Free Being a Green Mother by Piers Anthony Page A

water,” a man said from the edge of the crowd.
    Heads turned. There was a murmur of awe as a handsome, well-dressed middle-aged Gypsy marched forward to the tap. He turned it on, put his cupped hands under, and drank from them. Then he let the remaining water fall, turned off the tap, stood untouched. “It is good water,” he said.
    Then the others came and tried it, too, and agreed that the water was good. The curse was off it, and they could return to their normal existence.
    “Oh, my lady, thank you!” Csinka cried, tears of gratitude flowing.
    “Thank this man,” Orb said. “He believed when the others did not. He made them accept it.”
    “Because I knew,” the man said. “I heard the music, like none before.”
    “Thank you,” Orb said. “May I know your name?”
    “You did not know?” Csinka asked, amazed. “He is Csihari!”
    Orb’s jaw dropped. “But you would not meet me!” she exclaimed to the man.
    “I had not heard you play.” He put out his elbow. “Come to my wagon, and I will play for you.”
    Orb took the arm. They walked down the street, the others giving way before them, until they reached the musician’s wagon. There he brought out his violin and played an extemporaneous theme, and it was the most beautiful music Orb had heard. Again an audience gathered, but it did not matter; Orb had ears only for the singing violin. How well justified was this Gypsy’s reputation!
    When he paused, Orb glanced at her own harp. “May I?”
    Csihari made a gesture of acquiescence and started another melody. Orb settled herself on the ground, set up her harp, and played it, making counterpoint to his theme.
    The magic spread out, animating the faces of the listeners in a widening circle. Violin, harp, and the hidden orchestra: a duet with a mighty accompaniment. Not a person moved; all were enraptured.
    Then Csihari stopped and set down his violin. “Enough,” he said gruffly. He gestured at the audience. “Leave us.”
    In an instant, it seemed, the crowd had dissipated, and the two of them were alone. “You are not Tzigane,” the musician said. “What did you want of me?”
    “I seek the Llano.”
    “Ah, the Llano!” he breathed. “I should have known!”
    “I am told that I may find it at the source of the Gypsies,” Orb continued. “But I am having trouble finding that source. I thought you might know it.”
    “I know the source, but not the Llano. I fear that even there you will not find what you seek.”
    “But if it is Gypsy music—”
    He shook his head. “The Llano is not ours. We only dream of it, no closer than any other. We long for it as our salvation, but it is denied to us.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You have not then heard the Story of the Nail.”
    “Nail?”
    “It is only a story,” he said depreciatingly.
    “But it relates?”
    “Perhaps.”
    “Then may I hear it?”
    “You know that the Tzigane are only nominally Christian, just as Gypsies in Moslem lands are only nominally devotees of Mohammed. We truly honor no belief but our own.”
    “I understand,” Orb said. In this, too, she had learned tolerance.
    “When the Romans set out to crucify Yeshua ben Miriam, whom others now know as Jesus, they required four stout nails for his hands and feet. In those days nails were scarce and valuable and had to be crafted individualy for the occasion. So they sent out two soldiers with eighty pennies in the currency of that day, to purchase the nails from a local blacksmith. But the soldiers, being indolent, stopped at an inn and spent half the coppers drinking the foul wine of Jerusalem. It was late in the day before they emerged, having spent half the money. They were due back with the nails by dusk and they were half-drunk, so they hurried to the nearest blacksmith and demanded that he make the four nails. But the man had seen Jesus, and refused to forge the nails to crucify him. Angry, the soldiers set his beard on fire, but he remained adamant. They