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Day Seven
Catrin
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A whisper of anticipation ran through the crowd as Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Coch stepped closer to the king to allow the chain of office to be placed around his neck. Then, once the king adjusted the ornament on his shoulders, Gruffydd bowed deeply.
Having turned to walk back to the lines of waiting bards, still nearly a thousand strong, Gruffydd beckoned to Adam to come out from amongst the crowd. Lifting the chain over his head, he held it out with great ceremony, as a knight might lay a sword in the palms of his hands to present to his liege lord. While Gruffydd had won, and Cadwgan had come in a close second, who was to say that Moriddig, had his son not murdered him, wouldn’t have been standing with them too? Likely so.
Gruffydd had arranged for the scene in advance, in acknowledgement of Moriddig’s long service and Adam’s place in it. Catrin glanced at the king. He had been among those forewarned, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t take offense when it came to it. But he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, a contented smile on his lips.
“Are you sure we’re going to survive this?” Catrin leaned into Rhys to whisper her query. They were coming to the part that only the participants knew about it.
“Does it matter?” Rhys didn’t have time to say more because an ancient bard, one of the oldest at the festival, eighty years old if he was a day, hobbled to the fore.
“Oh king, we have one last song for you to hear.” His voice didn’t shake as much as his hands and, even in great age, was revealed to have a fine baritone.
Then he turned to face the assembled bards, lined up thirty men across and many rows deep, and raised his hands. With his arrival, the host of men had quieted. It wasn’t so much that a pall settled over them, as an aura of determination.
Gruffydd retook his place in the center of the first row. Even so, it was the elderly bard upon whom everyone was focused. There was a moment’s pause, like an indrawn breath, and then he pointed a finger high in the air. From somewhere in the back rose a beautiful tenor:
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Cold my heart in fearful breast
Today I grieve
Our king, the oaken door of Aberffraw,
Our dragon
By whose hand the gold diadem was given
Is no more.
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As he sang, the rest of the bards, a thousand strong, took up the lament. Their voices wove together, as if they’d practiced the song a hundred times instead of never before. Gruffydd’s eulogy to Llywelyn was bold and beautiful and utterly terrifying. Finally, they reached the final words:
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Can you not sense the turmoil amongst the oaks?
Do you not see the path of wind and rain?
And that the world is ending?
How could we value our own heads
when he has lost his?
We are left with only fear and surrender
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Proud king, swift hawk, fierce wolf
True Lord of Aberffraw
our warlord, our dragon-king
Our Llywelyn ... is dead.
His only refuge
the Kingdom of Heaven.
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As the last notes faded, the old bard who’d led them turned to face King Edward, and then, with effort, given his age, went down unsteadily on one knee. A heartbeat later, every bard behind him did the same, bowing their heads before the king.
They held the position through the silence that fell on the onlookers. Catrin was holding her breath, along with everyone else. How would the king reply? Catrin was sure his next command would be to order his swordsmen, Rhys among them, to cut down every bard before her in a orgy of blood.
And then it occurred to her that Gruffydd had written the lament in Welsh, and the bards had sung it in Welsh. King Edward had no idea what they’d just said.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Simon fidgeting. She had thought for some time that he understood more Welsh than he let on. Maybe he had understood the words. Regardless, he wasn’t stepping forward to translate them for the king. Neither was anyone else.
Catrin gripped Rhys’s hand tightly, knowing what she had to do if they were to fulfill their promise to Simon and continue in their service to the king and queen. It was for this reason she’d accepted her position in the queen’s household. It was why Rhys now served in the king’s guard and as his quaestor. She didn’t want to diminish the sacrifice these bards were making, but if ever her job was to stand between the king and her people, it was now.
Her first step brought her out of the ranks of onlookers. By the second, Rhys was at her shoulder. Together, with the bards still on their knees before the king, she and Rhys paced steadily to the front of the viewing stand.
Their position on the grass put them well below Edward’s seat, since the stand was raised up to chest height. Unlike at Nefyn, when the king had moved off his throne to speak to Rhys at the conclusion of the archery tournament, this time he didn’t budge, not even leaning forward so he could speak to them more privately. The song had been utterly moving, with those thousand voices lifted to the heavens like she’d never heard before, but Edward appeared to be as cold as ever.
The king spoke first. “That was a lament to Lewelen, was it not? I heard his name at the end.”
“Yes, my lord.” It was Rhys who replied, even if it was Catrin’s doing that they were here.
“Was the song a fitting tribute to my fallen cousin?”
Neither of them was going to quibble with his use of the word cousin. Edward and Llywelyn shared no blood but had been cousins through Llywelyn’s marriage to Elinor.
“Yes, my lord,” Rhys said. “It was perfect.”
“Was there any mention of David?”
He meant Dafydd, Llywelyn’s brother, who had been more a brother to Edward than he had ever been to Llywelyn, except at the very end. Dafydd was the one who’d rebelled to start the 1282 war. Edward had hanged, drawn, and quartered him two years ago in Shrewsbury. “No, my lord. Not a word.”
Edward spoke now in a resonant voice so everyone could hear. “Let it be known that this is the first and last time this lament to Lewelen will ever be sung.”
“Yes, my lord.” This time Rhys and Catrin spoke together, answering for themselves and the bards behind them.
The king got to his feet. He gazed out at the men before him for a long moment. Then he put his hands together and began to clap, albeit decorously, his approval. Within a few claps, the lords behind him were clapping too.
In that moment, Catrin was able to see the scene in two diametrically opposed ways. To the bards, they had sung their song, and then they had bent the knee, not in obeisance so much as in acceptance of their fate.
The king, however, as he had looked out over all those bowed heads of a thousand bards, plus the sea of onlookers, all of whom had their heads bowed too, was interpreting their behavior as submission.
The clapping continued, up until the king put out his arm to his queen and escorted her from the viewing stand.
At that point, the crowd surged onto the field, surrounding the bards, who finally got to their feet. In their faces, she saw an overflowing sense of relief that she herself shared.
They had survived the week. Gruffydd had sung his song. The world would go on. And they would go with it, by the Will of God and of the English king.
