The Heather Moon (23 page)

"Unlike a
gadjo
to speak regrets to a Romany," John Faw said. "You owe us no apology. May good fortune be yours,
rya.
We will see you very soon. We will come to Rookhope and camp on your lands."

William clasped the old man's hand. "Of course you are welcome on my property. If you are ever in need of a favor, call upon me."

"We will. May good fortune follow you," John Faw said.

William murmured thanks, then turned to Tamsin.

She looked away. Fate had taken a firm hold over her life since the moment she had met William Scott. She had to go with him now. Her grandparents expected it. To see their joy at the news of her accidental marriage made her feel humble. She could not take that pleasure from them.

A long sigh slipped from her. She would go with Scott even if she had to stay in a dungeon. Perhaps, she thought, she could beg a gentle confinement in his tower. At Musgrave's castle, he had said that he did not agree with imprisoning women. Perhaps he would just lock her in a room for two weeks. She could endure that.

If she stayed at Rookhope Tower, she could find out what Musgrave wanted with the Romany and her father. That way, she could better safeguard them from Musgrave's black scheme.

"I will go with you," she said.

He tipped a brow as he looked at her. "No protests?"

She turned away from her grandparents so that only he could hear her. "A fortnight only," she said softly.

"You might want to stay longer," he murmured. "We dinna know what Musgrave will do after Arthur tells him what happened last night."

She nodded. So much had happened, just now, that she could scarcely think clearly. Much more would happen before the day was done, for she had yet to explain all of this to William Scott, who would likely be rather displeased.

She swallowed hard, and turned away to embrace her grandparents. She looked back at William. "I—I will fetch my horse and my gear," she said. "I will meet you outside the camp." He nodded.

She spun on her heel and ran, tears stinging her eyes.

Chapter 14

"Some help some help my guid lord she said

Some help pray gie tae me

I am a leddy that's deeplie in love

An' banish'd frae my ain kintrie."

—Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret

Tamsin had disappeared among the wagons. William scanned the camp quickly, but saw no sign of her. He looked at her grandparents, who watched him with odd smiles on their faces. He returned a hesitant smile, not sure what they were all so pleased about. He was glad that Tamsin seemed willing to leave with him. He had not looked forward to convincing her.

He cleared his throat. Neither John nor Nona spoke, although the gypsy leader had fastened a deep stare on him.

"Safe journey to you," John Faw finally said.

"My thanks. I am grateful for your hospitality."

John Faw folded both arms over his chest and bowed solemnly. "We are grateful to you,
rya,"
he said. "Very grateful. Keep our granddaughter well and safe."

William nodded. "Be certain of it,
rya,"
he replied.

John Faw leaned over to Nona and translated. She looked up at William, and he was surprised to see the sheen of tears in her onyx eyes. She chattered something to him, and turned to climb the steps of her wagon, waving a hand at him as if she wanted him to wait.

"What did she say?" William asked John Faw.

"She wants to give you a gift," he said. "It is fitting."

Puzzled, William said nothing. Perhaps gypsies customarily gave gifts to strangers upon departure. He waited, and Nona returned to hand him a folded piece of green silk.

"It is a neck scarf, such as our men wear," John Faw said. "She wants you to have it. It was given to us many years ago, when Nona and I were young, by the king of France, when we traveled through that land and performed music and dancing to entertain his royal court. They liked us well there."

William unfolded the scarf, a rectangle of deep green silk embroidered in gold thread. The color gleamed like melted emeralds in the dawn light. "Thank you," he told Nona. An idea occurred to him.
"Merci, madame,"
he said in French. "I am honored by this beautiful gift."

She smiled and began to chatter to him in French. "You beautiful man," she said, grinning, "let me see my gift on you!" He took off his helmet, and she looped the green silk around his neck, knotting it loosely at his throat. Patting his arm, she seemed on the verge of tears.

"Ah, now you look like a Romany man," she said, and grinned.

William touched the silk folds. "I wish I had a gift to give you in return," he said.

"You have already given us a great gift," John Faw answered in French, so Nona and William could understand him. "We will be in your debt forever. Fate has chosen you."

William hesitated, then smiled, deciding that the Faws must be grateful for his help last night. Perhaps too they were glad that he intended to keep watch over Tamsin. Archie Armstrong had been similarly grateful to him. She must be wilder than he had thought, William mused.

With tears in her eyes, Nona bowed and folded her hands in farewell. At that moment, William heard the rhythm of approaching hooves. He turned to see a dappled gray horse loping through the encampment, and stepped back as it headed toward him.

Tamsin rode with reckless grace, back straight and hips supple, skirts flying over her knees, her hair floating out like a black cloud. With scarcely a look toward him, she streamed past and headed out of the camp. When she reached the edge of the moor, she urged her horse to a fast gallop.

William started forward, but glanced back at her grandparents. John Faw pointed calmly toward the moor. "Go," he said. "Follow her. She is your trouble now, William Scott."

He crossed the grove at a run. Within moments, he mounted the bay and rode out of the camp.

* * *

Mist hovered on the moor in low, fragile clouds, and the hills seemed translucent in the increasing glow of dawn. William guided the bay over the moor at a leisurely pace. Tamsin rode far ahead of him on the gray horse, but he felt no urgent need to catch her. Easy enough to keep her in sight, he thought, and let her ride off whatever strong emotion had powered her bold departure from the gypsy camp. He would not lose her out here.

She crossed the moor and headed toward an earthen road that skimmed along the wide base of a hill. William followed, the bay's rhythmic stride fast but relaxed. He did not need to push the horse or pursue the girl. The gray would tire soon enough at that pace, he reasoned. Soon or late, the girl would have to pull up.

He watched her ride, hair flying out like a black banner, her skirts high over her long, slim legs. He watched the grace and power that seemed natural to her, and wondered what caused her distress. She seemed to run from something, he thought. Last night she had possessed the courage to stand up to two men who mocked her. Now she behaved as if she lacked even the courage to face him.

He rode at a steady lope behind her, thinking of last night, when he had seen her hand exposed for the first time. Neither shock nor disgust had been his reaction, though Tamsin seemed to expect both from him. Surprise, perhaps, and curiosity, for he knew that she hid some flaw in that hand. He expected to see scars or the traces of an old injury.

What he had seen, finally, was no more than a harmless variation of nature. His heart had gone out to her in sympathy, as he had felt before with her. Tamsin seemed to have a singular capacity to melt the guards around his feelings, no matter that he endeavored to always show himself as cool and unmoved. None but his daughter had that effect on him.

Tamsin seemed to believe that her hand represented some mark of inferiority, even a sign of inherent evil. He could not share even the smallest part of that view. Years of tutelage at the king's side, and his own preference for studying scientific and medical treatises, had made him immune to common superstitions.

Seething fury had rushed through him when Arthur and Ned had mocked and threatened her. William had been about to confront them himself when the girl began to brandish the hand like a weapon. A foolish but courageous act, William thought, touched off by her fiery, impulsive nature. But then, he mused, true bravery often required a touch of madness to fuel it.

He glanced ahead. The road met another track, and continued past a wide crossing to disappear between two steep hills. Tamsin headed for the crossing. Once there, she slowed and circled the horse, glancing back at him.

William remembered when he and Archie had chased her over meadows and roads in the Debatable Land. Then too, she had stopped at a crossing. He wondered if she looked at another of the strange gypsy marks.

This time, she took neither of the roads. Instead, she urged the horse up one of the hillsides, a gradual incline that led to the ridge where William and his cousins had ridden last night. Reaching the peak of the hill, she halted the horse.

William hoped she intended to wait for him and accompany him along the drover's track that topped those hills. He headed after her.

At the crossroads, he stopped, as she had. In the center of the clearing, a cluster of stones was arranged in the shape of a heart. The design was not the same as the scratchings and pebbles that had led him to the gypsy camp, and to Tamsin.

Here, the heart was much larger, a wide heart-shaped space outlined by smooth stones as large as bread loaves. This was no secret sign etched in the dust for other Romany to see, he thought. The heart was a permanent thing, for the stones had been there a long while, half sunk into the earth.

He looked toward the hilltop. The horse and rider were silhouetted on the high crest. Tamsin sat motionless, her back straight, her dark hair billowing out, as if she watched him. In the pearled light of dawn, a delicate mist seemed to surround her.

He guided the bay up the hillside, wondering if Tamsin would bolt as soon as he came near. But when he attained the peak, she sat still. Except for the rippling motion of her hair, and the horse's tail and mane, they might have been an equestrian statue, he thought, like those proud, elegant statues he had once seen in the city of Rome when he had traveled there on a mission for King James, several years past.

He halted, sidling the bay beside her mount. Tamsin did not look at him, though her horse acknowledged his with a soft whicker. Tamsin's silence and stillness seemed to ask the same of William. He said nothing, and waited.

He studied her elegant profile, the slim, graceful lines of her body, the dark, tendriled mass of her hair. She had a fiery kind of beauty, he thought. She was unlike the women he was accustomed to admiring at court. Without the enhancement of textiles and jewels, she had a natural loveliness, simple, strong, yet delicate. But what he found most fascinating about her was not outward.

A flame burned within her, in the heat of her temper and her quick moods, in the lithe, agile style of her movements, in the low warmth of her voice. Most of all, he sensed it in the spirit that brightened her eyes, like pale green crystals lit from within.

Her silence was profound, not a gentle peace in keeping with the dawn, but something darker, tinged with sadness. He did not know why she sat and waited on the hilltop, but he would not disturb her, or the quiet atmosphere, with mundane questions.

He looked outward. The land spread below the hill in a wide vista of misty moors and heather-coated hills, greens and purples softened to pale hues by the fog. To one side of the moor, the gypsy campfires twinkled like morning stars.

After a few moments, he noticed movement there, and squinted his eyes to see the gypsies walking over the moor. All of them, men, women, and children, seemed part of the procession. Soon they came to the same road that he and Tamsin had taken. Through the early mist, they headed toward the crossroads.

"They are going to the heart circle," Tamsin said before he could ask. Her tone was subdued, as if the bright spark within her burned low.

"Heart circle?" he asked. "In the crossing?"

She nodded, lifting her right hand to point. Her left hand was hidden once again in the black glove, and she gripped the reins with it. "Long ago, the Romany people put the stones there. 'Tis where many Romany marriages are made. Betrothal promises are made there too. Romany bands travel to this place just to hold weddings here."