“Rebecca is in trouble for sure tomorrow night,” Idris said, gazing about him in awe. Had all the books in the world been gathered in this one room? The carpet under his feet was softer than his bed, he would swear. “And so are you. Sir.”
“You like what you see?” the earl asked, his voice definitely amused now. He had switched to speaking Welsh, Idris noticed. “If my sources are correct, Rebecca is not going to be anywhere around tomorrow night, lad. Perhaps never again. And as for me, I can look after myself. Is your dada enjoying his new job?”
“They know who Rebecca is,” Idris said, gawking at the inkstand and letter opener on the desk and wondering if they were really silver or just polished tin. “And they are going to trap him and make him look bad and catch him tomorrow night. They know where he hides his stuff too.” He looked at the earl and knew that he finally had the man’s full attention. Humor was all right in its place, Idris thought, but people ought not to laugh merely because one was nine years old and not a grown man.
“They?” his lordship asked, lifting his eyebrows in a gesture that made him look wonderfully haughty—Idris had practiced imitating the expression but could succeed only in looking surprised.
“Sir Hector Webb,” Idris said, “and Mr. Harley.”
“Indeed?” The earl clasped his hands behind his back, another gesture that Idris had tried to imitate until his mother had asked what he was hiding and his father had threatened to come and look if he did not answer smartly. “Suppose you tell me everything you came here to tell me, Idris. If you feel it right to give the owner of Tegfan information about the enemy, Rebecca, that is.”
Idris giggled. But he was feeling too full of importance to give in to childish hilarity. He told his lordship everything he had heard and wished as he spoke that his hair would curl like the earl’s and that his eyes were blue.
The earl was looking at him intently by the time he finished speaking. “I believe, Idris,” he said at last, “I am going to have to give you employment at Tegfan. You might as well have a legitimate reason for being here since you are always here anyway.”
At first Idris was indignant. His dreams would all come true if the earl was serious. But this was not the time to talk about such matters. Idris wanted to know what he could do to help thwart the dastardly plans of the true enemy. He wanted to be taken seriously. He wanted to sit down with his lordship so that they could plan out a scheme together.
“It could well be,” his lordship continued, setting a hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezing it, “that you have done more for the cause of Rebecca this morning, Idris, than anyone else has done before you. Well done, lad.”
Idris felt that his chest might burst. He would gladly at that moment have died for his hero. “What can I do to help?” he asked.
The earl looked gravely at him. “You have done enough, lad,” he said. “You must go directly home and not let Mr. Harley suspect that you overheard any part of that conversation.”
“But there are things to be done, sir,” Idris said impatiently. “You will not be able to ignore the invitation to meet the man from the newspaper in London. Rebecca will have to go out, because if she doesn’t, Mrs. Phillips might be hurt anyway.”
“We will leave that matter in the hands of Rebecca,” the earl said. “I want you to go home now, Idris. With my heartfelt thanks.”
They were not quite enough. “Rebecca will collect her bundle from the usual place tomorrow night,” Idris said, “and they will be lying in wait. She will not even get one foot out of the park. And then she will be dragged over to the Cilcoed gate so that it will seem to be her who destroyed it and hurt Mrs. Phillips.”
“I believe Rebecca will realize that and plan accordingly,” the earl said. “I would send for cakes and lemonade, Idris, but I do not want anyone to know you have been here. The day after tomorrow I will bring a barrel of cakes up to your house.”
Duw, but he hated being treated like a child who could be fobbed off with the prospect of good things for his stomach. “I will take the bundle with me now, sir,” Idris said. “I will keep it safe at the house and Rebecca can get it from there tomorrow.”
His lordship drew a deep breath and expelled it from puffed cheeks. “Idris,” he said, “do you not realize that there may even now be a watch on the place where the bundle is hidden?”
“If I couldn’t spot watchers a mile off,” Idris said scornfully, “I would be dead by now, sir, or in one of those big ships on my way to the other side of the world.”
“And so you would,” his lordship had the grace to admit. “Do you know the old ruined hovel almost a mile from your own house, Idris? The one built against a rock face?”
“Where you used to live?” Idris said.
The earl smiled at him. His eyes crinkled in the corners. Idris was going to practice that expression too. “That is the one,” his lordship said. “Will you take the bundle there, Idris? And leave it there and not go anywhere near it for the rest of today and tomorrow? I am going to regret this. What am I doing deliberately involving a boy in dangerous matters?”
But Idris was not going to lose his chance now. “Remember when you were a boy, sir,” he said, “and how much you would have wanted to do something to help. Something really important.”
“Heaven help us,” the earl said, “you are right. In those days I would have been willing to give a right arm for something as exciting as this.”
“I’ll be on my way,” Idris said, crossing the room back to the window. “I’ll not fail you, sir. If there is anything else I can do . . .”
And then be damned if the earl did not stoop down and grab him as he had done once before on the road below Ty-Gwyn and hug him hard enough to get all the breath whooshing out of him.
“Be careful,” he said. “I must be mad to allow this. If by any chance you are caught, Idris, you must say you found the bundle and thought your mother would be pleased to have it. If that explanation does not work, you will be brought here to me and I will vouch for you. Go now.”
Idris went. One thing about the earl he was never going to imitate. He was never going to hug children just as if they were helpless infants. When he was grown up, he was going to treat children as if they were adults. But it was the only flaw he could detect in his hero. And even heroes, he supposed, could not realistically be expected to be quite perfect.
Aled was alone in his forge, his apprentice having already been sent home for his dinner.
“Good day, my lord,” he said with a curt nod when Geraint walked in. “What may I do for you?”
