Authors: Christianna Brand
S
HE WAITED TO HEAR
no more; fled back to David’s room and there, dispossessing Jenny, took the drowsy head in her arms and cradled him like a child, as though with her very body to protect him from harm. What to do? What to do? She dared not confide even in Jenny: for this would be an edict of the gang and none dare raise a voice against it. She could not possibly get him away, weak and helpless as he was, even could she have eluded the sentries, and she had no money for bribes; the only possession of value she had ever owned in her life was the gold and ruby ring, and that Gareth y Cadno had taken with him.
She had yet a little time. An assault was planned for the morrow on the Lampeter road, had in fact been initiated by Y Cadno himself before his abrupt departure. An Englishman calling himself The Black Toby-man, or Black Toby, had lately come to those parts and was making himself troublesome. Teach him a lesson, Y Cadno had decided; but Y Cadno was not here now and though determined to go through with it, the men were uneasy, knowing the project not sufficiently planned, not sure just what had been in their leader’s mind, and moreover in some dread for the Black Toby had a fearsome reputation. They won’t give their minds tomorrow to this business of David, she decided, wishfully thinking; and besides they’ll wait a little while yet, in case Y Cadno turns up with a different opinion. So I have until tomorrow night at least, and then the night itself…
Tomorrow night…
Tomorrow night something was to happen. Something had been said that suggested that tomorrow night something was to happen. She groped for it, groped for the memory. Something about — somebody. Somebody travelling. Somebody travelling post haste…
And that was it! The old woman, the old Countess, with special horses, travelling post haste down to Castell Cothi to deal with the terrible events whose news by now had reached her abroad. Her ladyship of Tregaron: David’s mother.
She calculated the hour: an early start, a change of horses no doubt at least twice upon the way, making very good time… At twilight the gang clattered off, having as she had expected, not troubled themselves with her or her affairs. As dark fell she handed over her charge to Jenny and Blodwen, declared that she was going, for once, to have a full night’s rest, and retired to her quarters, begging to remain undisturbed. She had filched from among the heaped wardrobe of plundered clothes, a pair of velvet breeches, top boots which sufficiently fitted her, having belonged perhaps to some page boy in attendance; a frilled shirt, a waistcoat and a dark brocade coat. The night was warm and she would not trouble with the impeding capes of a great coat. She had kept the silver-chased pistol which she had picked up in the roadway on the night of the shooting, and this she thrust into her belt and strode up and down a little with a swashbuckling air; and laughed to herself, even in her deep anxiety, at the thought of how her brothers would roar could they but see her — the Marchesa d’Astonia Subeggio, courtesan-very-much-in-waiting.
In the foreground, the women were calling their children in from play, or sitting nursing their babies, waiting, anxious yet careless, for their men to come home. She slipped out through a side entrance in a crevice of the rocks, rounded up without trouble a pony, dreaming and taken unawares, in the fenced-in paddock behind the sleeping farmyard; thrust a bit into his mouth and, not waiting for a saddle, flung a breeched leg across his bare back — the heaven of being out of petticoats! — and trotted away across the soundless grass and up into the safe concealment of the stunted oaks. It was pure good fortune that the gang, for this once, should have ridden in the opposite direction and taken the main Lampeter road, the real high toby.
It was eerie in the forest, in its mystery and movement, with no moonlight filtering through the close lacing overhead of the twisted branches; but the pony picked its way up sturdily, following the well-known trail, and brought her out at last to the very spot where, on that other night, she had crouched with the moonlight gleaming down upon the giveaway brightness of her hair. She had brushed it back into a smoothness now, tied at the nape of her neck with a black ribbon like a man’s hair; and concealed its shining with a man’s black tricorne. She threw a leg across the pony’s neck, sat for a moment with both feet dangling; slid down and, leading it back a little, hitched its rein to a branch. It fell into a dreaming doze at once, head gently dropping further and further downward. Once it’s asleep, she thought, only I shall be awake: only I and the unseen creatures that start and tremble at my presence, that creep and call in the night air of the hanging woods. Only I and they.
Here, in this patch of mud, he had died, here in this ditch his body had lain concealed until they had loaded it into his own coach for the last drive home — Gereth Earl of Tregaron who, with so much dash and courage, had fought off, with only his brother at his side, a gang of men vastly outnumbering them. It was a stupid place for the gang to have chosen, that was the truth of it — they hadn’t allowed for the huge size of the coach, the road had been too narrow to give them space to manoeuvre their ponies. But for her purpose, it was perfect. The branch of an ash tree hung half-way across the road, one of the few tall trees in this stunted forest. She had marked it, though idly, at the time; today had built her plan upon it. Then the gang had been almost a score against four; this time she would be one against half a dozen or more. You couldn’t hold up coachmen if outriders were able to creep up behind you; you couldn’t deal with those inside the coach, while those outside remained uncovered. And, for good or ill
,
she must hold up the old woman inside this coach.
Hold her up at gun point; force her to listen. ‘Your son is in the hands of Y Cadno’s gang. You must raise half an army, you must split it into three parts, one part must come one way, one another way, one a third — and by doing so you may take his captors by surprise. But you can do it only by recourse to these maps I’ve drawn out for you — knowing what little I do of the locality; here at least you will see the strength and weaknesses of their fortifications… And above all you must act soon, act immediately — even by sundown tomorrow I can’t swear that he’ll still be safe. I’ll go back to him now and guard him with my life; but both his and mine are forfeit if you don’t believe me, if you don’t act soon… She had made within herself sundry subsidiary plans — to secure, hide, destroy perhaps — at any rate in some way to reduce the gang’s store of ammunition; to scatter the ponies, to light fires if possible for the guidance of the approaching troops; above all to barricade herself in with him when all her arrangements should be made and with firearms, fists, feet, teeth, nails, defend him, lying there helpless, to the death. If only… If only the old woman came this way tonight. If only she could be made to listen and believe — and act.
She hitched up the silk scarf which was tied loosely about her neck, until it covered mouth and chin, leaving only her nostrils free to breathe; and began with small, helpless kickings and clingings to fight her way inch by inch up to the overhanging branch of the tree.
Far away, far, far away, the faint clip-clop, clip-clop of hooves; far away but drawing ever nearer, the jingle of harness, the rumble of iron-shod wheels on the pitted road. Down the narrow defile past the waterfall, through the ford in the broad valley below the old farm of Aberbranddu; the slower ascent of the hill up the roadway cut through the hanging forest — nearer and nearer. Her heart thudded in her breast till she thought sheer terror would suffocate her. She lay like a snake along the branch, perilously swaying with her weight, and watched two armed men ride beneath her in advance of the carriage. It was a post chaise, chosen presumably for even greater speed; far smaller and lighter than a coach and controlled not by a driver upon the box but by the rider of one of a pair of horses. She saw him now pass under the branch, gathered herself to spring — and as the shining black hump of the roof came directly below her, jumped — rolled, scrambled, fell, grasped at a rail, leapt to her feet at last and standing, legs wide apart to balance herself, cried out high and triumphant: ‘Stand and deliver!’
The rider reined in his horses, confounded, not knowing whence the voice had come; the mounted guard doubled back but, as the gang had been on that other occasion, were impeded by the branches of trees growing close to the road’s edge and, also mystified as to the source of the danger, milled about, arms at the ready, looking helplessly around them. She flung herself flat on the hump of the roof, slithered forward on her stomach till she hung over the side and, head downwards, could look in at the open window; and thrust in a small hand, clutching the cocked pistol; and cried out again: ‘I have you covered!’
And the black hat fell off, the mop of marigold hair tumbled all about her face as she hung there, head downwards: staring, petrified across the dark interior of the carriage to the window opposite. Framed in its square outline, lit by the swinging lantern inside the coach — the muzzle of a second pistol, pointing directly at her; and behind the muzzle, a small, strong hand, very steady; and behind both, a face with a scarf pulled up till she could see only a pair of eyes, brilliantly dark. A pair of bright, dark eyes that too well she knew. Gareth y Cadno. And he was laughing.
How long she hung there, gazing back at him, the blood slowly mounting to her head, she would never know; but suddenly, close by, branches crackled and she had scrambled back to lie on her elbow on the roof of the carriage and was firing into the scrub beyond it. A man’s voice cursed: the voice of the Fox cried, ‘Splendid! Keep at them! I’ll attend to the coachman.’ In the chaise the old woman cackled out, commanding, ‘James! Drive on! Drive
on
!’ but nobody heeded.
Behind her the trees moved and creaked again and she swung round on her stomach and saw a hand with a firearm pointing directly up and towards her; and fired and heard a man curse again and a horse’s wild whinneying as it scrambled and skidded with brightly shod hooves, unaccustomed, on the leaf-mould of the forest floor. And the rider was down from his horse and another man up; and a gay voice yelled: ‘Hold fast!’ and the pretty, shining thing rocked into motion. Men fell back as the two horses lunged forward, and they were away — tearing up the slope of the hill, leaving the outriders wounded, dismounted, paralysed with astonishment, standing feebly staring. She slipped and rolled, fell against the light rail that fenced the roof in, crawled up to her knees and, as the horses flagged, toiling more slowly up the steep hill and the men showed signs of mounted pursuit — clinging with one hand to the rail, fired back into the night behind her. They left their horses and dodged back into the shelter of the trees. Others might have crippled their beasts, but she would not; and anyway they were at the crest of the hill now and the carriage horses wildly galloping with stumbling feet down the rutted road towards the valley.
At the cross roads, he pulled up the beasts to a trot, turned into a narrow lane so deeply rutted as to be almost impassable; brought them to a halt and, quick as his namesake, had leapt down from his mount, run round to the side of the chaise and commanded: ‘Down!’ And he held out his arms for her and she scrambled and slithered across the rail and over the side of the vehicle, swinging feet feeling for the rim of the high rear wheel. He caught her round the waist and lifted her to the ground, dumped her down unceremoniously and left her by the side of the lane, pushed his head in at the window and demanded: ‘Come now, ladies, quick! I have no time to lose — your valuables!’
No squawking and squealing here! But as they rolled and tumbled along the road, the women must have been stripping off such personal jewellery as they wore, and now wordlessly placed it, wrapped in a handkerchief, into the outstretched hand. ‘Is this all?’ he said, examining it with disgust.
‘We are travelling,’ said the older of the three women, ‘not going to a rout.’
He acknowledged it, ruefully — perhaps respectfully — laughing; flung open the door, raked at their feet — a whimpering maid drawing up hers, not daring to cry out however while her ladies sat so straight and indomitable — threw out into the grass by the wayside dressing chests, writing cases, a basket of eatables. ‘Unfasten the box,’ he said briefly to Gilda, ‘we may as well have that also.’ She ran to the platform in front and tugged at the leather straps securing the trunk, as black and humped as the roof of the chaise itself. As she worked, a memory came back to her and she called to him: ‘She arrives from abroad; has been posting all day and last night. She must carry a sufficiency of money.’
‘Good wench!’ he said; and to the old woman: ‘Come — hand over!’
‘How do you know this? How do you know that I come from across the water?’ But she fumbled in her skirts and from some deep pocket pulled out and stonily handed over a small soft-leather bagful of gold. ‘Now — you have it all. Let me be on my way, for my errand is urgent. I have nothing more to
give
you.’
‘You, Madam, however—?’ he said to the younger woman.
‘My mother has told you; it’s all we have. Let us go on now, sir, I beg of you… Have we travelled like furies these three days and nights,’ she said wretchedly to the older woman, ‘to be held up now, indefinitely delayed, by these — people? — the very same, for all we know, the very gang of assailants who set upon my poor brothers.’
‘I know nothing of your brothers,’ said Gareth quickly. ‘We’re no gang, as you see for yourself. This woman is my doxy; we work together and alone.’ And he drew away from the chaise and slammed the door to, and bowed with a flourish of the black tricorne hat. ‘You are free to continue on your way, ladies, as soon as your henchmen have courage to rejoin you. I, at least, will no longer detain you. Come,’ he said to Gilda, ‘we will withdraw from this scene of much ado, I fear, about very little,’ and he gave her a shove down the bank to the untilled fields where, ahead of them now, a line of trees, hazel and elder, edged the gentle stream of the river Cothi. ‘Let their men catch up with them, the booty will be safe enough — they’ll not wait to take the boxes with them. We’ll go down to the river’s edge and — after a short interval which I hope, my dear, may prove sweet to both of us — collect it and so back along the road and find our ponies and ride off whence we came.’ And he took her hand and ran with her across the broken ground till they came to the gleam of the river and there without further ado, threw her down upon the grassy bank and with wild kisses flung himself across her body. ‘Oh, my love! Oh, my love! All these hungry days and nights, how starved have I been for you!’