easily!
I stamped down the road, taking my irritation out on a handful of wildflowers I plucked from the wayside. There were foxgloves and poppies and mignonettes in flower, a riot of colour in my hands. I picked the petals from the ox-eye daisies, scattering them behind me like so much confetti as I climbed over a stile. I crossed the river meadow until I came to the edge of the stream itself and removed my slippers. I pulled off my stockings and dabbled my toes in the water, disturbing a damselfly in a flutter of iridescent wings. The rush of cool green river was glorious against my heated skin, and I paddled my feet back and forth, scattering the rest of the petals to the wind.
“If you’re looking to tell if a man loves you, you’ve made a pig’s breakfast of it,” said a voice at my elbow.
I jumped, scattering the stems from my lap as I half turned. A Gypsy woman stood there, arms folded under her breasts as she regarded me coolly. She wore the usual layers of ruffled skirts in spite of the heat, and a scarf of flowered scarlet had been tied around her head. She followed the Gypsy custom of wearing one’s wealth, for her neck and arms were heavy with coins dangling from chains and bangles, and I wondered how I had not heard her approach.
“A Romany woman is as quiet as she wants to be,” she told me before I asked. She nodded sharply to the torn flowers in my hands. “You want your fortune told? I can do better than flowers.”
I thought of my previous experiences with tasseomancy and Tarot cards and suppressed a shudder. “Thank you, no. I’m afraid I have no silver with which to cross your palm.”
She shrugged. “No matter. I will tell yours for free.” Before I could speak, she knelt and took my hand in hers. Her palms were warm and her flesh exuded an earthy smell like newly tilled soil or coming rain.
She stroked my palm gently, following the lines from fingers to wrist, muttering under her breath. She shook her head, her expression mournful, and her voice took on a keening quality.
“Oh, lady, I see unhappiness here! Such woe and trouble comes to you. Shadows lie in wait for you, the shadows of things that will come to pass if you do not change your course.”
“How frightful!” I murmured.
She gave me a sharp look. “You do not believe.”
I bared my teeth in a smile. “I’ve heard these things before.”
The Gypsy woman dropped my hand as if she had been scalded. “And yet you mock me, lady? You are arrogant. But you will learn to mend your ways.”
“How?” I asked.
She blinked. “How?”
“Yes, how? You speak of darkness and woe and—shadows, was it? Now, how am I supposed to avoid them? With a hefty payment, I suppose? I’ve already told you I have no silver for you.”
She rose, wrapping her shawl about her in spite of the warmth of the day. She lifted a finger and pointed it at my heart. “And I told you I did not want your money. If you wish to avoid tragedy, you must give him up.”
A cold chill struck me then, and I no longer felt flippant.
“Him?”
She gave me a sly look then, cutting her eyes sideways at me as she turned to go. “Him. The one who sits in your heart. He walks with death, lady. And if you choose him, death will touch you, too.”
She was gone, melting away with the same silence with which she had come. The sun still beat down; the breeze still danced in the reeds, bending the wildflowers and teasing the scent of honeysuckle from the throat of the blossoms. But there was a shadow over the afternoon that had not been there before. I rose and dried my feet on my skirts and put on my stockings and slippers and walked slowly back to the Abbey.
1 Silent on the Moor
2 Silent in the Sanctuary
Chapter Two
Time goes on crutches till Love have all his rites.
—Much Ado about Nothing, II.i.352
The encounter with the Gypsy at the river affected me more than I liked to think. I was still preoccupied when I entered the Abbey and made my way upstairs. No sooner had I turned into the bedchamber gallery than I collided heavily with a maid—at least I presumed it was a maid. The girl had ended up squarely on her backside with an armful of clean linen tossed into the air. I could see nothing of her but an enormous mob cap and a pair of wide eyes peeping through the sheets.
“Beggar me, I am sorry, my lady.”
“Do not apologise. I wasn’t looking where I was going. The fault was entirely mine.”
I put out a hand to help her up, but she shrieked and dove under the linen. I smiled.
“No, I suppose that is inappropriate. You must be new here. Marches do not do things the same as other folk,” I told her. The bundle of linen shuddered, and I realised the girl must be well and truly confused to be carrying clean linen to the bedchambers at that time of day. Beds were made in the morning, and the linen cupboard was on another floor entirely. But Hoots had been growing more and more feeble in the head, and there was no telling what instructions he had given to the girl. I made a note to suggest to Aunt Hermia that a housekeeper might prove a useful addition if Hoots were terrorising the maids. The last one had quit in rebellion against his tyrannies, and it was proving harder and harder to keep good staff so long as he was in command.
I gave the girl a friendly smile to put her at her ease. “You must be one of the new girls taken on for the wedding, is that right?”
The bundle nodded.
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