Court of Foxes (12 page)

Down the long length of the table, Lord Tregaron sprawled in a chair — half drunk, she thought disgustedly — his slight body all relaxed for once from its habitual springy tension; slender legs stretched out before him, ankles crossed: blissfully, foolishly smiling; and a woman came up behind and leaned across him so that his head lay heavily against her half-naked bosom. He lifted a languid hand, pushed aside the last remnant of concealing bodice and turned his head lazily so that his mouth was against her breast.

Rage rose in Gilda’s heart. So had his lips caressed her and she, poor fool, thrilled with an exquisite rapture, given herself up to him in a swoon of desire. And now — to this coarse creature, publicly, oafishly, hardly knowing what he did — the same sweet, intimate, deeply possessive caress… She sat with both hands gripping the arms of her chair, willing herself to control, to remaining as though unaware, unmoved, uncaring — and suddenly was up and out of it and flying down the length of the improvised table and had her hands in the woman’s hair and was yanking her head back, dragging her off him, pushing her with wild punches at the naked shoulders to stumble before her fury down the slope of the grass, away from them… A bold, bright-eyed huzzy of a woman, ever indolently smiling; dressed habitually in a gown of scarlet, laced in tightly to show the luscious bosom above a tiny waist, the big breasts boiling over the scooped-out neckline: Gilda had marked her, hitherto felt, without much wondering about it, that she in some sort avoided her; now knew why… For the woman screamed out, ‘Let me be! He’s mine! He’s my man — has been from the beginning…’

From the beginning… Night after night alone in the bed of cool linen and soft-heaped hay; while he… The whole crowd had risen to their feet, the men spilling the girls off their knees, loosing hold in the shadowy corners beneath the trees, coming forward to stand, roaring with laughter, in Welsh and English cheering them on. ‘Go to it, Madam fach!’ ‘Fight back at her, Blodwen…!’ ‘Dal ati!’ ‘Rho iddo hi! Tear her hair, Madam Countess, gouge her black eyes from her, let’s see those long nails of yours put to some use after all…’ And the woman fought back indeed, hands reaching out like talons to grasp at the candy-floss marigold hair and tear it out by its roots, strong brown arms flailing, calloused feet kicking out hard and hurtful at the slender white legs beneath the impeding petticoats. But the petticoats were protective also and bare feet no match for vicious little leather-shod toes and heels. One last final shove and Blodwen tumbled backwards once and for all, did a half somersault, picked herself up and ran, hugging her naked breasts, screeching of vengeance to come, into the maze of the scrub oaks beyond.

She stood for a moment, panting, slowly gathering herself together; and turned and faced them.

Out of the throng, a man — she never knew who — walked down the small slope, deliberately, yet reeling as he came, in drink; and gathered her to him and tossed her up like a child, caught her again, disorientated, bewildered and, dropping her feet to the ground so that she still stood rumbled against him in the ring of his arms, bent his face over hers. She struggled violently but his hot, reeking kisses were all over her; and now other men came running down the slope to join him, she felt herself pulled aside and into another pair of arms, torn away from these in turn, bounced against a huge chest, her bodice torn, vile hands fumbling at her bosom, lifting up her skirts… Voices cried out commands to stop, to release her, but they shouted back, laughing, that if she was good enough to fight with their women she was good enough to love with themselves. Women’s voices yelled, laughing encouragement or shrieking out jealous disapproval, small brown feminine hands joined in now, trying to tear her from the bear-hug embraces; buffeted, bewildered, half out of her senses, she knew that in a very little while her struggling arms would have no strength left to defend herself; that her torn clothes already left her half naked to vilest assault. Sobbing and gasping she fought, struggled, prayed for deliverance. And almost as she reached the last ounce of strength and spirit, deliverance came. A voice called out, laughter and screaming suddenly died, hands dropped from her, the drunken, struggling crowd fell back and away and there was silence.

A voice crying out in Welsh and in English: ‘Leave her alone! Swine, fools, insolents! — don’t you know that she is reserved for
me
?’

Wrapped cloak, fur cap, swaying on his feet yet yelling it out in a voice of black fury: the Fox himself, Gareth y Cadno.

She slept ill, a prey to nightmares. Catti Jones was banished, red-haired Jenny lay at her feet on a couch of dried bracken, improvised for the night. Lord Tregaron came to her there in the morning. He looked very pale and worn. ‘Are you recovered? I’ve been anxious about you.’

‘Anxious about what?’ she said, viciously. ‘My health or my beauty? For with my beauty impaired, I shan’t be so good a bargaining point for you, shall I, my lord?’

‘What do you mean?’ he said, his face growing cold.

‘Those long hours with Y Cadno while he haggled over our ransom! When you haggled with him over your safety, don’t you rather mean? — since you can’t get the money, your wife’s body, for your freedom: your safe conduct at the price of her virtue.’

‘Of her
what
?’ he said.

She shrieked at him, blazing. ‘My virtue, I said. Do you deny me even this? Who has ever possessed me but you who are my own husband? Isn’t that good enough? — to
give
myself in marriage to my husband…?’

‘To two husbands,’ he reminded her coolly. ‘And to neither in love. For one was too old, and the other unfortunate in his choice of brothers. Is that virtue? In cold blood to
give
yourself to any man: married or unmarried.’

‘And so you will sell me to this monster, this brigand, this filthy, cut-throat toby-man, sell me for the price of your miserable life and into the vilest of beds. But what care you for vile or not vile, who would tumble that bitch of a sloe-eyed slut with her bosom half out of her bodice for any man to fondle; only that she keeps herself for you, for my husband, and offers herself, forsooth, in the face of all the company…’ And as he, but twenty-four hours ago, had slapped her across the face, so she now hit out, violently, bruising with the gold and ruby ring against the sharp cheekbone. ‘Get out, begone from my sight! — and only as you value your safety leave that woman alone, for she’ll not share your favours with me, my dear lord, even though mine shall be given you never more.’

He turned and was gone, making no sign, giving no answer; and she threw herself down on her bed again, bitterly weeping, sick with the battering and bruising of the night before, with the fear of the future — with the bitter pangs of an utterly unreasonable, utterly unlooked-for passion of jealousy.

All next day she kept her bed. Catti came to her abject in apology, confessed her wantonness, begged for forgiveness; but Gilda knew that though she might fear to lose her place, in Miss Jones servility was now lacking; that Castell Cothi once attained would ring with the recital of last night’s doings at the Court of Foxes. She pretended a grudging pardon, turned to purposeful gossiping. My lord—? My lord, it seemed, said Catti, had kept his room, worn out, no doubt, by the fight with the drunken mob for her ladyship’s safety… (“Did he fight?’ said her ladyship, astonished.) From London no word had come; nor, strange to say, had anything been forthcoming either as to financial dickerings with the wolves of Rome. And Jenny, joining them, reported that already the Fox was again in earnest counsel about a new expedition. A spy was set in Cheltenham to send him regular information of those booking accommodation in advance at the coaching inns; travellers gave false names and details, trying to keep the facts of their journeyings secret until they should be safely accomplished. But the extent of the arrangements could not be concealed, and now he sent messages that in the finest inn, rooms had been set apart for the following night but one, for a lady and her maid, and others for two gentlemen; and since the messenger making the arrangements had spoken with a Welsh accent, he had made particular enquiries; they were headed for Carmarthenshire. With coachman, footmen, perhaps an outrider or two for their further safety, this would comprise half a dozen men at least, and all doubtless armed. The gang had been long withdrawn into Y Cadno’s apartments, said Jenny, where from his bed the sick man raged at the inefficiencies of the night before… And Blodwen, by the way, no longer wore her languorous smile but combed out her torn locks and mended her rent petticoats and was swearing an ugly vengeance; and moreover finding backers amongst the women. ‘But don’t they understand,’ said Gilda, ‘that this after all is my husband whom she is coquetting with?’

‘What is marriage to us here, Madam? She has been his woman all this time, and—’

‘All this time. We have been here hardly more than a matter of days—’

Jenny looked a little foolish. ‘A week, two weeks in our lives — if a man stays so much with one woman, why then she has a right to consider him her own. It is like a — a betrothal. And such women as he had before that, must give way without argument.’

‘All this time!’ From the very beginning — from that first night, no doubt, when he had said: ‘By heaven, he works fast, my little brother of Llandovery.’ You work pretty fast yourself, my dear, she said to him savagely in her sore heart, jealous and angry. And yet how be jealous of one whom you so bitterly despised and detested…?

They kept themselves very quiet after that, he and Madam Blodwen; very quiet and very discreet. But that night she saw them (and understood now those rides ‘under guard’: Blodwen, armed, was guard enough for any man) — slipping away separately from the rock fortress to where two ponies were tethered at the fringe of the oak forest; riding off into the deep, dark privacy, no doubt, of some bed on the rustling leaves under the starlit trees. And the next night they went again. Very well, she thought: next time I shall follow you and when I come at last to your precious Castell Cothi, my lord of Tregaron, what a scandal will not then rend the ears of your fine high society, unless you pay out and pay and pay…! But she knew that she went, not for the gew-gaws and gold she might extract from him, but for some other reason she could not herself clearly understand.

She laid her plans carefully, took no one into her confidence, was quiet and circumspect, kept out of Blodwen’s way and preserved at least an armed truce with the woman’s friends. In the bustle of preparation for that night’s foray, intensified by the brooding, unseen presence of The Fox in the background, her occupations were not much remarked upon; and when, the rest having departed, she saw her husband slip off to join his partner down by the river side — she herself had a pony hidden away in the scrub land, and was ready to follow them.

It was dark that night. The moon, which had shone so brightly over the feastings and fightings three evenings ago, now was cloud-covered, there was a faint drizzle, mist rose up from the stream and obscured the pathway. But she rode the stubby pony, rolling fluidly in the saddle to the rhythm of its pecking struggle up the hillside, sitting astride, her petticoats pulled up to her crutch, for there was no one to see her. His sure feet found out a path he well knew and she was content to leave it to him, moving on up, and ever uphill, stealthily, holding aside the branches to save her face from scratches, releasing them whippily, rejoicing in a freedom of movement she had not known since the old happy, out-door, too-much-despised old days in Gloucestershire. Far ahead came an occasional crackle of twigs that ceased at last; and she thought of their shocked surprise when she came upon them there in their secret nest, of the rage of the woman, of the wretched self-abasement of the erring husband; the slow dawn of his realisation as to her adamant intention — exposure to the whole outside world of his vile surrender of herself for his safety; of himself to this slut and whore. And adamant it should be: no touch, no caress, no keen brown face deliquescing into the surrender of passion, ever again should turn her from her purpose. One only should play at that game now;
he
might be not proof against her magic for him — she, forewarned, would be as ice now, against his magic for her.

And, so vengefully dreaming, she sat the little pony and he brought her to the edge of the tree line — and out on to a road that led upwards from her left to her right, between the hanging forests. And suddenly…

Suddenly a shout of men’s voices, a clattering of hooves, a rattling of coach wheels, the shrill screams of terrified women; and out of the darkness carriage lights looming, the flare of torches and a mêlée of riders crashing down from out of the scrub. And a voice crying out: ‘Stand and deliver! Your money or your lives!’

The pony had followed his fellows to the hold-up of the coach.

The mist had been left behind, hanging low over the valley; in the course of the long, uphill, dreaming ride, the clouds had drifted and now let through a pale moonshine with a twinkle of far away stars. In the shaft of light cutting through the narrow defile between the oak trees, she could see the rocking of the splendid carriage with its family quarterings, the uniformed coachmen sitting up, great-coated, on their box, the six fine horses rearing with rolling eyes and tossing heads, nipping at one another with a baring of white teeth in their unrest and alarm. Out of the window poked a head crowned with a black tricorne hat; a voice cried out: ‘It’s Y Cadno’s gang!’ and the head disappeared again. She heard the wild yells of the highwaymen reining in their ponies after the steep dash down through the forest, closing in, ringing the coach about, as so short a time ago, they had closed about her own; and sitting there stricken motionless on her pony, watched how the gang broke up, two men taking charge of one outrider, two of another, dragging them down from their horses, resistant, disarming them; two more keeping their firearms trained upon the men on the box, the rest clustering about the coach trying to squeeze their ponies past it along the narrow roadway or make a detour through the scrub oak on either side, to come close up to the windows and threaten those within.