Free The Brothers of Gwynedd by Edith Pargeter

grotesque error would be quickly set right. She had his promise, somewhat of the price he had asked she had already paid, she would not believe that he knew how her husband was used, or would countenance it for one moment when he did learn of it. So she went valiantly from man to officer, from officer to minister, always put off, always persisting, passed from hand to hand, never getting any answers. As for her husband, he let her do what she would, but he expected nothing.
      And as long as she continued resolute, indignant and bold, she never reached King Henry's presence, for he well knew how to protect himself from embarrassment. Still he was at his palace at Westminster, and when she begged to be received by him there, he was unwell, and could see no one. Then she grew cunning, and came mildly with a request for some minor concession to her lord's comfort, and King Henry, receiving these reports of her tamed and pliant, granted her an audience, and talked with her affably of the Lord Griffith's health, promising her the amenities she asked. But when she took heart and spoke of freedom, and of a promise given, the king, still smiling, looked the other way, and the audience was over. Then she, too, knew that she wasted her pains.
      She did not go back at once to her husband, for she was too bitter and too deeply shaken. She came to us to shed her grief and rage. For then she believed that she understood what had happened to her and hers.
      "They are in conspiracy together," she said, "uncle and nephew, the one as false as the other! This was all agreed between them, behind what was written into this peace. David, since he must, would give up what he could not hold, and give it up with the better will since he was promised then, he must have been promised, his brother should never take from him the half of what was left. This is what they have done to him between them!"
      There were many, as I know, who thought as she did. But I cannot believe it was so. All defeated as he was, and helpless, what persuasion had David to induce his uncle to prevent Griffith from claiming the half of his shrunken realm? None! There was nothing he had to offer in return, and King Henry gave nothing for nothing. No, I think there was a more private argument that swayed that devious personage. I do believe he had meant to do as he had promised, but after his return to London had considered again, more carefully, what might follow. For if he set up Griffith in the moiety of Gwynedd, thus forcibly removing the worst enmity between these two brothers, and turning them into neighbours of one blood who must both make the best of straitened circumstances, might they not, once the old bitterness had receded by a year or two, come to consider that they had a mutual interest in enlarging that realm to its old borders? And had they not, together, the backing of all the Welsh princes, a solidarity David had never enjoyed? Nor could there soon be such another summer, traitor and vindictive to Wales. Yes, after his fashion I think King Henry reasoned wisely enough. For if he held Griffith in his power, not so vilely used as to alienate him incurably, he could be held for ever over David's head, the strongest weapon against him should he ever take arms again for his lost lands. One move in rebellion, and Griffith could be in Chester with English arms to back him, and hale away half the Welsh princes to his side as before. No, while Griffith lay here in the king's hand, like a drawn sword, David could not stir.
      I am the more firmly convinced of this by all that King Henry did in the matter thereafter. On the one hand, he took every precaution to secure his prisoners more impregnably. It soon occurred to him that a vigorous woman like the Lady Senena, who had had the courage and decision to act once for herself and appeal from Wales to England, might have it in her yet, given a suitable focus for her cause, to appeal as fiercely from England to