The Brothers of Gwynedd by Edith Pargeter Read Free Book Online

saw such a town for the first time in my life, and thought it more marvellous than I can tell. For we in Wales had then borrowed very little from this crowding English life that pressed in on our flank, that used coined money, and markets, of which we had scarcely any, and lived in stone houses that could not be abandoned at need, for they were too precious, and grew ordered crops that tied men to one patch of soil. And above all, few of us had ever seen what the English called a city.
      The Lady Senena had sent her steward ahead to deal with the bailiffs of the town, being armed already with a recommendation from John Lestrange, who was sheriff of the county. And we were met at the gate, and conducted to a great house near the church of St. Alkmund (for this town has four parish churches within its walls) where we were to be lodged. There was fair provision for the lady and her children and officers within, and those of her escort and servants who were married were given the best of what remained, while the young men had reasonably good lying in a barn and storehouse in the courtyard. And it was mark of some respect that our party got so much consideration, for Shrewsbury was crowded to the walls. King Henry and his court and officials had been in the town three days, and many of his barons and lords were installed with him in the guest halls of the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, outside the walls by the English gate. The chief tenants and their knights were quartered in the castle, or wherever they could find room in houses and shops inside the walls, and the main part of the army, a great host, encamped in the fields outside the castle foregate.
      But this numbering, vast though it was, was but the half of the stream that had poured into Shrewsbury. There were plenty of clients eager to enlist King Henry's favour, besides the Lady Senena. All those marcher lords who had lost land to Llewelyn the Great, and had been trying through legal pressures to regain it from his son all these past months, had come running to the royal standard, waiting to pick the bones. Roger of Montalt, the seneschal of Chester, who had been kept out of Mold for many years, Ralph Mortimer, who had trouble with his Welsh neighbours in Kerry, and Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, who laid claim to most of southern Powys by right of his father, these were the chief litigants. This Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn was a man twenty-seven years old, and had been but an infant when his sire lost all to Llewelyn of Gwynedd. He was married to Hawise, a daughter of the high sheriff, John Lestrange, who had three border counties in his care, and was justiciar of Chester into the bargain, a very powerful ally. The English called this Welsh chief Griffith de la Pole, after the castle of Pool, which was his family's chief seat; and indeed, this young man had been so long among the English that he was more marcher baron than Welsh chief, let alone the influence of his wife, who was a very strong and self-willed lady. But apart from these, there were not a few of the minor Welsh princes here to join the royal standard, some because they felt safer owing fealty to England than to Gwynedd, some with grievances of their own over land, like the lord of Bromfield, some because they upheld the Lord Griffith's right, and had conceived the same hope as had his lady, some in the hope of snatching a crumb or two out of David's ruin for themselves, with or without right. Which was cheering indeed for the Lady Senena, who found herself not without advocates and allies in this foreign town.
      But if the outlook was bright for her, it seemed it was black enough for David, with all this great force arrayed against him, and in this summer when the world was turned upside-down. For scarcely ever was there a year when the rivers sank so low, those waters on which Gwynedd counted for half her defence. There had been no rains since the spring, the sun rose bright every morning, and sank