The Wind From Hastings

by Morgan Llywelyn

  I just sat there. Only when he reached my pony’s head did I lower my eyes and bow to him, murmuring, “Your servant, Sire,” and wondering if he could understand the Saxon tongue.

  “Well come, Aldith,” replied a resonant voice. I looked up then and saw his face clear in the moonlight. The dark auburn hair lying thick-locked about his temples, the high-bridged nose with nostrils flared like a nervous horse, the tender, smiling mouth and jutting fighter’s chin. I looked right into the eyes of Griffith ad Llywelyn and saw the other half of my own soul.

  GRIFFITH

  WE ENTERED THE Great Hall together. He did not touch me, nor I him, but I felt his presence at my side like a dark fire. The members of the Welsh court were assembled there to see the Saxon woman Griffith had bought with his men-at-arms, and their acceptance of me was not given like that of the peasants on the beach. I looked straight ahead, my head held high, but I could feel their eyes probing and measuring me from all sides.

  He took me to the head of the main feasting table, where a high padded stool with a back ornamented with gilded leather marked the King’s place. (I was to learn that he was, in truth, considered King in Wales, though he was known as the Ruler of All Wales and always referred to as Prince Griffith.) There he turned and repeated the herald’s introduction of me by my Saxon name and then in his own language. The courtiers bowed and we sat down to the feast.

  Tired in my bones I was, though I did not realize it until that time. The table piled high with food did not tempt me, and I felt my eyes stinging with weariness and the effluvia from the torches. I sipped mead or ale, I knew not which, from a goblet of some dark wood, and I tried to get the feeling of my surroundings. But I could not. I was only aware of the man who sat beside me.

  “Eat some of this bird, Aldith,” he urged me. “It is roasted with honey and herbs; it will restore your strength.” He spoke to me as a father might to his child, caringly, and in truth, he was almost of an age to have been my father. The lines of wind and laughter were deeply etched about his brown eyes, so that the heavy lashes seemed to pull his eyelids down of their own weight. He spoke the Saxon nearly as well as Owain, and with the same lilting accent.

  Griffith was not overtall, being of a height with me, but among the Welsh he was tall. Broad of shoulder and deep of chest, the upper part of his body was built as a warrior’s should be. But his hands fascinated me as I watched him cut portions of the meat for me. His fingers were long and slim—they moved with the grace of a girl’s—and his every gesture was beautiful.

  He saw me looking at his hands and smiled at me. It was as if he heard my inmost thoughts. “I play the harp, Aldith. When it is time, I shall play the songs of the Cymry for you and teach you to sing them.”

  I was embarrassed. “I cannot sing, my lord. Everyone says I have the voice of a raven.”

  He threw up his head and laughed. The courtiers did not join self-consciously in his laughter, as they would have among the Saxons. In Wales a man’s conversation was private and not to be entered into without invitation. “You are of the Cymry now, Aldith, and therefore you must sing. We will do what we can to make it sweet.”

  I tried a small smile. “You set yourself an impossible task, my lord.”

  “I often do,” Prince Griffith replied easily.

  All through our supper he told me the names of this or that person at table, together with a history of their deeds or a short description of their virtues. Sometimes he invited them to speak directly to me, but not often, as only a few knew the Saxon language.

  “Tell the Lady Aldith of the marriage rite we practice here,” he instructed the Bishop from nearby Saint Asaph’s. Bishop Iorworth was a well-educated man, as all Christmen need be, and Saxon was but one of the languages he spoke right well.

  “By our law you will remain under the government of your father and male relatives until the marriage is effected, my lady, but you are now in the Prince’s protection. He is responsible to your father for your safekeeping until he possesses you totally. The essence of our marriage rite is the formal bestowal of the bride by her kindred. Naught can be consummated until this is completed.”

  But I knew from Madog that the Earl Aelfgar had returned hotfoot to East Anglia, to consolidate his victory and take control once more of his properties. Bewildered, I turned to the Prince.

  “Cannot a marriage be completed without my father?”

  “Of course not, Aldith; it is not our way. A joining of two tribes is more important to the tribes than to the Church. We wish the blessings of the Church, of course, but by Welsh law it is not necessary. You will not be wife to me until your father says, in my presence, ‘Maiden I have given thee to a husband, and I have paid him a fee in recognition of the rights of all his kindred who have lost you from their tribe.’”

  “You will spend the time wisely until the Earl Aelfgar concludes his affairs and comes here, my lady,” Iorworth told me, “in learning the ways of our people. The Cymry can never completely accept one who does not speak their language or know their customs; it is well for you to learn these things before the wedding.”

  Griffith leaned forward and put his beautiful hand on mine, actually touching me for the first time, and all of my body seemed magically rooted to the spot where our two skins met! “Likewise, Aldith,” he said, “we will have a chance to learn each other, and see if we are pleased.”

  What a great weight went from my heart then! The Welsh law must be very different from the Saxon custom if my happiness was to be a consideration!

  “You will find that our laws are most fair to you,” the Bishop assured me. “Your husband will not have the power of life and death over you; he may not even beat you save for those serious offenses specified in the Codes. You will have limited control over your joint property and certain personal possessions which are entirely yours and cannot be taken from you under any circumstances. Most important, Welsh law gives considerable protection against arbitrary divorce.”

  Divorce! I shrank on my stool and felt a trembling in my limbs. Never had I known of a wife who was put away by her husband, but I had heard of such things, and it seemed to me a very great calamity, a disgrace like outlawry, to be declared unfit by the man to whom you were given!

  Griffith saw my distress. In a gentle voice he said, “The ancient rule that a man may put away his wife, if so minded, is still valid. If a king’s wife should bear him no heir, for example, it is a matter of much consequence. But our law takes care that it should not be frivolously put into operation by providing for a substantial payment to the divorced woman.”

  “Only for the first seven years of the marriage!” Bishop Iorworth interrupted. “After that, a man must give his wife half of all his possessions if he divorces her. We would not have our women made poor or shamed before the community.”

  And my lady mother had called these people barbarians! My weariness overcame me at last; I felt my spine go soft within me and wished for nothing so much as to lay my head down on the table and go to sleep.

  Again Griffith foresaw me. With the raising of his eyebrow he brought a servingwoman to my side and sent someone to fetch Emma. I walked in a daze from the Great Hall to the private chambers, where I was put in a fine room with its own window and fresh grasses laid upon the floor.

  So changed was my life from anything I had known that at first I felt like a very small child again. Prince Griffith got me tutors in the language and the Laws. The Welsh people set mighty store by the Laws handed down from King Hywel the Good. Unlike Ireland, in Wales only the Christmen read and write, so these laws are handed down by mouth from one generation to the next. But they are most strictly observed! Among the Welsh, a man’s word is his bond, and if he breaks it even in small ways he is shunned by all the community.

  My tutor in the Laws was Cynan, a cousin of Griffith and as such honor-bound to him in all things. “The tribal feeling is very strong here, my lady,” he told me. “Unlike the Saxons and the Danes, who slay one an
other out of hand, father against son, we believe that our strength is in the unity of the family. Kinship is reckoned exclusively through the males, but as the wife of Griffith ap Llywelyn you will be expected to know all the family pedigree and pass it on to your sons.”

  “And if I have no sons … ?” I made bold to ask.

  Cynan smiled. “You will, my lady. You are young and strong, and our Prince is very virile. He has many sons hereabout.”

  “He was married before?”

  “Not to a great house. His children are by his concubines, but under the Laws we do not disinherit such children. And you may be assured, my lady,” he added hastily, “Prince Griffith will set aside his concubines out of honor to you when you are wed!”

  It was Griffith himself who told me of my most noteworthy predecessor. On a radiant spring afternoon, when I had gone for a ride on my gray pony with only the loyal Madog for companion, Griffith rode out to meet us and sent Madog on some made-up errand.

  “Are you happy in the land of the Cymry?” Griffith asked me seriously as soon as we were alone.

  “Yes, I think I am very happy. I am a little surprised by that; I was not sure.”

  He laughed. My Griffith laughed a lot. “Neither was I sure when I asked your sire to send you to me. But, having seen you, I am most pleased. It was time for me to make an alliance outside our kingdom; I would play a part in the world that lies beyond the mountains and perhaps see my sons as rulers in all of Britain one day.”

  It was the right time. “You have sons already? Cynan spoke of them.”

  How sensitive he was, how quick to shield me from imagined hurt! “I have sons born of youth and a man’s needs, Aldith. I have no heir to Gwynedd and Wales.”

  “But you were married before, my lord?”

  He gazed into far distances. “I took for wife the wife of a rival I defeated. She was beautiful, and I thought it made my victory over him complete. But it was not a good thing, Aldith; we were not suited. Had she not died I might have had to set her aside, or awake some morning to find her dagger in my back.”

  A shiver of horror went up my spine. I felt a quick sense of loss and tragedy for that killing that—thank God—had never happened.

  “Do you think we will be suited, my lord?” I asked, keeping my eyes turned down so that he might see the sweep of my lashes and the curve of my cheek.

  Griffith laughed again, the black mood gone from him in a moment. “I am taking time to be sure!” he said. “When we are wed I shall expect you to stand at my back, covering it, not stabbing it. So I would court you now and make a friend of you, Aldith, that I need not fear in the future!” He put his hand on my sleeve. “And you, what do you think?”

  I could not flirt or dissemble with him. He seemed to know me too deeply; there was no way but truth. “I pray we will be suited, my lord, for the thought of marriage with you pleases me and I grow anxious for my lord father’s return!”

  “Everything need not wait until then, Aldith.” He was not smiling now, his eyes were deep and burning.

  “But the nuptials …”

  “Yes, that must wait. But you and I, we can learn to know each other better as we wait. I would like to know the texture of your lips, my Aldith, and see how well the curves of your body fit mine. It is not an unreasonable request, do you think? In the interests of learning our suitability to each other?”

  His breath heated my cheek as he leaned near me, gazing at my lips and dropping his voice to a murmur. With all my being I longed for him to hold me, kiss me … and yet I was afraid! The moment was sacred, it might be too easily spoiled. I might say something foolish and seem ridiculous to a mature, empassioned man; this was no stripling boy to be fended off with arch words, teasing play.

  “My lord, I don’t know what to say!”

  “Say nothing, sweet Aldith. Let our bodies get acquainted and our thoughts rest.” He tangled his fingers in the braid of hair wound around my head and pulled it down with one sharp tug. “Your hair is lovely. It smells like sunlight.” He lifted a lock of it to his lips.

  When he put his arm about me and I felt his fingers at the neck of my shift I drew away without meaning to. “What’s this, Aldith? Squeamish already?” He said it in a gently teasing way,so as not to insult me, but I feared I had displeased him.

  “It’s not that, my lord. I am only … unsure.”

  Griffith pulled a little away from me and looked at me intently with his eyes that saw everything. “Tell me frankly, girl. Have you been with a man before?”

  I was embarrassed at such a question! “No, my lord! Surely my father told you I am a maiden!”

  He waved his hand. “To be sure, but all girls are virgin to their fathers. I am asking you, Aldith. Have there been some boys you sported with, perhaps? Just a little?”

  “I do not know how to answer that question, my lord. But I cannot lie to you. I have … flirted, betimes, and teased the boys a bit.”

  “But are you a virgin?” he insisted.

  “Yes,” I told him, proud of the fact that as a bride I was untouched and yet disturbed by something in his voice.

  “Ah well, so be it.” There was a definite note of regret in the Prince’s voice, though I could not understand why! “I am glad you are a maiden, Aldith. That is right and as it should be, of course. Your father would have done wrong to offer me used goods. But still”—he shrugged his shoulders and gave me a child’s mischievous smile—“it does limit our sport!”

  I felt all churned up inside. There had been a promise of wondrous excitements in his voice, his touch; and yet it was all to be denied me because I was that most desirable thing, a virgin! How could one ever cease being a virgin under those circumstances?

  Griffith continued to seek me out from time to time, when he had a few moments to spare from the business of Gwynedd, but he treated me thereafter with great gentleness and a respect I did not totally desire.

  Fortunately my hours were well filled otherwise. My tutor in the Welsh language was a woman, a lady-in-waiting given to me by Griffith. She spent much time patiently explaining to me the peculiarities of the strange Cymry tongue.

  “It is pronounced Hloo-ellen, my lady!” she repeated to me despairingly when I had mispronounced the name of Griffith’s father for the dozenth time. “You must put your tongue between your teeth and blow lightly around the sound. Now try again! It would shame Llywelyn’s son to hear you say it thus!”

  In time I mastered the tricky sounds; I called Gwynedd Goo-in-neth and the name of our nearby river Cloo-id. I learned the words for food and drink and bed; I learned how to ask for my pony and how to address the various members of the court. I even tried to think in Welsh, as my tutor assured me that was the best way to join myself with the Cymry. But it was hard, hard! In moments of stress I still thought the Saxon words, and when my pony trod upon my foot, it was a Saxon curse I bellowed!

  But I had some success. One day Emma said to me, “Sometimes I scarcely recognize you, my lady! With your hair all streaming down your back like that and your feet bare and brown, you look like one of these …”

  “Don’t say it!”

  “One of these Welsh people,” she finished smoothly. We had had a severe discussion, at least on my part, about her habit of referring to the Cymry as savages.

  “I’m pleased you think me so, Emma,” I told her.

  “I hope my Lord Griffith will see the change in me as well. Surely we will hear soon of the coming of the Earl Aelfgar to give my hand in marriage; I want to be worthy.”

  “Oh, my lady, you are worthy!” Emma told me, a quaver in her voice. “But to spend the rest of your life in this empty place!”

  “Pish! you were the one who thought it so fine, me wed to some nobleman!”

  “Aye, but I thought it would be a Saxon noble, my lady, one of your own kind!”

  I felt a sting of protective rage. Toward Emma, for her implied insult to Griffith, and toward myself, for caring about a servant’s opinion.
“Prince Griffith is my own kind, Emma, far more than any lad who might have come running hotfoot to seek my hand in Anglia! Now, speak to me no more of this!”

  As my knowledge of the language improved, I was able to learn more of my bridegroom’s history from the members of the court, who seemed pleased by my interest. They told me of his sire, Llywelyn ap Seisyll, a great and noble Prince. They told me of Griffith’s youth, when he had been considered little but a sluggish loafer on the fringes of his father’s court.

  One New Year’s Eve, driven out-of-doors by the taunts and reproaches of his sister, whom he loved, Griffith had an experience which changed him into a bold and determined warrior. New Year’s Eve is a night of signs and portents; it is said a man may learn on that night what to expect for the coming year. Lazy and reluctant to stir himself overmuch, Griffith chose to seek his own signs by the easiest method—eavesdropping. Leaning against the wall of a house where a company was intent upon the process of boiling chunks of meat in a cauldron, the young Prince heard the cook swear a vile oath.

  “By the death of life!”

  “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” cried other voices.

  “Here is one piece which, however firmly I drive it down with my fork, always persists in coming to the top!”

  Griffith drank in the words, convinced that they bore a prophecy of his own future. From that moment he was a changed man. What taunt and reproach could not do was brought about by the spur of ambition and the hope of greatness.

  Within a short span of time he began building a reputation as a courageous warrior, an unconquerable spirit, and as a man of unshakable confidence. He would allow none to triumph over him in love or war. Yet men spoke of him well, as a man of wit and generosity, a man easy in his own person and thoughtful of others.

  When he inherited his father’s kingdoms of Gwynedd and Powys he set out to enlarge his holdings, and he did so well over the years that he was considered ruler by all the Welsh. He had won back many lands held by the English and had slain in battle my own great-uncle Edwin, brother of the Earl Leofric. By the time of our engagement he was all-powerful in the land of the Cymry. At distant Bishopstree he had another residence, where it was rumored that he kept a woman or two until the day our wedding feast would be celebrated.