Court of Foxes (18 page)

‘Well,’ Dio said thoughtfully, ‘there’s some truth in that.’

‘Of course there is. I’ve long recognised it. What’s more, one of them ambushed and destroyed and we may be invaded unawares because of our reliance on his warning. Go call them down!’ And with the swashbuckling stride she had a few hours ago practised, laughing, in the privacy of her own cell, she marched off into the fortress of rocks. She knew that they looked after her with a new respect as she went.

This time not only men came to the council rock. Jenny’s red head was missing but for the rest every woman and child was present, ringing round the great central circle where the men already sat. Only the greatest of the boulders was unoccupied, save for the fox’s pelt lying on it. She went up to it boldly but did not sit down. Instead she stood on the small rise in front of it and raised her hand and held it out for all to see the great ruby ring glowing there. And she called out: ‘By this sign I am the Vixen, wife of the Fox; and by his word, until he comes back to order otherwise — your leader.’

They all knew of it already; she had carefully left time for Dio to accustom them to the thought, to declare that the presence of the ring proved that she had indeed been with Y Cadno last night. So they were roused only to a little angry muttering, a growl of repudiation. Before anyone could outwardly protest, she created a diversion. ‘You men went out last night upon the road to Lampeter? Before I tell you how I fared, tell me how you did? What is your tale of good fortune on the Lampeter road?’ And as they were silent, sulkily glowering — for it proved that the Englishman, the Black Toby, had anticipated them once again and the travellers been found empty-handed — she cried out triumphantly: ‘Very well — listen to mine!’

She told them the truth; or half the truth. ‘Lord Tregaron was in danger from you: you don’t know that yesterday I listened to your councils here at the rock — while you thought me milk-and-water drooping over his sick-bed. I had no money, no ransom having come for me, to bribe or buy his way out. I went out on the road to hold up a coach and obtain some. And I did hold up a coach — single-handed I brought it to a halt and had its coachmen and armed guard all helpless. True, Y Cadno came upon the scene; but by that time I had it under control and if when he comes he tells you otherwise, you may have my life for it. He assisted me then, true; if you go to the lane leading a little downhill from the crossroads, you may find the boxes we took from them — they are mine: what we took we divided between us since upon this occasion we worked alone and not for the gang; and those boxes are mine. And these also are mine…’ She bent sideways again, knee crook’d to fish into her pockets like a boy, and one by one held up the looted jewels before them. ‘But this bag of gold — this is yours. He has sent it to you in payment for the ring he gives me: and which I now wear as a sign that I am his wife — and your leader.’ And she spread out her hands again before them, the left third finger wearing the huge thing of ruby and gold; and cried out: ‘My hand bears his ring; and in these two hands, he has placed your fortunes.’

The muttering and growling rose but it had changed in significance. Dio said: ‘They ask what lies behind this? Why should you
wish
to lead us? What are we to you?’

She wished it because what she said must be law until she had David, Lord Tregaron safe out of their hands. But she said: ‘Y Cadno is my husband: you are his people.’

‘Your husband!’ said Dio. ‘He tricked you, deceived you, courted you for your money alone. When your ransom is paid, no such marriage will hold you: you’ll be gone as fast as you may.’

‘By then he’ll be back and my trust will be over.’

‘You change very suddenly. Only last night you were, by your own word, trying to bribe your way out of the Court of Foxes.’

She protested: ‘Not my way out — David, Lord Tregaron’s. This was madness, this plan to keep him here, kill him off, bury him away out of sight, deny knowledge of him. With such great folk as this, all this foolery with ransoms is too dangerous. You’d best just get him well enough to travel, and pack him back home.’

The growl rose again, protesting, threatening. She laughed in their faces. ‘You’re like children, you think out nothing to its proper conclusion. The solution to all this is simple.’ And as they still muttered on, she shouted out suddenly, loud and clear at the top of her voice: ‘I am telling you the way out of your danger and Y Cadno’s. Will you hear me or not?’

‘No,’ shouted a woman’s voice.

She had not prepared for this — for Blodwen. All the rest had been predictable but she had forgotten Blodwen. She felt herself beginning to tremble. Among the women one or two more voices cried out, though less decisively: ‘Don’t listen to her! No!’

And once again, for the second time, sheer rage came to her aid. She thought of the blowsy white bosom with the dark head lolling back against it — her husband, love him or love him not, with this insolent, opulent, sloe-eyed slut of a mopsy… And she was down from the throne of Y Cadno and running round the circle of boulders and had caught the woman by the wrist and with her open right hand slapped her twice across the face. Blodwen tore herself away, struck back but struck only at the air; for Gilda, blessedly free of hampering skirts, had stepped aside and now came in again smartly with a blow which left a red weal down the brown cheek where the gold and ruby ring had struck it. And she stepped aside again deftly, like a boxer, danced round till she came behind the woman and caught her by the heavy dark twist of her hair, yanked her head back and stood, a clenched fist showing the rough ring on her knuckle. ‘One more squawk out of you, Madam Blodwen, and you feel this ring down the side of your face in good earnest and your beauty gone for ever! And if you do, not Y Cadno nor any man again ever, I warrant you, will take you for doxy or wife or anything else. So say your say!’ And as the woman squealed and struggled in her hold she cried out to the gaping throng: ‘See how she flutters; the fat, ruffled brown hen in the grip of the vixen!’ and heard, with relief and an unutterable triumph, how they all burst out, like children, laughing.

Sullen, resentful, Blodwen lifted up her hands in surrender. Gilda did not immediately let her go. ‘Before all these people gathered here — an oath! What is there that you all hold sacred? — riff-raff that you are?’ And she looked about her, the girl’s head still bent backward with her grip on the coil of hair at the nape of her neck. ‘The fox’s skin — lying up there on the rock, the symbol of his leadership. Swear on the fox’s skin that from this day until I go my ways from here I shall have no more trouble from you!’ And as Blodwen still feebly struggled, she brought down her fist so that the heavy ring pressed into the flesh of her face. ‘Speak, and quickly! Here is a language you understand: reply! I have no time for silly sluts, I have Y Cadno’s work to do. Your oath on it!’

They heard the resentful spitting out of a half promise. She let go of the thick coil of hair, was turning away, relieved and thankful, when on an impulse, she turned back. ‘Come, Blodwen — give me your hand now and let’s have an end of enmity.’

But with Blodwen you loved or you hated; no such thing as a friendly truce could exist for her. Released now and still beyond control of resentment and rage, she swung round upon her aggressor and once more launched into attack. Gilda, taken unawares, flung out both hands to defend herself, caught the girl’s face with her ringed left hand and saw with utter horror how a great gash opened up bloodily from cheekbone to jaw across one smooth brown cheek.

For a long moment there was silence, while she stood, appalled. Then a voice cried out: ‘She’s done it!’ and a voice cried, ‘Serve you right, Blod, she told you she would!’ and a voice cried, ‘Diw, diw, there’s a vixen it is indeed!’ She collected herself. She said with chill nonchalance: ‘I warned you,’ and went back to her place slowly and from that place said: ‘Now any man may have her — including my husband — if he wants her. For the rest, let this be a lesson. He has given me authority and I won’t be denied in it.’

Voices muttered but now it was with awe. And calmly, with not a glance to where Blod the Bruises led away the other Blodwen, bloody hands clutched to her face, still shrieking — she put forth her suggestions. ‘I’ve considered this matter of the prisoner. The Earl of Tregaron is dead, the new earl is in our hands…’ But the muttering began again. Sam the Saddle’s voice rose above the rest. ‘Don’t listen to her! It’s a trick to get him out of our hands. She’s soft upon him, anyone can see that.’

‘Well, send messages for ransom, then. His mother is now at Castell Cothi—’

‘We’ve been over all that. Once set him free and he’d have all Wales about our ears. Do you think they’ll so easily forgive the death of his brother?’

She tried a tack that she should have tried sooner. ‘It’s Y Cadno himself who commands it. He said I should tell you—’

‘Don’t believe her,’ cried Sam again. ‘If Y Cadno had ordered it, these would have been her first words.’

‘Nor would he send orders, Madam Vixen fach,’ said Dio. ‘While the leader’s on the run, he may advise but he’ll not give orders. That’s for the man on the spot.’

‘Or the woman,’ said Gilda.

There was a silence. It was true that last night they had failed in their venture, that since Y Cadno’s disappearance there had been but little success. Dio y Diawl was a perfect lieutenant but as a leader lacked Y Cadno’s confidence and dash. Dio said, speaking out of his thoughts: ‘There’s been too little work this way. Travellers grow wary since news of the earl’s killing, they’re not using our roads.’

‘Then move further afield. If they daren’t use the road through Pumsaint, they must go by Llanwrda. Intercept them there.’

‘That part’s commanded by the Black Toby as we found out last night.’

‘What right has this Englishman to ride in Wales?’

‘He’s not particular as to his rights, Madam fach,’ said Hal the Hop. ‘He rides.’

‘Then drive him away!’

Drive him away! The Black Toby had brought with him from his metropolitan origins, a fearsome reputation. ‘No such devil ever rode, girl!’ said Dio, shrugging his great shoulders up to his ears, looking round at the rest of them. Diw, diw, his look said, what will this wild woman think of next?

It was just what she wanted, an aura of daring to augment the good common sense with which she had lectured them on the subject of their sentries, to make the idea of her leadership seem an inspiration. ‘What of it? Drive him off!’

But… He’s a very fiend for cleverness… Shoots on sight… And his horse is black and he cloaked all in black and his very firearms painted over so that no gleam of light may give him away… And his horse is the best in the country, twenty hands or more, no man ever kept up with him… And he has the strength of a bull, so they say…

‘But we should have a score of men and therefore the strength of twenty bulls. Or rather,’ she suggested disdainfully with a glance of deliberate provocation, ‘of twenty bull-calves?’ She sat coolly, perched up on the rock, very small and brilliant with her white, white skin and the grey-blue eyes, the lovely face alight with eagerness beneath the marigold gleam.

‘Or doesn’t even that amount to the strength of this one solitary bull?’

There were ugly oaths all round her but she was used by now to filthy language; only sat there laughing at them, with an air of amused contempt. The smile however rather quickly disappeared as a man shouted suddenly: ‘What price the strength of one solitary cow?’

She gave herself not an instant for uncomfortable foreboding. ‘You mean you would send a woman to meet him? Very well, I’ll go: and bring back an undertaking that he rides from hence and returns no more — and a bag of gold into the bargain.’ Unless they would rather have his carcase than his promise? she added; it was all one to her.

It was a challenge: the test. She knew it and they all knew it. But — to send her out alone, a woman, a frail, small creature for all her boy’s dress and proud boasting… The heart of Dio y Diawl failed as he thought of what his leader might say to this. ‘When the Fox comes back—’

‘When the Fox comes back he’ll find himself master of his territories once again.’ And she snapped her fingers. ‘Dai Thomas — you hear me? Find out for me when the Black Toby comes this way again—’

‘No need,’ said Dai. ‘He comes this very night. There’s a farmer riding from Lampeter back to Llanwrda, carrying the gold for six or eight others — who are to ride ahead in a band carrying only a little and pretending it’s the whole. They think it all a secret; but the Englishman has guessed it a plot and made some enquiries. He rides tonight.’

‘Oh,’ said Gilda rather glumly; not at all delighted at so swift a taking-up of her boastings. ‘Tonight’s rather soon. I’ve had little sleep in the past twenty-four hours.’

‘We may never again have a forward information of his doings. It was only by the merest chance that Tegwyn the Corn heard rumour in Caio of the questions he was asking.’

‘Well, well,’ she said quickly, ‘I said nothing but that I should need some rest. So let’s count that as settled — one or two of you had better ride with me to show me the road and from then on I act alone. Now to other matters. Your funds are low: for one reason or another — no fault of anyone’s… And yet at this time, with the winter approaching, surely you should be well prepared? I’ve thought this over. With the accession of the new earl, it seems to me, and the old woman now re-established at Castell Cothi, there must be much coming and going of visitors — men of law, sympathisers, relatives, all the rest of it. Moreover, there’s a young woman there now, whom we spared on the last occasion; she must go home one day and must somehow carry back all she brought with her—’

‘Her home is in these parts,’ said Dai Thomas. ‘She is daughter of—’

‘The Earl of Trove,’ said Gilda; ever illogically irritated by the very name.

‘—and the Earl’s land marches with Tregaron land; on the far side, towards Lampeter. It’s thus that the families have planned a marriage, to bring the two estates together, she having no brother…’