The Brothers of Gwynedd

by Edith Pargeter

  Llewelyn went on his knees beside the brychan, and leaned and gazed at her in silence, hardly breathing. The old doctor came creeping to his shoulder and whispered brokenly in his ear, as if he fended off blame for her condition.

  "A bad birth, a difficult birth…The child lay awry. We have stopped the bleeding now, but it went on so long…"

  "And such pain!" whispered Alice, crouched on a stool with the child in her lap. "Day and night such pain, and never any respite, and hardly a moan out of her…But now she's worn out, she has no strength left."

  The chaplain said, as was his duty: "She has received her saviour. I thought it needful."

  Llewelyn was still, watching the shallow rise and fall of her breast over the most gallant and generous heart that ever beat in a woman's body, and he never turned his head, though I think he heard all. Presently he said in a low voice: "Leave us alone with her. If I need you—if she needs you—Samson shall call you." And then for a moment, as in a distant dream, he bethought him of the child, and asked: "There is a nurse? The little one is provided for?"

  Alice said yes, the tears still coursing slowly from under her eyelids.

  "Then leave us. One of you may sleep in the next room, in case of need. I shall watch with her through the night."

  They went away softly and closed the door after them. I asked if I, too, should wait without. He put his hands over his face for a moment, pressing hard as if to quicken tissues grown old, weary and stiff. "No," he said, "stay with me. Stay with us! You knew her before ever I did, you first showed her to my soul's eyes. To no other but you can I uncover my heart now, and no other can I bear to have by, if she leaves me in the night without word or look. You need say nothing, but be with us. If God wants her, God will take her, but I can fight for her still. There were some in the old times, I have heard, wrestled with angels."

  On a table by the wall they had left a pitcher of red wine, and a bowl of cool, scented water, and soft cloths, and a little oil-lamp with a floating wick, that gave a dim, mellow light. He rose, and opened wide the door that gave upon the guardwalk, for even the night was hot. The sky was full of waking stars, and the air smelled fresh and sharp, of the salt marshes, and the sea. Then he came back to the bed, and remained on his knees beside her, looking earnestly into her face.

  The trance in which she lay was not quite sleep, and not quite unconsciousness. Sometimes her lashes trembled, and seemed about to rise from the sunken cheeks, and then were still again. Once her lips quivered and curved, as though to speak, or smile, or kiss. But so white, so white, no blood in her, a spirit, not a body.

  He took one of her wasted hands between his own, and caressed it. He bathed the sweat of weakness and fever from her lip and her brow as it formed, and drew back every strand of hair that seamed the smoothness of her neck. And time and again he spoke to her, laying his cheek beside her on the pillow, on the spread riches of her hair, whispering the endearments he kept for their bed. All night long he called her back to him from the perilous place where she stood hesitating whether to go or stay. But doubtless there was another voice calling her away.

  Whether it was his caresses that reached her, or whether the change in the light penetrated her dreamless withdrawal, in the dove-grey of dawn before the sun rose I saw her lips move and part, and her brows draw together, and then she drew deeper breath, and when he leaned over her and said her name she opened her eyes, but so slowly, as if the weight of the world hung on her lids. In the dimness of the room her eyes looked dark, but as they clung to the face that bent so close to hers, they summoned a gradual radiance from within, and the clear gold lights came back into them. She knew him. She had no strength to move or speak but even in its pallor her face grew marvellously bright, and when he stooped his head and kissed her with careful tenderness on the mouth, her lips answered him as best they could.

  He bathed her face with the scented water, and with the tip of his finger moistened her lips with wine, but for wine she made no effort, all the life she had left she poured towards him with her eyes. And as he ministered he spoke to her, patient and soft, calling her by the secret names he had for her, telling her that her daughter was whole and perfect and well-cherished, and that she need trouble for nothing but to rest and grow strong, and think of nothing but that she was loved, and that while she needed him he would never again leave her. And all the ways in which he loved her, and all the beauties he loved in her, he told over one by one, he who was so inexpert with words. There was never any of his bards made so sweet and desperate a song as he did for her, to hold her spellbound from taking the last step away from him. But I think he knew then that she had only paused a moment for love of him, to listen from very far off, hanging back on the hand that led her.

  Lying as it does in a cleft of the northern hills, with the great mountain mass of Penmaenmawr to the east, Moel Wnion to the west, and Foel-Fras to the south, the morning sun never enters Aber. But to look out at dawn to the north, over the narrow salt marshes to Lavan sands and the sea, that is wonderful. The deepening light, first tinted like the feathers of doves, then flushing into rose, then glowing like amber, comes sweeping westward from Conway over the sea, to strike in a glitter of foam and sand on the distant coast of Anglesey across the strait from us, as if a golden tide had surged across the sea-green tide, and flooded the visible world with light. That was such a morning. The only time that Eleanor's eyes left Llewelyn's face was to gaze at the morsel of sky seen through the open doorway, and he divined the last thirst that troubled her, she who loved the sun. If he could not take her where it would shine upon her, at least she might still look upon its beauty from the shadows.

  He sat down beside her on the edge of the brychan, and lifted her against his shoulder, and carefully gathering the blankets of the bed about her, took her up in his arms. She made no sign or sound of pain, but only a soft sigh, and with his cheek pressed steadyingly against her hair he carried her out on to the guard-walk, and the few yards round the stony bulk of the tower to the northern parapet, and stood cradling her as the sun rose, their faces turned towards the sea.

  There in the open the air was sweet and cool, and below us, beyond the shore road, the reeds and grasses of the marsh stood erect like small, bright lances, every one separate, going down in lush, tufted waves to where the sands began, with a great exultation of sea-birds filling the air above. The level sunrays made all the surface of the strait a dance of fireflies, but beneath the glitter the deeps shone green as emeralds, and darker blue in the centre, and the shallows where the sands showed through were the colour of ripening wheat. Along the horizon ran the purple line of the coast of Anglesey, and in the centre of that distant shore was the Franciscan friary of Llanfaes, the burying-place of the princesses of Gwynedd. In the morning light it appeared as the distant harbour of desire, absolute in beauty and peace.

  She lay content in his arms and on his heart, her cheek against his cheek, and her eyes drew light from the picture on which she gazed, and grew so wide and wise in their hazel-gold that there was a moment when I believed he had won the battle. He knew better. Very still he stood, not to jar or hurt her, and softly still he spoke, of Wales, that she had taken to her heart and that loved her in return, and of a future when there would be no need of war, when this land would be free and united and honourable among the countries of Christendom, and kings and princes would pledge peace and keep it, and her child's children, the descendants of Earl Simon, would walk at large as heroes among their own people, and equals among the monarchs of the world.

  Her lips moved, soundlessly, Saying: "Yes!" It was right that she should take her leave of the world, as she had greeted it in passing, with a cry of affirmation.

  The sun was just clear of the horizon, and the sky to eastward the colour of primroses, and to westward of cornflowers, when the faintest of tremors passed through her body, and her head turned slightly upon his shoulder, her lips straining to his cheek. One word she said, and this time not silently
shaping it, yet on so feeble a breath that neither he nor I could have caught it but for the great silence in which we stood. But hear it I did, and so did he. We never spoke of it, but I know.

  "Cariad!" she said, and her breath caught and halted long, gently began again, and again sank into stillness.

  He held her for a great while after that, but there was no more sound, and no more movement, and that was all her message to him. She did not leave him without saying farewell. Yes! Cariad!

  When he was quite sure that it was a dead woman he held on his heart, he carried her in and laid her upon the bed, and with steady hands smoothed her hair again over the pillow, and crossed the frail hands on her breast. Gently he drew down the lace-veined eyelids over her eyes, and held them a while with reverent fingers. After he had kissed her brow, and signed her with a cross, he turned at last to me.

  "Call the women," he said. "She has no more need of me."

  When he went out alone from the chamber where she lay, his face was a better likeness of death than hers.

  CHAPTER VII

  He made no outcry, abandoned no duty, himself directed all the sorrowful business of her funeral rites. He spoke with man and woman, high and low, as courteously and directly as always, was short with carelessness, patient with honest weakness, gentle with the timid. And all with that face of stone. He did not sleep until nightfall, but when he had done all that remained to do and fell to his lot, then he shut himself alone into the chapel, and there remained until darkness.

  When he came forth, at least his face lived again, had eyes bruised and cavernous, but alive, and though he kept his grief withdrawn and apart, some portion of his senses and affections moved among us again, for he had accepted what could not be resisted. First he asked for the child, and Alice brought her and laid her beside him in her carved cradle, sleeping. A big infant she was, with long, fine bones, the crumpled face of all new human creatures, and a fuzz of russet-brown hair like her father's. But when Llewelyn edged a finger-tip into one tiny fist, and she gripped it firmly and opened her eyes, they were wide and hazel, flecked with green-gold, Eleanor's eyes. He looked upon her long and wonderingly, and could not love her yet, I think, not because he held her mother's death against her, but because so small and unfamiliar a being had no reality for him, and he had not David's easy gift of approaching even day-old infants with assurance. But he felt a heavy, protective tenderness at sight of such helplessness and smallness, and at the thought that she had lost as heavily as he had, for her mother was dead, and she had none but him left, as he had none but her. But at least for her he could be at rest, she slept and fed and thrived.

  Having assured himself that all was well with the little one, and given orders for the morrow, he slept at last. And in the morning he called me to him, and had me stay at his side thereafter. I was with him when he went to look his last upon Eleanor in her coffin, before they covered her. With her hair braided and a golden gown upon her, she was beautiful still, but far beyond our reach. He kissed her brow and her lips, and I kissed the cold hands folded on her breast. There was none other with us.

  "Thirteen years I waited for her," he said, looking down upon her still face, "and less than four years I have had her, and I suppose that was reward beyond my deserts. Now for me, as a man, there is nothing left to lose, what is there Edward or any other man can do to me that I cannot laugh to scorn? In the world's eyes my honour is gone, and now my love is gone, and there is no reason I should regard my life a day longer. That and all else I will throw into this war I never wanted. For now I want it! With all my soul and strength I will wage it to the end, and the kingdom I could not lay at her feet I will build to be her memorial, God willing. And if I fail, another will succeed, building higher on what I have built. This child may bear the sons my dear love was not permitted to bear. Who am I to say when God's truth and justice will come to fruit? With what is left of my life I will fight for it, and leave the outcome to God."

  We buried Eleanor de Montfort, princess of Wales, in the friary of Llanfaes, in the heart of June, when all things were blossoming and ripening for fruit, and the days so fair the heart ached for their beauty, and more for the beauty that was rapt away in its Junetide. We carried her in solemn procession from Aber across the salt marshes, and rowed her from Lavan sands over the strait, and laid her beside Joan, lady of Wales aforetime, daughter to King John and wife to Llewelyn Fawr, my lord's grandsire. There her mortal part rests until the judgment, but surely her soul is gone like the flight of a lark, singing into the world of light. It is for ourselves we grieve.

  At night in hall the bards made music in her honour, lamenting the rose of the world fallen untimely to a killing frost, praising her as the noble daughter of a noble sire, as indeed she was, and prophesying the gift of her beauty and goodness to her own child in the days to come. And he sat erect and grave through all, and did all that was required of him that day, taking pains to make all necessary dispositions for the care of his little daughter.

  He named her Gwenllian, for it was a name in which Eleanor had found a pleasing music.

  The next day we rode for Denbigh to rejoin David.

  I knew, yet could not feel until we turned our faces again to the war, how changed was the world for Llewelyn and for me. When we had put Aber behind us, with all its denizens going about their daily business, and very properly so, then I understood how light my lord's life was now to him, and yet how precious it might be to the cause he championed. It was the only passion left to him, and since a live man must go on living for his honour's sake, what could he do better than cast the whole weight of his powers, his gallantry, his strength of will and quality of mind, into the battle for his sole remaining love?

  As for all that great household we left behind, for them it was very different. Death comes and goes about the world, and plucks full-blown blossom and withered stalk and dewy bud indifferently, and those who remain mourn, yet even in mourning must be about the business of burial and worship and legal settlement, and by the time that is done the great rent in their lives is already partially stitched up, and soon quite healed, since the living have little choice but to live. So those good women in Aber wept for Eleanor, whom they had deeply loved, and wept longer than most mourners do, but they had also work to do, and the child to tend, and other affections of their own to cherish, and the great void that lady had left in dying must heal gradually until it vanished quite, but for a kind of sweet sadness that would now and again set one or other of the women saying: "Do you remember…?" And remember they would, every one. But time goes on, and memories have to wait for the leisure moments.

  But for him nothing would ever again be the same, though life claimed its due, and he did not merely continue living, but lived at a fiercer heat than before, spent himself more vehemently, ventured his weal more rashly. The wound he bore would never be healed in this world, and the void in his heart never filled, and even Wales was to him from that day a changed worship, less reasoned, more devouring, a fire lit in her honour. There was no other way left for him to exalt her name and celebrate her memory, but in the exaltation and celebration of Wales.

  We made almost as good speed back to Denbigh as we had on the way from it, the urgency of action beckoning us before, and too bitter and grievous memory galloping hard on our heels. If the prince could overtake the one, perhaps he could also outrun the other. From the day that she was taken from him he drove thus without pause, his eyes fixed always upon the war.

  When we cantered up through the town at Denbigh, and walked our horses up the steep ascent to the castle gatehouse, word of our coming ran before us. By the time we entered the outer ward David was plunging out to meet us, with Tudor at his back, and a dozen more of his own captains and Llewelyn's hovering, and all with searching eyes and wary faces, peering for the omens in the prince's countenance. David waved the hurrying groom aside, and himself held his brother's bridle and stirrup. With drawn brows he peered up into Llewelyn's face, and wa
ited for a voluntary word, but the prince lighted down in silence, and in silence kissed him. David held him by the shoulder, searching close.