Robin Hobb & Steven Brust - The Gypsy

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PROLOGUE

LATE AUTUMN, HALF MOON, WAXING

/ hope you don't mind

If I rest inside your door

Please forgive the snowy footprints

I'm tracking on your floor.

"RED LIGHTS AND NEON"

Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.

Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek..

Doom teka teka teka doom teka tek.

There is something about the sound of the tambou-

rine.

The zils rattle or ring in the same tones and pitches

as the kettles in which you heat the water or stew the

meat, and the calfskin head that is as old as Nagy-

papa will predict the rain by saying dum or the dry-

ness by saying doooooom. When the tambourine is

played well, the feet move on wings of their own, and

the heart leaps with them, while the lips/ distant ob-

servers above, cannot help but smile a little/ no mat-

ter how somber the mood. This is why the dance and

the laughter are one, and whoever says different is

either deluded or in the service of You Know Who.

And You Know Who has many servants.

Some are weak, some are strong. Some need guid-

2 THE OYPSY

ance day by day; others, well/ others can work their

evil on their own, and bring more souls into the sway.

For example, there is the Fair Lady, Luci, who—

No. We will not dwell on that now, there is plenty

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of time later. Now, we are remembering the tambou-

rine, which is as perfect a match for the fiddle as the

onion is for the bacon, and the memory of the ear

and the tongue is forever, which is as it should be.

These things stay with a person, no matter how many

years have passed, or what paths he has trod. Once

those sounds are in his blood/ he can never forget—

Never forget—

Umm. . . .

Somewhere, perhaps half a mile to his left, a siren

divided the evening into sections. Why do they call them

sirens, he wondered. What sort of sailor would be at-

tracted to them? The question was rhetorical and ironic.

He wasn't worried. He had no reason to think the

siren was for him, so he continued to stroll down

Saint Thomas, which seemed to be the street where

appliance stores gathered, with a few grocers and li-

quor stores interleaved between them like the thick

cloth that keeps the pottery from breaking against it-

self when—

Umm. . . .

He had been a sailor once—twice? Something like

that. He remembered rope burns on his hands; end-

less buckets of fash soup; toothless, fair-haired men

with food in their beards shouting to him in Dutch;

salt water in his mouth; the sick-sweet smell of rum;

earplugs so the batteries wouldn't deafen him; scrap-

ing sounds of a too-small tool against an ugly green

metal hull; salt water in his mouth. He almost re-

membered meeting a small shark once/ but this could

have been a dream. He'd never met a siren, in any

case.

It was coming closer. He almost ducked into a

storefront from some urge to flee, but there was really

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Prologue 3

no reason to think they were looking for him. He kept

walking.

A wooden door opened almost in his face and a

burly figure in a red plaid jacket walked away from

him. He noticed the jacket and thought. Is it cold, then?

He could see his breath, and there was a light coating

of snow on the sidewalk, so it must be. He looked at

his own clothing and saw only a very thinly woven

cotton shirt/ pale yellow with a few blue threads for

embroidery. He wore baggy blue pants of the same

material, and high doeskin boots. These should not

be enough to keep him warm. Perhaps he ought to

go inside. A sign above the door said ST. THOMAS

BAR, which meant it was a public house. The door

had opened before him, which could as easily be a

Sign as it could be a Trap or nothing at all, and the

siren, which ought not to have anything to do with

him, was getting closer. He opened the door and

stepped inside, entering another alien world, which

is what any new place is, after all, isn't it?

Cigarette smoke, an anemic blue, hung over a pool

table, entwined with a neon BUDWEISER sign, and

crept over to a long bar where a fat man in an apron

was talking with a smiling patron. The fat man's fea-

tures were not unpleasant, and his nose had been

broken at least twice; the patron hunched his shoul-

ders as if the world had been too much for him for a

long time, and he had a large scar down the side of

his neck—a knife scar.

The fat man noticed him and said, "What'll it be?"

"I ... that is, brandy."

"How d'you want it?"

"How—?"

"You all right, buddy?"

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"I think so."

"Want me to call someone?"

"No. Just let me sit down."

4 THE GYPSY

"Sure. Sit down. Maybe you shouldn't have any-

thing right now."

"Maybe you're right."

"You driving?"

"What?"

"You got car keys?"

"Car . . . keys? I don't think so."

"Good. Just sit there for a while and I'll call you a

cab. You got any money?"

"Well, I—I don't know." He put his hands in his

pockets and began removing things; An oddly formed

lump of heavy grey metal, the key to room fourteen

of some hotel somewhere, an empty bottle for sixty-

five milligram pills of Darvon, a nickel and three pen-

nies, He stared at this collection, wondering if it had

any significance. The pillbottle; he remembered

something about that—he had just been trying to get

more pills/ when—what happened? He shook his

head/ frustrated.

The fat man said/ "Shit. Never mind, now. What's

your name?"

"Ummm, Chuck—Charles, I think."

"Yeah, you look like a Charles. Okay/ just sit tight.

No one here will hurt you. You'll feel better in a

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while. I'm Tony, by the way."

"Thank you. Tony. Do not write the letter."

"What?"

"Do not write the letter. It will bounce three times

and bite three times and leaving you kissing dust."

"Is that a poem or something?"

"It is for you."

"What letter are you talking about?"

"I don't know."

The man with the scar looked up. "He some kind

of nut. Tony?"

"Hell if I know."

"Did you write a letter?"

The bartender paused/ glanced at Charles, then

Prologue 5

back at the patron. He cleared his throat. "I just told

you about my daughter."

"The dyke?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Hey, you said it first."

The bartender stared at a soapy glass in his hand.

"I was gonna write and tell her not to bother coming

home for winter break/ but. ..."

"This guy gives me the creeps. Tony."

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"So go to the other end of the bar. He ain't bugging

nobody."

"I guess not."

But Charles, after replacing his possessions in his

pocket/ decided he should be the one to move to the

other end of the bar/ as a result of which he spotted

the policemen before they spotted him. His throat

tightened. They can't be looking for me. They can't be

looking for me. Can they? One was very young and

made Charles think of the phrase, "One hand grabs

for the reins while one foot runs for the ditch." Who

had said that, and in what language? The other po-

liceman was like an old wolf-leader, whose eyes miss

nothing even if they appear closed.

Charles turned away, hoping to be missed in the

blue fog/ but he felt the old policeman's eyes seize

the back of his neck. This was pursuit, and pursuit

led to capture, and capture led to—

No, there was no time for that, now, either.

The room was heavy with tobacco smoke; it could

become heavier, he knew that. He could hide himself

in it, although there would be a price to pay.

He did what was necessary, vaguely aware that he

was losing something as he did.

There was a back way, and he found it, and he was

gone. His headache returned, bringing with it the

memory that it had been an almost constant compan-

ion for a long time. He felt pursuit, and it frightened

6 THE GYPSY

him, but at least now he knew it was not an irrational

fear which had gripped him since—

—Since-

Blind man's night is music to the deaf, and every-

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one has two paths, not one, whence comes tragedy

and comedy, forsooth and damn straight, son.

He stood just within the flap of the tent and the old

woman saw him and he saw her and the statuette,

and it would be hard to guess who was more sur-

prised of these two strangers who somehow knew.

And, oh, the things they said without speaking or

moving; the anger, the pain, the justifications, all si-

lent, perhaps all imagined, until he ran, once more/

never stopping until he reached the river, which

agreed to carry him, once more, away from one set of

troubles into another. Out of pangs of the heart and

into torments of the flesh.

Hell of a way to run a coach service.

—Since-

After all, they had entered the bar, and, more im-

portantly, he must trust his instincts, which had got-

ten him out of as many faxes as they'd gotten him

into. The same could be said of his knife, and perhaps

there's a moral there.

Was this time going to be any different? Of course.

They all are. He was breathing heavily but not pain-

fully, his strides were long and even, though he was

tired. He stopped and rested for a moment beside a

high wrought-iron fence, with a lower chain-link fence

outside it, then he walked on, looking back fre-

quently.

There was a gate in the fence/ and someone stood

beside it. His first thought was. It is Luci; I am caught.

But no. He could make out little of her form in the

gloom, but her face had the stamp of beauty with

suffering etched into the lines over her brows and next

to her eyes. A squirrel at her feet chittered loudly as

he approached, started to run, then relaxed. The

Prologue 7

woman turned at his footstep. He looked into her eyes

and she into his. He felt a slight tingle at the base of

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his skull. Her eyes glittered. She said, "You are here

to replace me, that I may rest?"

"I don't understand."

"Why are you here?"

"I am merely walking. Running, in fact. You?"

"I guard this place, so none may pass who should

not. You should not, I think, unless you are to replace

me."

He looked past her, through the high wrought-iron

fence, and understood. "No, I still live. You must

wait for the next to die to take your place."

"How then can you see me?"

"Because I am who I am."

"Who are you?"

"I'm not certain. Who are you, and how did you

come to die, so young?"

"Leukemia," she said dreamily, as if it made no

difference to her at all, and perhaps it didn't. "My

name is Karen."

"How long have you stood vigil here?"

"I'm not certain. Only a few days, I think. I re-

lieved a tired old man who had been here four days."

The squirrel jumped closer to him, then back again.

"You will not have to wait long, I think. Then you

may rest."

"Yes," she said. "Will you see to my man? We

lived together for three years, and he was very kind

when I was dying, but it was hard for him. Harder

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than for me, I think."

"What is his name?"

"Brian MacWurthier. We lived at three twenty-

seven Roosevelt, upstairs."

He repeated the name and address to himself, so

he wouldn't forget it. "Very well," he said. "I will—"

A light fell upon him. He turned and his heart jumped

0 THE GYPSY

as he saw the police car. He began to run/ knowing

already that it was too late.

"I'm sorry/' he heard her say. The squirrel bolted

between the bars of the cemetery as if escaping from

a cage.

"It is nothing," said Charles softly as the two po-

licemen took his arms and threw him against the

chain-link fence. Their hands were rough and thor-

ough as they searched him. What are their feelings at

such times/ he wondered. Boredom? Professional

pride?

"My head hurts/' he said softly. They didn't seem

to hear him.

The older one found his knife and let it fall with a

gesture half careless and half deliberate. Charles

winced as he heard it strike the sidewalk. The younger

one held his upper arms in a grip like steel. It was

painful- He thought about resisting then and there,

but he couldn't decide/ and soon it was too late/ for

they wrenched his arms behind him and put hand-

cuffs on him.

This felt familiar. Why? A piece of the Sight, or the

shards of real memory? The policemen pushed him

into the back of the car. He had to sit sideways be-

cause of the cuffs. He tested them/ and found that

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they were connected by a rigid bar, rather than a mere

chain. They knew him then. He frowned, his shoul-

der pressed uncomfortably against the seat back.

There was a time when it would have pleased him

that they showed such fear. There was a time, . . .

He walks aimlessly upon the Old Manor Way/ his feet

twisting in the coach tracks. He sees her before him—the

one whom he had loved, and who betrayed him to marry a

rich man.

"You have destroyed me," he cries. "You have broken

my heart." He reaches into his chest, then, and pulls his

Prologue 9

heart from his body to show her, but she, filled with shame

or pride, won't look, so he flings it down onto the road.

Soon, an old dry-nurse comes along and sees it. "Vi/ell, "

she says. "We can't have this." And she calls three times

like a raven and screams three times like an owl, and a

shape appears beside her. The apparition, a woman who is

younger than the nurse and older than the lover, takes the

heart from the roadside, and brushes the dirt from it and

holds it to her bosom. He looks closely, and sees that it is

the ghost of his mother, still watching out for him from

beyond the grave.

Lover, dry-nurse, and mother all vanish into the mist,

into the dust. He takes back his heart and replaces it in his

chest and continues on his way.

The holding tank was seven paces by nine. The

walls were of tile, to chest height. The floor was of

cement, with a large drain in the middle so the place

could be hosed down. A tiled bench, perhaps eight

inches off the floor and eighteen deep, was built into

two of the walls. Across from it was an aluminum

toilet, all of one piece. Charles, realized, after a mo-

ment's thought, that this was to ensure no one could

use the toilet seat as a weapon. The sink was also

aluminum. There were neither soap nor towels. The

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