Part 14 (1/2)

”Play to us, Harper; sing some song of the deeds of old!” The bard mournfully strove to sweep the harp, but the chords were broken, and the note came discordant and shrill as the sigh of a wailing fiend.

”O King!” said the bard, ”the music hath left the harp.”

”Ha!” murmured Gryffyth, ”and Hope the earth! Bard, answer the son of Llewellyn. Oft in my halls hast thou sung the praise of the men that have been. In the halls of the race to come, will bards yet unborn sweep their harps to the deeds of thy King? Shall they tell of the day of Torques, by Llyn-Afangc, when the princes of Powys fled from his sword as the clouds from the blast of the wind? Shall they sing, as the Hirlas goes round, of his steeds of the sea, when no flag came in sight of his prows between the dark isle of the Druid [167] and the green pastures of Huerdan? [168] Or the towns that he fired, on the lands of the Saxon, when Rolf and the Nortbmen ran fast from his javelin and spear? Or say, Child of Truth, if all that is told of Gryffyth thy King shall be his woe and his shame?”

The bard swept his hand over his eyes, and answered: ”Bards unborn shall sing of Gryffyth the son of Llewellyn. But the song shall not dwell on the pomp of his power, when twenty sub-kings knelt at his throne, and his beacon was lighted in the holds of the Norman and Saxon. Bards shall sing of the hero, who fought every inch of crag and mora.s.s in the front of his men,--and on the heights of Penmaen-mawr, Fame recovers thy crown!”

”Then I have lived as my fathers in life, and shall live with their glory in death!” said Gryffyth; ”and so the shadow hath pa.s.sed from my soul.” Then turning round, still propped upon his elbow, he fixed his proud eye upon Aldyth, and said gravely, ”Wife, pale is thy face, and gloomy thy brow; mournest thou the throne or the man?”

Aldyth cast on her wild lord a look of more terror than compa.s.sion, a look without the grief that is gentle, or the love that reveres; and answered: ”What matter to thee my thoughts or my sufferings? The sword or the famine is the doom thou hast chosen. Listening to vain dreams from thy bard, or thine own pride as idle, thou disdainest life for us both: be it so; let us die!”

A strange blending of fondness and wrath troubled the pride on Gryffyth's features, uncouth and half savage as they were, but still n.o.ble and kingly.

”And what terror has death, if thou lovest me?” said he.

Aldyth s.h.i.+vered and turned aside. The unhappy King gazed hard on that face, which, despite sore trial and recent exposure to rough wind and weather, still retained the proverbial beauty of the Saxon women--but beauty without the glow of the heart, as a landscape from which sunlight has vanished; and as he gazed, at the colour went and came fitfully over his swarthy cheeks whose hue contrasted the blue of his eye and the red tawny gold of his s.h.a.ggy hair.

”Thou wouldst have me,” he said at length, ”send to Harold thy countryman; thou wouldst have me, me--rightful lord of all Britain-- beg for mercy, and sue for life. Ah, traitress, and child of robber- sires, fair as Rowena art thou, but no Vortimer am I! Thou turnest in loathing from the lord whose marriage-gift was a crown; and the sleek form of thy Saxon Harold rises up through the clouds of the carnage.”

All the fierce and dangerous jealousy of man's most human pa.s.sion-- when man loves and hates in a breath--trembled in the Cymrian's voice, and fired his troubled eye; for Aldyth's pale cheek blushed like the rose, but she folded her arms haughtily on her breast, and made no reply.

”No,” said Gryffyth, grinding teeth, white [169] and strong as those of a young hound. ”No, Harold in vain sent me the casket; the jewel was gone. In vain thy form returned to my side; thy heart was away with thy captor: and not to save my life (were I so base as to seek it), but to see once more the face of him to whom this cold hand, in whose veins no pulse answers my own, had been given, if thy House had consulted its daughter, wouldst thou have me crouch like a lashed dog at the feet of my foe! Oh Shame! shame! shame! Oh worst perfidy of all! Oh sharp--sharper than Saxon sword or serpent's tooth, is--is--”

Tears gushed to those fierce eyes, and the proud King dared not trust to his voice.

Aldyth rose coldly. ”Slay me if thou wilt--not insult me. I have said, 'Let us die!'”

With these words, and vouchsafing no look on her lord, she moved away towards the largest tower or cell, in which the single and rude chamber it contained had been set apart for her.

Gryffyth's eye followed her, softening gradually as her form receded, till lost to his sight. And then that peculiar household love, which in uncultivated b.r.e.a.s.t.s often survives trust and esteem, rushed back on his rough heart, and weakened it, as woman only can weaken the strong to whom Death is a thought of scorn.

He signed to his bard, who, during the conference between wife and lord, had retired to a distance, and said, with a writhing attempt to smile: ”Was there truth, thinkest thou, in the legend, that Guenever was false to King Arthur?”

”No,” answered the bard, divining his lord's thought, for Guenever survived not the King, and they were buried side by side in the Vale of Avallon.”

”Thou art wise in the lore of the heart, and love hath been thy study from youth to grey hairs. Is it love, is it hate, that prefers death for the loved one, to the thought of her life as another's?” A look of the tenderest compa.s.sion pa.s.sed over the bard's wan face, but vanished in reverence, as he bowed his head and answered: ”O King, who shall say what note the wind calls from the harp, what impulse love wakes in the soul--now soft and now stern? But,” he added, raising his form, and, with a dread calm on his brow, ”but the love of a king brooks no thought of dishonour; and she who hath laid her head on his breast should sleep in his grave.”

”Thou wilt outlive me,” said Gryffyth, abruptly. ”This carn be my tomb!”

”And if so,” said the bard, ”thou shalt sleep not alone. In this carn what thou lovest best shall be buried by thy side; the bard shall raise his song over thy grave, and the bosses of s.h.i.+elds shall be placed at intervals, as rises and falls the sound of song. Over the grave of two shall a new mound arise, and we will bid the mound speak to others in the fair days to come. But distant yet be the hour when the mighty shall be laid low! and the tongue of thy bard may yet chant the rush of the lion from the toils and the spears. Hope still!”

Gryffyth, for answer, leant on the harper's shoulder, and pointed silently to the sea, that lay, lake-like at the distance, dark-studded with the Saxon fleet. Then turning, his hands stretched over the forms that, hollow-eyed and ghost-like, flitted between the walls, or lay dying, but mute, around the waterspring. His hand then dropped, and rested on the hilt of his sword.

At this moment there was a sudden commotion at the outer entrance of the wall; the crowd gathered to one spot, and there was a loud hum of voices. In a few moments one of the Welch scouts came into the enclosure, and the chiefs of the royal tribes followed him to the carn on which the King stood.

”Of what tellest thou?” said Gryffyth, resuming on the instant all the royalty of his bearing.

”At the mouth of the pa.s.s,” said the scout, kneeling, ”there are a monk bearing the holy rood, and a chief, unarmed. And the monk is Evan, the Cymrian, of Gwentland; and the chief, by his voice, seemeth not to be Saxon. The monk bade me give thee these tokens” (and the scout displayed the broken torque which the King had left in the grasp of Harold, together with a live falcon belled and blinded), ”and bade me say thus to the King: Harold the Earl greets Gryffyth, son of Llewellyn, and sends him, in proof of good will, the richest prize he hath ever won from a foe; and a hawk, from Llandudno;--that bird which chief and equal give to equal and chief. And he prays Gryffyth, son of Llewellyn, for the sake of his realm and his people, to grant hearing to his nuncius.”

A murmur broke from the chiefs--a murmur of joy and surprise from all, save the three conspirators, who interchanged anxious and fiery glances. Gryffyth's hand had already closed, while he uttered a cry that seemed of rapture, on the collar of gold; for the loss of that collar had stung him, perhaps more than the loss of the crown of all Wales. And his heart, so generous and large, amidst all its rude pa.s.sions, was touched by the speech and the tokens that honoured the fallen outlaw both as foe and as king. Yet in his face there was still seen a moody and proud struggle; he paused before he turned to the chiefs.

”What counsel ye--ye strong in battle, and wise in debate?” said he.

With one voice all, save the Fatal Three, exclaimed: ”Hear the monk, O King!”

”Shall we dissuade?” whispered Modred to the old chief, his accomplice.

”No; for so doing, we shall offend all:--and we must win all.”

Then the bard stepped into the ring. And the ring was hushed, for wise is ever the counsel of him whose book is the human heart.

”Hear the Saxons,” said he, briefly, and with an air of command when addressing others, which contrasted strongly his tender respect to the King; ”hear the Saxons, but not in these walls. Let no man from the foe see our strength or our weakness. We are still mighty and impregnable, while our dwelling is in the realm of the Unknown. Let the King, and his officers of state, and his chieftains of battle, descend to the pa.s.s. And behind, at the distance, let the spearmen range from cliff to cliff, as a ladder of steel; so will their numbers seem the greater.”

”Thou speakest well,” said the King.

Meanwhile the knight and the monk waited below at that terrible pa.s.s [170], which then lay between mountain and river, and over which the precipices frowned, with a sense of horror and weight. Looking up, the knight murmured: ”With those stones and crags to roll down on a marching army, the place well defies storm and a.s.sault; and a hundred on the height would overmatch thousands below.”

He then turned to address a few words, with all the far-famed courtesy of Norman and Frank, to the Welch guards at the outpost. They were picked men; the strongest and best armed and best fed of the group. But they shook their heads and answered not, gazing at him fiercely, and showing their white teeth, as dogs at a bear before they are loosened from the band.

”They understand me not, poor languageless savages!” said Mallet de Graville, turning to the monk, who stood by with the lifted rood; ”speak to them in their own jargon.”

”Nay,” said the Welch monk, who, though of a rival tribe from South Wales, and at the service of Harold, was esteemed throughout the land for piety and learning, ”they will not open mouth till the King's orders come to receive or dismiss us unheard.”

”Dismiss us unheard!” repeated the punctilious Norman; ”even this poor barbarous King can scarcely be so strange to all comely and gentle usage, as to put such insult on Guillaume Mallet de Graville. But,” added the knight, colouring, ”I forgot that he is not advised of my name and land; and, indeed, sith thou art to be spokesman, I marvel why Harold should have prayed my service at all, at the risk of subjecting a Norman knight to affronts contumelious.”

”Peradventure,” replied Evan, ”peradventure thou hast something to whisper apart to the King, which, as stranger and warrior, none will venture to question; but which from me, as countryman and priest, would excite the jealous suspicions of those around him.”

”I conceive thee,” said De Graville. ”And see, spears are gleaming down the path; and per pedes Domini, yon chief with the mantle, and circlet of gold on his head, is the cat-king that so spitted and scratched in the melee last night.”

”Heed well thy tongue,” said Evan, alarmed; ”no jests with the leader of men.”

”Knowest thou, good monk, that a facete and most gentil Roman (if the saintly writer from whom I take the citation reports aright--for, alas! I know not where myself to purchase, or to steal, one copy of Horatius Flaccus) hath said 'Dulce est desipere in loco.' It is sweet to jest, but not within reach of claws, whether of kaisars or cats.”

Therewith the knight drew up his spare but stately figure, and arranging his robe with grace and dignity, awaited the coming chief.

Down the paths, one by one, came first the chiefs, privileged by birth to attend the King; and each, as he reached the mouth of the pa.s.s, drew on the upper side, among the stones of the rough ground. Then a banner, tattered and torn, with the lion ensign that the Welch princes had subst.i.tuted for the old national dragon, which the Saxon of Wess.e.x had appropriated to themselves [171], preceded the steps of the King. Behind him came his falconer and bard, and the rest of his scanty household. The King halted in the pa.s.s, a few steps from the Norman knight; and Mallet de Graville, though accustomed to the majestic mien of Duke William, and the practised state of the princes of France and Flanders, felt an involuntary thrill of admiration at the bearing of the great child of Nature with his foot on his father's soil.

Small and slight as was his stature, worn and ragged his mantle of state, there was that in the erect mien and steady eye of the Cymrian hero, which showed one conscious of authority, and potent in will; and the wave of his hand to the knight was the gesture of a prince on his throne. Nor, indeed, was that brave and ill-fated chief without some irregular gleams of mental cultivation, which under happier auspices, might have centred into steadfast light. Though the learning which had once existed in Wales (the last legacy of Rome) had long since expired in broil and blood, and youths no longer flocked to the colleges of Caerleon, and priests no longer adorned the casuistical theology of the age, Gryffyth himself, the son of a wise and famous father [172], had received an education beyond the average of Saxon kings. But, intensely national, his mind had turned from all other literature, to the legends, and songs, and chronicles of his land; and if he is the best scholar who best understands his own tongue and its treasures, Gryffyth was the most erudite prince of his age.

His natural talents, for war especially, were considerable; and judged fairly--not as mated with an empty treasury, without other army than the capricious will of his subjects afforded, and amidst his bitterest foes in the jealous chiefs of his own country, against the disciplined force and comparative civilisation of the Saxon--but as compared with all the other princes of Wales, in warfare, to which he was habituated, and in which chances were even, the fallen son of Llewellyn had been the most renowned leader that Cymry had known since the death of the great Roderic.

So there he stood; his attendants ghastly with famine, drawn up on the unequal ground; above, on the heights, and rising from the stone crags, long lines of spears artfully placed; and, watching him with deathful eyes, somewhat in his rear, the Traitor Three.