by Mary Balogh
"Fool!" Sir Hector said again.
"I suppose it is understandable," Harley said. "He was, after all, one of them as a child. It must be difficult—"
"My brother-in-law was a greater fool than his son!" Sir Hector's voice had lost none of its viciousness. "But that is not the point now. He must be controlled, Harley. Once these Welsh farmers have spotted a weakness, they will exploit it. Before we know it, we will be having Rebecca Riots in this part of the country as well as in others. And it will all be Wyvern's fault."
"Perhaps," Harley said, "he will take warning from all the accidents that have been happening at Tegfan lately. He must have realized by now that they are not really accidents at all."
They had been strolling along beside the hedge surrounding the sheep pasture. But Sir Hector stopped and looked inquiringly at Tegfan's steward. He laughed shortly when he had heard the account of the "accidents."
"If we are fortunate, Harley," he said, "his feelings will be hurt and he will crawl back to England and allow his estate to be run by those who know how to run it. If we are fortunate. In the meanwhile we need to keep a careful eye on the situation. The people are restless and word travels. There are gates being pulled down in Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire and even in this county. Do you have any informants?"
"I have never needed any," Harley said.
"Then it is time you did." Sir Hector began to walk again back in the direction of the house. "They are not difficult to come by. Someone who is in your debt. Someone who has a grudge against his neighbors." He looked assessingiy at the other man. "Some woman. You are a fine enough young fellow, Harley. Get some woman panting over you. Women are loose-tongued as any man could wish when they fancy themselves in love."
Harley thought of Ceris Williams, whom he was officially courting. He had found himself unexpectedly hot for her during the last couple of weeks. In addition to being pretty and sweet-natured, she seemed taken with him. She held his hand when they walked and listened attentively to what he said. She returned his kisses. She had even allowed him last night to fondle her breasts through the fabric of her dress, though she had pushed his hands away at first.
He did not doubt that he could use her as an informer. But the problem was—did he want to? He did not like the idea of mixing business with pleasure, and Ceris Williams was definitely pleasure. He even thought he might be falling a little in love with her. But then business—his position, the power he had enjoyed—had always been more important to him than any pleasure. And both were threatened at the moment, threatened by the presence of his employer at Tegfan and by the tense situation with the farmers.
Sir Hector Webb chuckled. "That silenced you," he said. "Thinking of all the Welsh maidens you can tumble and milk for information, are you, Harley?"
"I will keep a close eye on the situation, sir," he said. "I'll keep you informed."
"Good man." Sir Hector slapped a hand on his shoulder. "These London beaux are all the same, you know. They know nothing about anything and think they know everything about everything. I'll not forget who really runs Tegfan and has kept it such a prosperous estate. And Lady Webb will not forget, either."
"Thank you, sir," Harley said.
Marged had kept herself busy for almost two weeks. She had let the cattle out to pasture and had cleaned the barn with such thoroughness that her mother-in-law declared it was as clean as the kitchen. She had prepared the plow for the seeding and she had wandered slowly back and forth across the field, picking up the heavy stones that never failed to accumulate as if by magic every spring. It was heavy and backbreaking work that had used to exhaust even Eurwyn. He had never allowed her to help. Now she did it almost alone except for a little uninvited help from young Idris Parry, who spent a whole afternoon keeping up to her pace so that he could chat nonstop. So much like Geraint as he had used to be! She gave him some food to take up to his family and offered a few coins she could ill afford. He refused them.
She worked harder than she needed to. At first she was driven by fear. He had thought perhaps that she was a mere onlooker rather than a participant in the accidents that had been happening. But if he had seen her on that slope, the chances were good that he had seen her come from the direction of the house. Once he returned home and saw his bed, he would know. And perhaps he would guess that she was the leader he had asked her to identify.
She did not believe he would have her arrested. He would make himself look too foolish. But telling herself that with her mind and convincing her body that it was so were two quite different matters. She feared prison with an icy fear. She feared the hulks. She feared a foreign land and slave labor—perhaps chains, perhaps whips.
She lived with terror night and day and despised herself and held herself so stonily calm and aloof that even Gran noticed and asked her if she was feeling ill.
After several days the fear subsided. But in its place came a loathing even stronger than she had felt before. She could not bear to see him ever again. She could not bear to see him alive and handsome and—yes, and suffocatingly attractive while Eurwyn was long in his grave. Though he was not even there. She did not even have the comfort of a grave to attend. Eurwyn's remains were somewhere on the ocean floor. She could not bear to see the Earl of Wyvern and remember that she had wanted him the night he had taken her home and kissed her palms.
She even avoided chapel on the first Sunday, persuading her mother-in-law to go for a change instead. Someone had to stay at home with Gran. It was a convenient excuse. She did go on the second Sunday, but shrinking inside with dread. He did not come.
And she went to choir practice on the Thursday following. It was unlikely she would encounter him between Ty-Gwyn and the chapel. She had heard that he had had the salmon weir removed from his land. Perversely, she did not want to believe it. Or she did not want to believe it had anything to do with her or Eurwyn. She did not want him to do her any kindness. Anyway, it had come two years too late. It would not bring Eurwyn back.
Chapter 12
Singing was a balm to the soul. She had always known it and it was proved again. Even singing to herself while she was about her daily work was soothing. But singing with other people, hearing the richness of harmony all about her and lending her voice to it was as wonderfully soothing as a bathe in the river on a hot day. More so. She prolonged the practice, singing more hymns than they needed for the coming Sunday.
No one objected.
But when she finally signaled the end of practice, Aled jumped to his feet and held up his hands for silence.
"I have something of importance to say," he said. His face was pale and set, Marged noticed. "Those of you who do not wish to hear it may leave now. There will be no compulsion put upon anyone as there is in some other places."
Marged's heart leapt and began to beat uncomfortably. This was it, then. She could tell from Aled's voice that it was not the usual news of delay that he was about to impart. She looked fixedly at him as a few people got to their feet and left the schoolroom, among them Ceris, who hurried out, her eyes directed at the floor.
"Well," Aled said when the door had closed again, "the time has come. All is planned. The night after tomorrow. Every man who wishes to follow me should meet me down by the river after dark."
"Gate breaking?" Dewi Owen asked. "Which one is to go, Aled? Or which ones? I am with you every step of the way, man."
"I cannot say which," Aled said. "The less you know the better, Dewi. I am sorry but that is the way it must be."
"Rebecca?" Marged leaned forward in her chair. "There is a Rebecca, Aled?"
"Yes." He nodded curtly. "We have found a Rebecca, Marged."
"Oh, who?" She found that she was agog with eagerness.
He shook his head. "I cannot say that either," he said. "It is safer for everyone if almost no one knows his identity."
She was disappointed. "But he is not from here?" she asked. "No, he cannot be. But is he anyone we know? Anyone from close to here?"
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br /> "Aled is right, Marged, fetch," Ifor Davies said. "It is better we do not know. No one can squeeze out of us what we do not know, girl."
"But is he suitable?" She could not let it alone. "He is not someone who has been pressed into it against his will, Aled? Or someone who is merely a daredevil with no sense of responsibility? Or someone who is ruthless and will do more destruction than is necessary?"
"He will do, Marged," Aled said. "He will be the best Rebecca there has been, I believe."
She raised her eyebrows. Aled was not given to wild enthusiasms. This was praise indeed.
"I will show my support of him and my trust in him by being one of his daughters," Aled said. He smiled faintly. "Charlotte."
Charlotte was, by tradition, Rebecca's favorite daughter. The leader's right-hand man. Rebecca must indeed be someone Aled believed in. Marged was more curious than ever.
"Bring with you crowbars or anything else that will help destroy gates and tollhouses," Aled said. "But no guns or anything else designed specifically to harm people. There is to be no violence shown to any people. Rebecca has made it a firm condition of her service to us, and I support her wholeheartedly."
"Duw," Eli Harris said, "but there are a few gatekeepers I would not mind putting the fear of God into—with my fists or something a little more convincing."
"Rebecca will not tolerate a rabble," Aled said. "He will expect a disciplined army and he will demand obedience. Anyone who cannot accept that would do better to stay at home."
Eli grumbled to himself, but he appeared to have no supporters.
Rebecca, Marged thought, was winning her respect with every passing minute. She hoped Aled was not exaggerating. But where had this man been hiding all this time?
"I am all for you, Aled, and for Rebecca," she said. "At least something will be done to speak loudly and clearly to the government. At last the likes of Geraint Penderyn, Earl of Wyvern, will have something rather more serious to bother him than a few stray mice and escaped horses and ashes in his bed. I can hardly wait to see how he reacts."
Aled looked steadily back at her. "I imagine he will be very angry, Marged," he said.
She smiled brightly at him. "I hope so," she said. "Duw, but I hope so."
He had forgotten the feeling. He had lived with it for years, this combination of excitement and fear, the one inextricably a part of the other. He had been a child then, poaching for a living, thrilled by the sheer delight of snaring food for himself and his mother, titillated by the knowledge that sure punishment awaited him if he were caught.
He was a man now and realized that for many years life had been tame. Not that he had not enjoyed it, but it had been without challenge. His boyhood exuberance returned to him as if the intervening years had fallen away. There was a new challenge on which to focus all his energies. He was to lead the Rebecca Riots in this part of Wales. There would be perhaps a few hundred men to lead and control and keep safe. There was his identity to be kept secret from both sides—from both the authorities and the men he led. There was his own safety to be guarded against possible informers. There were always large rewards offered for the capture of a Rebecca, he had been told.
And there was the fear. Definitely the fear. Fear that he would be unable to control his men and that he would be merely creating a mob that would wantonly destroy property and perhaps harm people. And fear of being caught. Transportation for life—that was what lay in wait for any Rebecca who was caught. None had been yet. Perhaps in this case, since he was a landowner and an aristocrat and would be seen as someone who had betrayed his own class and perhaps his country—in his case, perhaps the ultimate penalty.
Geraint had made his appearance before the committee, conducted to their meeting blindfolded, as he had suggested, by a grim Aled. He had been kept behind a screen in a darkened room. For longer than an hour he had made his case and answered questions and withstood a thorough grilling. He had lost hope. They were not going to accept him. But they had. Perhaps they thought they had little to lose. If he failed, if he was somehow trying to set a trap, they would be safe. He had seen none of them except Aled. It was clear to him that they had even disguised their voices.
He had set his conditions. Only tollgates and tollhouses were to be destroyed. There was to be no damage to private property. There was to be no harm done to any person. No one was to be coerced into joining the rioters, as was happening in other areas. No one was to carry a gun. And one gate was to be exempt. There was a gate on Tegfan land, the Cilcoed gate, kept by an elderly woman, Mrs. Dilys Phillips. He had given her the word of the Earl of Wyvern that he would protect her from all harm.
And so he had a third identity. He was Geraint Penderyn and the Earl of Wyvern—and now Rebecca. He was to become Rebecca for the first time on Saturday night. His disguise had been found for him and was safely stowed away in a derelict gamekeeper's hut at the northern tip of the park. He had studied the rituals that were always observed at a gate breaking. They were foolish rituals, perhaps, as was the whole idea of Rebecca and her daughters, but he knew that sometimes ritual had its function in giving form and orderliness to a situation that was fraught with dangers. He thought Saturday night would never come.
He found himself unable to settle to anything for the intervening days but wandered restlessly about the house and park. He found it difficult to eat. He found it almost impossible to sleep.
He was excited and afraid.
She was terribly afraid. Perhaps more afraid than she had ever been in her life. But, no, that was not true. She had been more afraid when Eurwyn had been out trying to destroy that weir. And her feelings at his trial and afterward had gone beyond fear. Fear was a dreadful emotion when it was accompanied by utter helplessness.
There was an element of excitement and exhilaration mingled with this fear. And this time she was not helpless. She was doing something. She was in control of her own destiny.
Her mother-in-law and grandmother always went to bed early. Sometimes Marged regretted the fact. Evenings could be long when they were spent alone. But tonight she was glad. She dressed quickly and quietly in the old breeches and jacket she had cut down from Eurwyn's size to her own. She pulled a woolen cap over her head and then stooped down by the fire to blacken her face with some of the cooled ashes she had mixed with a little water.
Wet ashes. Her hand paused for a moment over the dish.
But she would not think about him or about what she had done to his bed. She had not seen him for two weeks and she could not be happier. It seemed that the less than warm welcome he had received from them all and the "accidents" that had befallen him had had the desired effect. He had retreated into the house and park of Tegfan. Perhaps soon he would retreat all the way to London. Perhaps the riots that were to start tonight would drive him away.
She could not somehow imagine Geraint running from danger, though. But then she was remembering him as a daring urchin. She did not know anything now about the state of his courage. Except, she thought unwillingly, that it must have taken courage both to go to chapel and to go to Mrs. Howell's birthday party. She had not thought of it that way before. And did not want to think it now. Or to think of him.
She slipped out of the house quietly, closing both the kitchen and the outside doors slowly, hoping that her absence would go unnoticed. She did not want the other two women involved in what she had decided to do. It would be unfair. They had suffered enough anxiety with Eurwyn.
She hoped she was not too late. She wanted desperately to be part of this first mass demonstration. She wanted to be a part of all of them, even though they would become progressively more dangerous as the authorities were alerted to trouble. It was a very dark night. Heavy clouds hid the moon and the stars. It was better so. And yet bounding downhill was not an easy thing to do. She hoped she would be in time.
She was. They were gathered at the river beyond Glynderi, perhaps twenty-five men, and more joined them within the next few minutes. They were a
ll on foot except for the one figure on horseback, wearing a dark flowing robe and a dark woman's wig. His face was blackened. Rebecca, Marged thought for a moment, and her heart beat faster. But he rode closer to her and looked down at her.
"Marged?" he said in Aled Rhoslyn's voice. "You should not be here, girl. Go home now where it is safe, is it? It is enough that Eurwyn worked for the cause."
It was Aled, of course, looking grotesque but somehow menacing as Charlotte. Rebecca was from somewhere else. And Rebecca, if tradition was being followed, would be clad recklessly in white.
She shook her head. "I am not going anywhere but with you. Aled," she said. "You will not drive me away. Unfortunately it is gates we will pull down and not Tegfan, but Geraint will know after tonight that he has powerful enemies. I am one of those enemies and I will not cower at home."
"We will be walking for many miles over the hills," he said. "It will be a long, hard night, Marged."
"And chapel in the morning?" she said, smiling broadly at him. "I will not have any of my choir missing, mind, and staying in their beds to catch up on sleep."
"Well, then," he said, wheeling his horse away from her, "don't complain to me of blisters."
He had not exaggerated. He led them straight into the hills and over the crest—and through valleys and over other hills. Miles and miles of walking. Most of the time he walked with them, leading his horse by the reins. There was not a great deal of talking. They picked up more men as they went and two more "daughters." There must have been more than a hundred of them eventually, Marged guessed, all moving together and so quietly that no one standing close by who did not know of their presence would have suspected it.
And then suddenly it seemed that they were to join forces with another group at least as large and as close-packed and as quiet as their own. Marged, who was walking almost at the head of her own group, close to Aled, felt a thrill of excitement and fear again. At the head of the new group, seated on a large dark horse, was a figure dressed in a flowing white robe and a long blond wig. Even the face looked white—masked, Marged realized, rather than blackened.