Idris Parry.
Geraint leaned down. “What is it, child? What are you doing here?” He felt anger well in him.
“You have to leave,” Idris called. He was gasping for air and his eyes were wild with excitement and panic. “They know where you are. They are coming for you. They will have you trapped.”
Geraint did not doubt the boy for a moment. He knew from experience that children like Idris Parry saw and heard a great deal more than anyone else would ever guess.
“They are coming,” the child cried, pointing back in the direction of Tegfan. “I ran on ahead.”
Geraint did not waste time asking questions. He did not know quite who they were or how many there were. But they would undoubtedly have guns. His men would be in danger. He looked at Aled.
“Fetch this child’s father,” he said. “Quickly.”
But Waldo Parry must have been close by and had heard his son’s voice. He was grabbing him by both arms even as Geraint spoke, fury in his face and his whole bearing.
“He has come to save us all,” Rebecca said firmly. “Treat him gently. But get him out of here. Fast.”
He raised his arms wide and called for attention. It seemed that it would be impossible to achieve when the work of destruction was hardly completed, but such was the power of his presence, it seemed, that silence fell by some miracle almost immediately.
“There are armed men on the way, my children,” Rebecca said loudly and distinctly. “Go now quickly and be careful.”
Men scrambled away in all directions. Rebecca stayed where she was.
“Go!” he commanded Aled when his friend hesitated and then stayed beside him.
But there was someone else too at the side of the road, not running with everyone else.
“Go quickly,” she yelled at him. “It is you they will want more than anyone.”
He would have waited until the last of his people were safely out of sight. But he had to get her to safety. He spurred his horse, scooped Marged up when he was already in motion, deposited her on the horse’s back in front of him, and galloped up into the hills, Aled close beside him. With any luck none of the fleeing men would run into whoever it was that was coming to catch them red-handed as they destroyed a tollgate. And even if any of them were caught, unless it was himself or Aled or one of the other disguised daughters, it would not be easy to prove that they had participated in the destruction.
The danger was not past, but he drew a deep breath of relief anyway and spared a glance for Marged, who was clinging to him with both arms. But a sudden thought had him reining in hard and turning in his saddle to look back down at the road, bathed in moonlight again. Damnation, but he had forgotten the guns. Perhaps it was just as well, though. He wanted nothing at all to do with firearms.
Aled pulled up beside him.
And in that moment, before they could turn and continue on their way, a lone figure darted out onto the road a short distance from the place where the gate and house had been. A female figure. She stood and looked about her, clearly bewildered, clearly not knowing where to go or what to do.
“Duw,” Aled whispered. “Oh, Duw, it’s Ceris.”
And he was galloping back down the slope before Geraint had quite had the chance to comprehend what he had said.
“Ceris?” Marged sat up to peer downward. “Ceris?”
“She must have found out too,” he said, “and came to warn us.” He could not go back down there with Aled. He had Marged’s safety to consider.
But it was all over in a matter of seconds. Aled was back down on the road, Ceris was swept up while his horse was still in full gallop, and they were back on the slope. At the same moment two figures appeared at the far side of the road, one of them bent to pick up one of the guns, and there was a shot. The horse came galloping on, Aled and Ceris still on its back, apparently unhurt.
Marged had a death grip on his robe and on the clothes beneath it, Geraint realized.
“They are safe,” she said.
Aled came speeding up the slope. Ceris’s face was buried against his chest. “Get out of here,” he yelled. “What are you waiting for?”
After a few yards of galloping side by side, they took separate directions.
Chapter 21
MATTHEW Harley had taken longer than he expected to get back to the constable, Laver. He had been unable to find the Earl of Wyvern and had wasted precious time searching for him. No one seemed to know where he had gone. But luck was with Harley in the form of one of the other constables, who had stayed at Tegfan in case he was needed for some emergency. And of course Laver would make sure that Ceris did not leave her father’s house without having her movements shadowed.
Ceris! Harley had to quell a pang of guilt. But if she stayed at home as she ought, then no harm would have been done and she would have won his trust.
But would he have been worthy of hers?
He took the other constable with him, and they found Laver in the village. Ceris was there, going from one house to another, it seemed. She had gone to the house behind the smithy first.
Harley felt that his heart must be somewhere in the area of his boots. And then he saw her for himself, hurrying from the harness maker’s house. She went straight down the street, not stopping again. Her pace quickened. She was running by the time she left Glynderi behind.
It was not difficult to follow her. She alternately ran and walked fast. She did not once look back. A few times, when clouds obscured moon and stars, it was difficult to see her, but she made no attempt at evasion. She led them on a straight, if hilly, path to the road and a gate a few miles away.
They were too late. That was obvious as soon as they came over a rise and could see the road below them. The gate and the house were down and men were fleeing in every direction. Some even passed close enough that they might have been apprehended if Harley and the constables had not already decided to pit their meager forces only against Rebecca herself or one of the daughters in their distinctive women’s garb.
Either the job had been completed and the men had dispersed in the natural course of things, or they had somehow been warned that someone was coming—someone who might pose a threat. Perhaps there had been spies in the hills. Certainly it could not have been Ceris. She was not far enough ahead. Even as Harley looked he could see her rush onto the road and look wildly about her. She must have seen everyone fleeing, just as he had. It seemed almost as if she was searching for one man in particular.
The blacksmith?
And then he tensed, and he could feel the constables on either side of him tighten their grip on their guns. There was a horseman on his way down, a horseman with flowing dark locks, wearing dark women’s robes. There was a moment when perhaps—there was a slim chance—one of the constables might have got off a shot at the rider. But it was gone almost before it was there. He scooped up Ceris and turned back uphill and came within definite range of the guns. But Ceris might be hit.
Harley spread his hands to the sides, fingers wide and rigid. “No!” he said curtly at the same moment as there was a shot. But not from beside him. There were two men on the far side of the road, one with a gun pointing after the fleeing horseman—and Ceris. Harley felt as if the bottom had fallen out of his stomach. But neither she nor Rebecca’s daughter appeared to have been hit.