The villagers didn’t arrive at the refuge en masse but individually. Flynt suspected that was at the instigation of Andrew Drummond and berated himself for not thinking of it. There was only half a dozen of them, not including Masilda, but had the four men and two women travelled in a group and were spotted, that might have raised eyebrows. Drummond declined to make introductions, explaining that it was best that Flynt did not know their names.
The guttering of the candles that Masilda had supplied cut deep lines in their faces as they gathered among the rocks. They regarded Flynt and Gabriel with curiosity but there was reserve evident too. Flynt recognised the old dyke builder who had passed them on the road that morning and they exchanged a very brief nod of acknowledgment but that was all.
Masilda lingered at the rear, young Will standing silently next to her with Samson as usual at his side. She caught Flynt’s eye and jerked her head as if to tell him to get on with it. He glanced at Gabriel, lounging with his shoulder against one of the rocks, his arms folded as though he was simply taking the air.
‘I think it’s time, Jonas,’ he said. ‘You invited them here, now you must entertain them.’
Flynt took a deep breath, stepped before the assembly and cleared his throat. Nerves danced in his gut, for he was unused to public speaking. He was one who preferred to keep to the shadows, not to stand before a group of men and women to deliver a speech. But it was a task that had fallen to him and he would see it through.
‘I think you will all know of me by now,’ he said.
‘Aye, that we do, lad,’ said the dyke builder.
‘Thee ist murderer who will bring further tribulation upon us,’ said a woman’s voice from the rear.
Drummond swirled immediately. ‘Hush, Martha, the man is no murderer.’
Though Flynt knew that not to be quite true, he didn’t contradict the innkeeper. ‘I didn’t kill Christopher Templeton,’ he said.
He heard someone ask in a whisper who Christopher Templeton was to be told, ‘Incomer in Millhouse.’
‘He was murdered by Lord Gallowmire,’ Flynt said. ‘I understand he was not the first to die by that man’s hand, or at least on his order.’
A murmur of agreement ran round the group but the woman Drummond had called Martha was not convinced. ‘Thee will bring further tribulation upon us.’
‘No, it is my intention to end it.’
The dyke builder spoke again. ‘And how exactly will thee do that, lad?’
Flynt looked him steadily in the eye. ‘I will deliver him to justice.’
The old man laughed. ‘Others have tried and haven’t achieved owt. His lordship still sits in hall watching his fortune grow and the rope burns on’t gallows pole remain fresh. Justice sides with those that have coin.’
Flynt was aware of that so decided to be more direct. ‘There is another form of justice. Natural justice.’
One of the other men piped up, ‘You mean you will kill him?’
‘If I have to.’
‘So you are murderer then?’ Martha again.
‘It is not murder to put down a mad dog,’ Masilda said from the back. ‘It’s a service.’
Martha’s disdain was evident. ‘We won’t be listening to owt from such as thee, Masilda Chilcott.’
‘That’s enough, Martha,’ Drummond snapped. ‘Masilda is under threat too, more so than any of us as Fitzgerald has his eyes on her land.’
Martha was unstung by Drummond’s sharpness. ‘Her husband’s land thee means, Andrew Drummond. And his lordship has his eye on more’n Will Chilcott’s farm, from what we hear. He wants his hands on summat more flesh and blood and dare say he’s already had his pleasure, too.’
Masilda bridled, her hand reaching to grasp Will’s as if the action could prevent him from hearing this. ‘What is that supposed to mean, Martha Harland?’
The man beside Martha, Flynt presumed her husband, tried to quiet her but she waved his restraining hand from her arm.
‘Nah then, Martha,’ said the woman on her other side. ‘This lass has done nowt wrong from what I can see and there’s the lad to consider. He don’t need to hear such things.’
‘I won’t be silenced,’ Martha insisted. ‘We all know that this one here has used her charms to bewitch men before, poor William Chilcott being one of them. We’ve heard that his lordship wants that ground and yet still she bides. Now, I ask thee all, why would that be? Nowt has been done to move her on…’
There were assenting murmurs from one or two of the women present, while others shook their heads.
‘Cooper and his friends prevented her from bringing in her vegetables to sell and her wool for weaving,’ said Drummond. ‘I saw it myself.’
‘Aye, and Cooper and them other two came off worst,’ the dyke builder said. ‘This lad here stepped in and Masilda settled with one and her dog there did t’other.’ He grinned at Flynt. ‘Did my old heart right good to see that lad Cooper getting his lumps.’
Flynt had to steer this away from the woman’s bile. ‘And he will get more if we have anything to do with it,’ he said, indicating Gabriel, to whom faces turned as if seeing him for the first time.
He pushed himself off the rock and gave them a slight bow. ‘Gabriel Cain, at your service.’ He winked at Masilda. ‘Although some know me as the other one.’
Despite her anger, something like a smile twinkled in Masilda’s eye.
Martha grunted her disapproval and Flynt diverted them again. ‘There is much we can do and will do. We are both competent men…’
‘Both killers, tha means,’ Martha sneered.
Drummond’s patience broke. ‘In the name of God, Martha, will you let the man speak. We wish to hear what he has to say even if you don’t.’
‘I has me a right to speak my mind, Andrew Drummond, more so than any outsiders, I reckon. This may be a man’s world but it’s us lasses who have to support you men and clean up the mess you leave behind. So I will speak my piece, thank thee very much.’
She pushed her way forward to give Flynt a defiant stare. Now that she was closer he could see she was large woman, a strong woman, her build suggesting she was well acquainted with manual labour. Her face was broad and even in the shadows cast by the candles he noted the deliberation in her eye. She had something to say and she was going to say it.
‘So, Mr Jonas Flynt, I know nowt about thee but what I’ve heard and what I’ve heard doesn’t impress. Old Ralph here told us what occurred on’t road to the hall this morn and the message you sent to Fitzgerald. Now, I have no love for that man, as all here can testify, but it be my belief that you and this one have as much violence in your hearts as he.’
When she said ‘this one’, she jerked a thumb towards Gabriel, whose eyebrow twitched as he no doubt considered if it was a promotion from ‘the other one’. Now Flynt knew the old man’s name, Ralph, and that he had hid himself in the mist to overhear their conversation. And she was Martha. So much, he thought, for Drummond’s intention to maintain anonymity.
‘Nah then,’ she said, folding her arms, ‘what I wonder is this – what would it profit ordinary folks like us to throw our lot in with one set of violent men against another? What do we know of such things? We are ordinary folk in Gallowmire, God-fearing folk. Pistols and swords and pikes aren’t for the likes of us.’
Before he could answer, Masilda stepped forward. ‘So you would stand by and let Fitzgerald commit his outrages? You watch as one by one your neighbours, people you have known for years, lose what little they have? And their lives?’
Martha didn’t even trouble herself with facing her. ‘I told thee, Masilda Chilcott, I won’t be hearing from the likes of thee. Thee aren’t Gallowmire born, not even England, so have no say here.’
Anger flashed in Masilda’s eyes. ‘I may not have been born here but I have made it my home. I buried my husband in Gallowmire earth and I sweat and toil upon it same as you, so I believe I have a right to speak.’
That made Martha twist round. ‘Right? What does a godless creature like thee know of right, or wrong?’
‘Godless creature?’
‘Aye, godless creature I says and godless creature I means.’
‘Martha, in the name of God…’ Drummond said.
‘I have a mind and I speak it. William Chilcott was a healthy lad until he took up with this gypsy, nowt wrong with him, never a day’s illness, and then he sickened and died and she took possession of his land. I’m not the only one that thinks it, neither, tha knows. She bewitched him and then killed him, sure as I stand here.’
Masilda launched herself with taloned fingers but was prevented by Gabriel, who in a swift, fluid motion intercepted her with an arm around her waist. Samson took a few steps forward, the hair of his back hackling, his teeth bared in a growl.
‘Stay, Samson,’ Masilda said, still struggling energetically against Gabriel’s grip. The dog did as he was told but his eyes never left them.
‘Some assistance here, gentlemen,’ Gabriel pleaded, strain evident in his voice, ‘for I fear this she wolf may prove too much for me.’
Drummond and Ralph moved to help drag Masilda further away from Martha. Her eyes, though, carried so much virulence that Flynt would not have been surprised if somewhere a preacher was already practising his funereal expression.
‘Please, ladies,’ he said, ‘fighting amongst yourselves is exactly what Fitzgerald would wish. If there is one thing that undermines a cause it is disunity. Strength in numbers only comes when those numbers act as one.’
Masilda’s ire had not concerned Martha one bit. ‘Thee hasn’t been hearing me, lad. I know what thee wishes. Thee wishes us to fight but, as I said, what fight there was within us is gone.’
Flynt knew now that if he could win this woman over then the others were more likely to follow. ‘Then tell me this, do you believe that you and your neighbours are on the losing end of injustice?’
‘Injustice is the lot of poor folks like us. We come into this world with nowt and we go out the same way. What can we do against such as his lordship with his coin and his power and his friends?’
‘It was folk like you, ordinary folk, who 250 years ago recognised an injustice, and they stood up against it and they won.’ He gave Masilda a meaningful glance. ‘They put their differences aside to protest what they saw as an unfair tax and their concerns were noted. The tax was never applied. It can be done. When good people with right on their side come together there is nothing they can’t accomplish.’
Eyes turned to Old Ralph, who had let Masilda go, knowing that her moment of violence had passed. The man gathered his thoughts for a moment. ‘Aye, ’appen that were true, and bloodless it were, relative speaking, but there were another rising hundred years after that weren’t so peaceful. The northern lords brought the ordinary folk out against old Queen Bess in support of your Scottish queen Mary, lad, and that didn’t end so prettily for them what were put to death.’
Muttered agreement met the man’s brief history lesson and Flynt sensed he was failing to win them over. He couldn’t blame them, for what Martha had said was true. They were not fighters, they were workers. Untrained, untested, unwilling. It was different for him and Gabriel, this was their life, but it was not theirs. However, he had to make one last attempt.
‘Then let me say this,’ he said. ‘It is my intention to continue on my course of action. The chances are that I will fail, but I will fail on my feet and not on my knees. And when you gaze upon my dead body, you’ll remember what decision you have taken this night and reflect on the fact that, had you found the courage to stand, then you might have changed the course of events. Sometimes that’s what it takes, for good people to stand rather than hide, to say to power, as those good folk who hid among these very stones did centuries ago, that they will take no more. This is your home, your land. You have lived on it, worked it. Those who have gone before are buried within it. Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, wives.’ He found Masilda, now back with Will. ‘Husbands. They’ve become one with the land and Fitzgerald wants to tell you that he owns them and everything on it. Do not allow that. Stand against him. Men like him are only strong as long as they believe you are weak. Show him that you are not. Show him that the people of Gallowmire say enough is enough. Tell him that his reign ends here.’
A silence followed his speech. Behind the villagers, Masilda nodded what he thought was approval. He looked at Gabriel, who gave him an appreciative wink. None of the villagers seemed willing to speak first, even Martha was silent, though her expression revealed no sign of his words having reached her. Drummond was also mute as he scanned the faces of his neighbours.
Finally, it was Ralph who spoke. ‘A right pretty speech, lad. A bit awkward but I reckons thee doesn’t take to such with ease. But I reckon that if thee desired a decision right now then thee is bound to suffer disappointment. Tha knows there be very real fear here and it will take more than words to overcome that.’
Flynt made to speak but Ralph held up his hand. ‘Nah then, lad, thee has said enough, so best leave it be. We’ll go back t’village and we’ll study upon your words. ’Appen when time comes, if time comes, we’ll either be there or we won’t.’
There were nods and vocal assent and the villagers began to turn away, occasional glances being directed back at Flynt.
‘Let me add this,’ Masilda said, and heads turned to her, apart from Martha’s. ‘I am Romani, it is true, and my people have been reviled by such as you for generations. We have been declared thieves and whores and murderers and some of us have been these things, it is true, for we are but people after all. But because we are Romani that makes our sins worse than you English. We have been burned out, chased out, forced out. We have been spat upon, beaten, hanged. This Jonas Flynt, he says it is time to say enough and I agree. I say enough. No more. I care not what you think of me, Martha Harland, for such has been said before and worse. No matter what you or Fitzgerald think or do, I will go nowhere, I will not run. I am here. Here I stay.’
Nobody made any attempt to reply, not even Martha Harland. They stood in an awkward silence for a few moments, then began to file from the enclosure. Martha passed Masilda and her son without a glance, Samson monitoring her every move. Drummond moved to Flynt’s side and together watched them disperse into the darkness beyond the range of the candles.
‘That woman seemed most determined to oppose us,’ Gabriel said. ‘Can she be trusted?’
Drummond considered his words for a moment. ‘Martha is vocal but she’s solid. She’ll tell Fitzgerald nothing.’
‘I can follow and ensure that she doesn’t,’ Gabriel offered, and Drummond looked shocked.
‘No,’ Flynt said. ‘Andrew here knows these people and if he says she can be trusted then so be it.’ Drummond gave him a grateful look. ‘What do you think of the others? Will they rise?’
Again the innkeeper reflected on his reply. ‘I wouldn’t depend on it. I told you from the start it was unlikely. You heard them tonight, these people are not fighters. I’ll say this again: leave this place, get away now while you can.’
‘And you heard the lady,’ Flynt said. ‘Here she stays. And so do I.’
Drummond looked from Jonas to Masilda, who had cradled Will before her, both arms across his chest. The boy stared back at them, his face blank. Jonas wondered if he understood what all this meant. He had to, he was not an infant, and yet he listened and soaked it in.
Drummond’s head shake was sorrowful. ‘Then I fear there may be new graves dug in this earth before very long…’