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?”
“Aled is right, Marged, fach,” 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.