Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XIII

The scent of wood smoke and fresh-cut parchment hung heavy in the scriptorium of St Oswald's Priory, where the late afternoon sun struggled to pierce the narrow, deeply-splayed windows. Nicholas ap Gwrgan, subprior of Gloucester, meticulously wiped his quill as he set his draft letter aside for now, his face a study in composure that belied the monumental nature of the parcel resting on the table before him.

Opposite him stood Urban, his brother, eyes wide as he gazed upon the items Nicholas had just uncovered. It was the legacy of their father, Bishop Urban of Llandaff: a pectoral cross of silver set with Welsh pearls, a horned mitra pretiosa shimmering with subtle gold thread, and a pastoral staff of Welsh oak, its carved head of bone and ivory, worn smooth in their father's epic labours to recreate and guide his diocese. They were the insignia of a prince of the Church, entrusted to Nicholas by their father's last testament, as he told his younger brother.

'They should be yours, brother,' Nicholas said, his voice quiet, pushing the silver-inlaid cross towards Urban. 'To mark your journey to the priesthood and beyond.'

Urban looked at the opulent items, then at his brother, a slow, wry smile breaking his composure. He traced the curve of the ivory crook. 'You know, dear Nicholas, father was a man of keen foresight. He left these to you, not me, and not just because you were the elder of his sons.' He chuckled softly, the sound echoing in the quiet room. 'I'd wager he looked at you, with your administrative mind and your way with the Norman lords, and simply assumed you were the more likely candidate to actually wear them as a bishop.'

Nicholas didn't blink, though a faint muscle tightened in his jaw. He merely bowed his head slightly and chuckled. 'Then you take them, Urban. Wear them tomorrow, and let us hope that in your own way, you prove his prophecy misjudged. After all, if you're right, you can always hand them back to me when I get nominated to a see.'

'In the meantime,' said Urban, returning the laughter, 'let me get on with this document to clear away another hurdle: my profession of obedience, not to Canterbury, as it would have had to be if Caerleon had been a regular diocesan bishop of Archbishop Theobald's province, but to the bishop of the diocese in which I will be suffragan, to our cousin Uthred of Llandaff. Check over the wording. I think it is in line with canon law. I can only seal it with my seal as archdeacon of Gwent, but I don't think that is a problem. However, first I must swear it on this copy of the gospels. Then you can endorse the profession document as a witness that the oath was in fact sworn.

The long nave of St Oswald's priory glowed with winter light, the high clerestory lancets gathering it in and pouring it down upon the gathered court like something distilled from heaven. At the head of the nave, beneath the carved and painted canopy of state, sat the Empress, upright and grave, her eyes never leaving the small procession forming beneath the rood. She was flanked by her household officers, but none drew the attention as did the two boys in the sanctuary—one tall, one slight—fastening the last cords and ties upon the bishop elect.

Urban bowed his head while Nicholas, vested as subdeacon, adjusted the broad band of the maniple at his brother's wrist with hands that trembled only slightly. To Nicholas the moment felt impossibly large, as though he were clothing not merely a bishop but the future of his family itself. Beside him, young Leofric, serving as deacon of the mass, lifted the shimmering dalmatic and eased it over Urban's shoulders with a tenderness that was almost filial. Urban smiled at him—just a soft, private thing, as loving as a kiss on the lips—and Leofric's face shone.

Thus fully vested in tunicle, dalmatic and chasuble, but as yet bareheaded, Urban stepped forward into the ring of three bishops who awaited him. Their copes brushed one another as they closed around him like huntsmen trapping their prey.

Bishop Bernard's gravelly voice rose, unwavering. 'Let this servant be consecrated to the labour of the Gospel. Let him bear the sweet yoke of Christ, and share in the oversight of Caerleon and all its fold.'

Urban knelt. Three right hands descended as one upon his bowed head. The silence seemed to ring. Behind him, Nicholas and Leofric knelt too—Nicholas with pride he fought to master, Leofric trembling with joy and awe. The Empress, high upon her throne, let her chin lift just a fraction, as though she, too, felt the weight of grace gathering in the nave.

Bishop Bernard intoned the prayer of ordination, and the other bishops joined him, weaving their voices into an invocation of divine power. The scent of chrism rose like a distant odour of paradise as the oil traced its shining mark upon Urban's brow.

When he stood again, the mitre and pectoral cross were placed upon him and a gold ring on his right hand. At last Urban turned—slow, reverent—to face the people. Nicholas swallowed hard, Leofric wiped his eyes with the edge of his sleeve, and even the Empress allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. Urban raised his hand in blessing.

And in that moment—chasuble rippling, dalmatic gleaming like a sun burst—it seemed to all who watched that Llandaff and Llantrisant had just received not only a suffragan, but the promise of an energetic future. As Urban passed down the church, pastoral staff in hand, hand raised in blessing, to receive the greetings and good wishes of his friends and supporters, Morgan Ddu exchanged kisses with him and grinned as he whispered. 'My dad's masons have just begun the construction of a martyrium of Ss Julius and Aaron at Caerleon, which is suspiciously cathedral-shaped, Bishop Urban.'

Bishop Urban of Caerleon was one of four bishops arrayed on a bench in front of the Empress's throne in the great hall of Gloucester Castle. They outnumbered the earls present, who sat behind them. Urban was attending to the speech of the greatest of the earls, Robert of Gloucester. It was causing him rising concern.

'We have seen our party routed and humiliated this past year in England and Normandy. It's time to strike back,' the earl said, to a growl of approval from the barons and knights behind him. 'Caen and Bayeux were laid waste by that ravening wolf, Waleran of Meulan, the king's puppet-master. They're sitting outside Bedford now, which Waleran is already openly boasting that he will use to endow his landless youngest brother, Hugh, with an earldom. The earls of Leicester, Surrey and Warwick are the man's close relations. His brother-in-law is a new threat to us, the so-called earl of Pembroke, tasked to destroy our party in South Wales. It is time to strike hard at Waleran, and bring his arrogance low. And where better than at his English earldom, just up the Severn river, Worcester!'

'Worcester, my lord earl!' Urban burst out. 'But the bishop, church and people are not our enemies. Yet such a stroke will make them so.'

Earl Robert turned, surprised, at the flank attack. And then was further disconcerted when Earl Miles rose and said, 'I must agree with the good lord bishop of Caerleon. At this perilous time for our cause, we shouldn't pursue personal grievances, but think strategically. Securing Hereford should be more of a priority!'

But the earl of Gloucester was a trained rhetorician and was not easily discomposed. His face settled into a calm mask. 'My dear Miles, we've been allies and colleagues for too many years to fall out over the conduct of Marcher politics. And of course there are many good reasons to pursue the control of Herefordshire, not least that it is a shire for whose revenues you account at the exchequer as its sheriff. Not that I would accuse you of anything so selfish as invading it and seizing its civitas merely to put some reality to your title of earl.'

'I would hope not,' snapped Miles. 'My son Roger is presently expending blood and much treasure to bring the shire to its right allegiance.'

To Urban's surprise the smooth voice of Morgan Ddu was next to contribute, even more surprisingly he spoke in English, his accent much improved, Urban assumed, from his pillow talk with young Godwin, his boy. 'My lords, at this early and necessarily difficult stage of our

campaign, when we only hold a corner of Stephen's kingdom, it seems to me, and indeed to my father, that we must exert ourselves to be noticed, and an attack on a city deeper in England, which is the fief of the king's favourite, will do this more usefully than the drawn-out siege of a remote border town.'

Urban caught Morgan's side-glance towards Earl Robert. So the two were allies on strategy, it seemed. Urban wondered at their common interest in sacking the city of Worcester.

Brooding over a glass of wine in the dinner that followed Urban was accosted by the young clerk, Thomas of London, Archbishop Theobald's envoy. 'Your grace was impressive in arguing the cause of peace,' the man said. Urban was more than intrigued by how different the man seemed from the terrified youth who had knelt trembling before the Empress yesterday. He was urbane, observant and collected, and very handsome. Their eyes met, and Urban did not think he mistook the light in the youth's eyes. Nor did he underestimate the man's abilities in company. He had acted a terrified youth to deflect the Empress, and he was now acting warm homoerotic sympathy to seduce the young bishop of Caerleon.

Urban brooded during the rest of the council of war. When it broke up he sought out Leofric at their lodgings. 'Darling. Go find me Kneithir. Earl Miles is here, so Kneitho won't be far away.'

'Oh? What do you want him for, love?'

'His business is being a courier in dangerous lands; I have letters that need delivering … to Worcester.'

Urban was surprised to find himself with Philip of Gloucester as his table companion at dinner that night. Philip slid onto the bench beside Urban with a nod that felt almost conspiratorial. 'I really appreciated your intervention in council, my lord. When decisions like the sacking and plundering of cities are made, there should be people like you at hand to ask why. But this is all down to my father's feelings of humiliation at being chased across Normandy by that popinjay Waleran, with his estates in flames behind him. When even a Welshman like Morgan the Black is dubious in private about the strategy, my father should take warning. I would hazard that you have been making sure your friends and colleagues in Worcester are warned of what's in hand.'

Urban blinked. 'Aye, my lord Philip. Messages are being sent and not only from me, I would guess.'

Philip made a low sound of agreement as he tore a crust from the loaf between them.'My father dismisses you because you are young and Welsh,' he said, voice pitched for Urban's ears alone. 'But you know this land well, and both its peoples, Welsh and English. And its people know you. Both peoples call you the 'holy bishop of Llantrisant', for St Dyfrig's favour has been openly shown to you, my lord. You were right to warn the council of the consequences of heedless blood-letting.'

Urban stared at Philip, startled that the man had noted his small outburst at the council table, and had interpreted it as the intervention of the saints of Glamorgan, not merely the squeaking of one nervous young prelate. 'I only said it seemed wrong, my lord, for Worcester to be left unwarned.'

'And you were right, Urban my friend' Philip stated simply. 'Worcester has sins enough to answer for, as the rival merchants of Gloucester will be happy to tell you. But no city deserves to be struck in its sleep.'

He spoke without looking at Urban, and yet Urban felt the heat rise to his face. No great lord had ever so treated his opinion as worth the breath it cost.

As the servants laid trenchers before them, Urban noticed Philip's gaze flicker not toward the king or the barons, but past them—to Master Thomas of London, the archbishop's clerk, seated far down the same bench. Thomas caught his eye and gave the smallest, wryest tilt of the head, like two men sharing a thought without needing words.

Urban's brows lifted before he could stop himself. 'You know Master Thomas well, my lord?'

Philip's hand paused for a heartbeat over the pepper bowl. Then he said, lightly: 'We have spoken. He has clearer sight than most of my father's advisors, and less fear of speaking it.'A smile ghosted across his face. 'Clerks learn to put truth in quiet phrases. Warriors, sadly, prefer it shouted to the ringing of swords being unsheathed.'

Urban followed his glance again. Thomas was leaning forward, listening to a knight beside him, but his posture had the same controlled poise as Philip's—two men accustomed to exchanging meaning beneath the noise of the hall. Urban concluded he was seeing conspiracy in action.

Philip leaned closer. 'My father is a great captain. Lord Urban. But greatness is not the same thing as wisdom, and I fear this war will teach him the difference too late.' He sighed. 'A ruined Worcester will win him no victory worth having.'

Urban felt his chest tighten. 'So you believe… the city is truly in danger?'

Philip looked at him fully then, with a steadiness that felt unexpectedly kind. 'Yes, I do. And I fear we shall all be the poorer for it. That is why your intended warning matters—and why I shall remember that you stood up in council against the expedition. And so will Master Thomas remember it also, and it will be known to Archbishop Theobald, to the king and indeed to Count Waleran, that you spoke up.'

Urban's throat bobbed. He had no words ready; he had not expected to be seen, much less approved of, by anyone so high in the earl of Gloucester's party.

At that moment a contrary jangle of voices rose from the upper table: Earl Robert's own temper was fracturing his poise and breaking through at last, his sharp tones cutting across the hall.

Philip closed his eyes briefly, as though struck by weariness rather than surprise. 'There,' he murmured. 'My father scents blood. The night begins to fray.'

Urban found himself whispering, 'I am sorry, my lord.'

Philip's mouth quirked—half gratitude, half resignation. 'So am I, Urban my good friend and wise pastor. More than I can say at a dinner table. This war is going awry in the worst way.'

Urban and Leofric were spending the eve of Martinmas at their hall at Llantrisant. The new bishop being greeted and feted by his people, who felt the honour of his promotion more deeply than did Urban himself. It was taken as yet more evidence of the favour of St Dyfrig, as Leofric giggled in telling him. 'You should go on pilgrimage to Llangorse, darling. I'd like that.'

Urban was busy making other plans. He had promoted Master Iago to the archdeaconry of Gwent, 'And who better than the rector of Llanllywel?' he remarked to Leofric.

'Yes but, who's going to run our grammar and song school?' Leofric came back. He pointed out that at least the song tutor had terminated his affair with Iago and would carry on at Llantrisant rather than follow his ex-lover up the Usk to Llanllywel. 'How about Dewi to run the grammar school? The boy's a teenager and a subdeacon, if you ask me he's got the seriousness to be a genuine scholar. He's written a "Life and Miracles of the Holy Dubricius" which is very grammatical and of which copies are being asked for from the chapter libraries of Llandaff and Gloucester. There's a case for you to ordain him deacon now you can do that sort of thing.' He giggled again saying would certainly piss off Dewi's older brother Grono, who was never going to progress further up the ecclesiastical hierarchy than acolyte.

Urban hugged his lover and giggled back. 'My ability to piss people off has mightily increased now I'm a bishop. Which reminds me. It's time you got priested, Leofric my darling.' Violence soon followed, and love-making followed their tussles.

In the dark of night, a hammering at the hall door reminded Urban that he should have taken Morgan Ddu's advice and hired some archers. Mastering his nerves, Urban opened the door a crack to discover nobody more dangerous outside than an exhausted-looking Kneithir. He promptly opened wide the door and ushered the man indoors. Urban turned to a cowering Megan and ordered food and drink to be put on the table.

Over a jug of Megan's remarkably fine small beer, subtly flavoured with herbs and fruit, Kneithir gave Urban and Leofric an account of his mission to Worcester. Kneithir had used his contacts in the river communities to get passage on a fast barge up the Severn from Gloucester docks. 'It was the last one before the earl closed the river, and it really was fast too. It was pulled by relays of horses along the towpath. Needed to be horse-drawn on a river with such a tidal fall, my lord. So I was in Worcester within a couple of hours, despite the tide being against us. Before the earl's army marched out of Tewkesbury, I'd have said.'

Kneithir had delivered his missives, and they had been treated seriously at the cathedral monastery at least, where the name and seal of Bishop Urban, their distinguished alumnus, had got him the attention of the prior. But his job had been all the easier as Urban's brother Nicholas had reached the cathedral before him at the bidding, he said, of his abbot, but Kneithir suspected he had been sent directly by Earl Miles. The cathedral's nave was already full of the city's mothers and their children, with their stacked chests of valuables lining the aisles. Kneithir stayed long enough to watch the cathedral's treasury and relics being carried by the monks next door to the castle, which the sheriff was putting in defence.

'So word has come to Worcester and the warning has been given,' sighed a relieved Urban.

'Yes, my lord,' agreed Kneithir, 'and you alone cannot be accused of initiating the leak, which may have been your friend Earl Miles's intention in sending Nicholas. It's likely to be a distinctly disappointing pillage for Earl Robert and Morgan Ddu, unless they decide to besiege the castle of Worcester. But that is unlikely, since King Stephen is rumoured to be heading into the Marches at last, to relieve Hereford.'

As Urban was presiding at his pontifical mass for St Martin from his episcopal chair that Saturday morning, he was contemplating a wall painting Grono had organised for the plastered wall above St Dyfrig's shine. It had been professionally done some weeks before and had been his own answer to Grono's query as to how the saint was to be depicted; a query arising from Grono's trade in stamped pilgrim's badges. So Urban had decided the saint should be depicted as an archbishop with pallium and metropolitical cross but also carrying the pastoral staff of a bishop to represent his two sees of Caerleon and Llandaff.

But Urban had also asked that migratory geese and a grey lake be added to the mural to allude to Llangorse and its waterfowl, where the saint continued to manifest his power. So the painter had quite skilfully depicted Dyfrig standing at a lake shore amongst wild geese in much the same way as the village had been ankle deep in domestic geese the previous week, when the village geese had been driven down from the Wentwood as the seasonal common pasture had ended with Martinmas. And the next Tuesday was the feast of Dyfrig. The rectory geese would be martyred for the sake of a St Dyfrig's day banquet Urban was offering to the elders of the village of Llantrisant, who were agitating that Urban should issue an episcopal charter erecting Brechenneu and Newbridge into a borough, with a gild merchant, a weekly market and a five-day fair of St Dyfrig.

The summons from Canterbury reached Llantrisant three weeks after the feast of St Dyfrig, carried by a sober monk of Christchurch who had ridden hard from Gloucester and arrived with his black Benedictine robe powdered white with road dust.

Urban broke the archbishop's seal with some apprehension. The parchment was brief.

Theobaldus dei gratia archiepiscopus Cantuarensis Urbano eadem gratia episcopo Castri Legionis in diocesi Landavensi. The archbishop had learned from mutual friends of certain matters touching the welfare of the Church and the peace of the realm that required conference. Urban was therefore asked to come to him at his house on the Thames opposite the king's hall of Westminster with all convenient speed. Urban read it twice, then handed it silently to Leofric.

Leofric raised his brows. 'London?'

'So it seems.'

Leofric gave a low whistle and flopped backwards onto the bench. 'Well,' he said cheerfully, 'that means somebody important has either heard something good about you or something dreadful. With bishops it's rarely the first.'

Urban sighed and folded the letter carefully. 'The archbishop is not a man given to frivolous journeys for his suffragans. Something is afoot.'

'Something is always afoot in England these days,' Leofric replied. 'Usually wearing spurs.'

No delay was going to be excused, but first Leofric and Kneithir between them augmented Bishop Urban's retinue with three formidable young Welsh archers whom Morgan Ddu had recommended from his teulu. Morgan even provided them with a livery he had chosen for Urban, surcoats and shields figured with a bishop's staff crossed in saltire with an archbishop's cross. 'A Dyfrig goose would be more apt and luckier,' growled Master Iago, who was also to accompany them, as was an excited Dewi, now a deacon of the church of Llantrisant, dressed these days in a sober cassock of dull murrey-purple wool, rather than his customary boyish birthday suit which had been usual for him till he took over as the master of the grammar school. Grono ceaselessly ridiculed his brother's new respectability, which was probably why Dewi still went unshod, and patronised the Brechenneu boys more than his finances could readily support.

London struck Urban like a storm of noise and movement after the quiet woods and river valleys of Gwent. Greater bishops like Worcester might well own houses in the city which would host their visits there. But Llandaff was not that great, so instead Urban, by grace of his brother, put up in a mansion belonging to Gloucester abbey in the parish of St Mary Woolchurch alongside the Walbrook stream.

When they crossed the river to get to Southwark the bridge itself seemed a town, crammed with timber houses leaning over the Thames, their shop fronts spilling cloth, leather and metalware into the narrow street. Beneath them the brown tide of the river surged between the piles, carrying ferries, barges, fishing skiffs, and the occasional sleek vessel from the sea. Flemish voices mingled with Norman French, English, and the harsher guttural cadences of merchants from the Rhineland.

Urban crossed the bridge with his small escort of clerks and archers feeling as though he had ridden into the centre of the world. St Paul's rose behind them like a mountain of pale stone above the press of roofs.

'God preserve us,' murmured Iago, craning his neck. 'It's bigger than Llandaff ten times over.'

Urban said nothing, though privately he suspected his archdeacon might not be exaggerating by much.

The archbishop received him not in London itself but upriver from Southwark at his manor house in Surrey at Lambeth, which stared out over the broad Thames to the astonishing hugeness of King William the Red's great hall of his palace of Westminster, one of the wonders of Christendom, over twice the size of the emperor's hall at Goslar. Its vast roof demanded so many tiles that England had to be stripped to find enough.

Theobald was not a tall man, nor an imposing one at first glance. His hair had already begun to silver, and his manner was calm to the point of quietness as one would perhaps expect in the former abbot of Bec-Hellouin, whose monks had founded a priory in Urban's Gwent at Goldcliff on the Severn. Yet when Theobald spoke the room seemed to arrange itself around him.

'Bishop Urban,' he said, rising from his chair with courteous gravity. 'I am glad you came so swiftly. The road from the Marches cannot be easy in winter.'

Urban bowed at the tacit and repeated recognition by the primate of England that his somewhat irregular episcopal orders were valid in his province. 'Your Grace's command makes any road shorter.'

The archbishop's eyes rested on him a moment with a faint look of amusement. 'If only that were true of the road our kingdom presently travels.' He gestured toward a bench beside the hearth. 'Sit, and tell me how matters stand in Glamorgan. I hear from several quarters that you possess the rare gift of observing events before they burst into flames.'

Urban felt the faint warmth of embarrassment rise again, as it had beside Philip of Gloucester's table. 'I merely try to notice what is happening around me, Your Grace.'

'A habit,' Theobald said dryly, 'which would improve the judgement of half the earls of England.'

A young clerk standing beside the archbishop's table made a soft choking sound which might have been suppressed laughter. Theobald turned slightly. 'You know Master John of Salisbury, I think?'

Urban rose and inclined his head to the young man. 'By reputation, of course, and I know his friend, Thomas of London, whom I do not see here today, your Grace.'

John was perhaps a few years older than Urban, lean and keen-eyed, with the restless expression of someone whose mind rarely stood still.

'I have heard of the bishop of Llantrisant,' John said pleasantly. 'The holy man who walks among geese.' Urban blinked. John smiled apologetically. 'News travels curious roads through clerks' letters.'

Theobald ignored the exchange and folded his hands. 'You will forgive the summons, Bishop Urban, but the realm drifts toward a very dangerous moment. The king marches west, the Earl of Chester has decided the North is his to command, and the Earl of Gloucester gathers his strength like a hawk waiting to stoop, looking to feed his half-sister's insatiable ambition.' He paused. 'If these men, and indeed women, collide, the blow will fall somewhere soon. I had feared it would be in the March, but Master Thomas tells me this will not be so, and cites you as his source.'

The words hung in the air.

Urban felt, with the odd clarity that sometimes accompanies sudden understanding, that he had been drawn to London not merely to report what he had seen — but because the archbishop wished to know what sort of man he was before the storm broke.

John of Salisbury spoke lightly from the table. 'It appears, my lord bishop, that all England is presently falling into pieces and its earls are taking their little pieces of it and sewing them up into their own little kingdoms. My friend Thomas says you foresaw that Wales has already passed out of English control, and its danger now lies in the policies of Welsh kings, who have already made Robert of Gloucester their own creature. He says that your view is that Robert is unassailable in the March and must carry the fight into England, and when he does it will be with an army of invincible Welsh soldiers, the ones who routed the French and English at the infamous tourney of Caerleon.'

Urban looked from the scholar to the archbishop and had the uneasy sense that the fate of the kingdom was beginning to move under his feet, with the grinding of rocks causing the hills to tremble and the earth to shudder.

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Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XIII