by Mary Balogh
She wriggled into a more comfortable position and sighed. “Stay with me, Papa,” she said.
“Of course.” He kissed her tousled curls. “Ah, there it is again. Listen to it with Papa’s arms about you. You see? It is not so very frightening after all, is it? Not when you are here and it is there.”
She sighed again and closed her eyes.
And yet it chilled him to the bone. Some poor stubborn men were being terrorized tonight and knew what they had to look forward to in a few nights’ time if they continued stubborn.
There were no more howlings. Just the three. Alex sat for longer than an hour in his daughter’s room, holding her fast asleep on his lap, before getting up and setting her gently back on her bed without unwrapping her from the bedcover. She did not stir. He gazed down at her with a love so intense that it almost hurt.
* * *
Siân woke instantly and sat up in bed to hug her legs and press her forehead against her knees. She was cold with terror. She doubted that it was a sound one could ever become accustomed to. It was intended to wake all sleepers and put terror into them. It succeeded.
Iestyn, she thought immediately. They would be after Iestyn again. She had spoken to him and he had assured her that he would not join the Chartist Association. Not when the men were to march with weapons and in such large numbers that the chances of a peaceful demonstration turning into a bloody riot were high. But surely they would not go after him again. Not twice.
She hated Scotch Cattle. She hated shows of violence and coercion. Could people not be allowed to decide for themselves what to do about major issues? Could not the majority rule without having to squash the minority? What use would unwilling men be in such a march, anyway?
“Siân?” It was Emrys’s voice. He was coming down the stairs. “Are you all right, fach? Frightened?”
“I wonder if anyone in this town is not frightened,” she said. “I hate this. I thought the ending of the strike would satisfy everyone for a while.”
“That has nothing to do with the demonstration,” he said, setting a reassuring arm about her shoulders when she got out of bed. “It is important that everyone join the march. It would not be very effective if twenty men went marching into Newport, now, would it? Anyone who blinked would not notice them passing at all.”
“All right, Siân?” Her grandfather had come downstairs too. “You stay put tonight, girl. No running off down to the Joneses’ to make sure young Iestyn is safe.”
“They won’t single him out again, will they?” she asked, begging for reassurance she knew they could not give.
But before they could give any answer at all, the howling began again, so close that they all jumped, and Emrys’s hand tightened painfully about Siân’s shoulder.
And then the door crashed inward, the latch shattering as it did so, and three large men wielding sticks and wearing sacks over their heads, with only slits for their eyes to look through, leaped into the kitchen while more stayed outside in the back garden.
“Bloody hell!” Emrys roared. “What do you want? You have the wrong place.”
“In the name of the good Lord,” Hywel Rhys said, drawing himself up to his full height, “state your business, Scotch Cattle.”
One of them spoke in a hoarse whisper, his voice muffled by the sack. He raised one of his arms to its full length and pointed.
“Siân Jones,” he said, “be warned. Informers are the scum of the earth. You will leave your employment at the castle and stay away from the Marquess of Craille if you do not want us to call on you again in three nights’ time. Be sensible. Acknowledge your guilt and atone for it by doing as you are told.”
“Get out of my house! Duw, Duw, what is the world coming to, then?” Gwynneth Rhys came storming down the stairs in a long white nightgown, her hair in two plaits over her shoulders, and picked up a broom. “Get out of my house, or I will sweep you out like dirt from under my feet.”
The Scotch Cattle turned unhurriedly and left the house. Gwynneth slammed the door behind them though there was no latch to hold it shut.
Terror sometimes had the effect of almost totally incapacitating a person physically, Siân found, while leaving the mind lucidly clear. She lost her legs, and her hands shook beyond her control. Her stomach wanted to heave itself empty and her lips and tongue were paralyzed. Her lungs were drawing in too much air and expelling too little.
They were going to come back for her in three nights’ time and drag her up onto the mountain and whip her, as Iestyn had been whipped. No, Grandad and Uncle Emrys would not allow it. Owen would not allow it. He would not. Oh, God, oh, God. Alexander!
“No, I have her, Dada,” Emrys was saying. “Do you stand aside and I’ll sit on the settle with her.”
He had lifted her up into his arms, Siân realized, and soon he was sitting on the settle with her cradled on his lap. Her grandfather was chafing her hands hard enough to hurt. Her grandmother was coaxing the dying embers of last evening’s fire into life and filling the kettle.
“She is just in shock,” Emrys was saying. “Breathe in and out slowly, fach. Let the breath come out. Count slowly—one, two three, in and one, two, three out. That’s it.”
“I’ll kill the bloody cowardly bastards for this,” Hywel said. “Picking on a woman, indeed to goodness. It is unheard of. It is against the teachings of the Good Book.”
Siân’s lucid mind registered a quite inappropriate amusement. Her grandfather would have reprimanded the Reverend Llewellyn himself if he had dared to swear in his house or in the hearing of women.
“That’s right, fach,” Emrys said. “You have it under control now. Just shock it was, and fright.”
Siân burrowed her head against his shoulder for a moment and then sat up. He lifted her to sit beside him on the settle, but still kept a protective arm about her.
“Well,” she said, spreading her hands on her lap and noting that they were shaking as badly as ever, “at least now I know what it is like.” She tried to laugh.
“My granddaughter, my own flesh and blood accused of being an informer.” Hywel had abandoned his efforts to chafe her hands and was standing, feet apart, shaking one fist at the back door. “I’ll bloody Scotch Cattle them if they dare to come back here. Let them dare face me man to man one at a time. I’ll bloody well Scotch Cattle them.”
“Hywel,” his wife said softly.
He looked at her blankly and then with awareness. “May the Lord forgive me,” he said, “and you too, Gwynneth. And Siân.”
“Well, if you don’t, Dada,” Emrys said, “I bloody well will. And don’t ask me to apologize.”
“Anyway,” Hywel said, more himself again, “they will not be coming back. Staying home here you will be tomorrow and every day after that until your wedding, Siân, fach, and letting your grandad and your uncle look after you. You can help Gran about the house. She needs help.”
“There will be the wedding to start cooking for any day now,” Gwynneth said. “You will be safe when you are married to Owen, Siân, fach. He will not stand for Scotch Cattle visiting in the middle of the night.”
“Neither will I, Mam,” Emrys said. “But they don’t exactly wait for an invitation, do they? They will have three days, Siân, to see that you have done what you are told. They will not come back. You will be safe. But until the wedding, anyway, I will sleep in this old cupboard down here and you will have my bed upstairs.”
“No,” Siân said, and felt suddenly as if she were two quite distinct persons, one standing back and observing in some amazement, and the other right inside her body, speaking and acting.
“It will be no sacrifice,” Emrys said with a chuckle. “Now that the nights are getting chillier, I will welcome the chance to sleep in a room where there has been a fire all day. My motives are selfish, you see, Siân. There, Mam has a cup of strong tea made for each of us. We will drink it down
and then it will be upstairs with you while I mend the latch.”
They all fell silent as the Scotch Cattle wailed again. A farewell salute from the hills. Only three howlings altogether—two from the hills and one from the town. They had come out solely for their visit to her, Siân thought.
“No,” she said when all was silent again outside. “I was not talking about the beds, Uncle Emrys. I meant no, I am not going to stay at home. I am not going to give up my job. I am not going to stop going to the castle.”
“Duw, Duw,” her grandmother said.
“As stubborn as a mule,” her grandfather said, anger in his voice. “As stubborn as our Marged.”
“It is a pity you are not married already,” Emrys said. “I know for a fact that Owen would take a hand to your backside, Siân, and a good thing it would be too, for all that I do not hold with beating women. Better Owen’s hand than Scotch Cattle’s whips, I say.”
“Oh, Siân, be sensible,” her grandmother said, and her face crumpled as she reached for her apron, which she was not wearing. She turned her head sharply to one side.
“That is exactly what they said.” Siân was beginning to feel terror turn to anger. Every word they had said was engraved on her mind as if it had been chiseled there. “‘Be sensible.’ Being sensible involves doing that which will save me from punishment. No. I will not be sensible. I am sorry, Gran. But I cannot be.”
“Fach,” Emrys said, “those whips hurt. You saw Iestyn’s back. Raw it was for days, and all he got was ten strokes. They usually give twenty. They spread you on the ground and tie your hands and feet to stakes. They bare your back.”
Gwynneth moaned.
The terror was back on Siân, cold in her nostrils, attacking her breathing. She counted again—one, two, three in, one, two, three out.
“Did you hear what they said?” she asked. “‘Acknowledge your guilt,’ they said, ‘and atone for it by doing as you are told.’ If I stop teaching and stay home here, I will be admitting that I told the Marquess of Craille about the meeting on the mountain. I did not tell him. I am not an informer. If I do as they demand, it will be only out of fear. I will not be controlled by fear.”
“It is to avoid the whips, Siân,” her grandmother said between sobs. “You will do it to avoid them, fach. And soon you will be married and leaving that old job anyway.”
“No,” Siân said. “If I once let fear dictate how I live my life, Gran, soon I will not be living it for myself at all. And I will not be able to live with myself either.”
“There is brave you are, little niece,” Emrys said, grudging admiration in his voice. “And there is foolish. Maybe Owen will use that hand even before you are married and save you from yourself.”
Hywel got up without a word, leaving behind a cup of tea he had hardly touched, and went upstairs.
Gwynneth cried quietly.
Siân doggedly drank her tea to the dregs, even though she had trouble swallowing each mouthful. She dared not let her mind dwell on three nights hence. She would talk to Owen. He knew she was innocent. He trusted her. He would save her.
“Right,” Emrys said when she was finished. “Upstairs with you, then, and to bed in my room.”
“There is no need,” she said.
“Siân.” He got to his feet and looked sternly down at her. “There is little enough either Dada or I will be able to do for you, girl, if you continue stubborn, no matter how tough we talk. If they come for you, they will take you even if we put up a fight. At least let me do this for you. Let me at least make them have to fight their way past me.”
She stood up and kissed him on the cheek. “All right,” she said. “Thank you, Uncle Emrys.”
“Foolish, brave girl,” he said. “I could shake the living daylights out of you. But it would do no good, would it?”
She shook her head.
“Up you go, then,” he said. “And you, Mam. Dry the eyes and blow the nose, is it? And console yourself with knowing that you have a granddaughter with more courage than sense. One of those warrior women she should have been, the ones I read about once in Sunday School when I was a lad, though why it was not the Bible I was reading I cannot remember. Amazons. That was them. Our Siân should have been an Amazon.”
Siân went upstairs and climbed into her uncle’s rumpled bed. She burrowed beneath the blankets and lay still, wrestling with her demons for an hour or more before falling asleep.
* * *
Josiah Barnes did not know why the Scotch Cattle had been out, he assured Alex when summoned the next morning. Someone had not wanted to go on strike, perhaps, though everyone had for the few hours it had lasted. Or perhaps someone did not want to join the Chartists in their next planned action. Barnes’s informer had told him about the demonstration—but not the reason the Cattle had been out last night. Everyone was too terrified of the Cattle to inform against them, he explained to Alex.
Owen Parry did not know, either. He had not even heard the Cattle. He was apparently a deep sleeper. Had they really been out last night? He had heard nothing about it. Alex, who had summoned him, asked him only once. He knew by now that there was no getting anything out of Parry that the man did not choose to disclose.
“I don’t want anyone hurt,” Alex said. “Especially in such a useless cause. A demonstration like the one planned by John Frost is doomed to failure. Perhaps to worse than failure. In the meantime, we have important matters to deal with here in Cwmbran. When may I meet with you and the other representatives of the workers?”
“We are not interested,” Owen said.
Alex stared at him in exasperation. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked. “How can you not be interested in the well-being of your own people? You are their leader and work to assert their rights, don’t you?”
“We are not interested in charity or in walking into the traps you set,” Owen said. “We will win equality and our rights in our own way. We will not be beholden to you.”
It was an answer so unexpected that Alex was quite unprepared to deal with it. “Do you speak for yourself?” he asked. “Or for everyone?”
“For everyone.” Owen looked at him steadily. “I am the leader, remember? I speak for my people.”
“Damn you,” Alex said. “What have you said to turn them against me? Have I not demonstrated goodwill enough? Is it not worth at least talking?”
Owen said nothing.
Alex nodded curtly. “It will have to be done another way, then,” he said. “Thank you, Parry. That will be all. Except for one thing. I believe I once told you that if the Scotch Cattle harmed my people again, I would hunt them down and deal out a like treatment. I meant what I said. I trust you will pass on the message.”
“I don’t know any Scotch Cattle,” Owen said. “No one does.”
Alex dismissed him with a nod.
What he should do, he thought, was have his bags packed and Verity’s and leave for the familiar world of his estates in England without delay. How could he keep trying to convince himself that he loved this valley and these people when hell could not be worse than living here? The lives of the people were almost intolerable, and yet they would do nothing to try to improve conditions. They hated him without reason—merely because he was English and the owner of Cwmbran, and it was ingrained in them to hate the owners.
But he knew he would not leave. There was a stubborn streak in him that he had not been fully aware of before coming here. Besides, he could not leave.
He sent up to the nursery to invite Siân to luncheon.
She knew, he thought, as soon as she joined him in the dining room later and he seated her at the table. Her face was pale and set and there were shadows beneath her eyes. She sat stiff and straight-backed on her chair. She had not once looked fully at him. She knew, all right.
He waited for the soup to be served and then dismissed the
servants, telling them that he and Mrs. Jones would help themselves to the other courses from the sideboard.
He took her hand in his as soon as they were alone. It was as cold as a block of ice. He raised it to his lips. “Three days has been too long a time,” he said. “Did you resent the invitation?”
She looked at him for the first time and shook her head.
He talked about Verity and their home in England. He talked about London and Brighton. He talked about his boyhood and university days. He spoke monologues. She looked as if she needed a good meal. He would not talk about anything that might take away her appetite. Not until the meal was done. Even so she ate precious little, he noticed.
“Siân,” he asked at last, “on whom did they call last night?”
Her eyes looked back into his, and it was almost as if a curtain dropped behind them. “Pardon me?” she said.
“The Scotch Cattle,” he said. “On whom did they call?”
She shook her head. A hint of fear in her eyes was immediately masked. “I don’t know,” she said. “Were they out last night?”
He sat back in his chair and regarded her steadily. “Your brother-in-law again?” he asked. “Is that it? Poor Siân.” He reached out to cover her hand with his.
“No.” She shook her head. “If they had called on Iestyn, I would have heard. It was not him. It was someone else.”
“But you don’t know who?”
She shook her head quickly, her eyes on her plate.
“Siân.” He curled his fingers beneath hers. “I thought you trusted me.”
“I do.” Her voice was very low.
“Tell me, then,” he said. “I want to help. I want to put an end to it—to the terror. I want to catch them at it.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “Scotch Cattle are enforcers. They enforce what the vast majority believes in. People may be terrified of them, but most people approve of what they do. They would not take kindly to your interfering.”
“Wouldn’t they?” He had not thought of that, either. Interference. Not help, but interference.