Their footsteps receded. When the gypsy released me, I spun away from him angrily and rubbed my lips where his fingers had mashed them against my teeth.
“It would be polite for you to give your name to your rescuer,” he said.
I glared at him. “I didn’t need rescuing!”
“No? Then you wanted to be whipped? I apologize for intervening, but there are gentler pleasures.” The wicked expression in his dark eyes made me step back involuntarily.
“I suppose you caused all that trouble over at the other market a little while ago as part of your quest to be whipped. It must have disappointed you to have escaped so easily. What have you done with your horse, though?”
My heart jumped. “I don’t know about any other market or a horse.”
“No?” He smiled. “Then I must have been mistaken in thinking you rode a black horse from the city just yesterday dressed as you are now, to appear as a boy.”
I flushed. “All right. I ride a black horse and wear boyish trousers. So what? Why did you follow me yesterday? And why did you help me just now?”
“So I did help you, then?” he asked mockingly.
I scowled and gathered my will to give him a coercive mental jolt, hard enough to penetrate his mindshield, but, without warning, he stepped forward and kissed me full on the mouth.
Wit and breath fled at his audacity.
Releasing me, he spoke. “If I had known it was so easy to silence you, I would have done that sooner.”
I scowled, mortified and furious that I had not pushed him away. Did he think because he was Twentyfamilies he could kiss anyone and they would like it? Childishly, I rubbed my hand across my mouth.
“Revulsion rendered me silent,” I snapped. “Why did you do that?”
Heavy eyelids drooped secretively over his eyes. “Because I wanted to,” he said.
I did not know what to say to the simplicity of such an answer.
His mouth shifted into a lazy, curving smile. “But what I want even more is to know this: Why are you pretending to be a gypsy?”
16
“WHAT ARE YOU talking about?” I demanded scornfully, gathering myself to run if he tried to catch hold of me again. “Of course I am a gypsy.”
“Your back is bleeding,” he said mildly. “You need treatment, and there is a gypsy rig nearby where you can clean up. I will take you there, if you wish.…”
I bit my lip, mistrusting his apparent indifference. Yet I dared not cross the city on foot in bloody disarray. Aside from that, here was the opportunity to learn why the man had followed me the previous day. Moreover, this might be my last chance to locate the gypsy woman’s blood kin before Maryon’s deadline.
“Very well,” I said.
His lips twitched into a faintly ironic smile.
As we walked, I took good care to stay out of the reach of his long arms and a little behind him. I was shivering, but not from the cold. The pain from the whipping was locked behind the suppressing barrier I had set up, but there was no way to block the shock of it from myself.
True to his word, he led me to a rig set on a tiny green not far from the market. Alongside it, four horses grazed. One of them was Sendari, whom the gypsy had ridden the previous day. To my discomfort, he recognized me as we approached the rig and trotted over to push his soft muzzle against my hand. I could not reach his mind to ask him to withdraw, so I stroked him and pretended not to see the startled look the gypsy gave us. In some situations, it was safer to say nothing rather than to try explaining the inexplicable.
The rig itself was magnificent. Every panel of wood was intricately carved in an elaborate scene. It made our own poor wagon seem fit only for firewood. The carvings were unusual and reminded me vaguely of the stonework mural in the Reichler Clinic under Tor. Then again, they were also like the carvings that had once graced Obernewtyn’s huge entrance doors.
“It is very beautiful,” I said sincerely.
He nodded. “This is the skill of my family. It is a very ancient art.” He caressed a ridge in the dark, smooth wood.
“This is your rig?” I asked, wishing that I could simply read his mind for the information I needed.
“Maire!” he called suddenly.
An extraordinarily ugly crone poked her head through the brocaded curtain. Her skin was much darker than the man’s, and her snow-white hair hung to her waist in stark contrast, but she had the same black penetrating eyes. Squinting against the dusk light, she regarded him with disfavor. “What do you want?”
“This girl was whipped by some louts in the market. Her back needs treatment. Can you heal her?”
The old woman sniffed and raked me from crown to toe with her sharp eyes. “Can I? Yes. But should I? Will I?” She took up a battered box of woven reed, climbed from the wagon, and hobbled over to the smoldering remains of a fire. She was tiny and wore a bed dress of deeply embroidered silken material the color of the summerday sky. Setting the box on a log, she flicked a derisive glance at the man. “I suppose you rescued her. Your father would be delighted to hear what a hero has sprung from his loins.”
When he made no response, she glared back at me. “Well? Are you going to show me your wounds, or do you want a body servant to strip you? I daresay your rescuer would oblige.”
I felt myself redden but turned and shrugged to part the ripped shirt. She gave an exclamation that told me the wounds were as savage as I had feared. It also made me realize the weakness I was feeling might not just be due to overusing my Misfit powers.
“Am I a bird to fly up?” the old woman shrilled. “Kneel down, for Lud’s sake!”
I did as she asked, thinking how much she reminded me of Louis Larkin, kindness hidden behind a shield of irascible carping. Tutting and muttering to herself, Maire bathed the flesh, then gently peeled away the cloth stuck to the wounds. Rummaging in her box again, she withdrew a bottle, and a moment later, the unmistakable odor of herbal preparations filled the air. The old crone was an herb lorist. I jumped at the feel of cold ointment on my bare skin. She slathered it on with a liberal hand, then stuck a dressing over my whole back.
“ ’Tis done,” she said, slamming the box shut.
I thanked her and pulled my shirt about me as best I could.
She watched me with an odd expression on her aged face. “You are a tough one, girl. Not a flinch for all the nerves exposed and hurt. No Twentyfamilies would have done as well, for all their infernal pride.”
I saw, too late, that I should have pretended discomfort when she was working on the open wounds, but the suppressing had prevented me feeling anything, and I had been too preoccupied to think of it.
I made myself shrug. “Halfbreeds are tougher than milky purebloods.”
She snorted. “Except that you are neither.”
I felt the blood drain from my cheeks.
“I am a gypsy halfbreed,” I said faintly.
She cackled ironically. “So you say and so those rags you wear would have it, but it is not true. There is nothing in your face from Twentyfamilies stock. Not darkness of eye, not thickness of lips, nor any other physical characteristic that belongs to my people.”
“I am a halfblood. I throw to my mother,” I declared, watching the man from the corner of my eye. His expression had not changed, though the old woman’s question exactly echoed his own accusation.
“Why were you whipped?” Maire asked.
“I touched some material, and the trader selling it objected.”
I wondered why she did not reiterate her accusation. The gypsy man had changed the subject in exactly the same way, rather than demanding proof or arguing the point. It struck me that these gypsies were shifty folk who sidled about things rather than coming on them bluntly. I began to wonder if it had been such a good idea to come after all.
“Gypsies are not popular in these times,” the man said in a neutral voice. “What is your name?”
“Elaria,” I said. I felt as if there were undercurrents here conc
erning me, which I could not read.
The man shook his head. “That is not your true name.”
Fear skittered along my backbone. How did he know that?
“Do Twentyfamilies know everything, then?” I sneered, drawing indignation from a little surge of anger. I did not like to be called a liar, even when it was true.
“Has no one told you that Twentyfamilies gypsies have the gift of truth?” he asked.
I licked my lips. “Truth?”
“Twentyfamilies know when a lie is being told.”
My heart began to pound, for suddenly I remembered Domick’s warning about making sure the gypsies did not guess I was an impostor.
Then I scowled, for how should he know if I spoke true or not? He was no Misfit coercer to read my mind—I would have sensed the intrusion if he was. He was guessing, or somehow I had given myself away.
The gypsy laughed suddenly. “You’ve spunk enough, for all your face reads like a book. Well, if you don’t believe in gypsy powers, then let us say I know you lie because you lack the signs by which our kind know one another.”
“What signs?”
His smile broadened. “That question marks you a liar even more than the absence of the signs.”
“What signs?” I demanded, putting my hands on my hips.
In answer, he rolled up one sleeve.
I stared at the elaborate painting on the inside of his wrist and up his arm. Three birds were depicted flying in a spiral of black and green, shot through with red.
My mouth fell open with astonishment—it was the exact design Garth had shown me on the plast documents from the Reichler Clinic!
The arm painting was executed in greater detail, but there was no doubt that it was the same. But what on earth could it mean? How in Lud’s name had a gypsy come to wear it? And could it possibly be coincidence that I, who had seen the design under Tor, should see it again so soon?
Both gypsies were looking at me so oddly that my heart skipped a beat. I searched my memory for the thread of the conversation. “I … What if I were to say I have no arm picture because it was washed off?”
The gypsy lifted his arm and spat on the painting; then he scrubbed hard at it. This had no effect and told me that the paint was indelible.
“All right.” I shrugged, thrusting the monumental puzzle of the arm painting to the back of my mind. “So, I don’t have one. What of it? Not all gypsies have them.”
At least, the gypsy in the safe house did not bear any such markings.
“You did not let me finish before you rushed to tell me how your ‘arm picture’ washed off. This is a mark worn only by those of the Twentyfamilies and entitles us to pass through the gates of any city unsearched and untouched. No ‘mongrel halfbreed’ would wear it.” There was a note of bitter self-mockery in his tone as if these words were someone else’s, and this robbed them of offense.
He lifted the same sleeve higher to show me a metal band around his upper arm. “This is what I meant to show you. All gypsies, full and halfbreed, wear these; yet, when I held you in the lane, I felt nothing. It tells anyone who might wish to know, whether you are bonded or promised or no.”
I flushed, remembering the gypsy woman’s metal band.
“And what of this?” He showed me a woven band on his thumb. “All gypsies wear these, too; weaved into the ring are signs telling the line of their descent. We bear these and other such things about us so that we may exchange knowledge about one another without the Landfolk hearing it. Do you still claim to be a gypsy?”
“Believe what you will,” I told him stubbornly. “That is what my father told my mother, and he left in such a hurry, he did not have time to teach my mother the finer points of gypsy culture. Her family threw her out when it was learned she carried a halfbreed child, and so she brought me up alone in Rangorn. Then she died,” I snarled, so carried away by the part I had imagined for myself that I felt bitter for the sake of my poor mother.
“The Twentyfamilies left without leaving his name, I take it,” Maire asked, her eyes inscrutable.
I felt I had misspoken, but it was too late to change my story. “So my mother said.”
She nodded and gathered up her box. “I will give you a shirt to wear in place of that.” She hobbled back to the wagon.
“Well,” said the gypsy man, “that is quite a story.”
I did not know what to make of this, so I said nothing.
“Do you know that a girl fitting your description rescued a gypsy halfbreed from the Herder flames in the highlands?” he asked casually.
“That is nothing to do with me,” I said.
“No?” He squatted down to poke at the fire, and the flames lit his face.
Only then did I register that the sun had fallen below the city skyline. The gypsy’s sleek dark hair and hollowed cheeks gave him a devilish look as he fed the fire until it blazed high, sending showers of sparks into the sky. I stood awkwardly watching him and wishing the old woman would hurry up with the shirt. The sooner I got away, the better. But still I felt weak—my mind was taking longer than usual to recover.
“They say there is a rich reward for the wanted girl.”
My heart began to bump.
“It is my guess that the girl who caused the ruckus in the market today and this Guanette gypsy are one and the same. What do you think?”
I shrugged, not trusting my voice to remain steady.
“Tell me, was it you or the boy you were traveling with who stuck a knife in the Herder in Guanette?” he asked casually.
“We didn’t kill anybody.…”
I stopped, aghast that I had fallen into such a simple trap. I took a step backward, but at the same moment, the old woman appeared out of the dark and thrust a shirt into my hands.
“This is the girl from Guanette?” she asked the man.
He nodded and said lightly, “She rode a black horse then, though not the magnificent creature she outrode me on yesterday. The lad with her traveled in a false gypsy wagon.”
The old woman turned to me, and I did not know whether to run or stay before the anguished intensity of her expression.
“Is she alive?” she whispered. “The woman you cut from the stake?”
I opened my mouth to say I didn’t know what she was talking about, but the glint of tears in her old eyes stopped the lie.
“She lives,” I said softly.
“Praise be.” She grasped my hand.
“You … you know her?” I asked.
The crone nodded, mopping her eyes with the end of her bed dress. “Her name is Iriny, and she is … is very dear to me. I had feared her dead. Where is she? Is she in the city with your companion?”
Instantly, I regretted the impulse of pity that had made me tell the truth without thinking it through first. I could hardly lead them to the safe house. Yet this was the solution to my problem of what to do with the gypsy woman, for clearly these people knew who she was and cared for her.
“She is in Sutrium,” I conceded, trying to decide how best to proceed. “She is very weak.”
“Dying?” the man asked abruptly.
“Not now. But she almost did. She seemed to want to die.”
“Ahh,” the old woman moaned, rocking herself back and forth. “My poor girl.” She fixed me with a sudden fierce stare. “Where is she? I must see her.”
“She is in good and healing hands.”
“You will take me to her now,” the man said, advancing with a threatening air.
“No!” Maire said. She looked back to me with frank entreaty.
“I will bring her to you,” I promised, ignoring the man and his threats.
“When?” he demanded.
“As soon as it is safe to bring her across the city,” I told him coldly. “The soldierguards are looking for me—and her. Tomorrow it will be worse because of the business in the market today.”
“That is so,” he said darkly, his eyes troubled. “Yet we Twentyfamilies are to leave Su
trium in three days.”
I blinked in wonder at him, for the Twentyfamilies’ departure from Sutrium coincided exactly with the end of the sevenday deadline. Was this, then, the reason for the deadline Maryon had set?
The gypsy took my silence for a question. “On the reckoning of our history, we began our journey to the Land on that very day eons past. It is our custom to always leave Sutrium in the final hours of that day in remembrance and as a sign of good faith to the Council. You see, it was also on that day that we made the agreement of safe passage. We regard it as an auspicious day for journeys.”
“Yet I will remain until Iriny comes,” Maire said in a voice that brooked no argument.
He nodded. “And so shall I, if there is need. But the sooner we can get her out of the city the better, and it will be a simpler matter to get her out in a group than as a lone Twentyfamilies wagon leaving later than it should.” He gave me a sharp look. “I will organize a rumor to say that you and your companion have left the city with Iriny. It will not take long for the soldierguards to run after the scent and leave the city free. When this happens, bring her swiftly and safely to us, and I will reward you in good coin.”
“I’m not interested in your coin,” I snapped indignantly. “I did not save her life for coin, and I wouldn’t bring her to you if I thought you meant her harm, no matter what you offered.”
He looked genuinely taken aback, and indeed, I was surprised at the extent of my anger.
“He is a fool as all men are,” Maire said dismissively. “Put on the shirt.”
I did as she bid, turning my back to strip off the ripped shirt and don the other. When I was finished, she looked at me, then went to the wagon and brought back a bundle of clothing.
“What are these?” I asked as she put them into my arms.
“They are Twentyfamilies skirts and gewgaws. Wear them when you return, and no one will trouble you. But make sure it is night when you come. A dark night, if you can. And speak to no one, unless you cannot avoid it; especially avoid Twentyfamilies gypsies.” The old woman gave me an imperious little push. “Go now,” she said. “Walk safe and bring her with you when you come again to us.”
The Rebellion Page 15
