Free Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward Page B

encampment, her oak staff tap-tapping on the hard ground as she went.
    Arcie nudged Sam as they followed.
    "Secure your pouches, Sammy," he cautioned. The Barigan had already tucked his main coin pouch down inside his shirt. Sam began carefully transferring his few pouches to inner loops inside his tunic and cloak. He looked ahead at the marching figure of the Druid.
    "Should we tell her as well?" he wondered. Arcie shook his head.
    "She's the one as suggested it, she must know what she's about."
    Out of curiosity, Sam left one of his pouches, empty, on the outside of his clothes, hung snugly from his belt in a way that would have been normal and safe in any city.
    Arcie shook his head. The assassin would find out, soon enough.
    And, in fact, Kaylana knew very well what she was doing. The Gypsies were one of the few groups of people she'd had any contact with in her long self-imposed hermitage.
    They would sometimes stop by her forest, and she would emerge to speak with them. Their ancestors had known the power of the Druids, and they did not wish to cross her.
    They walked into the Gypsy encampment-the two men warily, Kaylana with her usual cool confidence. All around them were the exotic wooden wagons, with their painted trim and windows, and fringes of tiny bells along the edges that tinkled in the early morning breeze. Horses and ponies, fat and well cared-for, cropped the sparse grass of the hollow that sheltered the encampment or nickered at the sense of excitement in the air. The Gypsies themselves moved among the wagons and horses; handsome, fox-faced people, with brilliant white teeth that flashed in smiles across their dark skin. They chattered in a strange language among themselves, with a rich, rhythmic cadence. The children, swift and nimble as swallows, ran about with bundles of packing, or chased each other, laughing. The adults watched the newcomers with bright eyes that learned all and told nothing.
    Kaylana moved on, and spoke in the strange language to an old man who sat on the tail of his wagon smoking a long curved pipe. He flashed his teeth at her, then at Sam and Arcie. Sam had decided he liked the Gypsies. They were as happy as the whitewashed townsfolk, but they were not whitewashed ... he could see that in the sharpness of their eyes, the quick restlessness of their children, and the fact that Arcie had told him to secure his pouches. As if hearing his thoughts, Arcie spoke to him in a low voice.
    "They move around so much, and are so wary ... they've escaped the fate that our comrades met with.
    Aren't it fine?"
    Sam agreed silently. He watched the children playing in the light of a new day and felt a thrill in his heart to see them so wild and free, growing up to follow their spirits, free of the shackles of law and other people's standards of right and wrong. But if Kaylana spoke truth, these youngsters might not live to adulthood ... At that moment one of the grinning children, a little boy, surely not more than five summers old, tugged on his cloak. Sam looked down into the mischievous face and was surprised to be handed his own leather pouch back. He took it, with a look of surprise, and murmured a confused thanks. The boy's smile flashed, and he gave a low bow before springing off on some other pursuit. Sam watched him go, and no longer questioned why he was trying to undo the imbalance of the Victory; it was for the sake of that boy, and others like him, including a young assassin who once had to fight for his life and his living every waking moment. Darkness, he realized, takes courage, whether you fight it or live it.
    Meanwhile Arcie had moved ahead and was beckoning him.
    "Come along, laddie! We're to talk with their wisewoman."
    Sam glanced at the lettering on the side of the wagon Arcie indicated and stifled a groan.
    "A fortune teller?"
    Inside the wagon was cramped and dim, but scrupulously clean and tidy. Tapestries and rugs covered the walls and floor, a bead curtain separating this