“Yes.” Idris nodded. “But I want to help her. If there is anything I can do.”
Geraint rested his hand lightly on the boy’s head. He was not sure what kind of communication was passing between them. Not sure at all. Or perhaps he just did not want to know.
“Go home now,” he said quietly.
But before he straightened up, he did something that took him quite by surprise. He wrapped his arms around the thin and ragged little figure and hugged him close.
“Life can be dangerous for little boys,” he said, “even when they are very brave little boys. Wait until you grow up, lad, and then you can show the world your mettle.”
He felt almost embarrassed when he finally stood up. But the little urchin did not linger. He was off up the hill again, bounding along with all the energy of childhood.
But before he did so, he gave Geraint one wide-eyed look that could surely not be misinterpreted. It was a look of pure devotion.
Hell and a million damnations!
Chapter 16
TUESDAY was wet and windy. But Wednesday was sunny and even warm, and the gentler breeze dried the ground by noon. The sky was clear and blue. The only trouble with the weather, Marged thought as she stood at the pigpen, her arms along the top of it, keeping Nellie company, was that it would be a light night with moon and stars.
Aled had passed the word along yesterday that tonight they would march with Rebecca again.
It would be a great deal easier to cross the hills. They would be able to see where they were setting their feet. But it would be a great deal easier too for them to be seen. Word had it that the Earl of Wyvern and Sir Hector Webb and the other landowners had called out special constables and that they had sent for soldiers. And of course they had issued threats and were searching for informers.
Marged felt far more nervous than she had felt the first time. She found it difficult to settle to anything all day. Her nerves were tense with fear. Fear for herself and fear for her friends. Anyone who is caught will be dealt with harshly, he had said. You know all about that, Marged.
She shivered and tickled one of Nellie’s ears. Yes, she was mortally afraid of being caught, of being locked in prison, of being tried and sentenced, of . . . But fear was not going to hold her back. Fear was necessary for one’s own safety, Eurwyn had told her once. But it could also be one’s greatest enemy, making one a coward, preventing one from doing what one knew should be done.
No, it was not going to hold her back.
But she feared too for Rebecca. Mrs. Williams had heard—probably from Mr. Harley—that they were offering a reward of five hundred pounds for his capture. Five hundred pounds! It was a vast fortune. Would anyone be tempted? Anyone who knew who he was? There must be some people who knew. But a betrayer would not have to know his identity. He would only have to betray the time and place of the next gate smashing and be sure that constables were lying in wait.
They would catch Rebecca and others too as a bonus.
“Nellie, love,” she said, rubbing the pig’s snout and straightening up resolutely, “there is butter to be churned and you are keeping me gossiping here. For shame!”
She punished the butter inside the dairy to alleviate her fears. But it was not all fear. There was the inevitable excitement too. Saturday night had been incredibly exhilarating. Although there had been destruction, it had all been done in such a disciplined manner that it had not seemed a thing of horror. And they had accomplished something, she believed. They had shown that there were limits to which the poor could be pushed without fighting back. They had shown that they were not without spirit and courage.
And there was the other excitement too. She had to admit it to herself. She would see him again. Rebecca. She had been so very impressed with his air of command, with his dignity, with his compassion for the gatekeepers of Penfro. And she had hugged to herself since Saturday her memories of him as a man. It had been a magical ride they had shared and a magical kiss. She knew she would remember both for the rest of her life.
Her hands stilled on the butter churn. She was behaving like a young girl over her first kiss. But it was not a happy comparison. She thought of the eighteen-year-old Geraint kissing her sixteen-year-old self and the wonder of it and the conviction that the love she had felt would brighten all the rest of her life. And she thought of him as he had been on Monday, handsome and virile in his shirtsleeves while he picked stones, cold-eyed and autocratic as he spoke afterward about Rebecca and her followers.
She did not want to think about Geraint. She wanted to think of Rebecca. And she wanted tonight to be a repetition of Saturday night. But she knew that something so wonderful could not be repeated—just as there had been no repetition when she was sixteen. The next time she had met Geraint he had tried to . . . Somehow, thinking back on it now, it did not seem so very dreadful. He had tried to make love to her. At the time she had known nothing. She had had her head and her heart full of sweet romance and kisses and young love. She had known nothing about the yearnings of the body, nothing about the carnal act of love. She had been sickened and terrified.
She wondered what would have happened if she had known more. Would she still have stopped him? Would he have stopped? Would they have loved, there on the hillside? And what would have happened afterward? Would that have been the end of it? Or the beginning?
“Marged? What is the matter, girl?” Her mother-in-law’s voice brought her back to reality with a start, and she realized that she was clutching the butter churn and staring into space.
“Oh.” She laughed. “I am taking a breather, Mam, that is all. Is Gran still sleeping?”
“You go in and have a cup of tea, fach,” her mother-in-law said. “There is some warm in the pot and nice and strong. I’ll take over here, is it? You are working too hard, Marged.”
Marged relinquished her place at the butter churn with some guilt and some relief. “A cup of tea sounds lovely, Mam,” she said. “Thank you.”
She must expect nothing of tonight except a long, hard march and the smashing of a gate at the end of it. And a long, hard march home. She must not think of the danger. And she must not expect that Rebecca would even notice her tonight, let alone give her a ride home. And kiss her.
It would be enough just to see him and to dream of how he must look beneath the rather bizarre disguise.
Except that she knew it would not be enough at all.
Some special constables had been sworn in by the magistrates of the area. A few more had been sent from Carmarthen. Geraint knew that more attacks were expected this week. The logical gates to attack were the ones along the same road as the Penfro gate. Constables had been quietly posted at two of them in the hope that at least one of them would be the next target.
And so tonight the gates to go would be two on the road south of Glynderi, across the river. They were strategic gates. The farmers had to travel south to the lime kilns. Many of them would have to pass these two gates. And they belonged to two different trusts—two tolls to pay even though there were no more than two miles between the gates.
He wondered tonight what he had stirred up. His fellow landowners were outraged and determined at all costs to stamp out the protests. The constables had guns. So would the soldiers if and when they came. Perhaps he had begun something that could only lead to violence and defeat. After all, very few protests or uprisings against the established ruling classes ever succeeded. The chances were strong that this one would not.