“We can even walk about there openly without having to skulk about among the trees avoiding mantraps,” Geraint said. “We will no longer be trespassing.”
Aled grinned, genuine amusement in his eyes. “Why not?” he said. “Welcome home, man.” He lifted the heavy apron off over his head.
And yet, Geraint thought ruefully as they left the forge together and walked down the street in the direction of Tegfan park, Aled was uncomfortable. He would a thousand times rather be back in his forge than on his way for a stroll with his former friend.
Aled Rhoslyn had not really expected Geraint ever to return to Tegfan, even though he was now the Earl of Wyvern. It would be too difficult for him to face the strange facts of his childhood and boyhood. The child Geraint had never been disliked as much as he had thought. He had been pitied more than anything, as had his mother, although, of course, the strict moral code by which most of them lived as nonconformists had forced them to reject the latter publicly. Most of the children had secretly admired the bold and almost charismatic little ragamuffin.
Most people had not disliked him during his boyhood after the earl had somehow made the staggering discovery that his long-dead son had been legally married to Gwynneth Penderyn when the two of them had run off together. They had been married before the conception of their son. A few of the meaner-minded, of course, had been spiteful with envy and a few others had not been slow to notice that Gwynneth Penderyn—she was never known by her married name of Marsh and Geraint had legally changed his name back to hers as soon as he reached his majority—was sent to live alone in a small cottage on the estate and was never either invited to the house or visited by Geraint.
Most people had not disliked him during his brief visit after the death of his mother. But everyone, almost to a person, had felt awkward with him, not knowing quite whether to talk to him as if he were Geraint Penderyn or to show him deference as Geraint Marsh, Viscount Handford. The fact that he had been both had led to an impossible situation.
But Geraint had always felt disliked. Not that he had ever been self-pitying about it. But he had built defenses, of which Aled, as his one close friend apart from Marged Llwyd, had been aware. The defense of not caring a fig for anyone as a child. The added defense of aloofness as an eighteen-year-old and the firm hiding behind his newly acquired Englishness and his gentleman’s manners.
Aled had not expected him to return. And over the years he had somehow managed to divorce in his mind his feelings for Geraint as friend and his feelings for the Earl of Wyvern as owner of the land on which he and his acquaintances and neighbors lived and worked. The Earl of Wyvern was that impersonal figurehead who represented the aristocracy, the English owners who cared nothing for Wales or the Welsh except as a source of wealth to themselves. Matters had come to crisis point. The whole system seemed designed gradually to squeeze out the small farmers and replace them with those who could better contribute more and more to enriching those who were already rich.
Aled had never thought of himself as a leader or as an agitator. He had been content to let Eurwyn Evans be both. But Eurwyn was dead and Glynderi and its neighborhood had needed a leader, someone with both firm convictions and a level head, and several people had approached him to take on the position and join the secret committee that had formed to organize protest in almost the whole of northern Carmarthenshire. Marged had asked him and he had remembered that Marged had suffered a great loss.
And so he had agreed. And had somehow blanked his mind to the fact that he had committed himself to organizing protest against his friend among others. He walked now beside Geraint beyond the village and onto the driveway leading to the house of Tegfan and then off it and across a wide lawn—and knew with a dreadful discomfort that Geraint was both his friend and his enemy, and that probably it was going to be impossible for him to remain both those things.
“Aled,” Geraint said suddenly, and it was only then that Aled realized they had been walking in silence, “don’t.”
The few words they had exchanged had all been spoken in English, Aled realized. Just as they had been ten years ago.
“Don’t what?” he asked uneasily. If they must talk, let it be on safe trivialities.
“Don’t treat me as if I were the Earl of Wyvern,” Geraint said.
“But you are.” He knew what Geraint meant but did not want to know.
“I am Geraint Penderyn,” his friend said, and there was a hint of frustration in his voice.
Aled remembered the talk outside the chapel on Sunday and Marged’s suggestion that everyone make the earl feel unwelcome if and when he visited. Apparently he had visited and had been made to feel unwelcome. A village blacksmith tended to hear about such things.
“Yes,” he said, “and the Earl of Wyvern too.”
“We used to fight,” Geraint said unexpectedly. “Wrestling, not boxing. Almost every time we met. You always won. I believe there were no exceptions. Do you want to try to retain that record, Aled?”
Aled looked at him in amazement. “Now?” he said. “Don’t be daft, man.” His eyes took in Geraint’s immaculate clothes.
But Geraint had stopped walking and was stripping off his coat. “Yes, here,” he said, and there was the tightness of anger in his voice—and a familiar gleam of recklessness in his eyes. “Come and fight me, Aled. Let’s see if you can still put me down. No, don’t back away and look at me as if you think I should be consigned to bedlam. Fight me, dammit, or I will slap your face and make you fight.”
Chapter 5
THE world had taken leave of its senses, Aled thought, watching as white shirtsleeves were rolled up sinewy arms. He had not wrestled since he was a boy. He was twenty-nine years old and a respected workingman. And there had been no provocation. There was no reason to fight. Not that they had ever needed a reason when they were children beyond that simple fact—they had been children.
He shrugged out of his own coat and dropped it to the grass. He was taller, heavier, better muscled, he thought, looking critically at his opponent’s body. It should be no more difficult now than it had ever been to win the fight. Though he had never won anything else with Geraint, he thought ruefully. The younger, smaller, scruffier boy had always somehow been the leader. Where he had gone—and it had very often been where he ought not to have gone— Aled had followed along behind.
They fought for a long time, in silence except for their breathing, which grew progressively more labored. They circled each other, engaged each other, tripped each other, rolled over each other, put seemingly unbreakable holds on each other, broke apart, jumped to their feet, circled each other, and began the process all over again. It was sheer luck, Aled had to admit, that finally sent Geraint tumbling at an awkward angle so that Aled’s heavier body could bear his shoulders to the ground and hold them there before he could twist free.
And then they were lying side by side on the grass, staring upward and panting to recover their breaths.
Geraint chuckled after a minute or so. “One of these days,” he said. “One of these days, Aled. Ah, thank you, man. I have needed that for a long time.”
He was speaking Welsh. He sounded quite like the old Geraint, Aled thought. The cultured English accent disappeared when the language changed.
“You needed humiliating?” Aled switched languages too and joined in the laughter. “I could have spat in your eye, man, and saved us both some time and energy.”
Aled knew what was coming in the short silence that ensued. And he knew he was quite powerless to avoid it.
