The Heather Moon (17 page)

"She doesna want me here," William murmured to Tamsin. "Perhaps I should leave, after all."

"When they finish arguing, they will let you in. But they will take their time. They enjoy quarreling."

"They enjoy it?" He looked askance at her.

"Aye, my grandfather says Nona's anger fires him up to passion like a young bull." She smiled, a quick flash of white, and William stared at her. "Be patient, William Scott. The gypsies dinna rush any matter."

"I can be patient as a stone," he muttered, taking his bloodied hand away from his sleeve, "but not when I am bleeding."

"Ah, men, they are weak like kittens," Tamsin said, her tone imitating her grandfather's rhythm of speech. William saw a teasing glitter in her eyes. She pushed at his back. "See, they are waving toward you now. Go in," she urged. "My grandfather says he will see to your horse. Go in."

He gave her a skeptical glance, looked with even greater doubt at the old woman who scowled at him from the wagon steps, and stepped forward when Tamsin gave him another light shove.

Chapter 10

"The idle peopill calling themselves Aegiptians... that have knowledge of Charming, Prophecie, or uthers abused sciences..."

—Acts of the Scottish Parliament, 1579

William entered the wagon, dipping his head low to clear the canvas doorway. Behind him, he heard the music start again, and heard John Faw call out to someone. Tamsin mounted the steps too, stepping into the wagon after him.

Nona Faw gestured a welcome. She was a wizened elf of a woman, brown and wrinkled as a dried apple, swathed in a striped shawl and a pale headcloth. A necklace of gold and silver coins gleamed on her bosom. Her eyes glittered like jet, intelligent in their creased settings. She pushed him toward a cushioned bench that lined the opposite wall of the narrow space.

The wagon, he saw, was a tent erected on a long cart bed, somewhat like a traveling van used for noblewomen. Overhead, wooden struts supported a canvas covering. Inside, the space was snug and smoky, crammed with cushions, benches, and baskets. Coals glowed in a brazier on the floor. Smoke curled out of a hole in the canvas cover, and the low ceiling was draped with swaths of cloth, making the interior quiet and cozy.

William edged around the brazier, while Nona let forth a spate of Romany directed at him. He looked at Tamsin.

"She says to sit," she said.

"She said more than that. Tell me exactly what she said, if you will," he murmured. He eyed the old woman warily as she continued to ramble on in Romany and wave her hands.

"Very well. She says to sit, sit, sit, bleeding and wounded Scotsman who saved her granddaughter's life from thieves and murderers in the moonlight," Tamsin translated. "She says she is not afraid of blood, show her your gory wound, she will not faint. She says she is a woman, not a weakling man."

"Thank you," William drawled.

Tamsin's eyes were bright with humor. "Sit."

He sat, and the girl stepped past him, tripping over the wide toe of his boot. She winced and her cheeks turned pale. Her grandmother spoke to her, and she answered, shaking her head.

"You hurt your leg when you fell on the moor," William said.

"'Tis a bruise. I will be fine. You are the one bleeding to death, after all."

"Ease that tongue of yours, I am cut to the quick already." He took his hand from his sleeve, his palm filled with blood.

"Aiieee,"
Nona said, and whirled to fetch some cloths.

Tamsin peered at his arm and touched his sleeve. "'Tis deep, I see now," she murmured. "I didna mean to mock you." She turned to speak to her grandmother.

Nona came toward him and clapped a folded cloth to his arm, pressing it tightly. He sucked in a breath, and the pad grew red with blood.

When she poked at the gash with strong fingers, bright spots swam before William's eyes. He drew a long breath to resist the power of momentary agony. Nona spoke to Tamsin.

"The pistol ball is gone," Tamsin translated. "It tore through your arm. The wound has bled out, and looks clean."

"Good," he said. "I think she would have dug the ball out with her fingers if it had still been in there. Your grandmother has an unforgiving touch."

Nona knocked hard on his breastplate and snapped at him in Romany. William looked at Tamsin.

"She says to take off that metal shirt and your doublet."

He nodded and removed his helmet, shoving his fingers through his dark hair. Then, while Nona worked at his arm, he began to unfasten a shoulder buckle awkwardly with one hand. Tamsin reached out to assist him with her right hand, her left fisted at her waist.

"Two hands would help most here," he said. "Does your left hand still hurt you?"

"I told you before, it isna injured. My left hand... isna good for small work," she said. He nodded, concentrating on the task. Together they undid the buckles and lifted the back and breast pieces away. Nona stepped away to fetch something else, and William held the cloth over his wound.

Tamsin knelt before him. With the nimble fingers of one hand, she undid the long row of hooks and loops that closed the front of the leather doublet he wore beneath the armor. He recalled doing the same task for her not long ago. His subtle surrender as he waited gave him a pleasant feeling of intimacy.

When she leaned close, he sensed a subtle fragrance about her, like heather on the wind. She worked her way down the row of hooks, her breathing soft. Her lashes were thick and black against her cheeks, and her eyelids half hid the clear pools of her eyes. He noticed too the lush curves and swells beneath her clothing. A rush of desire flooded unexpectedly through him, hot and fast. He cleared his throat.

"Ah," he said. "What is it your grandparents call you? Chahli?" He tried to pronounce it.

"Tchalai," she murmured, softening the sound. "It means 'star'. They dinna use my Scots name, Thomasine, which my father gave to me for his father, Thomas Armstrong of Merton Rigg."

"Star," he said quietly. He understood the name. "'Tis fitting. Your eyes..." A wave of weakness swept him, and tiny spots floated past his eyes. The wagon interior grew dim. He shook his head slightly and leaned his shoulders against a crude wooden panel behind him.

Tamsin frowned. "William Scott? Will?"

He watched her as if in a dream. Her eyes were green and liquid, like moss seen through a shimmer of water. He had never seen eyes so luminous. All else around him began to fade.

"William," she said sharply. He stirred, tried to answer, but felt slow and heavy, as if he swam through thick fog. "You look pale as the moon," Tamsin said. Nona handed her a cup, and she held it to his lips. "Drink."

He swallowed the liquid, wine sweetened with honey. Tamsin watched him, her hand on his shoulder. Within moments, he felt clearer. Tamsin pulled at his doublet, and he shrugged it off. "Press hard on the wound," she said.

She tugged at his wide-sleeved linen shirt, grasping the cloth in that odd way he had noticed, with her fisted left; the hand was bare, and he noticed that the back of it was small and fine-boned. She drew the shirt off of him and set it aside. Cool air drifted over his naked back, but heat from the glowing brazier warmed his chest and arms.

"You have lost a lot of blood," Tamsin said. "Lie down." She pushed gently at his chest, her right palm a pool of heat on his skin. He leaned back onto a pile of pillows.

A few feet away, Nona stirred the contents of a small clay jar with a finger and spoke to Tamsin, grinning in an elfin way. She came over to sit beside William on the bench.

"What did she say?" William asked.

"She thinks you are a beautiful man. As pleasing as the Romany men, who are well-known for their handsomeness." Nona spoke again. Tamsin replied. "She says she will use a healing ointment on your wound, but there will be a scar. She says your wife will like it. A man looks good with a scar or two to show his bravery, my grandmother says."

"I dinna have a wife. And I have scars aplenty."

"I told her that. These look like they were once fierce wounds," Tamsin said softly. She touched a nick on his chin, and a long, shiny scar across the front of his shoulder. Her touch was soft, smooth, warm.

"Swordplay, as a lad," William explained.

"I hope you have improved since then," she remarked.

"Aye," he said, with a little laugh.

Nona clucked her tongue as she applied a damp cloth to his wound, and spoke again. "My grandmother says I must not touch you," Tamsin explained. "And she says your scars are small flaws." Her wide eyes were deep and serious. "Some have far greater flaws, believe me. Be proud of your beauty, and the perfection of your body."

He knew somehow that those were her own words rather than her grandmother's. He suppressed a groan as Nona slathered ointment over the deep gouge and pinched the edges of the wound together, then wrapped it in snug cloth strips. She fashioned a sling for him with some cloth, and cleaned the dried blood from his arm and hands.

"My thanks, madame," he enunciated to the old woman, half sitting up. She pushed him back, not gently.

"You be welcome, Border
manus,"
Nona replied. She gave him a toothless, charming grin. William lifted a brow in surprise.

"She knows some English, when she wants to use it," Tamsin said. She picked up his leather doublet. "My grandfather can patch the hole in the leather. This is a fine garment. Spanish make, I think, with such an ornate pierced pattern and rolled shoulder caps."

"Aye. I bought it in Edinburgh from a tailor who had purchased cloth and leather goods from a Spanish trader."

Nona leaned forward and stroked the leather, exclaiming in her language, clearly admiring the garment. "She likes fancy gear," Tamsin said.

"I will send her something fancy as a gift of thanks," he said. "What would she like best? Silks or jewelry? Spanish leather? I owe her a debt for tending to my arm."

"She would like that, William Scott. Anything that sparkles would please her."

"I will send her some precious baubles and a bolt of silk."

"Not red," Tamsin said quickly. "She never wears red."

"She would look fine in red." He watched her. "As would you, lass," he murmured. More than fine, he thought; she would glow in that color. Even the reddish light of the brazier touched flame to her cheeks and brightened her eyes.

"I never wear red either," she said. "'Twas my mother's favorite color. We will never wear it again, out of grief."

"My condolences. Did she die very recently?"

"When I was born," she said.

William gave her a quick, bemused look. "What was that, twenty years ago?"

She blushed, her cheeks growing deep pink. "More than that," she said. "'Tis the Romany way of mourning, to remember loved ones forever," she explained. "Her name is never spoken. Even if another person has that name, we do not say it. Her favorite foods are not eaten by her family, her favorite song is not sung. My grandmother does not wear red, nor do I, and my grandfather will no longer eat honey, since his daughter loved it so well. You may think it odd, but 'tis the Romany way to show grief."

"I understand, lass," William murmured. "I do." He glanced away, thinking of his father, and of his own abhorrence for nooses, and how the sight of an oak tree could bring back memories both sad and fine. And how his daughter's smile could remind him so keenly of Jean that sometimes he had to turn away.

"The Romany love with passion," she said, as if she needed to defend the customs of her mother's people. "They dinna give up their dead easily. And they love forever."

"'Tis the best way to love," he said softly. Her words seemed to echo in his head, in his heart, touching a current of passion and pain that still streamed through him, the result of the deaths of his father, and recently, of Jeanie Hamilton. "No one gives up memories of the dead easily, lass," he said.

"I have been fortunate," she said. "The only one I have lost has been my mother, and I didna know her at all."

"Fortunate indeed," he murmured. "Tell me, what will you have for yourself, Tamsin the gypsy? Nona will have silks and baubles. What would please you? I owe you for helping me too."