Child of Fortune (13 page)

But we saw them often enough, and for the most part they were quite distinguishable from greeners like ourselves. For one thing, they were never seen to take a fressen bar; even when the necessity did arise, so it was said, they would patiently seek out a Public that was empty for a moment and then scoop up as many as they could carry to consume secretly in their hidden burrows. Nor was this tale difficult to credit in light of the general hauteur with which they carried themselves in our lowly presence. Then too they were generally older and wore either cheapjack versions of extravagant Edojin modes or Public smocks painted with grandiose tribal ensigns, and carried out their necessary business among us with a swiftness and indifference to social niceties that led us to declare that they would have given up excretion entirely in order to preserve their dignity in our eyes if only they could.

Among the true elite of Edoku, however, dignity was not exactly their stock in trade. There were four tribes working the parklands and streets of the vecino for ruegelt and it was easy enough to observe their techniques, though any attempt to ape them by someone not formally inducted into the guild, we were obliquely given to understand, would result in a sound thrashing.

The largest of these local tribes was the Sparkies, some fifteen or twenty strong, who frequented the busy streets and particularly the parklands, peddling tidbits of finger food. While the Edojin could easily purchase more artful fare at any of a hundred restaurants, the Sparkies catered to their immediate whims on the spot, and, moreover, many of the Edojin found it drole to grant their custom to these urchins upon occasion. Similarly did the Tinkers depend upon the aura of quaintness clinging to the repute of the crafts of Children of Fortune in the eyes of the Edojin, for the quality and design of the rude jewelry, paintings, items of personal adornment, and assorted geegaws that they hawked was such that they could hardly have had much trade on the basis of intrinsic worth alone.

As for the Buccaneers, who numbered no more than a dozen, their commerce depended upon certain peculiarities of the ambiguous Edojin legal philosophy which even to this day I find difficult to comprehend. While certain items of trade -- mainly psychochemicals with unpleasant or even dangerous side effects-were legally proscribed to the extent that no transaction involving same could be recorded on a chip, Edoku was entirely indifferent to what changed hands outside the electronic bourse for ruegelt.

Indeed, even the legal attitude towards the smallest of the local tribes, the Wayfaring Strangers, who were straightforward pickpockets and pilferers, was difficult for an auslander to fathom, Any miscreant caught in the act of a simple theft would be deprived of everything in his possession including the clothes on his back by an impromptu posse, but no further sanction would be taken. On the other hand, anyone apprehended for applying violence of any sort in the commission of a theft would be subject to a session of physiologically benign but nevertheless temporarily agonizing torture.

While it was only too obvious that the only feasible means of escaping indigency was to gain entry to one of these tribes, the truth is that I had little desire to do so, for I did not relish the thought of spending my time cooking or peddling, I had absolutely no skill when it came to crafting trinkets, and I had too much pride, not to say moral scruples, to descend to thievery.

To the endless scheming and theorizing on means and methods of gaining entree to a tribe and critical discussions of the comparative merits of the Tinkers, Buccaneers, Sparkies, and Wayfaring Strangers which were current in the society of the local Publics, I was therefore rather loftily indifferent.

Until, that is, I learned of the Gypsy Jokers.

I was lounging about the Public in the bottom of the miniature canyon which marked the border between noonday woods and desert night, nibbling absently on a fressen bar, when two of these legendary creatures made their appearance.

Two boys entered the Public, and without a glance or word to anyone, made straight for the toilets. The one wearing yellow and green divided blouson from trousers with a strange sash I thought must have been quite ancient, for it was so thoroughly patched with scores, or even hundreds, of irregular scraps of wildly assorted cloths that none of the original material was visible. The one dressed in red and blue striping wore a beret of the same sort of patchwork.

But as soon as the toilet doors were closed behind them, the whole place began to buzz with bemused if not astonished excitement.

"Gypsy Jokers, ne?" exclaimed Jooni, who was sitting at table beside me but directed her remark across the table at Rand, a boy known for his devotion to the lore of the tribes, and in truth for a certain pedantry on the subject.

Rand nodded solemnly. "You can tell by the Cloth of Many Colors; all the Gypsy Jokers are said to wear some item made of it. It is said that Pater Pan wears a great cloak of it, though some say a coat, and other versions have him dressed in a whole suit of patchwork, the so-called Traje de Luces."

"But isn't their camp a long way from here --"

"What are the Gypsy Jokers, bitte, who is this Pater Pan, and what is this excitement?" I demanded of Rand.

He gave me a somewhat patronizing look, but of course was only too willing to enlighten my abysmal ignorance out of his vast store of knowledge. "The Gypsy Jokers are a tribe, naturellement, it is said one of the largest on Edoku, and surely the richest, for they ply many trades, all of them with great success. "

At this, my interest was definitely piqued. "What sorts of trades?"

"Crafts, cuisine, all the ordinaire, but also, most lucratively, ruespieling, street theater, circus, tantric performance, the various arts of entertainment. It is said that they have their own village somewhere, an Edoku for Children of For tune, as it were. Or more precisely, for those fortunates they deign to admit to their tribe."

"Indeed?" I said with no little enthusiasm. For the first time, I considered using my wiles to gain admission to a tribe, for the vie of a Gypsy Joker seemed far more promising than that of a Tinker or a Sparkie." And this Pater Pan?"

"You have not heard the tales of Pater Pan?" Rand exclaimed in what seemed like sincere astonishment. "He is their domo, it is said. The wisest, oldest, and most outre Child of Fortune in all Edoku, it is said, if not in the worlds of men. A mage of all possible arts of accumulating ruegelt, it is said ..."

He paused and shrugged, as if for once he could not entirely credit the veracity of the lore he was about to convey. "Other things are said ... that Pater Pan is a thousand years old ... that Pater Pan was once an Arkie ... that he was born on Earth before the Age of Space began ... that he has been a Rom and a Rippie and a Ronin ... that he is the eternal spirit of the Child of Fortune of which the present incarnation is merely an avatar ..."

At this extravagance, I curled my lips and snorted. For as everyone knew, the Arkies passed with the First Starfaring Age, no human has ever lived to be four hundred, and reincarnation is nothing more than a literary metaphor .

On the other hand, the real Pater Pan, if such in fact existed, must be a fellow of no little puissance to inspire such a mythos, the Gypsy Jokers were real enough for two of them to be relieving themselves in these very premises, and I might be willing to credit Rand's tale of the tribe's riches.

"And where might the encampment of the Gypsy Jokers be found?" I inquired, already beginning to consider practical steps to become one of their number .

Rand shrugged. "Quien sabe? Certainly not nearby enough for me to have ever spoken with someone apprised of the location."

Jooni laughed. "you are thinking of becoming a Gypsy Joker, Moussa?" she said japingly.

"1 thought I might explore the true nature of the vie and allow this Pater Pan to recruit me if I deemed, it suitable," I japed back. But as soon as the words passed my lips, I realized that I might not be joking. Legend or not, this Pater Pan, if he existed, was a male animal, ne, almost certainly possessed of the usual phallic equipment, and just as certainly not uninterested in the pleasurable employment of same. And while I had little confidence in the puissance of either my wiles as an erstwhile femme fatale of Nouvelle Orlcan or the as-yet-untested pouvoir of the ring of tantric amplification I wore on my finger when it came to persuading the sophisticated Edojin to part with ruegelt in exchange for my amatory services, surely I possessed at least a certain unsporting advantage when it came to winning the favor of some egoistic tribal guru by the gratis granting of same.

Moreover, while this chain of logic might lack a certain mathematical inevitability in terms of proceeding remorselessly from initial premise to desired conclusion, the fact that at present I had no other quest to pursue or avenue of escape from indigency was suddenly all too apparent. In short, why not? I had nothing to lose in the venture save the present sequence of idle hours and of that I had certainly had a surfeit.

"Come, come, Rand," I demanded. "Surely, with your vast store of knowledge, you must have some clue as to the vicinity of the Gypsy Jokers' territory?"

But for once Rand fell silent.

"Why not merely inquire of them?" Jooni said archly, nodding her head in the direction of the two Gypsy Jokers who had now emerged from the toilet stalls and were making their way past us to the egress.

"Indeed, porque no?" I shot back, rising to my feet, flush with a certain indignation, courageous with rediscovered pride. Vraiment, I knew full well that it was considered gross lese majeste for such as myself to approach even members of a lowly tribe such as the Wayfaring Strangers, but when all was said and done, was I not still Moussa Shasta Leonardo of Nouvelle Orlean, and were not even these lordly Gypsy Jokers no more than puffed-up street urchins?

"A moment, bitte," I said, stepping into their path and effectively blocking them. I was favored with a matched pair of sneers and a lofty cocking of eyebrows.

"I wish to inquire as to the location of your tribe's encampment ..." I continued in a tone far more polite than their boorish manners justified.

"Porque?" the one in the beret at last deigned to utter.

"For the purpose of traveling thither."

This was greeted with snorts of derision and an attempt to sidle by me. For a moment I was tempted to Touch one or the other in the solar plexus so as to remove some of the excess wind from their sails, but I had not yet used the ring, and besides, such a public embarrassment of these Gypsy Jokers would not be exactly politic. Any riposte must be confined to the verbal level.

"I can see from your churlishness that you are entirely unaware of my identity," I told them haughtily. This at least had the desired effect of stopping them in their tracks. "Fear not," I went on, "this innocent ignorance will to some extent stand in mitigation when I relate this incident to Pater Pan." I now had them exchanging glances of some uncertainty.

"You be an intimate of Pater Pan?" said the one with the patchwork sash.

"Precisely spoken!" I told him. "I am his favored inamorata, having wandered from his embrace in a fit of pique, but now willing to relent and grant him my favors once more. " Since this was exactly my intent, the only falsehood lay in a certain bending of the temporal sequence, and was this not Edoku, where the procession of days and hours occurred with just such a relativistic nonlinearity?

The Gypsy Jokers, alas, broke into braying laughter. "In that case," said the beret, "we do know your identity. Vraiment, your name is Legion!"

Even louder laughter at my expense. "Still," said the sash, "such outrageousness is at least the right spirit, and deserves its reward, ne?"

"Porque no?" said the beret. "Let's try her wit, eh?"

"Bon," said the sash. " Attends, muchacha! Where are the Gypsy Jokers to be found ...?"

"Over the river and through the woods ..."

"Where the sun never sets and the moon never shines ..."

"First star on the left, and straight on till morning ..."

"Somewhere under the rainbow ..."

"The circus is in town!"

And having performed this duet of doggerel, they pushed past me, fairly doubled over with merriment, and made their exit, leaving me standing there like a fool, with the laughter of the entire Public Service Station ringing in my burning ears.

Chagrined, outraged, fairly shaking with fury, I stood there transfixed with embarrassment for an endless moment, and then, not quite knowing what I was going to do, but determined that she who laughed last would laugh hardest, I shouldered my pack and followed.

Chapter 7

As I dashed from the Public, my intellect was far too occluded by storm clouds of rage and embarrassment to lay any rational plan; I sought nothing more cunning than to keep the two Gypsy Jokers within range of my sight. Indeed, I did not even think this thought with any clarity until I realized that I was in fact tracking them, up out of the little canyon, through the woods, around the margin of a lake, and then into the narrow streets of a residential arrondissement of rambling wooden houses, This vecino, though not exactly bustling, still was crowded enough to screen the tracker from the sight of the prey, especially since the two Gypsy Jokers simply ambled along with never a look backwards, entirely unaware that I was following.