against the impersonal earldom of Wyvern in its capacity as owner of Tegfan.
Geraint was on his feet too before Aled could walk away. He was rolling his shirtsleeves back down to his wrists. “No, you are not striding off on that note,” he said. “You owe me another bout, Aled. You know you won that one by sheer luck, just as you won all our fights as boys. Every one of them a lucky win. How many times did we fight? A dozen? Fifty? A hundred? There will be at least one more. And I make it a rule only ever to wrestle with my friends. Give me time, Aled. Give me time to find out the truth and to decide what I am going to do about it.”
Damn! Aled did not want the issues muddled. He could already feel conflict of interest weighing heavily on his shoulders.
Geraint was holding out his right hand again. “Agreed?” he said. “A week? Perhaps two? And then you can decide whether or not to sever your friendship with such a blackguard. Come on, man. You have not lost that fairness of mind that I always admired, have you?”
Damn! Aled took the offered hand and tightened his grip. “I really do have work to get back to,” he said.
Geraint stood back and let him pass. But Aled heard him laugh as he strode off in the direction of the village, feeling all the hopelessness of the conflict between the pull of friendship and the pull of loyalty to the people he represented.
“Perhaps I will challenge you to a boxing match next time,” Geraint called after him. “I have some small skill at the sport, I believe. I will relieve you of some blood via your nose, Aled.”
Aled smiled despite himself but did not acknowledge the challenge.
Geraint became gradually aware that he was not alone. It was not that he heard anyone or saw anyone beyond the disappearing figure of Aled Rhoslyn. It was just a feeling he had, an instinct he had developed years and years ago and had been unaware until now that he still retained. There were trees not far away, ancient trees with huge trunks.
“You had better come out from there,” he said conversationally in Welsh. “It would be more advisable than forcing me to come and get you.”
He was not sure who or quite what he would be facing. For several moments there was continued silence. And then a rustling heralded the appearance of a small, thin, untidy, shabbily dressed lad perhaps eight or nine years old. Staring at him, Geraint felt strangely as if he were looking into a mirror down a long time tunnel. Except that the boy’s hair was straight. He was standing on one leg, scratching it with the almost nonexistent side of the shabby boot he wore on the other foot.
“You had better come closer,” Geraint said, clasping his hands formally behind his back. The boy shuffled a few feet forward. “Much closer. One inch beyond the tip of my fingers if I were to stretch my arm out in front of me.”
The boy came to stand perhaps two feet beyond the indicated spot. He stood very still, his dark eyes fixed on Geraint’s. Geraint knew exactly how the boy felt, just as if the boy were his mirror image and he was the real flesh-and-blood figure. The child’s heart would be beating so painfully that it would be pounding in his ears and choking his throat. He would be considering escape. From the corners of his eyes, without betraying himself by letting them dart about, he would be scouting out escape routes. But he would know that there was no escape.
“Well?” Geraint asked. “What are you doing here?”
“I was playing,” the child said in a piping voice. “I got lost.”
Exactly the excuse he himself had given the only time he had been caught—fortunately by one of the gardeners and not by any of the gamekeepers. Even so, by the time he had been allowed to take his leave, his backside had been so sore that he had not been able to walk normally and he had still been unable to sit down by the time he had scrambled up to the moors and the hovel that was home.
“Got lost hunting rabbits?” Geraint asked.
The boy shrugged and shook his head.
“You know who I am?” Geraint asked.
The boy nodded and Geraint recognized the bold, fixed look in his eyes as one of unadulterated fear.