Paxton and the Gypsy Blade (2 page)

“The demons of night have fled, eh?” Giuseppe said, coming around the tent from where he had been helping the tinker set up his booth.

“You've been helping Saul again?” Adriana asked.

“The leather on his bellows cracked. I told him before we left winter camp that he should replace it.” Giuseppe shrugged good-naturedly. He was short and compactly built, and his teeth gleamed remarkably white against his dark features as he smiled at her.

“Saul listens only when listening pleases him,” Adriana said.

Giuseppe suddenly scowled. He had seen Adriana and Saul making eyes at each other. Only that morning, while the half-dozen other eligible men in the tribe had sipped their honeyed tea and watched Adriana with hungry eyes, had she gone to sit at Saul's side. “He listens to
you
,” Giuseppe said.

“He is a good tinker. The pots he mends stay mended. Would you have me a spinster? People talk already, Brother. I must choose a man one day soon, and as well Saul as another.”

“A man who doesn't care for his tools can't be trusted to care for his woman,” Giuseppe growled.

“Giuseppe—”

“Ahh, I know. I am worse than a father. I worry too much.”

Fondly, Adriana touched his arm. “You are brother and father, so worry doubly. I do not mind, truly. But you must listen fairly to Saul if he comes to speak to you.”

“It's gone that far, then?” Giuseppe asked. “I tell you—” He was interrupted by a child running into camp and announcing the imminent arrival of the first customers. Always the first customers of the first fair of the year stirred his blood. “There will be time for this talk later,” he said, rubbing his hands in anticipation of the action to follow. “We have much to do. This will be a good fair, I sense it.”

Adriana smiled warmly at him. “And I thought I was the one blessed with the power to see the future. Perhaps you would like to read the palms for me today?”

He shook his head. “I will leave that to you, little one.”

“I am not so little anymore, Giuseppe. Must I keep telling you?”

Giuseppe grinned. “So my eyes and my friends tell me. Ah, Adriana, I shall always remember you as the little child with her hair in braids, running to me whenever something was wrong. You believed with all your heart, did you not, that your brother could set anything aright?” His voice was soft with the fondness of the memory.

“And more times than not, you could,” Adriana told him.

“Times change,” he mused, a faraway look coming into his dark eyes. “You are a woman now, and less and less often need the aid of your brother. So I remember you sometimes as a child, the way you once were. But I love you always, as child, as woman, forever.”

Adriana put a hand on his wiry arm. “And I love you, Giuseppe. You have been more than my brother: you have been all of my family for so long, and we have always been strong … because of you.”

He shook his head, a solemn expression on his broad face. “The strength, the power—these come from you, Adriana,” he said. “This is the way it has always been and always will be.” He suddenly smiled again. “These things do not need to be discussed. They simply
are
. So enough. Are you ready?”

“I am ready,” she told him.

“Good. I will be close by if you need me.”

Adriana nodded. Giuseppe had taken care of her ever since that awful day when a mob of angry citizens inflamed by charges of Gypsy thievery had descended on the camp and had wreaked havoc, creating a hideous scene of chaotic carnage as they rampaged with clubs and torches, overturning wagons and setting fire to tents. A boy of ten, Giuseppe had saved his little sister by snatching her up and racing into the woods, where they watched in horror as their parents were beaten to death. Giuseppe's hand had covered Adriana's eyes, shielding her from the worst, but she had seen enough, and the sights she had witnessed had left an indelible impression. She would not have been able to stand the memories had it not been for Giuseppe. Mother and father and brother, he was the center of her universe, and though the time was nearing when she must take a man, she knew her love for him would never diminish.

The keen anticipation Giuseppe had felt raced through the fairgrounds. Men, women, and children busily made last-minute preparations. Gregori, the clan elder, made his rounds as he had for the last decade. Ancient and bent, he was so emaciated that his traditional colorful Gypsy clothing hung loosely on his skeletal frame. A white moustache drooped over his mouth, white wisps of hair clung to his mottled scalp in isolated clumps, and an age-blackened briar pipe was clenched between his gums. Taking the pipe in his gnarled hand, he pointed the stem at Adriana. “Ready, girl?” he asked in a quavering voice.

Adriana nodded. “I am ready, Gregori.”

“Good,” he said, replacing the pipe in his mouth. Without another word, he turned and ambled off, already intent on his next visit.

Adriana ran to Saul's booth for a bit of fire to light her candles, then hurriedly settled herself in the dim, cool interior of her tent. Soon she would be busy studying palms, telling farmers and miners and wives and servants what they most wanted to hear. This moment of introspection was important to Adriana. Quietly, she sat at the table and emptied her mind of distractions. Some—perhaps even most—of the Gypsy fortunetellers she had met were shams who prattled nonsense that sounded wise and omniscient but signified nothing. Adriana liked to believe she was different. She was shrewd enough to dispense good predictions to those who so desperately wanted to hear them, but at the same time she could not and would not totally deny the mysterious gift with which she had been blessed. Many times, she actually did see something in the customer's palm. Sometimes what she saw was good, and she could then use this knowledge in what she told her subject. Sometimes, though, the future held something bad, and she had to decide whether to withhold the truth. There had been occasions when she had not told all she knew, and then wished that she had, but that was all a part of the great game. It was never easy knowing when to keep quiet. Honesty often brought trouble, but then trouble was part of being a Gypsy.

This was the only life she knew. She could not imagine being somewhere other than where she was, surrounded by Giuseppe and Gregori and all her other friends, traveling the English countryside, free of the responsibilities and cares that beset the farmers, soldiers, villagers, and city dwellers. And when the clan had its fill of England, there were always other lands, new people, new sights. She felt as much wanderlust as any Gypsy, maybe even more.

A low cough caught her attention. Adriana looked up to see a blocky man in rough clothes, clutching a grimy cap in his hands, peering into the tent. She smiled to put him at ease and beckoned. “Come in,” she said in a low, husky voice. “I am Adriana, one with the spirits of the past, one with the shades of what is to come. Enter and know what the mists of the future hold for thee.”

Adriana was glad to give the farmer what words of hope she could, and he, wanting to believe them, left well pleased. The day's work had begun.

As the morning went on and passed into afternoon, the clearing became more and more packed with people. The citizens of the area arrived in a near-constant stream, ready to break loose from the bonds of the winter past and enjoy themselves, however fleeting the pleasure. Gypsy and village children met and scuffled and played in gay abandonment. Women chattered in little knots and men gathered to dicker and discuss. Broad smiles and open laughter would come later, as everyone became more at ease. Of noise there was plenty. Sheep bleated, cows lowed, horses neighed, and dogs barked. Vendors hawked their wares in time-honored chants. Fiddles squawked and pipes screeched, discordant against the flat, regular clang of a smith's hammer. The air was redolent with an enticing assortment of aromas: beef roasts sizzling over open fires, spice cakes warming in pans, mulled wine and pungent Scottish ale flowing freely.

The Gypsies were busy, many of them displaying the entertaining skills that brought people back to see them year after year. A knife swallower casually inserted a twenty-inch blade into his mouth and down his throat to the accompaniment of startled gasps from the watching crowd, then pulled it back out to cheers and applause. A bald and tattooed juggler, naked to the waist, kept a dozen small flame-red and bright-yellow wood balls spinning through the air over his head. More wondrous yet, the sequence of red, yellow, red, yellow changed to six red and six yellow, then four of each, three of each, two of each, and back to the original one-and-one sequence in a dazzling feat of legerdemain. A pied piper leading a goat wearing a scarlet vest made for him by his owner and prancing about in time to the music emerged from a tent. Within minutes the piper was leading a troop of enthralled children around the grounds. Laughing onlookers dropped coppers into a leather sack that hung from the goat's left horn.

Not all the activity was strictly entertainment, however. Traveling merchants who trailed the Gypsies from fair to fair sold bright bolts of cloth and intricately carved figurines and painstakingly shaped utensils of copper and tin. A blacksmith with his forge and bellows filled the space beneath a giant oak tree, and close by, another man sharpened knives and scissors.

The crowd grew even more as the day waned. By dusk, most of the people from Mumford and the surrounding countryside had come for the first day of the festivities. They took advantage of the opportunity not only to visit with their neighbors, friends, and relatives, but to conduct business at the same time. There was buying and selling and trading aplenty. Men clustered in small groups, talking in quiet tones, frowning and rubbing their jaws as they concentrated on the offers flowing back and forth. From time to time, discussions became heated, voices were raised and emotions flared, but none of the arguments turned into actual fights. People had come to the fair to enjoy themselves, not to engage in squabbles. Besides, a bare-knuckles fight between two of the area's most strapping lads was scheduled for later, and that would be violence enough for one day.

There was a steady flow of customers through Adriana's tent. They were tenant farmers for the most part, poor people who had saved their pennies carefully in anticipation of this day, and who were spending them no less carefully. The men were all stoop-shouldered from work, with thick bodies and dull faces, and their women matched them, all looking older than they actually were. Laborers from the coal mines in the hills appeared too, their way of life evident in the permanent stains under their fingernails and in the creases of their skin. Life in the Chiltern Hills in this year of our Lord 1809 was hard for everyone, and Adriana kept her predictions light and cheerful, feeling no shame for telling these people things that she knew would never come to pass. For one small copper, a beautiful Gypsy girl would peer into their palms and look sultry and mysterious and tell them that they would soon be the recipients of bountiful fortunes. Most of them chose to believe exactly what she told them, if only for a little while. And those moments of belief and hope were worth the money that they spent.

“Adriana! Come dance for us, woman!”

Adriana looked up from the table in the tent as strident, eager voices called to her from outside. Night had fallen, and the candles cast flickering shadows around the interior. The day had been long. She'd had many customers in search of information about their futures, some steered to her by Giuseppe, others drawn by the sign of the palm above the tent entrance. More than one young man, she was sure, paid his shilling not to have his fortune told, but to have his hands held by her long, slender fingers, to regard with appreciation the honey color of her skin, to gaze deeply into her green eyes, and to listen to her voice, speaking low and soft to him alone. Now, after long hours of bending over the table, she welcomed the opportunity to get outside and move around. Although her readings were not finished for the day, she was glad for a break. As she pushed out through the flap of the tent, she was greeted with enthusiastic shouts and a burst of music from tambourines and fiddles and wooden flutes. Pleased by the attention, Adriana smiled and walked toward the large fire in the center of the clearing. The enveloping darkness made the light of the fire brilliant. Leaping and crackling, it illuminated a wide circle of faces that parted to create a narrow lane through which she could pass. The music became more urgent as Adriana entered the open space near the fire. Swaying just slightly, in movements barely discernible but promising much, much more to come, she slowly began the dance they were all waiting to see.

Simultaneously ancient and new, the dance, too, was part of the great game. The dance was freedom, a melting of mind and body into one sensual, exultant whole. Lost in rapture, Adriana whirled and darted, spun and dipped and leaped. Her hips swayed seductively from side to side and her skirt spun outward to reveal slim, muscular calves. With her head back and her eyes closed, her long, thick auburn hair dangled loosely behind her in a dance all its own. Her feet, in soft slippers, traced intricate patterns on the hard ground.

On and on the music went, wild driving rhythms that inflamed the blood of dancer and spectator alike. The night was cool, but a fine sheen of perspiration dampened Adriana's face, the droplets beading and roiling down her neck and chest until they disappeared in the deep valley between her breasts. Suddenly, her movements slowed. She raised her arms until her breasts strained against her blouse, then crossed them over her head before slowly, sinuously lowering them until she reached a point where she paused and stood absolutely still for several beats. Then, without warning, she was dancing again, even more wantonly than before.

The dance reached out to every man present in a powerful, primitive way. Amid cries of appreciation, the applause increased in tempo to match the music. Everywhere were grinning faces, the long winter's hardships forgotten as spirits rose and cares fell away. The Gypsy girl was spring, the essence of a world awakening to eternal youth and promise. The heat of the campfire was forgotten, unable to compare with the blaze burning from within.