She slipped out of the house quietly, closing both the kitchen and the outside doors slowly, hoping that her absence would go unnoticed. She did not want the other two women involved in what she had decided to do. It would be unfair. They had suffered enough anxiety with Eurwyn.
She hoped she was not too late. She wanted desperately to be part of this first mass demonstration. She wanted to be a part of all of them, even though they would become progressively more dangerous as the authorities were alerted to trouble. It was a very dark night. Heavy clouds hid the moon and the stars. It was better so. And yet bounding downhill was not an easy thing to do. She hoped she would be in time.
She was. They were gathered at the river beyond Glynderi, perhaps twenty-five men, and more joined them within the next few minutes. They were all on foot except for the one figure on horseback, wearing a dark flowing robe and a dark woman’s wig. His face was blackened. Rebecca, Marged thought for a moment, and her heart beat faster. But he rode closer to her and looked down at her.
“Marged?” he said in Aled Rhoslyn’s voice. “You should not be here, girl. Go home now where it is safe, is it? It is enough that Eurwyn worked for the cause.”
It was Aled, of course, looking grotesque but somehow menacing as Charlotte. Rebecca was from somewhere else. And Rebecca, if tradition was being followed, would be clad recklessly in white.
She shook her head. “I am not going anywhere but with you, Aled,” she said. “You will not drive me away. Unfortunately it is gates we will pull down and not Tegfan, but Geraint will know after tonight that he has powerful enemies. I am one of those enemies and I will not cower at home.”
“We will be walking for many miles over the hills,” he said. “It will be a long, hard night, Marged.”
“And chapel in the morning?” she said, smiling broadly at him. “I will not have any of my choir missing, mind, and staying in their beds to catch up on sleep.”
“Well, then,” he said, wheeling his horse away from her, “don’t complain to me of blisters.”
He had not exaggerated. He led them straight into the hills and over the crest—and through valleys and over other hills. Miles and miles of walking. Most of the time he walked with them, leading his horse by the reins. There was not a great deal of talking. They picked up more men as they went and two more “daughters.” There must have been more than a hundred of them eventually, Marged guessed, all moving together and so quietly that no one standing close by who did not know of their presence would have suspected it.
And then suddenly it seemed that they were to join forces with another group at least as large and as close-packed and as quiet as their own. Marged, who was walking almost at the head of her own group, close to Aled, felt a thrill of excitement and fear again. At the head of the new group, seated on a large dark horse, was a figure dressed in a flowing white robe and a long blond wig. Even the face looked white—masked, Marged realized, rather than blackened.
Rebecca!
She sat motionless on the horse, appearing to tower over the crowd on foot and even over her mounted and darker daughters.
Who was he? Marged wondered, staring at him. He looked even more grotesque than Aled. And many times more magnificent. Aled rode forward with the other daughters from their group and they took up their positions to either side of Rebecca.
And finally she raised both arms upward and outward. White sleeves fell like wings from her wrists to her sides. It was an unnecessary gesture since there had been no noise to hush. But it was a commanding gesture. The silence became almost a tangible thing. Marged could almost hear the beating of her own heart.
“My daughters,” she said, “and my loyal children, welcome.”
It was a rich male voice, speaking Welsh. A voice that seemed not to be raised and yet spoke clearly enough to be heard by the farthest man in the crowd. It was a voice that sounded accustomed to command.
“I will lead you to a gate,” Rebecca said, “a gate that ought not to be there, taking as it does the freedom of passage away from my countrymen. You will destroy that gate, my daughters and my children, and the house of the gatekeeper. You will destroy them when I give the command. You will not harm the gatekeeper or abuse him with words. My followers are courteous people who perform a necessary service for their families and neighbors and friends. If anyone wishes to turn back, now is the time.”
No one moved. There were low murmurings of assent.
He was magnificent, Marged thought again. They were a rabble with destruction in mind. But he was converting them with very few words and in a very short span of time into an army with a noble purpose. He had them all eating out of his hand, herself included. She felt at that moment that she would follow him to hell and back if he asked it of her.
“Lead on, Mother,” Aled said.
“We will follow you, Mother,” a few of the other daughters said.
Marged found that her heart beat faster at the foolish ritual, which somehow at this moment did not seem foolish at all.
And then Rebecca lowered her arms, and they were all making their way down from the bleak hillside on which they had gathered. Down toward the road and a tollgate, though it was invisible in the darkness. In the darkness it was hard to see even the ground ahead of one’s feet. The horses ahead and the hundreds of men on either side were mere shadows in the darkness, felt more than seen. The only thing that could be seen with any clarity was Rebecca’s white garments. Marged fixed her eyes on them.
Who was he? He was someone from another valley, another village. The chances were that his name and face would mean nothing to her even if she heard the one and saw the other. She knew he was no one from near Glynderi. He had not come with them. Besides, she would recognize a man with such a commanding presence no matter how well he was disguised, if she knew him at all. It was hard to believe that in everyday life he must be a farmer or a tradesman. Or perhaps a lawyer. She knew that the few men who had been arrested for participating in Rebecca Riots had all been defended by such able lawyers that none had yet been convicted. Those lawyers were rumored to be Rebeccaites themselves. Perhaps one of them was actually a Rebecca. He spoke perfect Welsh—almost as if he were an educated man.
And then suddenly, without any warning, they were on the road and turning to walk along it. Marged could feel its harder surface beneath her feet. And the dark shadow ahead of the horses suddenly resolved itself into the distinctive outline of a tollgate across the road and a squat house beside it.
The horses stopped and the crowd closed in behind. Marged was almost at the head of it. There was an eerie silence. And then Rebecca raised both arms again.
At the same moment there was light. Only a thin thread of it, but it was startling to eyes that had looked into nothing but almost total darkness for a few hours. The door of the tollhouse had opened and a man and woman had come out, huddled together. The man held a lantern aloft. In its light Marged could see that both were terrified.
The reality of it all hit her powerfully then. What they were doing, what they were about to do suddenly had a human face. And the danger of the moment was so apparent that she thought the beating of her heart would make it impossible to catch her breath. There were hundreds of men all about her, angry men, as she was angry. Men who were perhaps looking for a scapegoat. It would need only one spark to ignite a fire of violence and revenge. Rebecca had appeared commanding up in the hills. But the real test had come.
Now.
