St James' Fair

by St James Fair (retail) (epub)

  But someone was coming towards him – a man with his hands in his pockets and his head down. Cautiously Billy drew back in the shadows but was able to catch a glimpse of the man’s face as he passed and then he smiled for he recognised the gypsy who had ridden the horse in the circus ring that evening, the one who was related to Billy himself. A queer sort of family pride, a longing to belong, a primitive hero worship, seized the big young lad and, hunger forgotten, he turned to follow Jesse.

  He walked behind like a shadow as his quarry headed for the river. On the way Jesse was stopped by another man who gesticulated excitedly with his hands and Billy drew back to hide behind some trees. After the conversation was over, the object of Billy’s interest turned quickly round and ran back up the hill in the direction from which he’d come. When he reached a circle of men sitting around a fire enjoying the succulent-smelling chicken, he clapped a hand on the shoulder of one of them and said loudly, ‘Listen Gib, forget about fighting. I’ve just heard that Billy, the wild chal Rachel gave away, has broken out tonight. He half-killed a man and escaped. They’re all trashe mande in case he kills somebody. He’s capable of it, apparently.’

  Gib grimaced and bit into his chicken leg. ‘He’s not our chal now. She gave him away. We’ve plenty to do worrying about the Earl of Hell. His men attacked Abel tonight and we’re going out to get them as soon as we’ve eaten.’

  ‘That’s damned silly. Abel probably asked for it anyway,’ snapped Jesse. ‘I’m going to help find Billy. He’s our concern. He’s a Romany, isn’t he?’

  ‘Maybe that’s why you should let him get away then,’ said Gib, who was more than half-drunk and not thinking straight. When he saw that his uncle and the other gypsy men were in no fit state or amenable frame of mind to help him, Jesse strode out of the camp again. Only Billy, who was still following him, saw that the girl called Thomassin rose from her place in the huddle of women sitting apart from the men and followed too.

  When Jesse reached the flat ground he paused and thought – what would I do if I were Billy? Where would I hide? He looked along the grassy river bank and started to search about beneath the low hanging branches of the trees. Most of the lovers had gone by this time and only a few were still lying there, cradled in each other’s arms. They were not too happy to be disturbed and asked if they’d seen a big fellow go by, but those who did reply to Jesse’s questions said that he was the only person who’d bothered them that night.

  Eventually Jesse emerged into the open again and stood with his arms crossed over his chest staring across the river. His eye rested on Havanah Court where lights still glimmered in the windows and he wondered which room was occupied by the dark-skinned girl. She had such elegant style! His heart gave a strange leap when he thought about her and he gave himself a shake like a dog coming out of water. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he scolded himself. ‘You’ve better things to do than get bewitched by a girl, especially that one.’

  Yet, yielding to impulse, he stood very still on the little peninsula of land staring across to the other bank as if he was summoning the girl up to appear before him.

  Behind him Thomassin hid in the bushes, shaking with such emotion that her hands were knotted into tight fists and her face harrowed with a look of unrequited love. She was so intent on spying on Jesse that Billy’s approach took her by surprise. All at once he loomed up out of the blackness and stood by her side. ‘You’re pretty,’ he mumbled.

  She gave a start and reached for her dagger to protect herself but when she recognised the stranger, she stayed her hand. For a moment she wondered if she should call out to Jesse but Billy was smiling and obviously meant no harm. ‘Hello, what are you doing here?’ she said without showing any fear.

  He pointed across at Jesse, still staring at Havanah Court. ‘I’m following him,’ he whispered.

  ‘So am I,’ said Thomassin with a little laugh. Then she patted Billy’s arm confidentially and told him in a low voice, ‘That’s Jesse. I cast a spell on him today. I gave him a potion to drink and I said “Temon, temon, temon,” three times this morning. It’s worked all right, but it’s worked for the wrong woman I’m very much afraid.’

  Billy was flattered that this girl was telling him things even though he could not fully understand what she was talking about. ‘I get potions to drink sometimes,’ he offered. ‘Alice gives them to me. Then I sleep.’ He gave a huge yawn at the memory.

  Thomassin laughed. ‘It’d be no use making love potions for you then, would it? Have you a sweetheart?’

  Billy furrowed his brow and shook his head. He liked so many things about Thomassin, the way she laughed; the way she crinkled her slanting eyes and threw her head back so that the hair sailed over her shoulders like a sheet of silk. He put out a hand to touch her scarlet shawl and unlike most women she did not shrink away from his attempted caress but stood firm and let him stroke her arm.

  ‘I’ll have to find you a sweetheart, Billy,’ she murmured and he smiled trustingly at her.

  ‘You be my sweetheart,’ he whispered back.

  She looked at him with pity. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve run away. I hit Long Tom and ran away,’ he told her. She drew him with her deeper into the bushes and whispered, ‘They’re all looking for you. Do you want me to take you back, Billy?’

  He shook his head violently. ‘Oh no! I like being out. I don’t want to go back. I’ll stay with you, Thomassin.’

  The girl was surprised that he’d remembered her name and her heart was sore for him. ‘What am I going to do with you, Billy?’ she asked in a musing voice.

  He had no suggestions to make but stood smiling at her in the moonlight with hope in his eyes. She glanced around. Only Jesse could be seen, still standing entranced on the river bank. ‘Come on. I’ll show you a place where you can hide,’ she said with sudden decision and grabbed Billy’s arm. Holding on to him as if he was her swain and talking animatedly to him, she led him across the wooden bridge which fortunately was now almost empty of people. They looked just like any ordinary couple and no one gave them a second glance. Instead of following the other late revellers into town when they reached the other bank, she guided him uphill towards the walled park that surrounded Sloebank Castle and soon the thick woods swallowed them up, hiding them from sight. Thomassin was like a sharp-eyed woodland animal and she knew her way about the park because she’d been coming to the Fair every year of her life and when she was younger she’d always gone out poaching with the boys on the evening of Fair Day. The ducal policies were reckoned to be a poaching paradise by the gypsies because they were full of game for travellers’ pots.

  Billy was intimidated by the darkness and the sounds of the woods but Thomassin pulled insistently on his hand and led him on ever deeper over paths that twisted and twined through the closely-meshed branches of scrubby undergrowth. Above their heads towered much taller trees that sighed in the night breeze. The girl sniffed the air and said, ‘Rain’s coming. It’ll be here tomorrow.’

  He was stumbling along because he was not as skilled as she in negotiating his way through woodland paths in the dark. It seemed to him that every raised root was waiting to trip him up and he was uncoordinated because he was very tired and very hungry. ‘Come on, don’t give up,’ she encouraged him. ‘There’s an old tower in the middle of this wood that most people don’t know about. You can sleep in it and stay out of sight when the glim comes. Darkness is the only safe time for you. If you lie low till tomorrow night when everybody’s gone home, then you’ll be able to run away. I won’t let them take you back to chain you up like a dog.’

  Billy furrowed his brow. All this was too confusing for him. ‘What’ll I do? Where will I go?’ he asked. All his life other people had taken the decisions – first Rachel and then Jem. They’d made every arrangement for Billy from as far back as he could remember. ‘Where will I go? What will I do?’ he asked piteously again.

  The girl smiled. ‘Anything you like. You
can take to the road,’ she told him. Thomassin did not want Billy to be recaptured for in a strange way, he had awakened a sort of sympathy in her savage heart. The idea of anyone spending their life in a barred cage horrified her. Even Billy’s undoubted violence was no justification in her view for such a fate. She disregarded the fact that he was totally reliant on Jem but told herself that he’d soon learn to stand on his own feet. After all, he was a gypsy like herself, a child of the open air, the empty sky and the lonely snaking road. He should be set free to wander even if it was only for a while.

  She said little of this to Billy, however, for she knew he would not have understood her words but some sense of her urgency and determination communicated itself to him. ‘Tomorrow you’ll be free,’ she cried, turning to him with her face alight.

  He echoed the word, ‘Free!’ and laughed back at her.

  The old tower, when they finally reached it, was even more broken down than Thomassin remembered. The roof had collapsed and night birds were roosting and hunting among the garlands of ivy that cloaked its broken stones. They walked in through a doorway arch that faced an empty fireplace on the ground floor with a big arched mantel that would provide cover in the event of rain. She showed it to Billy who was wearing no coat and was barefoot so the chill of the night was making him shiver. He was glad to huddle into the empty vault of the ruined hearth and when she saw his stricken face, Thomassin pulled off her scarlet shawl and draped it over his shoulders saying, ‘Take this. I’ll not feel the cold because I’ll run all the way back to our camp. Just you stay here and keep as quiet as a mouse so’s nobody will hear you. I’ll come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Billy’s hungry,’ he moaned like a child and the girl made an exasperated noise.

  ‘I haven’t any food and I can’t wait here any longer. There’s plenty of animals about. Catch a few.’ But it was obvious he did not know how to hunt so she quickly made a snare out of one of the laces of her boots, set it up in a likely corner of the interior of the tower to catch a roaming mouse or a vole, built a little fire to warm him and left him alone.

  But he had never been on his own for long and did not want her to go away so he tried to hold her back, clinging to her hand and saying, ‘Talk to Billy. Stay with Billy. Tell Billy about “Temon, temon, temon”.’

  She looked at him, surprised at his ability to remember that and shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry but I can’t. I’ve got to go. It’s late and bad men roam about the fairground at night looking for girls. That’s what happened to your mother, Billy. She was caught by one of them and fell with you.’

  * * *

  The Fair never stopped till dawn but during the darkest hours of the night it took on a different, more sinister character from the one of jollity and innocent pleasure that it showed during the day. As Thomassin ran back from Sloebank Park, she took care to stay in the shadows and avoid parties of men who were out looking for women, for this was the time when the whores paraded and decent women stayed at home or in their waggons.

  The owner of the Castle always picked his fairtime house guests with the view to making up a congenial party who would enjoy a foray to the after-midnight pleasures. James Fox and his cronies had passed an evening of drinking and dining, played a few hands of cards and then, when the women retired, they foregathered to walk back down to the field where lights still glimmered, and bonfires sparkled like beckoning lures. The Duke walked arm in arm with his special friend Edmund Lacey who had been with him in the Army. For protection, because robberies were always a danger at that time of night, the Duke’s manservant walked behind them carrying a pistol.

  They were chattering loudly when they passed within a few feet of where Thomassin was hiding beneath the wooden bridge and she could hear their conversation as they walked along above her head.

  ‘What a pity the black heiress didn’t make an appearance today,’ said Lacey to the swaggering figure by his side.

  The Duke laughed. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’ll see plenty of her soon enough but she’ll be in the party at the races tomorrow – today, I mean. You’ll meet her again, Lacey. Smitten with her, are you?’

  Lacey laughed. ‘She’s a little beauty in spite of the colour – or maybe because of it. Exotic – and rich, too. You’re a lucky devil, James. When you’re tired of her you can pass her on.’

  ‘She’ll be used goods by that time. There’s an old woman in the gypsy camp making me up a special potion.’

  Their voices died away and the hiding girl clutched her arms around her shoulders thinking of the words – ‘She’ll be in the party at the races tomorrow…’

  I’ll be there too, she promised herself, and so will Jesse. Where he goes I go. Her passion for him was so strong that it hurt like a wound.

  * * *

  The fires were still blazing high as they would all night in the middle of the Kirk Yetholm camp and men were sitting around drinking while women flitted in and out of the shadows fetching and carrying, when the Duke strode into the light and looked around in an imperious way. He made no attempt to conceal his identity for he expected everyone to know who he was.

  ‘Is Gib Faa here?’ he asked.

  A man stood up from the middle of the crowd. There were bruises and cuts on his face and one of his hands was bandaged showing that he had recently been in a fight. ‘He is. What do you want with him?’ he asked. He knew perfectly well who was speaking to him but it went against the grain of his pride to grovel to the Duke or address him with an honorific title of respect until he was forced to do so.

  ‘I’m looking for that grey horse,’ said the Duke, who was prepared to sweep all before him.

  ‘It’s late and it’s dark. We’ve three grey horses but you won’t be able to see them properly in this light,’ replied Gib.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. I want the one that was in the jumping. The price shouldn’t be too high because I heard that some countrywoman out-jumped it. I’ll buy it from you – take it off your hands,’ said the Duke with a laugh.

  The gypsies around the fire stiffened with anticipation and pleasure when they realised that the speaker did not know the full story of the jumping competition. The identity of the winner had been kept from him and that gave them an advantage over him. The faces that turned towards him seemed respectful enough but the eyes gleamed with malicious glee showing how they secretly wanted to laugh out loud and no one was more delighted than Gib, who had many old scores unsettled against the Duke.

  ‘I can’t sell you a horse that isn’t mine,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Don’t waste my time, man. I know that you gypsies share everything amongst yourselves.’

  ‘That horse isn’t mine or ours,’ persisted Gib. ‘It belongs to my nephew and he’s not here.’

  ‘Take me to your horse-line anyway. I want to see it.’ The Duke was not used to obstacles being put in his path.

  Gib moved out of the circle and some other men rose at his back to follow. ‘The horse-line’s over here but that particular one isn’t for sale, I can tell you that, sir.’ He was still pretending that he did not know who the importunate buyer was and the men behind him made muttering noises of agreement.

  ‘I want to see it,’ persisted the Duke so they all moved off towards the dark shapes grazing beneath the trees. Some of the horses had piles of hay in front of them and the Duke looked at the fodder with a nasty smile. ‘Been raiding hay sheds, have you? I could call the law on you for that.’

  Gib looked around as if to check who was listening, leaned closer to the man at his side and said in a conversational tone, ‘If you did that, your honour, it would be a great pity for your barns might go on fire and your horses disappear. It’s strange how ill-luck plagues people who make too much trouble for the gypsies.’

  ‘Damn ill-luck! It’s your thieving hands that cause the trouble, you mean. Which is the horse? Where’s that grey?’

  With Edmund beside him and the manservant acting as escort at the rear, he walked up the li
ne looking at the animals. Even in the darkness Jesse’s stallion was outstanding and the Duke knew his horseflesh. ‘This is it. Bring it over to the Castle tomorrow,’ he said, clapping its shoulder.

  Gib’s voice took on a wheedling gypsy tone as he said, ‘Oh, it’s you, your Grace. I didn’t recognise you in the dark. It’s some years since we met, isn’t it? The last time was when we had the trouble with Becklie as I recall.’ He touched his forelock in a mocking way and had the satisfaction of seeing the Duke draw back at the mention of Becklie’s name. ‘I’ll speak to my nephew but I’m not promising anything. I don’t think he’ll sell his horse,’ he continued.

  The Duke said nothing but a little of the bounce seemed to have gone out of him and he seemed anxious to leave. He turned on his heel and when he was a few strides off he called over his shoulder, ‘I’ll expect it tomorrow. It’s a good horse so I’ll give a fair price.’

  Edmund beside him sighed in relief as they hurried away and said, ‘They’re a rough crew. What was all that about Becklie? It sounded as if he was threatening you.’

  ‘She was some woman or other. It was when I was just a lad – you know what young men are like. They said I’d had her and they tried to foist a bairn she had on to me. Damned rogues. That one with the white hair’s their leader: he does all their speaking for them.’

  ‘He’s a big man and tough-looking. No wonder people are afraid of them,’ mused Edmund.

  ‘It’s all trickery,’ said the Duke. ‘Just trickery.’

  ‘Even the fortune-telling? I hear they’re good at that. And if it’s trickery what about the potion you’re having made up?’ asked Edmund, who liked to dabble in the esoteric.

  The Duke laughed. ‘That’s not trickery but the fortune-telling is. The old woman who sells the potions is famous for palm-reading too but it’s only guesswork. And as far as her potions go I’ve still to see the results. If they do what she told my man they can do, I’ll be as rampant as that stallion up there.’