Roman (13 page)

“Aren't you going to come out first, mistress?”

“Do as I ask,” Isra said.

Isra watched as Kahn flinched and hesitated when the bar was withdrawn. But then the tiger stuck his head forward, his wide nose waving back and forth in the direction of the rabbits. The second bar slid back, allowing the tiger to push his head through into the half of the wagon where Isra stood near the door.

“Hie, Kahn,” she said again.

The third bar withdrew into the wood, and the tiger slowly crept toward the two gray lumps of fur. Isra could see the saliva starting to run from the tiger's mouth. He glanced up at Isra, and she made certain to hold his gaze before she backed out onto the ramp.

“Hie, up. Come and eat.”

Kahn slunk fully into the other half of the wagon. Without looking away from the beast, she commanded the bars be returned. The tiger jumped and spun around with a warning scream as the bars slid past with a gritty hiss.

“Easy, Kahn,” Isra called, drawing the tiger's attention back to her. He met her eyes and then lay down, curling his front paws around the meat. He looked away at his first crunching, tearing bite, and Isra reached out to close the door gently. She dropped the bar into place and then turned to walk down the ramp.

“He will need more meat,” she said to Dracus, who nodded and set off into the wood once more. Isra picked up the bucket and tossed it to van Groen before retrieving the discarded spade and broom. She turned her back on him as she walked toward the other end of the wagon, her work not yet half done.

R
oman and Lou went looking for Isra not long after the sun had reached its zenith, turning the autumn day warm and bright. The camp was alive with clatter and traffic, folk passing to and fro carrying stakes and scaffolds from the fire, clothes hung out to dry from a quick morning's wash; harnesses jangled, wheels creaked. No one stared at Roman or paid him any mind at all really, and he had come to the determination that, to such an unusual band of people, he was nothing unique in any way.

Unlike blending into the brown wool population of Melk, where every man was an identical part of the whole, each individual in van Groen's group was peculiarly distinctive, in some cases in highly bizarre ways. No one was strange because everyone was strange.

Roman approached the tall, rectangular wagon that was decorated like a forest canopy and saw Isra sitting beneath an actual tree not far from the wagon's tongue. Her knees were drawn up beneath skirts that were dirty and dark with damp. She drank from a metal cup while Asa van Groen leaned against the tree next to her, chatting. Isra saw Roman right away, and he was surprised at the pleasure he felt when she smiled at him.

She began to rise, and although both van Groen and Roman reached out to assist her, it was Roman's hand she grasped. Van Groen quickly pulled his velvet-clad arm behind his back.

She looked tired but satisfied as she greeted him. “My lord.”

He wanted to correct her again, but it was dangerous to reveal their identities to such a band of semicriminals as this. Especially before their leader, who seemed to be observing Roman and Isra very closely.

“Have you arranged things to your liking?” Roman asked.

Isra's smile returned. “Kahn is much happier. It is my hope that he sees improvement with each new day.”

“Well done, then,” Roman said, echoing the praise she'd given him earlier.

Van Groen stepped forward. “It will have to do for now,” he said, his eyes flicking to the bustling camp beyond them. “We are moving too late as it is. But we are not so far from the Venice road; we will be able to travel much farther into the night than we could on yonder path.”

“You plan to perform in Venice, then,” Roman repeated.

“If we are lucky. It is in the many small villages before and after that we hope to see the bulk of our coin. The farther south we go, the weather shall warm, and so shall our welcomes.” Van Groen signaled with one finger to someone behind Roman before smiling up at him. “I am needed. Will the pair of you walk with me?”

Roman turned, irritated when Van Groen took up Isra's other side.

“I would prefer you travel close to my wagon so that I might look after you until you find your way in our little family,” van Groen said. “But I have a feeling you wish to remain as unseen as possible on the road, and as it is I who must contend with constables and the like, it would be best if you found a place farther back in the band.” He looked ahead and smiled, his voice gentling to a wistfulness that sounded surprisingly genuine. “Ah. I see Fran has performed her magic once again.”

Roman turned his head to regard their now covered cart bed, and saw Isra's eyes widen as she took in the black outline of the bird on the side of the canvas, its wings spread, its hooked beak in profile. The silhouette was filled in with bright gold and surrounded by shooting rays of what Roman supposed was the sun.

“It is beautiful,” Isra said.

“Don't stop unless you are stopped,” van Groen said, his wistfulness vanishing as he turned to walk backward. Roman suspected he wanted to keep Isra in his sight for as long as possible. “If your conveyance isn't equipped with . . . conveniences, and you must disembark”—he raised his eyebrows and gave a meaningful pause—“you'll have to run to catch up. We mustn't separate for any reason.” He raised his hand toward both of them, but his eyes were on Isra. “Until this evening.”

She turned to Roman then. “Have we made a mistake?”

Roman looked into her eyes for a long moment, wanting to reassure her but reluctant to lie. There was too much at stake for that.

“I don't yet know,” he said at last.

She nodded once and then, to his surprise, she gave him a smile. It was a weary smile, but a smile all the same.

“I suppose we shall soon find out.”

He lifted Lou from his shoulder and onto the staff that had only yesterday held the censer, refashioned by Roman's own hand with the scraps left over from the cart's shelter. He hadn't had time to craft a tether or hood, and now he didn't think he would. Lou had proven that he was loathe to be away from Roman, flying all the way from Melk to find him. There was no reason to believe the falcon wouldn't remain close to his side.

Roman held out his hand, helping Isra up onto the driver's seat, inexplicably glad that she would also be sitting beside him on their journey. As she stepped up, Roman caught a flash of white blonde hair, and he turned his head to see Fran, gaining the seat of a wagon close to them. She raised her hand to him before she took up her own reins.

Roman waved and then hoisted himself up beside Isra. Perhaps joining up with van Groen's group would turn out to be a mistake. But in this moment, Roman felt very good about the situation indeed. He smiled and shook the reins to spur their donkey.

He didn't see Fran watching them closely as he turned the wagon in a wide circle to join the line of the caravan.

But Isra did.

* * *

It took no more than an hour for Isra to recognize that she was suddenly the happiest she had been since she was a young girl, when she had still been without knowledge of the realities of her life.

She was seated next to Roman Berg in the crisp, sunshiny autumn air, for all the world to see. For the first several moments, the exposure made Isra anxious. She could not recall when she had ever experienced such blatant freedom, and the thought that anyone at all might look upon her—traveling with this man, in a cart as a wealthy woman might, as if it was her rightful place—was so foreign that she trembled.

But then she grasped the edge of the wooden seat and leaned far to the side to look at the line stretching ahead of and also trailing behind them. She saw the top of Kahn's tall wagon and imagined how frightened the tiger must have been and for how long. It was her place now to care for him, and the idea that she was responsible once more for another living thing beside herself calmed her, and also brought to mind the man next to her.

“Have you eaten, my lord?” she asked.

Roman chuckled. “No,
my lady
, I have not. I have regretted my sudden departure from our own camp this morning several times. In preparing our cart for travel, there was little time for a rest, and I'd wager you were too well occupied to notice your own hunger.”

Isra nodded while her cheeks heated and then stepped over the seat to escape beneath the arch of the boldly painted canvas now covering the cart bed. She took a moment to slow her breathing, cool her cheeks.

What a wonderful fantasy that would be to indulge.

But she pushed even the imaginings of it away as she looked around the newly fashioned interior of their conveyance. It was a marvel really how completely it made a shelter. Isra was easily able to access their hidden compartment and, thankfully, the supplies they'd left within had not been discovered when their cart had been stolen that morn.

Likely the capable and determined Roman hadn't given them enough time to explore the cart thoroughly.

Isra wanted to change her gown, dirtied and damp from cleaning Kahn's wagon, but the only other costume she had was barely any cleaner. She did don the other overdress, though; at least it was dry.

After depositing several items in a turned-up portion of her skirt, she emerged back onto the driver's seat. In but a moment, she and Roman were sharing the remainder of the dried fruit and cheese and wine. His grin in her direction meant more to her than the word of thanks he murmured.

She had done well this day. Very well.

It was midafternoon when the caravan began to slow. Isra craned her neck to see what might be causing the delay, but the trees crowding the curving road to either side prevented her from viewing farther than three carts ahead. Slower and slower they went, until at last they were around the bend, and Isra saw they must be joining the wider road to Venice, and there was a village at the crossroads.

Isra leaned this way and that, trying to see ahead without appearing anxious as Roman drove their donkey around the sharp curve in turn. The hopelessly slender man from camp—Barnaby, Asa had called him—commanding the cart before theirs suddenly turned around and pantomimed a sign Isra didn't at first understand. She looked to Roman, who held up both palms toward the man.

Barnaby cupped a hand around his mouth and called back, “Moving through!” Then he pointed past their cart and waved his gangly arm again.

“Ah,” Roman murmured and signaled his understanding. Then he adjusted his seat to lean around the side of their shelter and repeated the gesture to the wagon behind theirs. By the time Roman faced forward once more, Barnaby had gained his feet behind his donkey, the reins secured beneath one foot on the driver's seat while he juggled what appeared to Isra to be brightly painted balls.

Their artistic decorations caused Isra's mind to turn to the blond-haired Fran, whose coloring so resembled Roman's. The woman had watched their wagon as they'd left camp, and Isra had somehow recognized the longing in Fran's eyes. She felt a shimmer of jealousy in her chest. How different would her life be now if she had been born of the same culture as the man next to her? Would he then look upon her not as a wretch in need of pity and rescue but as a woman of value? Thankfully, the entertainment ahead distracted her from such useless imaginings.

The villagers standing to either side of the road appeared to be entertained as well. Somewhere fore or aft of their cart—perhaps both, by the sound of the jangled melodies—people began to play instruments. As the caravan crawled through the small cluster of buildings, Isra saw Barnaby reach up and snatch an apple out of the air. Without so much as a wobble, the fruit joined the airborne circle of balls and the people along the road whistled and clapped. A moment later, a roll of bread arced toward the juggler, and it, too, was included in the act, to the sound of roadside applause.

Isra brought her own hands together in delight without thinking, and at her side, Roman chuckled.

She leaned around the canvas to look at the wagon behind theirs and saw what appeared to be a large woman wearing a beard strumming a lute while she drove her wagon, singing along in a warbling, high-pitched voice. A moment later, she, too, lifted a plump hand to snatch some treat out of the air, tossed to her by the stationary audience. She gave a wave and a smile over her lute, singing all the while.

“The villagers are throwing food,” Isra said to Roman.

Roman glanced at her with a smile and a shrug.

Isra looked to the faces lining the road: peasant men and women, several children bundled in woolen clothes but with blackened, bare feet. They looked at her with expectant faces and she gave her best smile and a hesitant wave.

The face of a little girl closest to the cart fell into a disapproving frown and then stuck out her tongue at Isra, her attention going to the lute player behind them. Isra felt her face heat and she looked ahead, but at her side, Roman again laughed out loud. She glanced at him, and the sight of his broad grin disarmed the slight sting of embarrassment she had felt. In a moment, she was chuckling along with him.

“I suppose my performance needs some work,” she admitted.

“It matters not,” Roman said. “We have supplies, and coin to purchase whatever else we need.”

“Not enough to last us the journey,” Isra pointed out. “We were to sell the wagon and the donkey in Venice.”

Roman shrugged. “Van Groen seems to think we will earn our share. I'm not worried.”

“Do you ever worry?” Isra asked.

“No,” he said. “I act. If I know my actions will have no effect, I do my best to forget about whatever it is.”

Isra wondered if that was the reason Roman Berg had been so successful on his own—sold into hard labor when he was a boy, growing up without the love of a family, building a reputation for himself that had brought him much favor and freedom. Isra thought there was great wisdom hiding behind Roman's brawny exterior.

A man along the road caught her eye then. At first Isra thought he was waving to someone else, but as their cart rolled closer to him, it was clear his attention was for Isra alone.

“Hello! Hello there, pretty lady!” he called, waving his arm in a wide arc. In the crook of his other arm was a small pile of what appeared to be bright persimmons, and he plucked one from the bunch and turned it in his fingertips, waggling his eyebrows at Isra.

And so she tried again, smiling and giving the man a wave, and to her surprise, he tossed the fruit to her just as they passed. Isra huffed a breath of a laugh and turned to hold it up in triumph before Roman. Then she looked back over her shoulder at the man to give him a smile of thanks, but when she did, he grabbed his crotch and shoved his hips toward her, running his tongue around his mouth in a vulgar pantomime.

Isra snapped her head back around, her heart in her throat, her stomach somewhere near the soles of her slippers as a sick, dirty feeling washed over her. She looked at the small, soft piece of fruit still in her hand. It was as if it had suddenly become a length of feces.