The Rebellion (21 page)

She slumped to the ground, and the two children screamed in fright.

Their mother leapt to her feet and pulled them away from Dragon, just as the soldierguard captain stepped toward her.

Without hesitation, I stamped coercively on his will. The rough nerve control I imposed would fade swiftly, so I had little time. I sent a swift instruction to Matthew and another to Gahltha.

Immediately, the black horse reared up with an ear-shattering scream. People on all sides scattered wildly to escape the flailing hooves.

“Someone has fed my horse prickleberries!” I cried, pretending to have no control.

Gahltha rolled his eyes and bucked, lashing out with razor-sharp hooves, and the three priests dived away from the speaking stone with cries of terror, apparently convinced he was on the verge of the hysterical rage caused by ingesting the poisonous weed.

“Captain?” One of the rank-and-file soldierguards tapped his superior, and the captain stirred, for this was enough to break the trance I had imposed. He looked around; then his eyes widened in fury, and he cracked his fist into the other man’s face. “Fool!” he raged. “The red-haired girl. Where is she?”

Time had run out.

“Go!” I sent, and Gahltha bolted out of the square and down a feeder lane.

“A gypsy youth took her!” someone cried out.

I cursed, for I had hoped no one would notice Matthew scoop up the unconscious Dragon in all the fuss.

He sent that they had taken refuge in a burned-out house. I took the location from him. They were still close to the market.

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Safer than on the street,” Matthew sent fervently. “Besides, they’ll never think I’d hide so close.”

I hoped he was right. “Is Dragon all right?”

“She’s unconscious,” Matthew said. “How in Lud’s name did you—?”

“You stay put, and I’ll bring Gahltha,” I interrupted.

I used the last of my reserve to drop a complete coercive cloak over Gahltha and myself, wishing I had time to rest. My diversionary tactics had obliterated my coercive suggestion that I was a boy. Even thickheaded soldierguards would work out that Matthew and I were the same gypsies wanted for the murders and sedition in Guanette.

By morning, the streets would be crawling with squads combing the city for us as the gate search surged inward.

The clouds cleared from the sky, and the sun shone properly for the first time in days. Everything in the sodden city steamed as we made our way in a wide arc around the market where Dragon had confronted the Herders, and into the next district.

Coming around a blind corner, I found my way blocked by yet another of the small markets dotted throughout the city.

My first instinct was to circle it. I had had enough of markets. But it was not long until dusk, and I did not want to
waste any more time. Dismounting, I took Gahltha’s rein, leading him behind me.

Brushing along the aisles, my eye was caught by a table laden with swatches of colorful cloth. I stared, for I had never seen cloth dyed so brightly before.

“Sador dyes,” I heard a stallholder tell a customer.

One of the pieces on the stall table was deep green, with a sheen as soft and yielding as the coat of a newborn pup. I ran a thumb over it, fascinated by the alien texture.

“Get yer dirty paws off it, ye halfbreed slattern.”

I dropped the material in shock, feeling as if I had wakened from a drugged sleep. What in Lud’s name had I been thinking of to stand about admiring a piece of cloth with half the city out looking for me? But I knew what was wrong: I was almost dazed with fatigue. It always happened when I used the strange power at the depth of my mind.

Now that the wretched trader had identified me as a girl, I could not make myself into a boy in his eyes, but I could stop anyone else from seeing me.

I began to back away, weaving a general coercive net, but the burly stallholder lumbered from behind his stand with unexpected speed and pushed me hard, sending me stumbling back against Gahltha’s warm flank. Anger filled me, as hot and unreasoning as fire.

I choked it back, realizing too late that I had let my coercive cloak fall again. Since it worked by heightening and enhancing disinterest and inattention, there was no way I could reinstitute it with so many people goggling at me. Especially not with my energy so depleted.

“If you won’t let a customer feel the cloth she might buy, I’ll move on,” I said pacifically, and backed away.

“Since when did halfbreeds buy when they could steal?” sneered another man, blocking the way from behind.

His skinny companion leered and stepped in my path when I tried to sidle by them. “And since when was a gypsy civil and honest at the same time?” he asked in a sinuous, high-pitched voice. “If you ask me, this one speaks too soft to be trusted. And why does a girl wear trousers, except for ease to run when she has stolen something?” He looked around at the gathering little crowd, seeking their support.

Several nodded, and I began to feel truly uneasy.

I let Gahltha’s rein slip from my fingers.

“Shall I/Gahltha bolt/rear, ElspethInnle?”

“No!” Using the black horse as a diversion yet again would be as good as posting a sign saying 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 an equine. 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 from 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. 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, baring 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 postpone the pain.

I would experience the sting later, 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—and maybe not at all in my weakened state.

“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. Perhaps this was the death I had been promised. 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 nor grace if it bit them on the bum.”

I was astounded that a lone gypsy would speak that way to Landfolk. Yet 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, drawing the cloth around the trader’s neck even tighter.

“Ahhk,” he 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. The trader’s eyes were rolling about in an alarming way, and his lips were 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. “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, Littleman, and I will consider amends made and say nothing to the Councilmen.”

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 Twentyfamilies’ 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 and 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 nearby. “The captain said there is a big reward for her or one of them other two who was with her.”

Their footsteps 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 dark eyes made me step back involuntarily.

“I suppose you caused all 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 dressed as you are now, to appear as a boy.”

I flushed. “All right. I ride a black horse and wear boyish
trousers. 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.

Releasing me, he spoke. “If I had known it was so easy to silence you, I would have done that sooner.”

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 even more is to know this: Why are you pretending to be a gypsy?”