by Shirl Henke
“Release me else he will tear out your throat,” she countered, yanking free of his punishing grasp and kicking him in the shin above his boots.
As Rani dashed off to get the water, Django swore at her but made no move to retaliate. Vero eyed him as if he were a spring lamb with a broken leg. He turned from the wolf's fierce, watchful glare and spoke in Tuscan to Benjamin. “So, you are awake, horsetrader. You are not half so clever now as you were when you cost me a fortune at the fair. You will pay dearly for that.” He swung back one booted foot to kick Benjamin, but the wolf growled and moved between the two men.
Rani came running back with a chipped cup filled with water. Kneeling by Benjamin, she put it to his lips. “Drink slowly,” she commanded.
Benjamin nearly gagged at the putrid smell of the water. Strange objects floated in the filth-encrusted cup. But it was wet and he was too parched to resist for more than an instant. He swallowed the brackish liquid in slow sips, coughing and struggling to breathe. Then he realized the stench did not emanate from the water so much as the girl holding the cup. Sweet Mother, what does she do to smell so!
He studied her small heart-shaped face. Her features, unlike those of the brute towering above him, were dainty, almost patrician. Sooty long lashes fringed wide golden eyes, now opened with concern for him. Her coloring was much the same as the man's, dark with riotous curling black hair spilling about her shoulders. She was literally covered head to foot with gold jewelry of every sort—bangles on her slim wrists, coins linked about her neck, huge loops in her ears. Even her small toes as well as her slim fingers were winking with gaudy rings.
“Is your cough gone?” she asked in Castilian.
That voice. Now she spoke Spanish instead of Tuscan. Something nagged at the edge of his memory. “My thanks, lady. Do I know you?” His voice was barely audible.
She smiled, revealing small straight teeth of startling whiteness in her dark face. “We met near Pavia. You rescued me and Vero.”
He looked at the great gray beast that his drugged brain had thought of as a dog. “The peasant girl with the pet wolf. You are caraque! ” he rasped accusingly.
Her eyes flashed with golden fire as she replied disdainfully, “I am Romni and you are gadjo. Be grateful I return your earlier kindness or my phral would have broken your bones.”
“Could your munificent kindness extend to loosening my bonds before I lose the use of my hands permanently? I am a surgeon, if you recall, and have need of them.”
Rani shrugged in perplexity. “I must fetch Agata first. She wished to know the moment you awakened.” Turning to Django she said tartly, “I will return swiftly. Vero will not let you harm him until the phuri dai speaks.”
“Tis Sandor, not that old crone, who decides. He is chief.”
“Remember that well, Django. You are not!” With that she commanded Vero to guard the helpless gadjo and ran to find Agata.
Benjamin listened to the rapid and angry exchange in their strange Gypsy tongue, berating himself for falling into this coil. That dark boy who had given him the drugged wine was one of them. How stupid of him not to have recognized it—or smelled it! The whole place reeked of garlic and sour sweat.
Rani found Agata before her campfìre, stirring a pot slowly and sipping from it with a big wooden spoon. Before she could say a word the old woman spoke. “So your physician has awakened.” She stroked the miniver-trimmed cloak that Django had wanted for his wife. It would warm her old bones on many a chill night to come. The golden one could always obtain another...if he had need of it.
“Django wants to kill him, Agata. You must stop him! He saved my life and my honor. I told you all of it when first I encountered him.”
The phuri dai plucked at the hair growing from her chin, then rubbed another wart above her eyebrow. “And you are drawn to his golden beauty, are you not?” She cocked her head almost coyly and studied the girl.
Rani stiffened, then wilted in confusion. “I—I do not know. He is gadjo and I am Romni. Tis forbidden and yet...yet... Well, I owe him my life and that is all there will be to it,” she huffed.
Agata cackled and motioned for her to sit down, shushing the girl's protests. “His body is tough and strong as a lion's. He will not be harmed by a few more moments in those bonds. I have something I must tell you. Tis for your ears only, so that you may understand why you are torn between the Rom and the gadjo.
“You do not remember Zanko, your father. He was a splendid man, far more handsome than his sons Django and Rasvan. In every city and village we visited he would attract women—peasant wenches and fineborn ladies. His black eyes would flash and his smile would sing to them.”
“How did my mother feel about this?” Rani asked guardedly. Unfaithfulness was very serious among the Rom. Rani did not remember her mother, but felt sorry for her.
Agata snorted at the question. “Ah, your mother was beguiled by his charm—just like every other gadji. ” She waited for the reaction.
“Gadji! My mother was Romni. She died when I was born. Everyone told me—”
“Twas a lie. You and your brothers do not share the same mother. When Sara was brought to bed with her third child she died birthing it and the babe died too. Your father had gotten a fine Hungarian noblewoman with child at the same time as his wife. She was desperate to keep her lord from seeing the Rom baby she bore and sent to your father, saying he must come for the child else she would have her midwife kill it. He rode to the castle in a terrible storm, leaving Sara in labor to die alone. He returned with a tiny golden-eyed girlchild.”
“Me?” Rani swallowed a lump in her throat. “My mother is alive? She did not want me? She was a gadji whore!”
Agata shrugged. “Your father was the very devil with his charm. She was wed to an ugly old man too selfish to give her pleasure. Such things happen...”
“Why are you telling me this now, Agata? Tis because of the physician, the golden man, is it not? What have you decided about him?”
The old phuri dai stroked his cloak and said, “This gives me the feel of him. There is bitterness in him...and great pain, yet he is a good man. He has lost a woman and needs to find another.”
“And I am this woman?”
Agata said, “Perhaps you can heal the physician—if you have the courage.” She paused then and continued stirring the pot. “Or, would you rather remain with the Rom and be the next phuri dai?”
“I am not of pure blood. How could I?”
“That does not signify. Your father was Rom and you have been raised by our laws. Tis enough for me. But, I wonder, is it enough for you?” Her rheumy eyes studied the girl intently.
“And what of the golden gadjo? Would he die if I did not take him?”
“Do you care?”
“Yes, I care. I care very much!” How odd, after such numbing revelations, that she could decide something so important so quickly.
Agata grunted and plopped the spoon into the pot. “Come then,” she said, stretching out her hand to the girl. Rani pulled her to her feet. “Let us see to the healing of your physician.”
Chapter Seventeen
Benjamin watched warily as the impish girl reappeared, walking beside an ancient crone every bit as filthy and as bedecked with gaudy jewelry as she. The old woman's piercing dark eyes seemed to convey an eerie sort of power, for everyone stepped back and nodded in respect as she hobbled past the campfire toward him and the brute called Django.
Ignoring Django, who merely stood and glared with his arms crossed, the woman approached him. The girl knelt by his side with a flutter of skirts and offered him another sip of water, which he gratefully accepted, smell be damned. I will probably die of the bloody flux if they do not slit my throat.
“Do I make you uncomfortable, Barason?” Agata asked in Castilian.
“Not nearly so much as these ropes,” he replied, studying her wizened face for some indication of who she was or what she would do.
“Untie him,” she comman
ded Rani. A slim, wicked-looking dagger materialized from beneath the girl's skirts and she quickly freed his hands, then his feet.
Benjamin gritted his teeth in agony as he forced his arms to move and then began to rub his wrists with numbed hands.
“You were only tied this morning when it appeared you would soon regain consciousness,” the crone said.
“You seem able to read my thoughts as well as speak my native tongue.”
“I am Agata, phuri dai of this band of Rom. This is Rani, who also speaks your native tongue.”
Something seemed to amuse Agata as she looked from the urchin to him. “Rani and I are acquainted,” he said. “Benjamin Torres, at your service. Late a surgeon in the Imperial Army of King Carlos.” When Agata nodded, he looked at the brute who guarded him and added, “I have already made Django's acquaintance, unfortunately. He looks ready to kill me.”
Agata smiled. “He is. The question is, will you permit it?”
Benjamin's lips curved in a rueful grin that he hoped might charm the old hag. “How can I prevent it?”
“You are a surgeon. How skilled are you with a knife, I wonder? Have you ever killed a man?”
Benjamin's blue eyes leveled on her, all levity erased. “I am a physician, sworn to save life, not take it.”
Agata shrugged but Rani spoke for the first time, in a low hiss. “Do not be a fool. She offers you the chance to live. Sandor, our voivode, has agreed to combat between you and my phral ”
“Phuri dai, voivode, phral—you speak my language yet you do not.” Benjamin rubbed his head. Thank God feeling was returning to his hands.
“Agata is our wise woman and Sandor our chief. The two of them influence our tribal council greatly in matters of kriss—justice according to Rom laws. And Django is my phral—brother. Tis him you must kill.” She studied him intently with those large gold eyes.
“Bloodthirsty little wench, are you not?” He looked from the brutish Django to the girl's delicate face and saw no family resemblance but for the generous layering of dirt on their dark skin.
“Will you fight Django...or die like a coward?” Agata asked.
Benjamin, in fact, had killed before, on more than one occasion back on Española when their hato had been under attack. His father had schooled him in the arts of using sword and arbalest, but somehow he intuited this fight would be a bit more primitive. He smiled grimly and replied, “I will fight in self defense if there is no other way.”
“Good.” Agata turned to Rani. “Bring him some stew and ale to revive his strength. I will speak with Sandor about the combat.”
“You had best enjoy the meal, gadjo. It will be your last,” Django said with a toothy grin of pure malevolence.
“How do we fight? Are there any rules?” Benjamin asked, sizing up his enemy. Django was of a height with him, but bigger boned and far heavier, with bulging muscles.
Django threw back his head and laughed. “The rules are so simple even a gadjo like you will understand them.”
Rani returned with a bowl of some dark noisome substance, reeking of garlic, and placed it in his hands. The wolf watched inquisitively, as if hoping for a share of the stuff. After one taste Benjamin would gladly have given it all to Vero, but he laid aside squeamishness and ate, knowing he needed strength to win the fight.
“You need to walk and loosen your sore muscles,” Rani said after he had eaten.
“He goes nowhere,” Django snapped.
“Do not act even more stupid than you already have. He cannot escape on foot.” Rani helped Benjamin to stand.
At first the earth spun crazily, but gradually righted itself as he forced his buckling legs to support his weight. Then a most pressing call of nature assailed him. Looking down at the girl, he decided decorum was for manor houses and royal courts, not for Gypsy camps. “I know this may bring your phral flying at my back with his knife poised, but I must step into the bushes and pass water.”
As he expected, she shrugged and smiled as if it was the most natural request on earth. Django stalked nearer and watched him perform his task in the darkness while Rani waited with her wolf near the fire.
Scarcely half an hour had passed before Agata returned with a group of men. One, a tall, hawk-faced fellow with a thick mane of greasy iron-gray hair strode away from the rest and confronted him. Judging from the shiny gold trim on his filthy jerkin and the tassels on his high-topped boots, Benjamin assumed he was Sandor, the voivode.
“Are you ready, gadjo?” He spoke in Tuscan. At Benjamin's nod, he shifted his fathomless gaze to Django, who was grinning like a starved man at a twenty-course banquet.
Do not let your appetite grow unchecked until you are seated and served, Benjamin thought with grim determination as they walked toward the campfire in Sandor's wake.
Rani leaned over to Agata and whispered, “I do not like this. My brother is renowned as a fighter. Benjamin will have little chance under our laws.”
“Our laws will be sufficient,” was all Agata would answer.
Rani held her peace, praying the old woman's magical ability to read the future included a vision of the golden man's victory over Django.
Sandor summoned the two combatants into a large circle, marked off by a line of salt spread at the perimeter, glowing whitely in the flickering firelight. He stood in the center and began to speak. “You will each use one knife and one hand will be bound by the scarf.” He produced a length of brilliant scarlet silk and held it up. “Do not break the circle by leaving it. He who cuts the scarf dies by default.” His eyes moved from Benjamin to Django.
The heavier man nodded as if well familiar with the rules and extended his left arm. “Give the gadjo a knife, Voivode. I already have mine.”
Sandor tied one end of the scarf to Django's thick wrist. Benjamin quirked one eyebrow at the old man as he, too, allowed his left arm to be tied to the opposite end of the four-foot length. “May I have my knife? I wore it the night he captured me.”
Agata handed his fine Spanish dagger to Benjamin. “Use the blade like a good surgeon...if you are one.” She cackled at some bizarre joke only she understood.
“I am a good surgeon.” I also recall a few other tricks from my childhood. He flexed his sore shoulders and gripped the knife, inspecting the short length of scarf that bound him to Django. There was no way to stay clear of his blade without cutting the scarf, or parrying every thrust. He compared their arm spans and decided his was as long as his opponent's, but he would have to be lightning swift. If that giant ever landed on top of him he would soak into the earth like meat grease into a linen tablecloth.
Sandor held up the center of the scarlet silk for a moment as the crowd around them murmured excitedly. Everyone seemed to understand the nature of the contest and betting was animated among the women as well as the men. More than one Gypsy woman eyed Benjamin's slim golden body with keen interest as she placed her bet. For or against him he wondered?
“Begin.” Sandor dropped the scarf, freeing both men's partially raised arms. The chief quickly backed from the circle and then himself made a bet with Agata, who rubbed her hands gleefully.
Only Rani watched with a grave expression on her face. Benjamin had no more time to observe the activities on the sidelines for Django lunged with his blade while yanking on the scarf. Benjamin was pitched off balance for an instant but quickly regained his footing as he parried the clumsy thrust.
Two could play at this game. He tested the tension of the scarf as he and the big Rom circled each other warily. The scarf was obviously designed to force the combatants into a bloody fight. Ghoulish savages. He felt Django once again give the scarf a swift tug, catapulting him headlong toward his foe's blade. He dropped onto the ground, pulling the Rom along with him as he reversed the direction of the scarf's leverage. Django landed on his knees with an oath as Benjamin leaped up beside him, his blade again holding the Gypsy's knife at bay.
Benjamin was weak from the drugs he had been given, and the sm
all space of the circle gave Django another advantage. Benjamin's greater speed and agility counted for little under these rules. Unless... Use the blade like a good surgeon. Benjamin smiled at Django and asked, “Like you the color of crimson?” As he spoke he grabbed the scarf and threw Django off balance for an instant. His blade caught the big man's inner wrist, nicking him so the blood seeped freely.
“Tis but a scratch,” Django replied with a laugh, slashing at Benjamin and making a shallow cut on his left arm.
Benjamin feinted, favoring the arm. As Django closed in, the surgeon's knife again thrust beneath his, making a second deft nick, this time on his inner thigh. Benjamin paid with another of Django's clumsy slashes, this time across his shoulder.
“You, too, wear crimson, gadjo, ” the Rom replied as they circled again.
When Django again moved in with his blade, Benjamin's foot slid out, tripping his foe by sweeping behind Django's boot heel. The big man lost his footing and fell backward on the seat of his pants. Benjamin rolled beside him and again placed another nick, this time at the base of his throat before Django's blade could parry to save his life.
Now the Rom sensed how close he had come to having his throat slit. With a great roar he rolled up, tugging on the scarf as Benjamin did the same, keeping his distance.
As a boy he had wrestled with the Tainos. They often used their feet as well as their hands to great advantage. The knives and the scarf were great handicaps, yet if he could cut one more critical place where the blood pumped in surges, he knew Django would go down. Benjamin observed the giant's blood loss to gauge his weakness. The Rom shook his head as if dizzy. Good. Then all too quickly he once more lunged, this time watching Benjamin's feet as he thrust.
Benjamin deflected the blade from its course by grabbing Django's right wrist for an instant as his knife again nicked Django's other wrist. His grip quickly loosened, so slippery was the big man's arm with blood. He shoved against Django and they parted the length of the scarf once more. Now the Rom was staggering. Blood pooled on the dusty ground, soaking into the earth, making black mud. Slippery black mud.