The Robin and the Kestrel (32 page)

The wall around the buildings to either side and to the rear of the Cathedral was an impressive one, and quite blank—which was, in itself, interesting. No carvings, which implied that the wall was new—and no entrances. So, the only way into the compound—unless there were gates in the wall on the other side—was through the single gate she had been told about, and through the Cathedral itself.

Well if I wanted to keep an eye on the comings and goings of my underlings, that's how I would do it,
she thought to herself.
In the robes that most of these fellows wear, climbing the wall would be a difficult proposition.

Getting in was going to be a difficult proposition as well, unless the Patsonos left the gate open . . . and unless they were so incredibly stupid that they didn't bother to put a guard on it.

Then again, it's the Patsonos. They may be crooked, but they're also idiots.

Still, even idiots could have a moment or two of shrewdness. Plenty of smart people became dead smart people because they forgot that.

But as she rounded the corner, she was able to breathe easier. The gate stood open wide, with yellow light from the courtyard beyond spilling through it out onto the cobbles.

There wasn't even a token guard at the gate. Not even a child, watching to see who came in.

Oh, aye. It's the Patsonos all right.

She simply sauntered through, and once inside, re-arranged her shawl as a Gypsy would wear it, tucked into her belt. She loosened the strings of her blouse a little, and turned her businesslike stride into a slow, deliberately provocative walk.

She saw to her concealed relief that there were plenty of women here—and that, like her, while they might have adopted the mouse-browns and dust-grays of the townsfolk, they still
wore
their clothing like Gypsies. The wagons were arranged around the wall, with a communal fire in a great iron dish in the center of the courtyard. The building formed the rear of the courtyard; by the lights it was occupied, and by the size, there was nowhere near enough room in there for every Patsono here. It must be reserved for the elite of the Clan then, the Chief, his family, his advisors, and their families. There were a fair number of people loitering about; in all ways but the lack of color, music, and dancing, this looked like a fairly typical Gypsy camp situation.

Most of those loitering were young, and by their demeanor and lack of gold jewelry, of fairly low ranking in the Clan. It looked as if she had guessed correctly; the higher-ranked members were granted the greater comfort of the building, while the underlings made do with their wagons. On the whole, this lot was cleaner and better kempt than the majority of the Patsonos Robin had ever been forced to deal with. That made her job of fitting in a little easier.

If I don't stay around the younger and unimportant Clan members, I could get in trouble. The Clan Chief might be smart enough to ask about my "father," and I
would
get tripped up by a Chief. Unless I happened by pure accident to pick someone for my "father" who is dead, or simply isn't here.

She strolled over to a loose gathering beside the fire; someone passed a skin of wine in her direction and she squirted it deftly into her mouth, thus passing the informal "test" that showed she was a Gypsy. No
gajin
had ever mastered the Gypsy wineskins unless they were particularly deft Free Bards.

She let the fire warm her and tried to examine the faces nearby without really looking at them. Light enough came from the fire to see features clearly. Many seemed familiar; they were, perhaps, the people who were "healed" without any outward evidence of being sick or crippled, other than the canes and crutches. Those were simple deceptions that even a child could perform, and in fact, some children
had
performed them.

"So who's on duty tomorrow?" asked a young woman with a remarkably large nose and slender build. "Not me, I know that much." It sounded like the resumption of a conversation her arrival had interrupted.

"Little Robere, Bald Robere, Blind Robere, Tammio Blackbeard, Mindy, and Berto Lightfingers, that's all I know of," another voice said, from the other side of the fire. "There's a special demon-possession up; Padrik has a point he wants to make and a woman he wants to get back at, and people are getting bored with invisible demons anyway. Should be a good show, and it's going to be an impressive enough thing we don't need a big parade of victims."

"Oh, good," the large-nosed girl said with a grin. "That means I'm off. They keep making me play blind, and my legs are black and blue from stumbling into things."

"The bruises make it look good, dearie," said an old woman, with a cackle. "Now I remember when
I
played blind—"

"Oh
yes, we know all about that, granny," a young man interrupted rudely. "We've heard it all a hundred times, how you broke a leg just to prove you couldn't see a thing. If I hear it again, I'm going to choke."

The grandmother looked mortally offended, and drew herself up with immense, if flawed, dignity. "Well!" she exclaimed. "If me wisdom and experience are going to fall on deaf ears, I will just go elsewhere, that I will!"

She limped off into the darkness, muttering to herself. The thump of her cane on the cobblestones punctuated her grumblings. Several of the younger Gypsies around the fire snickered.

One of the young men looked at Robin curiously for a moment, and she was certain that he was going to ask her who she was. But he only passed her the wineskin, and after she took her mouthful of rather good wine (from the High Bishop's cellars, no doubt), she realized why he hadn't confronted her with a demand for her identity.

"Who's special duty?" he asked instead. "Any magic tricks tomorrow besides the new demon?"

"Only the Chief and that Priest he works with. No one else, not even the peacock," the nose-girl said. Robin laughed a little, with a rueful grimace, and he grinned and winced. She passed the skin back to him.

He
had
seen her—in the Cathedral. And since he was seeing her now, here, he simply assumed that she was one of the other "special helpers." Perhaps there were Patsonos coming and going all the time—Patsono was a small Clan, but she had no idea of the true numbers. Perhaps there was not enough room for all of them here. Perhaps they were still collecting far-flung members as word spread they were needed.

For whatever the reason, she was accepted without question or qualm, and she took instant advantage of the fact, feeling a little smug. Kestrel had overreacted, of course. It was going to be satisfying to point out just how badly he had overreacted . . . .

"Bishop's got good wine," remarked someone, as the skin came around to him. The boy nearest Robin laughed drunkenly.

"Better'n I've ever had, anyway," the tipsy one said, slurring his words a bit. "Good food, good wine, an' trickin' the rootfeet! This's th' best!"

The girl with the nose laughed, just as someone threw another log on the fire, making it flare and casting a ruddy light on her face that made her seem diabolical. She had the most unpleasant laugh it had ever been Robin's misfortune to hear; it wasn't quite a scream, and it wasn't quite a bray, it was a combination of the two.

She sounded rather like the peacock.
Maybe they ought to use her and get rid of the bird.

"What
I
love," she announced to one and all, "is that it's usin' their own religion to part 'em from everything they got! You seen those sheep when them Priests tell 'em they got cursed money? They can't throw it at us fast enough!"

She got a round of laughter at that. "Like that old goat t'day," the fellow on the other side of the fire said. "Had a bad minute with him, I thought when the priest told him 'bout the curse that he was gonna fall over with a brain-storm. Went purple, he did."

That unleashed another flood of anecdotes, with the nose-girl lamenting that she wasn't a little child anymore, since the children who were "healed" were often showered with gifts from the onlookers.

"Witnesses, Padrik calls 'em." The nose-girl sniggered. "Right. Tell 'em what they're gonna see, an' they sure do see it!"

"I hear that the Chief Robere's working on a really big illusion," the across-the-fire-voice offered. "It'll make the demon look—like a Faire-trick, so they say. Padrik asked him, says he wants a way to get the rootfeet to think they got to come up with the money for a hospice. An angel as big's the Cathedral, with, like, a big hospice in its hands. That'll make 'em cough up the silver."

"Gold too, for an angel," the nose-girl mused, the light of greed in her eyes. "How much of that do we get, you reckon? That'd be something."

Whatever else she was going to say was interrupted by the arrival of a much older, gray-haired man with a aura of self-important authority. "Meeting's running long," he said without preamble. "We're gettin' hungry and thirsty, an' we don't want the Bishop's servants carrying tales—"

"So you're lookin' for volunteers t' keep the cups an' plates filled, huh?" the nose-girl sighed. "Gray Tombere, I swear you think that's all we were born t' do for you Chiefs. You'd think we was servants."

He gave her a sharp look. "Maybe that's all you're good for, Rosa," he replied sharply. "I don't see
you
exertin' yourself for the Clan. Are you coming in, or not?"

She stretched ostentatiously, and yawned. "I guess. Just as good as bein' out here, an' it's warmer in there."

Robin waited until two more had volunteered before offering herself. Once again, no one gave her more than a second glance, not even the secondary chief who'd come for the volunteers. A moment later she was inside the "guest-house," in a large room heated to semitropic temperatures by an enormous fire in the fireplace. That was the only source of light; either the Clan Chiefs enjoyed this attempt to get the "feel" of an outdoor meeting, or else the Bishop did not trust them around candles and the resulting wax-drips on his furniture and paneling.

If so, he was wise, at least so far as Robin could tell. The carpet had been treated as if it was a dirt floor; the table was crusted with spills that had never been cleaned up, and the sideboard was in the same shape. The Bishop's furniture would never look as good as it once did, and he might have to replace it all after this.

There were platters of food waiting on the sideboard, and tall bottles of wine. In the dim light it was difficult to tell just what the food was, other than in the general sense of "meat," "bread," and "maybe cheese." She took the nearest open bottle, and turned towards the table, pouring it in any goblets that were less than full. Rosa took up a platter of meat slices and dropped them on plates with little regard for splattering sauces. The other volunteers picked up platters at random and did the same.

But the owners of the plates didn't seem to care, either. They picked up whatever was on their plates in their fingers, rolled it up, and stuffed the rolls in their mouths without paying any attention to the food itself. Instead, they leaned forward intently, and only a few brushed briefly at the spills on their clothing before bringing their attention back to the words of their Chief.

He was describing exactly the illusion that the boy outside had mentioned, of the Cathedral-tall angel with a hospice in its hands. With additions; the angel was supposed to be real to the touch, in case someone was brave enough to try, and it was to exude an aroma of incense. It was supposed to smile and nod, as a disembodied voice described the hospice Padrik was supposed to build.

"So what does the Clan get out of this one?" the gray-haired man asked as he sat down. "The demon f'tomorrow was hard enough! Has he got any idea what he's asking for? That scale of illusion isn't going to be an easy one to build or hold in place."

"We get a quarter of the take," the Chief replied. And as a storm of protest erupted, he held up his hand. "Let me finish, will you? Padrik expects more than you realize out of this one. Our cut is a quarter of the take,
or three thousand silver,
whichever comes out the biggest.
He
thinks we're likelier to wind up with three thousand in gold, not silver. Especially if he combines this with a big sermon about giving up adornments for the sake of God. He thinks that the jewelry is going to fill the collection plates, once the angel appears. In fact, his guess is that within two days, there won't be a piece of jewelry left to anybody with any claim to piety. There may not be a piece left in the city that isn't some sort of heirloom."

There was some grumbling, but finally grudging agreement; after the agreement, there was a pause while the participants resorted to their wine. Robin made three circuits of the table, emptying four bottles, before they got back to business.

They emptied their platters, too, stuffing food in their mouths as if they did not expect to eat ever again, and wiping greasy hands on their shirts and tunics. She kept herself from wrinkling her nose in distaste. It was just a good thing that the current vogue was for brown and gray; dark colors that didn't show stains and grease as badly as the usual Gypsy colors did.

Then again, it looked—and smelled—as if their clothing had been clean before they sat down to this meeting. Maybe the High Bishop's servants were discreetly taking away their soiled clothing and replacing it with clean while they slept, so that their appearance would not arouse suspicion that they did not belong here.

"Now, Gray Tombere, how's the House doing?" the Chief asked. "What's new out there?"

The old man grinned. "Better, since the Guards closed down Lady Silk's and the Snow Maiden. Sale of drink's been real good; new gambling tables are doing well. If we could just get a couple more Houses closed down, we'd be making as much money as the miracles."

But the Chief shook his head. "Don't try to force the Luck," he cautioned. "Most of the Houses are down in the Warren now; you push the local talent down there, and they may come out after us. We can't afford that yet; not until Padrik's got more than Gradford dancing to his tunes."

Robin listened and poured, poured and listened. There was more of the same, rather as she had expected. The Patsonos had basically moved into Gradford and set up their own little network of linked activities. They smuggled in drugs, strong liquor, and anything that had been deemed illegal; they dispensed these things at the House the Chief had spoken of—and Robin had a shrewd notion that if she were to trace the location of this House, she would discover it was one and the same with the "workhouse" Krystal had described. They separated the gullible from their money at the gambling tables in the House, and they used their knowledge of who the clients were to extort yet more money from those same clients on occasion.