‘It could be tenthousand and thirty, Svein, and still not be enough to start a new nation,’ said Einion crisply. ‘We have been at sea for a long time, but my memory has not decayed so much that I forget that one needs women to produce children.’
There was a general guffaw around the camp at this pert reply. Madoc grinned at his brother.
‘You were ever one for the girls, Einion. You should have got yourself a wife before leaving. But I take your point, brother. Are we to stay in this land? Do we want to establish a New Wales here? Or do we want to take ship and sail home, content to be hailed as the world’s greatest voyagers? If they can tear themselves away from their petty intrigues to give us a second’s thought,’ he added bitterly.
This provoked a flurry of talk, some men being for the first plan, others wishing to stay.
‘Meirion, you are usually the spokesman, what do you think should be done?’
The burly seaman, older and tougher than the rest, scratched his leathery cheek. ‘We are divided, Lord Madoc, but it seems to me that part of the answer is beyond question. If we wish to stay in this land, we need both more men, for we are too few –and we need women. Men cannot and will not spend the rest of their mortal lives without the comforts of women. And some of these men – myself included – already have a wife whomwe cannot abandon in Gwynedd, while we spend our lives here in the New Land.’
He sat down again and Madoc took up his suggestions.
‘This follows my own reasoning, Meirion. I think that either we should all return home and those who wish it should come back with a bigger expedition with wives and even some of the children – or some should return, leaving the rest to wait upon our coming back.’
The matter was argued back and forth until it became obvious that some men wished to go home and stay there, though there were only five or six of these. Another half-score wished to return home for their wives, sweethearts or any other comely woman and return here with them. The remainder, another dozen or so, were content to stay in the New World indefinitely. Of these, Einion was an enthusiastic member, declaring that if he never saw Wales and his damned family again, it would be too soon!
‘And what of you, Alun Gam?’ asked Madoc. ‘We have heard nothing from you. You are entitled to speak, though you have lost much of the respect that you had when we sailed from the Afon Ganol.’
As he had been the leading troublemaker of those who wished to turn back earlier in the voyage, Madoc had little doubt that he wished to return home as speedily as possible. But Alun said quite the opposite.
‘I’ll not risk my life in that damned ship again! What chance have you got of ever finding Wales again, when you do not even know where we are now? And if you ever found it, how could you ever return to this spot again? No, I’ll stay here and live my life out on dry land.’
‘So be it,’ Madoc answered. ‘It is a free society, this fellowship of the Gwennan Gorn. None of you need ever have come with me and each of you can do what he likes in the future.’
He asked for a firm show of hands on who wanted to return. There were fifteen who wished to take the ship home. Svein was one of them.
‘So with myself, there will be sixteen men to crew the Gwennan Gorn,’ he announced. ‘That should be enough … it will have to be enough. Half the party will go, the other half will stay here in Castell Newydd, growing fat and idle in the sun, until we return!’
Svein painfully pulled himself up on to an elbow.
‘You hadbetter not delay much longer, Madoc. It is almost midsummer now and God knows how long it will take you to find your way home. Come the autumn gales and any chance you have of finding Europe, let alone Wales, will vanish.’
Padraig, the sailor-monk, was amongst those who volunteered to stay. ‘I have no wife … it would be a strange monk who did – and this pack of heathens here needs a man of God to get them to pray now and then,’ he declared.
For several days, they made determined efforts to catch as many deer, hares and birds as they could. Within a week, all the provisions that the Gwennan Gorn could carry were packed below her two small decks. The water vessels were filled on the last day and all was ready for the departure.
Three of the coracles were left behind, though the settlers now had plenty of material to make more.
To take advantage of the ebb tide and the river flow, the Gwennan Gorn raised her anchors in the afternoon of an August day, the slight offshore breeze behind them to speed them down towards the sea, twenty-five miles away.
Madoc clasped his brother Einion to him, before he clambered over the side of the ship.
‘Keep to the castle, Einion … take no chances until we return. And keep that record of the days. I have given Padraig a deerskin and charcoal to write with. You can tell when Christ Mass and the New Year comes. We should be back here some time in the late spring, if God shows us the way.’
He sounded more confident than he felt about either getting home again or finding their way back to this unknown spot. He was fairly confident of his north-south position to within a few hundred miles. It was almost exactly the same as that of the Fortunate Isles, but the east-west point was anyone’s guess within a range of a couple of thousand miles, as only the crudest reckoning of distance had been possible on the journey out.
They hauled up the sail and Meirion, who was going home to fetch his wife, twisted the steering oar. With a few pulls of the sweeps, they got themselves out of the lee of the headland and caught the breeze.
The men on the shore waved madly as they glided away. Voices came through the clear air as their gentle wake curved round and pointed back at Castell Newydd. ‘Bring us back somecomely girls … fetch some yeast to make beer … seed corn … women … mead …’
The voices became fainter and faded. Looking back, Madoc could see the dots of men waving on the beach and a couple of coracles bobbing on the water.
‘God preserve them,’ he murmured.
‘Keep your prayers for ourselves,’ said Svein. ‘We need them more than they.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Come near, Madoc. Tell me more about how you returned.’
A hand-made gaunt by age and illness beckoned feebly across the bedchamber.
Madoc, his sun-bleached hair contrasting even more with his weather-beaten face, moved across to the great bed and sat on a three-legged stool close to his father’s side.
‘I will never move from this couch again, my son, so tell me of these far places and strange sights, so that I may travel with you at least in imagination.’
Madoc looked up at the figures at the other side of the bed. The meddyg, whose knowledge of herbs and potions was the best the court could provide as a healer, shrugged helplessly, as if to say ‘Carry on, it can make no difference.’
Dafydd and Rhodri were there ostentatiously looking through the window slit, their backs to Madoc. Elsewhere in the room were the Chancellor, the Bishop of Bangor, the chief judge, Llywarch and Gwalchmai the bards and a few palace retainers. At the foot of the bed sat Cristin, Owain Gwynedd’s faithful wife, still unrecognised by Rome.
Behind Madoc stood Svein, looking sadly down on the dying Prince of Gwynedd.Owain had been in this state for some weeks, getting slowly weaker from no particular disease – just old age and the weakness of a dozen battle wounds of previous years.
Madoc had been home for a week and had seen his father several times, giving him parts of the story of the great voyage on each occasion. Now he was coming to the last episode, the return.
‘It took us much longer than we thought, sire. We left our camp and my brother Einion in the last week of August. I found on returning here that my rough calendar was four days in error, but it was near enough to the end of the summer month that we took leave of our brave friends.’
‘God allow them to be safe still,’ murmured Owain, the words having a depth of meaning, rather than a pious prayer.
‘The Gwennan Gorn was in calm waters for the first week or so
. We sailed east from the mouth of that great river, but the winds were not helpful, blowing either off the land or straight from the south. Sometimes we made some progress with the tacking boom helping us to cross the southerly wind, other times we rowed.’
He held up his hands, palms towards his father, to show the great callouses from the looms of the oars.
‘With only sixteen crew, all took their turns. Then we saw land again, straight before us in the east. We had hoped that the coast would curve away northwards and maybe become the Vinland of the old Norsemen who had voyaged from Gronland. But this land blocked our path. We sailed northwards, hoping that it was some large island, but it went on for ever, so we turned and re-traced our path. This wasted many more days and Svein was becoming worried about the lateness of the season.’
Svein spoke up from behind him.
‘It was September and we still were on the same coast as when we left.’
‘We landed several times, but it was a fearful land, all swamp and strange trees with legs that supported them in the mire.’ There was a snort from the two at the window, making their disbelief evident. They took every opportunity to pour scorn on this returning hero. Madoc had tried to avoid them since he returned. The sight of the pair of evil schemers still filled him with sickness.
He carried on, trying to ignore them. ‘We managed to find some drinkable water, though our stock was still good, then sailed on down the coast for another week. The winds were still contrary, but some miles off shore, there was a brisk current that helped us greatly.’
‘Yet a day’s sailing further from the coast, the current was in the opposite direction,’ put in Svein. ‘There are some curious seas in those parts, I feel it is because the water is warm and somehow swirls across the earth under the influence of the sun.’
Dafydd swung round to the doctor.
‘Why you allow our royal father, who is sick unto death, to be plagued by these liars, is strange logic to me, physician.’
The Chancellor, a powerful man, even to prince’s sons, held upan admonishing hand, but Owain was fit enough to look after his own interests.
‘I am well enough to choose what I wish to hear,’ he said in a fitful return of his old voice. ‘And it is not the jealous whimperings of men who have never set foot beyond Ireland. Continue, Madoc, these tales will give me pleasant dreams tonight.’
‘Well, sire, thenour good ship continued south, always in sight of the coast. Sometimes we were tricked into thinking that the shoreline had turned east, but they were but huge landlocked bays and we had to come out again. But one day, now in mid-September, we came upon a chain of flat islands, mere sandbars, with some trees and water that stretched far across the horizon east to west.’
Owain nodded, his blue eyes staring into the imagined horizons of the new world that he would never see.
‘We sailed the Gwennan Gorn through this line of banks and isles out into the open sea beyond. Within a few miles, we felt a new current under our keel and the wind began to blow directly behind us, from the south-west. We had filled up with fresh water and fruit on one end of the islands, but within a few days, going north and east, we came upon more islands, a pair of small ones set in a sea that seemed like paradise. Again we landed and found a crystal spring there that some of the crew said must be the true Fountain of Youth. I know not if it was or whether this was wishful thinking, but I drank from it, along with the rest of them.’
‘It was like the Garden of Eden that the priests spoke of when the world was young,’ put in Svein, who had been so impressed with the little island that he had been almost reluctant to leave it.
Ignoring the covert sneers from his half-brothers, Madoc leaned nearer the gaunt figure in the bed.
‘Whereas we were so hard pressed for land, water and food on the outward voyage, we seemed to have an endless succession of idyllic stopping places on the way home … at least for the middle period of the journey. A week after leaving this paradise island, we came to yet another great group of low islands, stretched across our north-easterly path. Again we watered and filled our casks with small game and birds. This was the end of the New Lands and there was only open ocean in front of us. We sailed out from the last island at the end of September, by my record,again riding easily before the prevailing wind.’
Owain Gwynedd’s bony face, the skin stretched tightly across his cheekbones, turned to Madoc.
‘You are a brave son, a true member of the blood of your grandfather. He was half-Norseman, was Gruffydd son of Cynan. No wonder you have such a bond of friendship with that great Viking standing behind you.’
Madoc smiled gently at his father. ‘I only wish I had been around you during all those years of my youth. I would have liked to have heard your tales of my forebears, sire.’
Madoc went on with the saga of the Gwennan Gorn, which was now nearly at an end.
‘Some days after sailing out into the ocean, we came upon a most unearthly area of sea. At first, there were merely wisps of drifting seaweed but, as the days went by, it thickened to form a matted area as far as the eye could see. The men became uneasy and some remembered legends of sea monsters and evil serpents who lived in such places. We had to use all our powers of sailing across what breeze there was to take us back to the west out of that weird and frightening ocean.’
‘Some days, we even resorted to the oars, so keen were we not to be driven deeper into the weed, for surely, it must have thickened enough to eventually stop our passage,’ put in Svein.
This brought a derisive guffaw from the pair at the window.
‘God’s teeth, these charlatans are telling a pack of lies! They have probably been no further than the coasts of France and have deserted the rest of the crew or allowed them to drown through some criminal negligence.’
‘Be still, you mouths of spite!’ said Owain, with as much spirit as he could muster. ‘Finish your tale, Madoc.’
‘There is little more to tell – except that we sailed free of the weed and carried on northward until one day another extraordinary marvel was seen. There was a wide river in the sea, more obvious than that which we had seen on the outward trip. It was of a deeper blue and ran from horizon to horizon for weeks on end. The water was moving faster than we could row the Gwennan Gorn, even with a full crew. It was warm and moist and there was a wind following it in the north-easterly direction. We hardly needed the sail, as the current took us without effort. Though the season was advancing fast, we knew that our northing was most rapid. After a week, the current began drifting eastwards. The skies became grey and we met much fog, but the sea was calm for another week. Soon we knew that we must be approaching the levels of Europe, though we had no idea how far to the east they were.’
‘Then the weather broke and we knew we must be nearing home!’ Svein spoke feelingly of the western sea storms that had given them such a rough time on the last part of the journey.
‘Our water was easily replenished from the rain … God, how it rained! And blew! And the waves were like mountains, though not as dangerous as that terrible storm on the westerly voyage.’
Madoc continued his tale.
‘The wind and the current raced us across the ocean. We had little food left, no bread or meal and all that remained was fish –dried fish, fresh fish, any sort of fish.’
‘I thought I would begin to grow gills,’ grumbled Svein. ‘It grew greyer and colder and we began to despair, though the lodestone told us that we were running north and east all the time. Then one day, when our food had all gone, except for damned fish, out of the rain clouds we saw mountains! They could have been Wales, but no one recognised them. We went ashore and found that we were on one of those barren western isles in the north of Caledonia. We crept down the coast, reluctant to lose sight of Britain after all the trouble we had taken to get back here. Finding Aberffraw was a child’s task after the miles that had slid under the keel of the Gwennan Gorn these past seven months.’
The dying prince
asked a few questions of his wandering son, then pleaded fatigue.
‘I am tired unto death, Madoc. Leave me now, though I hope to live long enough to see you and hear more wonders in the days to come.’
Madoc and Svein knelt to give their homage to Owain then quietly moved to the door.
‘A last question, my son.’ The weak, but firm voice stopped them. ‘What do you do next? What of those brave men left on that hillock on the other side of the world?’
Madoc stepped back towards the bed. ‘They will not be deserted, arglwydd. I am going back, along with Svein and some of the other men on the vessel. I hope to find more men willing to venture with me in other ships, and to take women and seeds and other things necessary to begin a new Wales beyond the ocean. I hope that my brother Riryd will come with me, at least to seeit, if not to stay.’
Owain’s head dropped wearily back onto the pillow.
As Madoc and his friends left the bedchamber, Dafydd and Rhodri waylaid them in the sunlight outside the wooden building.
Madoc looked at them warily and Svein’s hand slipped stealthily towards the dagger at his belt.
‘We care little for that pack of lies you spun our father,’ snapped Dafydd. ‘But what of this scheme for taking Welshmen and ships off to this fabulous land of yours?’
Madoc looked from one to the other of his half-brothers. He was at a loss to understand them.
‘What is it to you, brothers? I shall not trouble you more. Once we leave in the spring I doubt you’ll ever see my face again.’
Rhodri, a fleshy, small-eyed man, spat on the ground.
‘A fine tale, a land three thousand sea miles away. I’ll wager you’ve set up camp on some remote part of the Irish coast – or maybe Cornwall or Brittany. You’re taking men and supplies there, to build up an army against us, eh?’
Madoc’s jaw dropped. It was beyond the wildest bounds of his imagination to think that the ordeals of the past months could be so misconstrued. He was at a loss for words for a moment and the brothers seized on this as evidence of his guilt.
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