Song of Sorcery
Page 14
With a drum roll, the music ended, and Maggie sank from a graceful turn to her knees, arms extended, palms up. She was pelted with the coins not already gleaned by the pickpockets, as the townsmen and gypsies both applauded.
Colin was working at fighting off a sense of betrayal. While this was certainly an interesting side to her personality, he trusted better the one he thought he already knew. If his suspicions were correct, this scheme of hers was more harebrained than the one that nearly got them drowned in the Troutroute. He had better catch up to her quickly, and let her know why what he suspected she planned was futile.
His opportunity dissolved as Davey, dumping the girl who had leaned heavily against him during the dance, rose to his feet with a feline flourish and offered his hands to Maggie.
She smiled and accepted the courtesy, rising to her feet with his help.
Colin fumbled into action and dashed over to the pair, who seemed in immediate danger of disappearing into the shrubbery. “Ah, Magdalene, my dear, you did join us,” he said. He considered clapping her on the back, but decided against it. “Davey, this is my friend Maggie. I was telling you about her earlier.”
Davey didn’t break eye contact with her as he replied. “Ah, yes. The shy one.”
Colin’s laugh was shaky as he sought to keep the conversation from degenerating into nonverbal communication.
“Oh, she is, aren’t you Mag! But—er—a real trouper.”
“She certainly appears to be,” said a woman, emerging from the bustle of the departing crowd. It was Xenobia, the woman in the crystal. Now her hair was smoothly tied into a crimson kerchief, which was trimmed with the same coins that adorned her ears and neck. The coins represented so many different countries and denominations that Colin felt sure she could have easily been some kingdom’s national treasury.
He saw Maggie’s face as she recognized her sister’s green silk gown bulging to encase the gypsy woman’s pudgy body. The green silk didn’t quite manage to be a decent covering, so the woman had piled a purple and orange flounced skirt on top of it.
Although it was well known that a person’s wickedness was reflected in the face as age advanced, Xenobia had few wrinkles, and her nose, while straight and proud, was not prominent. In fact, she still bore the vestiges of beauty, an effect spoiled only by her garish clothing and harsh expression.
“Mother,” Davey said jovially. “This is my good friend, Colin. I told you of him earlier and this—”
“Yes,” Xenobia said succinctly. “My son, I would talk to you. Come to my wagon. I have this problem I want you to help me with.”
“Of course,” Davey replied, piqued at the interruption. “In a moment.”
“Now,” said Xenobia.
Davey shrugged and smiled at Maggie. “Now.” He repeated it with an air of resignation, and ran a finger down Maggie’s arm. “You don’t leave, eh?” He strode away after his mother.
“Whew,” said Colin. “That was close.”
“Yes, I almost had him,” she snapped. “Colin, why did you have to interrupt?”
“You should have seen yourself!” he said more vehemently than he had planned to. It occurred to him that he sounded priggish. “I mean, all right, so you were beautiful, but where did you learn to dance like that? not from your grandmother, I’ll wager.”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” she replied hotly. “It is part of the ceremony of welcoming young witches to adulthood, and we do it every year at our Sorcerous Ceremonials, so there!”
“I guess that would get them into adulthood fast, all right, if they do it the way you did.”
“It is a beautiful and meaningful ceremony, I’ll have you know—” the witch began her retort but was interrupted by Ching sliding between her ankles.
“It seems to me that that silly minstrel is more concerned with your virtue than I am, and I’m the chaperone! You’d better come out with it, witchy, and tell us what you’re up to.”
“Very well, then,” she said to the cat and turned to Colin with exaggerated patience. “I thought I would make him fall in love with me, then I could reject him and give a little of the anti-love potion to his other conquests and leave him to their mercy. That’s little enough revenge for what he’s done to Winnie.”
“That ought to do it, for sure,” he admitted.
“So you think he is?”
“Is what?”
“Is in love with me, of course.”
“No. Heat, maybe.”
She looked mortally offended. “Well, how would you know anyway? Is it so impossible?”
“Oh, don’t pout, Maggie. Ordinarily, of course, it wouldn’t be impossible. If we had that whole silly village following you like puppy dogs I wouldn’t be the least surprised. But in his case it is impossible. That fellow can’t give you his heart, because he hasn’t any.”
“Excuse me? Would you repeat that?”
“I said he hasn’t any heart. One of his childhood sweethearts has become disenchanted enough with the present Davey to try to persuade me to help her do something about it so she can return him to what she insists was his former perfect self. She told me the whole story.”
“Which is?”
“His mother had the heart removed when he reached puberty.” He was about to explain further when Xenobia and Davey reappeared.
Xenobia smiled. “Here we are again. It didn’t take long at all, now did it? I trust you will stay with us tonight?” Maggie noted that the hissing element in Xenobia’s voice that had so impressed her through the crystal was actually a lisp. It was somehow more unpleasant than the hiss.
“As a matter of fact,” Colin said, not caring at all for the gypsy woman’s manner, “as a matter of fact, we must be getting on. There’s a fair at Queenston market in a day or two where we’re supposed to perform.”
“Odd,” said Xenobia, still smiling. “I heard of no fair. We naturally couldn’t allow you to travel so far at night, could we, son?”
“No, indeed.” He circled Maggie’s waist with an embrace that appeared affectionate, but which she found painful. “I choreograph the dance numbers for our entertainments, you know? I intend to persuade you to share a few of those beautiful dance movements with me, my dear, you know what I mean?”
There was no need for all of this horrible cat-and-mousing, Colin thought indignantly. A ring of shadowed faces and the occasional glint of moonlight off metal, barely visible behind Xenobia and Davey, undoubtedly accounted for the prickles running up his spine.
“Oh, I’ll gladly show you those steps, Great Gypsy Prince,” replied Maggie. Colin groaned inwardly. “Great Gypsy Prince.” Now really! “But in privacy, please. You know already how shy I am.”
He laughed what to Colin was a very nasty laugh, and led her off to the woods.
“Here,” his mother cried after him, apparently unable to bear the pretense that theirs was just a friendly little seduction. She tossed him a length of leather rope, which she had concealed in the folds of the garish skirt. “Tie her up when you’re done with her, or you won’t get your rest.”
“Who said I plan to rest?” grinned the gypsy with a moonlit flash of white teeth, his jewelry jingling against his bare chest as he leaped to catch the rope with one hand while retaining a firm grip on Maggie with the other. The rope apparently dispelled any illusions Maggie might have had about making matters go according to her plan, for she yelped indignantly as the gypsy began once more to propel her toward the woods. Colin urgently wished for Lord Rowan’s second best family sword. He might have at least looked sufficiently frightening to wipe the smile off that ogre’s face, even if he couldn’t wield the thing properly.
“As for you, my merry minstrel,” Xenobia said sweetly, “You could prove less easy to handle than the girl.”
“A lot you know,” he mumbled under his breath, but replied more clearly. “Why are you treating us this way? Your son was bragging about your famous hospitality. Is this how you treat your distant kin?”
Triumphantly, the boy dragged forth the second best family sword, House of Rowan crest and all.
“This sword, I am told, is the property of the enemy of a great sorcerer who is friend to my people. If you’re such a fine gypsy, how come you have it, eh?”
“I stole it.”
She shook her head. “No. And there are no gypsies in the world who look like you, as my son well knows. He only liked your singing and playing and thought, ah well, he’s harmless enough. Then we found this. Too many of your kind mixing with my people is what I say.” She spat the last and turned from him to give a command to her guard. When her back was turned, Colin amazed himself with his own ruthless cunning as he snaked an arm around her throat, catching her neck in the crook of his elbow. “Nobody move,” he ordered. “Or I strangle the old witch.” He was snarling in the voice he used when singing the villain’s part in a murder ballad, and was gratified to see how effective it was. Xenobia clawed at his arm and he tightened his grip.
“Mateo, if you are fond of your present form of government, it would behoove you to replace that sword in its scabbard and put it back where you found it. Then you will bring my horse right here.”
How he was going to elude them long enough to free Maggie from the gypsy’s lustful clutches and ride away through the thick wood beyond danger of capture was quite beyond him. It was better than listening to Xenobia’s melodramatic threats, though.
The boy hastened to do his bidding, the sword thumping on the ground behind him as he scurried away.
Although he didn’t actually see them move, the other gypsies seemed to melt back into the shadows. He heard his heart in his ears and felt as though he had a chill. He couldn’t have held onto Xenobia much longer when the boy led the horse into the clearing.
He was just breathing a sigh of relief when a blow from behind knocked him down. Xenobia fell on top of him, wriggled away from his grip, and emerged to stand above him like a knight who had just vanquished a dragon. His focus swam as he concentrated on trying to stop the ringing in his ears.
“No, you fools. Not with daggers.” She halted the threatening jabs at him with a gesture, then scratched her chin. “For this offense to my person, something messier, I think. Let’s see if our friend the bear can improve this one’s singing voice, eh? Throw him in the cage!”
Colin’s only good fortune at this turn of events was that he was a minstrel, not a hero, and so felt free to kick and scream with no appreciable loss of self-respect as they dragged him to the bear’s wagon-cage, and shoved him at the opening. The smell alone nearly killed him before he was rudely kicked inside.
“Too bad it’s all closed up, like. I’d enjoy watching,” he heard someone say as he landed.
“We’ll hear, right enough,” said someone else.
A deafening roar was the first indication of the veracity of the statement.
10
The gypsy had his love nest all arranged. Since he shared his mother’s wagon, he found it convenient to prepare such trysting places wherever their band went. It made an interesting game, to find a suitable spot to woo, and, naturally, to win, his loves. The locations were varied enough to titillate his sense of adventure: a hay mow, an outbuilding, an open field, a deserted woodcutter’s hut, or, as it was tonight, a comfortable bed of fragrant spruce boughs and soft moss, all ready for him to lay the lady down beneath the rustling willows.
Leaves and laying down, however, appeared to be far from the lady’s mind. He was finally forced to give her a shove. Awkward, true, but effective.
“You louse-ridden, horse-dewed son-of-a—” she began before he caught her in his arms and hushed her with a hard kiss. The harshness of it became satisfyingly soft and melting and mutually nibbly, and she surrendered sufficiently to allow him to go on to the next phase and locate a limb to caress. The nearest was a velvety thigh.
He murmured softly, as usual, “Your skin—oh, darling, it is so very soft.”
She broke his hold and looked at him with astonishment, then burst into a fit of laughter totally inappropriate for the mood of the moment and offensive to his sense of fitness.
“What is so funny?”
“Me—me and my soft skin. What did you expect, anyway?” she was so amused by her own joke she collapsed once more before she could continue. “I mean to say, did you imagine I would have scales, or what?”
For such a ravishing girl she clearly didn’t understand the first thing about being ravished. She was shockingly unaware of the protocol of such matters. That was a classic compliment! Offended, Davey decided that perhaps she preferred a more basic approach, which also happened to suit him at the moment.
He grabbed the front of her bodice and pulled. It ripped apart long enough for him to catch a moonglow swell of copper skin, then it wove itself primly back together again.
“Ching was right,” the girl muttered to herself, “a stitch in time would have indeed saved nine this time.”
Though her perfume was driving him mad, he thought it prudent to employ more circumspect tactics with young women who caused their clothing to automatically mend. “However you did that,” he grumbled, “you’re certainly a lot more modest than you were a while ago.” He had relinquished his embrace, but retained her wrists.
She glared at him.
“Of course,” he added quickly. “On you, my lovely, modesty and immodesty are equally becoming.”
Seeing that he was making no headway, he reverted to persuasion. “Come, now, my sweetheart. I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. Not until you’re ready. I’m sorry I tore your dress—I am too impatient to taste your charms. I can’t help myself, you know. Passionate gypsy blood, and all that.” He pulled her back into his arms, where she lay for a moment against him while he kissed her neck and munched her earlobes. He had found ninety-nine percent of the subjects tested responded favorably to such embraces.
She sighed deeply and almost snuggled against him for a moment. “You don’t intend to harm us, then?”
He looked down at her with annoyance. The little wench was trying to take advantage of the situation! “Well, I didn’t say THAT. You are spies, after all. But I wouldn’t want to have to force you, dear girl. Think how bad that would sound!” He considered that for a moment, while defining the contours of her bosom and experimenting with a couple of squeezes.
A lupine grin replaced his unaccustomed meditative air. “On the other hand, who would you tell? Not many more get-togethers with the girls for you, sweet.”
The breath was knocked out of him as he was flung backwards by the unexpected force of an enchanted shove. By the expedient of informing her magic that she wished to push the cow aside for milking, Maggie had employed it in her personal defense. “I cannot believe Amberwine’s incredible lack of taste.” She enunciated each word with finicky precision, and shook herself as though infested with spiders.
Davey, after inspecting himself for damage, was preparing to leap upon her and crush her into submission, in the course of which he was certain she would come around to her senses and enjoy it all tremendously. Her words, however, had given him pause.
“Amberwine? You mean Lady Rowan?”
“Yes, I mean Lady Rowan, you cad.” Her formerly voluptuous mouth was now set in a thin line, and her fiery eye reminded him uncomfortably of his mother.
“Must you bring up ancient history?” Sighing dramatically, he let his fingers crawl toward the leather rope at his left while he raised himself casually to his right elbow, as near to her as he dared.
“I certainly must,” she said.
“You haven’t go
t much sensitivity, have you, wench?” he asked critically.
“More than you have. I say, is it true you haven’t a heart?”
“You really are an insensitive little witch.”
“Precisely.”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t. Part of my puberty rite as a gypsy prince required its removal.”
“What a quaint folk custom! Oh, Mother!” she swore, catching sight of the rope in his hand. “You aren’t going to use that thing, are you?” She tried to scramble away, but he caught her by the foot and slammed her against the trunk of a tree before she was able to contemplate cows.
“I don’t see why not.” He yanked the knot tight. “You are a spy.”
“I am not a spy, and you are awful.”
“Not entirely. If you’d only have given me a chance I can be quite amusing, really.” His protestations were limp, however, as he had lost a good deal of his inspiration for the moment.
“Oh, to be sure. I think you’re funnier than a hanging, myself,” she said acidly. “Really, how do you keep walking around without a heart?”
“It was magically removed, silly girl. Not surgically.”
“I see. You have a blood-pumping apparatus, just no feelings.”
“You might put it that way. Scientific turn of mind you’ve got, for a spy.”
“I told you I’m not a spy. I only wanted to find out how you managed to make off with my sister, and why you allowed your mother to drive her away later. As a matter of fact, now that we’re better acquainted, I’m amazed Winnie didn’t leave without being asked.”
“You don’t like me, do you?”
“No. You do have a certain superficial charm—” He cocked an eyebrow. “ all right then, a deep superficial charm. But though Winnie might occasionally do something batty, she’s very discerning about people generally, and men in particular.”
“Perhaps you’re not being discerning enough, my dear,” he suggested. “She, perhaps, saw some of my excellent qualities you insist on overlooking.”