“Nay; he was not with us when we made that last rally.  He commenced the march with us, but his wound broke out again, and we were forced to leave him behind.  He and a handful of faithful servants from Iscennen and Dynevor were to try and push on to the stronghold of Einon ap Cadwalader, and ask counsel and assistance from him.  In old days he and our father were friends.  Although he was one of the few who did not join Llewelyn in this rising, he has ever been well-disposed towards his countrymen.  So we hoped our brother would find shelter and help there.  If he had tried to march with us, he must assuredly have died.”

“Ha!” said Alphonso smilingly, “methinks Llewelyn will have no trouble in gaining entrance there.  Rememberest thou the Lady Arthyn, who was with us at Rhuddlan when thou wast there before?  She hath left us of late to return to her father, whose loyalty has been proved, and whose request for his child was listened to graciously.  But we shall be seeing them soon again, for my father betrothed Arthyn’s hand to Raoul Latimer, whom doubtless thou rememberest as a somewhat haughty and quarrelsome lad.  Time has softened down some of his rude tempers, and he has ever been eager for the match.  My father has promised her hand in troth plight to him, and we await the coming of her and her father for the ceremony of betrothal.

“If I remember rightly, she was always a friend to thy brother.  If so, he will find a ready welcome at her father’s house, for my Lady Arthyn always had a soft spot in her heart for those we called rebels.  She was a true daughter of Wales, albeit she loved us well, and she will like thy brother none the less that his sword has been unsheathed against the English usurper.”

And then the prince and the rebel subject both laughed, and that laugh did more to bring them back to their old familiar relations than all that had gone before.

Griffeth was easily led on to tell the story of the life at Dynevor these past years; and Alphonso better understood from his unconscious self-betrayal than from his previous explanation how the fire of patriotic love burned in the hearts of these brothers.  He thought that had he been one of them he would have acted even as they had done, and there was no anger but only a pitying affection in his heart towards one whose life was overshadowed by a cloud so like the one which hung upon the horizon of his own sky.

For it was plain to him that Griffeth’s hold on life was very slight; that he was suffering from the same insidious disease which was sapping away his own health and strength.  He had suspected it years before, and this supposition had made a link between them then; now he was certain of it, and certain, too, that the end could not be very far off.  The fine constitution of the young Welshman had been undermined by the rigours of the past winter, and there was little hope that the coming summer would restore to him any of the fictitious strength which had long buoyed up Wendot with the hope that his brother would yet live to grow to man’s estate.