Not that anything happened right away. In my first days at Denbigh I was a servant and no more. I’d write letters for Dafydd and make a note of each pig and cow and sheep and sack of grain that was paid to him by his people. He wasn’t a brutal master like I’d feared. He’d sit back in his big wide chair in the hall, speaking to me sometimes in Cymraeg and sometimes in Saxon, which he spoke well, having lived there as a boy, as a hostage to the Saxon king of those days, and when he spoke Saxon he’d have a slight smile, as if he were saying, you understand, Iorwerth the scribe, but nobody else round here does. Which was true enough. Some of his followers spoke a little, which they’d learned when they were all in England with King Edward, but it wasn’t much. When Dafydd and I spoke it I’d see their looks, like they feared we were keeping them in the dark.
It was Saxon that first gave me confidences, and these came not from Dafydd but from his wife, Lady Elizabeth. A month or two after I arrived at Denbigh she had him give me another task besides writing, which was to work as a tutor for her two boys. Which they needed as till then they’d been taught by one of Dafydd’s followers, a rough old brute whose notion of learning was swordsmanship – though he wasn’t very able even there – and telling them a lot of lies and truffle about his great bravery in battle. I was made his helper so he wouldn’t feel dishonoured and I started teaching them letters and numbers and giving them Latin and French and Saxon, and though they weren’t the quickest they learned well enough. Lady Elizabeth would ask me how they were doing and with time she began to tell me her woes, too. ‘I only wish there were more people I could speak to here,’ she’d say. ‘I’ve tried learning Cymraeg. I know everyone says it’s quite like French or Latin but however hard I try to know them, the words just won’t stay.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Then to me it hardly sounds like a language at all but more like someone coughing and spitting.’
That was always how she was with me. Because I talked to her in Saxon it was as if she’d forget where I was from and think of me as one of her own. She’d moan and complain about my country and my people, I’d bite my tongue and then she’d look at me with a smile, sure that I agreed with her every word. ‘As if I care that some fellow’s great-great-greatgrandfather was cousin to Prince somebody ap somebody,’ she’d tell me. ‘And I can’t abide the food. I swear Dafydd’s cook makes one peppercorn last a whole month.’ Then she’d tell me about some shop in Derby where you could buy twenty different spices. She had four manors in England from her dower, she said, as well as a fine house in Leicestershire. ‘I’ve told Dafydd time and again,’ she said, ‘why don’t we go and live there, where it’s peaceful and isn’t so damp that if you leave your coat in the wardrobe for a week you find it covered with mould? But of course he won’t hear of it.’
There was proof if I needed any. It wasn’t her who’d set Dafydd against his brother and his people as he wouldn’t have listened to her. No, sorry to say Dafydd had done it all of his own accord. If I had any doubts, they were ended when, soon after his wife had, he began giving me confidences of his own. These were a little different from hers, being more careful and knowing, and they began one morning when he asked me to write down a letter in French to the Bishop of Worcester. ‘One of my good Saxon friends,’ Dafydd said, giving me a watchful sort of look. ‘Some will say I have too many of those. You probably think so yourself, Iorwerth.’ Now he was looking at me, waiting. And you lied to him, Iorwerth, you’ll all say. So I did. Then how could I have done anything else? He was my master and it wasn’t for me to throw dirt in his face. And it was those gifts again. He’d given me my place as scribe, which was an honour, just as Prior Hywel had said, and now he’d let me teach his boys, which was an honour again. So I told him, ‘Not at all, Lord Dafydd.’
And d’you know, that was all it took. A sad, trusting look came into his eyes, the kind of look that I’d seen on others who chose me for their confidences, and then out came his woes. ‘I had no choice, Iorwerth,’ he said. Then he told me of a banquet where, in front of all of Dafydd’s followers, his brother Llewelyn had laughed and called him fumble fingers because he’d knocked over a goblet of ale. And how Llewelyn never showed him the respect he should have but treated him like an idiot boy, ‘though by then I was more than thirty years old and was married with children, which was more than he was.’ Another thing was that Llewelyn didn’t know how to answer King Edward, so Dafydd said. ‘I know just how to deal with the man, which is with care, as he’s a sly brute, but my brother always has to throw his weight about and start squabbles. It’ll end badly for him, no mistaking.’ It was strange, though, because there was an anguish to him. Though he was royal born and lord of two cantreds and I was nobody at all, a tanner’s son from Llan Ffagan Fach with not one great ancestor to boast of, I swear he looked like he feared to see disapproval in my eyes.
Beware of gifts, and soon I had another in Myfanwy. She’d caught my eye, as how could she not? With her grace and her bright, knowing smile, she seemed to glow in that sorry place, at least to me. She saw my glances and glanced right back until, with fear in my heart that I’d misread her looks, or that she was mocking and playing with me, I plucked up courage and asked her if she might come with me for a walk around the castle and to my joy she said yes. Before long, walks led to kisses. Her father, who’d been Dafydd’s bard, was dead so she was his ward. One sunny morning I asked for her hand, she filled my heart with joy with her answer, and I was about to ask Dafydd for his blessing but then I didn’t need to. That same afternoon I was just finishing a letter for him when he said to me, ‘Oh and by the way, my answer is yes.’ For a moment I wondered if that was another part of his letter but then he laughed. ‘I’m not blind, Iorwerth. I see the smile on your face. And I’ve seen you going off for your walks.’
We were wed soon afterwards and very happily too, and that same summer Myfanwy was with child. How blessed you were, Iorwerth, you’ll all say. What honeyed hours you had. And so I did, though that time wasn’t all sweet. Looking at Myfanwy with her swelling belly I’d feel joy and pride, but fear too. That was a strange season, though, which felt like a close summer’s day, when the sun’s warm on your shoulders but you can see dark clouds rising in the sky, telling of thunder to come. Like it usually did, the trouble sprang from a Saxon, Reginald de Grey, whom King Edward had lately made justiciar of Chester. Why King Edward picked him I couldn’t say. Perhaps he owed his kin a favour. Perhaps, as many said later, he was hungry to make trouble with his Cymry neighbours. Whatever his reason, trouble was what he got.
De Grey was one of those Saxons who thinks it’s his duty to smear a little shit on his savage neighbours, so they know their place, and I swear Dafydd’s face was like a mirror, reflecting his every provocation. First came confoundment that Saxons, whom Dafydd had thought his friends, could treat him so. That was when de Grey seized dowry land that was rightfully Dafydd’s, as every man and dog knew. Next came anguish at his own weakness. This was when de Grey cut down Dafydd’s woods of Lleweni saying they hid marauders, though it wasn’t for him to say, while de Grey will have made a good few shillings from the timber. Finally came plain, burning anger. That was when Dafydd was summoned to court like a half-acre nobody over his lands in Hope and Estyn. What made that worse, if it could have been worse, was that these lands had been given to him by King Edward himself as thanks for his having turned traitor and warred against his own countrymen. Dafydd had already fought in the courts for them once against another Saxon, William de Venables, and he’d won. Now Reginald de Grey said the case should be tried all over again and he summoned him to Chester to make his case.
I didn’t think he’d go but he did. He took me with him and I watched him glower at every tree we rode by. He told the court that he hadn’t come to fight the case but only to show respect for King Edward, as the dispute, being about Cymru lands, shouldn’t be tried in Chester by Saxon law but in Cymru under Cymraeg law. Afterwards, when we got back to Denbigh, he had me write a letter – and
it wasn’t the first – to King Edward asking for his help. That was the iron that really burned him. Edward’s answer, when it finally came, was all sly evasions and offered no help at all. So my master learned a hard truth. Even though Dafydd had turned against his own people, Edward would never take his side against one of his Saxon lords. So Dafydd finally saw how he’d been gulled. I knew what Dafydd was and what he’d done but still I swear that any man with a heart would’ve felt a little sorry for him then, betrayer or not.
From the day he got that letter Dafydd was changed. He wouldn’t speak a word of Saxon with me any more, only Cymraeg. With his wife, who could speak nothing else, he had to, but he’d spit out the words like they were poisoned. Gone were the times when he’d told me his hopes and his woes and now he was closed and careful. He’d still have me write letters in Latin or French, but for anything in Cymraeg he’d send for his cousin who was a clerk at Denbigh church, even though his hand was far poorer than mine. When I asked him once, ‘Aren’t you happy with my work, my lord?’ he didn’t even answer. It was strange, but I could feel it wasn’t only secrecy. It was as if our having joked together in Saxon had left a stain.
Though I didn’t write his Cymraeg letters I could guess what they said. Lords I’d never seen before would come to visit, hurrying into Dafydd’s hall, and though they kept their names to themselves I knew from the few words they said that they came from all across the land of the Cymry, some from as far away as the Severn Sea. Dafydd went on journeys, which he didn’t ask me to join him on, and which took him and his followers away for days at a time. Lady Elizabeth saw it as clearly as I did and was full of anguish. ‘He won’t talk to me any more,’ she told me, tears in her eyes and, for all her Saxon haughtiness, I felt for her. ‘I can’t bear to think what he might do. Iorwerth, speak to him, please, I beg you.’ So I did as she asked and urged him to be careful, and to beware that he might gain nothing and lose all he had, but as I’d known it would, it did no good. His answer was a warning look. ‘If we’re giving counsel, then I’ll give a little to you. You know I’ve always been fond of you, Iorwerth. My advice is, don’t say another word unless you want to make an enemy of an old friend.’ That was enough for Myfanwy. ‘Just do as he says,’ she said, ‘or you’ll bring trouble to us all.’ So I kept quiet and watched as the whole world inched closer to ruin.
It was on Palm Sunday that Denbigh was filled with news. Dafydd and his followers had seized Hawarden Castle and raided Flint and Ruddlan. Nor was it just on our borders that there was fighting. Over the next few days word came that my countrymen had flung themselves at the Saxons and seized their castles right down to the Severn Sea. I’m not saying I didn’t feel the wild joy of it, to strike back at our old enemies, who’d been insulting us and murdering us and stealing our lands for eight hundred years, but mostly I felt fear, knowing it was a demoniac thing to have done. Dafydd had gone to war alone without his brother. There didn’t seem much likelihood that Llewelyn would join. Why should he help his little brother who’d plotted to murder him? Besides, Llewelyn had something to lose now, as he had his own English wife, who was pregnant with his heir.
Myfanwy and I tried to keep our fears to ourselves, as it was no moment for long faces. We were at war and Denbigh was filled with a kind of wild jubilation, as every man sharpened his sword or practised with his spear or his bow. The only one who stayed quiet in her quarters was Lady Elizabeth. Her two boys, young though they were, had no time for letters or arithmetic now, as all they wanted was to play at fighting. Even I, who was no kind of soldier, made a show of throwing a spear at a target. And in the midst of all this joy for war Myfanwy gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. So I had another gift to trouble my dreams.
As for Dafydd, when I saw him, hurrying through Denbigh with his followers on his way to some new skirmish, he was friendlier than he’d been for a good while. ‘How now, Iorwerth?’ he’d ask, not distant like before but needy again, blinking at me in that way of his, like a dog that knows he may have done wrong but wants to be loved. And before long he had something to crow about, at least as he saw it. Prince Llewelyn’s poor wife died in childbirth and though the baby was saved it was a girl, which meant Llewelyn had no heir after all. Now that he had nothing to lose he joined the rest of his countrymen and brought the kingdom of Gwynedd into war. Dafydd wasted no time but hurried to see him at Aberconwy and he took me with him. ‘There might be something I need to have written for me,’ he said, though I knew that wasn’t the true reason. Sure enough when he stood beside his brother and they made toasts to victory, he looked right at me, as if to say, see Iorwerth? I’ve done right after all. I’ve made peace with my brother and now all will go well. And what did you do, Iorwerth? you’ll all ask. Did you shake your head? Did you scowl and berate him? No, I smiled back, though all the while I was thinking, that’s the finish of it. Now that Llewelyn’s joined there’s nothing that will be saved. This is the end of the world.
Nor was I wrong. King Edward’s Saxons came upon us in great swarms. First they marched along the coast to Ruddlan Castle and broke our siege. Next a fleet of their ships sailed to Ruddlan and carried their army to Anglesey, my own homeland. How are you faring, my dear brothers and sisters? I thought to myself. How are you faring, Uncle Rhodri? Though little news came to us from there, except that the Saxons had taken the harvest, which was why they’d come, to feed themselves and starve us. Then word came that they were building a bridge of boats across the strait, so they could menace us from behind. Next Edward marched his main army into Dafydd’s cantreds, not hasty and foolish, which might’ve given us a chance, but slow and careful, creeping forward inch by inch and never letting down their guard, so our raids against them were like beating an anvil with nettles, and the only ones to suffer were ourselves. All the while we heard of the terrible things they did in the lands they’d seized, burning our churches, ravaging women and slaughtering any who came into their hands. By October the Saxons were nearing Denbigh. Dafydd sent his daughters to Aberconwy Priory, where I’d done my schooling, in the hope that they’d be safe there and Myfanwy and I and our little boy said farewell to the only home we’d known together, and we clambered up the slopes of Snowdon to Prince Llewelyn’s lands.
For a moment the devil taunted us with hope. Soon after Myfanwy told me she was with child again, Llewelyn outwitted an army of Saxons sent to catch him, and that under a flag of truce, too, and he drove them into the sea, so even I let my heart soar and wonder if we might be saved after all. But no, within a month Llewelyn was dead, lured into a trap by the Saxons near Builth, and after that anyone with eyes to see knew the war was lost. Because there had been plenty who would gladly have laid down their lives for Llewelyn, but that wasn’t so of Dafydd, which was no surprise after all the things that he’d done. I watched them slip away, promising, ‘We’ll be back at the end of the winter,’ though I had my doubts. As for Dafydd, he was merrier than you’d ever guess. Then he’d finally got what he’d always wanted. He was Prince of Gwynedd and, strange to say, he didn’t seem much troubled that his was a kingdom of sand, vanishing beneath the rising tide. ‘Mark my words, Iorwerth,’ he told me, with that look of his, worried I mightn’t agree, ‘King Edward won’t keep this up for long. He’s had his lords and soldiers here since June. They won’t stomach much more.’
But Edward didn’t give up and his lords and soldiers didn’t turn against him. In March, when the weather was calmer and the days longer, Edward’s men swarmed across the Conwy and up the slopes of Snowdon, and more marched over the bridge of boats and came up from the western side. By then we weren’t an army any more but a little group of fellows who were like foxes running from the hounds, always on the move, travelling from one shepherd’s hut or barn to another. Only Dafydd and his family and followers had horses and the rest of us walked, going at night, when the Saxons kept warm in their shelters and it was safer. How I feared for my poor Myfanwy, and the baby in her belly. We’d all curse and stumble as we struggl
ed to see the way, as the rain blew into our faces and we slipped on the wet stones, yet I swear my brave Myfanwy hardly complained once. Lady Elizabeth was the sorriest in our party. On most days her eyes were red from crying and she’d have a dazed look to her, as if she couldn’t rightly understand how such a thing had come. Dafydd tried to comfort her, telling her in Saxon, ‘Cheer up, Liz. It’ll all be well, don’t you worry,’ but even his two sons, who’d been so full of fight before, looked uneasy now.
Did I think of taking Myfanwy and our boy and slipping away? Of course I did. Other followers of his had done just that, creeping off when nobody was watching. But who was to say we’d be any safer out there, at the mercy of Edward’s soldiers? And then the chance was gone. Myfanwy came down with a bad fever and was much too sick to flee anywhere. By then we were keeping ourselves in a hut hidden in trees close to Llanberis, on the north side of Snowdon. Lady Elizabeth was bad too, and one of her boys. It was no surprise as we’d all been hungry for weeks, eking out our stores, and getting cold and wet on our night walks. All I could think of was, I beg you, God, spare my dear wife and our little boy. Spare our unborn baby.
Yet even then, when the end was looking at us right in the face, hard to credence though it was, Dafydd was still full of plans. ‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ he told me with that anxious smile of his. ‘You’ll stay here and watch over Elizabeth and Myfanwy and the little ones. I’ll go with the rest and ride to Bere Castle.’ Bere Castle? That was fifty miles away, at the very edge of Gwynedd. ‘I’ll raise my standard,’ he said, ‘and I’ll summon a great new army. I’ll catch the Saxons by surprise, attack them from behind and then drive them from our land once and for all. Mark my words, Iorwerth, I’ll be the new Arthur.’ From his look you’d have thought he already was. As he and his last followers rode away I prayed quietly to myself, please God, let this be over with. Let the Saxons catch him. Please God, let my family escape alive from this place.
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