“Greetings to the Mortymers!” cried Waldo through bared teeth. “Welcome to the county, I say – the prettiest women in Wales, not counting fat little Biddy Flannigan by here!”
“O, go on with you, Waldo,” said Biddy, all creases and blushes. “There’s terrible he is, now, and in front of strangers.”
“Strangers no more!” roared Abel her brawny son. “For I have a little barrel of good stuff from Betsi Ramrod’s place but I am needing a woman to roll it in, doing the custom. Any volunteers?”
“I will go,” said Morfydd, rolling her sleeves, and the look she gave Abel Flannigan sent up my blood, never mind his.
“A kiss from the beer-roller, remember,” called Mari. “Mind what you are taking on, Morfydd!”
“Dark out there!” I cried, while everyone roared.
“Darker the better,” shouted Morfydd. “Bring him back in one piece, is it?”
“Morfydd, behave!” called Mam, looking worried. Cheers and shrieks as Morfydd rolled the little barrel in and Abel came staggering after her on rubber legs, and I saw Osian Hughes Bayleaves send Abel a filthy look from his corner where he sat with his mam. Ring-dancing now, singing and laughing, back-slapping and a bit of spare kissing going on, with the young men rushing round with jugs of the foaming ale and Mari dashed past me for the boys who were bellowing upstairs. Caught the eye of Dilly Morgan through the surge of the crowd.
“Phist!” I said.
Ambitions for this one, me, for Tessa was up at Squire’s Reach and every woman has a separate appeal.
“Me?” she mouthed back, eyebrows up, thumbing herself.
I jerked my head and went through the door of the back and I heard the rustle of her behind me.
“What you want, Jethro Mortymer?” Knew damned well what I wanted.
“Plenty of old kissing going on, Dilly Morgan,” I said. “You fancy kissing me?”
“And me fourteen? Eh, there’s indecent!”
“Got to start some time,” I said. “Look up by there, girl – you seen Venus?” and I got my arm around her waist.
“Don’t you start tricks, now. I have heard about you, Jethro Mortymer. Sixpenny Jane down at Betsi’s place do say you’re a grown man the way you’re behaving. Loose me this moment.”
But I had her, though she was thrusting, and her lips were as wine in the frosted air. Pushed me off and caught me square, the bitch. “Tell my mam, I will,” said she, and up with her skirts and away through the door.
Not much doing when you are fourteen, but I waited a bit for I knew Hettie would come. Beggars are women when they think they are missing something. Pretty she looked, though, in the light from the door, skirt held up between fingers and thumbs, and she bowed with a nod.
“Happy Christmas,” said she. “Didn’t expect to find you out here, Jethro Mortymer,” and she nearly fainted for the shame of it.
“Same to you,” I said. “You come for kissing?”
“Just passing,” said she. “Looking for Dilly.”
No slaps from this one. Soft were her lips, unprotesting; been at it all her life on this performance. Got a future, Hettie, but I’d much rather had Dilly. Just getting her set up again and the door came open and Morfydd peered.
“What is happening out there?” she asked.
“Looking at Venus,” I said.
“O, aye? You can see it through glass, then. Want your head read sharing darkness with that thing of a brother, Hettie Winetree. In, in!” And she whirled behind us and brushed us in with her skirts. Probably for the good for I was coming a little hot with me, and I saw a few guests give us the eye as we came into the light. Betsi Ramrod followed us in, five-feet-ten of ramrod mourning, and Gipsy May her assistant from Black Boar tavern followed her rolling a barrel, and I heard Dai Alltwen Preacher give them a sigh, for their tavern had a name in the county. Waldo up on a barrel now, hoofs beating time to a roar of singing, and then, quite suddenly, the bedlam died. People were turning towards the door, and Mari shrieked in joy.
Black-frocked, enormous, he stood in the doorway, hands clasped on his stomach, beaming down. As a sentinel of Fate Tomos Traherne stood there, smiling around the room; full twenty stone of him, spade beard snowflecked, his broad felt hat under his arm. And my mother turned from the table and saw him.
“Tomos!” And she ran straight into his arms.
There’s awkward.
Half a dozen possible suitors in here already and in comes a stranger and she greets him like a lover; a fine one for examples, said Morfydd after.
But it was better than that, though the locals did not know it.
Everyone going formal now, backing to the wall, trying to look uninterested – very interested in boots, nudging their neighbours, and when Mam’s handkerchief came out the women started whispering. Didn’t blame them. Couldn’t expect them to understand.
For this was our Tomos from back home in Monmouthshire; the giant of the Faith; fearful to the iniquitous, the persecutor of harlots, but a broth of a man when it came to the hungry. Fat, ungainly, his belly belt was worn bright on the backsides of children late for Sunday School, and he could hit wickedness from South Wales to North in a single swipe. Friend of my dead father, this; the protector of my mother in the agony of her grief. Mari at him now, hanging on to the other arm. A foot the taller, he stood quite still, then turned to face the room. A bit of sniffing from my mother, and then she spoke.
“Dai Alltwen and friends,” said she, taking local preacher first. “This is our friend, my husband’s beloved friend, come down from Monmouthshire Top Towns to visit us. I ask all here to give him a welcome.”
This didn’t do Dai Alltwen much good but he bowed proper and the man-mountain bowed back, catching my eye and winking as he
