Daughter of Dragons

Chapter 4-4

“This hand-shaking stop them from making not-promises?”

“No,” he said, both amazed and touched by her naivete. “Hand-shaking isn’t sorcery, only a gesture of good faith.”

She hissed, appalled by such moral depravity. Dragons avoided promises but never broke them; and while they might exaggerate a fact or withhold it from a telling, they never deliberately breathed an untruth into being. What sort of barbaric creatures were these humans? What sort of fortune could she expect to find among them?

Her turbulent thoughts revived the pounding in her head. She kneed the bay into a trot, purposely leaving the two men behind.

G

Eventually, Lathwi overcame her disgust and rejoined her companions. She had decided not to condemn Pieter for being human—his honest words and actions were ample proof that he had risen above his perverse birthright. And while Jamus was a less civilized sort, she was willing to put up with him for now, too, just so she could compare and contrast.

The afternoon slipped by without notice, then ended with a crimson flourish. As twilight began to draw the last hints of red from the sky, Pieter began looking for a likely place to camp. The day’s ride, combined with last night’s gish, had left him suddenly tired, and he wanted nothing more than to stretch out in front of a fire and relax. He could almost smell that fire’s resinous smoke now.

He tensed, stung by a realization: his imagination was not that good! A moment later, Jamus sounded a quiet alarm. “Look alive, my friends. We’ve got company.”

Two mounted men emerged from the left side of the woods. They were a swarthy duo, with coarse black hair cut close to their heads and eyes the colour of a moon-less night. The tiny loops of gold in their ears belied their homespun appearance.

“Gypsies,” Jamus murmured, not unfriendly, but wary just the same. “Guard your purses if you have them.”

The strangers reined their horses to a halt in front of them. The larger of the two raised his right hand, palm held outward, and then grinned. Lathwi was immediately intrigued, for his two front teeth were gold.

“Greetings, friends,” he said. “I am Santana, leader of a scion of the Wandering Tribe. This,” he said, gesturing to the dour-faced man to his right, “is my brother, Yorgi. How fares the road ahead?”

“Like most roads, it has its good and bad points,” Jamus replied, assuming an easy, bantering tone. “The going itself is no problem; the road is firm and dry. But my friends here have encountered outlaws—”

“That lot won’t be troubling you or anyone else,” Pieter interjected, endowing the reassurance with a subtle warning. Santana rewarded him with an approving flash of gold.

“—and the village which lies a day’s ride from here is filled with vile-tempered peasants,” Jamus went on. “If you stop there, tell your men to beware a comely young woman with hair the colour of forest mushrooms. They could lose more than their hearts to her.”

Santana’s grin turned suddenly ambiguous. Afraid that he might have given offense where none was intended, Jamus hastened to change the subject.

“My guess is that you’re coming from Compara,” he said. “How fares the white-walled city?”

“Compara is her usual sluttish self,” the gypsy replied, instantly cheerful again. “She’s quick to give of her bounty to those who have gold, but equally quick to scorn those who do not.”

The gypsy gave each of them a probing look then, saving Lathwi for last. A vague frown flitted across his brow as he eyed her scales and girdle of claws, but he dismissed it with another of his golden smiles.

“But we need not talk about such things in the middle of the road,” he exclaimed. “Come, share our fires tonight. We are not rich, but what we have is yours. Eat with us. Drink with us. Let our women tell your fortune. And while you are among us, maybe you will purchase some of our humble wares to take back to your loved ones in Compara.”

Pieter opened his mouth, ready with a polite refusal, but Lathwi cut him off before he could get a word out.

“Yes,” she hissed, her eyes as lively as a pair of blue sparks. “I come. Want hear fortune.”

Santana loosed a delighted yip and then reined his horse around. “Come, friends, our wagons are this way.” As he and his taciturn brother went riding off, he added, “What a night this will be!”

Pieter groaned. In the short span of time since Lathwi had barged into his life, he had been attacked; nearly r***d, robbed and murdered; and involved in a minor riot. He was in no hurry to add a night with gypsies to that list. Everybody knew what a volatile race they were—even an imagined insult could send them running for their knives. A smart man would high-tail it out of here while his hide was still intact, he told himself. But as much as the notion appealed to him, he knew he was not going anywhere so long as Lathwi had her mind set on staying. Because even though she was almost twice his size and a sorceress to boot, he—he rolled his eyes at the admission—felt responsible for her.

He exchanged a look with Jamus. The blonde man shrugged and said, “What the hell, we have sleep somewhere. And gypsy women are beautiful.”

Pieter shook his head in mock dismay. Then he and his incorrigible new friend urged their horses toward the woods.

Lathwi was already far ahead of them. She was curious about these strangers. Furthermore, she wanted them to tell her fortune. As she threaded her way through the trees, she came upon a most peculiar sight: four small houses perched on wheels. She rode in closer to get a better look, then hissed with surprise and delight as she saw the dragons on the sides of the houses! They were only images, and not drawn to size, but even so, it was good to see one of her own again.

As she contemplated the painted figures, Pieter drew up alongside of her and started whispering.

“Choose your words carefully tonight,” he warned, “for gypsies have notoriously quick tempers. They also have no qualms about stealing, so you might want to keep an eye on your gold.”

She grinned. There might be hope for humans after all.

A wave of children came spilling around the corner then. “This way, this way!” they sing-songed, and began tugging at bridles and reins. Lathwi’s bay snapped at one pudgy little boy who got too close, and for once, Pieter did not object to the beast’s foul temperament. No one in his right mind would want to steal him, so they would have at least one horse left to them in the morning.

The children guided them to a makeshift corral. As they dismounted, Santana reappeared. On foot, he stood as tall as Jamus, who was only a half-hand shorter than Lathwi, but his dancer’s lithe build made him seem smaller.

“Please,” he urged. “Allow our young ones to care for your mounts. They are good with animals, and will treat them well.”

Too well, Pieter thought, and then grudgingly handed his reins to a doe-eyed little girl with a missing front tooth.

Santana ushered them into a clearing studded with small campfires. There, a crowd of brown-skinned people formed a loose circle around them. “Friends,” he said then, his chest swelling with pride, “welcome to our camp.”

“Our thanks for your hospitality, Master Santana,” Jamus replied. “A night on the road is never cold when spent among friends.

“I am called Jamus,” he continued, clearly at ease with his ambassadorial role. “My companions are named Pieter and Lathwi. We are at your service.”

“Well met,” the gypsy leader said. “Allow me to introduce you to the family.

“This is Gem, my wife.” A short, bosomy woman with ring-encrusted fingers stepped forward, then pinched a corner of her voluminous, multicolored skirt and dipped into a graceful curtsey. Lathwi stared, fascinated by her shiny, blood-red toenails.

“These are my children,” he went on, and affectionately stroked their heads as he named them. “Tikki—” A willow wand of a woman-child with her father’s exotic looks and her mother’s unabashed breasts batted her eyelashes at them. Now it was Jamus’ turn to be fascinated. “—Damiano—” This was the pudgy little boy who had almost lost a chunk of flesh to Lathwi’s bay. “—and little Mim, our baby.” She refused to come out from behind her mother’s skirt.

“And over here we have my wife’s brother, Tavi.” A scar below this one’s right eye gave his plain, clean-shaven face a hint of mystery. “Behind him is his wife, Silver,” Hers was a delicate face framed by waves of black hair. “their oldest son, Luke,” He was a pale-skinned boy on the verge of manhood. Like his uncle, he moved with a dancer’s grace. Pieter distrusted his sly green eyes and self-confident air. “and their twin imps, Raul and Paulito.”

The introduction moved to Yorgi and his family, then on to his wife’s relatives. Lathwi did not try to keep track of names and faces. To her, they were all just one fascinating swirl. The younglings in particular amazed her. She found it hard to believe that humans started out that small.

Finally, Santana’s gaze stretched beyond the circle and over to the only person who had not rushed over to meet the newcomers. She was seated in front of a small private fire, a wizened figure wrapped in a shawl and the world’s dignity. Her hair was as white as moonlight.

“It is my privilege to introduce you to our mother,” he said. “Katya, the Wandering Queen, wisest of us all.”

She raised her hand as if in blessing. “You are our guests,” she said, sounding as brittle as she seemed. “Be welcome at our fires.”

Out of respect for her age and obvious authority, Pieter and Jamus bowed. She acknowledged their courtesy with a nod, then dismissed them with a slight flick of her wrist.

“Come,” Santana said then, “let us retire to the fires. While we’re waiting for our supper, we can have a drink and talk more about the village you mentioned earlier.” He gave Pieter and Jamus a gentle push in that direction, then turned to Lathwi. “Please do not disturb Katya, friend. She is old and tires easily. Come, join the rest of my family instead.”

Lathwi did not hear a word. Her attention was focussed on Katya. There was something compelling about this ancient human—her amazing decrepitude perhaps, or perhaps the way in which she spied on the world when she thought no one was watching. Driven by curiosity, she strode over and hunkered down beside her. An instant later, Santana and his brothers converged on her with hard lights in their eyes. Before any of them could lay a finger on her, though, Katya stayed their hands.

“This one means me no harm,” she murmured.

“How can you be sure?” Yorgi asked, the first words that Lathwi had ever heard him speak. She wondered why he sounded so concerned.

“That is one of my gifts,” Katya replied. “Now leave us be. I would speak with this strange friend of ours.”

Grudgingly, the men withdrew. When they were gone, the old gypsy levelled her white-lashed gaze on Lathwi and asked, “So what is it that you want of me, child?”

The answer, adamantly elusive a moment ago, now seemed suddenly obvious. “Want you tell my fortune.”

Katya heaved a nasal sigh, then pressed her right palm to Lathwi’s forehead and shut her eyes. Her touch was cool, almost unnaturally so. Lathwi stifled an urge to pull away.

“Peculiar times,” the gypsy muttered, when she finally withdrew her hand. “First magical warnings in the middle of the night, now an outsider with the impossible in her head.”

“Say again?”

“I don’t understand,” Katya said, turning her troubled brown eyes on Lathwi. “Why do I see dragons in your mind?”

“Not dragons. Womans,” she replied, and then flushed with excitement. This old one was clever.

“Not women,” Katya insisted. “I am a woman. You are a woman. The creatures that I see in your head are dragons: a great black, a bronze, and many others.”

“If those be dragons,” she said, vexed by the confusion which this man-talk could cause, “I be dragon too.”

Katya’s eyes went round with disbelief, then narrowed back into deep-set slits. She peered at Lathwi for a long moment, a reading both blunt and intense. During that time, the lines in her aged face shifted from wonder to doubt and back again. Then she favoured Lathwi with a look of profound respect and regret.

“What you say is true,” she said, sounding weary now as well as brittle. “I have seen the dragon in your heart. But you must know, Lathwi: few possess my special Sight. To most people, you seem to be no more or less than a woman.”