Court of Foxes (36 page)

To her left now the tiny farmhouse of Bwlch y Rhiw; she knew it from other days, there was an old farmer there and a pretty young wife for whose sake, she sometimes thought, Y Cadno had spared their herds and flocks in the gang’s maraudings. She chk-chk’d her pony: no sound of hooves ahead of her and she wanted to catch him up before he came to the inn. The stars would soon be out and a lonely spot on a warm starlit night would do her work sooner than a frowsty room in a drovers’ tavern. Besides — she must have company. I can’t be alone, she thought. I can’t be alone.

And the door of the farmhouse opened and a light shone out and the pretty wife stood there; and a tall figure, black cloaked, stooped to enter; and the door closed.

She had suggested that he would find accommodation ‘of every kind’ at the drovers’ inn; but, ‘even nearer than that,’ he had said. ‘You forget, I’ve ridden this way before.’

Now, for a moment, defeat did enter her soul. I can’t be alone, she had prayed; but now she was alone — alone, in the dress of a high-born lady, with no nearer comfort than a filthy tavern where any casual marauder might have her gold and jewels from her in a moment and leave her with nothing between herself and a doubtful welcome at her mother’s new ménage in London two hundred miles away. For a moment she thought that she might yet turn back and ride to the Cwrt; but she looked at the bare hand where his ring had glowed with its promise of love, and saw herself second to scarred Blodwen or whoever her successor might be; suffered to remain, to hang about the court, mother of the Fox-Cub but with no greater title than that — deposed from her proud leadership because the real leader was there. Not that! she thought. Not that! I’ll ride alone. But her hands shook, holding the worn leather of the reins, at thought of the long, dark, lonely road before her; of the long, dark lonely road that, now that her three loves were gone, was perhaps to be her life…

And out of shadows from behind the great boulder a figure loomed up before her — and cried out: ‘Stand and deliver!’

No black cloak here, no eyes glittering steely blue; but a little whipper-snapper fellow in a coat of russet brocade, who put out a hand — whose fingers were like steel, however, about her wrist — and caught her and pulled her down off the rough little pony and for a moment held her at arms’ length. ‘Whither away, Madam Vixen? — and with the pickings of two coaches to whom Gareth y Cadno had given safe conduct.’

‘I robbed them in another name,’ she said.

‘In what name?’ He burst into laughter: ‘Don’t tell me you’ve set up all on your own?’

‘You’re not the only highwayman in the world,’ she said; ‘nor yet the only man.’

He was startled; but in a moment had burst out into laughter again. ‘By heaven, it’s the Black Toby! Well, well, you lose no time! Cast off by the only one you love, clip, clop as fast as your pony will carry you, off you go hastening after the only one left that may love
you.
But are you so sure that he’ll have you, my pretty doxy? You’ve proved something of a liability so far to the men who have loved you.’

‘No woman’s a liability who comes well provided with gold.’

‘
If
she comes provided with gold. But what if ill befall her? — what if she meet a wicked highwayman on the road?’

‘Gareth y Cadno — you wouldn’t rob your own wife?’

‘Why not? — when I find her riding to meet another man.’

‘I am riding to London, to my mother’s house.’

‘Oh, are you, after all?’ He glanced down towards the farmhouse. ‘Ah, now I see it! He has escaped you. And so it must be back to mother? Well then, I may with the more conscience rob you, for you’ll not be wanting stolen goods and jewels there.’ And he shot out a hand and held her, while his left hand rifled the pockets of her jacket; felt in her pony’s saddlebags. ‘Now, Madam — it’s customary I believe, in the romances, for the highwayman to kiss the lady’s fingers — and so goodbye!’

She snatched her hand away from him. ‘Give me back my property!’

‘It’s the property of the Lady Blanche Handley and of the Earl of Tregaron and his family — none of whom, I sadly fear, would willingly see it in your hands.’

‘It’s as much mine as yours at least; for
I
robbed them of it. Give it back to me—!’ And she launched herself suddenly upon him, mad with mortification and rage, fighting him with fists and elbows, reaching up to grab at the chamois bag held high above his head while with his right hand, laughing, he fended her off. ‘
Give
it to me!
Give
it to me!’ Her hands battered at his breast but he had got his fingers into her hair, holding her back and away from him. ‘Oh, Madam Vixen, my Vixen, you are losing your cunning! I’ve seen you do better than this and with Blodwen herself who can fight any man and have the better of him.’ And as her arms dropped wearily to her sides and she pulled away from him, defeated, he slid the gold and jewels into his own saddlebags; and said to her softly: ‘You have, after all, other weapons than your fists, my love.’

So she went to him: put her two hands behind her back and went close to him, stood up close to him and put her mouth against his mouth and, not kissing him, pleaded: ‘Gareth — give it back to me!’

He did not put out his arms to her; stood as rigid as she and only did not move away, or turn aside his head. He said: ‘Give back what?’

‘Give me back the ruby ring,’ she said.

It was night and the stars were bright when they rode at last along the rough mountain track he had followed to cut her off at the boulder. ‘So, my Vixen — I have you and hold you at last!’

She sat the pony easily, one knee crook’d at the pommel because of impeding skirts, swaying laxly as it picked its sure way among the rocks and stones in the tussocky grass. By now the coaches would long ago have reached Castell Cothi and hurrying servants would be bringing reviving drinks and good, hot, comforting food; there would be huge fires in the splendid rooms where they sat in their velvet and brocades; upstairs, the great marriage chamber would have been prepared for her — for her! — with lacy pillows and silken sheets… And at home in the Bijou, there might still have been the frilly white bed and a fond mother fussing and clucking, and undemanding love and easy laughter with no wearisome standards of pretty behaviour any more than of courage and daring; but all this too she had thrown away. Ahead — ahead lay the fortress home, the roughness, the discomforts, the ever present danger from the law, the cold fear at the pit of the stomach as one rode out with the men, the dread if one stayed at home that disaster might befall and few of them return… ‘You have me,’ she said, riding along the mountain path at Y Cadno’s side. ‘Whether you hold me — that’s another thing.’

He brought his pony up close to hers and caught at her so that she half lay back against his shoulder, his arm about her. ‘You may fight,’ he said, ‘as you ever have; but this time — as I hold you now, so I hold you for ever. For you forget, my love — the Fox Cub.’

‘You have others I suppose,’ she said indifferently.

‘One, which I have this moment given away. For the rest — a litter run about the Cwrt which their mothers tell me are mine; but all those that have any certain claim on me are females. So this sole one — and born in wedlock, imagine it! — do you think I should ever let its mother go?’

‘You let me go just now: took my ring from me and sent me packing.’

‘I thought you wanted to be with — that other one, with Dafydd of Tregaron. But you don’t belong there, and at last you know it. You belong with me.’

She sat up straight. ‘I belong nowhere. A fox runs free — and a vixen too.’

‘Not when she has cubs.’ He put his arm about her and brought her back to him again. ‘You are free no longer. I am master now. I am Y Cadno, I am the Fox and the cub is mine; and therefore, I warn you again — I will never let you go.’

Oh, well: if that were all! She said nothing, leaned back softly against his arm, the two ponies ambling gently side by side, flanks rubbing, along the starlit mountain track. The cub is mine… Laughter began to bubble up in her, the old, effervescent, irrepressible, naughty family laughter of those other careless days. Brown Eyes was gone; and bright dark eyes looked down into hers. But hadn’t her mother often told her — was it, after all, only an old wives’ tale? — that a child could not be born with blue eyes unless its parents both had the same.

‘What are you laughing at?’ he asked, smiling, his arm about her shaking shoulders.

‘Dream your dreams,’ she said. ‘The vixen runs free.’

A rough phonetic guide to Welsh pronunciations —
(I think people don’t realise how much Welsh is still spoken, with English only as a second language, hardly used inside the home. In many parts, the children don’t understand English at all until they are taught it as part of the lessons in their ‘big schools’ — having so far had all their education in Welsh.)

The accent is almost invariably on the second last syllable.

The difficult double l is best pronounced by putting an h before the l (and not, as too often advised, a c or th.) Llan is pronounced H-lan,
not
Clan or Thlan.

The double d is pronounced like the hard th in ‘the’. The double f is pronounced f, the single f is pronounced v. Y is pronounced uh and the confusing w is pronounced like the short double o in ‘room’ — as opposed to ‘loom’.

So:

Llandovery
is pronounced — Hlan
-duv
very.

Dafydd,
the Welsh form of David — Da-vith (with the hard th.) The a short as in ‘Dad’.
Dai,
the diminutive, as ‘dye’.

Y Cadno,
the Fox — Uh-
Cad
no.

Cwrt y Cadno —
Coort (sounding the r) uh Cadno.

Lluinoges —
a vixen — hluin
o
gess.

Bach, fach —
the masculine and feminine of an endearment peculiar to Wales, perhaps most approximately ‘little one’, ‘my pet’ or even ‘darling’. The French ‘cheri’ may come nearest to it. Pronounced bar-ch (not sounding the r) or like the German name Bach. Fach would be
v
ach.

Dio y Diawl —
Dee-oh uh Dee-owl.

Diw, diw —
as it were, ‘Lord, lord!’ To rhyme with ‘dew’.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1969 by Christianna Brand

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

ISBN 978-1-4532-9043-9

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