The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) (12 page)

She thought she saw sympathy in those knowing old eyes, friendliness and, for the first time for days, Analee lifted her head and smiled. Rebecca seemed to nod her head as though she understood, and then she turned to take the bowl of salt and the large piece of bread offered her by a young boy of the tribe, one of her great-grandsons she thought.

Suddenly the babel of noise stopped at a signal from Lancelot and everyone was quiet; nothing moved except the tops of the trees, beside the field, which rustled gently in the breeze. Autumn was in the air, one or two of the leaves were falling already. Winter came early in these parts. Rebecca nodded at Randal who stepped over from where he had been standing with his brothers and sister and held out his hand to Analee. Analee stared at him, her face a stubborn mask.

‘You have consented,’ Randal murmured menacingly under his breath and slowly she put out a hand and took his. Then he led her before the
phuri-dai
where they both knelt, hands clasped.

Rebecca leaned forward, her bent arthritic hands carefully breaking into two halves the large piece of freshly baked bread. Then from the bowl held by the boy she took salt and, sprinkling it on to each of the two pieces, gave one first to Randal then one to Analee. At the same time she murmured according to custom, ‘When you are tired of this bread and this salt you will be tired of each other.’

Analee took the bread and gazed at it for a long time, then at a nudge from Randal she gave her piece to him and took his.

‘Eat,’ Rebecca commanded and she watched over them as they consumed the bread and salt.

Then she took a pitcher handed to her by Lancelot and poured over the heads of the kneeling couple grains of wheat that had been freshly gathered in the harvest. When she had finished and the newly married couple, the yellow grains spilling all over their dark hair and bright clothes, still knelt before her she gave the pitcher to Lancelot who dashed it to the ground, keeping the handle for himself. Then the boy who had helped to officiate in the ceremony carefully picked up the broken pieces, gave one each to the bride and groom and handed the rest to Randal’s family and those who, nearest the couple, eagerly reached out for these good luck symbols.

It was over. A babble of voices broke out and Randal helped his bride to her feet, dusting the grains off his clothes, shaking his black curly hair. He smiled at Analee but she looked coldly past him at the
phuri-dai
because she had sensed that the wise old woman knew she was married against her will.

Then a man stepped forward and held up his hands. This was Sacki the son of Lancelot, grandson of Rebecca and father of young Gilderoy who had helped his great-grandmother with the ceremony. Most of Lancelot’s sons were now dispersed over the kingdom, but Sacki had remained in the camp to help control tribal order. As a boy he had been forced into the army and had the lower part of his leg shot off at Malplaquet when Marlborough and Prince Eugene defeated the French in one of the wars of the Spanish Succession though little did Sacki Buckland, a boy of 14, know what the war was about or who was in command. He was lucky to come home alive. The gypsies, being considered the lowest of the low even in the scum of the army, were not deemed fit to treat and were normally left to die where they fell. It was only because the leg was clean shot off and one of his fellow gypsies had applied a tourniquet to staunch the blood that Sacki had lived at all. In fact his life had surely been saved by the brotherhood of gypsies who had spirited him away from the army and nursed him in France until, on a makeshift wooden stump, he was fit to return home.

Sacki had a loud firm voice which seemed to make up for his physical disability and everyone stopped talking and listened to him.

‘Now that we have Randal and his bride married according to our law we shall gather in the afternoon for feasting and dancing ... So hasten to your tents and make preparations.’

The throng cheered and smiled and, breaking up, some gathered round Randal and shook his hand or clasped his shoulder. Few took notice of Analee – the men because it was not allowed to ogle a new bride and the women because they knew that, to have been married in such a fashion and so quickly, she had offended against gypsy honour – she had lain with Randal and could not be a virgin. She was
marime
– unclean,
a woman to be scorned and pitied even among themselves.  So they moved away looking at her over their backs and one or two made signs to her that meant they despised her.

Analee saw the dark glances and knew the reason for them. She knew how much the gypsy women enjoyed a conventional wedding where everything was agreed beforehand, the bride known and preferably a member of the tribe. They would enjoy preparing her for days, making her clothes and gradually building up to the climax which was the wedding ceremony and the feast. But the focus of interest, above all, was the physical union of the man and woman which took place during the feast in a tent set aside for the purpose.

The ceremony of the
dichlo,
the official deflowering of the bride, was an essential part of the gypsy marriage ritual and it was enjoyed the more by those who had undergone the humiliation of it rather than by those for whom it was yet to come. At a sign from the new husband four matrons would go into the tent to inspect the newly deflowered bride, and emerge bearing a white silk handkerchief soaked in her vaginal blood which they would take round for the inspection of the members of the tribe gathered outside.

Analee thought the ceremony of the
dichlo
was disgusting and degrading and she did not regret that on her wedding day it would not be performed, even if the women slunk away pretending to despise her because she was
marime,
unclean. They thought she and Randal already had carnal knowledge of each other. What would they have thought if it was revealed that her most recent experience with a man was with a
gadjo,
a non-gypsy – and scarcely a week before at that!

Analee suddenly recalled to mind Brent and the way he had lain. He must have been dead or mortally wounded. How long ago it all seemed, how trivial life was for events of such importance to be over and others to happen so quickly. Within a week she had made love to a
gadjo
and married a full-blooded gypsy, a member of a tribe.

So be it. She would bide with him as long as was necessary; she would be a wife to him because she had promised; she had eaten the salt and the broken bread and seen the pitcher smashed to smithereens. In gypsy symbolism this meant she was bound to respect him for as many years as the vase had been reduced to pieces. Seven pieces she’d counted – seven years. Was it possible that she could live with a man who had forcibly wed her for seven long years?

For the rest of the day the camp resounded to laughter and the sounds of voices raised in song. A wedding was a good thing and even a reluctant bride – and she clearly had been, anyone could see that by the way she never looked at her husband all during the ceremony – better than no bride at all. Randal was popular and they wished he had found someone who obviously loved him. But beautiful as his bride was she was foreign-looking and proud. The women could see that the men secretly admired her and they despised her the more that she had given herself easily, that she was no virgin,
marime.
Pah! Well maybe the
cohani
would give Randal a potion and his bride would fall madly in love with him. It had happened.

The
phuri-dai
took the newly wedded pair into her tent and they drank ale or herbal teas. The men gathered on one side and the women on the other. No one talked to Analee; few even looked at her.

Then the curtain over the tent parted and a woman came in and everyone momentarily stopped talking. The woman looked at Randal and then, for a long time, letting her gaze linger, at Analee. Then she went over to talk to Rebecca. Analee knew without doubt that this was the
cohani
–
she could tell by the way that her eyes turned up like those of a bird and the peculiar intensity of her gaze as she stared at Analee; also by the way everyone stepped respectfully aside for her to pass.

The
cohani
could exercise magic for good or ill; she could tell fortunes, weave spells and provide potions. She could cure and she could kill. Every tribe had a
cohani
–
someone who from girlhood had developed special skills, learning the craft, often from their mothers or a near relative.

Some said that, while still in her childhood, a demon had penetrated her as she slept and when the girl awoke she was aware of her special powers and that she was
cohani.

In her youth many had considered Analee to be
cohani
–
they had sworn she had magical powers and, in fact, she knew that she had the gift of second sight and that sometimes things which she said would happen, did. But she knew she was not a real
cohani
–
she knew a lot about herbs and spells having learned about them from her grandmother. She had the gypsy’s respect for the influence of the
cohani
and especially for her prowess when she was also
drabarni,
a woman skilled in the medicinal use of herbs. In some tribes one woman was both
cohani
and
drabarni;
in others they were different – the
cohani
was primarily concerned with black magic and with evil, the
drabarni
with good.

Reyora the
cohani
was a great-granddaughter of Rebecca and she had learned many of her powers from her great-grandmother and assumed her mantle when Rebecca grew too old. She was the daughter of Rebecca’s grandson Spartus and she had married her first cousin Wester Buckland, the son of Rebecca’s granddaughter Zia.

Everyone had known from her early childhood that Reyora had
cohani
powers like her great-grandmother. She had known so much about potions and spells and had saved a new-born baby from death merely by incantation. People came to fear Reyora because she could exercise her gifts both for good and ill; they took care not to cross her path.

When Reyora married it was well known she had chosen Wester Buckland and that he wanted to marry someone else. He was even
tomnani,
betrothed, and then his beautiful bride-to-be, a big strong healthy girl, suddenly sickened for no apparent reason and died. Reyora had been asked to help her, but she would do nothing and even Rebecca, who was
cohani
until a very advanced age, would not interfere.

Wester was terror-stricken when his
tomnani
died so young, so unexpectedly, and he immediately took Reyora for his bride, as she wished, however reluctantly. Reyora was not beautiful, not good-looking even by gypsy standards; but she was not ugly like many
cohani
– she was arresting, with her slanted eyes and the quiet determined way she had of moving like a bird of prey about to strike its victim. Reyora was now thirty-three.

As soon as she entered the tent and looked at Analee Reyora knew she was not in love with Randal, that she had not wished to marry him and that she bore a grudge against him and his tribe. Reyora had four sons and no daughter which was a disappointment to her because she would have liked the
cohani
powers to have continued in her branch of the family. Try as she had to weave the right spell she had been unsuccessful in bringing a daughter to herself and Wester.

After talking to Rebecca and greeting her relations and Randal, Reyora walked slowly over to Analee and smiled at her, the first person, the first woman to show her kindness apart from Rebecca, since she had come to the camp.

‘What is your name?’ Reyora said softly, seeing the fear and the despair in Analee’s eyes.

‘Analee.’

‘I am the
cohani
.’

‘I know.’

Reyora smiled a mysterious smile, aware that her powers had been instantly recognized by someone who, Reyora sensed, had some
cohani
gifts herself.

‘I am called Reyora. Rebecca is my great-grandmother. Were you ever
cohani, drabarni?’
she added casually.

 Analee shook her head.

‘Your Mother?’

Analee’s eyes were veiled. She didn’t intend to reveal her past to anyone, let alone the
cohani.
But she knew the
cohani
could divine much that she couldn’t see. Analee felt already that Reyora knew all about her.

‘I have some
cohani
powers. I have been able sometimes to predict the future; but herbs, and spells ... no.’

Reyora noticed that Analee lingered on the word ‘spells’. She knew Randal would be looking for a spell to make her love him.

‘I hope you will be happy with the tribe now you are among us,’ Reyora whispered, ‘and that you will count us among your friends. Even though you came unwillingly, and I know how unwillingly, we here are now your family to love and help you.’

Analee didn’t reply, and Reyora could tell from the smouldering look in her dark eyes that she would do all she could to resist the love spells, all the magic, all the incantations that she could perform.

From outside came the sound of the flute and, looking around, Analee saw that none of the musicians were present. They had gone to play at the wedding feast. Randal came up to her and, smiling at her, took her hand.

‘Will you dance at our wedding?’

Analee stared at him, her gaze meeting his.

‘You have accepted,’ Randal murmured. ‘We are wed.’

Analee tilted her head, her feet tapped time to the music, her body swayed and she allowed him to lead her out of the tent.

Outside, the field had been transformed in a few hours into a spectacle of colour and gaiety. Streamers and banners had been hung from the tents and mats spread on the ground for the food. A pig was slowly being turned over a huge fire, its succulent smells reminding Analee that she had not eaten properly for a week. The hedgehogs were being wrapped in clay and laid in the red hot ashes under the slowly turning pig. On another spit a sheep was roasting and on yet another a young heifer. The smell of baking bread mingled with that of roasting meats, and cakes, sweetmeats and jellies were also being prepared.