owen turned a yellowish white like old parchment, and shrank where he sat, but he kept his countenance better than I would have thought was in him. Twice he swallowed hard—we watched every move—and tried to find a voice to answer, but I think he was giving himself a little time, all he dared, for thought. They came in the night, they were many, cloaked. Could the miller know any man of them again? It was Owen's only weapon, and he clung to it.

  In a dry and laboured whisper he said: "My lord, I will not claim any man lies, when I do not even know him. I must answer only what I do know, that I was not there, nor any men of mine. I have told you where my men were that night. To my shame! Is not that enough?"

  "Shall I send to the mill," asked Tudor, "and have the miller come in person to testify?" And Llewelyn said: "It would be well," and still watched Owen. But the young man had played it off in the only possible way, desperate wager though it was, and had no option now but to sit out whatever came, and still steadily deny.

  "Then there were two companies of men out in arms for no good purpose," said Llewelyn, "in two separate parts of my realm, were there? Some forty in number in each? And both at the same most fortuitous time? It is asking a lot to ask me to believe it."

  "My lord, how can I answer for other men? I have told you the truth, and I am paying the price asked of me. What more can I do?"

  So he said, and clung to it through all questioning, even when Tudor and Llewelyn from both sides pressed him hard and fast, and with whatever traps they could devise. Later, the next day, the miller was brought, and Owen was confronted with him, but so straitly that the man was told not to show recognition or nonrecognition or say a word in the young man's presence, the more to agonise him with doubt of the outcome, that if he feared enough he might prefer to confess and be done with it. But he feared confession more, knowing what he had to confess, than continued obduracy.

  "My lord," he said, sweating, "let me know if this fellow claims he saw me that night and knows me again. For if he says so, then indeed he lies, though he may have seen armed men, and may say so in all good faith."

  "He does not claim to know you again," said the prince honestly. "In the dark, among so many, it would be a very long chance. And your livery and any marks of your household I'm sure were well hidden. No, he is not the liar. But I bid you now, think well what you are about, for it's you I hold, and on you it depends how I hold you. I want the truth of this strange business, and however you deny, I tell you to your face I believe it was you and yours trying to cross the Dee that night. You had much better cleanse your breast now, for in the end I shall find out all."

  From the green pallor of Owen's face I fancy he was even then equally sure of it, but he could not do other than persist in his denial, and so he did, against all pressures. Thus he came into a stricter keeping, and from a guest became a prisoner. But nothing could we get out of him. Nor now could we let it rest, for doubt of what lay behind it. All through June and into July Llewelyn had his clerks and agents questioning about the Dee and also in Cydewain, for north of the Dee we never heard word more of this armed band, thus confirming that they never got across the river. But in Pool by this time everything was so dissembled and dispersed that there was nothing to be learned there. And it was not until well into July that the prince received at Rhuddlan a letter from Cynan, brought by that same Welsh groom of his.

  "The bearer," wrote Cynan, "has recently been in the king's castle of Montgomery with me, on some minor business, and having better access to the gossip of the stables than I, learned somewha
t more of the matter of your troubles with the lord of Powys. I do not take gossip for proof, but it is worth noting. You may not know, but the garrison at Montgomery are very well aware, that one very close to you paid a visit to the castle of Pool in November of last year, and was a guest there more than a week, and that without any ceremony, but rather softly and with few attendants, which is not his habit, and without his wife, which is even more strange. There are some in the neighbourhood who whisper that he may not be quite innocent of taint in the treason to which Griffith and his son have confessed. If I trespass, hold me excused. The precedents you know better than I. I speak of your brother, the Lord David."

  Llewelyn sat long, after he had read this, withdrawn into himself, before he roused himself with a great effort to question the groom, who said out freely what he had heard, and knew the difference, too, between common castle gossip and the grain of hard but ambivalent truth within it. Then with thanks and a reward, and in his normal calm manner, the prince dismissed him.

  "Dear God!" said Llewelyn then, to himself rather than to Tudor and me. "It must not be true." But he did not say that it could not be. And I, for my part, was so stunned that at first I could not bring my mind to connect and examine as it should have done, and make sense of what I knew but he did not, those night hours in February when David deserted his bedchamber and his wife to stand out the cold of the night on the wall like a sentinel, while the distant mischief he might well have had a share in brewing either succeeded or failed. As soon as I remembered his face, in the chapel as on the guard-walk, I knew that he had known. Something, if not all. But what he could have had to gain, by some furtive raid on Dolforwyn or any other of the prince's garrisons, was mystery to me. The torment was, that in his love there was so much hate, jealousy and resentment that he was capable, in the last anguish, of acts unfathomably senseless, so long as they were sufficiently hurtful.