by Sally Watson
Lark looked at him with dismay. She had, up to now, been quite sure she would get her own way, and that James would do whatever mysterious business he had for the king, and then come to Scotland with her. Now the trip began to seem almost as impossible as he said it was. But she was not going back to Uncle Jeremiah’s house! She stared mutinously at her own scuffed shoes.
James was encouraged by her silence. “Listen, Lark; I have an idea. I’ve some good friends in Shrewsbury. Now just wait a minute and listen to me! They’d be happy to have you stay with them for a while. Do keep quiet and let me finish, will you?”
Lark closed her mouth and listened, but not very encouragingly. James went on. “And then I have my own family in Devon.”
Lark had her chin out. “That’s nice,” she said brightly.
“Now, stop that!” said James with annoyance. “Listen, I tell you! My family and friends in Devon are in touch with a good many of the exiles in France—the royal family, and a lot of the others. I’m sure they could get word of your parents, given a little time, and arrange to send you to them. But I can’t take you to Devon myself, because I’m not going there, so I have to leave you some place where you’ll be safe and where my father will be able to find you, and that’s with my friends in Shrewsbury. Wouldn’t you rather do that and get to your parents safely than to try to walk to Scotland alone?”
Lark considered. Her enthusiasm for Scotland had definitely waned. Perhaps . . . “Father’s name isn’t the same as Uncle Jeremiah’s,” she mused aloud. “So if I told you that, you still couldn’t send me back to my uncle. And if it didn’t work, I could still go to Scotland . . .”
James looked at her indignantly. “Don’t you know me any better than that?” he demanded, hurt. “Lark, I want you to be happy almost as much as I want you to be safe. I know you’ll be happiest with your family, so that’s what I want for you. The only reason I’d even think of sending you back to your wicked uncle would be if that were the only way to keep you safe.”
“Oh,” said Lark in a small voice. She absorbed that for a moment and then smiled at him radiantly. Then he was fond of her!
In her delight at having this point cleared up, she felt that she must be fair to Uncle Jeremiah. “Actually,” she confessed, “I suppose he isn’t so very wicked; or at least he doesn’t think he is. Even when he stole me from home, he thought he was doing the will of God. He has long conversations with God about everything, to be sure he’s right. The only trouble is,” she added astutely, “it always turns out that God agrees perfectly with Uncle Jeremiah, and when he prays out loud it’s never asking God’s opinion; it’s just explaining to God what Uncle Jeremiah thinks He should do. I don’t believe he can tell God’s ideas apart from his own, you see.”
She looked at James anxiously, hoping that he would understand this rather complicated idea, and also that he wouldn’t notice that it was suspiciously complicated for the little girl that he supposed her to be.
But James was grinning appreciatively at her insight, no suspicions on his face. He had begun to take Lark’s precocity for granted, particularly since he had no small sisters with which to compare her.
“I’ve noticed that a lot of Puritans can’t tell their notions from God’s,” he observed wryly. “I think it’s both their strength and their weakness. It’s the thing that makes the good ones saints and the bad ones devils, and all of them dangerous because they lack a sense of humor.”
“A sense of humor?” echoed Lark.
James nodded. “A real sense of humor is being able to laugh at yourself, and how can you do that if you take yourself so seriously that you think God depends on you for advice?”
It was a good thing he had been speaking quietly. They had hardly heard the soft clopping of a horse ambling along in the soft dust of the road behind them, and they were considerably startled when it loomed up alongside and a middle-aged man in Puritan garb leaned over and spoke.
“Good day,” he said politely enough, but his dark eyes rested on Lark with what seemed unwarranted curiosity. “What is your name, little maid?”
Lark instantly donned the expression of a kitten who had just got its eyes open for the first time. She looked up. “My name is Submit Tanner,” she piped, “and my brother is Humble Tanner, please, sir.” Her fingers clutched for the protection of James’s sleeve, and she ducked her head and twisted her feet in a most convincing agony of shyness. In any case, she had not the remotest idea of what to say or do next. Her inspiration had apparently used itself up for the day.
James took over. “Aye,” he said in his best Yorkshire. “Tha mun pardon ma wee sister, for she do be main bashful, like, and not used to strangers. Mind tha manners, Submit,” he added. Lark took the hint and bobbed a small curtsey, eyes still on the ground. “Did tha want summat?” James asked with ingenuous candor.
The man shook his head. “No,” he said. “I stopped to ask about your sister because I heard the other day about a lost girl they’re searching for down south of Salisbury. She has long brown hair, they say, and was wearing a brown dress and cloak when she disappeared—but there was no brother mentioned, and in any case, I believe the lost girl was rather older.”
James hardly heard that last bit, because he was busy arranging his face into the proper expression. “Ah, th’ poor lass!” he said with great sympathy. “Happen her folks’ll be wild, just! Submit, tha mun say a prayer for her.” He shook his head sadly. “Ah hopes them’ll be finding her safe,” he added. “Good day.”
“Good day,” said the man, and rode on.
James and Lark followed silently—but not too rapidly. The moment the man was out of sight ahead, they turned with perfect accord into a lane which led off the main road and through a wood. Better a little more delay than another encounter like that!
At first they proceeded fairly cheerfully, considering everything. For they were both greatly relieved at having the question of Scotland more or less settled, and the green shade was most welcome after the blazing heat of the road.
Soon a breeze sprang up from the west, but it wasn’t welcome for long. It was a malicious breeze, tugging meanly at them, and blowing dust into their eyes. Lark soon found herself taking a personal dislike to it. James disliked it for rather more practical reasons. He very much feared that they were in for something more violent than a mere summer shower.
He began walking a little faster, even though they were both tired. For there were no signs of any house or shelter, and the sun, as it slipped down the northwest sky, was dimming behind a reddish gray haze. The breeze quickened until it was distinctly a wind, with a fretful whine to it. By sunset it was blowing leaves from the trees, and James and Lark were wrapped in their flapping cloaks, with heads lowered against the unpleasant weather.
It was quite dark, and the wind close to a gale, before James spied a light off to the left, just before a squall of rain blocked it out. “Come on, Lark,” he urged, putting his arm around the small cloaked figure. “I see lights.”
They lurched on through wind and rain, glimpsing brief flickers between the trees and lashing branches now and then. Presently they stood on the edge of a clearing looking at a group of lights within a larger group of dark shapes. James stared intently. “Gypsies,” he announced.
Lark started to turn hastily away, as James had given her the impression only today that Gypsies were very much to be avoided. So, for that matter, had everyone who ever mentioned them. But James held her arm. “Wait,” he said, his voice clear in a sudden brief lull of the wind.
Instantly several dogs from the Gypsy camp started barking excitedly. “Wait,” said James again. “I’ve a blood friendship with one Gypsy. I don’t suppose we could be lucky enough to have run into his tribe, but let’s see what happens. Don’t be afraid, Lark; they can be very warm and generous if they accept you at all.”
Lark looked at him reproachfully, not sure whether he was fibbing a little bit now, or had been earlier. But she stood still, for
she certainly had no intention of going off in the dark and storm without James.
7
The Gypsies
A cluster of lanterns glided toward them across the clearing, led by the still-barking dogs. Presently James and Lark were in a half-circle of feeble light, looking across a small but somehow uncrossable space at the Gypsies. Their swarthy faces had a golden sheen in the yellow light, and their once-bright garments seemed to glow softly: amethyst, russet, wine, and green. In the center was a massive, bearded man whose brows hung so far over his eyes that one could see only a deep shadow beneath, and beside him stood a woman whose age might be anywhere from thirty to sixty. Her faded crimson cloak hung to the ground in great wide folds, and her eyes were deep and black and penetrating. They regarded James and Lark silently, disconcertingly.
James spoke first. “My little sister and I are lost in the storm. May we beg shelter from you for the night?”
The woman reached a long arm from her cloak and pointed it almost at Lark’s nose. “Why do you lie, young Gorgio? She is not your sister, nor is she a young child.” The arm shot back in again, and the silence continued, more suspicious now.
Lark moved a little closer to James, alarmed at the obvious supernatural powers of the Gypsy woman. James spared a brief and interested glance at Lark. He already suspected that she was a trifle older than he had at first thought. Then he bestowed a frank and engaging grin upon the woman. “It’s true that she is not my sister,” he admitted cheerfully. “But since when do Gypsies object to a good lie?”
The atmosphere thawed a trifle, and the granite planes of the big man’s face softened a tiny bit. “Yours was not a very good lie,” he pointed out. “Sheba saw through it at once.”
James bowed his head respectfully in Sheba’s direction. “That’s true, but she is clearly a woman of great wisdom. The Gorgios from whom we are in danger have been easily fooled so far.”
The atmosphere thawed a little more. Gypsies were inclined to be sympathetic to anyone else who was also pursued by Gorgio authorities, and life had been particularly hard for them since the Puritans came to power in Britain. “Why are you in danger?” asked the man.
“It’s a long story,” James replied. “We will tell you the truth of it—but we are cold and wet. May we not come to one of your tents or wagons? Surely you need not fear that we could harm you, and you may cast us out any time you wish.”
There was a silence, and James was suddenly sure that it was not the huge man who would really make the decision, but that they were all waiting some signal from the woman, Sheba. But Sheba had meanwhile pulled the crimson cloak away from her sides, like wings, to show Lark two small children standing under it like nestlings, one on each side. The younger one was like a small bird: round and chubby with rosy cheeks. The larger was clearly an imp of Satan, for wickedness danced in his black eyes, and he grinned at her in shy impudence.
Lark smiled delightedly and, afraid of alarming the small one, very gently moved one hand toward them a little. It was only then that she became aware of everyone watching, and she glanced up, startled.
Sheba moved her head slightly, swept the cloak around the children once again, and turned to lead the way back to the camp. The decision had been made.
A few minutes later James and Lark sat in one of the crowded wagons, in the midst of a whole family of Gypsies. Lanterns dangled, swaying slightly, from the roof, and their sodden cloaks hung at one end to drip. In weather like this there could be no campfires, but at least it was dry in the wagon, and warm with many bodies pressed closely together.
Still, there had been fires in the camp before the rain started, for Sheba brought them bowls of a strange, savory smelling stew with meats and vegetables and herbs cooked together. Lark looked at it a trifle dubiously, for she had never eaten anything like it, and vegetables were a bit of a novelty, in any case. But she was extremely hungry, so she had two bowls. And when she had finished, she decided that it had been delicious.
She looked around and began to perceive things that could not be seen. For one thing, although she and James were in the center of a crowded group, there was still that invisible wall between them and the others. For the Gypsies were a people apart. They might—rarely and under special conditions—give shelter to a couple of young Gorgios on a stormy night, but that didn’t really change anything. Any non-Gypsy was a Gorgio, and Gorgios were alien creatures who could never enter the inner circle.
Lark began to feel uncomfortable. The faces around her were alien and mysterious. The big man, Psammis, was without doubt on very good terms with the Devil, and so was one of the younger men—a slender, straight, handsome fellow, with flashing eyes and too-white teeth under a black mustache. These people clearly knew and did things that Lark would prefer not even to imagine, though there was something to be liked about them, too. Sheba might almost have been a prophetess from the Old Testament. Her weather-beaten face was quite inscrutable, but her eyes gleamed with kindness as well as knowledge of things unknown.
The eating was finished now, and an air of waiting grew stronger. James looked around and began to speak, while Lark sat straighter. She nodded every so often as James told the story of their meeting and adventures, and now and then put in some little detail that he had forgotten. And when they had finished, she looked around at the sealed faces of their hosts, wondering what they were thinking.
“It is hard to believe that you do not know each other’s names,” pointed out the darkly handsome young man. “Do not you Gorgios trust one another?”
“I told you, it would not be safe for Lark to know my full name and my business,” said James patiently. “It might endanger her.”
Sheba nodded, but her deep eyes flickered briefly at Lark, who got the distinct impression that Sheba knew that Lark knew more than James thought she did. She shifted the subject hastily.
“I didn’t trust James at first,” she announced candidly, “because he was so worried about keeping me safe that he might have tried to take me back for my own good. But that’s different from the other kind of not trusting.”
It was Psammis who nodded this time. It seemed that they would be allowed to stay for the night.
But James had bigger ideas. “Do you know Frongo Lee, of the Blackbird tribe?” he asked suddenly.
Wary blankness covered every face, and Psammis looked at him. “What of Frongo Lee?” he asked.
“I have a blood friendship with him,” announced James, and pulled up his left sleeve to show a thin scar along the inner side of his arm, with an oddly shaped extra little scar at the top of it. Psammis and Sheba examined it in silence.
“Tell,” said Sheba, sitting back again and taking the sleepy younger child into her lap.
“It started by chance,” said James, grinning ruefully. “About six months ago Frongo and I happened to get into a bit of trouble at the same time with the same troop of Roundhead soldiers—though for different reasons. Well, since ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ we helped each other out, and what with one thing and another we managed to get away after quite an interesting little fight. So naturally we mopped up each other’s scratches once we were safe; and when we finished, we realized that we’d mingled blood anyhow, and saved each other’s lives. So we just went ahead and made it official, and he added his little mark to the cut on my arm, and I helped him get back to his tribe, and then stayed on with them for a week or two. That was up in Lincolnshire,” he added, and then cocked his head at them.
Psammis looked at the mark on his arm again, and then at James. “Well?”
“If you are going north soon, I would ask that we go with you for a way,” said James bluntly. “No one would think to find us here, and we could wear Gypsy garments and stay in the wagons if necessary. Do you befriend the blood friends of your people that far?”
Lark was looking at him with enormous eyes. The Gypsies looked at each other. “We must talk about it,” decided Psammis, after a long look at Sheba’s f
ace. “Sleep now. When you wake in the morning, we will let you know.”
Lark must have been more tired than ever before in her life. She was finally awakened the next day by a stir and buzz from the camp around her, but mostly by something poking her. She opened her eyes. The wicked small imp she had first seen under Sheba’s cloak sat with black eyes sparkling at her and his chubby small sister beside him. He wagged his head.
“Sheba said to let you sleep late because you were tired,” he said, “but she could not have meant so very late. The sun is at the top of the sky, and we are setting out. Don’t you want to wake up now?”
Lark blinked, yawned, and looked about her. There was no sign of James, nor did she hear his voice among the ones outside. She felt a moment of alarm, and then relaxed, knowing that he would take care of her, no matter what happened.
The young imp nudged her again. “Don’t you want to get up?” he repeated. “There are some clothes here for you.” He indicated a not-too-clean skirt of faded violet and a full-sleeved saffron blouse which lay by the pallet. “Your man has already changed, and we have to hide your Gorgio clothes with his. Hurry.”
Lark sat up and looked at him with amused severity. “I can’t change with a man in here with me, can I?” she demanded.
The imp looked flattered but puzzled. “Why not?”
Lark was saved the trouble of trying to explain by the arrival of a Gypsy girl whom she had just glimpsed among the group on the night before. The girl whirled into the wagon and let loose a flood of Romany speech at the boy, who answered with a cheeky grin. The older girl then cuffed his ear, pushed him bodily out of the wagon, and turned to Lark.
