Hosts of Rebecca

picture, giggling, posturing, her head flung back, kissing the air with her lips at a drover, driving him daft. Down on the Burrows lives Jane with her dad; a terror for the men, the curse of the women, but as clean as a new pin, and quiet. Strange how she resembled Mari with her inborn daintiness; cast in the same mould, the woman and the harlot. I cursed her soul as I saw her coming over for Grandfer’s little eyes were peeping over his quart.
“You loose tonight, Jethro Mortymer?”
I looked at her, at the smoothness of her, the whiteness of her throat, and she smiled then and her lips were red and curved above the shine of her teeth.
“Don’t judge by yourself,” I said.
“O, hoity toity, eh? Respectable, is it? Gentry, is it?” Eyes closed to the light, she laughed, tinkling above the bedlam. Saw the curve of her waist, the dress taut across the upward sweep of her breasts. Pity I felt, and longing. But up leaped Flannigan, and shouldered her out of it.
“Leave her,” he said. “There’s quicker ways of dying,” and he grinned and back-handed his bristling chin. “You heard, Mortymer? I’ve got a gate.”
“You’re lucky,” I said. “Tom Rhayader’s got two.”
“Bullin’s men. Sassenachs, not even Welsh. God, what a country. Another’s going up in front of the kilns – that will catch the lot of us.”
I drank, watching him. Dangerous, this one. I reckoned I could take most there that night, including Gower, but not Abel Flannigan. Deep-chested, he topped six feet, and his hobby was bull-taming. When bulls went mad they always called for Abel. “Bull gone mad down at Morgan’s place, Abel me son,” Biddy would shout, “slip down and see to him, there’s a good boy,” and Abel would kill a quart or two to liven him up and cut a yew branch for the taming. Slippery on his feet for a big man, he would vault the gate and get the bull’s tail and hang on relentless to the kicking and bucking, and every time the thing turned its head Abel would cut him on the nose with the yew. Bulls around our parts tossed and turned in their dreams of Abel.
“Something’s got to be done, hear me? I’m burning ricks now but I’m heading for tollgates.”
I jerked my head and lifted my mug as Osian Hughes got to his feet. Towering above us, he was biting at his fingers, his looks girlish, his face as white as a fish belly.
“O, God,” said Abel. “Don’t tell me,” and turned.
“I’ve got a gate,” said Osian, soprano.
“And what are you doing about it?”
Osian wrung his fingers.
“Look what we’re up against,” said Abel. “No guts, no fight, no nothing. Go to hell, girl, find yourself a drover.”
“My mam says pay,” whispered Osian. “We can’t fight the Trusts.”
“We can’t fight with the likes of you to fight with,” said Flannigan. “Thank God I was born with an Irish surname if yours is Welsh. But my mam Biddy is proper Welsh, and Biddy says fight. Look, Mortymer,” he turned to me. “I have reckoned it up. If I take a cart to the kilns for a three-and-six-penny load it’ll cost me one-and-a-penny to get it through. Three gates stand between me and the lime now, and full price tolls, mind, not halves.”
“That’s the gatekeepers,” I said. “More fool you.”
“But the notice is up there – full price tolls!”
“And you can’t read and they know it.”
“By heaven, I will have those keepers,” he whispered, fist in his hand.
“And they are planning for another – Kidwelly to St Clears,” said Osian.
I nodded. I had heard, but did not say, not with Flannigan in this mood.
“Bastards,” said Flannigan. “You thought how many of us will use that one?”
“Nigh twenty,” replied Osian, “counting me.”
“Nobody’s counting you,” said Flannigan. His eyes narrowed and he prodded me. “More like fifty, I say – counting the upland people – folks like Tom Rhayader, and the upland boys like a fight for the fun of it. What you say?”
The cockfight grew to a shriek about us and feathers flew in a flash of spurs. Blood spattered the boards where a cock lay dying and money chinked from hand to hand. Men were shouting, shoving to the counter but giving the three of us a wide berth, eyeing Flannigan.
“Rebecca, eh?” I grinned at him.
“O, dear God!” whispered Osian, sweating.
“You get to hell out of it,” said Flannigan. “Get yourself weaned,” and brought up his elbow. He frowned around the room then, his eyes on Gower.
“Mind your tongue,” he said soft. “There is more than one Judas.”
“Just counted another,” I replied, for Grandfer’s eyes were unwinking from his corner, his little nose shining over the top of his quart. “And leave Gower be,” I added.
“Just thinking,” said he. “Best treat him respectable. Six months of this and we will all be at Ponty. How’s that Morfydd of yours sticking it?”
“Don’t mention her in here,” I said.
“Outside, then. We will stick to Rebecca.” He looked at me. “Bloody fool to talk in front of Osian. If they closed a fist at him he’d blab to the devil.”
The June night was warm and alive with candle-flame stars, with a fat, kind moon. We leaned against Betsi’s fence.
“You in with us or out, boy?”
“In,” I replied. “Those gates come down.”
“Which gates?”
“Kidwelly to St Clears.”
“Give me strength, but a kid you are for all your size. The bloody things aren’t up yet. Gates in general, I mean – round these parts.”
“I’m with you.”
“Right, you.” He fisted my chin, knocking me sideways. “It’s fixed. We are meeting next Wednesday, midnight. Up on the mountain in Tom Rhayader’s barn.”
“First meeting, Rebecca? Damned near Squire’s Reach, mind.”
“Poetic justice, boy. It was Squire Lloyd Parry who started the Trust and he is taking his profits from Lewis, the toll-contractor. Have his mansion next, like we had his salmon.”
“You?” I had suspected it was Flannigan.
“Me and six others – Tom Rhayader leading. You heard about this