“She knows I am here, and she was warning me to stay back. So, at least, it appeared.”
He was skeptical. “Mayhap. If that was what she did she was most shrewd about it, and I doubt a woman would think so cunningly.”
“She would,” I said.
“We’d best lay low, then.” He peered around. “The less we move the less likely we’ll be seen.” He peered about. “We’ve a good spot here, and should lie ready until they are all within sight, yonder.”
“It may be a long time,” I said.
“Aye,” he agreed. “Do you sleep. I’ll wake you an hour or so from now, or if there’s movement yonder. Then I will sleep.”
In the brush where we had sheltered there were several deadfalls and a place where the brush parted overhead and sunlight came through. There was grass there and the logs allowed for concealment behind them, yet their camp was still within view.
Down behind one of the logs I settled, and drawing my cloak about me, I slept.
Again in my sleep I went back to my boyhood. What was happening now that inspired these dreams? Or the halfawake pondering on the past? Why now, after all this time, should my thoughts be going back to the days of my first flight?
After my escape on Vypont’s horse there followed days of running, hiding, begging for food, working a bit when I could, my clothes going to rags once more, and still no way before me except to keep moving. Then I came upon the kindly faced old man whom I had seen so long ago in the tavern before meeting the Vyponts.
The cart stood beside a lane. His donkey was feeding upon grass at the roadside. The old man had a fire going and I walked across the field toward him. He saw me coming, but went on with his business, and I suspected he had been troubled many times along the lanes and byroads by those who would rob or annoy him.
It was only when I stopped beside the cart that I could be sure. He looked up and smiled. “You have come a long way.”
“I have. And you also.”
“It is my way. Once I was … no matter. For these fourteen years past, this has been my life.”
“You are a peddler?”
“Of cloth and trinkets, needles and pins. I am also a tinsmith, and I collect herbs from along the lanes and sell them in the villages or cities.”
“You do well at this?”
“It is a living. It is enough. I am free. The nights are long and quiet, the mornings cool and bright, I live with the sun, the moon, and the stars. The air is fresh where I am, and there is no one to hurry me or to demand this or that of me.”
“It seems a good life.”
He looked at me. “You are hungry?”
I shrugged. “I ate yesterday, and once the day before that.”
“Join me. I eat what the way provides, and a little that I buy. Sit you down … or if you will, gather a bit of wood for the fire.”
Coming down the slope, I had seen a fallen tree, so I returned to it and gathered broken sticks, some bark, and whatever would add to the fuel.
He dished up a bowl of stew and handed it to me. “Try that,” he suggested.
On the tailgate of his wagon there was a large book opened for reading. “What is the book?” I asked.
“Maimonides.”
“You are a Jew?”
“I am English, but one finds wisdom in all languages. I read him often, for he has much to tell.” He looked at me. “How do you know of Maimonides?”
“My father read him also. We had many, many books, and my father would often read to me. Sometimes we talked of them.”
“I have few books now, but they are old friends.” He looked at me sharply. “Where do you go?’
“To London, I think. I look for employment and to make a place for myself. I have much to learn.”
“What is it you wish for yourself?”
“To become skilled with weaponry. The wars offer a young man his best chance, and I would have wealth.”
“Wealth? Well … perhaps. It has its benefits, but is an empty thing in itself.”
“We once had a home. It is now in other hands and I would have it back. The walls have memories of my father’s voice and the pools there mirrored the features of my mother. My happiest days were spent walking the cliffs with my father and hearing him tell the tales of Achilles, Hector, and Ulysses.”
“Ah, yes. It is good to have roots. I had them once … long ago.” He paused. “Now I grow old. I am slower than I once was, and loneliness sits hard upon me. I go now to Yorkshire, but after that, perhaps to the edges of London.”
I said no word, waiting for what was on his mind. After awhile he said, “If you hurry not too much, you could come with me. You could learn my trade and more. Also, I shall meet soon with friends, and among them there is a gypsy.”
“There were gypsies in Ireland, too.”
“Aye, they are everywhere, but this gypsy … he is skilled at all the arts of fencing. With whatever weapon you choose, he is a master. He has studied and taught the art in Venice, in Milano, in Paris as well as in London. Now he travels the roads.”
“Why? A man of such skill—?”
“There was a duel. He killed a man of noted family and fled. Even now if they came on him he would be set upon and killed, or thrown into prison on some trumped-up charge.
“They did not know he was a gypsy, so they look not in the places where he is. Now he sharpens blades, shoes horses, and does odd things with metal. I will speak to him and he will teach you. Believe me, there is none better.”
“How do you come to be a peddler? You speak as an educated man.”
“Someday we will speak of that. I have education and once I had position. Now I am nobody, but I am happy.”
I wanted to ask him more, but something in me warned against it, and I did not. That night beside the fire changed me. From being a fugitive I had found a place.
The following day, six miles further along the way, I met the gypsy.
What his name was, I never new. Nor why they called him Kory, which was not his name. He was a gypsy not of this land, but of Hungary, Rumania, or somewhere yonder.
His wagon was alone when we came upon it, and he was squatted by a fire, preparing food. He did not look around until the old man spoke, and then he got up in one smooth, fluid movement and stood facing us.
Kory was quite the darkest gypsy I had ever seen, yet his eyes were green, and all the more startling under the black brows and the dark skin. His cheeks were lean and cadaverous, his cheekbones high. He might have been thirty, to see him, yet from tales told by the campfire I knew he must be sixty or more. He moved with the grace and ease of a dancer, and when he saw the old man his face broke into a smile revealing gleaming white teeth, startling, as were his eyes, against the darkness of his skin.
“Ah! My friend! It is you! How long it has been!” He glanced quickly at me, seeming to take me in with a glance. “You have come to go with me along the roads?”
“We have.” The old man put a hand on my shoulder. “Kory, I have no son. But if I had, I would wish him to be this lad.”
The smile vanished. Kory looked straight into my eyes, and then he nodded. “You have come to me … Why?”
“He brought me,” I said, “for I would learn skill with weapons.” I paused. “I wish to become the greatest swordsman in the world.”
He stared at me, and he did not laugh. “It is a beginning,” he said, “to want much. If one is to be, he should try to be the best.” His expression changed.
“To be the greatest, you must become better than I.”
“Only you could teach me that,” I said, “for cannot the teacher always teach more than he knows?”
“Ah? It is good, that.” He turned his eyes to the old man. “You have eaten? No? Then join me. I have more than enough for I knew I would have guests at the fire.”
He turned to me. “We will need wood.”
I turned at once and went looking and he stood watching me, his strange eyes following my every movement. I went up to the fence to go through it to the other side.