The Brothers of Gwynedd Read Online Free PDF Page A

saddle-bags already packed and waiting, covered over with hides and stacked along the wall. If there was no great to-do at this hour, it was because the Lady Senena's plans, whatever they might be, had been made some while since, and now only awaited the right moment for execution.
      My mother must have been listening for the sound of hooves, for she looked out from the hall as we clattered across the courtyard, and came hurrying to kiss me. She had a child by the hand, a boy about five years old, who clung to her confidently, and stared up at me with shining curiosity. Very dark he was, with broad cheekbones and wide eyes of a blue like harebells, soft and light, under straight brows as black as his blue-black hair. He was tall for his age, and well-made, and of a bold beauty, and he gazed at me unwaveringly in silence, for so long that I was forced to be the first to turn my eyes away. And I knew this boy for my breast-brother, the youngest of the Lord Griffith's four sons, who bore his detested uncle's name of David.
      A second boy, a year or so older, came trailing out from the hall after them to stare at us from a distance before he made up his mind to come close. He approached a little sidelong, hesitant and unwelcoming in his look. This one had something of the colouring of Owen Goch, but as though bleached and faded in the sun, for his hair was of a reddish straw-colour, and his cheeks pale and freckled. When he saw my mother kiss me he came the rest of the way across the dusty court to us in a rush, and laid hold upon her skirt as if to assert his ownership and my strangeness. But in a moment, as she only gave him her free hand without a glance, and continued speaking with me, he lost interest in us both, and looked round for other entertainment, and pulling away his hand again, ran off after one of the maids who passed from the kitchens with her arms full. The youngest stood immovable and watched, saying never a word, and missing nothing, until my mother leaned down to him cajolingly, and turning him after his elder, urged him to go with Rhodri, and Marared would give them some of the honey cakes she was baking. And then he went, at first composedly, and then breaking into a hopping dance of his own, to which he seemed to want and need no audience.
      This was the first time that ever I saw the two youngest of the brothers of Gwynedd.
      My mother drew me with her into the store-room, I think to be out of sight of her husband when she embraced me, and there she held me against her heart, and said over and over: "I could not go without you! How could I? I would not go so far and leave you behind." Then she held me off from her to search my face more earnestly, and asked, almost as if in fear, whether I had been happy at Aberdaron, and whether I was not glad rather to come with her, and travel so far into the world. And I swallowed my regrets, since there was no sense in two of us grieving when only one need, and told her that I was her dutiful son, and I willed to go with her wherever she must go, though God knows I lied, and I hope forgives me the lie. Could I have had my way without hurt to any other, I would have begged a fresh pony, all stiff and sore as I was, and started out on the instant back to my cell and the unfinished haymaking, and my master Ciaran. But since that could not be, for neither she nor I was free, or had any support but in the Lady Senena's service, I comforted her as best I could, myself uncomforted, and asked her where it was we must go, and for how long a time, to make it necessary that I should be recalled. For often enough the court moved between three or four maenols, but none so distant that it implied a parting between us.
      "We are going further," she said, "very far. She has sent couriers ahead days ago, to have changes of horses ready. And we leave tonight, after dark."
      "But why after dark?" I questioned. "And where do we go?"
      "Eastward," she said, "to