Fair Blows the Wind (1978) (10 page)

The cart stood beside a lane. His donkey was feeding upon grass at the roadside. The old man had a fire going and I walked across the field toward him. He saw me coming, but went on with his business, and I suspected he had been troubled many times along the lanes and byroads by those who would rob or annoy him.

It was only when I stopped beside the cart that I could be sure. He looked up and smiled. "You have come a long way."

"I have. And you also."

"It is my way. Once I was ... no matter. For these fourteen years past, this has been my life."

"You are a peddler?"

"Of cloth and trinkets, needles and pins. I am also a tinsmith, and I collect herbs from along the lanes and sell them in the villages or cities."

"You do well at this?"

"It is a living. It is enough. I am free. The nights are long and quiet, the mornings cool and bright, I live with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The air is fresh where I am, and there is no one to hurry me or to demand this or that of me."

"It seems a good life."

He looked at me. "You are hungry?"

I shrugged. "I ate yesterday, and once the day before that."

"Join me. I eat what the way provides, and a little that I buy. Sit you down ... or if you will, gather a bit of wood for the fire."

Coming down the slope, I had seen a fallen tree, so I returned to it and gathered broken sticks, some bark, and whatever would add to the fuel.

He dished up a bowl of stew and handed it to me. "Try that," he suggested.

On the tailgate of his wagon there was a large book opened for reading. "What is the book?" I asked.

"Maimonides."

"You are a Jew?"

"I am English, but one finds wisdom in all languages. I read him often, for he has much to tell." He looked at me. "How do you know of Maimonides?"

"My father read him also. We had many, many books, and my father would often read to me. Sometimes we talked of them."

"I have few books now, but they are old friends." He looked at me sharply. "Where do you go?'

"To London, I think. I look for employment and to make a place for myself. I have much to learn."

"What is it you wish for yourself?"

"To become skilled with weaponry. The wars offer a young man his best chance, and I would have wealth."

"Wealth? Well ... perhaps. It has its benefits, but is an empty thing in itself."

"We once had a home. It is now in other hands and I would have it back. The walls have memories of my father's voice and the pools there mirrored the features of my mother. My happiest days were spent walking the cliffs with my father and hearing him tell the tales of Achilles, Hector, and Ulysses."

"Ah, yes. It is good to have roots. I had them once ... long ago." He paused. "Now I grow old. I am slower than I once was, and loneliness sits hard upon me. I go now to Yorkshire, but after that, perhaps to the edges of London."

I said no word, waiting for what was on his mind. After awhile he said, "If you hurry not too much, you could come with me. You could learn my trade and more. Also, I shall meet soon with friends, and among them there is a gypsy."

"There were gypsies in Ireland, too."

"Aye, they are everywhere, but this gypsy ... he is skilled at all the arts of fencing. With whatever weapon you choose, he is a master. He has studied and taught the art in Venice, in Milano, in Paris as well as in London. Now he travels the roads."

"Why? A man of such skill--?"

"There was a duel. He killed a man of noted family and fled. Even now if they came on him he would be set upon and killed, or thrown into prison on some trumped-up charge.

"They did not know he was a gypsy, so they look not in the places where he is. Now he sharpens blades, shoes horses, and does odd things with metal. I will speak to him and he will teach you. Believe me, there is none better."

"How do you come to be a peddler? You speak as an educated man."

"Someday we will speak of that. I have education and once I had position. Now I am nobody, but I am happy."

I wanted to ask him more, but something in me warned against it, and I did not. That night beside the fire changed me. From being a fugitive I had found a place.

The following day, six miles further along the way, I met the gypsy.

What his name was, I never new. Nor why they called him Kory, which was not his name. He was a gypsy not of this land, but of Hungary, Rumania, or somewhere yonder.

His wagon was alone when we came upon it, and he was squatted by a fire, preparing food. He did not look around until the old man spoke, and then he got up in one smooth, fluid movement and stood facing us.

Kory was quite the darkest gypsy I had ever seen, yet his eyes were green, and all the more startling under the black brows and the dark skin. His cheeks were lean and cadaverous, his cheekbones high. He might have been thirty, to see him, yet from tales told by the campfire I knew he must be sixty or more. He moved with the grace and ease of a dancer, and when he saw the old man his face broke into a smile revealing gleaming white teeth, startling, as were his eyes, against the darkness of his skin.

"Ah! My friend! It is you! How long it has been!" He glanced quickly at me, seeming to take me in with a glance. "You have come to go with me along the roads?"

"We have." The old man put a hand on my shoulder. "Kory, I have no son. But if I had, I would wish him to be this lad."

The smile vanished. Kory looked straight into my eyes, and then he nodded. "You have come to me ... Why?"

"He brought me," I said, "for I would learn skill with weapons." I paused. "I wish to become the greatest swordsman in the world."

He stared at me, and he did not laugh. "It is a beginning," he said, "to want much. If one is to be, he should try to be the best." His expression changed.

"To be the greatest, you must become better than I."

"Only you could teach me that," I said, "for cannot the teacher always teach more than he knows?"

"Ah? It is good, that." He turned his eyes to the old man. "You have eaten? No? Then join me. I have more than enough for I knew I would have guests at the fire."

He turned to me. "We will need wood."

I turned at once and went looking and he stood watching me, his strange eyes following my every movement. I went up to the fence to go through it to the other side.

"Jump!" he said suddenly, and I did. I leaped the fence, and sensing it was some kind of a test, I jumped it again.

Then I went through the fence and gathered wood and returned to the fire. Kory talked to the old man of other days and times. Finally, he said:

"Why do you wish to fight? Is it that you wish to kill someone?"

"No. But I saw my father die, and he was a fine swordsman. I would be better, and when they come to kill me, I would fight the best of all. Even if they kill me, I would wish to leave my mark upon them. There was one man among my father's killers who was best of all. I would be better."

After pausing I said, "A man's destiny is a man's destiny. I would not look for him, but I think he looks for me. And when he finds me I would not wish him disappointed in the way I hold a blade."

"Hah!" Kory ate, and then looked at me again. "Your father, then ... he taught you something?"

"Much. But he was a man of peace. He taught me to fight as a gentleman fights, and so would I, against gentlemen, but there will be others."

"Aye! There are always the others," said the old man.

"Yes." Kory looked at the old man. "I will teach him." Again he turned to me. "It will not be easy. It will be work until your muscles cry out in pain, and work again until the pain is all gone from them. It cannot be done in a month, or even a year, but I will teach you all I know."

"And that is more than any other man knows," the old man said. "Good. You will find him a good lad."

"Yes," Kory said quietly, "I know him. He will walk a bloody trail in the years before him, but the blood that is spilled needs spilling. Today we eat, tonight we sleep, and tomorrow ... we work!"

How swiftly passed the months! How soon came the end of the year! Up and down the lanes of England we traveled, and over the border and into Scotland. We camped beside Hadrian's Wall and later by the shores of Loch Lomond. We went down into Yorkshire and we camped in lonely places. We sharpened knives, scissors, and all manner of blades, we did tinsmithing. We shod horses and we peddled cloth, thread, and needles. And ever and always, we fenced.

By dawn light and campfire, in clearings in the forest or on the lonely moors, in deserted bars and wherever we might find a place, we fenced. Always we sought seclusion, for gypsies or vagabonds who had skill with weapons were ill-liked. Also, Kory must keep himself from sight. It would be a hanging for him, if he were caught.

I was in the hands of a master. My father had been skilled, but Kory was a marvel, no less. At night we read by the campfire, or talked of what we had earlier read, or of our experiences during the day. Sometimes Kory would join in. Usually he simply listened, smiling infrequently.

The old man was called Thomas Bransbee. What his true name was, I do not know, yet as we traveled, I picked up a few things about him. He had gone to the best of schools, had held some official position at one time, and his family had suffered because of it. I guessed that he had been involved, or was suspected of being involved, with one of the numerous factions that had supported the claimants to the throne after the death of Henry VIII.

Sometimes we parted from Kory for the day, even for several days, but then he would appear again. As my skill sharpened, so did his, for the constant fencing was renewing his old talents.

"It is a wrong name we go by," he said one day. "They call us gypsies because they believed we came from Egypt. It is not so. We were a wandering tribe from India who left there long, long ago. Our words resemble those of the Hindu: some of our songs are the same, and customs."

He was a wise man and had traveled much. During the periods when we stopped for rest or when I sometimes rode with him on his cart, or walked beside him to save the horses, he talked of his wanderings all over Europe and Asia. He had known many men of importance, serving them in various capacities, or simply traveling with them. His own tribe of gypsies had been largely destroyed by war and plague, yet he was known to other bands, and welcome everywhere.

We collected herbs at the roadside. There were many, often thought of as weeds by the unknowing. It was possible to bundle these into small bales or collect the seeds and sell them at various shops in the villages or to doctors who made their own medicines from them.

I was gaining education in much else, too, for Kory told me of the tricks and artifices used by thieves and pickpockets, swindlers and cardsharps. It was an education in the ways of the streets. Little did I know then how much I was soon to need it.

Wanderers along the highroads were always in danger from local thugs who felt secure in attacking or robbing those of us who were considered vagabonds ourselves, having no protection from the law ... when there was any.

Wayfarers usually banded together, that they might protect one another. At the time when trouble came to us, there were three carts traveling together--Bransbee, Kory, and two gypsy brothers who were pugilists, often boxing at the county fairs.

They were good boxers both, and better than average at wrestling as well. Frequently they arranged a match or two with strong boys from the country towns, sometimes whining, sometimes losing, whichever might be the most profitable at the time--or sometimes whichever might be the wiser.

The old man was alone at the time, for I'd been walking with Kory and his cart. But we were only a short distance behind, and the place for our meeting was in a hollow just ahead of us.

Bransbee had turned the corner and we heard a clatter of hooves and then a shouting and we heard Bransbee cry out in protest.

While walking, I carried always a stout stick. Grasping it now, I ran on ahead. As I turned the bend of the lane I saw that a half-dozen young men and boys, all upon horses, had surrounded the cart and were throwing its contents into the road.

Two of the boys had pinioned the old man's arms and were laughing at him. Of the others some remained in the saddle, and the rest had dropped down and were looting the cart.

My first glance told me these were no ordinary ruffians, for all were well clad and well mounted. I rushed upon them. One of them heard me coming and turned sharply, raising a stick he carried. Stick fighting was something I had known from childhood in Ireland, and I thrust hard with the end of mine, bending to avoid a counterblow. The end of my stick took him in the wind and he doubled with a grunt. I knocked his stick from his hand and fetched him a clout across the shins that set him yelling.

Two of the others turned on me, but by that time Kory was coming at a run. And suddenly the two pugilists burst from the wood where their cart had been drawn up, out of sight.

At once we were in a fierce set-to with fists, sticks, and clubs, and I found myself facing a brawny youth, a wide-faced young man with thick, black, curly hair and two hamlike fists. He had turned suddenly on me and caught me off guard, and his first blow sent my stick flying. He would have dealt me another blow then but I dove under his club and tackled him about the knees. It was like hitting a wall, for his thighs were powerfully muscled, his calves as well, and his feet were solidly placed. He grasped me in his two huge hands, pulled me away, and swung a blow at my face.