The Legacy (1987)
Page 57
Alex would dream of him too, and in his dream was a surreal mountainside where the grass grew green, the sky was a brilliant blue and the sun sparkled, glinting rainbow colours like a child’s picture story book.
Alex saw himself, running towards the peak of the mountain. There came a thunder of hooves, ringing and echoing around the mountainside, and still he ran on, breathing the sweet, clean air as he jumped for joy . . .
Breaking through clouds with his raised hooves came a black, shining stallion. Astride him sat a man of magical ethereal beauty. A wild man, with flowing, blue-black hair, barechested, at one with the beast. Alex lifted his arms, crying, ‘Don’t go! Don’t go!’ But the rider passed him by, as if leaping over the very mountain. The thunder of hooves merged into a thunderclap, and the clouds closed like a grey curtain. Alex screamed, struggling to run those last few yards up the mountain, ‘Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!’
He was too late, he was too tired. He collapsed to the ground, and from the earth came the last, faint sounds of the still-galloping horse, fainter, fainter . . . The skies opened and rain began to fall.
Alex woke, drenched in his own sweat, his body stiff and cold. He pulled the worn blanket around his aching body and closed his eyes again, hoping to conjure up one more glimpse of the rider. Unable to sleep, he comforted himself with the thought that one day he would reach the top of the mountain.
Romany Curse
He must lie with his treasures, be they tin or gold,
Resting in finery, his back to the soil.
One wheel of his vargon must light up with fire,
In the flame is his evil, his pain and his soul.
But beware of his taelizman (talisman) carved out of stone,
If not in his palm, then a curse is foretold.
For who steals the charm of this dukkerin’s son,
Will walk in his shadow, bleed with his blood,
Cry loud with his anguish and suffer his pain.
His unquiet spirit will rise up again,
His footsteps will echo unseen on the ground
Until the curse is fulfilled, his talisman found.
Epilogue
The Talisman follows the lives of the two brothers: Edward’s meteoric rise to vast wealth, Alex’s prison sentence and release.
To ensure they were never to forget their origins, Edward took from his mother’s grave the necklace his father had given to her the night he had claimed his championship belt. He melted the gold to make two medallions, and had their names inscribed, so they would never forget. Unknowingly he had committed a Romany sin. By opening the grave he had taken from his father and his mother their treasure. He had taken his father’s life, and now he ransacked his soul, ignorant of the old customs and the curses. Edward evoked the unquiet dead.
The Talisman introduces the brothers’ women, their wives and their children, all of them inexplicably bound by ghosts from the past. The murder of their father, Freedom Stubbs, the Champion fighter, constantly draws them back to their Romany origins . . . they have his blood in their veins, and his death on their consciences. They have inherited the Romany second sight and, as they reach a phenomenally high pinnacle of both material wealth and power, attained deviously and violently, one of them must now pay the debt. One must pay at last for the murder. It is the law of the Romanies, be it sons or daughters, wives or mothers, fathers or brothers, a debt must be paid. A tear for a tear, a heart for a heart, blood to blood, soul to soul . . .