“No!” a few bold voices said quite firmly. They were followed by a chorus of agreement. If he had demanded it at that moment, Geraint knew, they would have rushed the gate for him, leaving a few dead behind them when they left again.
Rebecca did not lower her arms. “We will make a wide circle about this gate,” she said. “No one is to be seen or heard. You will wait, out of sight and silent, my children, and let your mother do the talking. You will not show yourselves or put yourselves in any danger until I give the clear signal. This is understood?”
“Yes, Mother,” Charlotte said while there was a swell of agreement from the men gathered around.
“Go now, then,” Rebecca said. “My daughters will lead you. I will wait for ten minutes.” She lowered her arms slowly and watched her daughters and her children move off into the darkness, all perfectly disciplined. This sort of situation had been discussed and planned with the daughters. Now was the time to see if it worked.
Charlotte was the one daughter who stayed close to Rebecca. And with them stayed the men—and one woman—from Glynderi. Marged was close by. Perhaps it was the most dangerous place for her to be, but Geraint felt the need to have her within his sight. He looked at her consideringly for a moment, but he knew it would be pointless to order her to go back.
She looked up at him and their eyes met for the first time. He saw the flash of her teeth in the darkness.
Damn the woman—she was enjoying this.
She should be afraid, she knew. And perhaps she was in a way. Certainly there was an almost tangible tension in the men gathered about Rebecca and Aled, the only two on horseback. A few hundred others had melted away into the darkness and were forming a wide and silent circle about the tollgate and tollhouse below—and about the two men with guns who were lying in wait for them there.
For the first time there was real danger. Some of them could be captured with those guns. Some of them would be killed. And yet instead of retreating, they were going to go forward.
But she was not afraid. Not really. Rebecca was sitting on his horse’s back, quite still, quite calm and confident. And she trusted him. Perhaps it was foolish, this almost blind trust she had felt from the first moment, before there had been any question of more personal feelings. But she did trust him. And instead of fear in its most mind-numbing form, she felt exhilaration and the anticipation of adventure.
She met his eyes for the first time and knew, despite the mask, that he was considering speaking to her, advising her or commanding her to go back home, where it was safe. But she knew too that he would not say the words. He would know that she would refuse and that the necessity to exact obedience from all his followers would put him in an awkward position. And so he would not speak. They had met—incredibly—only twice before, but there were certain things they understood very well about each other. She smiled at him.
He had noticed her, he had considered her safety, and he had respected her right to decide for herself what she was going to do about it. It was enough. He had made clear that he wanted no continued involvement with her. But he had also proved to her that he cared. And that fact had been confirmed in just that one considering glance.
No, she was not really afraid. But she could hear her heart beating in her ears as she waited silently with everyone else. Even Rebecca and Aled did not speak to each other. Ten minutes seemed longer than an hour.
But they passed eventually. Rebecca raised one arm, bent at the elbow.
“We will move forward,” he said. “But you will stop when I give the word, my children. Only your mother must be seen from the road below.”
He was going to show himself. And there were men with guns below. And perhaps more lying in ambush. Did they know that there were not? But if there were, those men would have seen them by now and raised the alarm. Marged hoped he would keep back out of gunfire range. Her heart was beating harder and more painfully.
They walked silently for a short while until they approached a rise that Marged guessed would bring them in sight of the road. Rebecca raised a staying hand. And then rode on alone, slowly, to stop again at the top of the rise.
At the same moment clouds scudded by and the moon beamed down.
“Ho, there below!” Rebecca called, and held his horse quite still. He estimated that he was beyond the range of any shot from the house. He wondered if the people inside could feel the silence pulsing outside.
After his second call, the gatekeeper came out slowly and looked uneasily about him. And then he looked up and saw Rebecca on the hill. He took a step back toward the door.
“Stay where you are,” Rebecca commanded him. “And call the others outside too.”
“There is just me,” the keeper called in a thin, nervous voice. “I have no family. And I have no quarrel with you, Rebecca.”
“Call them out,” Rebecca said. “With their guns. You are surrounded by three hundred men. It will be safer to surrender.” In other parts of the country there were always guns among the rabble. It would be assumed that they too had guns. It was safe to expect that their bluff would not be called.
“There is no one else here,” the gatekeeper said after one nervous glance over his shoulder.
“They have until the count of ten before I ask my children to close in,” Rebecca said. “One.”
The gatekeeper looked up and down the road and uneasily about at the hills.
“Two.”
“There is no one with you,” the man called. “And there is no one with me.”
“Three.”
They came out when the count reached six—two constables, each with a gun in his hand.
“Walk to the middle of the road and set the guns down,” Rebecca said, “and then go back with your hands raised. One of you can then return to the house and bring out the other guns.” He was guessing.
“There are no other guns,” one of the constables called, his voice angry. He too looked around at the silent hills. “You are bluffing, whoever you are.”
“Seven.”
Four guns lay side by side on the road and three men stood with their arms raised above their heads when Rebecca’s voice was in the pause between nine and ten.
Rebecca raised both arms and the gatekeeper’s hands shook visibly. “My children,” she said, raising her voice to be heard among the hills, “I see before me a gate that is obstructing the free passage of your mother and your brothers and sisters. And three men who have thought to defend it. They are doing what they are employed to do. They will not be harmed. They will leave the scene now, and you will come down, my children, when I lower my arms and destroy this gate and this house.”
The three men below looked about them uncertainly and then lowered their arms and turned to disappear into the hills on the far side of the road.
“Let them pass through the line unmolested,” Rebecca called. After allowing them a few minutes to make their escape, he brought down his arms.
Everything went smoothly after that. The guns were gathered up by two men who had been directed to the task, and piled beside the road to be removed later. And the gate and the house were destroyed as quickly and efficiently as usual.
Geraint sat and watched. But a sound different from the usual hubbub of voices and tools had him turning his head sharply when the job was almost completed. It was the high-pitched, piping voice of a child calling him. Calling Rebecca. And then the child was beside him, reaching to clutch his boot and gazing urgently into his face.