“That was remorse, yes. In the madness of his remorse he took his own life and compounded the original offence.” I wanted to continue, but we were interrupted.
“I beg your pardon for the intrusion, Magister,” I turned to see one of the King’s servants, breathless and red-faced. I remembered from the night before. “King Owain asks that you come to see him as soon as you can. I’ve been looking for you for half an hour, so if you could come urgently it would be for the best.” I turned back to Ieuan and was going to speak, but he cut me short. He was silent for some moments. A shuddering sigh went through him and he raised his old man’s face to the sky, eyes closed. His veins showed clearly on his eyelids, they were crooked ridges running across them. The tendons in his neck stuck out like tent-ropes slung with slack fabric and his mouth twitched, disturbing the harsh line he’d drawn with his lips.
“Go on Anselm. The king is not a patient man. And I’m not in the mood for talking any more. Go to Owain, now. I’ll see you later, maybe.” I began to protest, but the moment had passed. He turned his back on me. I went with the servant, muttering some un-monklike curses under my breath. As I reached the castle door I looked back and saw Ieuan still there on the walls, leaning heavily on his staff, gazing across the water and looking very old.
Fortunately, it was quite a walk from the wall to the king’s chambers. By the time we arrived I had had the time to compose myself sufficiently to face anything he might throw at me - or so I thought. The servant knocked on the door, it was opened, and I was ushered in. The audience room was much the same as the night before, except that Owain and Gruach were sitting either side of the fire and there was no sign of Gawain. Owain was smiling as he stood to greet me, but his wife seemed less cheerful than when we had last met.
“Magister Anselm! I’m pleased to see you. Come in. My servants told me they couldn’t find you and I feared you had crept off and left us.” I explained where I’d been, though not the subject of my conversation with Ieuan. He waved a hand. “Fine, fine. Be that as it may, I’m glad you’re still here. You had a lot to talk about with your old friend, I understand, and there is much we have to discuss before you go on your way.” I had hoped to be on the road before the sun was old but it seemed I would be frustrated. “Get the Magister a chair, put it by the fire, here, then you may leave us. All of you. Sit down, Anselm.” The servants did as they were told, and I sat down.
“Gruach and I were discussing honour, Anselm. She’s of the opinion that there are few honourable men about, and that their number dwindles to nothing when put to the test. I was telling her the tale of the Britons of Dumnonia, how their king, Arthur, became High King of all the British, organised the resistance to the Saxon hordes and instituted an order of knights to protect the people of the realm. Not just the lords and princes, but the people themselves.” Owain was animated, excited.
“These kings and princes met at a Round Table, the story goes, round so that no-one was at the head and none was at the foot. No precedence or pride, you see. And in the time of peace that this King Arthur won - in alliance with the other British, of course - he persuaded them that they should go about doing good deeds, rescuing maidens from dragons, overthrowing tyrannical Lords and the like. Wasn’t that noble, my love?”
“I know the tales,” Gruach replied, with barely-concealed impatience. “Most of them are old, older than this Arthur. They’re fairy stories for children. I also know that his Kingdom collapsed in Civil War, a squalid fight between the king and his nephew I believe. That doesn’t strike me as very honourable at all.”
“Aye, that’s true, or so I hear. But it was the aim of his rule that was important. The generosity, protection of the weak, all of that. That’s what was important.”
“But he’s dead, my lord, and we are still beset by English, and Saxons - and others besides, begging your pardon, Anselm.” I waved away any offence. “And these great ideals seem to have died with him. He wasn’t prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice and give up his kingdom when he was old, and a younger, fitter and - dare I say - more popular man arose.”
“So if he’d given up his kingdom, you would have regarded him as noble and honourable?”
“If he’d been prepared to do so perhaps his much-proclaimed ideals would have outlasted his youth and vigour and power, so yes.”
“And that’s how you would judge true honour?”
“It would be an indication of true honour, yes.” I was feeling uneasy at the direction the conversation was taking. The King was itching to put one over on his wife, for whatever reason. She was aware of it, too, and was annoyed.
“You show me one man - not a god, or a legend out of the mists of time, but a man, an ordinary man, who was prepared to give up all he had for honour, then I will believe it is alive somewhere, though maybe not here, my Lord.” Owain was too euphoric to notice the barb. His leg was jiggling in excitement as he neared his goal. I wanted to leave, and asked permission to do so.
“Stay there, Anselm. I want you to stay. We’ll talk of other things in a moment, but I want to tell this tale.” He was still young, and arrogant with it, for all his intelligence, I thought, and I hoped the Queen would forgive him. “Let me tell you a story. A true story.
“There was a man in a country across the sea from here. He was a prince and, in the custom of his people, he had been brought up from an early age to be a co-ruler of his kingdom with his brother - or rather, foster brother - but rather like Gawain and me. In fact, I got the idea from this tale. The two boys were raised together from the time they were babies at the breast. They were born at the same hour, and were known as Dark Twins - not actual twins, but babies born at the same time. They played together, cried together, laughed and fought together, as little boys do. One was to be the warrior, leader in war, the other was to be the law-giver and principal ruler in peacetime. Quite a good idea, as it meant that the kingdom would never be without a king, even if the warrior was killed in battle or the law-giver died somehow.” He went on to relate my own boyhood and studentship at Innisgarbh and Donegal. I tried to stop him several times, or to leave, but Owain would have none of it. He ploughed on to the end, finishing with a detailed description of my killing of Coivin. He could only have learned it from Ieuan.
“And this was noble? It seems like just another killing to me.” Gruach said.
“But it wasn’t for himself, you see,” Owain replied. “It was for the girl, and his defence of her cost him everything.”