The people looked the same, too; swarthy, cheerful, loud, and welcoming. Hearing the jingle of our harness, a woman's head poked out of the window of one caravan. She looked us over tor a moment, then gave a shout, and the ground under the trees was suddenly alive with grinning brown faces.
"Gie me your purse for safekeeping," said Murtagh, unsmiling, watching the young man swaggering toward us with a gay disregard of the rain soaking his colorful shirt. "And dinna turn your back on anyone."
I was cautious, but we were welcomed with expansive motions, and invited to share the Gypsies' dinner. It smelt delicious—some sort of stew—and I eagerly accepted the invitation, ignoring Murtagh's dour speculations as to the basic nature of the beast that had provided the stewmeat.
They spoke little English, and less Gaelic; we conversed largely in gestures, and a sort of bastard tongue that owed its parentage largely to French. It was warm and companionable in the caravan where we ate; men and women and children all ate casually from bowls, sitting wherever they could find space, dipping the succulent stew up with chunks of bread. It was the best food I had had in weeks, and I ate until my sides creaked. I could barely muster breath to sing, but did my best, humming along in the difficult spots, and leaving Murtagh to carry the tunes.
Our performance was greeted with rapturous applause, and the Gypsies reciprocated, a young man singing some sort of wailing lament to the accompaniment of an ancient fiddle. His performance was punctuated by the crashing of a tambourine, wielded with some gravity by a little girl of about eight.
While Murtagh had been circumspect in his inquiries in the villages and crofts we visited, with the Gypsies he was entirely open. To my surprise, he told them bluntly who we sought; a big man, with hair like fire, and eyes like the summer skies. The Gypsies exchanged glances up and down the aisle of the caravan,but there was a unanimous shaking of regretful heads. No, they had not seen him. But… and here the leader, the purple-shirted young man who had welcomed us, pantomimed the sending of a messenger, should they happen across the man we sought.
I bowed, smiling, and Murtagh in turn pantomimed the handing across of money for information received. This bit of business was greeted with smiles, but also with gazes of speculation. I was glad when Murtagh declared that we could not stay the night, but must be on our way, thank ye just the same. He shook out a few coins from his sporran, taking care to exhibit the fact that it held only a small handful of coppers. Distributing these by way of thanks for the supper, we made our exit, followed by voluble protestations of farewell, gratitude, and good wishes—at least that's what I assumed they were.
They might actually have been promising to follow us and cut our throats, and Murtagh behaved rather as though this had been the case, leading the horses at a gallop to the crossroads two miles distant, then ducking aside into the vegetation for a substantial detour before reemerging onto the road again.
Murtagh glanced up and down the road, empty in the fading, rain-soaked dusk.
"Do you really think they followed us?" I asked curiously.
"I dinna ken, but since there's twelve o' them, and no but the twa o' us, I thought we'd best act as though they did." This seemed sound reasoning, and I followed him without question through several more evasive maneuvers, arriving at last in Rossmoor, where we found shelter in a barn.
Snow fell the next day. Only a light fall, enough to dust the ground with a white like the flour on the millhouse floor, but it worried me. I didn't like to think of Jamie, alone and unsheltered in the heather, braving winter's storms in nothing but the shirt and plaid he had been wearing at his capture by the Watch.
Two days later, the messenger came.
The sun was still above the horizon, but it was evening already in the rock-walled glens. The shadows lay so deep under the leafless trees that the path—what there was of one—was nearly invisible. Fearful of losing the messenger in the gathering dark, I walked so closely behind him that once or twice I actually trod on the trailing hem of his cloak. At last, with an impatient grunt, he turned and thrust me ahead of him, steering me through the dusk with a heavy hand on my shoulder.
It felt as though we had been walking for a long time. I had long since lost track of our turnings amid the towering boulders and thick dead undergrowth. I could only hope that Murtagh was somewhere behind, keeping within earshot if not within sight. The man who had come to the tavern to fetch me, a middle-aged Gypsy with no English, had flatly refused to have anyone but me accompany him, pointing emphatically first at Murtagh and then the ground, to indicate that he must stay put.