The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga) (25 page)

Nelly helped her all week; her mother was recovering well with the potions prescribed by Reyora. Her only fear was that they would be tolerated only for as long as her mother was ill. Brewster was not popular with the men of the Buckland tribe; he was forever after their women.

A week after the birth Nelly knew that they would soon have to leave. Margaret was walking, and Brewster had begun to make preparations to go north to Scotland.

She broke the news to Analee, interrupting at a time when Analee was playing with the baby, tickling it under the arms and in the groin and making it reach out its hands towards her as though it wanted more. Its large blue eyes were unfocused, but Morella seemed to know her mother, even to smile for her, though this was scarcely considered possible.

‘We have to leave next week.’

Nelly stood at the entrance to the tent and Analee looked up sharply. Her expression changed from one who had come from a fairytale, delightful world into the real harsh one.

Nelly thought how beautiful Analee looked with her shining olive skin, sweating now in the heat. Her face was no longer haggard with pain, but rested and rounded with contentment and fulfilment and the good food she had been eating. Her hair which fell about her shoulders shone and the clear eyes sparkled with good humour and the love of motherhood.

Nelly, undeveloped, emaciated with spotty skin and mousy hair, venerated Analee. She thought she loved her in so far as it was possible for a woman to love another. She wanted to reach out and touch her breasts, and let her hands run over her silky supple skin.

But now she had to leave. She choked with emotion as she looked at Analee.

‘To the border, to Scotland. We all have to go.’

‘Can’t you stay? Just you?’

‘No. They don’t like us here. The boys have been run out of the town for stealing and Lancelot says they give the camp a bad name. Father is always drunk and abusive and they say he is after the Buckland women. He is lazy, too.’

‘But just
you.
You can stay with me.’

‘I cannot. Oh, Analee ...’

Nelly threw herself against Analee who clasped her, stroking her thin hair and letting her hands run gently over the plain pockmarked face. She felt that Nelly, too, was like a child who needed her as much as Morella did. Nelly was trembling, and then she turned her face to Analee and wept, letting the tears flow unchecked.

Analee felt the hot tears against her skin and knew how much Nelly loved her, but like a mother. Nelly had never known a real mother’s love. Margaret Driver had always been too harassed by a thousand cares to love or pay any attention to this plain unappealing delicate girl who though a maid and, briefly, even a mother, was unformed and immature.

Reyora saw them like this. Noted how Nelly clung to Analee. She entered quietly and drew the curtain shut behind her. Analee looked over Nelly’s head towards Reyora and smiled at a woman she had come very much to respect and admire. Reyora had compassion. Of few women she knew could Analee say that.

Reyora sat beside Analee placing between them a dish of sweetmeats she had brought from the town. She looked at Nelly and wondered if she should ask her to leave, then thought better of it. Analee would need some support.

Briefly Reyora played with the baby, tickling its tummy and seeing it dimple, then she smiled at Analee and took her hand. Analee was surprised at the gesture, and stared at Reyora, answering the pressure of Reyora’s hand with her own.

‘It has been a happy time, Analee, with the baby.’

‘Oh yes!’

She looked closely at Reyora’s face and saw how solemn it was. Her heart began to beat quickly and she put a hand to her breast. ‘Why did you say it like that?’

‘I have been thinking, Analee, about all this, not only since the baby was born, but long before. What if it should be blue eyed and golden haired and fair skinned?’

‘And ...’ Analee began to understand.

‘What would happen when Randal saw the baby?’

Analee sighed and let her hand fall from Reyora’s. A weight seemed to press on her heart.

‘I know. It must happen soon. He sent a message with Nelly that he was preparing the baptism.’

‘When Randal sees the baby he will not let her be baptized. He will kill her.’

Analee’s hand flew to her face, her mouth felt dry; her heart started to pound and she thought she would faint.

‘What are you saying?’

‘You know Randal Buckland, or rather you should. You have been married to him for nine months. He is a proud stubborn man; a real gypsy. He will know this child is not his and he will not want her.’

‘But they would not let him kill her!’

‘They might not be able to stop him. They might not even try. You know his temper; his passion. Imagine his outrage, his humiliation at knowing it is the
gadjo’s
child? That you were carrying it all the time he made love to you? Maybe he will kill you, too.’

Now Nelly, listening to everything from the corner, cried out:

‘Oh,
cohani,
do not let this happen to Analee and her baby.’

Reyora looked at Nelly and then at Analee. It was difficult to put into words what she was thinking.

‘Analee, you must go, leave the camp, Analee – tonight. I will take the baby. I will bring her up as my own and once I, the
cohani,
have said as much, no one will dare touch her. She will be special and apart.’

Analee felt an involuntary spasm shake her body and suddenly she was looking into a great void. There was just darkness in front of her eyes, emptiness. Somehow she had known it would happen. Such joy was not meant. She had tried to get rid of the baby which she now wanted more than anything on earth – and God was punishing her.

This was the vengeance of God and Reyora knew it – a blonde, blue-eyed baby when it could just as easily have taken after her and been dark.

But this had been intended from time immemorial. Analee knew that. She was never meant to be happy, to have a lover or a husband who was tender to her and stayed with her, to have a baby of her own or to belong. She was meant to wander until she died; to roam over the face of the earth, over the mountains and across the valleys just like her people always had. Harried on from one place to another; never allowed to rest.

Some said it was because the gypsies had offended God, had blasphemed Christ, that they were doomed thus. And she, Analee, without a name, was one of these.

The darkness disappeared and the faces of Nelly and Reyora became clear again, tender, unsmiling, concerned. The baby Morella gurgled and smiled and reached out for its mother.

‘One more time,’ Reyora said, ‘then you must prepare to go. You must go under cover of dark and take the road to the west, over the mountains. You are stronger now, but you must not weary yourself. Rest well.’

‘And the baby ... ?’ Analee could not bring herself to look at the child she was leaving.

‘I will be her mother. I will look after her well. She will be very special.’

‘I have called her Morella,’ Analee said brokenly, ‘after my mother. It is her secret name.’

‘I will remember it,’ Reyora said, ‘and you will know that she will be safe with me; but make a new life for yourself Analee. Try and find the
gadjo
– make a new life with him. He loved you and you loved him. You are not a full gypsy and you will never settle with a tribe. You will not adapt to our ways. I think you were meant for other things, Analee. But start afresh with the
gadjo.
Do not come back to take your daughter. That is all I ask you. I will not allow it. From the moment you leave this place, she is mine. Do you promise that? For her sake, her safety?’

Analee could not bear to look at Reyora. She knew she was helping her, was doing it for her sake, but it was a hard, bitter bargain.

‘It is that or her death,’ Reyora said. ‘You must understand and make me a promise.’

‘I promise,’ Analee said and then she lay with her head on the ground near to her baby and wept.

After a while she grew calmer and she sat up and bared her breasts. Very gently she gave her baby the nipple and pressed her close knowing that it was for the last time.

There was little to do once it was dark. Just the familiar bundle to make up and a new skirt from Reyora to replace the one that had been cut in two before the birth. In the light of the candle, Analee waited for the signal from Reyora that all was clear. Morella slept in her crib and she tried not to look at her again. Instead Analee started slowly around the tent which had been her home for over a week – a place where she had known great pain and great joy, great hope and now great sorrow. She was off again into the world, with a bundle and no more, no more than she’d had when she’d come to the Buckland camp – but this time she was leaving a husband and a baby behind.

Nelly helped her get ready and then sat with her trying to support her with her presence, saying nothing.

‘I could have taken her with me,’ Analee said at last gazing desperately at Nelly.

‘Nay; think of the harm she would come to.’

‘Yes.’ The scraping for food and berries, the scratching for a living, the cruelty and curses of people she met on the road. Morella would have no chance on the road. Here she would be protected; groomed to be
a cohani,
to succeed the powerful Reyora. Marry well, be a full member of the Buckland tribe.

Suddenly Nelly rose and came to kneel before Analee. She brought her hand up to her lips and kissed it. ‘Let
me
come with you, Analee!’

Analee stared at her, gazing at the hand holding hers as though it were some kind of amulet.

‘No, no Nelly. What chance would
you
have on the road?’

‘What chance have I got now? I hate my father and he hates me. He leaves me alone since I had the baby, but who knows how long that will last? I cannot bear it. Please let me come with you. I will look after you, be your friend.’

Analee gazed tenderly on the poor thin young girl, so like a child herself; who stayed by her and helped her. Maybe they did need each other – she Analee as much as Analee needed her. Why not?

‘You will have to come as you are.’

‘Who cares? I have nothing of my own anyway. Oh, Analee – may I come?’

Analee gazed at her baby and then at Nelly. She knew which one she’d rather leave behind, but she had no choice. She smiled at Nelly and nodded.

When Reyora came to say all was quiet Analee didn’t dare glance back at her baby for fear she would break down. She grasped Nelly’s hand and stole out of the tent, across the sleeping camp towards the path that led to the town.

It was a half moon and there was enough light for them to pause and glance back to where Reyora stood like a sentinel outside the tent, one arm firmly cradling the sleeping baby. Then she raised her other hand in a gesture of blessing and farewell.

11

Brent watched the longboat make for the shore in the faint light of dawn. It was cold even for late September and in the far distance beyond the fells the mountain peaks of Cumberland were white capped. All around the coast the land was flat, broken only by the copses of thickly covered trees with here or there a solitary farm or cottage.

Brent stood on the deck of the small fishing wherry of which he was the sole crew. The captain was Matthew Clucas, a Manx-man, an ex-pugilist and a supporter of the Stuarts. Ambrose Rigg had kept to his bargain and Brent had kept to his. After that memorable day in May when the two men had confronted each other in Rigg’s office there had been no going back.

In order to deceive Dinward and Quiggan, Rigg had appeared to be disciplining Brent for his misdeeds by transferring him to the fishing fleet as a deckhand. There was no dirtier, smellier or harder work than as a deckhand on one of the small fishing wherries which, on account of their size, were tossed about on the sea like flotsam in a storm.

It had given Dinward a good laugh to think of the fastidious Mr Delamain getting in the catch on a wherry, and every time he saw him he grinned and made an obscene gesture with his fingers.

But the plan had worked; the small fishing boats needed a small crew, sometimes only two or three at the most. Brent only caught a token catch which went on top of the cases and barrels he smuggled in from the Isle of Man, and two men were enough.

Matthew Clucas was a friend of John Collister and even had a mind to make Harriet Collister his wife, if she would have him. But the bold Harriet was hoping for better things than a former boxer with a hard square jaw, a broken nose and blunt manners.

Clucas and Brent had got on from the start. Brent never shirked hard work or long hours and his diligence as well as his devotion to the cause were infectious. He had no airs or fuss about him, but slept on the deck among the nets, ate his food out of a tin and became an expert at scaling and gutting the fish when time was against them.

Brent wiped a wet hand across his forehead with satisfaction as he turned and prepared to swab the deck. He felt hungry and thirsty, but rewarded. It was good to be alive. Now the dawn, once begun, came very quickly over the mountains in the east and the calm still sea, which could be so treacherous in its many moods, shimmered in the pale morning sun, a light haze drifting over it.

‘Come, Matthew. Let us make for Whitehaven. I am half starved.’

Matthew smiled and gazed with affection at the man with whom in only three short months he had shared so many adventures. They plied continually between the creeks and bays of the Isle of Man and the coast of Cumberland. Sometimes they went north to Scotland, but Brent had developed a route that was considered safer, whereby the guns were landed in one of the many small bays of Cumberland and ferried across the steep mountains on pack horses. Then there were depots all over the north – at Carlisle, Penrith, Lancaster, taking the route followed by the Prince’s father, King James, in 1715. Many thought the rebellion then had failed for lack of arms; for lack of depots and storage. This time it was going to be very different. Brent had rapidly become acquainted with the hard core of Jacobite sympathizers in the north-west, those who were prepared, as he was, to risk all, to lose all.