The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga)

by Thorne, Nicola

  He gazed at Analee, saying nothing, then he chuckled. ‘You have captured yourself a fine bride, son. Well ... does she consent?’

  He spoke in romani and Analee caught the nuance in his voice. Randal didn’t reply but looked at her. Analee thought of the face without a nose, the hideous one-eyed crones ... She nodded.

  ‘Good.’

  The man seemed satisfied and Randal’s face relaxed. He smiled at Analee and helped her out of the cart. She stood cramped on her tired legs, unable to move and Randal picked her up and carried her over to the big tent placing her roughly on the ground in front of the tent, almost throwing her in fact.

  ‘This is Rebecca ... the phuri-dai,’ he said motioning to the old woman. ‘This is Lancelot her son. My father Rander Buckland was married to Lancelot’s daughter’s sister-in-law. We are all Bucklands and all related. Lancelot is the head man of the tribe.’

  Analee nodded that she had understood and tried to sit up. Her legs were stiff. The old woman was looking at her enigmatically – not unsympathetically, but in a way Analee didn’t completely understand.

  ‘Untie her, Randal,’ Lancelot said. ‘You have her consent.’

  ‘Oh, she has consented?’ the old woman said in a voice firm despite her years.

  ‘She nodded,’ Lancelot said, ‘when I asked her if she consented.’

  ‘You must hear her say it,’ Rebecca said. ‘Then we have her bond and can untie her feet.’

  ‘Do you consent to be the bride of Randal Buckland who has claimed this right by capture?’ Lancelot intoned solemnly. Again Randal looked at Analee, his face impassive, his chin tilted, his stance proud. It made him feel a man to have captured Analee, like a gypsy brigand of old. Even though he had tied her up and had given her no chance she was still his by right of capture. Forced capture. She was reluctant, Randal knew. How she must hate him. Her eyes burned with resentment and her nostrils flared like a horse that refuses to be broken in. He had seen that stubborn refusal before in the eyes of an untamed horse; but he tamed them in the end. Oh yes, he did; and then it was sweet to see how meekly they submitted – as Analee would to him. In his mind’s eye he could see her body glistening in the moonlight responding to the demands of the gadjo, giving willingly of herself.

  His eyes grew bright with desire at the memory of the sight, which mentally he had dwelt on many times. Analee was a fitting prize to capture, stubborn, untamed, but – oh – what booty for the man who lay with her.

  ‘You must say it, woman. Say the words,’ Lancelot said.

  Analee looked at Randal, at Hamo, at Benjy ... they all gazed stonily at her. Even Selinda showed no pity ... She had sinned with a gadjo. If the tribe knew she would have her hair cut off, at least, perhaps worse ... Analee saw the look in their eyes, the unified hostility and knew they would all condemn her. She fingered her nose ... ‘I consent,’ she said.

  All those who had gathered around to witness the strange ceremony clapped and shouted. The expression in Randal’s eyes and that of his family changed from suspicion and hostility to relief, even to gladness. She had submitted. There would be no more trouble from Analee now.

  ‘Let us have the bread and salt at once,’ Randal said, bending to untie Analee’s legs, ‘and we can be wed.’

  Rebecca looked surprised.

  ‘You wish it so? You do not wish a proper gypsy wedding with dancing and feasting?’

  ‘We can feast later,’ Randal said laughing, chafing Analee’s ankles to make the blood run through. ‘Now that I have this prize I do not want her to escape me again!’

  Analee, astounded, gazed at Randal. How could this man force her into a marriage when he had hardly spoken a civil word to her in days? Randal who had been so kind before, so adoring, seemed to hate her ... but he wanted her, she knew that. He had seen her make love in the moonlight; goodness knows how long he had watched, maybe he’d seen everything. He’d been inflamed. Randal wanted her as Brent had. All men were the same. Well it might as well be got over. There was an inevitablity about it. Marriage to Randal would not be forever; she knew that. Her second sight had told her that this was just a dark cloud, a bad time. One day the cloud would pass and the sun would shine again ... and Analee, the wandering gypsy, would be free.

  The gypsies in the camp were excited by the unexpected news of a wedding and immediately ceased the tasks in which they were engaged to run to the tent of the phuri-dai who would perform the marriage. Most of them had seen Randal and his family come in with the cart, and many had seen Analee unceremoniously taken out from it, her feet bound, and dumped on the ground in front of Rebecca.

  It was a long time since there had been a marriage by capture in the camp. What they did not know was whether the captured bride was willing or unwilling. If she were willing it meant that she and her tomnimi, her betrothed, had met secretly, had been denied permission to marry by her father. The man had thus made a show of forcing her, but in fact she had gone willingly to stay a while with him and consummate their union. Now the marriage would consecrate this physical union that had already occurred, and then the bride and groom would return to the girl’s father and a reconciliation would take place. But if the bride were reluctant, if she had been forced against her will, then after the wedding the bridegroom would do his best to woo her, to win her love – for true love was an essential element in gypsy lore. He would go to the cohani, the sorceress, and obtain from her spells to win the heart of his captured bride.

  Now, as they hurried to the tent looking forward to the feasting and dancing that would take place later in the day, the tribe did not know what was the case with the bride that Randal Buckland had brought home tethered in a cart.

  Although Lancelot was the leader of the tribe, the undisputed head was his mother Rebecca, the phuri-dai. She did not know how old she was, but some thought over a hundred years of age. She, his mother, knew how old Lancelot was and he was nearly eighty. She was said to be able to remember as far back as the Civil War and the execution of the King and that was nearly a hundred years ago.

  Rebecca had held dominance over the Buckland tribe gathered outside Carlisle for so many years that there were few who did not remember her as phuri-dai, even the very old ones. In her youth she had been a great beauty, something of a cohani herself, a weaver of magic spells, a fortune-teller of reknown. She had been married three times, all to members of her own tribe – maybe more, she couldn’t remember – and she had fifteen children, at least; she couldn’t be quite sure of that now.

  Everyone in the tribe was related to her one way or another and as she waited, a new rug around her shoulders for the ceremony she was about to perform, her old eyes still bright, still piercing, noted where everyone was and what they were doing.

  Rebecca, in her long life, had seen many enforced marriages – and knew every variation of betrothal and marriage within gypsy lore. She had seen willing brides and reluctant brides, passionate brides and those whose feelings towards their husbands were cold. On the whole gypsies wanted warm romantic love to bless the marriages but, being human, Rebecca knew you could not always have what you wanted.

  Randal’s bride, she had known from the moment her wise old eyes saw her tossed on the ground, was very reluctant, very unwilling. Randal may perhaps have done better to have thought again; but she knew what Randal was – headstrong, a law unto himself. He had wanted this woman and he had captured her. God knew from where. She looked foreign; she was so tall that Rebecca felt she could not possibly have hailed from these parts where the women were medium or small in height. Maybe not even from England. She had a glowing olive skin and dangerous-looking dark eyes. She was a beauty alright; but she would give Randal a bad time if she wanted to.

  Soon he would come to her or to Reyora, the cohani, and ask for spells to bind his bride to him. Rebecca slowly shook her head. Even strong spells would be difficult to tame that one, she thought.

  Standing quietly, by the tent Analee too was watching the preparations, not
ing how everyone put down what they were doing and hurried to where the old phuri-dai was sitting. And the phuri-dai, she saw, was watching her – an old, old wise-looking woman, and shaking her head.

  She thought she saw sympathy in those knowing old eyes, friendliness and, for the first time for days, Analee lifted her head and smiled. Rebecca seemed to nod her head as though she understood, and then she turned to take the bowl of salt and the large piece of bread offered her by a young boy of the tribe, one of her great-grandsons she thought.

  Suddenly the babel of noise stopped at a signal from Lancelot and everyone was quiet; nothing moved except the tops of the trees, beside the field, which rustled gently in the breeze. Autumn was in the air, one or two of the leaves were falling already. Winter came early in these parts. Rebecca nodded at Randal who stepped over from where he had been standing with his brothers and sister and held out his hand to Analee. Analee stared at him, her face a stubborn mask.

  ‘You have consented,’ Randal murmured menacingly under his breath and slowly she put out a hand and took his. Then he led her before the phuri-dai where they both knelt, hands clasped.

  Rebecca leaned forward, her bent arthritic hands carefully breaking into two halves the large piece of freshly baked bread. Then from the bowl held by the boy she took salt and, sprinkling it on to each of the two pieces, gave one first to Randal then one to Analee. At the same time she murmured according to custom, ‘When you are tired of this bread and this salt you will be tired of each other.’

  Analee took the bread and gazed at it for a long time, then at a nudge from Randal she gave her piece to him and took his.

  ‘Eat,’ Rebecca commanded and she watched over them as they consumed the bread and salt.

  Then she took a pitcher handed to her by Lancelot and poured over the heads of the kneeling couple grains of wheat that had been freshly gathered in the harvest. When she had finished and the newly married couple, the yellow grains spilling all over their dark hair and bright clothes, still knelt before her she gave the pitcher to Lancelot who dashed it to the ground, keeping the handle for himself. Then the boy who had helped to officiate in the ceremony carefully picked up the broken pieces, gave one each to the bride and groom and handed the rest to Randal’s family and those who, nearest the couple, eagerly reached out for these good luck symbols.

  It was over. A babble of voices broke out and Randal helped his bride to her feet, dusting the grains off his clothes, shaking his black curly hair. He smiled at Analee but she looked coldly past him at the phuri-dai because she had sensed that the wise old woman knew she was married against her will.

  Then a man stepped forward and held up his hands. This was Sacki the son of Lancelot, grandson of Rebecca and father of young Gilderoy who had helped his great-grandmother with the ceremony. Most of Lancelot’s sons were now dispersed over the kingdom, but Sacki had remained in the camp to help control tribal order. As a boy he had been forced into the army and had the lower part of his leg shot off at Malplaquet when Marlborough and Prince Eugene defeated the French in one of the wars of the Spanish Succession though little did Sacki Buckland, a boy of 14, know what the war was about or who was in command. He was lucky to come home alive. The gypsies, being considered the lowest of the low even in the scum of the army, were not deemed fit to treat and were normally left to die where they fell. It was only because the leg was clean shot off and one of his fellow gypsies had applied a tourniquet to staunch the blood that Sacki had lived at all. In fact his life had surely been saved by the brotherhood of gypsies who had spirited him away from the army and nursed him in France until, on a makeshift wooden stump, he was fit to return home.

  Sacki had a loud firm voice which seemed to make up for his physical disability and everyone stopped talking and listened to him.

  ‘Now that we have Randal and his bride married according to our law we shall gather in the afternoon for feasting and dancing ... So hasten to your tents and make preparations.’

  The throng cheered and smiled and, breaking up, some gathered round Randal and shook his hand or clasped his shoulder. Few took notice of Analee – the men because it was not allowed to ogle a new bride and the women because they knew that, to have been married in such a fashion and so quickly, she had offended against gypsy honour – she had lain with Randal and could not be a virgin. She was marime – unclean, a woman to be scorned and pitied even among themselves. So they moved away looking at her over their backs and one or two made signs to her that meant they despised her.

  Analee saw the dark glances and knew the reason for them. She knew how much the gypsy women enjoyed a conventional wedding where everything was agreed beforehand, the bride known and preferably a member of the tribe. They would enjoy preparing her for days, making her clothes and gradually building up to the climax which was the wedding ceremony and the feast. But the focus of interest, above all, was the physical union of the man and woman which took place during the feast in a tent set aside for the purpose.

  The ceremony of the dichlo, the official deflowering of the bride, was an essential part of the gypsy marriage ritual and it was enjoyed the more by those who had undergone the humiliation of it rather than by those for whom it was yet to come. At a sign from the new husband four matrons would go into the tent to inspect the newly deflowered bride, and emerge bearing a white silk handkerchief soaked in her vaginal blood which they would take round for the inspection of the members of the tribe gathered outside.

  Analee thought the ceremony of the dichlo was disgusting and degrading and she did not regret that on her wedding day it would not be performed, even if the women slunk away pretending to despise her because she was marime, unclean. They thought she and Randal already had carnal knowledge of each other. What would they have thought if it was revealed that her most recent experience with a man was with a gadjo, a non-gypsy – and scarcely a week before at that!

  Analee suddenly recalled to mind Brent and the way he had lain. He must have been dead or mortally wounded. How long ago it all seemed, how trivial life was for events of such importance to be over and others to happen so quickly. Within a week she had made love to a gadjo and married a full-blooded gypsy, a member of a tribe.

  So be it. She would bide with him as long as was necessary; she would be a wife to him because she had promised; she had eaten the salt and the broken bread and seen the pitcher smashed to smithereens. In gypsy symbolism this meant she was bound to respect him for as many years as the vase had been reduced to pieces. Seven pieces she’d counted – seven years. Was it possible that she could live with a man who had forcibly wed her for seven long years?

  For the rest of the day the camp resounded to laughter and the sounds of voices raised in song. A wedding was a good thing and even a reluctant bride – and she clearly had been, anyone could see that by the way she never looked at her husband all during the ceremony – better than no bride at all. Randal was popular and they wished he had found someone who obviously loved him. But beautiful as his bride was she was foreign-looking and proud. The women could see that the men secretly admired her and they despised her the more that she had given herself easily, that she was no virgin, marime. Pah! Well maybe the cohani would give Randal a potion and his bride would fall madly in love with him. It had happened.

  The phuri-dai took the newly wedded pair into her tent and they drank ale or herbal teas. The men gathered on one side and the women on the other. No one talked to Analee; few even looked at her.

  Then the curtain over the tent parted and a woman came in and everyone momentarily stopped talking. The woman looked at Randal and then, for a long time, letting her gaze linger, at Analee. Then she went over to talk to Rebecca. Analee knew without doubt that this was the cohani – she could tell by the way that her eyes turned up like those of a bird and the peculiar intensity of her gaze as she stared at Analee; also by the way everyone stepped respectfully aside for her to pass.

  The cohani could exercise magic for good or ill; she cou
ld tell fortunes, weave spells and provide potions. She could cure and she could kill. Every tribe had a cohani – someone who from girlhood had developed special skills, learning the craft, often from their mothers or a near relative.

  Some said that, while still in her childhood, a demon had penetrated her as she slept and when the girl awoke she was aware of her special powers and that she was cohani.

  In her youth many had considered Analee to be cohani – they had sworn she had magical powers and, in fact, she knew that she had the gift of second sight and that sometimes things which she said would happen, did. But she knew she was not a real cohani – she knew a lot about herbs and spells having learned about them from her grandmother. She had the gypsy’s respect for the influence of the cohani and especially for her prowess when she was also drabarni, a woman skilled in the medicinal use of herbs. In some tribes one woman was both cohani and drabarni; in others they were different – the cohani was primarily concerned with black magic and with evil, the drabarni with good.