The Forbidden Rose

Eight

AN HOUR ONWARD, THEY CROSSED THE CREST OF a hill. Marguerite looked into the countryside beyond. Gypsies had stopped by the road in the straggly trees that marked a trickle of stream between two fields. Three wagons with canvas tops made a rough triangle surrounding a small campfire. In the fields above, women and girls picked blackberries in the bushes that fingered away from the stream, their skirts and scarves vivid as poppies.

She wiped sweat off her face. This was Crow’s family. His kumpania.

She’d recruited Shandor—called the Crow—into La Flèche years ago, almost at the beginning. He was head-man of a large group, a practical man, cautious to a fault, shrewd in keeping his people inconspicuous and safe. He was endlessly protective of the sparrows he carried.

Today he was not following orders.

Guillaume LeBreton, walking beside her, pushed one finger on the brim of his hat, tilting it so the men down below would see his face. Now they wouldn’t be surprised by the scar when he came closer. He didn’t slow down, approaching the Gypsies. He didn’t hurry himself either. Everyone on both sides was given ample opportunity to assess and study each other to their heart’s content.

Shandor had chosen a private spot to lie in wait for her. No farmhouse overlooked them. The road that led off to Paris was a mile ahead, out of sight. How she was going to discuss the business of La Flèche when she was encumbered by Citoyen LeBreton and his inquisitive hobgoblin of a servant, she did not know.

“We come upon the Children of the Road. The Egyptians. Engaged in harmless pursuits.” LeBreton had hidden himself behind the facade of the big, good-natured countryman. His eyes, however, were hard and calculating. “Or not so harmless. There is something just one hair out of place about this. They’re nervous. Look at the men lounging around beside that wagon. That’s the one I’d search first, if I was wearing a uniform.”

It was as well he was not a gendarme. She would not wish to transport sparrows past a man as discerning as Guillaume LeBreton.

So she spoke with great lightness. “They have stopped to pick blackberries. Perhaps hazelnuts, too, though it is early for that, even in a very hot year, which this has been. There are profusions of berries, anyway.”

“Here, and in every hedgerow between Paris and Dieppe. They didn’t unhitch the wagons to pick blackberries.”

“You are a very suspicious man.”

Men and boys came forward to put themselves casually between approaching strangers and the wagons. Shandor stood at the front of his men. He wore a blue vest and a red neckcloth. On every cap and hat was the red, blue, and white circlet of ribbons, the cockade of the Revolution, showing what good republicans they were.

LeBreton scratched the stubble upon his chin. She was coming to recognize that as the accompaniment of his deeper cogitations. He spoke softly, as if to himself. “What it might be . . . Might be there’s some damn thing ahead on the road and they know about it.”

“There is always something unpleasant ahead on the roads these days.”

Shandor knew she would come this way. He had disobeyed and stayed to talk to her, even at risk to his own people.

He was Crow. He had saved the lives of numberless men and women in the last five years. Of course he would try to save her.

As they approached the camp, the half-grown children stopped talking and edged together. The boys wore hats, like their fathers. The little girls were in blazing bright skirts and blouses, with four or five braids lost in the wildness of loose, frizzy hair. An old woman, tanned to mahogany, sat on the step of a wagon, carving with a small, bright knife.

“They’re Kalderash,” LeBreton said. “Coppersmiths. See the pots hung on the wagons? They make those.”

She knew that. They also sharpened shovels and knives and axes. That was why Shandor’s family was intact and unmolested, five years into the Revolution. His kumpania was known on all the roads out of Paris. Armies passed, and Shandor’s people whirred away, grinding knives and sharpening bayonets. Soldiers of the Revolution lined up to take their turn. And in the wagons, under blankets, silent, the sparrows hid.

LeBreton made a sign with his hand, talking to Adrian. She would not have caught this if she had not seen him do it before. The boy twitched a stick at the donkeys’ heels and followed closer.

“Maybe we’ll get our fortune told,” LeBreton said.

They walked into the midst of the camp. Dogs came to sniff. Decorum tried to kick the dogs, who proved to be agile. LeBreton walked past a dozen men to stop in front of Shandor.

LeBreton said, “Sastipe. And good morning to you. Hot as the hinges of hell, ain’t it?” He added another dozen words in what must be Romany and waited. He did not quite whistle and twiddle his fingers, but he had a great air of relaxed confidence.

Men answered him in Romany and French. Everyone agreed it was hot. Yes. Hot as the forge of the demons. Yes, it was good to stop in the shade for an hour.

She should not be surprised that LeBreton could speak a few words of their language. He was a reprobate of six or seven kinds and had doubtless led an interesting life.

The ancient grandam put her knife away and climbed down from the wagon. She hobbled to the front, acting like a force to be reckoned with. LeBreton took out a pouch of tobacco from Dulce’s pack, jiggled it open, and offered it round, starting with the old woman. Adrian went off to the stream with the donkeys. In a minute he attracted a dozen half-grown boys. With his ragged clothing and dark hair, he disappeared among them. It would be one of those grubby boys who had brought her Crow’s message last night.

Dulce nosed somebody into the water.

Shandor and LeBreton finished the serious business of agreeing that, yes, it’s a hot day, and moved on to, those donkeys are bad-tempered devils. But so beautiful. Perhaps Shandor would take the pair in trade for a good horse or two.

Everyone laughed. Shandor sent a small boy running for his pipe and took tobacco with a liberal hand. He and LeBreton lit up from the same burning straw, passing it back and forth. They ignored her because this was the affair of men, after all, this discussing of the weather and donkeys and horses and the pleasure of smoking.

LeBreton was all that was placid and friendly. She did not trust him in this mood. Well, she did not trust him in any mood.

She tucked her apron in her waistband and knelt on one knee on the ground and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of children. Dark-eyed boys. One girl with her little sister on her hip, half as big as she was. A pair of babies, barely tottering on their feet. A pert flower of a child, six or seven, with gold bangles on her arms and rings in her ears.

They were delightful, both shy and bold. They spoke no French, nor any other language they could share with her. They giggled when she pointed at one and the other and tried to repeat their names. They were barefoot, like the children in the peasant cottages, but they seemed healthier. Strong little bodies, full of energy. And happy.

“Marguerite.” She patted her chest. And then, “Maggie,” because that was what LeBreton called her and she was getting used to it.

She brought this kumpania and these children into danger, time and time again. She sent arrogant, ungrateful men to hide in their wagons and eat their food and be impolite to their mothers and sisters. Even now, sparrows were hiding in these wagons, just a few feet away. Or they were dressed in Gypsy clothes, out there in the fields with the women, picking berries.

I risk these beautiful children to save out-of-favor politicians and the Marquise of This-and-That. It was no laughable thing to make these choices.

Shandor puffed on his pipe. “We were delayed at Vaucresson for a while. A rough road. Keeping a little to the south, though . . .”

LeBreton answered in turn. All offhanded. All as if they were talking only about washed-out roads and mud, not patrols of gendarmes. “I’ve heard Bois d’Arcy has bad roads, too. Just rumor.”

A nod. A dozen words about crossing the Seine at Saint-Cloud. Ten words to say the Versailles road was full of troops and a prudent man would let his path wind elsewhere, however long it took. This was Crow giving her what help he could by helping LeBreton.

“. . . but today should be a lucky day.” Shandor drew in smoke. Exhaled. “I’ll tell you what I saw this morning. I saw an egret take off from the field, fast.” He swooped a gesture, like wings flapping. “One inch ahead of a pair of foxes. He got away. Flew over my wagon and headed toward Caen. Now that’s a sign for you.”

Shandor was saying that Egret had been threatened, but escaped. Truly, her network was exposed from Paris to the coast. It was time for her people to run, to take new names, open new waystations. Everyone left in place must be warned.

Children pressed closer. Touching her braid. Fingering the white fichu she wore around her neck. It was of poor quality, but cleaner and more fine than what their mothers wore.

In her pocket, under her skirt, she still carried the length of red string. It would talk for her. She unwound the thread and tied the ends together to make a loop and wove a cat’s cradle between her hands.

She slipped it out to catch a little girl’s wrist. Giggling, the girl snatched her hand back. The Gypsies made string figures by the fire at night to delight the children. These little ones all knew this game.

She pulled her net on another. Some she trapped. Some were fast as lightning. “You must be very quick to get away.” She raised her voice. “You must run, or someone will trap you. See. I go one way. You go the other.” That was her answer to Crow. He must leave, and she would not go with him.

She saw him hear the words and understand.

“We have a saying.” Shandor was now playing the Wise Gypsy Patriarch. “The sparrows fly away to the west, but the Rom travel the whole world. Who knows where we will go next? Perhaps we will return to Paris. There’s work in Paris, even in hard times.”

No, Shandor. Not for you. Not anymore.

She wove the thread one last time, in a complicated pattern. A twist . . . and it became a ladder. Another twist . . . it was a net. Another brief, clever magic of woven string and she had a web that danced and changed. Even the men stopped talking to watch.

“And so . . .” She loosed a single loop and opened her hands. Everything dropped away. She held only a limp string. The children made a sound of disappointment. “It is time to stop. Let us do it before the thread breaks and disaster comes. We play out the last game and we walk away and we do not begin again.”

That was how she told Crow not to return to Paris. The wagons were too easy to recognize, now that they had been betrayed. Crow’s part in La Flèche was done. She would not put these children in danger again. Not to save a hundred sparrows.