I must say of Peckham that he would listen as well as talk, even when his own indignation was rising. He did not then rebuke David for alleging that the king lied—it may be that his native honesty could not well deny it, and that he had encountered it himself in other connections—but invited those present to testify to the end on this point, and when both Tudor and young Llewelyn had had their say, Goronwy ap Heilyn ended those declarations with a very measured and reasoned recital of his own experiences as a judge of the Hopton bench and bailiff in Rhos. Many times he had witnessed miscarriages of justice and breaches of the rights guaranteed by treaty, and many times, sometimes to the king in person, he had pointed out the unwisdom of official procedures which were driving the Welsh to anger and despair. His moderation was as impressive as David's fury, and did our cause better service, besides sparing us all a long homily.
"This evidence," said the archbishop earnestly, "I accept as sincere, but remember that you have spoken of many and diverse incidents and cases, scattered throughout the land and arising at different times. Those of such pleas are remembered which have been unsuccessful, while where redress has been granted the mind keeps no record. To say that his Grace has been informed on so many occasions of so many matters, minor when looked at singly though hurtful when regarded in the sum, is not the same as claiming that he has ever been presented with such a detailed and reasoned schedule of complaints as you have provided now, where the magnitude of the disquiet and grievance is made plain. I think his attitude natural enough, indeed justified, but I understand also the depth of your resentment and distrust. What needs to be done now is not to hurl further charges, but to bring about a reconciliation. I am doing my best to that end."
"I acknowledge it and am grateful," said Llewelyn, "but I cannot relinquish my wrongs on that account. But I think you must have achieved some better hope than this, or you would not be here among us now."
"I begged the king," said the archbishop, "to allow you to have free access to him at Rhuddlan, and freely return so that you could discuss your grievances with him face to face. I will not say that he gave me the answer I hoped for, all he would say was that you could come, and return without hindrance if you earned that right. It is not absolute refusal, but for the sake of swift reconciliation I resolved rather to come myself to talk with you, and try to bring you to a degree of reason and goodwill that may admit you again to the king's grace. For I am sure he is not fast shut against you."
We were less sure, but this ardent busybody had a strong compulsion about him, and as long as he sat here with us arguing and preaching and scolding, there was hope that he would bring forth a minor miracle. So we settled to enjoy, enlighten and convince him, as he strove to comfort, chasten and pluck us from the burning.
Three days the archbishop stayed with us, and during that time had several conferences with Llewelyn, alone and in council, and with David also. And strange it was to see how, as that celibate innocent with his warm, intrusive kindness disarmed David, so did David's insinuating charm melt the archbishop, as it had many another. So that when they parted at the end it was with a wry grace and affection, David pretending a humility he did not feel, Peckham forgetfully blessing the foremost of those he had consigned to outer darkness with his general excommunication, issued from Devizes when the war first began.
At his last full conference with prince and council, the archbishop again exhorted us to humility, and a return to the fealty sworn at Westminster after the previous war, reminding Llewelyn that he had then consented to a form which entailed submitting himself without condition to the king's will—this for the sake of the king's relations with his own barons, which he dared not compromise—but on the tacit understanding that in fact the terms behind the phrase would be honourable and fair. And would he not, he said almost wistfully, again submit himself in the same form.
"The terms behind the phrase then," said Llewelyn, "were not merely promised as acceptable, but argued out through a whole month of bargaining, and known and agreed by both sides, so that I knew precisely how that clause of absolute submission was limited and conditioned by all the clauses that followed. So did all those who took part in the negotiations, there could be no withdrawal. I should require as clear an understanding of the limiting clauses this time, before I would consent to the form of unconditional submission. I am the sovereign prince of a free and sovereign state. I am willing to return to the homage and fealty of the treaty of Aberconway, provided its terms are observed, as heretofore they have not been. I am willing to make submission as I did then, the terms of that submission being understood and agreed by us both, and in that case I will keep them, as I kept the others. But always saving my right as prince of Wales, and my responsibility to my people."
"But you do not refuse," said Peckham, pleading and urgent, "the same fealty you pledged before."
"No, I do not refuse it," said Llewelyn. "I incurred it, and I was bound by it. I was not the first to break it then, and if it is renewed in good faith, I shall not be the first to break it now."
It was not all the archbishop could have wished, but it was enough to encourage him, and send him back to Edward with word that the Welsh were not irreconcilable, if they were offered honourable terms. And he thanked Llewelyn, I am sure sincerely, for his hospitality and patience, and assured us he would return to Rhuddlan to do his best for us.
"I was so unused to these wild lands," he said, "and to venturing among men at war, that I thought myself gallant to set out from Rhuddlan, and held my life to be at risk. I even appointed Bishop Burnell, the king's chancellor, to be my vicar in my absence, for fear I might not return. But I find sons here in Snowdon as in Westminster, or Canterbury, and am confirmed in feeling myself bound to all the sheep of my flock."
And he took leave of us kindly, and Llewelyn sent a princely escort to see him safely on his way as far as the Clwyd, as much to show his faith in the truce as to honour the archbishop.
David stood at the outer gate and watched them go, down through the furze and heath that skirted the pathway. "Well, I have bleated my sweetest for him," he said, mocking himself and Peckham both, but somewhat ruefully. "Who would have thought that office could truly confer fatherhood upon one so childlike? And he barely my age."
"He is a good man," said Llewelyn, but in a manner detached and almost indifferent. "Honest and kind."
"By that measured and measuring voice," said David, "I read your mind. Honesty and kindness will hardly be enough."
I do not know, but I think we prayed, all three, from that day, for Peckham's courage, perseverance and eloquence, for the pope's lightnings to strike through his uplifted forefinger, and God's through the pope, loosing angelic justice and truth upon the earth. But we kept all our armouries busy, none the less, fletching arrows and honing steel, hammering blades and repairing mail. And the quiet continued, and the weather wavered between calm and storm, smiling and frowning on our hopes by turns.
"One thing at least he brought us," said David, "he and his crusading into savage territory where men eat men, and even priests take their lives in their hands. Not that I underrate his bravery! This is a gallant little innocent as ever was. He told us Burnell is his vicar in his absence. And where the chancellor is—and plainly he's in Rhuddlan now—there Cynan is likely to be, also. We have an ally in the king's camp. We may get useful information yet, if this truce fails."
As it fell out, the first news we got came back to us with the escort, when they returned from seeing the archbishop safely to within a few miles of Rhuddlan. For the captain who had borne him company sought out Llewelyn immediately on his return, to recount what had passed on the way.
"We were well beyond Conway, my lord," he said, "when suddenly the archbishop clicks his tongue and snaps his fingers, and says he, he has done ill to let it slip his mind, he should have offered you his sympathies on the death of your cousin Mortimer—"
"Mortimer dead?" said Llewelyn, astonished and dismayed. "When? Thi
s must be new, or word would have reached us somehow."
"The twenty-sixth of last month, my lord, at Wigmore. Gently in his bed, it seems, after a fever. I made bold to ask further, and he said he knew you two kinsmen had a respect and liking for each other, war or no war, and he was sorry he had failed to speak of it to you. I tried what I could get from the groom, privately, for if Mortimer's gone so unexpectedly there may well be disarray in the middle march. What with the court being at Rhuddlan and the king preoccupied, it seems nobody's paid much attention to young Edmund's claims. Sprenghose, the sheriff of Salop, has all the Mortimer lands in his charge meantime, and the heir can wait for his seisin until Edward pleases to have time for him, and that goes down very ill. You know both the sons better than I, but I know enough of them to know they're like their father, and think a Mortimer equal to a king, any day of the year. They say there was a good deal of sympathy for the Welsh cause round Wigmore and Radnor and Builth already, among the tenants, there may well be a measure of feeling even in the castles now."
"There well may!" said Llewelyn, remembering his last meeting and compact with his cousin.
"And the groom let out that the king's been none too happy with the way the war was being conducted in those parts, what with the old lord ill, and very little being done to hunt the Welsh out of the hills. I don't say he suspects any man's loyalty, but he has no high opinion of their zeal, that's certain. Yes, and one more thing that will madden the Mortimers above all—Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn is already reviving his old claim to the thirteen vils against the heir, now the old lord's gone, and he thinks better of his chances."
That was the very cause that Mortimer had successfully defended by Welsh law, when the same was denied to Llewelyn. By Roger's death these townships came formally back into the king's hand, along with all the other Mortimer lands, until seisin was granted to the heir, and doubtless Griffith thought this was his best chance to regain them, seeing they were now at Edward's disposal, at least on parchment. But even Edward would stop to think very carefully before withholding part of his inheritance from a Mortimer, even if he failed to comprehend the degree of offence he could give by delaying the grant of seisin, as though it was of little urgency, and could wait his leisure.
"Yes," said the prince, pondering, "there are interesting possibilities there to be exploited, if needs must. While the truce holds and we have hopes of agreement, there's nothing more we can do. But I am sorry," he said, "that Roger's gone. He was a rough, fair enemy and a sturdy friend."
In this great but fragile quietness that had fallen upon us, we needed all the information we could garner, whether or not there was any immediate use we could make of it. If there was disaffection even among the greater tenants round Radnor, and Edward in his single-minded fury against Wales had failed to understand how easily inflamed the Mortimer pride could be, then the central march might be a fruitful field for recruitment if the fighting had to continue, and even the young lords, stung by the king's neglect and delay in establishing the right feudal relationship with them in their father's place, might at least turn a blind eye to what their Welsh tenants did, though it was hard to believe their own loyalty was assailable. But the niceties of feudal usage cut both ways. Until the king gave Edmund seisin of his inheritance, no fealty existed, and no treason was possible and, the boy might well claim, no loyalty either.
"I should be sorry to lure any man away from his faith," said the prince, "but what's offered I'll not refuse. Well, let it lie, we are at truce. We may yet have no need of such weapons." But I knew by his tone, that was steady, equable but joyless, that he had no great faith in Peckham's valiant offices.
Howbeit, we waited, and nursed such resources as we had. And a day or so later one of our patrols brought in a solitary wretch, drenched and shivering, from the bleak hills the further side of Conway, and having heard his account of himself, delivered him to Tudor, who in turn brought him to Llewelyn.
"For he came gladly into their arms instead of running from them," said Tudor, "and he has a parchment he says is for the lord prince. We have fed him, for he was famished, he'd been on the run from Rhuddlan for two days, he says, and all but fell into the clutches of a patrol from the outpost at Llangernyw."
The man was young, no more than thirty, and sturdy, though soiled and unkempt after his solitary travelling. He said he was a borderer from Cynllaith, Welsh by blood, but drafted for the king's work by the constable of Oswestry. He was a carpenter, one of many pressed to serve in the making of the boat-bridge across the strait, and he had left a young wife at home, and sought the first opportunity of getting back to her. Many of the hundreds of carpenters had been discharged now that the bridge was ready, but he as a skilled man had been one of those retained to maintain the work, for the seas were growing rough there, and several times there had been damages to repair. And as he could not swim at all, let alone well enough to risk that passage, he had stowed away on one of the coastal ships returning to Rhuddlan after unloading a cargo of crossbow quarrels. It was going back to the lion's den, but there was no help for it, and he had trusted to his wits and judgment to get clear undiscovered when the ship docked.
"And so I did, my lord," he said, "and would have made off upstream to where I could ford the Clwyd, but there was too much bustle about the dock, and I had to lie up among the stores until dark, and there, by what I thought then very ill-luck, I was spied by one of the clerks going back and forth with inventories of the arms and timber being loaded. But it turned out the best of luck for me, for he put a bland face on it, and gave me his scrip and schedules to carry for him, and so hid me until night by not hiding me at all. And by darkness he put me across the river with a bundle of food and this letter to the lord prince, and advised me to cut as briskly into Welsh-held land as I could. Which I have done, and gratefully. And here I deliver his letter, and keep my promise."
The scroll was but a fragment of a leaf, and the hand not as precise or leisured as usual, but it was still recognisable. Llewelyn smiled as he unrolled it. "You owe him your liberty, and I owe him many years of staunch service."
"Did I not say," said David, also knowing that hand, "that we should hear from him?" And he leaned at Llewelyn's shoulder to read with him. That was the briefest letter we ever had from Cynan:
"Your advocate here labours hard for you, but against the grain. The truce holds fast, Tany in Anglesey has his orders not to stir unless the king gives the word. But hear what the bearer has to say, and be on guard accordingly. If I can find no further messenger, accept with this my fealty and valediction. God shield you, is the prayer of your servant."
"What is this?" said David, startled and hushed. "He is saying goodbye! He is watched! No, or he would not be going freely about Burnell's business checking the loading of ships. If he had lost the chancellor's confidence they would have a man at his heels every moment, he'd have had no chance to help a fugitive out of Rhuddlan."
"He went about as having authority everywhere," said the carpenter. "I could not see that any man questioned it, or looked sidewise at him."
"He is Welsh," said Llewelyn dispassionately, "and feels the day drawing in." And he looked up calmly at the messenger, and said: "Tell us what it is you have to tell, concerning Tany and Anglesey. That part of his news he has left to you."
"My lord," said the man, "what the clerk says is true, every man in Anglesey knew that Luke de Tany has his orders not to move until the king bids him cross his bridge. But when the news came that the archbishop had come to Wales, and was going back and forth trying to make peace, Tany flew into a bitter rage, and swore his meddling should not prosper, for he would put an end to it if the king would not. He said the king had set out to annex Wales to his realm, and he should do it, in spite of Peckham and pope and all."
"Did he so?" said Llewelyn, drawing slow and thoughtful breath. "You heard this?"
"Not I, but the lads who were working at the end of the bridge, they heard it, for the despatches were c
arried to him there. My lord, I had friends among them I trust. They have not lied. If I did not hear his ravings, I saw his face not an hour later, and it was still black."
"He was Edward's seneschal in Gascony," said David. "He sees another province within his grasp. I believe it."
"I, too," said Llewelyn, and re-rolled Cynan's letter in his hands. "Take a day and a night of rest here," he said to the carpenter, "and then you shall have food and a cloak, and my safe-conduct to pass you south round-about, by the Berwyns, back to your home. You'll be safe enough on the way. But how will you fare in your own village, if you're within the English pale?"
The man grinned, stocky and resolute, no way intimidated at the prospect. "Let me alone, my lord, to take care of that. My village is two men out of three Welsh, and a good reeve to fend for us, and no such tight hold now, I judge, as when I was pressed. God grant your Grace as hopeful a way before you."
"Amen!" said Llewelyn, and smiled and dismissed him.
"Very well," he said to David, leaning and quivering at his elbow, "send at once to Bangor, let them know what's said of Tany and his grievance, and have them double the watch on the bridge. But not move until I so bid, or Tany brings it headlong on his own head by treachery. I will not be the one to break this truce. You hear me?"
The Brothers of Gwynedd Page 127
