Crown in Candlelight (16 page)

Their ages ranged from fourteen to twenty. They were quiet. Their eyes, of a bloodline used to lifting to the mountains for generations past, were tilted at the corners. Sir Gilbert assessed the youths as he talked. This was the last contingent to come to his standard. Wherever he had pitched his pavilion they had come, some like these, secretly by night, disobeying fathers and guardians; from Ruvoniog, Kimmerch, from Dyffryn Clwyd, from Mold in the Alun valley, from Chirk, from Pool, from Powysland and Kerry, from Clun, Wigmore, Radnor, from Talgarth and Blaenllyfni, from Gwenllwg, from the twenty-four minor lordships of Over Went and Nether Went, and from the Honour of Monmouth. He thought they were like beans in a row, many related by blood, and tossing away the old grudges of their forefathers. Chance and youth were theirs, and life would never again be so new.

‘I take it you can all speak English?’

There was some fidgeting. Davydd Garn bent to confer with the King’s deputy.

‘But you can understand, if I speak slowly?’ Sir Gilbert asked, and they nodded and composed themselves to listen.

‘It is plain you are all anxious to join battle, or you would not be here,’ he said. ‘But first you should know for what you will be fighting. Our good King Henry the Fifth, sovereign of all England, Prince of Wales, has for some time been negotiating, in chivalry, to reclaim the lands of France which are his by hereditary right. The throne of France descends to his Grace through his great-grandfather of blessed memory, King Edward the Third, whose mother, Isabelle, was daughter to King Philip of France.’ He cleared his throat. These were indeed the terms of Henry’s claim but spoken thus they sounded somewhat tenuous. To counter this unspeakable internal doubt he continued quickly.

‘This same mighty ancestor of the King was in truth sovereign of France.’ (Actually Edward III had styled himself thus two years after his invasion and then surrendered the title in exchange for the Duchy of Aquitaine and other prizes. However Sir Gilbert had long ago decided that paraphrase was best, especially in this instance.)

‘The French proved traitor,’ he went on. ‘They fought us for our rightful possessions, for Aquitaine, for Poitou, Limousin, Quercy, Rouergue, Marche, Angoumois and Calais. Today we own but Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne, and a few Gascon lands. We would have had Guienne province also, but King Richard the Second, in his unwisdom, signed a truce and surrendered this, among other possessions. It is left to our good King to amend this grievous error and …’

‘Sir.’ A treble voice came from the end of the line. A boy looking no more than twelve had raised his hand. It wavered up and down like a spider on a thread. Sir Gilbert smoothed a parchment and looked at him sternly.

‘Speak.’

‘Lord, is it true that King Richard is still alive? My father says-’

‘It is not!’ Scarlet washed the boy’s face. More quietly, Sir Gilbert said: ‘These are rumours spread by the disloyal to harm our King. Richard is dead. I have seen his corpse. He was exhumed for the purpose of quelling those who doubt, and his body, green from the grave, transported in a great chair from Langley and through the streets of Westminster. I have smelled the corruption of his bones.’ The boy, pale now, looked afraid. ‘Richard’s wives are dead also, both Bohemian and French. Queen Isabelle’s widower, Charles of Orléans, has married Bonne of the Armagnacs. They now form one of the factions of Burgundy and Armagnac, which have split France and made her ready for our conquest’

Most of the boys were by now looking utterly lost.

‘So be warned,’ said Talbot. ‘Whoever sets out to nurture the monstrous tale that Richard lives may look to Sir John Oldcastle for example. He was cursed on Paul’s Cross for that very thing, and when captured will be burned alive. For this talk is heresy, and the King sees heresy as more loathsome than a nest of scorpions. When he has taken France and is supreme, he will pit himself against the Infidel and all that is evil. He will unite the world in righteousness and amend the Great Schism, that crime initiated by the French; there will be only one Vicar of Christ …’

One of the youths had his eyes closed. His body sagged and a vicious nudge from his neighbour jerked him upright. The boy who had first spoken asked intelligently:

‘Sir … the Burgundians and the Armagnacs. Which is our friend? Which is our foe?’

‘Neither. Two years ago, we fought with Burgundy against Armagnac. We slaughtered hundreds at St Cloud. Then, not a year later, the Armagnacs came, begging our aid against Burgundy! The French are all turncoats, and the man who rules them an imbecile, his heir the Dauphin Louis a libertine. This time we shall be England fighting for England’s dues in France.’

‘Thank you, lord,’ said the piping voice.

‘Our King,’ said Gilbert Talbot,‘has demanded two million crowns from the French to recompense him for the rights so far denied. What has he had in answer? Threats and taunts from the libidinous boy styled Dauphin, and from King Charles, mere vapid maunderings. Our King suggested a match with one of the princesses, to unite the two realms. In reply he received obstructions, lies, protests, more taunts. So now the sword will achieve what diplomacy cannot. He will take what is his by right and blood. He will rule France as she should be ruled and exorcize the curse laid on her by the Knights of the Temple a hundred years ago …’

Davydd Gam leaned and whispered; many of the boys were looking bewildered again.

‘So, to this hour.’ Sir Gilbert shortened his peroration. ‘I have you gathered here so you should know for whom and for what you are offering yourselves in service. You will serve under a King as strong as Achilles, as brave as Hector, as wise as Solomon, and as righteous as the Archangel Michael. You will be part of the greatest army ever to depart from England. Though you are Welshmen, the glory of England will be yours to share. There will be rewards, triumphs, perquisites. You leave these shores as babes; you will return as men, and tell your grandsons how you went forward with the seal of Heaven upon your cause. Come to me now, those who desire immortal honour.’

Taken all round, it was a good exhortation, and by English standards greatly flamboyant, although a bard would by now have drawn tears and cries of assent from his listeners, and there was still quietness. Yet Hywelis saw Owen affected; he rose with the others, his face pale and attenuated; he trembled and his golden eyes were feverish. The assembly lined up to kneel again and raise their hands to those of the King’s proxy. The oath was administered, repeated, never louder than a breath. The night-breeze crept through the tent-flap.

Ardently watched by Hywelis, Owen’s turn came. She saw his shape lucent as steel, his arrowed hands following the line of his straight back. In that same moment she saw the quintessence of his greatness. To all the others he was merely another youth, arrogant, restive and suggestible. To her he was the embryo of something immeasurable, greater than the highest martyrdom or the keenest fame, stronger and more obsessive even than love, though love was there in bounty. She could not yet gauge its form, yet the unseen grandeur of his destiny lit him like a torch and diminished all else about it.

Abruptly the ceremony ended. The youths milled at the table, merry with nervous relief; Welsh and laboured English mingled. Someone was asking naively about the commanders—would they, the recruits, be riding with the King himself? No, there would be hundreds of captains; if one were fortunate one might march a mile behind the King’s brothers or the King’s friend, Richard Courtenay, Bishop of Norwich, for the Church was also to join this sacred war. The impressive names were drawn out like jewels from a bag; the Earl of Dorset, Lord Fitzhugh, Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir Gilbert Umfraville, the Duke of York, the Earl of Oxford

There were to be months of preparation. Every man must have a harness always ready; a jack, the quilted steel-lined coat, a helmet, gloves, sword, dagger and poleaxe, and the matchless longbow and arrows. Every man at muster was to wear the cross of Christ and St George. There was to be no whoring, no camp-followers. Churches were not to be looted on pain of death, and monks and nuns left unmolested.

Those insufficiently trained in arms were to go at once to London where schooling awaited them, and Owen was one of these selected. Hywelis, with a sinking heart, heard him ask: ‘Am I to leave tonight?’ and the answer: ‘No, you will collect what gear you have and say farewell to your mentors. We shall be here another four days.’ She knew he would have gone on the moment, but now she had a reprieve, four whole days of him. The Lord would be angry with him but there was nothing he could do. Owen’s allegiance was chosen, his oath must be honoured.

When he came from the tent he was subdued and serious. He spoke to the sentries courteously. ‘Until our next meeting,’ and they nodded, but Fletcher, still plainly uneasy, stepped back as Hywelis went by. He offered Owen a lantern which he refused, for although the moon was declining, its light still washed the valley. Fletcher watched them go, and to him Owen went handclasped with the powers of darkness. It would need many a pot of ale before he could begin to laugh and damn Hywelis’s words of that night.

She pressed lightly against Owen as they made the mossy descent, searching with feet and eyes and instinct for the track down into the valley. The heather scents mingled with the bitter-sweetness of campion and meadowsweet, peat and ferns. Somewhere towards the mountain ridge, a vixen cried of love. Hywelis searched the night for Madog’s essence, and knew him far away.

‘Did you see that sentry’s hands shaking?’ said Owen.

‘It was my fault, I told his fortune. Now I wish I hadn’t.’ She forgot that her vision had saved her from an unknown brutality.

Owen stopped and faced her eagerly.

‘Tell me mine, Hywelis. If you have the power to, it would be wonderful to know … I’d know what hazards to dare, and when to hold still. Tell me, Hywelis.’

She pulled him on, saying that the night was fading and they must be back before early Mass. Rhys would be watching for them, and Gruffydd Llwyd was a poor sleeper, often rising to play his harp to himself. As for Glyn Dwr, God send him an unbroken night! Tomorrow would be bad enough. Tomorrow, today, for already the moon’s pallor looked weary and clouded by dew. Ahead of them they heard the stream’s lonely, small-hours voice. Drwyndwn Flatnose, glutted with prey, floated beside them from crag to crag, riding the air on his great lemon wings.

‘There’s the water. Are you ready for the leap?’

‘I could do it in one stride. Now I am the King’s man, a soldier. I am strong.’

‘Come then.’ She poised on the lip of the stream. Her voice trembled.

‘Hywelis,’ he said uncertainly, ‘are you weeping?’ He peered into her face, at the wet glitter of her eyes. She did not answer, but thought: yes, I weep, because I am moved by the regard you have for yourself, a good thing in truth when there are so many who cringe and doubt and draw back; because of what I saw in you as you took the oath, that destiny that you, all unknowing, wear like cloth of gold. And because you are my other self, and in four days I shall be split, and bleed.

‘Girl.’ He came close and they stood, their ankles deep in meadowsweet, the noise of the water in their ears. ‘Be happy. I have not thanked you for tonight. I’ve no right to ask more. Let my fortune remain unknown. I’ll remember your kindness, not your prophecies.’

She said: ‘Remember me. Yes. Remember me, and that I said this: you will be safe, and loved as few have ever been loved.’

‘I know. You will always love me.’

‘Not I alone,’ she said heavily. ‘Those of more noble fame, Owen.’

Instantly excited, he said: ‘What do you mean? Shall I rise to a height in some great lord’s favour? You must tell me now, I didn’t press you! For if this is so, I’ll fight like ten thousand, and one day I’ll meet Glyn Dwr as an equal, not an orphan nurtured of his charity. Tell me, tell me …’ He held her shoulders, searching her face. She gave a long sigh, and said:

‘I can tell you this. You will be truly great. Your name will live for ever.’

‘How? Through my skill in arms? Through my leadership in the field? Through my music?’ The moon cast off cloud and gleamed in his eyes. He was breathing rapidly. Hywelis sighed again, almost a groan. Waveringly she let her hand fall to his loins. There she touched him, feeling the springs of his excitement made flesh, the tall hardness that beat like a second hidden heart.

‘Through your seed,’ she said, and withdrew her hand. As if exhausted, she sank to sit on the ground, and instantly he knelt beside her. Unsure of which had aroused him more, her words or her touch, he took her to him passionately, kissing her mouth, fondling the long wild hair, kissing the sad wild eyes. From a nearby tree came a crystal spill of song, a rapturous torrent wasted on the night.

‘The nightingale …’ he said, muffled and trembling.

‘No, a whitethroat,’ whispered Hywelis. ‘We have awakened him.’

‘
Cariad
, let me … let me now …’

Revealed, her body answered the moon’s whiteness. She was a pale pearl, glowing so that the grass where she lay seemed illuminated by her, and for a moment he recoiled from her mystery. Then she drew him to her brilliant arms, enfolding him, the moon, and the clamouring night.

At the zenith of their embrace, the torque became loosened from her neck. A careless upthrown hand nudged it away. It hung for an instant on the edge of the bank then slid without sound into the racing stream.

The Lord stood on the battlements of Glyndyfrdwy. Soon after midnight he had been glad to wake from a dream of terror. He had been poised on the crest of Dyna Mont Owain, the hill named after him where he had often stood to watch his enemies coming from Chester in the east. Yet he had seemed to be shadowed by the tomb of Eliseg, saint and king and inspiration of the Welsh. He had watched a ring of flambeaux coming closer to surround him. Turning to yell a command to his troops, he had found himself deserted. A bluff wind wavered the grass, and the bog-bean flowers swayed, dyed pink by the encroaching flames. Behind him a ring of burial stones rose starkly from the turf. He had rushed down the slope, roaring his challenge, striking out at nothing; the forces evaded him though he lashed and grappled and swore. Then he fancied that Rhys ap Gethin fought beside him with grinning skull-face, and that Margaret of Maelor, made fragile by the wind, wrung her dead hands and whispered: ‘Fight, my Owain!’ then, sadly: ‘Fly my Owain!’ He had heard his own guttural breath, felt the pain of effort in his lungs. Woke streaming with sweat, his wolfskin coverlet tossed aside. The harsh breathing went on; it was Cafall’s. The great dog lay by the bed. He had lost flesh in the past two days, his ribs stood out like a mammoth’s skeleton. Glyn Dwr swung his legs from the couch and bent to him. A burning tongue feebly lapped his hand.