Court of Foxes (28 page)

‘Laudanum?’ said Catti, her hands to her mouth.

‘He asked me for it. He must keep up his courage…’ Into the heavy silence she said, as though excusing him: ‘It’s a terrible way to die.’

‘We’ve seen a few go the same way,’ said Dio, ‘and without the aid of laudanum.’ He stared at her blindly opened his mouth to say something; cleared his throat. Huw the Harp said awkwardly: ‘We don’t know you, Madam Vixen, in this guise.’

She sat there on the little scrolled sofa with its upholstery in heavy white silk, embossed with gold roses, the blue ribbons and lacy ruffles of the white wrapper gathered about her pregnancy. ‘Huw bach,’ she said, almost sadly, ‘I am Madam Vixen no longer.’

‘No, indeed,’ said Catti. ‘Madam Countess now, again; or Madam Doxy, which you will. But sitting very pretty, either way; while he lies in Newgate — and as ever through your fault.’

‘Whisht you, woman!’ said Dio, in Welsh. ‘Shut your mouth!’

‘How could I have known he’d come to the theatre? God knows, if I could help him—’

‘If you can’t, Madam Vixen fach,’ said Dio, in his own old, fond way, but sadly and heavily, ‘none can.’

‘
I
help him?’

‘You
must
help him,’ said Catti. ‘You must help
us.
’ She stood up suddenly, small, slender, lithely strong, in the red woollen petticoat, tight jacket and little black shawl, her keen, dark face alight with a fierce resolution. ‘You must help us to rescue him,’ she said.

To rescue him! She stared back at them, astounded. And yet… And yet the old tingling began to set fire to her blood; sudden and fresh as a spring bursting up out of the green mountain side, a new and undreamed-of hope came bubbling through her dull acceptance of what was to be. To rescue him! To get him out of that fearful place, to save him from that fearful death! And to her, to their leader, to the Fox’s own Vixen — they turned with the old trust and faith to ask, quite simply, how it was to be done.

She lumbered to her feet. ‘Come upstairs, come where we shall be more comfortable than amongst these foolish gim-cracks.’ And she took them to the old attic room, sent Jake running to the tavern for ale, went down to the kitchens to cajole from Mrs Brown, great plates of ham, salad and bread. ‘Now, Mother, we do but talk over the plight he is in…’

‘You’ll lay no plans, Marigold, for getting this man released?’

‘For getting him released — no indeed! What would be the use of that?’

‘It would be very wrong. He’s what he is, a highway robber.’

‘As I have been myself,’ said Gilda.

‘Necessity drove you.’

‘Few take to the road from choice,’ said Gilda, dryly. ‘It’s hardly a life of luxury and ease.’

‘It’s a life of adventure and wicked daring,’ said Mrs Brown, shrewdly, ‘and may well take precedence with some over luxury and ease.’

‘Well, the life he leads at the moment is neither, and not much left of it. Give me food for my friends and leave us in peace to talk it over.’

And she went back to them, curling up in the big, old chair; and her sickness had vanished and her eyes were shining as they had not shone for many a long day. ‘I’ve been thinking. There’s a great crush of ladies goes each day to see him. And the turnkey is old and very vile and has a villainous lust for gold…’

They would not sleep in the house; they had friends, they said, and would find quarters elsewhere — and besides, wouldn’t Dafydd at any moment return and what would be his feelings to find them all consorted there? But they all met each day to compare the progress of their preparations. They had sent to the Cwrt for reinforcements who arrived and, cagey, grudging, curious oddly tamed and made diffident by the different surroundings in which they found themselves, also herded into the attic room and listened and learned and promised, and slouched back again into the strange world of a metropolis, to await the day when the attempt should be made.

And the day dawned; and at ten o’clock in the morning of that day — the Earl of Tregaron came home.

She was ready in the hall: standing, dressed in her utmost finery with Jake at her side, the carriage at the door. He saw her face blanch, the hesitation in her greeting, rapturous though it might outwardly be. ‘What’s the matter, Gilda? Where were you going?’

Her mother had warned her how it would be. ‘This rogue, this horrible villain — what will your lover say when he finds that you scheme with your parcel of ruffians to rescue such vile trash as that? And when, by his death—’

‘Don’t say it, Mother!’ she had cried. ‘Don’t say it!’

‘All I say is that David will put a sharp end to all this. His wife, the mother of his child—’

‘I’m not his wife.’

‘In his heart you are, Gilda: and that you should go running at the bidding of this other man… Because David is quiet and kind, you think him easy-going, you think he’ll be afraid to oppose you. But he’s no milk-sop, for all he’s so sweet tempered…’

No: he was no milk-sop. She stood in the little hall before him and literally trembled. She stammered out: ‘The Fox is taken. He lies in Newgate Gaol.’

He said sharply: ‘Upon what charge? Highway robbery?’

‘Not that, no. For murder: for the shooting of your brother.’

‘An undertaking was given—’

‘This is nothing to do with your family. The law works, I suppose, without waiting for private charges to be made. I have to admit,’ she said reluctantly, ‘that there has been no sign of any interference from them.’

He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. All the happiness had gone from his eyes, all the joy of their reunion after their longest separation since they had come to the Bijou. He stood, the three-caped travelling coat thrown back from his shoulders and looked down at her. ‘And you, Gilda — you were going to see him?’

‘We’ve been before,’ said Jake, joining innocently in. ‘It’s terrible there. He’s locked in a cage, and the women pester him all day as though he were some side-show—’

‘Go now, Jakey,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘Run out to the carriage, tell them to wait, I shall soon be there—’

‘Must you go?’ said David. ‘When I’m but just home. Go this afternoon; I’ll come with you and see you safe.’

‘I’ve promised,’ she said, feebly. The gang would be gathering at the gate of the prison, already the scheme had been set in action. ‘I’ve made — appointments…’

‘With whom?’

‘Some of them are up to — to see him; from Cwrt y Cadno.’

He was silent for a long moment, looking down at her. He said at last: ‘Gilda — I know you better than you think I do. Some mischief is planned.’ And he took her by the hand and went into the little drawing-room and closed the door. ‘You’d better tell me,’ he said.

She made no denial; but she insisted: ‘It would be better for you not to know.’

‘Do you think I shall prevent you?’

‘Will you not?’ she said, looking up doubtfully into the steady brown eyes. She reminded him: ‘Have you forgotten — that he killed your brother?’

‘Have you forgotten,’ he said, ‘that he
is
my brother?’

So she told him; trusted him. ‘The turnkey is old and may be bribed and there’s a press of women, in and out of the cell. They’ll all be there, Dio y Diawl and Huw and Willie-bach and the rest; and Catti and Red Jenny and others of the women. All dressed as women, David — save for Dio, whose bulk and great head couldn’t be disguised, and one or two of the others who will seem but to conduct their women-folk. The plan is to cluster about the cell, having bought or over-borne the turnkey according to necessity; and then, having freed Gareth from the cell itself, to fling on to him a woman’s disguise and, making a great jostling and outcry, get him out of the prison before the cell is discovered empty.’

He sat quietly, apart from her, on one of the small gilt chairs, his hands between his knees. ‘It sounds very simple,’ he said at last.

‘There’s so great a mob there; we shall be lost among the real visitors.’ She described to him the narrow corridor outside the cell.

‘But between that and the main gate — there must be many locks?’

‘They’re opened before the fashionables and everyone let through without question.’

‘That’s when no prisoner is known to have escaped. Once the hue and cry is raised—’

‘Why should it be raised?’

‘Some form of check
must
be operated, Gilda; a counting of heads if no more. And at the very first check — all remaining gates will be guarded.’

‘If it’s but a counting — someone may remain innocently enough, behind; and as many sheep as go in will be allowed out.’

He shook his head, sitting staring down at his locked hands. ‘This is all foolishly hopeful. Y Cadno’s a famous criminal; he’ll be better kept than your plan assumes.’

For the first time her high heart wavered. ‘You think we shall fail?’

‘The moment the cell is seen to be empty—’

‘We shall have seen to it that the turnkey holds his tongue.’

‘But the rest won’t hold theirs, Gilda. These women who flock to stare at him — what do they care for the man himself? — the sensation is all. Do you think that, having seen him escape, they’ll come quietly away? And if they do — won’t the mass departure warn the outer guard that something’s amiss?’ He said slowly: ‘What you want is someone who’ll remain in the cell and be taken for the Fox.’

She was restless, excited, the moments were ticking away. ‘Any of the men would do it for him, but then they in their turn would be apprehended and he wouldn’t allow that. Besides…’ She threw out helpless hands. ‘Who is there that bears the smallest resemblance to him?’

He got up quickly to his feet. ‘You have forgotten again,’ he said, ‘that he is my brother.’

Dazed, half in tears, she went with him upstairs, selected a coat of green brocade. What to do with his fair hair was a problem but she ran to the kitchen, smeared her hands with soot, rubbed his blond head with it, crammed down a tricorne hat. ‘And your eyes aren’t dark enough and your height far too great; you must remain sitting as though in a fit of depression, keep your hand to your brow. But the lower part of your face — yes, that would deceive any but those who knew you well.’ And she came to him and put her arms about his neck. ‘David,’ she said, ‘whether we succeed or fail — with all my heart I thank you. I know that you are doing this for me.’

He returned her kiss gently and calmly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘for you.’

‘Not because you think I care for him, David?’

‘No,’ he said, not protesting, simply accepting it.

‘I have loved you from the moment I saw you,’ she said. ‘I have never loved anyone else.’ And she borrowed a phrase, not giving a thought as to why it should be familiar to her. ‘I will love you till I die.’

A man came to her as she awaited their return from the gaol, sitting huddled in the darkest corner of the tavern close by: for they had been adamant in refusing that she should go with them on the rescue attempt. A very tall man, dressed all in black but with eyes so fiercely glittering that they gave to his whole aspect a blue steeliness — who bowed and took her hand and, with a quiet air far removed from the old, gay malicious mockery, kissed it. ‘Well, Madam Vixen — so we meet again.’

The Black Toby.

She rose, caught at his sleeve. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Since I was banished from Carmarthenshire — by what means you know — I have returned to my old haunts.’

‘But here, in this ale house?’

He suggested: ‘Upon the same errand as yourself, perhaps?’

She stammered: ‘Y Cadno?’

He shrugged lightly. ‘I was at the moment unemployed and — let’s say that I owed him — some return of favour.’

‘And so—’

‘Come, sit down,’ he said. He glanced down at her condition. ‘You are with child?’

‘Yes, I’m… My title nowadays is Strumpet to the Earl of Tregaron.’

‘He has all my felicitations,’ he said, bowing.

‘But — Y Cadno. Sit here by me and tell me. You’ve seen him?’

‘Several times and sent emissaries. A lady of my acquaintance has gained favour with the janitor and so made her way into the very cell with him, and there unfolded such plans as I had developed. But…’ He spoke very low, almost whispering into her ear. ‘I had half a mind to stop your friends from going — it’s all hopeless.’

‘Hopeless? You don’t know our plan.’

‘It wasn’t hard to guess: all these huge feathered hats pulled down over painted faces, wide skirts with great boots peeping out from beneath. And one who looks not unlike the Fox in features. A brave man.’

‘But—?’

‘But your other is a brave man too, Madam Vixen. And a proud one. He won’t reveal to those who flock in admiration of him — perhaps especially to those that go out of love for him — that beneath the straw of his cell floor, he drags a chain that all the steel files in Christendom won’t sever.’

She remembered now the slow, shuffling step with which he had crossed the two paces of the cell floor towards her. ‘Dear God! He’s chained there like a dog!’

‘To a staple dug deep in the wall. We smuggled in tools, but first the chain and then the staple have been renewed as soon as the mischief was seen. They’ve held notorious criminals before, Madam Vixen: held them and lost them. This one they don’t mean to lose.’

She began to weep bitterly. ‘Then if we must fail — what next?’

‘Why, alas, then he comes up for trial and will be very heavily guarded — being who he is. And after that…’ He put out his strong hand and took hers. ‘You must face facts, Madam Vixen. After that he will be with the rest in the Condemned Hole, guarded day and night, and not by some doddering old turnkey but by a young man, strong, settling down to a long life of less hazardous briberies. They’re bringing in a brute from the hulks, they say, specially chosen.’ And he glanced up and saw a face in the doorway and said: ‘They’re back — and having failed.’

They came in gloomily, wretchedly: oppressed, she thought, by something more, even, than the failure of the plot. She told them what the Black Toby had said. ‘And if he’s found guilty—’

‘Upon what evidence?’ said David. ‘They can have none. The charge is one of murder; not of being a highwayman, but of the murder of my brother. And my family has given its word, and that stands for our servants also — no reprisals. No one will speak.’