Free The Forbidden Rose by Joanna Bourne Page B

They’re nervous. Look at the men lounging around beside that wagon. That’s the one I’d search first, if I was wearing a uniform.”
    It was as well he was not a gendarme. She would not wish to transport sparrows past a man as discerning as Guillaume LeBreton.
    So she spoke with great lightness. “They have stopped to pick blackberries. Perhaps hazelnuts, too, though it is early for that, even in a very hot year, which this has been. There are profusions of berries, anyway.”
    “Here, and in every hedgerow between Paris and Dieppe. They didn’t unhitch the wagons to pick blackberries.”
    “You are a very suspicious man.”
    Men and boys came forward to put themselves casually between approaching strangers and the wagons. Shandor stood at the front of his men. He wore a blue vest and a red neckcloth. On every cap and hat was the red, blue, and white circlet of ribbons, the cockade of the Revolution, showing what good republicans they were.
    LeBreton scratched the stubble upon his chin. She was coming to recognize that as the accompaniment of his deeper cogitations. He spoke softly, as if to himself. “What it might be . . . Might be there’s some damn thing ahead on the road and they know about it.”
    “There is always something unpleasant ahead on the roads these days.”
    Shandor knew she would come this way. He had disobeyed and stayed to talk to her, even at risk to his own people.
    He was Crow. He had saved the lives of numberless men and women in the last five years. Of course he would try to save her.
    As they approached the camp, the half-grown children stopped talking and edged together. The boys wore hats, like their fathers. The little girls were in blazing bright skirts and blouses, with four or five braids lost in the wildness of loose, frizzy hair. An old woman, tanned to mahogany, sat on the step of a wagon, carving with a small, bright knife.
    “They’re Kalderash,” LeBreton said. “Coppersmiths. See the pots hung on the wagons? They make those.”
    She knew that. They also sharpened shovels and knives and axes. That was why Shandor’s family was intact and unmolested, five years into the Revolution. His kumpania was known on all the roads out of Paris. Armies passed, and Shandor’s people whirred away, grinding knives and sharpening bayonets. Soldiers of the Revolution lined up to take their turn. And in the wagons, under blankets, silent, the sparrows hid.
    LeBreton made a sign with his hand, talking to Adrian. She would not have caught this if she had not seen him do it before. The boy twitched a stick at the donkeys’ heels and followed closer.
    “Maybe we’ll get our fortune told,” LeBreton said.
    They walked into the midst of the camp. Dogs came to sniff. Decorum tried to kick the dogs, who proved to be agile. LeBreton walked past a dozen men to stop in front of Shandor.
    LeBreton said, “ Sastipe. And good morning to you. Hot as the hinges of hell, ain’t it?” He added another dozen words in what must be Romany and waited. He did not quite whistle and twiddle his fingers, but he had a great air of relaxed confidence.
    Men answered him in Romany and French. Everyone agreed it was hot. Yes. Hot as the forge of the demons. Yes, it was good to stop in the shade for an hour.
    She should not be surprised that LeBreton could speak a few words of their language. He was a reprobate of six or seven kinds and had doubtless led an interesting life.
    The ancient grandam put her knife away and climbed down from the wagon. She hobbled to the front, acting like a force to be reckoned with. LeBreton took out a pouch of tobacco from Dulce’s pack, jiggled it open, and offered it round, starting with the old woman. Adrian went off to the stream with the donkeys. In a minute he attracted a dozen half-grown boys. With his ragged clothing and dark hair, he disappeared among them. It would be one of those grubby boys who had brought her Crow’s message last night.
    Dulce nosed somebody into the