L
Courtly Dance
A SILENCE FORMED, allowing me to observe Gethin for the first time.
He was perhaps a little over medium height with long, tangled, greying hair and a face like from a misericord, its lines chiselled deep in varnished oak.
My gaze was drawn inevitably to the open cavity where the left eye had been, a knot hole in the wood.
‘Twm Siôn Cati,’ he said. ‘Well, well.’
His wide lips fell easily into a loose smile, and then he spoke in Welsh so rapid that I could understand not a word of it.
Thomas Jones nodded.
‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘However, in the presence of an Englishman, I ever think it polite – for those who can – to use his language. Indeed, I’m told that Owain Glyndwr himself, when he was at the English court, was oft-times mistaken for an Englishman.’
‘While Elizabeth of England, who claims descent from Arthur’ – Prys Gethin speaking rapidly, as though his mastery of the neighbouring tongue had been impugned – ‘speaks not a word yn Gymreig.’
His voice was unexpectedly high and surprisingly melodious, like to a bladder-pipe.
‘Not entirely true,’ I said.
Foolishly. In truth I was far from sure that, for all her linguistic skills, the Queen had more than a few words of Welsh, but I’d always instinctively take her side.
‘Is it not?’ Prys Gethin glanced across at me. ‘And who are you to say, sirrah?’
Thomas Jones threw a swift warning look in my direction, but I caught it too late.
‘John Dee.’
‘Oh.’ Prys Gethin’s one eye lit up and, for a moment, I had the disturbing sensation that I was also viewed by some organ of perception behind the empty socket of the other, a secret sight which might penetrate my thoughts. ‘Her conjurer.’
I shrugged.
‘So the Queen of England saw fit to dispatch her sorcerer to Wales… along with the father of her bastard child.’
‘She doesn’t have a—’ I shook my head, and my lips tightened with the pain. ‘No matter.’
No matter, indeed, for I knew that in one sentence he’d confirmed what, until that moment, had been only an elaborate theory.
‘Where is he?’ I said.
He glanced briefly at me then looked away.
‘Where are you holding Lord Dudley?’
No reply.
‘We know why you were freed,’ I said. ‘We know about the agreement.’
Gethin spoke in Welsh to Thomas Jones, who at once translated.
‘John, he invites us to kill him.’
Gethin smiled.
Thomas Jones raised the butcher’s knife. Gethin did not flinch.
The whole texture of the night was altered. I watched the start of a dangerously delicate courtly dance in the remains of the moonlight: Prys Gethin tossing a question in Welsh at Thomas Jones, who gave no answer, Gethin then addressing him at length, still in Welsh, Thomas Jones listening without a word, hands on hips, then turning to me, his voice mild.
‘Prys wonders, John, why I’m working with the enemy.’
‘And he is not?’
Realising, too late, my possible mistake. If Gethin believed his task had been assigned by Cecil, then he might see it as some peculiarly Welsh alliance between the two of them. How much he knew of Cecil’s reasons for not wanting the Queen wed to Dudley, an Englishman, I could not say. Nor whether, from a Welsh standpoint, a Spaniard or a Frenchman would be preferable as a consort.
More Welsh from Gethin, Thomas Jones listening, then slowly shaking his head.
‘No, boy. Myself, I’ve never considered that accepting an English Queen’s pardon was any kind of treachery. But equally, I’m under no illusion about the continuing Welshness of the Tudor line.’
Silence for a while, only the call of a distant owl at night’s end. Then Gethin brought his attention to me.
‘Do you know where you are standing, Dr Dee?’
‘I believe so.’
I took an instinctive step back, down the hillside, for Prys Gethin, even after walking from Presteigne, gave off such animation, such an energy. Perhaps the energy of freedom after a long captivity. Or perhaps something more. There was little doubt he knew where he was standing. Did he believe the spirit of the man whose name he’d borrowed had come into him while he sat waiting on the hill?
A spirit now burning inside him?
Not possible. An occupying spirit could not be of human origin, only demonic.
Christ.
I felt my own energy seeping away into the ground. I was near exhaustion and, despite the extreme danger here, felt I might fall to sleep on my feet like a horse. We were in Gethin’s hands and he knew it.
Time passed, the voice piping on, as if delivering a sermon, the Welsh rising and dipping like a liturgy, and then Thomas Jones replying, this time also in Welsh, still now, looking beyond me down the hill, his eyes black. I felt like a watcher from another, smaller world.
Thomas Jones was nodding now, a faint smile upon his plumpen features.
‘Da iawn,’ he said.
Very good. Both men smiling.
All three of them.
Jesu.
The third man was unknown to me. He was a large man. His hair was short and crinkled, his beard grey, his arms bare and muscular. Silver sweat shone from his face and a dagger from a fist.
Thomas Jones nodded to him.
‘John, this is Master Gerallt Roberts.’
Oh God, he must have moved silently out of the pines, lower down the hill from where we stood, and simply walked up, silently over the sheep-cropped turf.
We were equal in number now, but you only had to look at Gerallt Roberts to know that, in truth, we were outnumbered.
A long silence, and then Prys Gethin spoke again, in Welsh.
‘John…’ Thomas Jones looking down the slope at me. ‘Prys tells me we are upon the very spot at which the Welsh archers hired by the English were caused to turn and loose their arrows into the English army. Thus redeeming their heritage.’
‘And how can he know that?’
Nobody replied. Having retreated a little way down the hill, I had my back to those first pale lights of pre-dawn, looking up at two men who were still in night.
‘A place of redemption indeed.’ Thomas Jones approached me, looking sorrowful. ‘It’s been conveyed to me that this may be my last chance to regain my honour.’
‘Honour?’
‘After my cowardly acceptance of mercy from a woman who will never be Queen of Wales.’
I looked for a smile, but his face was empty.
‘We’ll never be part of that. Of England. Owain, with his English education and his smooth English speech, made that all too explicit.’
‘My father achieved it,’ I said.
‘Traitors don’t count, John.’ Thomas Jones sighed. ‘Prys says that redemption requires of me one simple, perfect act.’
I heard his kindly voice as if from a great distance.
‘Your decapitation,’ it said.
I said nothing. It was a play. I was not part of it. The only reality was the ache in my head and even that was dulled now.
‘How can we let you live, knowing what you know?’
We?
I saw that he’d plucked the dagger from my belt. I stared into his eyes, but they would not meet mine.
Look at me, boy – fallen Welshman, recipient of an English pardon. See what it does to me, this place.
Thomas Jones brought up the butcher’s knife, ran a thumb along the blade.
It was a play. It could not be happening. I must endeavour not to make him laugh. I turned to Gethin.