The Brothers of Gwynedd

by Edith Pargeter

  Cristin and Elizabeth were sitting at a small inlaid board playing at tables. David was watching them moodily over his wine, his face in repose but not at ease, the black, winged brows drawn down into a tight line above half-closed eyes. They all looked up when I entered, surprised and enquiring, for the hour was getting late.

  "My lord," I said, "your brother sends me to ask you, of your grace, to come to him." It was my whole message, I saw no need to add one word.

  "Now?" said David, and drew his feet in under him and sat sharply forward in his chair, astonished. "Of my grace?" he said, and the contortion of a smile came and went on his lips in an instant, like a flash of stormy light.

  "Now?" said Elizabeth, echoing him, startled and distrustful, and reaching, as always, to stand between David and anything that might shape into a threat. "So late? Can it not wait until tomorrow?"

  "Hush, love!" said David, with quite another smile. "Who knows whether tomorrow comes for him? And think how full tomorrow is to be. It may well be tonight or never." And he looked at me, and through me, and very far beyond, perhaps back, perhaps forward, I could not tell. "My brother!" he said. "Not the prince?"

  "Your brother. Not the prince."

  "I will come," said David.

  We went uphill through the streets with two of his attendants to light us with torches, and I brought him into the room where Llewelyn sat alone. The prince rose as soon as the door opened, but did not come to meet us, and when I would have stepped back and left them together, David laid a hand quickly and imperiously upon my arm. With his eyes on his brother's face he said: "Stay with me! God knows I may need my confessor."

  "Stay with us," said Llewelyn, echoing and amending. "We may both need a witness, we could not have a better. What is there you do not know already about us both?"

  So I remained in the room with them, standing apart, and what passed that night I know, and none other knows it now in this world.

  "You sent for me," said David as the silence grew long. "I am come."

  "That was kind, and I am grateful," said Llewelyn. "David, of all the needs I have now, the greatest is to be at peace with you. I am going to a new beginning and a great happiness, and I cannot go without an act of purification, and the peace of absolution. While I am in enmity with you I am not whole. For my part, I ask pardon for all I have done amiss towards you, for too much preoccupation with other things and too little regard to your wants, for failures of understanding and of kindness. I ask your forgiveness. Will you take my hand, and be my brother again?"

  The candles were low and dim in the room, the twilight kind to those two, but even so I watched the colour drain away out of David's face until he burned whiter than the puny flames, and the blue of his eyes was both bright and blind, as though he looked equally at Llewelyn and deep into his own being. But his voice was even and low as he said: "It is generous in you to make the first move, but beware of being too hasty."

  "I have not made the first move," said Llewelyn, and smiled. "You did that, at Rhuddlan, when you would not let me seem, even for an instant, to be without a guarantor."

  The first ease of blood returning came faintly into David's face. "I dislike insolence," he said, "in underlings, but hate it in kings. You would be justified in believing that was done against Edward rather than for you."

  "So I might," said Llewelyn, "if you had not fled me so resolutely when I came looking for you. I am ashamed that I did not do then what I am doing now, and pursue you until I had you safe in hold. Well? May I have an answer?"

  "Not yet!" said David, recoiling. "There is much I have to say before I let you take me back into your favour. Forgive me if I rehearse again what you already know, but if you will not call it to mind, I must. Have you forgotten Bryn Derwin? The first time I played you false? It was I who stirred up Owen to play my game for me, I who put the arguments into his mouth, and when that came to nothing, the sword into his hand and the treason into his mind. I told you then you would do well to kill me, while you could, before I did worse to you, but you would not do it. Within the year you took me back into your grace, mistaking me for the innocent tool. You gave me land and office, and trusted me, and I took and took from you all that you offered. But I had warned you! Why would you not be warned?"

  "This is foolish," said Llewelyn gently. "I have not asked you for any promises or any recantations. There are no conditions. Let the past alone, we have all been at fault."

  "No!" said David. "Let me speak. If you have needs, before you can go clean and whole to Eleanor's love, so have I before I re-enter into yours. I have not finished yet. There was a second time—do you remember? When you went to keep the border for Earl Simon, and called me on my fealty, and because of some high words between us, and because of my will to take them in the worst meaning possible, I withdrew myself and my best men from you, and went over to the king's side. Have you forgotten that? Samson will not have forgotten! He tried to bring me back to my duty, and I all but slew him and left him lying. The second treason! No, wait!" he said in a sharp, wrung cry when Llewelyn would again have hushed him. "I have not finished yet. There was a third betrayal, the worst. I cannot claim I hatched that plot myself, it took a woman to do that. But when Owen ap Griffith came to me with the bait, I swallowed it. There was I with children, and you barren and unwed, and Wales to be won for the son I was sure of getting. We planned your death! Have you forgotten so soon? But for the floods we should have accomplished it."

  All this he said without any visible pride or shame, without any expression of regret or plea for pardon, without one word of excuse or explanation, without dwelling on or hastening past loathsome details. For him the healing was in uttering these things and laying them open without conceal. But even then I could not be certain, nor, I think, could he, whether he would ever have let it come to the proof, that night in the February storms, whether it was success or failure he prayed for in the chapel at Aber.

  "Leave this!" said Llewelyn. "It is too grievous. And I have not asked you anything of all this, and feel no need to hear it."

  "But I need to say it, and to be sure that you have it well in mind. I am what I am! I make no pretence to show better or worse. I know what I am. And if you want to make peace with me, it must be with open eyes, without any promises or pledges of amendment. God may amend me! I doubt if I can."

  "One question, then, I will ask, and only one," said Llewelyn. "Do you not want to be reconciled with me?"

  Very mildly and simply he said it, and David writhed, and tried three times to answer, and each time withdrew and swallowed the words, unable to get out the severing lie, unwilling to pour out the aching truth, because if once he showed his longing he knew it would be supplied out of hand. Shamelessly he had taken from both Llewelyn and Edward whatever was offered, as I think despising Edward for welcoming and making use of a traitor, and even in some degree disdaining Llewelyn for so rashly forgiving and harbouring one to his own danger. Shamelessly he had taken, and acknowledged no debt in return, but this one thing, and on this one night, he could not accept without feeling himself bound for its full price. The sweat stood on his forehead and lip, and he was mute. And Llewelyn read him rightly for once, and smiled.

  "There have been others," he said mildly, "have betrayed three times, and yet in the end died for the cause they betrayed."

  "But, by your leave," said David, wrestling with his devils, "you are not yet the son of God, only of Griffith, like me. And it will be some while yet to cock-crow. True," he said, with a tormented grin that was like a contortion of pain, "I am come by night and with torches to salute you—worse than Saint Peter! Would you not do well, even yet, to avoid and denounce while you may? After the kiss it will be too late!"

  For answer, Llewelyn took three long strides across the room, certain now of his victory, gripped his brother by the shoulders, and kissed him, first on the right cheek, then on the left. In his grasp David shook terribly, like a beast in a fever. But at the second touch
he heaved a great groan out of him, and caught Llewelyn fiercely into his arms, and returned the kiss with passion.

  A moment they clung thus, supporting each other. Then David slid from between the steadying hands, crumpling like an empty gown at his brother's feet, and with long palms clasping the prince's knees, broke into a storm of desperate and blissful weeping.

  I went out with him when he left us, an hour later, flushed with assuaged grief, hushed with weariness and wonder, for a brief while purged of all ills, and docile and biddable as a child. A long while they had sat and talked together after that third peace was made, not of any great things, not disposing of old grudges or making more of penitence, but very simply, as memories stirred or thoughts blew them, like severed friends discovering each other afresh after long absence. In the autumn night the moon was still high, whiter and better than his servants' torches, and silvered his face in such daunting purity, as if he had just been born into a man's prime without sin.

  "No, come no further," he said, when I had brought him out as far as the gate. "I am confessed and shriven clean, I need my confessor no more tonight. Only pray for me, that I have heart for my penance, for this time it will be a life-long penance. I never shall quit him again, Samson. For what I am worth, he has won me. I only pray I may not do him worse injury with my love and loyalty than ever I did with my treason. I am two-edged, Samson! I dread I need not even turn in a man's hand to cut him to the heart."

  So he said, and the moonlight that blanched him was overcast for a moment by a drift of cloud, and shadow passed across his face. But when it was gone, and the light came again, he was tranquil as before, and if he moved like a man exhausted, it was the exhaustion of happiness.

  "Go and get your rest," I said, "if you mean to attend him in his glory at the church door tomorrow." The prince had not asked it, nor thought of it, but I knew it would make him glad, and it kindled David's eyes into pale blue flames, as though I had lighted a lamp.

  "Well thought of!" he said. "So I will, and be splendid enough to do him credit, too. I shall be the one gift of his marriage day that Edward cannot claim to have given him."

  And he laughed, with devilry in his laughter again, and by way of sealing the ceremonies of the night kissed me, too, in parting, and went away down through the town, to his bed and his Elizabeth.

  The next day, therefore, when Llewelyn's groomsmen assembled before the hour at the great door of Worcester cathedral, one among them came unexpectedly, and he the finest and most glittering of all. And if some among the younger princes, notably Llewelyn ap Rhys Fychan of Iscennen, received him with dubious and offended faces and unflattering astonishment, Tudor and the elders were quick to grasp the meaning of his presence, and be thankful for it. One enmity the less, and one so close and damaging, was wedding gift enough. And when Llewelyn himself came to take his stand before them at the door, and the look those two exchanged made their reconciliation and their joy in it plain to be seen, even the young nephews, jealous for the prince's rights and burning with resentment of his wrongs, melted in the warmth of his high contentment, and were tamed.

  A fresh, bright day it was, after that clear night, with mild sunlight and a breeze blowing, and a fair scene that was, above the green meadows and the winding river. Before the great porch of the church the knot of glittering gallants waited, with Llewelyn standing alone at their head. That day he was all russet and gold and burning red, and on his hair the gold talaith, the crown of Wales, for he still had a principality to bring to his bride, and held it not from Edward but of hereditary right, and so would assert, for her sake even more than for his own, but most of all for the sake of his sons unborn, whose inalienable heritage it was. David glowed and smiled when he saw it, approving.

  Then came the court guests, a very splendid company, led by the queen and her noblewomen. This Spanish Eleanor was a slender lady, tall and fair, and in her manner very gentle, quiet and gracious, not beautiful or of assertive character, but in her own fashion steadfast and brave, as they say she had proved herself again and again in the crusade. After her party came the great officials of state, Robert Burnell, bishop and chancellor, the justiciar of Chester, the wardens of the marches, Mortimer, Clifford, Bohun, even William of Valence, the king's uncle and lord of Pembroke, and Gilbert de Clare of Gloucester. King Alexander of Scotland also came, a widower at that time after the death of King Edward's sister, Margaret. A fine man in the prime of life he was, and handsome. All the nobility of the land flocked into the cathedral of Worcester to do honour to the prince of Wales, and after them the lesser people of the court, and the attendants, until the vast church was full of colour and light and brilliance.

  I saw Elizabeth go by in the queen's train, and saw the look she exchanged with David as she passed, so full of pride and delight in him, and he of tenderness towards her, that their love was plain for all to see. And I thought again of the warning David had expressed only to me, and would not cast as a shadow, however slight, upon Llewelyn's day of happiness. These two Edward had joined in marriage, and though they seemed to move as free of him as the birds in the sky, how if he had never yet needed to collect the debt he conceived they owed him? And what if some day he did call in the bond they did not acknowledge, and demand payment in full for ail his outlay?

  I was thinking of it still when the king came crossing the green from the palace, with Earl Simon's daughter on his arm.

  Beside his huge figure she looked tiny, fragile and delicate, for the crown on her head came well short of his shoulder, and she had to reach up to lay her hand upon his arm. Beside his magnificence of black and scarlet and ermine she walked like a pale candle-name carried very steadily, for she was all ivory and gold from head to foot. Those who had not seen her before, for she had been kept in virtual retirement still, drew breath deep and long as they set their eyes on her, for the beauty she always had, which was indeed excelling, was doubled in this deliverance, and made of her a blinding light that dazzled the eyes. To watch them come, at distance, you would have said she was an exquisite image he had bought, and could have been carried aloft on the palm of his hand. But to look closely into her face, as she fixed her eyes upon Llewelyn and advanced towards him, looking neither right nor left, as to a lodestar, was to see her larger than Edward's grandeur, and more durable than his majesty, and to know that he had not money nor jewels enough in his treasury, nor lands enough in all his dominions, to buy the jewel that she was.

  They mounted the steps towards us, and came to Llewelyn. And there before the doorway the king laid Eleanor's hand in Llewelyn's hand, and I wondered if he saw as he did it that neither the one nor the other gave ever an eye to him, or was any longer aware of his great shadow falling across their joined hands. They had eyes only for each other, the prince's deep and dark and full of secret light, and Eleanor's wide and clear in gold-flecked green, like sunlight in spring forests. Their faces were pale and serene, the one as rapt as the other, and they did not cease to gaze upon each other thus in wonder and bliss as they turned together, and went hand in hand into the cool dimness of the church, to their second marriage.

  That was not the end of the king's favours. At the steps of the altar, before they were blessed, he laid his own personal gift upon the open pages of Llewelyn's prayer book, a bookmark of woven gold and silk, intricately made. And over their marriagefeast, that night in the bishop's palace, he himself presided, in vast good humour, and bore the expense of all. And I saw the small curl of David's lip, and knew that he was reckoning how lavish the sum laid out to buy what could not be bought, and saw, too, the stern, straight line of his black brows over aloof and critical eyes, and knew he resented the very suggestion of such a purchase, where for himself he had merely shrugged and despised, taken all and conceded nothing. But Llewelyn, I am sure, saw nothing but somewhat possessive kindness, and a desire to seal the peace with promise of a friendly future, and for the sake of Wales that was a good omen.

  When the long evening ended,
they brought bride and groom in procession to the prince's apartment, where the bedchamber was decked for them, and the candles lighted. And there the bridal pair said their thanks and their goodnight, with that same rapt composure that had possessed them ever since their hands touched, but with such authority that even the king accepted it as dismissal, and drew off his retinue and left those two together.

  When the door was closed upon them and all was quiet, I went out into the cloister and walked in the cool of the night, and saw the last candle go out in their chamber, and thought of Cristin, who had been left behind with the children. All that day I had not seen her, but now my heart was the lighter because David was reunited with his brother, and would surely join his household with Llewelyn's on the morrow, and ride to Oswestry in the wedding company.

  So my lord came at once to an ending and a beginning, and the loss he had sustained was compensated with as great a gain. And, I, too, sat alone in the night, weary but cautiously content, measuring my own losses and gains, and found a good hope in the omens of that day.