The Brothers of Gwynedd Read Online Free PDF Page B

drily.
      "Madam, if I am to know, you will tell me."
      And tell me she did, and set me to work then and there, helping the steward to sort out and burn those parchments she did not need, and wished not to leave behind her for others to see. For my eyes were younger and sharper than the old man's, and even in the bright summer the light was dim within the room. So it happened that I was crouched by the hearth-stone, feeding roils of vellum into a sluggish fire, or laying out those harmless and only once used for cleaning, when there was a rush of loud young footsteps outside, and Llewelyn flung the door wide and came striding in.
      I saw him first only as a dark figure in outline against the brilliance of the day outside, and saw him so, in stillness, for a long moment, for he had halted to get his bearings in the dimness of the room, after his ride under that radiant sky. Then he came forward to plump heartily down on his knee and kiss his mother's hand, though so perfunctorily that it was plain he saw no reason for more than ordinary filial respect, and knew nothing as yet of why she had sent for him. And very straightly he went to it and asked, as though, whatever it was, he would see it done, and then be off again to whatever employment she had interrupted.
      "I came as soon as I could, mother. What is it you want of me?"
      The flames of my small fire, burning up to a brief flare as I forgot to feed it, lit him clearly as he bounded up from his knee. He was then no taller than I, though afterwards he shot up to gain half a head over me. But he was sturdier and squarer than I, and perhaps because of this, perhaps because of that glowing, carefree assurance he had, being born royal, he seemed to me my elder by a year or two, though I knew that to be false. He wore no cloak in this high summer, he had on him only his hose and a short riding-tunic of linen, that left his throat and forearms bare, long-toed riding shoes on his feet, and round his hips a belt ornamented with gold, from which a short dagger hung. And wherever his skin was bared he was burned copper-brown by the sun, so that his thick brown hair seemed only a shade darker. He looked at the coffer his mother had on the table, and at the pieces of jewellery and the documents laid away in it, and his smile of pure pleasure in sun and motion and his own vigour faded a little into wonder and puzzlement.
      "What are you doing? What is this?"
      "I sent for you," she said, "to come home to your duty. Tonight we leave here on a journey. If I have not consulted you before, you must forgive me that, for it was necessary. I could not risk any accidental betrayal, it was best the secret should remain within these walls until all was ready. It is ready now, and we leave here tonight. For Shrewsbury."
      He echoed: "Shrewsbury?" in an almost silent cry of astonished disbelief. When his brows drew together so, they were almost as formidable as hers, and very like. "Mother, do you know what you say? King Henry is on his way from Gloucester to Shrewsbury this moment, with all his feudal host. Bent against Gwynedd! Did you not know it? Whatever you could want in Shrewsbury, God knows, I cannot see, but this is no time to stir about it."
      He was slow to understand, though she had told him bluntly enough. And after all, perhaps my experience had made me a year or so older, not younger, than he when it came to probing the political moves of his noble mother. Or he was too near and fond, in the unthinking way proper to his youth, and I, kinless, fatherless, dependent, saw from outside and saw more clearly. Yet when the truth did dawn upon him, he spoke from a vision which I had not, and did not yet comprehend.
      His face had sharpened in the unseasonable firelight. I saw all the golden, reflected lines along his bones of cheek and chin quiver and draw fine and clear. He was not smiling at all then. He said: "Madam, let me understand you! Is that your reason