Ashling

by Isobelle Carmody

  Several nodded and I began to feel uneasy.

  I let Gahltha's rein slip from my fingers.

  "Shall I/Gahltha bolt/rear, Elspethlnnle?"

  "No!" Using the black horse as a diversion yet again would be as good as posting a sign to say the gypsies wanted for the market fracas were still close by. I dared not risk it with Matthew and Dragon in hiding so near.

  "Find Matthew and Dragon and take them back to the safe house," I sent, giving Gahltha a mental map of their location.

  "Gahltha must protect Innle," he protested.

  "No! There are people here with knives and arrows and they would think nothing of killing you. Obey me," I commanded. "I can take care of myself in this."

  Reluctantly, Gahltha withdrew. Fortunately, no one noticed he was riderless and apparently ownerless because all attention was riveted on me. "I think we ought to give her a good whipping just to teach her what we think of gypsy thieves," said the thin man, who had stopped me leaving. He unlaced a long whip from his belt with a practiced flick of his fingers.

  Two louts cheered and offered to lay on the first stripes to show how it was done and other people crowded nearer. As ever I was astonished how ordinary pleasant-faced Landfolk would delight in seeing a whipping.

  I looked around and my skin broke into gooseflesh, for I had no alternative but to let myself be manhandled and whipped.

  I clenched my teeth and steeled myself, invoking a coercive suggestion that the thin man should use the whip lightly. At the same time I cursed and struggled as anyone would when the two louts grabbed me and ripped the gypsy shirt to bare my back.

  "Now we'll see ye dance." The thin man laughed and flicked the whip. It whistled viciously through the air and I screamed when it struck, though I felt nothing, for I had erected a mental barrier to net the pain.

  I would experience the sting when there was no need to keep my wits about me.

  The whip struck again.

  "A weak blow," cried the cloth trader, and he strode out to commandeer the whip. I reached out a coercive probe to soften his blows too, but, to my horror, he was naturally shielded.

  I could not reach his mind without his knowing it!

  "I'll show you how she dances to my music," he promised, and swung his arm as hard as he could.

  The whip hissed, tearing into my skin. I felt no pain, but I screamed, writhing inwardly at the thought of the agony I would have to endure when the barrier was dissolved.

  He struck again and again, with no sign of stopping and I thought he might kill me. Perhaps this was the death I had been promised if I did not learn what swallow meant. Maybe Maryon had misjudged the number of days or misread her vision. Maybe my time was already up.

  "Dance gypsy! Give us a show!" cried the trader, as he lifted his arm again. His lips and eyes shone with lascivious pleasure. "I thought gypsies loved to dance."

  "That is so," said a caressing masculine voice, and suddenly I was free, falling forward and grazing my knees on the cobbles.

  Clutching my shredded clothing, I turned to see the dark-haired gypsy, who had ridden after me the day before. This time he was on foot and the two louts who had held me were sitting at his feet with dazed looks.

  The trader gave a roar of anger and rushed forward. With lightning swiftness, the gypsy stepped aside and plucked him up by the scruff of the neck. The oaf must have weighed as much as Gahltha, yet the gypsy held him dangling in midair as if it were no effort at all.

  "You have made a mistake, Littleman," he was saying to the dangling trader, in a lecturing voice. "A gypsy dances as an expression of pleasure in movement or song, or for a lover. Not for moronish illbreds who would not know beauty or grace if it bit them on the bum."

  I was astounded that a lone gypsy would speak that way to Landfolk. He could only be a Twentyfamilies pureblood to behave with such arrogance. No one made a move to intervene. In fact, people began to edge away.

  The stallholder was by now purple in the face and in imminent danger of suffocating, his jerkin screwed tight around his neck.

  "What is that you say, Littleman?" the gypsy asked with exaggerated politeness.

  "Erk!" the man squeaked, clawing at his collar.

  I stifled an incredulous giggle as the gypsy put his ear to the trader's mouth. "Your pardon? You say you want to apologize to this girl? Do I hear you aright?"

  The trader shook his head, then changed his mind and tried to nod. "What was that?" The gypsy hauled him closer, with the result that the cloth around his neck was drawn even tighter.

  "Ahhk," the trader gasped, batting his arms as if he were a bird about to fly away.

  "You'd best put him down before you kill him," I said, beginning to be worried. The trader's eyes were rolling about in an alarming way and his lips were quite blue.

  The gypsy ignored me. "Ahh! Now I understand. You wish to apologize by gifting a piece of cloth to her."

  "Ug," the trader said dully.

  "A fine gesture," the gypsy said, opening his hand and letting the man fall in a gasping heap at his elegantly black-booted feet. "Now what cloth was it that you wanted?"

  I stared up into his bold, laughing eyes. "Uh. I don't think..."

  "The green?" he said, as if echoing my words. "A good choice. It will suit you." He took up the cloth I had touched and held it up to my face. His knuckles brushed my cheek and I flinched.

  "You startle like an unbroken pony," he murmured.

  The blood rushed to my cheeks and he laughed, turning back to the trader who had risen unsteadily to his feet. "The green it is. Now wrap it up little fellow and I will consider amends made and say nothing to the Council-men."

  The trader took the cloth in trembling fingers, rolled it up and slid it into a paper sleeve. The gypsy took it and threw a few coins on the ground.

  I was stunned at his audacity and thought the Twenty-families' tithe to the Council must be magnificent indeed to let him get away with such high-handedness.

  Suddenly he reached forward, grasped my arm in a powerful grip and propelled me behind the stall and down a side street. A few paces down the street, he thrust me into a shadowy doorway and pressed himself against me; I panicked and struggled.

  "For Lud's sake and mine, girl, be still," he said in a hard urgent voice.

  "Let me go!" I cried.

  "Shut up," he hissed.

  "Shut up yourself!" I flared, temper overcoming fear. He pulled me against his chest and closed a hard hand over my mouth. "Shhh," he said quietly and distinctly into my ear.

  Then I heard the sound of running feet on the cobbles.

  I froze.

  "I tell you it was the girl from the other market. The one on the black horse that caused all that fuss," panted a man's voice nearby. "The captain said there is a big reward for her or one of them other two who was with her."

  "It couldn't have been one of them," said another in a gravel voice. "That trader said the gypsy who stopped the whipping was Twentyfamilies. They don't get mixed up with anything that ain't Lore. 'Sides if it were the girl from the market who rode that black horse, where is it?"

  Their footsteps and disgruntled voices 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 eyes made me step back involuntarily.

  "I suppose you caused all of 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 dres
sed as you are now, to appear as a boy."

  I flushed.

  "All right. I ride a black horse and I wear boyish trews. 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.

  "If I had known it was so easy to silence you, I would have done that sooner," he said, releasing me.

  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 to know even more, is why you are pretending to be a gypsy."

  Part II - The Twentyfamilies

  XVII

  "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 close by here where you can clean up. I will take you there, if you wish.... "

  I bit my lip, mistrusting his apparent indifference.

  I did not like the gypsy, even though he had rescued me from a very unpleasant situation. Yet I dared not cross the city on foot in bloody disarray. Aside from that, here was the opportunity to learn why he had followed me the previous day. Moreover, this might be my last and only 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, but, true to his word, he led me to a rig set on a tiny green not far away from the market. Alongside it, four horses grazed.

  I was shivering, but not from cold. The pain from the whipping was locked behind the mental barrier I had set up, but there was no way to block the shock of it from myself.

  One of the horses was Sendari, whom the gypsy had ridden the previous day. To my discomfort, he scented 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 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 of the mural in the Reichler Clinic under Tor. Then again, they were also like the carvings that had once graced the huge entrance doors to Obernewtyn.

  "It is very beautiful," I said, meaning it.

  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, but of course with a natural mindshield he would sense my intrusion.

  "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 hair hung snow white to her waist in stark contrast, but she had the same black, penetrating eyes. Squinting against the dusk light, she eyed 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 smouldering 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 be due to overuse of my Misfit powers alone.

  "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 a 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 forbidding had prevented me feeling anything and I had been too preoccupied to remember. Well, it was done.

  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 when I denied his accusation, rather than demanding proof or arguing the point. It struck me that these gypsies were shifty folk, who sidled about tilings 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 concerning 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. As you are lying."

  My heart began to pound, for suddenly I remembered Domick's warning about making sure the gypsies did not guess I was an impostor. What if the gypsy had saved me on a whim and would now kill me? Perhaps he would
even present my body to the soldierguards and claim the reward. I had no energy in reserve with which to defend myself.

  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 known by now if he were. He was guessing, or somehow I had given myself away. I would stall until I had power enough to force them to let me go.

  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 for it was the exact design Garth had shown me on the plast documents from the Reichler Clinic in the city under Tor!

  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? The sign on the plast documents had been the identifying mark of a research cell in the sinister Beforetime organization, Govamen, which had experimented on Beforetime Talents.

  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 paintings to the back of my mind. "So, I don't have one. What of it? Not all gypsies have them."