"Parole. I want you to—I demand that you—put yourself under my orders. You will obey without question!"
"For how long?"
"One day. Until dawn tomorrow."
"That's all? Then we're quits?"
"That's all."
"You're asking for a blank check!"
"How much did you have in your account last night?"
Creighton was not without charisma himself. Edward could not meet those eyes glittering under the hedgerow brows.
"Thruppence! Very well, sir, I agree."
"Right. Word of honor, of course?"
Strewth! What did the cocky little bastard expect? Edward stared cold fury at him and said, “I beg your pardon?"
Creighton nodded placidly. “Good. Then make yourself respectable and come on out. Rabbit stew for breakfast, I expect. Or pheasant, if we're lucky.” He pushed rudely past Edward and headed for the door.
"Sir? What did you mean—"
"Without question!” Creighton snapped, and disappeared down the steps.
There was indeed stew for breakfast, and it might have contained rabbit. It certainly contained many other things, and it tasted delicious to a hungry man. Edward tried not to think about hedgehogs and succeeded so well that he emptied his tin plate in record time.
He sat on the ground in an irregular circle of Gypsies, mostly men. Woman flitted around in attendance, never walking in front of a man. The women's garb was brighter, but even the men seemed dressed more for a barn dance than for country labor. There were about a score of adults in the band, and at least as many children, most of whom were hiding behind their elders and peering out warily at the strangers. The campsite was an untidy clutter of wagons and tents and basket chairs in various stages of assembly. Heaps of pots and clothespins indicated other trades. A dozen or so horses grazed nearby, and the skulking dogs seemed to belong.
Creighton sat at the far side, deep in conversation with the ancient chovihani. Edward could hear nothing of what was being said, although there seemed to be some hard bargaining in progress. The few words he overheard near him were in Romany. He could not but wonder what the masters at Fallow would say if they could see him now in his grotesque garb. His wrists and ankles stuck out six inches in all directions. He was barefoot because he had been unable to find any shoes to fit him. The only part of his apparel not too small for him was his hat, and that kept falling over his eyes.
A slender hand reached down to his plate. “More?” asked a soft voice.
"Yes, please! It's very good."
He watched as she carried the plate over to the communal pot and heaped it again with a ladle. Her dress made him think of Spanish dancers, and she was very pretty, with her head bound in a bright-colored scarf and her dangling earrings flashing in the sun. Her ankles ... Some ancient instinct caused him to glance around then. He saw that he was the object of suspicious glowers from at least half a dozen of the younger men. Good Lord! Did they think? ... Well, maybe they were right. Not that he had been considering anything dishonorable, but he had certainly been admiring, and that was forbidden to a gorgio. Nevertheless, he smiled at her when she gave him back the plate. She smiled back shyly.
Eating at a nomad's campfire, he could not help feeling he was slumming, yet he knew that these were a proud people, and to them he was probably as out of place as a naked Hottentot at a dons’ high table in Oxford. There was a lesson there and he ought to be learning from it. The guv'nor would have been able to put it into words.
The second helping he ate more slowly, feeling sleepiness creeping over him—he hadn't really slept at all in the night. There were so many things to think about! Could he trust Creighton, in spite of what the man had done for him? He was certainly being evasive. He claimed to have visited the guv'nor at Nyagatha, and he had known about Spots. He had pointedly avoided saying where he had come from, except for cryptic references to somewhere called “Nextdoor.” He had contrasted it with “Here,” without stipulating whether “Here” meant England or all Europe. The Service he talked about—what government did it serve? Some semiautonomous Indian potentate? The Ottoman Empire? China? China was in disarray, wasn't it?
Everywhere was in disarray now, and yet Creighton had never once hinted at the possibility of the war interfering with whatever his precious Service served. And what could the Chamber be? He had certainly implied that it was in some sense supernatural; if it was, then the Service must be also.
So what on Earth did that make Nextdoor?
Replete, Edward returned his plate to the owner of the ankles and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He wanted a wash and a shave, but sleep would do for starters.
Creighton called his name and beckoned.
He walked around the fire, being careful not to step on anything sharp. Creighton was paying court to the old woman. Perhaps she really was a phuri dai, a wisewoman, but Edward knew enough about Gypsies to know that their leaders were invariably male. Furthermore, the man beside her was sitting on a wooden chair, while everyone else was on the ground. That made him unusually important. Edward went to the man.
Boswell was probably in his sixties, thick and prosperous looking, with a patriarchal silver mustache. His face was the face of a successful horse trader, unreadable.
Edward doffed his hat respectfully and said, “Latcho dives."
The man's mustache twitched in a smile. “Latcho dives! You speak romani?"
"Not much more than that, sir."
Still, Edward had scored a point. Boswell said something very fast in Romany—probably addressed to his mother, although he was watching Edward to see if he understood, which he did not.
Edward bowed and squatted down before her, alongside Creighton. She looked him over with the most extraordinary eyes he had ever seen. Her gaze seemed to go right through him and out the other side and back again. He barely noticed anything else about her, except that she was obviously very old. Only her lustrous Gypsy eyes.
"Give me your hand,” she said. “No, the left one."
He held out his hand. She clutched it in gnarled fingers and pulled it close to her face to study. He was able to glance away, then. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at Creighton, who frowned. Then the old woman sighed and closed his fingers into a fist. Here it came, he thought—you will go on a long journey, you will lose a close friend, your dearest love will be true to you although you may be troubled by doubts, et blooming cetera. She was going to be disappointed when she told him to cross her palm with silver.
She was looking at him again, darn it!
"You'ave been unjustly blamed for a terrible crime.” Her voice amused him. It was straight off the back streets of London, almost Cockney.
"That is true!” He tore his eyes away and reproachfully glanced at Creighton.
"I told Mrs. Boswell nothing about you, Exeter."
Oh, really? Edward would have bet a five-bob note—if he had one—that Creighton had told the old crone a lot more than he thought he had.
"You will go on a long journey,” she said.
Well, Belgium was a good guess, and quite a long journey.
"You will have to make a very hard choice."
That could mean anything—pie or sausage for supper, for instance. “Can you be more specific, ma'am?"
Creighton and Boswell were listening and watching intently. So was everyone else within earshot.
Mrs. Boswell twisted her incredibly wrinkled face angrily, as if recognizing Edward's disbelief. Or perhaps she was in pain. “You must choose between honor and friendship,” she said hoarsely. “You must desert a friend to whom you owe your life, or betray everything you hold sacred."