Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XIX

Cynan ap Morgan Ddu, prince of Glamorgan, had reached the age of fifteen and the cusp of male beauty that had long been predicted for him. He had the proportions of the marble statues of Roman demigods that they had been lately viewing in the palaces of the Tuscan nobility, and the face of the youths they had seen pictured on the almost miraculous frescoes they had marvelled at in the cathedrals and great churches of Lazio. At the moment though it was somewhat marred by a black eye.

'How did that happen, Cynan bach?' asked Bishop Urban of his body squire, who was normally as peaceable as he was beautiful.

As usual it was Cynan's faithful brother and acolyte Cyngwin who replied for him. He was also now a body squire and in Urban's livery and was a presentable enough lad, though with the wild eye of a visionary and a poet. 'The Italian boys in the market sneered at us in Latin, my lord. They thought we couldn't understand them. They said "The English dress up their performing monkeys in boys' clothes, just like the Saracens do".'

Urban shook his head. 'I do hope no one was killed as a result. That could cause us major problems.'

Cynan answered him quietly. 'They were foolish children, my lord. And in the case of Cyngen they might even have been held to have said no more than the truth. I do not think they were noble boys as these Italians reckon things. So I shed no blood and there can be no consequent declaration of feud, as I believe.'

Cyngwin broke in gleefully. 'But my noble brother flattened four of them with his fists, my lord, and sent the rest fleeing through the market place. One against six. It was a stone hurled by the smallest of them that took him in the eye. But he caught the little rat, stripped him naked and beat his rhefr with a cane so hard he pissed himself. Lord Cynan bestrode the battlefield like King Sictrig the One-eyed of olden days come again to earth.'

Urban chuckled. 'I see the makings of an epic tale are already in your head, Cyngwin bach. I cannot fault your conduct, Lord Cynan. You did no more than you should in difficult circumstances. Just keep out of the market place of Viterbo for the next few days.'

Urban sought his Leofric and they talked the incident through in the hall of their lodging. He shrugged. 'These are trying times in Viterbo, my lord. The town is flooded with foreigners since the Lord Pope Eugenius established his court here after Rome became so dangerous. Just our luck we arrive in the middle of it to try to retrieve your father's body from San Lorenzo extra muris. Not that the authorities there have been unhelpful in locating the tomb, for all the bribes it took to get them to act. But the sooner they exhume the bishop and we can get him here in Viterbo the better. Leave that to me. Then you can concentrate on the other business we came for. How's that going anyway?'

Urban shrugged. 'His Holiness has been approachable enough, considering the distractions he has to deal with. He has enough monastic contacts in England to brief himself well, and he is no friend to Bishop Henry of Winchester, whose arrogance and worldliness despite being a monk has alienated Eugenius, himself a genuine and humble Cistercian. So when I arrived with letters from Earl Robert of Gloucester asking the pope to confirm the settlement proposed by the Council of Bath, I got a very friendly reception.'

'I don't suppose Morgan Ddu and his new boyfriend have helped your mission much. My brother's days in his bed seem to have ended.'

'It's the distance that this mission has put between Morgan and the problems of the war back home. His father the king thought he could do with the break after that nasty little episode with the prince of Senghenydd. Killing one of his sons means that there is now a full-scale feud between the House of Morgan Hen and Senghenydd, and King Morgan loses a vital potential vassal in the region. Things began going downhill after the death of Earl Miles five years ago. Even so, I thought it was a pretty unlikely affair between him and your friend Master Thomas of London. I mean, he is a very attractive man, and Morgan's intellectual equal. Even so, here in Italy Thomas has cast off any pretence of being anything other than a man who loves other men. If it gets back to Archbishop Theobald he can kiss goodbye to the archdeaconry he's been angling for.'

Urban quirked a smile. 'He may be a happier man for it. I'd better get over to the Curia. His Holiness wanted to discuss with me the likelihood that King Stephen will consent to the exclusion of his sons from the succession. He's not that convinced that the Empress will give up her claim on England either, despite Earl Robert of Gloucester being behind the deal.'

The wagon bearing the black-painted chest that housed the remains of the late Bishop Urban of Glamorgan, father of Urban and Nicholas, rolled into the galleried courtyard of Urban's Viterbo lodgings. Gruffudd Goch and Leofric were driving the vehicle, and they hopped down to receive Urban's sincere thanks. Gruffudd grinned as he said, 'Nothing to stop us heading home now, your grace.'

Urban shrugged. 'That's half our job done for sure.'

'How much longer for the rest, sir?'

'Unfortunately, Gruffudd, I cannot say. It depends on getting the Lord Pope to adopt a position, and he is a very cautious and careful man.'

But it seemed that Providence was listening to Gruffudd, the homesick archer. A small dusty party of riders entered the same courtyard that very afternoon. Bishop Urban was called out to greet his brother, Bishop Nicholas of Llandaff. The two men embraced long and hard. 'So you've managed to retrieve father from his rest in San Lorenzo?'

'Yes, brother,' Urban grinned. 'And I confide him to your care for interment in his beloved Llandaff.'

'Llandaff? Actually I thought he might prefer to rest in Llancarfan with Teilo.'

Urban shook his head. 'Half a dozen places claim to have Teilo's body, including Llandaff. But it really does have Dyfrig. Put him next to Dyfrig. I'm sure they'll get along very well. Father looked after his skull very respectfully for many years, after all.' He paused and gave his brother a narrow look. 'But that's not what brought you here, is it.'

'No Urban. I'm here to complicate your other mission, or possibly ease it. I'm not sure which.'

'Go on. Tell me the worst.'

'Earl Robert of Gloucester has died. It was quite sudden, while he was in the middle of founding a Cistercian abbey for his soul, much though that may have helped him. But the thing is, when the Empress heard the news and attended him to his grave in the priory of Tewkesbury abbey which he had built in Bristol, she announced she was giving up the struggle to her son, and left for Normandy. The war is more or less over in England.'

The audience chamber at the papal palace of Viterbo had always surprised Urban by its modest dimensions. There was no throne in the manner of kings, no dais raised high above the floor, but only a broad-backed chair of carved wood, set beneath a hanging of worn silk in which the keys of Peter had long since faded. Light entered obliquely through a narrow window, catching in the dust and in the fine threads of the Pope's white habit.

The austere figure of Pope Eugenius III sat not as a prince but as a monk compelled to endure princes. Urban had already made his final submission. He had spoken, plainly and without ornament, of England — of the long fracture in the realm, of oaths broken and renewed, of a kingdom weary of choosing between sin and necessity. He had not pressed. He had not pleaded. He had simply set the matter down, as one lays a burden before an altar.

There had followed a silence. Not the silence of dismissal, but of the careful silence of the weighing of arguments. The Pope's fingers, long and thin, moved once upon the arm of his chair, as though counting something unseen. 'You ask,' Eugenius said at last, 'that we bind a wound without reopening it.'

Urban inclined his head. 'I ask, Holy Father, that the wound be permitted to heal.'

A flicker passed across the Pope's face. 'And the boy?' he asked. 'This Henry Plantagenet?'

'He is no longer a child,' Urban said. 'But he has not yet been permitted to become a man with his own fate in his hands.'

Eugenius leaned back slightly, studying him now not as an envoy but as a man. 'And you would stand surety for him?'

Urban did not answer at once. When he did, his voice was quieter. 'I would stand answerable for what I have said of him.'

Something in that — the refusal to claim more than he knew, the absence of any hunger for advantage — seemed to settle the question more decisively than any argument. The Pope rose. It was an unceremonious movement, almost abrupt, as though he had come to a conclusion he could neither delay nor comfortably inhabit. He stepped down from the shallow platform and came nearer, so that the two men stood not as distant ranks but almost as equals beneath the narrow fall of light.

'You are not,' Eugenius said, 'as other envoys.'

Urban did not lift his gaze.

'That is not praise,' the Pope continued. 'It is… a difficulty.' A pause. Then, more softly:

'And a gift.'

He turned away, pacing once — a habit perhaps retained from cloistered days — before speaking again. 'The Church in England,' he said, 'has too long been made to serve two masters, and has learned the vices of both.'

Urban said nothing.

'Henry of Blois,' Eugenius went on, not without a trace of weariness, 'was given authority as legate — and used it as a prince of this world uses authority.' He stopped, and looked back. 'That legatine authority is now lapsed.'

Urban felt, rather than saw, the direction in which the thought was moving.

'We have need,' the Pope said, 'of a man who does not hunger for office.'

At that, Urban did look up — not in eagerness, but in something closer to alarm.

Eugenius held his gaze.

'Yes,' he said quietly. 'You understand me, my friend.'

He stepped closer again, until there was no longer any pretence of distance between them.

'Urban of Caerleon,' he said, and the name seemed to settle in the room like a seal impressed in wax, 'we would raise you to the Sacred College of Cardinals — not for your advancement, but for your obedience.'

Urban's breath caught, almost imperceptibly.

'You will take the title of Nikaea,' Eugenius continued, 'a metropolitan see now held only in hope — in partibus infidelium — that you may remember always that the Church is not confined to what is secure, but lives also in what is lost and must be reclaimed.'

A long silence followed. Then, more quietly still: 'And we will send you, if you consent, as our legate to England and Wales to represent our desire for peace in those ancient Christian lands.' There it was — spoken without flourish, almost as a burden laid rather than an honour bestowed. 'To speak not for Stephen, nor for the boy Henry, nor for Glamorgan — but for us.'

Urban bowed his head. For a moment it seemed he might refuse. 'I am not,' he said at last, 'equal to what you ask.'

Eugenius's expression did not change. 'No,' he said. 'You are not.' Another pause. 'Nor am I.'

That, more than anything, broke the last resistance.

Urban sank to one knee.

'If Holy Church commands it,' he said, 'I will go.'

The Pope placed his hand lightly upon Urban's head — not in the manner of a sovereign conferring favour, but of a priest acknowledging a sacrifice already made.

'Then go,' Eugenius said. 'And do not become what you must make yourself appear to be.'

The city of Rouen received Archbishop Urban as though he had already altered the balance of kingdoms. Word had gone ahead of him along the valley of the Seine — not merely that a bishop travelled under papal commission, but that a cardinal archbishop of the Roman Church, newly made, came bearing authority from the hand of Pope Eugenius himself. By the time Urban approached the river gates, the quays were thick with people: merchants who paused in their reckonings, clerks drawn out from counting houses, women with children lifted to their shoulders to see above the press.

The bells began before he entered. Not in unison, nor by command, but taken up piecemeal across the city, so that the sound moved like weather — first one tower, then another, until Rouen seemed to gather itself around the fact of his arrival.

Urban rode at the centre of a modest train, though nothing about it now appeared modest. The triple-barred cross of the pope was borne before him by Leofric — high, unmistakable — and behind it the clerks of his household, among them Master Thomas of London, who carried himself with a composure that only occasionally betrayed the quickness of his eye, and Morgan Ddu, whose gaze moved more freely, taking the measure of walls, faces, and the open admiration that followed in their wake.

Urban himself did not look to either side. It was not studied humility, nor the stiffness of a man unaccustomed to honour, but something quieter — a refusal, almost, to take into himself what was being offered.

At the archiepiscopal palace on the hill he was received with full form. The canons of Rouen came out in procession, vested, their chant rising cleanly above the murmur of the crowd. Incense hung in the air, sweet and faintly oppressive in the late light of afternoon. The archbishop's officers bowed deeply — not merely in courtesy, but in acknowledgment of rank, for a legate a latere bore within himself something more than delegated authority. He was, in a sense not metaphorical, the presence of Rome.

'You are welcome,' said the dean, after kissing Urban's hand, 'as one who speaks with the voice of Peter.'

Urban inclined his head. 'I speak, my lord,' he said, 'only what I am commanded.'

If the reply disappointed those who hoped for something grander, it did not lessen their attentiveness. He was conducted inward, through halls that bore the impress of Norman order — solid, deliberate, built to endure — and given lodging appropriate to his dignity.

That evening there was a table laid. Not ostentatious, but ample: fish from the river, bread newly baked, wine that had travelled farther than any man present. Noblemen attended, some out of curiosity, others from calculation. They watched him as one watches a piece newly placed upon the board — not yet moved, but already altering the game.

Questions came, though rarely directly. 'England,' one said lightly, 'has long been… unsettled.'

Urban answered: 'It has long endured.'

Another: 'And the young Henry? He is much spoken of here.'

'He is spoken of,' Urban said, 'because he has not yet spoken for himself.'

There was a murmur at that — approval from some, irritation from others. He gave them nothing more.

It was not until the second day that the matter of passage was raised. Dieppe lay not far to the north, and ships crossed daily from its harbour to England when wind and will permitted. It was assumed — by the city, by his hosts, even by some among his own company — that Urban's journey would continue without impediment to Canterbury. Letters were prepared and sent in advance of him. Messengers dispatched. A vessel, it was said, could be made ready within a day. Urban listened, and gave assent where it was required.

Yet when they reached Dieppe, the sea did not answer to expectation. The harbour lay open under a pale sky, its waters shifting but not inviting. Ships were present — more than enough — their masts a forest against the horizon. Yet none prepared to sail.

At first the reason was given as wind. 'It will turn,' said the harbour master. 'Tomorrow, perhaps the next day.' Urban accepted this without comment.

But Thomas, who had begun to understand the texture of delay in such places, drew closer to Morgan as they stood above the quay.

'That is not wind,' he said under his breath.

Morgan glanced sidelong at him. 'No,' he said. 'It is men.'

By the third day, the explanation had altered though not spoken plainly till the embarrassed lord of Dieppe, the Earl Giffard, approached.

'My lord,' said Urban, 'you have fled England as so many others in these troubled days. Buckingham is your earldom, is it not?'

'That is so, your Holiness.'

'You have no affection for King Stephen, so why then is your port closed?'

'Your coming into Normandy and the commission Pope Eugenius has given you are known in Westminster, your Holiness. Stephen is not lord here, but he is lord of the Channel coasts and their ports. His writ is honoured here because if he says you are not to be carried to England, then no ship will take you.'

Permissions were required. Assurances. There were questions, it seemed, as to the prudence of conveying so great a personage into a realm where loyalties were … problematical.

Urban neither pressed nor protested. He waited. On the second day, he had a visitor to whom normally he would have bowed low, but now the balance of status was reversed, for the red-headed youth knelt and kissed the ground before his feet. Urban hastened to take his shoulder and lift him. 'Your grace. That is not necessary.'

'My advisers say otherwise, your Holiness. You wear the white cassock and red cloak of a legate of the Holy See. I must behave to you as if you were the Holy Father himself, especially since I know something of your mission.'

Henry Plantagenet stood. Urban had met him during his period of wardship with Earl Robert in Bristol and had found him a remarkably confident young prince, with an earnest desire to learn and a remarkable facility with languages. His Latin was as good as a clerk's. Master Dewi had been sent to him from Llantrisant to tutor him in Welsh history and language for some weeks. He had reported that Henry had achieved a certain degree of fluency in just that brief time. Urban knew that for a fact as in their occasional meetings since, the prince had made a point of commencing their conversation in Welsh.

Henry looked around discretely before adding: 'Dywedodd Tomos o Lundain wrthyf bopeth am eich cynulleidfa â'i Sanctrwydd. Mae o'n ddyn gyda mi nawr, fwy neu lai fel yr archesgob.' He switched to Latin with a grin. 'Welsh is such a useful language if you don't want to be overheard around court, sir.'

Urban frowned. 'So, Thomas of London was your source for what happened at the Holy See. A good one. He and Prince Morgan were at the heart of what was discussed. And Thomas is now in your service, my lord?'

'Informally, yes. He has not sworn homage. For many good reasons he remains still in Archbishop Theobald's household. But he knows what to expect if and when I come into my own.' He chuckled and winked. 'I think we both know where he would have looked otherwise for a royal patron, albeit a prince of a very different kingdom.'

'So what do you want to discuss, your grace?'

'My mother has given up the struggle, sir. Without the loyal support of Earl Robert and Earl Miles she was not willing to go on in England. Their sons are … very different men, indeed your friend Philip of Gloucester fought for King Stephen for a while, as his earl of Oxford. But with my mother living a prayerful life amongst the monks of Bec at their Rouen priory, she has given me permission to make what I will of my cause. And what I wish is to come to a formal agreement with King Stephen, that I am to be adopted as his heir. His two sons and his bastard boy will be treated as generously as he could possibly wish. I have no enmity for them. Take that fact with you to Canterbury where you will meet him and his queen.'

Urban shrugged. 'Your wishes and those of the Holy Father coincide. I honour your wisdom, sir. But for the moment, I am going nowhere.'

Henry laughed. 'Winds can change, your Holiness, in reality and in metaphor. ' He produced a folded square of parchment, sealed in green wax, the seal of King Stephen. 'Here is the king's writ commanding a captain to take the bearer across the Channel without question, and with a full safe conduct.'

'How …?'

'He gave it to me himself to use if ever I wished to go across the Channel to him to talk terms. Your need is greater than mine, your Holiness. '

The next morning Urban came to the harbour called Le Poulet. It was a fine day. The sky full of shrieking gulls was clear though the breeze was strong and the sea rough. The herring boats were out nonetheless, harvesting the huge migrating shoals so dense with bodies that they turned the sea silver where they passed.

Thomas paced, restless beside him, his patience worn thin by inaction. Morgan laughed perhaps more often than was necessary to express true amusement, for the laughter carried an edge.

'They might honour Urban in Rouen,' he said to Leofric, 'but the people of this little port fear him. That is the measure of his burden, honoured yet denied his will. Should he get on a boat the people of its home port will rue it in trade cut off and maybe ships taken and burned by King Stephen's navy. They know it.'

But this morning a captain made bold to approach. 'My lord,' he said, bowing low, 'my vessel is the Marguerite du Poulet, the Earl Giffard bade me talk to you. It will be to my profit he said, and be no danger to me and the Marguerite.'

Urban regarded him steadily. 'I wish to travel across the Channel to England,' he said.

The captain hesitated, then lowered his voice. 'There are those,' he said, 'who would prefer you did not travel at all.'

A silence followed. The sea beween him and England moved, indifferent.

Urban inclined his head, and produced Henry Plantagenet's writ from his sleeve. 'Find someone who can read Latin sir, if you yourself cannot. This piece of parchment from the king himself gives the ship that carries me to England full protection. It is endorsed in French by Prince Henry in Rouen who says that the one who heeds it will have his friendship,' he said.

The captain took the square of parchment and bowed low but said nothing. Urban turned from the water, and walked back toward the town without haste, the cross still borne before him by Gruffudd Goch, though there was still, as yet, nowhere for it to lead.

The bells of the churches of Canterbury rang out loud for the arrival of the cardinal legate of the Roman church, who shifted uncomfortably on the white ass he had been given to ride during the full rite of the adventus. It was being led by Leofric, who was trying hard not to grin. The papal cross was being carried high before Urban by the handsome figure of Prince Cynan, garbed only in a fine alb, walking barefoot in honour of the solemnity of the occasion, his brothers were similarly dressed bearing candles in lanterns on either side of Cynan, both being occasionally hissed at by Leofric when their attention wandered, which it frequently did.

The crowds fell to their knees as he passed, signing his blessing. He wondered if the citizens of Canterbury actually believed him to be Pope Eugenius, though they should know that the nearest any living pope had ever come to England was when Pope Innocent had travelled to the Norman frontier to meet old King Henry over twenty years before.

'Here we go, Leofric,' he said out of the corner of his mouth. They reached the city gate where were gathered the prelates of England come to greet the legate. And Urban watched in a certain amount of surprise when they duly dropped to their knees. He scanned the group and noted absentees. Unsurprisingly the former legate, Bishop Henry of Winchester, was not there, and neither was the archbishop of Canterbury, which was less accountable. Instead he was greeted with a Latin oration by the bishop of Rochester, Canterbury's suffragan.

When he had approached to kiss the legate's foot, and Urban had raised him, Urban asked the old man where his archbishop was. 'In Flanders, your Holiness,' came the reply. 'He had a difference of opinion with the king and, like his venerable predecessor, St Anselm, he chose voluntary exile in protest.'

Urban reflected that Thomas of London would soon be in a position to give him the full story. The procession wound through the city streets to the cathedral, whose towers bristled above the surrounding roofs.

He found the king and queen enthroned in the crossing, who duly went to their knees before him. Urban's mind was finding it difficult to come to terms with the fact that crowned and anointed monarchs must kneel before him, like it or not. His own throne was set north of the high altar under a canopy of state. He presided at the mass and was asked and assented to placing the crown on the heads of the king and queen before the consecration. Why not? There was no archbishop of Canterbury to be offended by it.

As his altar party, including Leofric as deacon and Prince Cyngwin vested for the first time as subdeacon in tunicle, readied the altar, Thomas of London knelt at Urban's side and began whispering urgently in his ear. 'Knowing you were on your way, lord, the queen put pressure on Archbishop Theobald to crown her son Eustace as Young King of England, and so sabotage the decree of the Council of Bath once and for all. Theobald decided on discretion rather than valour, and took ship for Boulogne. Rumour had it that he was hoping to meet you before you crossed to England, but the vidame of Boulogne would not let the archbishop land and he was forced to travel further up the coast to Nieuwepoort, where Count Thierry received him honourably, and has lodged him in the abbey of Ten Duinen.'

Urban of Caerleon, cardinal archbishop of Nikaea and papal legate in England and Wales, had a lot to think about as he stood at the altar of Canterbury cathedral, pondering how he could accomplish his mission. He was only distracted by the need to observe Prince Cyngwin's performance as subdeacon, which was rather more disciplined and focussed than he had expected. The prince put his heart and soul into his proclamation of the lesson from the epistles, delivered after a procession with book held high down into the nave. He seemed to have learnt it by heart, and declaimed with the grace and presence of a professional actor, despite his brother Cyngen, bearing a candle stick, gurning and making faces at him. For an odd half moment Urban expected the boy's reading of scripture to be received with applause. The young poet-prince might have the makings of a cleric.

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Y Llyn Llwyd

by Michael Arram

XIX