The Untamable Rogue (13 page)

G
randmother Aneta sighed
quietly and got up awkwardly from her bed. Rheumatism was visibly causing her problems these days and she was complaining about pains in her eyes.

“Is there something wrong, grandmother?” I asked, concerned.

“Oh, no, my child. At my age it’s quite normal to have a little pain. My old limbs are just hurting a little.

“Should I rub something in for you?” I offered.

Grandmother Aneta sat down heavily into her armchair.

“That would be really lovely of you.”

From one of the shelves I fetched an ointment that I knew the healing woman used for rheumatic pain. I knelt down in front of the old woman and began to rub the joint with the dark liquid.

“Thank you,” said the old woman when I was finished. “If you would perhaps be so good as to give me my elixir. It’s next to the ribwort plantain – the bulbous bottle there.” She pointed to a shelf and I got up and fetched the bottle that she wanted from the shelf.

“How much of this do you need?”

“Take my cup – two inches.”

I passed Grandmother Aneta the medicine and sat down next to her on a little bench. I was worried about the old woman that I had grown very fond of. Grandmother Aneta was not only a very clever but also a very direct woman. I appreciated the openness of this old woman who never held back her thoughts. I was eager to ask her a question but did not know how to put it. Nervously I played with my hands and cleared my throat a few times.

“There’s something on your mind,” the wise old woman declared. “Speak!”

I cleared my throat again and looked for the right words. I was shy about asking this one important question but I really wanted to know the answer and I would not get it if I remained silent.

“What does someone do if they … if they are pregnant and would like to stop being pregnant?”

I had discovered that Ivo had left the camp for an indefinite amount of time and I had been concerned as to what I should do if I had conceived a child. I did not know what exactly had to happen to make a child but Ivo and I had been very intimate.

Grandmother Aneta looked at me with her blind eyes and I felt myself blush. By now I knew the old woman well enough to know that she could see more than any healthy person even without her eyesight. Suddenly she laid her hand directly on my stomach and frowned.

“Your womb is empty. You don’t need to worry. – In any case such a step must be carefully considered because it cannot be reversed and sometimes it’s dangerous – unpredictable. – It was Ivo, wasn’t it?”

I nodded, although I knew that the old woman could not see. So I added a quiet ‘yes’. I cleared my throat.

“We didn’t … well, I think … I was just thinking …”

“How intimate have the two of you been?” the old woman asked directly and I felt the heat rise into my cheeks.

“We …” I began and fell silent, ashamed.

“You’re still a virgin. He was not inside you, was he?”

“He, we … kissed. He … held me. – I’m so ashamed. I … I should never have – let it happen.”

“Trust in the fact that everything happens as it must happen. The fate of all of us is determined by the Lord. No one has influence on it. I know your future. You don’t need to be afraid of it, child.”

The old woman was silent for a while and I got up from the bench. I wanted to go outside for a while. I was just at the door when I could hear the voice of the healing woman again.

“Everything comes together as is fitting.”

I froze for a moment, my heart pounding, and listened to see whether Grandmother Aneta had anything else to declare, but the old woman did not say anything else and a little later I could hear by the regular breathing sounds that the old woman had nodded off in her armchair. A sigh came from my lips and I stepped out of the waggon into the bright sunlight.

As I was walking passed Ivo’s waggon I stopped as if rooted to the spot. Something here was not as it should be. It took a while for me to grasp what it was. – Ivo’s horse was tied to the waggon. – He had returned! My heart leapt into my throat and my legs felt completely weak, as if they would give way below me at any moment. Wanting to steady myself, I grasped out to the trunk of a young ash-tree, as I felt close to fainting. Without turning around I was suddenly aware that he was standing behind me and looking at me. I could actually feel his gaze touching me boldly, as if it were his hands that were stroking my body. Heat rose within me and I had to gasp for air. The hairs on my neck stood up and in spite of my inner heat and the warming sun, a shiver ran through my body. I could hear him coming closer, so close that I could feel his hot breath on my neck. He was not touching me and yet I could feel him as if he were nestling into me from behind. It was his powerful aura that I could feel and which was enveloping me in dark warmth and the call of bitter sweet passion.

“I need to speak with you. – Alone where no one can hear us,” he said with unexpected earnest.

“I will never again give you the opportunity to be alone with me,” I answered a little too spikily. Breathless I awaited his reaction.

“Well, well. So prickly today?” he murmured, laughing.

He embraced my slim waist and fished with his lips for my ear lobe, nibbling on it.

“Did you miss me?” he whispered, laughing quietly.

I shuddered, my breath became heavy and I could not do anything about it. He moved his hand down to my breasts and kneaded the firm flesh that was pushed up by my bodice. Unintentionally I fell against Ivo’s muscular body.

“Should I carry on here? Here, where we could be seen at any time? – I have no problem with that, but you ...,” he murmured into my ear. “Or would you not prefer to come with me into my waggon?”

“I want you to let me go,” I answered convincingly.

 Instead of letting me go he turned me around in his arms and kissed me – first carefully, then passionately. I sighed and acquiesced. After a while he pulled away from me, breathing heavily, and looked at me pensively.

“I have to warn you.”

“What … what is it?” I probed, my heart pounding.

“I’ve found out something important. Someone’s looking for you …”

I flinched and my heartbeat sped up so much that I could feel it pulsating in my temples. Sheer panic grasped my heart with ice-cold claws.

“I over-heard a conversation in which a man working for your guardian promised another man a reward if he could give him details about your whereabouts.”

“Can he … can he find me here?”

“The man is a knife grinder and gets around a lot. I’ve never seen him before but I think that he may belong to my people. It’s possible that he’ll turn up here sooner or later. Moreover it would be to our advantage if he were a Sinti because then he would never betray you as long as you are under the protection of the people. We have a strict code for such things.

That consoled me a little.

“But if he’s not one of you? – What then?”

“Then I’ll kill him!” Ivo said coldly.

“For – for my sake?”

“I may be a black sheep but even I stick to the code and will protect you.”

“Thank you,” I murmured. “For warning me, too. But I … I don’t know whether I could live with the fact that, for my sake … someone was killed. Perhaps I should just go away. I’ll soon be of age, and then my uncle has no further rights.”

“You will not go back! If this man is paying a bloke to find you then your wealth is very important to him. I think it’s probable that he would also not stop at murder in order to get to your inheritance.”

I swallowed. Certainly, my uncle was not exactly a nice man, but would he really …?

“Nonsense,” I objected, but I could not help a bad feeling spreading within me.

Ivo pulled me closer to his body and moved one hand up my spine, making me tremble.

“Come with me. I want to make love to you,” he whispered huskily. “I want to give you what you are longing for. You don’t yet know the answer to your desire but I can give it to you. Let me make love to you.”

My heart was pounding violently. I groaned quietly as he placed gentle kisses upon my neck and brushed it with the tip of his tongue.

“I can’t,” I whispered weakly and gasped, both shocked and aroused as he held one of my breasts and brushed his thumb over the hard bud that was pressing through the material.

“Why not?” he asked, breathless. “Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. You’ll enjoy it, I promise you.”

He pushed a knee between my legs and pressed me against him. Sensations that I had never imagined possible made me groan. The heat in my sex was almost unbearable. I wanted it, whatever it was. Involuntarily I pressed my tingling sex against his leg and I heard him utter a throaty groan. He whispered words into my ear in his own language that I did not understand. Everything in me yearned to give into his demands. I was prepared to throw all reason overboard. We kissed. At first I hesitated in putting my hands around Ivo’s neck, then I gave in to the surge of feelings and I buried my fingers in his dark locks. When I opened my eyes they fell upon a young woman who was standing some distance away and staring at me. In shock I stepped back and I suddenly became aware of what I had just done. It was as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over my head.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ivo. He turned to look in the direction into which I was staring, but no one was there any more. “Let’s go into my waggon,” he said. “No one will disturb us there.”

I stood as if paralysed, then I pulled myself away and fled from Ivo and from my own overwhelming emotions.

S
ergio was sitting
a little way from the camp when Jelonka came up to him. Her eyes were swollen and she was holding her hand on her flat stomach as if she were heavily pregnant. Like all Sinti women she possessed a tendency to be dramatic. 

“Hello Sergio. Can I sit with you?”

Sergio nodded and indicated that she should sit next to him. Jelonka sat down next to him on the ground and for a while they were both silent. He was giving her the opportunity to find the right time and the right words.

“I’ve seen them together again,” Jelonka finally broke the silence. “They kissed!”

Sergio clenched his teeth. The thought of his brother with Liz pained him, but this was outweighed by hatred. However hard he tried he still stood in his big brother’s shadow. Ivo did not have much to do with the community but the women ran after him like love-sick puppies and his mother loved him more than Sergio. He had known that for a long time. Sergio had hoped that he could win the innocent Liz for himself but she had now also fallen under the spell of the lone wolf. He simply could not get that out of his head. That was further evidence that women are not lead by reason.

“You’re not saying anything!” pouted Jelonka. “Aren’t you interested then?”

“Yes, I am!” snarled Sergio and clenched his fists. The defeat against his brother in both the fist-fight and in the fight for hearts almost pained him physically. “I just don’t know how we can change anything.”

“Pah! Men are really unimaginative! – I have a plan!” declared the gypsy.

“Well?” asked Sergio who could not conceal the hopeless tone in his voice. “My brother is not the sort of man who likes to be forced to do something that he does not want to do. – Certainly, he’ll marry you because in his own strange way he’s a man of honour, but he’ll hate you for it.”

“Once I’m his wife I’ll have enough time to win back his favour. And after all, I do know how to use my charms.” Jelonka seemed very sure of herself.

“Well you don’t seem to be managing it at the moment, because right now he’s not showing any interest in you. What would stop him from continuing to go whoring and ignoring you?”

Jelonka bit on her lip. The truth hurt and was not what she wanted to hear right now. No man had ever fascinated her the way that Ivo did. He was a devilishly good lover and very imaginative, too. Next to him all others simply paled into insignificance. At any cost she wanted to bind him to her. Deep down she knew that Ivo was not the sort of man who would allow such a thing to go unpunished. But on the other hand she did not want to accept her defeat. She could not accept that she had lost Ivo, particularly to a stranger.

“I just have to accept that. I don’t have any other ideas. – I know that you won’t understand it, but I love him.”

“You’re right! – I really don’t understand
that
!” snorted Sergio and he jumped up.

“Where are you going?” asked Jelonka, irritated.

“I’m done with this! – At any rate, I will not support you in this stupidity!”

With angry steps he stamped away and Jelonka watched him, clueless.