Twenty
Prologue
“Have I not here the best cards for the game to coin this easy match?”
—Shakespeare’s King John
The Gypsy Encampment on
Hampstead Heath outside of London
April 1553
“Remember, Sandor, no blood is to be shed—not a drop when you kill the gadji.” Uncle Gheorghe paused while he coughed up more green phlegm.
Sandor Matskella looked down at his hands, hands that were expected to snuff out the life of an unknown Christian woman somewhere in the north of England. “I am a horse master,” he murmured. “What do I know of executions?” Now that he had learned the reason for his uncle’s urgent summons, Sandor wished he had been too far away to have answered.
Uncle Gheorghe made a wry face. “Bah! It is of no consequence what you know or do not know. You are young, strong—and healthy. That is all that is necessary. As you see, I am not able to rise from my bed. You will do the deed in my place as the crown’s executioner. You must—I have already spent the Constable’s gold.”
“And he took our Demeo,” snapped Aunt Mindra from her place by the fire. “That gadjo has thrown my boy into one of his deep pits in the Tower. He will hold Demeo among the rats to insure we keep our part of this contract.” She spat into the flames. “May the dogs eat the Constable’s heart and lick his blood.”
Sandor shuddered at his aunt’s curse. “What crime could a mere woman commit that the young English King requires her death?”
Uncle Gheorghe shrugged, then coughed up more phlegm. “Who knows? Who cares? It is enough that the death warrant is signed, sealed and delivered to me. Demeo is their hostage. The sooner you return from the north, the better it will be for him—and for all of us. Our people tread a slender rope here in England.”
“I want my son back before he is polluted by those Englishmen or he dies of a fever in that foul place,” Aunt Mindra snarled.
Sandor nodded, though he loathed the burden his uncle had placed on his shoulders. “I will leave within the hour,” he answered in a low tone. “Young Demeo has the heart of a bear. He will return to your fireside as good as he was when he was torn from it.” A little smile crossed Sandor’s lips when he thought of his wily cousin. “I expect he will return with a wealth of winnings from the pockets of the gadjo who have the misfortune to guard him.”
Uncle Gheorghe’s eyes, dull with fever, glared at him. “It is no laughing matter when the Constable himself delivers an order for an execution. Make haste to this Hawksnest Castle in the north. Kill the old woman and be done with it. But attend to every jot and tittle of the warrant. No witnesses—it is to be a secret execution. And no blood spilled. The Constable was very clear on that particular point.”
“Why?” Sandor furrowed his brow.
His uncle croaked a laugh. “It is a gadje whim, I expect. They employ the Rom to do their foul deeds for them so there will be no blood on their soft white hands. As to the woman, you can smother her but I think the garrote is better. You have the strong hands to do it properly.”
Sandor rubbed his palms together. What did he know of killing? He had butchered a chicken or a pig often enough, but never a human being. Certainly not a woman. “I will use the garrote,” he answered, hoping that his face did not betray the revulsion in his gut. “The quicker the better—for her.”
“Mayhap she will be wearing a gold chain,” Aunt Mindra mused. “Or pearl earrings. Bring me her jewelry to pay for my tears for my son.”
Her husband nodded. “Aye, that is your right, Sandor. As her executioner, you are allowed a few privileges.”
The sour taste of bile rose in Sandor’s throat. He would give his finest mare and her colt to be free of this onerous task, but his obligation to his mother’s brother overrode his reluctance. He balled his right hand into a fist. “I will take this woman’s life quickly, but I see no need to take her dignity as well.”
His aunt made a face. “The condemned is a gadji,” she said as if that one fact excused any wicked behavior on his part. “Since she is not a Rom, it does not matter what you do with her.”
Uncle Gheorghe held out the warrant, written on stiff parchment. The official seal glistened like blood in the firelight. “Take this and keep it with you. If any man stops you on your journey, you will show him this and tell him you are on the King’s business.”
“Let us hope that man can read,” muttered Sandor, who could not.
His uncle passed a small wooden box to him. A brass lock dangled from its clasp. “Once the woman is dead, cut out her heart, wrap it in cloth and lock it in this box together with a bit of her hair and a piece of her gown. That will be the proof that she is dead.”
Sandor curled his lip. “What vile mind conceived this idea?”
His uncle sneered. “Good Christian men who sleep sound in their beds at night. The Constable was most insistent upon this last point.”
“Demeo’s life requires it,” added Aunt Mindra.
Sandor took the box and pushed it deep in his canvas sack so that he wouldn’t have to look at the thing any more than necessary. “You must have been paid well for this pretty piece of work,” he dared to say out of the side of his mouth. When healthy, Uncle Gheorghe possessed a formidable temper.
“Not enough to insure my son’s life,” the older man growled. “Do your duty and be quick about it. The sooner you go, the sooner you return. So go!” He waved his nephew away from his bedside.
Before leaving the camp, Sandor paid a quick visit to his grandmother, the family’s venerated puridai. He did not want to begin such a troubling journey without having his fortune read. Old Towla Lalow was the wisest woman Sandor had ever known. She greeted him with a smile when he lifted the flap of her bender tent.
“I knew you would come, my son,” she said when he kissed her cheek.
He grinned at her. “Your cards told you this?”
She shook her head. “My heart,” she replied, tapping her breast. Then she took her special deck of tarocchi cards from a burgundy velvet bag. Though the thick vellum cards were very old, their gilding still gleamed in the lantern’s light. She shuffled her deck, then laid down the cards in a horseshoe pattern, while she sang to herself under her breath.
Sitting opposite her, Sandor waited patiently, despite his need for haste. Time with Towla was never wasted. When she had placed the spread of cards to her satisfaction, she studied them with deep concentration, adding lines to those the passing years had already etched
