LITMIR.BIZ

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happens to you, horse-master and spy, when the Embassy closes down?’

      Gitan shrugged. The British Embassy was one of the last in Paris. After the slaughter of this week it would undoubtedly close. ‘There’s always a job for a good horse-master.’

      ‘Like a whore or lawyer, eh?’ Marchenoir’s pouchy, bloodshot eyes watched the Gypsy. ‘Does your little English lord want you to stay with him?’

      Gitan paused, then nodded. ‘Yes.’

      Marchenoir smiled. ‘Tell me, horse-master, do you know who your little lordling’s father is?’

      ‘He’s an earl.’

      ‘An earl.’ Marchenoir said the word with distaste. His bitter hatred for the aristocracy was at the root of his fame. ‘But not just any earl, horse-master. Before his accident he was Britain’s spymaster. Did you know that?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘The British spymaster.’ Marchenoir said it as though he spoke of a terrible ogre to a small child. He laughed and spat another shred of leaf towards the blood. ‘Lord of the English spies! The Lazenders are so damned deep into spying that they’ve got eyes in their backsides. Your little lordling’s a spy, isn’t he?’

      The Gypsy did not reply, though he knew the accusation was true. Lord Werlatton’s job in the Paris Embassy was to entertain the politicians and bureaucrats of Paris. He would lavish champagne and luxury upon them, and leave the rest to their indiscretions.

      Marchenoir pointed the cigar at Gitan. ‘So will you go to England with your lord, Gypsy?’

      ‘I don’t know.’

      Marchenoir stared at him, as if considering the truth of the answer. Slowly, he smiled. ‘I want you to go with him.’ The Gypsy said nothing. Marchenoir spoke softly. ‘I want you to go, Gitan, because soon we will be at war with England, and because the English will ask you to become a spy.’

      The Gypsy shrugged. ‘Why would they ask me?’

      ‘God made the gypsies fools?’ Marchenoir’s smile took the sting from the words. ‘They will have a French-speaking man whom they know has friends in Paris. Of course they’ll recruit you! They will think you work for them, but really you will work for me.’ He said the last words slowly and forcefully.

      ‘For you?’

      ‘I need a messenger, horse-master, who can travel between here and London. A messenger who can travel in utter safety.’ Marchenoir’s voice was low and urgent. ‘So let them recruit you. In England they will protect you, and in France we will protect you. What could be more perfect? Our enemy will be your friend.’

      The Gypsy did not speak or move. His odd, light blue eyes stared at the other man, his long black hair clung to shadow his thin face.

      Marchenoir pointed to the candle with his cigar. His voice was still low. ‘It is not I who ask, Gitan, nor France. It is that.’

      The Gypsy looked at the flame. He knew the secret message that was being given to him. The candle gave light, and light was reason, and reason was the gospel of the Illuminati. ‘For reason?’

      Marchenoir smiled. His voice was low. ‘For reason, which is above the law.’

      The Gypsy looked from the candle to the powerful man. For the first time the Gypsy smiled easily, his fear of Marchenoir gone. Now he knew why such an important man had sought him out. Even Gitan’s voice seemed to change. He no longer was wary, he spoke now as if to an equal because he had discovered that this most dangerous, forceful man was, like himself, a member of the secret Illuminati. ‘I sometimes feared that the brethren slept.’

      ‘No, my friend. So? Will you be our messenger?’

      Gitan still smiled. He gestured at the candle. ‘Of course.’

      Marchenoir grunted approval and struggled to his feet. ‘There will be rewards, Gitan.’ He waved his cigar at the body. ‘We’re going to strip these bastards of everything, everything!’ He stared at what was left on the floor. ‘She was going to marry your English lord, yes?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Your English lord.’ Marchenoir’s voice was suddenly bitter. ‘His mother was a d’Auxigny. I grew up in Auxigny. We had to kneel in the mud if one of the family went past. Even if the coach was a half mile away we had to kneel. Even if we were thigh deep in muck we had to kneel. All between the river and the mountain belonged to Auxigny, and that included us.’ He laughed. ‘Do you know who the present owner of Auxigny is?’

      Gitan smiled at the big man. ‘You, citizen!’

      ‘Me!’ Marchenoir pointed at his breast with his cigar. ‘Perhaps I’ll turn it into a brothel of aristo bitches.’ He nudged the sack with his dirty boot. ‘That’s one at least I won’t have to kneel to again.’ He laughed as he walked to the cell door. ‘Good hunting, my friend. See me before you leave Paris!’ He was in the corridor now, his voice booming behind him as he walked away. ‘Come and drink to our success, Gitan!’ He laughed again, then sang a line of the new song that was sweeping through Paris. ‘The day of glory has arrived!’ The smell of his cigar lingered in the stink of blood, urine and flesh. He shouted once more, his voice fading. ‘Forward! Forward!’

      The Gypsy did not move for a long time after the politician had gone. He stared at the candle. Then, at last, he stepped to the window, took the damp cigar stub from the dead girl’s lips, and threw it into the darkness.

      He finished his work, tying the neck of the sack over the long, black hair of a girl who had been beautiful before this day, then he carried his soggy burden down to where carts were being loaded with the white, naked bodies of the enemies of the state.

      His horse, untethered still, whinnied and came towards him. The Gypsy mounted, the sack heavy in his hand, and rode into a night that was filled with the smell of death, into a city exhausted by massacre. Yet he knew there would be more blood, far more; these deaths were just a beginning, enough to give the new men who had risen to power the taste of slaughter.

      He thought of Marchenoir, of the candle’s secret message, and smiled in pleasure. He was the Gypsy, the black dressed horseman who would ride through the horrors on the secret, silent path of the traitor, just as he now rode through a silent, dark, frightened city with his burden of death. He rode unafraid through a city of fear; he was the Gypsy.

       2

      Rain threatened Lazen. Since dawn the clouds had been low over the hills that edged the Lazen valley, and the wind that came from the west was cold as though it brought the chill of the long grey waves from beyond Cornwall.

      The Lady Campion Lazender, dressed in a plain blue linen dress covered with a blue cloak, was riding, in a most unladylike manner, over a newly ploughed field. She rode astride, careless that her ankles showed.

      At the edge of the field she turned the horse back. The field was muddy, heavy with the rain that had fallen in the night. She kicked her heels to force the mare into a trot.

      ‘She’s a rare looking girl, Mr Burroughs,’ said a tall, bald man who stood at the field’s edge.

      ‘That she is.’ Simon Burroughs was the Castle’s head coachman, a rank denoted by the six capes of his greatcoat and by the curled whip he carried in his gloved right hand.

      ‘Mare goes well for her!’ The bald man was hopeful that her Ladyship would buy the mare from him.

      ‘Maybe.’ Burroughs would not commit himself.

      Campion turned the horse again, and forced it into a canter. She leaned forward, trying to hear if the breath was whistling in the mare’s pipes. ‘Come on, girl! Come on!’ She slapped its neck.

      The owner of the horse, Harry Trapp, was a farmer who had

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