Madoc Read online

  It stood on a spur on their right hand, high above the meadows of the valley. The old road, originally Roman, came from Ardudwy in the west and climbed behind the castle on the barren southern slopes of Moel Siabod, one of the southern outliers of Eryri. This road cut away from them over the hills, to join the Vale of Conwy downstream from the confluence of the Lledr.

  They came to a little stream that tumbled down through rocks and sodden turf from the castle to the meadows. A path led up towards the old road and the entrance to the fortress. Madoc looked with curiosity and some misgivings at the royal building now silhouetted against the reddening western sky. It was here that he had been delivered into the world – by all accounts, a world that had not been particularly excited about his arrival.

  After nineteen years, he was to meet his mother again – and hope not to meet his father. Gwalchmai had made sure in Deganwy that Prince Owain ap Gwynedd was safely housed in Anglesey at his major court of Aberffraw. Though the bard hoped to engineer Madoc’s acceptance at the court of Gwynedd, the time was not yet ripe for such an abrupt disclosure.

  So the bard’s consternation was acute when he heard Madoc exclaim as he pointed back along the old road across the hills.

  ‘A cavalcade, Gwalchmai … who can be coming?’

  The older man picked up the hem of his robe and hurried to the youth’s side. Shielding his eyes, he squinted across the rough uplands towards the Vale of Conwy. The sun glittered off the pennants and spearheads of a procession winding its way along the road, still three miles distant.

  Gwalchmai groaned. ‘It can be no one else but Owain Fawr!’

  ‘But you said he was safe in Mon!’ protested Madoc, a sudden feeling of terror gripping him.

  ‘Then they told me wrong!’ snapped the bard, anxiety fraying his temper. He whirled around and dragged his horse towards the castle, which loomed high over their heads. ‘Quickly, let us get you tucked away at once; it will be the better part of an hour before they reach the gates. We must see whether your mother feels that you can safely be hidden away.’

  They hurried the last few hundred paces to the castle, which perched on a great rocky hump amidst marshy ground. A long pool acted as an incomplete moat on the side facing them. A rough wooden bridge, merely a few crude planks, stretched across it and on the other side, rough steps were hewn into the rock to climb to the narrow gateway.

  ‘I had imagined Dolwyddelan to be all in stone,’murmured Madoc, as he followed on the heels of Gwalchmai.

  ‘It will be soon, boy … the keep has been refashioned in masonry already … your father intends to do the same with the West Tower and the curtain walls before long … aping the Normans, I call it!’

  It was more a fortified tower than a castle, only the new stone keep having any air of dignity about it. This was two storeys high and had a gabled roof. The rest of the castle was composed of a wooden stockade diverging from each side of the keep, which stood on the apex of the crag overlooking the Lledr valley. The palisade enclosed the whole rugged platform of rock and a lower, wider wooden tower formed the remainder of the structure at the opposite angle. The whole place was not more than forty paces across in any direction – its cramped quarters were emphasised by the straggling collection of huts and shacks that clustered around the foot of the crag and housed the more lowly members of the Dolwyddelan household.

  These were times of peace, right in the heart of Owain Gwynedd’s kingdom and the security on the gate was a mere token. The castellan and his staff were too concerned with the distant sight of the prince approaching to bother with the familiar figure of Gwalchmai the bard and some young man he had picked up in his travels.

  The pair passed unheeded among the busy folk in the small courtyard as they made their way towards the flight of steps that led up to the entrance of the keep. The only door was a dozen feet above the ground, to make defence easier, the basement being entered only through a trapdoor in the floor of the hall. Above this was a single large bedchamber, together with a few tiny closets cut in the thickness of the walls.

  At the great studded door into the hall, Gwalchmai stopped an agitated maidservant and asked after the Lady Brenda.

  ‘In her chamber, pencerdd,’2 she said, ‘gettingherself ready for the lord’s appearance.’

  Gwalchmai groaned. Turning back, he swung the bemused Madoc around and went back down to the courtyard. ‘Lady Brenda lives in the West Tower … I had thought to find her in the hall.’

  Madoc looked at him in puzzlement. ‘Why does not my mother stay in the main bedchamber up there, then?’

  Gwalchmai nudged him sharply with his elbow, as they passed through the thronged yard. ‘Keep your voice down, boy … no one is to know who you are until we see how the land lies. You are Merfyn, an apprentice bard from Aberdaron, understand?’

  Madoc nodded reluctantly.

  ‘But why is she skulking in this old wooden house, when a new stone keep lies within arm’s reach?’ he persisted, in a lower tone.

  ‘Boy, your life in that wild bog of Ireland has made you innocent – or simple,’ hissed Gwalchmai. ‘Look, your royal father has a wife … albeit a union cursed by the priests of Rome. Even he must pay lip service to convention.’

  They plunged into the gloom of the West Tower, a grand name for a structure that looked like a high barn with massive oaken walls. The ground floor was a combined kitchen and eating hall for the lesser folk of Dolwyddelan, but a stair at one side led to an upper floor divided into three chambers, the largest of which was that of Brenda, favourite concubine of Owain Gwynedd for so many years.

  As in the rest of the castle, all was bustle and preparation, the permanent retainers scurrying around to get the place ready for an extra two score people. They climbed the stairs and came to a low door at the end of the short corridor above.

  The bard tapped, his ear close to the jamb. As soon as he was bidden, he pushed the door open and gestured for Madoc to follow.

  Madoc’s eyes rapidly sensed a big curtained bed and sombre tapestries hanging from the walls. Even before his gaze dropped to the woman standing expectantly in the centre of the room, his mind seized on the probability that that bed was where he had been both conceived and born.

  He looked at the figure waiting to greet him. Without a doubt, this was his mother. It was in her face and her eyes as she came across the room, hands outstretched. She had borne a number of sons – and insignificant daughters – to Owain Gwynedd, but here was one who had been taken from her almost at birth.

  On his part, he suddenly found his blue eyes unaccountably full of tears. Blinking them back indignantly, he darted forward, intending to kneel before Brenda, but somehow the formal gesture seemed to crumble on the way and he found his face crushed into her waist and his arms gripping her mantle below the armpits.

  For a moment, no one spoke, the mother’s cheek pressed into his hair, the boy struggling to regain his manly composure.

  It was Gwalchmai who broke the silence, with a warning.

  ‘Lady, Owain Fawr is within sight. You must say what you wish to be done.’

  Brenda looked up at the old bard over her son’s head. ‘How long?’ she asked.

  ‘Half an hour … the cavalcade is but a mile away by now.’

  She put her hand on Madoc’s head. ‘Five minutes … give us five minutes, Gwalchmai, then come for him.’

  The court poet nodded and vanished silently.

  ‘Madoc … my son,’ said Brenda gently. Sniffing loudly, Madoc pulled himself to his feet. He stepped back, but still held his mother’s hands in his.

  ‘You are a fair, fine boy, Madoc.’ Her voice was choked with emotion. ‘So much like Riryd.’

  Madoc nodded eagerly. ‘Almost as much as I yearned to meet you, I ached to know that he was my full brother.’

  The distant blast of a horn brought them back to reality.

  ‘Owain Fawr … he will be here soon.’ Brenda’s eyes darted to the window. It faced the wrong way to
see the road, but it was obvious that the cavalcade was near.

  ‘My father – he knows nothing of me?’ asked Madoc impulsively.

  His mother shook her head sadly. ‘He has seventeen sons that he acknowledges – no one has bothered to count the daughters. Several more sons, you included, he banished at birth. He already has too much dissent and competition from his elder sons to want to add to it.’

  There was a discreet, but urgent, tapping on the door and Gwalchmai put his head around the rough boards.

  ‘The lad must come, my lady. The royal party is almost at the gates.’

  Brenda gave a last squeeze to Madoc’s shoulders and pushed him towards the bard. ‘As soon as there is an opportunity, you will come to me again, my son.’

  Madoc stooped quickly and kissed his mother’s hand. As he walked across to the door, Brenda spoke to Gwalchmai.

  ‘Where will you hide him? He must be safe; his father is not yet ready to know of his existence.’

  As Madoc slipped out into the passage under Gwalchmai’s arm, the bard reassured his mother. ‘There are a score of young lads about the castle, one more will not be noticed. If anyone asks, he is Merfyn, a young bard-pupil of mine. I will lodge him with the servants; he will be quite safe.’

  They hurried out into the courtyard and jostled into the throng that waited there for the arrival of their prince. Iago, the Penteulu3 of Dolwyddelan, was stalking about, yelling orders to the castle guard who lined the parapet walk of the massive wooden stockade.

  ‘Can I stay and watch my father arrive?’ Madoc asked Gwalchmai, as they struggled through the pushing crowd.

  The bard flashed startled eyes across at the lad, who was as tall as himself.

  ‘Ssh, boy!’ he muttered. ‘Keep your voice down and your thoughts to yourself. There are those here who would delight in carrying tales. I have not suffered that cursed journey by boat just to have it wasted by seeing you hanged.’

  ‘But may we stay – just for a few moments?’ persisted Madoc.

  Gwalchmai nodded. ‘Keep in the background, then. Afterwards, we must go outside to the servants’ huts to get you a place to stay.’

  Moments later, a ragged cheer came from beyond the gate and the leather-jerkined guards on the parapet raised their spears in salute. There was a stir and a shuffling around the gate and then Iago came striding in, leading the royal party. Madoc sensed the natural dignity of the occasion as the Prince of Gwynedd returned to his family – for such was the unity of the Welsh clan, that even the lowliest kitchenmaid felt bound to Prince Owain by chains of affection and loyalty.

  And here he was – Owain, the Lion of North Wales, son of the great Gruffudd ap Cynan. Between them, the father and son had held the North against the hated Normans, slowly pushing out further and further, turning Wales into a power that held its head level with many other kingdoms in Europe.

  Striding behind Iago, he towered over most of the men nearby. The half-Viking blood of his father had come out in full in Owain’s generation, giving him a blond massiveness that contrasted strangely with the small darkness of the Welshmen around him.

  Madoc, himself fair and taller than average, bent his knees instinctively, partly in awe and partly afraid that his height and colouring might give him away as yet another bastard of the prince.

  But every eye was on Owain Fawr and his eyes were on the staircase to the keep, where Lady Cristin waited with a cluster of children and handmaidens. With a roar of welcome, Owain waved his hand to her. The blond giant hurried across the little courtyard, bounded up the stairs and embraced his wife robustly. With a wave to the grinning throng below, he turned and ushered Cristin into the hall of the keep, the great studded door shutting with a bang.

  As the rest of the cavalcade straggled into the courtyard, Madoc looked at Gwalchmai who was smiling at him with a curious expression.

  ‘And what did you think of your royal relation?’ he murmured.

  Madoc shook his head. ‘He is a great man, both in his size, his dress and his bearing. But he seems more of a stranger than, say,any new seacaptain that drops anchor in the Liffey.’ He shook his head sadly again. ‘I don’t feel that with Brenda. At once, there was a bond between us.’

  Gwalchmai shrugged.

  ‘To be expected, boy. Your mother bore you and for three weeks, mothered you. You have never clapped eyes on your father before – nor he on you, thank God.’

  ‘Do you think my father might ever be made to acknowledge me, Gwalchmai?’ he asked sadly, as they left the stockade.

  Gwalchmai’s grey beard wagged as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘Before he can acknowledge you, my son, he must learn of your existence. It is nineteen years since he learned he had yet another brat from Brenda. In those days, all new sons were potential rivals, but now the problem seems to have crystallised down to the jealousies between Iorwerth, Dafydd, Rhodri and Hywel.’

  He stopped on the steps and looked pensively across at the bare moors stretching towards Eryri. ‘It depends now on whether he sees you as yet another possible contender for the throne of Gwynedd or if he accepts that the four elder boys must fight it out between themselves.’

  With that rather gloomy opinion, he started down the ramp again, with Madoc walking sadly at his side.

  Once across the bridge, they turned left, where stretching along both sides of the rough track were a scattered collection of huts, stables and smithies. Gwalchmai made for one of the largest, around which a group of barefoot children were playing.

  The hut was divided into a number of cubicles around a central common area. There was a wide balcony just above head level, also made into little rooms by wattle or cloth screens. Smoke rose from a large cooking fire in the centre, filtering both through a hole in the roof and wafting indiscriminately through the walls and thatch.

  ‘This is a primitive place compared with the prince’s main court at Aberffraw,’ growled Gwalchmai. He looked around and then strode across to a cubicle against the far wall, where a figure lay on a heap of rushes, softly strumming a small harp.

  ‘Ho, Llywarch … get up and meet a friend of mine.’

  The man looked up and Madoc saw that the face was extraordinarily long, a caricature with a wide upper lip and a long, pointed chin. A pair of humorousbrown eyes twinkled in these odd features as he scrambled to his feet.

  ‘This is Merfyn, a young friend of mine from Llyn. He also has some ability with the harp and a voice that does justice to his playing.’

  Llywarch was only about thirty years old, but already wore the multi-coloured robe and the pigtailed hair of a professional bard. This was Llywarch ap Llewelyn, one of Prince Owain’s official bards. Whereas Gwalchmai was Owain’s Pencerdd or ‘Head of Song,’ Llywarch was only the Bard Teulu, the resident family songster of Dolwyddelan itself.

  ‘Another of the brotherhood, eh! Welcome, Merfyn, to this pigsty which we call home.’ He swept his hand about him in a grand gesture, taking in the women baking and washing, the infants squealing and the chickens pecking on the earthen floor.

  ‘Pigsty!’guffawed Gwalchmai. ‘Is that why they are beginning to call you Llywarch Prydydd y Moch … Poet of the Pigs?’

  Madoc sensed that there was no great affection between these two. This was usually the case between bards. It was a highly competitive profession and there were constant jealousies between them for the favour of their royal masters. It was even more so between the younger ones and the older, as the latter constantly feared that the new man would jostle them out of their patronage.

  ‘Merfyn will be here for a few days, until he moves on with me to either Dolbadarn or Aberffraw. I promised to show him the great houses of our Lord Owain –and let him hear the real bards at work.’

  Llywarch nodded and beamed at Madoc.

  ‘And he’ll be wanting a place to lay his head and fill his belly, no doubt? I’ll see to it, never fear. We songsters must keep together, eh?’

  Gwalchmai thanked the you
nger bard and took his leave of Madoc. ‘I’ll call for you in the morning. I’ll arrange something then, it cannot be before that.’ Madoc knew he was referring to another secret visit to his mother.

  Llywarch put an arm around Madoc’s shoulders and led him to a bench at a table just inside the doorway of the hut.

  ‘Let’s talk, Merfyn. Tell me about yourself.’

  As people came and went past them, Madoc had to keep his wits about him to fabricate a tale of how he came from a seafaring family at Aberdaron, a little village on the Llyn peninsulasome forty miles away. He stuck as closely as he could to the tale that Gwalchmai had thought up for him. The Bard of the Pigs listened politely, then suddenly slapped his thigh.

  ‘What an ill-mannered lout you must think me. You’ve journeyed from Llyn today and not eaten for many hours, I’ll wager. Let’s get something to keep us alive … I could do with it myself.’ Madoc was to learn that Llywarch had a thirst and an appetite that was unmatched in the whole of Gwynedd. He called to a girl who had just come from the direction of the castle.

  ‘Annesta! Come and meet a fine young man … but before you do, get us a pitcher of beer and some bread, there’s a good girl.’ Annesta was slim and dark, with a pair of deep set eyes that now turned on Madoc with an interest that matched his own. She smiled quickly, then hurried into the hut.

  ‘Didn’t I see her on the steps of the keep when my … when Prince Owain came in just now?’ he asked Llywarch.

  The long face nodded back at him.

  ‘No doubt – she would have been standing behind YrArglwyddes4 Cristin, as she is one of her maids.’

  For a moment, all thoughts of his father, his mother and even Wales vanished from Madoc’s mind as he recalled Annesta’s face and figure into his mind’s eye. Llywarch grinned at him crookedly.’

  ‘She is not spoken for by any man yet, Merfyn … and she sleeps in this very hut.’

  Before they could elaborate on the matter, Annesta herself came out of the doorway, carrying a pitcher of beer, a loaf and some cheese, which she put on the table before Llywarch.