The only house in sight was the manse. It was built backed against the nearest green peak, but below the top of the mountain, for shelter, though its dark chimneys stood almost as high as the green summit. It was dark and upright and squeezed into itself, all high, narrow arches. You looked at it and wondered if i
t was a house built like a chapel or a chapel built like a house and then squeezed narrower. There was no sign of any garden, just that house backed into the hillside and a drystone wall sticking out from one end of it.
The stone driver was trudging across the grass with our bags to the narrow, arched front door. We followed him, through the door and into a tall dark hallway. He had gone somewhere else by the time we got indoors. But we had only been standing a moment, wondering what to do now, when a door banged echoingly further down the hall and my mother’s father came toward us.
He was tall and stiff and cold as a monument on a tomb. His black clothes—he was a priest, of course—made his white face look pale as death, but his hair was black, without a trace of gray. I noticed his hair particularly because he put a chilly hand on each of my shoulders and turned me to the light from the narrow front door. His eyes were deep and black, with dark skin round them, but I saw he was a very handsome man.
“So you are the young Arianrhod,” he said, deep and solemn. “At last.” His voice made echoes in the hall and brought me out in gooseflesh. I began to feel very sorry for Mam. “You have quite a look of my Annie,” he said. “Did she let you go willingly?”
“Yes,” I said, trying not to let my teeth chatter. “I said I’d come, provided my friend Gr—er … Ambrose Temple could come, too. I hope you can find room for him.”
He looked at Grundo then. Grundo gave him a serious freckled stare and said, “How do you do?” politely.
“I see he would be lonely without you,” my grandfather said.
He was welcome to think that, I thought, if only he would let Grundo stay. I was very relieved when he said, “Come with me, both of you, and I will show you to your rooms.”
We followed him up steep dark stairs, where his gown flowed over the wooden treads behind his straight back, and then along dark, wooden corridors. I had a queer feeling that we were walking right into the hill at the back of the house, but the two rooms he showed us to had windows looking out over the winding green hills, and they were both obviously prepared for visitors, the beds made up and water steaming in big bowls on the washstands. As if my grandfather had known I would be bringing Grundo. My bag was in one room, and Grundo’s was in the other.
“Lunch will be ready any moment,” my grandfather said, “and you will wish to wash and tidy yourselves first. But if you want a bath …” He opened the next door along and showed us a huge bathroom, where a bath stood on clawed animal feet in the middle of bare floorboards. “I hope you will give warning when you do,” he said. “Olwen has to bring up buckets from the copper.” Then he went away downstairs again.
“No taps,” said Grundo. “As bad as the bath tent.”
We washed and got ready quickly. When we met in the corridor again, we discovered that we had both put on the warmest clothes we had with us. We would have laughed about it, but it was not the kind of house you liked to laugh in. Instead we went demurely downstairs, to where my grandfather was waiting in a tall, chilly dining room, standing at the head of a tall black table.
He looked at us, pointed to two chairs, and said grace in Welsh. It was all rolling, thundering language. I was suddenly very ashamed not to understand a word of it. Grundo looked on calmly, almost as if he did understand, and sat quietly down when it was finished, still looking intently at my grandfather.
I was looking at the door, where a fat, stone-faced woman was coming in with a tureen. I was famished by then, and it smelled wonderful.
It was a very good lunch, though almost silent at first. There was the leek soup, enough for two helpings each, followed by pancakes rolled round meat in sauce. After that, there were heaps of little hot griddle cakes covered in sugar. Grundo ate so many of those that the woman had to keep making more. She seemed to like that. She almost had a smile when she brought in the third lot.
“Pancakes,” my grandfather said, deep and hollow, “are a traditional part of our diet in this country.”
I was thinking, Well, at least he didn’t starve my mother! But why is he so stiff and stern? Why doesn’t he smile at all? I’m sure my mother used to ask herself the same things several times a day. I was sorrier for her than ever.
“I know this is an awkward question,” I said, “but what should we call you?”
He looked at me in stern surprise. “My name is Gwyn,” he said.
“Should I call you Grandfather Gwyn then?” I asked.
“If you wish,” he said, not seeming to care.
“Might I call you that, too, please?” Grundo asked.
He looked at Grundo long and thoughtfully, almost as if he was asking himself what Grundo’s heredity was. “I suppose you have a right to,” he said at last. “Now tell me, what do either of you know of Wales?”
The truthful answer, as far as I was concerned, was, Not a lot. But I could hardly say that. Grundo came to my rescue—I was extremely glad he was there. Because Grundo has such trouble reading, he listens in lessons far more than I ever do. So he knows things. “It’s divided into cantrevs,” he said, “each with its lesser kings, and the Pendragon is High King over them all. The Pendragon rules the Laws. I know you have a different system of laws here, but I don’t know how they work.”
My grandfather looked almost approving. “And the meaning of the High King’s title?” he asked.
It felt just like having a test during lessons, but I thought I knew the answer to that. “Son of the dragon,” I said. “Because there is said to be a dragon roosting in the heart of Wales.”
This didn’t seem to be right. My grandfather said frigidly, “After a fashion. Pendragon is a title given to him by the English. By rights, it should be the title of the English King, but the English have forgotten about their dragons.”
“There aren’t any dragons in England!” I said.
He turned a face full of stern disapproval on me. “That is not true. Have you never heard of the red dragon and the white? There were times in the past when there were great battles between the two, in the days before the Islands of Blest were at peace.”