Colin’s horrible screams and the bear’s ferocious growls made it difficult for even the most hard-hearted of the gypsies to get to sleep. Xenobia had thought the minstrel’s execution would be noisy, but was beginning to wish the bear would eat more daintily. Zorah cowered beneath her blanket and whimpered herself to sleep, all of her own hopes dying in agony with Colin. And in the woods, Maggie cut short Davey’s explanation of how to reach the sorcerer’s castle. Her heart sank as she shoved the potion at him and began to run through the edge of the woods to the part of the encampment closest to the commotion.
In the bear cage, Colin shook with genuine fright, and followed his first, authentic scream with a repertoire both blood-curdling and heart-rending. Ching, the cat, sat switching his tail, clearly promising to give him another taste of his claws if his performance was substandard. The bear, likewise, under the influence of the cat, snuffled and whuffled, bellowed and bawled, growled and grumbled his most challenging, while finishing the remains of the meal his keeper had left in the cage before the bear-baiting began.
With a particularly satisfying chilling gurgle, Colin reached his finale. The bear ate more quietly as the cat sank down onto the floor of the cage to lick his front paws and wash his ears. Colin wiped the perspiration from his brow with the side of his arm. “That was close,” he whispered to the cat. “I don’t know how you talked him out of eating me, but thanks a lot, cat. I swear to you that none of your kind shall be mistreated or hungry as long as I’m about.”
Ching’s eyes gazed greenly up at him in the darkness, his purr almost as loud as the bear’s growls. Colin scratched the cat’s ears and considered. “Still, I don’t imagine you’re magical enough to open this cage, are you? No, of course not. At least you’ve given me time to think.” Ching presented the side of his face for a whisker scratch. Colin regarded him thoughtfully.
“Yet you can understand me, can’t you? I mean, I know I can’t tell if you’re saying meow, or reciting poetry when you and Maggie chat, but you’re a clever fellow. You can understand everybody, right?” Ching said mrrp in a pleased sort of way, and continued to encourage caresses by rolling onto his back for his black-and-white belly to be rubbed.
“There’s one girl here who might help me. I don’t know if she’s actually a friend or not, but she does dislike Xenobia. Maybe if you could get Zorah to come and get me out?” He was starting to think and talk faster, hoping there might be some way to escape in time to save Maggie.
Ching sat up, flicked his whiskers, looked about, and switched his tail so emphatically he fairly thumped it on the floor.
“No, I don’t suppose you’d know her, would you? She’s got on a blue dress, and she’s rather smallish—a bit shorter than Maggie. She looks sad. Actually, I don’t suppose she looks that sad while she’s sleeping but that’s the general idea.” The cat regarded him quizzically. “Um—I think perhaps she lives in that red wagon with the hideous purple stripes on—” He found himself talking to the end of a tail and cat back feet as Ching leaped down. “I want you to know,” Colin said to the tail tip before the cat was completely lost in the darkness, “this quite makes up for you trying to eat me.”
The cat tried two other wagons before he found the right one. Even for humans, colors looked different in the moonlight (as in Ching’s favorite words of wisdom from Granny Brown regarding feline camouflage— “all cats look gray in the dark.”). Ching’s magic operated efficiently enough, but his visual apparatus was such that Colin’s red and purple had no meaning for him.
So he tried a green wagon with orange stripes, and a blue wagon with gilt stripes, where he narrowly missed being skewered by the dagger of a fat gypsy man attempting to make love. The man apparently felt that Ching’s questioning mew added little to his efforts; only the cat’s agility kept him from becoming fish bait.
Finally, though, he found a striped wagon containing a woman who looked worn out even while she was sleeping, a girl of about Maggie’s age and size, and a boy child and a girl child of tail-pulling years. Colin was wrong, though, about the older girl. She did look sad, even in her sleep.
Being careful not to wake the others, who might not be so sympathetic to Colin’s and Maggie’s respective plights as the young woman he was sent to fetch, he hopped softly onto the girl’s chest and sang into her ear. She stirred. He sang a bit louder, but she mumbled, and her arms made brushing motions to rid herself of him.
He patted her half-open lips with a paw, his nose almost brushing her teeth. Her breath smelled pleasantly of homebrewed ale and spice-root. He patted again, leaping sideways as she sat up, her elbow nearly striking him as she raised her hand to rub her eyes.
“What?” she asked.
Ching purred reassuringly, fixing her with a calm composed gaze. He hoped she wasn’t one of those silly hysterical people who couldn’t abide the presence of a cat.
Zorah liked cats, however, and found stroking Ching a soothing balm for her sadness, even though she was barely awake and afraid of waking her family. She had no idea how he’d come to her wagon, but welcomed his company anyway. When Ching was sure he had her attention, he backed off, chirruping for her to follow, advanced again to rub against her, and once more retreated when she tried to pet him. Soon she got the idea that she was being instructed to follow him when he hopped down from her wagon.
He led her to the bear’s cage, but when she saw the direction he was taking she turned again to go, protesting tearfully, “Oh, puss, I can’t go there. That poor man!” Ching sat thumping his tail on the ground, staring up at her until she began to realize he was not behaving in a naturally feline fashion. Most cats, if there was a great deal of blood around, would have been savagely excited. Such a description in no way fit Ching. Zorah’s curiosity led her on.
More to bolster her own courage than because she actually thought she would be understood, she said, taking a deep breath and pulling her frayed and muddied cloak close about her, “Very well. I will look, then. I am a gypsy woman, and not squeamish.”
A disembodied voice followed this outspoken proclamation of bravery, almost making lie of it by sending her screaming back to her wagon.
“Please, Zorah, do be quiet and get us out of this cage. The bear is sleeping now, and might wake up hungry.”
Making the sign against the evil eye, which also included ghosts and witches, she finally managed to peer into the wagon and through the bars. There sat the minstrel, appearing more bored and anxious than mauled. He was in one corner of the cage and the bear was piled like a used fur rug in the other corner. “Will you please get me out of here?”
“If you promise to do what I asked you earlier.” Not for nothing did she come from a long line of horse traders.
Colin reluctantly promised he would help her locate Gypsy Davey’s heart as she had asked, and she took the keyring from under the wagon seat and fit the great wooden key into the lock.
“Now hurry,” she said nervously as he jumped down beside her. “Some of my people will still be awake. We got to break camp soon and be out of here before dawn. Those town people are apt to get a little mad when they learn what our little shows really cost.”
“I have to find my horse and get Maggie. If only we could delay pursuit somehow…”
“I’ll drive away our horses. That should give you plenty of time. It may be a close thing with the townspeople while we gather them up, but it won’t take that long.”
“Good girl!”
The horse had to be saddled, but the saddle and bridle had fortunately been left on the ground near the animal. In the confusion, no one had taken the sword and scabbard from the ground where they’d tossed it while subduing Colin. But he missed his instruments immediately.
He followed the soft nickerings of the other horses to find Zorah again. She was busy loosening hobbles and smacking rumps to encourage them to wander off into the richer grasses of the upper meadow.
“Do you know what’s become of my fiddle and guitar?” he asked.
She looked up from beneath a horse’s belly, trying to avoid getting stepped on. “I don’t know. Xenobia probably saved them for Davey. She’s always taking other people’s things and giving them to him, as though that would make him stay with his mama more!”
Ignoring the last part of her answer, Colin stormed. “Well, he can’t have them!” He dismounted, tying the reins to a wagon wheel. He was so angry that he started to stride straight toward Xenobia’s wagon, heedless of the few gypsies who still lingered by the dying campfire.
Zorah’s skirts rustled like wings in the darkness as she overtook him, restraining him with a hand on his arm. “Hey, Blondie.”
He turned impatiently to her. “What is it?”
“Don’t go charging in there like the bear.” She hauled Obtruncator from its scabbard and handed it to him. “Listen, take some advice from a gypsy girl, and use a little stealth. If you use that and this,” she tapped the sword, “maybe you’ll get to leave this camp alive.”
“Oh. Right,” he replied, dropping back behind the wagons in a suitably stealthy crouch, Obtruncator protruding menacingly in front of him. “Thanks.”
But even sneaking wasn’t as helpful as he might have hoped, for Xenobia had taken his instruments inside her wagon, and she was still awake. He could hear her humming tunelessly to herself. Obviously, Davey had not inherited his musical ability from her side of the family. Peeking around the corner of the door in the back of the painted wagon, Colin could see that she was sitting facing his instruments, counting the booty collected earlier in the evening.
He grimaced. Chance was evidently not going to help him much tonight. Resuming his sneaking tactics, he crept up into the doorway and hoped her croaking would cover some of the noise he made as he mounted the steps leading inside. In case it had not, once inside he leapt immediately for her neck again, very nearly seriously injuring himself on the second best family sword as he did so.
The gold and silver tumbled from a tower to a heap. “Xenobia,” Colin said, “this is getting monotonous. Really, I don’t like bullying women.” He cast about for something with which to gag her. Her eyes rolled back and her mouth worked furiously as the movement he made in his search increased the pressure on her windpipe. He lay the sword down long enough to grab first his guitar, then his fiddle, and pull them back to him. He seemed to lack sufficient appendages to do everything. Finally, he snatched her own blanket up from under her, almost upsetting them both, and wrapped this encumbrance around her, all the while maintaining his stranglehold with the other arm.
In desperation, he finally picked up the sword and braced it, point against her back, and released her neck, saying, “One word and you’re spitted. Now then, take off your stockings and hand them back here.”
“Stupid! I’m a gypsy. I don’t wear stockings. I go barefoot.”
“Well, um, I’ll wager the Lady Amberwine had stockings. Give me hers, then.” He felt absolutely brilliant for thinking of that. He was complimenting himself on his quick wit as she handed the stockings to him after pulling them from a remote corner of the wagon.
Unfortunately, the sword had plopped down against her blankets when she moved forward to get the stockings. Colin rebraced it.
“Before I gag you, ma’am, you can also tell me where you’ve got your son’s heart hidden. You can just hand it to me if it’s close by.”
“Now, how did you hear about that?” she asked, sounding discouragingly uncowed by his fierceness.
“Never mind that,” he growled.
“Have pity on a poor woman, young man. My baby’s heart was stolen from me.”
“A likely story. Who has it then, if not you?”
“The sorcerer took it. He holds it to insure my cooperation in helping him with his plans.”
“Now that’s smart,” Colin said. “Where does he live?”
“At Dragon Bay. But you’ll never get that far!” she shrieked the last as she bent forward, ridding herself of the sword. Colin had carelessly shown that both of his hands were occupied with stocking as he leaned over to gag her. Taking advantage of her freedom, she yelled for help in a voice piercing enough to be heard in Queenston.
Colin, fiddle, guitar, and sword were out the back of the wagon and clattering toward the horse before help reached Xenobia at the front of the wagon. He ran headlong into Zorah, who was bent over, unhobbling the last of the horses.
As she picked herself up from the ground, Colin thrust his instruments into her arms. She clutched them to her and ran toward his horse just before her kinsmen came howling around the wagon yelling and screaming what Colin assumed to be uncomplimentary and disparaging remarks in their gypsy language. They were brandishing knives, clubs, and a mace left over surely from the Second Rebellion, as well as several other miscellaneous implements designed for incising and slicing, and quite a few blunt objects. Backing slowly away, Obtruncator hoisted before him, Colin faced the invading horde at first with a tentative thrust here and there. As they collectively perceived that he was no master with the weapon, they jostled each other to strike the first telling blow, crowding him back against a wagon. Colin did the only thing he was capable of doing at that point, and started whacking and banging the sword around himself as furiously as he was able to wield the cumbersome object. He hoped to create a wall of such unpredictable destruction between himself and his attackers that perhaps sheer indecision as to where they should attack would delay his opponents in dispensing with him.
The gypsies did back off in the face of his assault. The first brave soul who attempted to storm his bastions got a fearful clout on the head, which would have surely scalped him had it been from the blade rather than the flat of the sword. As it was, he fell to the ground, insensible. Another belligerent fellow, the possessor of a staff, brought the staff up to block the Obtruncator, which obtruncated it on the spot.
Whirling a sword that was taller than he was and at least a tenth part as heavy did begin to tell on Colin’s strength after a time. His arms, tireless at playing fiddle or guitar, quickly wearied with the labor of bashing the sword about. He wondered, as he wearied, who exactly had originated the term swordplay. Undoubtedly one of Rowan’s frost giant ancestors. Someone sidled in then to take advantage of his waning strength, and Colin was saddened to see his fellow-fiddler, Cheese-nose, flashing his dagger in confusing convolutions.
He was also extremely worried, as Cheese-nose evidently knew his way around daggers as well as he did around fiddles. While trying to determine what the other man would do next, he saw a glint of metal from his other side. One of the worst things about this night fighting was that, in spite of the full moon, it was difficult to see in all the confusion and darkness who was doing what.
Colin switched his attention from Cheese-nose to the sneak-attacker, whipping Obtruncator to where he had seen the metallic flash, nearly beheading three people in the sword’s path.
He didn’t hear the barking and yapping until Ching dashed between his legs and a blur of dog knocked Cheese-nose aside. Colin regained his balance, and thrust to drive off the attacker on his right side, while he avoided the recovering Cheese-nose on his left. The right-hand attacker tripped over the dog and stepped heavily backward, grinding his heel into Ching’s tail. Swords were forgotten as the dog growled and snarled at all and sundry, trying to get at Ching, who now made of himself a hairpiece and muffler for the right-hand attacker, who was no longer attacking but screaming in agony. The new hairpiece was anchored firmly to his head by four sets of claws.
Although the animals created a diversion that gave Colin time to inhale, he knew he would be cut down as soon as the first gypsy returned his attention to the battle. But then the bear came lumbering into the fray.
Colin didn’t stick around to see his enemies scatter, as he was too busy scattering himself. He bolted for his horse, leaping into the saddle as though he’d sprouted wings. Ching made a corresponding leap from the head of the gypsy he’d been riding, and transferred to Colin’s shoulder instead. Then somehow they were on the horse and off through the open meadow. Colin was shaking so hard he nearly dropped the sword before he could return it to its scabbard.
As he galloped across the space between the circle of wagons and the wood, he saw Davey, muscles rippling magnificently in the moonlight as he sprinted at full speed toward the camp. Colin resisted an impulse to run him down, but held him at bay with the horse’s nervous pawing hooves. “Where’s Maggie?” he demanded.
The gypsy looked genuinely confused. “She’s not with you?”
“No.”
“Then she must have thought you were killed in all that noise, and run away. I let her go a long time ago.” He appeared unconcerned by Colin’s threatening air and shrugged impatiently, starting to walk in a wide circle around the frenzied horse. “Look after your own women. I’ve enough problem keeping up with mine.”
Watching the gypsy walk blithely away from him and back to the camp, Colin saw one more thing before he fled into the woods. Zorah, visible to him but not from the camp, popped out from under one of the wagons and waved wildly for a moment before disappearing again.