The Lady Julia Grey Bundle (26 page)

The cab alighted at the fringe of the Roma camp. There were a few private carriages, a fair number of horses, and another cab or two standing or tethered. Val gave the driver an extortionate amount of money to wait for us. I doubted our ability to find another cab so far out. Besides, although I did not like to think about it, there was the chance we might have need of a quick escape.

Mindful of the cabman’s criticisms, I pulled my hat low and made a concentrated effort to walk flatly, my hips held firmly in check.

“What is the matter with you?” Val hissed.

“I am walking like a boy,” I explained, pitching my voice as low as I could.

“No, you are walking like a perfect imbecile. For God’s sake, Julia, you’re
clumping.
”

I straightened my knees a bit. “Is that better?”

“A bit.”

“You had best call me something else. Julian, I suppose. And get your hand away from my back. God only knows what people might think.”

Val shied violently but kept his hands to himself. Without thinking, he had reverted to his inbred courtesy and been guiding me with a hand to the back. A mistake like that could be lethal in these surroundings.

For a while we simply skirted the camp, keeping half in shadow as we ambled along. The ground was dry and hard, well-packed from the wheels of the Gypsy caravans and the hooves of their horses. The wind carried the sharp smoke of their wood fires, laced with the fragrant spice of the cook pots. Over it all lay the thick odour of horse, the pungent smell of money to the Roma. There was music as well, lively and bold, and threading through it all the strange, exotic lilt of their language, drawing us along. A half-naked girl tried to pick Val’s pocket and failed, running back to her mother. The woman cuffed her lightly, smiling and scolding her gently in Romany. I had no doubt she was being reprimanded—not for the attempt, but for its failure. The woman leaned over her cook fire, stirring an iron pot, and I smelled something rich and spicy, a stew of some sort, I supposed. My stomach gave a rumble of protest.

“Blast.”

“What is it,
Julian?
”

“I should have thought to bring food. Did you dine?”

He shook his head. “No. Even a few sandwiches would have served.”

“Never mind. I’ll stand you to dinner at Simpson’s when all this is done. Roast beef with all the trimmings.”

“Splendid. Only promise me you will wear a dress. This masquerade is playing hell with my nerves.”

“Done.”

We slipped in and out of the jostling crowds, sometimes following groups or pairs as a new bit of entertainment would lure them on, sometimes holding back and peering into the shadows near the caravans. There were fortune-tellers, scrying with crystal balls and cards and palms. There were dancers with tiny, high-arched feet, stamping and yelling to the rhythms scraped out by the violins and guitars. And there were the men, beguiling the English to wager on a roll of the dice
or perhaps the purchase of a new horse. There were smiles and shouts and groans, all well-lubricated with money and liquor. I might have enjoyed myself had it not been for the coil of fear knotted in my stomach.

Val had no such scruples. I caught him ogling a dancer, her wide skirts flaring up to reveal a ripe brown thigh as she turned. She winked at him, doubtless in hope of a generous coin, which he was quick to throw. She blew him a kiss then and I tugged at his sleeve as he so often used to do to mine, urging him on toward a little group gathered around the blind old man who told lengthy tales in Romany with great, theatrical gestures.

“I was looking for Mr. Brisbane,” he protested.

“He is not under that dancer’s skirt, I can assure you,” I returned sharply. “In fact, I do not see him here at all. Or any of Magda’s people. Where have we not looked?”

Val scanned the encampment. “The caravans.”

I shook my head. “Too dangerous. We might edge near if we were to have our fortunes told, but if they caught us skulking about…”

He nodded grimly. “They are dealing horses that way,” he said, inclining his head behind me. “And there is a boxing tent as well. Perhaps he is watching a match.”

We decided to try the horse ring first, then the boxing tent, but before I could move, I heard the Gypsy storyteller’s voice rise and fall and I stood, captivated by the sound of it. It was a beautiful language, with an Italianate, musical quality to it. It was an expressive tongue, a perfect vehicle for the richness of the Roma emotions. It was a language contrived to woo or to lament, to seduce or revile. I, of course, knew none of it. For all Magda’s affection for me, she had never permitted me to speak a single word of her language. I had gleaned a few bits here and there, contextually, but never more than a handful of words, and I had
forgotten them along with so many other scraps of childhood. I had never been allowed to ask if I even understood them properly. The one time I had ventured to use the Romany word for Englishman,
gorgio,
Magda had turned her back on me and walked silently away. Later she relented, but only enough to explain her anger.

“Romany is ours, lady. It is a powerful language, with great magic. We do not give our power or our magic away,” she had told me. It made a curious kind of sense, although I still did not see the harm it would do if an English girl could count to ten in Romany. But Magda’s message had been plain. I would not be allowed into their camp if I trespassed on their language. I never attempted to speak Romany again.

But I drank it in whenever I listened to them talk, marveling at the smooth, liquid sound of it. I began to think it impossible that an English-speaker could ever learn it. It was a very unbuttoned sort of tongue, demanding enthusiasm and passion and a liveliness that those with cold northern blood could not muster.

I relaxed a little as the old man rambled on, and after a few minutes I allowed Val to lead the way toward the horse ring. A deal was in progress, with an Englishman, protesting the price, ranged against a Gypsy horseman who was holding firm. They were each backed by a dozen or so men of their own kind, shouting and jeering as negotiations moved back and forth. Several times the buyer named a price and put out his hand in the traditional manner of Gypsy horse-dealing; scornfully, the dealer slapped it away and named a better one. Between them the horse stood placidly, his head hanging low, his eyes shifting from his Gypsy master to his prospective buyer. He looked handsome, and sound enough, and I wondered how many times he had been sold and found his way back to the Roma.

My father often bought horses from Magda’s people and
had never had any difficulty with them, finding their horseflesh to be of the highest quality and their prices fair. But he always maintained that this was because Magda’s people knew and liked him. They were permitted to camp on his land, and so treated him fairly when horse-dealing. But other Gypsies, he warned us, were far too clever and tricky for us. He had always instructed my brothers to purchase their horses at Tattersall’s if Magda’s menfolk were not to be found. My second brother, Benedick, had neglected to follow this good advice once, purchasing a solid-enough looking animal from a traveling group of Roma when he was in Cornwall. He had been particularly taken with its glossy coat, I remember. It washed off during the first good sweat. Benedick had tried desperately to get his money back, but of course they were long gone, doubtless laughing themselves sick over the stupidity of the young
gorgio
lordling too stupid to spot a bit of dye in a horse’s coat. I looked as closely as I dared, but this horse seemed genuine enough in his colour, if a bit spavined. And if the prospective buyer did not look to that before the sale was completed, he deserved to be fleeced.

We slipped past them and toward the boxing tent, where a match was in progress. According to the hawker outside, the Gypsy champion, an enormous brute, was fighting all comers for a pound. We listened to his patter for a moment, rather impressed at the fighter’s credentials. His record was a prodigious one, and it occurred to me that they might attract more challengers if they did not stress so openly the number of men he had knocked down.

Val paid the entrance fee for both of us, grumbling as he did so. I reminded myself to reimburse him for the night’s adventures. His allowance was generous, but so were his expenditures. The remainder might not run to an evening’s entertainment.

My eyes watered as soon as we stepped inside and I fought
against the urge to cough. It was close in there, with three or four dozen men crowding around, smoking and cursing at the combatants. The rank smell of sweat and horse, sawdust and stale beer clung to the canvas, and I could hear quite distinctly the sounds of solid fists slamming into bare flesh. Val shot me a doubtful look.

“Are you certain you’re up for this?”

I nodded, but he continued to look dubious. He needn’t have bothered. I had seen a number of prizefights as a child. Father adored them, and if he happened upon one, he had not been terribly fussy about bringing me along. I had only to promise not to tell Aunt Hermia and he would bribe me with ginger nuts. I had rather enjoyed those illicit outings. The fighting was brutal, but Father carefully explained the finer points and I always enjoyed the little wagers we placed. The summer I backed seven winners was the summer he stopped taking me along, I remembered wryly. He had begun taking Valerius instead, but he always said wistfully that Val lacked my appreciation for watching grown men thrash each other.

I was surprised now at how quickly it all came back. It seemed that one bare-fisted fight was rather like every other. A few sharp-eyed men would make money on the affair, and several dozen men, largely inebriated, would not. The crowd, ever in danger of having their pockets picked, ringed a beaten-down area thickly laid with sawdust tamped hard by booted feet. It even smelled the same, I remarked to Val. He grimaced, which I thought rather weak from a student of anatomy.

He kept us carefully to the back of the spectators while he scanned the crowd, looking for Brisbane. I had difficulty seeing over the heads in front of me, and for the briefest of moments I regretted my disguise. Had I come in skirts they would have all made way for me, I thought ruefully. But then if I had come in skirts, I would have doubtless attracted unwelcome attention, women being scarce at such events.

A few of the men shifted and I realized the crowd was a bit thinner on the other side. I motioned to Val. We edged past, keeping to the back of the tent as we made our way around. There was a crunching hit suddenly, and a roar went up as the crowd surged forward. I was very nearly knocked off my feet, but I kept my wits and shoved hard against the man who had jostled me.

He turned, his face fat and moistly red in the light of the hanging lamps.

“Watch yourself, sonny. Mustn’t get trampled, now, my lad.”

He turned back to the match and I gave a little sigh of satisfaction. Finally someone had owned me for a boy, even if it was only a drunken lout at a prizefight. I threw a little look of triumph at Val, but he was staring straight ahead, over the man’s head at the fight itself. I nudged at him, but he simply stared. He jerked his chin toward the boxers.

“Look,” he hissed finally.

I edged around the fat man, thoroughly annoyed. He had probably seen a broken nose that had intrigued him or something else perfectly useless, I thought irritably. I rose up on the balls of my feet, peering over the fat man’s shoulder, and got my first proper look at the boxers.

There was indeed a broken nose. Both of the fighters were stripped to the waist. The touted champion stood facing me, streaming blood freely from a pulpy pile in the middle of his face. He was dashing blood out of his eyes with his fists, his expression murderous. Then he smiled, horribly, revealing teeth bracketed in blood. He spit a tooth into the sawdust, but continued to grin like some demented creature. Slowly, deliberately, he raised his fists—enormous, meaty things, the size of hams. He swung heavily, but his opponent darted back lightly, just out of reach. There were bruises beginning to darken the side of the slighter man’s torso, and I wondered if his face was undam
aged. It did not seem possible that he could have inflicted such damage on the champion and sustain only a few bruises himself.

But as I watched them battle, I began to understand why. The Gypsy had size on his side, but that was his only advantage. He was heavy and slow, his feet moving as if stuck in treacle.

I pursed my lips, madly disappointed. From a champion I expected more than brute strength. There should be finesse and even a certain elegance of movement. Father had taught me that fist-play was no different from swordplay, demanding skill as well as strength. This Gypsy was nothing more than a machine, hammering whatever lay in his path.

His challenger, on the other hand, was something else entirely. He held himself like a horse will at the start of a race, lightly, ready to spring. His head moved quickly, luring blows that he avoided with a catlike nimbleness. It was so delightful to watch that I nearly laughed out loud. He was a natural, and I regretted bitterly that we had come too late to place a bet on him.

I was just beginning to anticipate a nice long bout when the challenger did something that ruined it all. He moved back again, this time canting himself sideways, forcing the champion to move off balance. Then he raised his fist, and with one quick, brutal blow to the jaw—so fast the eye could not follow—it was done. The Gypsy took a moment, rocking on his heels, eyes rolling back white. Then, without a sound, he fell to the sawdust. A great cloud of it went up with the cheer and money began to exchange hands. The fat man in front of me threw his hat down in disgust.

“Have you lost, then, sir?” I asked, too amused to be careful.

He fixed me with a baleful look. “I have, indeed. The bastard knocked him down in less than two minutes!”

He stomped on his hat and stumped away, cursing fluently.
I turned back to what was left of the match, laughing. The crowd had dissolved into a flood of curses and barbs, in Romany and English, and the challenger turned to accept them, as well as his share of the winnings. For the first time I was able to see his face, which surprised me in two ways. First, there was no blood. And second…