Court of Foxes (22 page)

‘You and I?’ He seemed astonished.

‘Well, naturally. How could you ride alone even the few miles between here and Castell Cothi? And you wouldn’t know the secret paths—’

‘To Castell Cothi?’ he said stupidly.

‘Well, but naturally,’ she said again and with a touch of impatience. But she had caught the faint shadow of doubt that passed across his face. She amended stiffly: ‘If you will receive me there.’

‘But of course,’ he said quickly. ‘Of course. You who have shown me so much kindness while I’ve lain here—’

‘I who’ve saved your life,’ she said, bursting out with it almost fiercely. And she thought with despair: But what do you know of all that? — dulled, unconscious as, most of the time, you’ve been. Of how I held you, wounded, in my arms with your dead brother lying by my side, staunching the bleeding until my arm ached with the pressure; how I brought you down through the dark forests, forcing these rough, angry men to my will; sacrificing my own chances of escape. How since then I’ve conquered them, offering my very body up to a stranger to gain my ascendancy over them; surrendered all my girl’s ways, grown rough and crude, hunted and robbed and for all I know to the contrary killed… A little ladylike nursing, a few kindly cheering-up visits — if upon these she must rest her hopes of a welcome in his family, the outlook was not hopeful. ‘I wouldn’t trouble you,’ she said coldly, ‘but where else have I to go? How am I to get back, unaided, to my house in London which is all I can now call home?’ It’s his mother, she thought. A fine welcome this great lady is likely to hand out to me, after the tales Miss Blanche will have told her of our meeting at the plundered coach! On the other hand… ‘If it’s the presence of your betrothed that troubles you,’ she said, more coldly still, ‘I may as well inform you that Lady Blanche has gone back to London. She’s left Carmarthenshire.’

He seemed astonished; perhaps that she should leave Wales while he lay wounded here in the hands of a gang of desperadoes. ‘Blanche gone back home? Are you sure?’

‘Well — yes,’ she said ironically. ‘I have reason to believe it’s true.’

‘And leaving me no message?’

‘No billets doux have arrived, certainly, nor any powdered footmen with enquiries after your health. But…’ She dropped to her knees at his bedside. How much would he care? If he were to find his betrothal ended — how much would he care? She had sat with his hand in hers, had crooned over him, rocking him in her arms when the pain was sore — but had she been to him just the tender nurse? What in fact — but for that long ago exchange of glances, that long ago touch of the hand — what had he ever said or done that should suggest that it was not Blanche whom in truth he loved? After all, she thought, they were betrothed, he was to have married her… He lay back against the pillow, soft scented hay wrapped round with soft scented linen, his aching arm bandaged across his aching chest, fair hair rumpled, brown eyes still clouded, and she crouched beside him, pitying, piteous, weak with mingled hope and dread. ‘If you were to find — if you were to find that she
had
after all left you a message…? If you were to find that she’d left behind her in Wales, your diamond betrothal ring…?’

She thought he had fainted. He lay so long silent that she grew frightened, began to stammer out that she couldn’t be certain, it was only that the ring hadn’t been among the jewels that she… She stammered and blundered, remembered the dimly glowing heap in the darkness of the cave on Twm Shon Catti’s mountain peak, lit only by its ray of sunlight… ‘If you were to hear that — that while she was in Wales Blanche hadn’t — been wearing your ring…’

And he opened his eyes at last and put up his good arm and pulled her down close to him; and she lay across the low bed and held his thin hand against her kisses, all the wild gold floss of her hair spread over it; and burst into a storm of too long dammed-up tears.

She opened up the great subject that very day at the evening meal; sitting in the Fox’s place at the head of the long, rough dining-table with the men of the gang, and, stuffing down a great plateful of roast (stolen) mutton, threw her thunderbolt. An agreed price for the ransom to be demanded from the Tregaron family; and an undertaking of — no reprisals.

No reprisals! Dio dropped his knife with a clatter and clutched with his great hands at his thatch of hair. As always his first thought went to his leader. ‘Y Cadno could return—’

Sam the Saddle, ever inimical to Dafydd’s cause, protested. ‘No such promise would be kept. The moment they had him safe—’

‘No, no, Sam bach, you don’t know these great folk. They have their codes,’ said Dio, ‘as strict as our own. They pride themselves on their “honour”, they’d never break their word.’

‘ “Extorted under duress”.’

‘No, Sam, Dio’s right,’ said Gilda. ‘These are people who would — would stake half a fortune, none knows it better than I, upon whether a woman carried this bunch of flowers or that: and pay up without a murmur, though there’d been no bond, no witnesses, nothing but a lightly spoken word. Let them
give
this promise and you’re safe; and the Fox is safe.’ She played her ace card. ‘Do you want him on the run for ever? What else but this can ever bring him back?’

Dio waited for no more. ‘A show of hands on it!’

She watched, exultant, as the arms were raised. ‘We’ll compose a message today,’ she said, wasting no more time. ‘Teg the Corn will deal with it from Caio. The money will be sent by return, never fear for that…’

And two days later, it came: and the promise with it. They were grouped in the great hall, lounging there, singing; the women on benches, leaning back against the tapestry-hung rock walls, the men sprawled on the floor against their knees, whittling at wooden bowls or spoons or thumb-sticks, as they sang. Outside, the rain fell steadily, the soft grey mist of Welsh valley rain; within, the lovely voices rose, untrained, untaught, but strong and true, the almost universal national heritage. She leapt to her feet, waving the letter. ‘What did I tell you? She pays — and promises.’

Half the gold was there; the rest would be paid directly upon the return of Lord Tregaron, safe and sound. ‘And that can be tomorrow. I’ve thought it all out. He’s been up out of bed, exercising, getting back his strength. Not fit to ride, but there’s the coach that brought me here and the horses — he’ll do well enough, being driven. I’d best go with him, lest his wound break down—’ voices rose in protest, but she finished hurriedly — ‘and will return as soon as he’s safely home, bringing the rest of the money, and the coach and horses with me.’

‘And your own ransom also, doubtless, in your hand,’ suggested Catti. Catti, ever devoted to her leader, still viewed with suspicion, Madam Vixen’s feeling for Dafydd of Tregaron.

The men laughed but upheld her. ‘No, no, Madam fach, you go not forth upon so silken a tether as that,’ said Huw the Harp, grinning.

‘Is it my fault if my ransom delays?’ An idea came to her. ‘If I were to go with Lord Tregaron to his home, might they not advance my share, relying upon me to pay it back to them later?’

‘What, the Vixen leave her den?’ said Huw Peg Leg, ‘—and the Fox not here to permit it?’

‘Huw’s right, Madam Vixen,’ said Dio. ‘We can’t let you go-’

‘I’ve said I’ll come back.’ She put on an injured look. ‘You repay with little trust one who has led you so faithfully and well. Haven’t I fought with you, dared with you—?’

‘—bled with us,’ cried a voice, and the laughter redoubled.

‘Well, and risked a worse wounding, I, a woman — do you think I haven’t suffered, been in dread, terrified—’

‘Come, come, Madam Vixen fach, you’ve loved every minute of it,’ said Dio. ‘Don’t try to cozen us. You stay here till Y Cadno comes back and says otherwise; which may be soon enough even for you, if he trusts to this promise. Then if he will, he may release you.’

But she knew he would not. Three days ago up in Twm Shon Catti’s cave, he had told her to begone, to get out of his life for ever — but she knew that he’d never really let her go. And she had come not unprepared for protests. ‘Then let any woman travel with him as attendant, it needn’t be me. Willie-bach will drive the coach and in case of a trap—’ she used the word deliberately and with care ‘– simply leave the coach and horses at the gates, we’ve no need of them here, these town-bred beasts are no use to us — and make good your escape…’

‘If the old mother’s promised—’ began Dio, but they paid no heed to him. She had chosen the right word to use to such wild untamed creatures as these. ‘If it’s traps,’ said Willie-bach, ‘someone else may drive him: not I. I put my head into no trap.’ There was a rumble of assent among the men. ‘There may not be a price on my head as there is on Y Cadno’s, but it lies uneasy unless it lies here at the Cwrt. I drive into no traps.’

‘Who else then?’ They were silent. ‘In that case, you’d better let me go as I first suggested.’

‘Ay, and never return,’ said Dio, laughing. ‘As
we
first suggested.’

Blodwen with her scarred cheek came forward from the shadows, moving in her own indolent yet oddly violent way. ‘For my part she never need. One vixen is enough for The Fox and I am that one.’

‘Then do you drive the coach,’ said Gilda, quickly.

‘
I
drive?’ cried Blodwen, taken aback. ‘How could
I
drive four horses?’

‘You have but to hold a bunch of reins, fool. Town-bred creatures as they are, they won’t stray from the path, when the rest’s so stony and rough. And when you come to the castle gates, pull them up there.’

‘The lodge keepers—’ began Huw Peg-leg.

‘They won’t molest a woman. Even if the family don’t keep to their promise, it’s men they want for crimes like these, they won’t trouble a woman. Leave coach and horses at the gates and just jump down and walk away,’ she said to Blodwen contemptuously. ‘It’s simple enough.’

‘Ay, well simple enough for you. But for me…’ All her bold brassiness was gone, she moved to Dio’s side and standing there, quietly, appealed to something all of them would understand. ‘My mother lives in a cottage close by the castle gates. She believes me a decently married woman, living a respectable life far away from here. If she should see me! If she should find how I’m living now—!’

There were sentimental murmurings. ‘Poof, you can cover your face, can’t you?’ said Gilda, exultant, for with every word they played into her hands. ‘Wrap yourself in a cloak, wear a hood, have a scarf across your mouth as we do when we ride out…’ But she turned away with a scornful shrug of her shoulders. ‘What’s the use? The truth is, she dare not.’

‘
I
dare not?’ The women held Blodwen back. Gilda glanced at her once, at the terrible scar, at the ring on her own finger. She repeated: ‘You dare not.’

‘Others know me if you don’t,’ said Blodwen sullenly. ‘There’s nothing I don’t dare.’

‘That’s what I’ve been told. We shall see how you prove it,’ said Gilda sweetly, ‘when the time comes…’

And when the time came — sure enough, Blodwen was there. Willie brought out the coach and four on to the forecourt, Madam Vixen appeared, his lordship walking shakily, leaning on her arm, Blod the Bruises on his other side. He took a courteous if somewhat ironical farewell of the gang, lined up to see him go, and was helped up into the coach. Gilda stood in its doorway; he bent over her hand and kissed it gratefully. ‘He drives away very cheerfully, however,’ she remarked to Dio stepping back among the men, ‘leaving me to your tender mercies! I seem to have found more chivalry among villains like you, than with my own fine gentlemen.’ And she called to Willie, still up on the box, to take the coach down on to the pathway, get the horses settled, so that Blodwen would have not too much trouble with them. ‘If she makes an appearance,’ she added scornfully, ‘which I begin to doubt. Where is she?’

‘Catti, Eirwen — go find her!’

‘No,’ said Gilda, grimly. ‘I’ll go! She’ll not come for Catti and Eirwen; but she’ll come for me!’ While Willie eased the coach horses off the rough ground and on to the hardly less rough going of the stony and pitted path that led to the forest road, she strode off back into the fortress and soon a shrill screaming was heard and Blodwen came running out, wrapped in a hooded cloak, a scarf about her mouth and nose, with the red scar bright against the brown cheek showing above it: looking back fearfully over her shoulder, running out and across the foreground, cursing and muttering in Welsh and all the time looking backwards as she ran. Willie jumped down from the box and gave her a heave and a shove that landed her into the driving seat and she gathered up the reins into a bundle and caught up the tall whip in an evidently trembling hand. The horses, fresh from their too long inactivity, went off at a frisking pace, dragging the coach, rather dangerously rocking, after them. In the entrance to the fortress, a slim figure appeared as they all ran, cheering, after the vehicle, and waved and stood there watching and turned back, into the hall. The mob ran a little way, were out-distanced by the almost stampeding horses, stood and waved and laughed and cheered, and strolled back as a corner was turned and the coach out of sight.

And the dark hood fell back; and the golden hair tumbled all about her face as she turned, hands light on the reins, and called back triumphantly: ‘We’re free!’

I
T WAS A COLD, GREY DAY.
A veil of rain had begun to fall, the fine, thin drizzle that lies like a silver veil over the valleys of south Wales — laying its soft hand on her upturned face, washing away the red paint of poor Blodwen’s ‘scar’, drenching the soft, golden floss of her hair, fallen free from the disguising hood. She tugged the four horses this way and that, reciting the rhythm as taught by Willie-bach to Blodwen, and religiously dinned by herself into ears unaccustomed to lessons. By now Blodwen would have been found. By now they would be asking, ‘Where’s Madam Vixen?’, would have been answered by Jenny that she must be in her own room, the door was barred and (which was true enough) she made no answer to any appeal; with a hint that perhaps her ladyship had been a little more upset by his lordship’s departure than she had pretended… (Had not even gone to watch him drive off; she, Jenny, had stood for a moment in the doorway, watching, and when she turned back — Madam Vixen had disappeared.) So they would have ‘left her to herself’ — until they came upon Blodwen, tied and gagged — not very painfully, however — and locked away into a larder — full of the horrors she had suffered, suddenly set upon and bundled into that terrible place… Blodwen had been very ready to enter into a scheme without danger to herself, which would rid her for ever of her rival.