Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XVI

The late autumn of 1140, after Martinmas and Dyfrig's day, was a harsh one, but as Leofric said with a shrug, 'The colder and icier it is outside, the more enjoyable are soft blankets and warm firesides, love.'

'Very philosophical darling. I wish there were fireplaces in our church, though. You can't preside at mass in gloves. It's so cold this week that I swear I saw the boy whores of Brechenneu in clothes down by the quays. It was a surprise to me that they actually owned any.'

Leofric giggled. 'That may have been our Dewi. He set up a parish collection for clothing relief, and I suspect he has traded cloaks, hose and trews for free use of the Brechenneu bumholes.'

Urban frowned. 'I can't say that is within the true meaning of charity. I'll remember that at his next confession.'

Leofric had an idea. 'How about I investigate the installation of iron braziers in the church? If we burn apple wood it'll add a certain fragrance to the mass. Or we could buy coke from the ironworkers of Dean?'

Urban chuckled. 'That's very enterprising, my Leofric. I have no idea how this parish could survive without you.' They kissed and snuggled down in the bed and knew no more till the house steward thumped on the door and said they had noble visitors.

They arose, pulled on robes but went out barefoot to find Morgan Ddu and his Godwin in their hall, accompanied by three young boys, not particularly well dressed, indeed in rough peasant habits and barefoot. Morgan and Godwin came up and hugged Urban and Leofric, Morgan maintaining his hold as he turned and introduced the three children: 'These are Cynan, Cyngwin and Cyngen, my sons. I think I may have mentioned them. Cynan is now eight, Cyngwin and Cyngen are both seven. Different mothers, but they do look alike. They know only Welsh and they still stink of the pigshit in which their foster parents' houses were carpeted. Frankly, I suggest you burn their clothes. And if they turn out to be useless students you may send them down to Brechenneu quays to earn their living.'

'My lord,' said a flabbergasted Urban, 'you're handing your sons over to me for their education?'

'Of course. Be honoured. Cynan may be addressed respectfully as arglwydd; not so his brothers, who may be beaten regularly so they learn humility and obedience, if you so choose, dear friend. I want them schooled in Latin, English and French, and Llantrisant does have an increasingly famous school. How much will it cost me?'

Urban could not but laugh. 'I am honoured, of course. I'll get Master Dewi over to give you an estimate. He will charge you both for teaching and for the boys' living expenses. They shall board here at the rectory. Megan will boil up a vat and she will get them scrubbed and I will find suitable clothing. Is that all?'

Morgan laughed in turn. 'There is no one I would choose to bring these boys other than two men as decent as you and Leofric. It is not something I could ever do successfully myself, dear Urban.' He turned to the three children. 'Now you boys. Know and remember that you are the grandsons of King Morgan ab Owain of Glamorgan and the sons of Morgan the Black, prince of Llefnydd, not the sons of pig farmers and shepherds as you might have thought till now. You will stay in this house with these men and learn the arts that princes and rulers must have to thrive. You will obey them in all things and remain here in their famous school till you are of the age of sixteen, when I will reclaim you. But be aware that I and your uncle Godwin will visit regularly to be sure that you are being obedient and are studying as is required of you in order to be worthy of reclamation.'

The three boys stood awkwardly and naked in the kitchen yard while Megan and one of the servants hauled buckets from the well. Steam rose from the great iron cauldron over the fire where water was heating for their baths.

Urban stood with Master Dewi beside him, both wrapped in cloaks against the cold. The boys had been ruthlessly stripped of their foul garments, which now lay in an untidy heap near the door.

Cyngen, the youngest, nudged it with his toe. 'Are you really going to burn them?' he asked.

Urban smiled faintly. 'I believe that would be an act of charity to the whole parish.'

Cyngen grinned, clearly approving.

Dewi folded his arms and studied the boys with a schoolmaster's eye. 'So. Which of you is Cynan?'

The tallest boy stepped forward at once. He had dark eyes and held himself stiffly, though his bare feet were reddened from the cold stones. 'Rydw i'n Cynan.' His Welsh was quick, decisive and confident.

Urban inclined his head slightly. 'Very good. Your father tells me you are to be addressed as arglwydd.'

Cynan's expression flickered with something like satisfaction. Cyngwin, standing beside him, muttered something under his breath.

'What was that?' Dewi said sharply.

Cyngwin shrugged. 'I said if he is arglwydd here, he should start by commanding the fire to make the water hotter.' Cyngen burst out laughing. Cynan glared at them both.

Urban hid a smile and said gently, 'And you are Cyngwin.'

The boy nodded. His hair was lighter than the others' and his gaze wandered about the yard as if noticing every detail. 'Yes. But I can speak for myself. Cynan likes doing it for everyone.'

Dewi raised an eyebrow. 'Do you read?'

Cyngwin looked puzzled. 'No.'

'Write?'

'No.' Cyngwin then added thoughtfully, 'But I can remember stories. Long ones.'

Dewi glanced sideways at Urban. 'That may prove useful.'

Cyngen had wandered over to the well bucket and was examining the iron handle with great interest.

'And you,' said Dewi, 'must be Cyngen.'

The boy looked up with a crooked grin. 'Yes.'

'What can you do?'

Cyngen considered the question seriously.

'Climb trees. Run fast. Catch eels. Steal apples without the farmer seeing.'

Dewi sighed. Urban chuckled softly. 'And can you learn?'

Cyngen shrugged. 'If it is interesting.'

Cynan snorted. 'He never listens to anything or anybody, mae o'n dwp.'

Cyngen retorted instantly, 'That is because nothing worth hearing is ever said.'

Dewi gave Urban a look that mixed amusement and foreboding. 'This will be lively.'

Urban stepped forward and addressed them all solemnly. 'Gwrandewch arna i, fechgyn. In this house you will learn three languages. Latin, English, and French.'

Cyngen frowned. 'Why three?'

'Because princes must speak to priests, nobles, and foreigners,' Urban said evenly.

Cynan nodded as if already approving the idea. Cyngwin tilted his head. 'Do the French tell good stories about kings, warriors and wonders?'

Urban smiled. 'Sometimes.'

Cyngwin gave a grunt to signal satisfaction.

Dewi pointed toward the steaming cauldron. 'First you will learn the ancient scholarly discipline of washing.'

Cyngen peered into the rising steam. 'If this is learning, I may not like your school.'

'You will,' Dewi replied grimly, 'or you will learn to pretend very well.'

Cynan stepped forward again, shivering but determined. 'When do we begin?'

Dewi's eyes glinted.

'After the bath.'

Cyngen groaned. Cyngwin, however, was staring thoughtfully into the fire.

'Do Latin stories rhyme?' he asked.

Urban and Dewi exchanged a look.

'Some of them do,' Urban said.

Cyngwin smiled faintly and Cyngen, who had quietly abstracted a shiny nail from the woodpile, grinned to himself and wondered whether the town by the river where boys sold access to their bumholes for silver coins was as interesting as the servants whispered it to be.

Urban grinned up at Kneithir who arrived at Llantrisant's rectory flourishing a not-unexpected parchment square sealed in green wax with a double-sided royal seal, the seal of King Morgan of Glamorgan, depicting him on one face enthroned with sceptre and crown, and on the other garbed as a cavalryman, a banner over one shoulder. Morgan broke the seal to read Morganus dei gratia rex Morgannuc amico et consiliario devoto suo Urbano dei gratia episcopo Castri Legionis. His attendance was requested and required at the king's hall of Caerleon to give his counsel at the king's Christmas court and to celebrate mass before his grace in the collegiate church of Ss Dyfrig, Julius and Aaron of which he was dean.

'That's not unexpected,' he commented to Kneithir and added, 'Who else is going to be asked?'

Kneithir laughed. 'Your brother of Llandaff, of course. I think though he's to celebrate Christmas mass at St Gwynllyw. After he expelled the canons there for joining with Uthred's defiance of King Morgan, he's installed a priory of Gloucester Benedictine monks in the church and he's going to be there to see how obedient the new lot are.'

'Well done, Nicholas my brother,' grinned Urban. 'Any English potentates going to be present at our Caerleon Christmas?'

'I believe Earl Miles has been invited and may well appear, but Earl Robert is otherwise absorbed with his son-in-law, Earl Ranulf of Chester, who is soliciting his help in some new difficulties that have arisen over Ranulf's claim on Lincoln and its castle.'

Urban pondered the name. 'The earl of Chester? He's a loyalist isn't he?'

Kneithir shrugged. 'I wouldn't know, my lord.'

Urban sent the courier on his way, and Kneithir went in search of Megan and a late breakfast.

Cyngen ap Morgan, Prince Morgan's youngest son, proved to be as troublesome as Master Dewi had predicted. 'Nothing much stays in his head, my lord,' he said wearily. 'Clothes disappear on any day without a frost and he's wandering naked in the woods, hunting rabbits to stay in Megan's good books. She rather dotes on the imp. He does have a remarkable knowledge of herbs and mushrooms too. But I have no idea who taught him, unless he picked it up in the village where he was fostered, and if he did then it would have been from the village witch. He does have a string of very ferocious curses with which to terrify the other boys.'

'Is he bullied by them?' Urban asked.

'Not more than any other boy. His brother Cynan usually protects him and seems to curb him effortlessly, the way some boys have an almost mystical power over an unruly dog. But Cyngen has been caught down at Brechenneu playing with the boy-whores.'

'He's making some very unwelcome connections. That must stop.'

'I told Cynan and he agreed. He said it was beneath the dignity of their descent from Morgan Hen, King Arthur and the emperors of old Rome. He thrashes Cyngen soundly now if he goes down to Brechenneu. Cynan is very keen on history and on Latin, by the way.'

'That could have been predicted. Well, well. How about Cyngwin?'

'The second son is remarkable for more respectable reasons. Language is his strength and he is a poet by nature. He has mastered the basics of Latin and French with some rapidity. He can already manage a pen and parchment well. English he professes to despise, but even so he is acquiring it as if by magic. He too is in thrall to Cynan, and I would go so far to say that he is deeply in love with his handsome, princely and athletic brother. He keeps presenting him with Latin odes and Welsh praise poems where he addresses Cynan as rhí, gwledig, mynawg, rhwyfadur, and other such exalted titles, as if he were a legendary ruler of old. He is his brother's first courtier, bard and distain,' Dewi concluded with a tired smile. 'When Cynan walks out, Cyngwin follows as if the lad were already king and he the bard appointed to proclaim it.'

Urban laughed softly. 'A useful talent in a prince's household. Every ruler needs a voice who can turn his victories into memory.'

Dewi inclined his head. 'If that were all, my lord. But the boy's devotion is… ardent. When Cynan leaves the hall Cyngwin grows restless and melancholy. When he returns, the child glows like a candle newly lit.'

Urban raised an eyebrow but did not comment. 'And the eldest?' he asked.

Dewi's expression changed at once. 'Cynan ap Morgan Ddu is the strangest of them all.'

'Strange?'

'Not in the way of Cyngen, who is feral. Nor in the way of Cyngwin, who wanders in a world of dreams in verse, awake or asleep. Cynan is… deliberate.'

'That sounds a virtue.'

'It may be. But he watches everything. Every servant, every priest, every boy in the yard. He weighs them as if already deciding what use they may have.'

Urban smiled faintly. 'You describe a prince.'

Dewi hesitated. 'Perhaps. Yet there are moments when the other boys fall quiet around him. It is not fear exactly. More as if they sense something forbidding in him they cannot quite name.'

Urban folded the king's letter slowly. 'The blood of King Morgan ab Owain,' he said lightly. 'And through him Arthur and Rome. Your little prince has good ghosts behind him.'

Dewi did not smile. 'So the old men say in the villages. They have another name for these three boys.'

Urban glanced up. 'Indeed?'

'They call the three Meibion Morgan Hen … Morgan Hen's boys.'

The bishop leaned back in his chair. 'Morgan the Old? The legendary founder of Glamorgan, the kingdom to which he gave his name?'

'Yes, my lord.'

Urban's fingers rested on the wax seal of the king. 'And what do they mean by that?'

Dewi lowered his voice. 'Only that the old blood sometimes breeds… strangely.'

Outside the rectory window the boys' voices could be heard in the yard. Cyngen shrieking like a hunting hawk, Cyngwin shouting something in Latin, and above them all the calm commanding tone of Cynan settling some dispute amongst boys brawling out of school.

Urban listened for a moment. Then he said quietly, 'Well, Master Dewi…'

'Yes, my lord?'

'Let us hope that whatever Morgan Ddu leaves behind him in the world… it is to the future good of the kingdom.'

King Morgan's solar chamber at his hall in Caerleon was like a scholar's cell in a learnèd priory of Augustinian canons, with shelves of books and rather fine wall hangings, and a particularly fine wine cupboard.

'Very enviable, your grace' commented Bishop Nicholas, as he viewed and inventoried its contents. 'Though fitter for a bishop, dean or archdeacon than a king.'

The king chuckled. 'Now what am I to make of that comment on my taste, my dear Nicholas.' He turned to Urban. 'Is your brother insulting me, my lord?'

Urban grinned and shook his head. 'If I had to guess, you grace, I would think he was commenting on the entire absence of any white wines in your store. All your casks and flasks bear the names of the red wines of Gascony, though I will say that they are very famous red wines. And of course we clerics use only red wine in the mass. Hence his comment.'

'Hah!' King Morgan exclaimed. 'You know who to blame for that. This damned war has closed the trade in the white wines of Champagne which is choked off by King Stephen's brother, and by Count Waleran's choke point of his castles of Meulan and Mantes on the River Seine. Similarly the white wines of Anjou stay in Anjou, because the count is the Empress's husband. But merchants of Bristol and Cardiff still sail south to Bordeaux and bring back the contents of my cellar. Now, my dear bishops, allow me to pour you cups of this very fine Médoc vintage. And a merry Christmas to all!'

The king, Earl Miles, the two bishops and the princes of Glamorgan raised their cups gratefully.

King Morgan leaned forward and said with his habitual decisiveness, 'Now to business, gentlemen. As I see it, Earl Ranulf of Chester has given us a wonderful opportunity. All too eager to advance his family's interests across northern England, he has seized Lincoln Castle which he believes his brother William ought to have by right. King Stephen not unnaturally took offence and marched an army to challenge Ranulf. There was however a conference rather than a siege and since Ranulf was not acting in the Empress's interests Stephen was persuaded that the claims of the earl and his brother were valid, so he left them in the city and castle to enjoy their good fortune.

'Now, Earl Miles's agents in Westminster have told us an interesting tale as to what happened when Stephen returned to his court in the capital. He found it in an uproar at what he had done in the North. Count Waleran's faction did not like the rise of a new group of rivals for influence in the kingdom. They berated the poor man for his weakness and profligacy, and with some reason. The king had conceded Ranulf a corridor of estates and castle from the Irish Sea to the German Ocean, the castle and city of Lincoln and the castles of Derby, Belvoir and Grantham. And to top it off Ranulf's brother was made earl of Lincoln. "You've given him a third of your kingdom!" Waleran apparently screamed at Stephen in council.'

Morgan laughed. 'I wish I'd been there. Other northern earls and bishops also signalled their alarm and the king was bullied into reversing his generosity to Ranulf and his brother. So Stephen has as a result summoned and hired a sizable force. He marches north to Lincoln in the first days of January and the bishop of Lincoln has assured him he will be welcomed into his city, and that both Ranulf and his brother have no more than a token force to oppose him.' King Morgan chuckled. 'Bishops, eh? Untrustworthy buggers.' He drained half his cup and wiped his beard with the back of his hand. 'So,' he said, 'the question before this council is not what Stephen intends, but what Ranulf intends. The man is a fox, and foxes do not creep into henhouses merely to admire the feathers.'

Earl Miles nodded gravely. 'Indeed, your grace. Ranulf has never forgiven Stephen for denying him the earldom of Lincoln in the first place. This present quarrel gives him the chance not merely to right that wrong, but to humble the king himself. If Stephen marches north believing the city friendly and the castle lightly held, he may find himself walking into a trap.'

Bishop Nicholas lifted a thoughtful finger. 'Ranulf has another advantage. His father-in-law is Robert of Gloucester.'

At that name the company grew momentarily still. Morgan leaned back in his chair. 'Ah yes. The Empress's great captain, and the father of Ranulf's countess what's more.'

Urban smiled thinly. 'If Gloucester marches, your grace, then Stephen will not be dealing with a rebellious earl but with the chief general of the Angevin cause.'

Miles added quietly, 'And Gloucester does not fight half-heartedly. If he goes to Lincoln he will intend to destroy the king's army, not merely to scatter it.'

Morgan considered this in silence for a moment. 'Then the matter is plain enough,' he said at last. 'If Stephen prevails, Ranulf is ruined and the northern earls will crawl back to court with their tails between their legs. But if Gloucester joins Ranulf and the king is defeated…'

Urban finished the thought. 'Then the crown itself may fall into the Empress's hands.'

Nicholas crossed himself reflexively. 'A captured king would throw the whole realm into confusion.'

'Exactly,' Morgan replied. 'Which is why we must consider what we do when the confusion begins.'

Miles leaned forward. 'Your grace believes the Empress will ask you for aid?'

'She would be a fool not to,' Morgan said. 'If Stephen is taken, she must move swiftly before his friends recover their wits. London must be secured, the treasury seized, and the bishops persuaded to crown her.'

Urban gave a dry chuckle. 'Bishops persuaded? That sounds expensive.'

'Everything involving bishops is expensive,' Morgan replied cheerfully. The room laughed.

Miles returned to the practical question. 'And what forces could we place at her disposal?'

Morgan ticked them off on his fingers. 'Glamorgan alone can raise near a thousand good men — half mounted, half spearmen and archers. And if Bristol opens its purse we might hire more Welsh princes and their elite teuloedd besides.'

Urban nodded. 'My brother and I could also speak with the churchmen of the west. If the Empress appears the stronger party, many will discover theological reasons to support her.'

Nicholas smiled wryly. 'The Church is very sensitive to the direction of divine providence.'

Morgan laughed loudly. 'Providence seems remarkably well informed about the outcome of battles.' He rose and walked to the window where the winter light lay grey upon the Usk. 'So here is how I judge the matter. If Stephen soundly defeats Ranulf, we shrug and keep our swords sheathed. But if Ranulf escapes him and lives to fight another day …' He turned back to the company, eyes bright '…then the game changes overnight. The Empress will need men who can move quickly and strike hard before the kingdom settles again.'

Miles finished the thought quietly. 'And that, your grace, is precisely the kind of war the Marchers were born to fight.'

Morgan raised his cup once more. 'Then let us drink to Ranulf of Chester, our unwitting ally,' he said with a grin. 'May his ambition prove as inconvenient to King Stephen as we hope.'

The cups were raised again, And somewhere far to the east, on the frozen roads of Lincolnshire, an army was already marching that would decide the fate of England.

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Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XVI