Dangerous Obsession Read online

  I waited, giving him one more chance to relent. Silence.

  I whirled and ran out of the room. I raced up the stairs to my attic and threw myself down on the red eiderdown. I shivered violently, but not from the cold. That business in the drawing room terrified me. Had I really seen his fortune?

  I rolled over and buried my head in my arms. I knew as well as any Gypsy that fortune-telling was only a joke, an easy way of getting the gorgio to part with his gold. It was important to Gypsies in another way, of course. Because the gorgio believed that Gypsies were endowed with special gifts, they feared them and respected their privacy. And the true gift of prophecy was as rare among Gypsies as it was among the gorgio.

  But it was forbidden to Gypsies to practice fortune-telling among themselves. To believe in such things was considered a real sign of weakness. A person who wants to hear things he already knows, his past, is a fool. And one who is eager to know what the future holds has lost his ability to deal with real life in the present. For Gypsies, life is present. Life is now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Forget the past and let tomorrow take care of itself. Live for today.

  Yet as I had held Seth Garrett’s hand, a curtain had lifted in some compartment of my brain. I had really seen the dark-haired woman and the fair-haired man, and I had seen her on her deathbed. As that picture cleared away another had taken its place: my own face! And then waves of blood had washed over everything. A bad omen, that. Really bad. I had felt the presence of Death in that room. But whose death? My own? The stranger’s?

  I felt confused and distressed. I pulled my quilt tighter around me and tried to think clearly. Surely, to believe what I had seen was just as bad as having my fortune told by another Gypsy. In the fourteen (or fifteen) years I had lived as a Gypsy, I had had my fortune told only once, and even then I hadn’t been quite sure just what was happening.

  It was the day that the Grandfather came to take me away. I bid my father and stepmother and little brothers farewell. As the Grandfather and I made ready to leave. I saw Django lurking in the shadows near my father’s wagon. Django was my betrothed. We were to have been married in the autumn. I ran over to him.

  “I will come back,” I promised him. “Before the grain is ripe again, I will return.” Then I picked up a small jug of wine and dashed it against a rock. “May my skull be crushed like this jar, and may my blood flow into the ground if I do not come back.” Gypsies do not make vows lightly. Django and I both knew that this was a very solemn moment.

  Just then the ancient crone Ursula appeared and pulled me into the dappled gloom of the birch grove. I had always been wary of the old woman. I felt that she disliked me because I was different from the rest, because my hair was gold instead of black, because my mother was not Gypsy.

  “Yes, you will return,” the old woman said in a cackling whisper. She held my hand in a grip of iron and her eyes gleamed in her shrunken face like polished onyx beads. Her skin felt dry and unresilient, like paper. No one knew how old Ursula really was. The grove fell silent. The birds were hushed and the wind was still and not a sound came from the nearby ring of caravans. The whole world seemed to listen to the old woman’s words. “You will come back after the ripening of the grain. You will come with a man, a gorgio, and you will go away with him again. His journey will be your journey. You will be Gypsy no more.”

  “No!” I cried. “I will always be Gypsy!”

  “Silence!” Ursula barked. “You will find us,” she went on, “but you will never see us again. Now be off!”

  As I ran away from the birch grove, my head was whirling. What on earth had she meant? I would be Gypsy until I died, I was sure of it! And that nonsense about not seeing them when I found them! The old woman was very near death, I thought, and her brains must be halfway into her next life already.

  Now I wasn’t so sure. Did the old woman have the gift of prophecy, too? She had said that I would return with a gorgio. That could mean Seth Garrett. I would trick him into taking me to Bryansk, that would be no problem. Of course the Gypsies would be long gone, but he couldn’t abandon me there and he would have to help me find them. So, I would travel with him to Bryansk, and I would go away from there with him. Just as Ursula had foreseen. The vision of my face in his hand confirmed it. And perhaps the attempts of my uncle and aunt to turn me into a gorgio would explain the words, “Gypsy no more.” I was tainted from living with them, but all that would surely disappear when I got back to the tribe.

  Ursula had spoken the truth, and what I had seen was also true. But what about the horror of death that had come over me? I hoped fervently that that part had been a mistake, a false vision.

  I knew what I had to do. My course was settled, my plans laid. I threw off my quilt and got dressed. I put on a red paisley blouse with full sleeves, and five voluminous skirts of brightly-colored cotton, one right on top of the other. I wrapped two fringed shawls around my shoulders and tied a small scarf around my head and another around my neck. I brought out my Gypsy bangles from their hiding place under a floor board and slid them over my wrists. Their metallic jangle sounded beautiful to my ears, like Gypsy music. Finally I pulled on the soft red leather boots that had been a gift from the Grandfather. I gathered my few possessions up inside my quilt: my small round crystal for fortune-telling, the richly-tooled bridle that the Grandfather had given me when I cured his horse Blaze, and the small icon that had been my mother’s.

  Everything was ready. I now had no doubt at all that the gorgio stranger was destined to take me back to the Gypsies. I would leave this house at dawn, with or without his knowledge and consent. I went downstairs to see what I could steal.

  I had heard that my uncle kept a money box in his study, just off the dining room. The box would be locked, of course, but I wasn’t worried. I had a pin or two in my hair and several hours until dawn. The door to the study was locked, but it took me only a minute or two to open it. I parted the curtains at the windows so that the glow of the city would help me in my work. I didn’t dare light a candle. Alexei’s big desk dominated the room. All the drawers were open, except one. A few twists of my hairpin gave me access to its contents—a large deal box, banded with metal. A padlock as big as my fist clanked against the front of the box.

  I shook my head disapprovingly. “So many worries, so many locks,” I clucked softly. “This man doesn’t trust anybody.”

  The padlock was stubborn, but I was patient and deft. I worked carefully with my primitive burglar’s tools, with one ear cocked for sounds of danger. Click. At last the lock yielded to my efforts. Hurriedly I pulled it off the big brass hasp and opened the lid. My heart sank. The box was empty. But wait, there was a small brown-paper parcel in one corner. I should have known that anyone who gambled as recklessly as Alexei wouldn’t have any spare cash lying around the house. But the parcel contained a single bracelet, one which I had never seen my aunt wearing. As I held it up for inspection it winked at me, even in the soft, dim light. I had heard that there were such things as diamonds but I had never seen them before. They were hard and cold, but beautiful. I slipped the bracelet into my pocket, closed the lid of the box and snapped the lock back in place.

  "Gypsy thief.”

  My blood froze in my veins. Alexei stood glowering at me from the doorway.

  “You are mistaken, Alexei Nicolayevitch, in what you see here,” I said rapidly. “I found this box in the hallway—a thief must have dropped it. But see, it hasn’t been opened! He must have heard me moving around and frightened—”

  "Liar," he growled. He came closer. I sidled around the desk, hoping to make a break for the door. “Little Gypsy scum. I’ve got you now! I would be justified in killing you, wouldn’t I? And now there’s no one around to interfere.” I faked a lunge in one direction, and when he moved to follow, I whipped around the other side of the desk and tore out the door. He pounded after me, breathing hard. I got confused in the darkness and made a fatal wrong turn out of the dining room, away from the stairs. Wh
en I discovered my mistake and changed direction, I saw that Alexei had the stairs blocked. I had no choice but to dart into the drawing room and hope I could get the key turned in the lock before he caught up with me.

  But Alexei was swifter than I anticipated, and just as I closed the doors he threw himself at them. They burst open and I sprawled backwards, catching the heel of my boot in the rug. I fell and Alexei threw himself down on top of me. Cursing and reviling me, he grabbed my ears and pounded my head against the floor. He was so vast, so heavy that I couldn’t move. I could only twitch my arms and legs like a frog crushed under a stone. Any blows I struck made no impression on him at all.

  I noticed that the candles in the room were still burning. Vasilly, that poor old devil, had probably fallen asleep somewhere and forgotten to come and put them out. A few of them had extinguished themselves in pools of their own wax. Other small flames jumped and flickered, casting crazy shadows on the walls. I could see Alexei’s shadow, heaving and jerking like a mountain in an earthquake.

  He lowered his face to mine and kissed me wetly. A tide of loathing rose in my throat. I felt suffocated, overwhelmed. Then he shoved his meaty hand under my skirts and grasped my buttock. I squealed far back in my throat like a rabbit caught in a trap.

  He chuckled. “Ah, so now you’re afraid of me, eh, Gypsy?” he rasped. “What’s the matter, don’t you like to be kissed? Little Gypsy slut!”

  I was breathless and I couldn’t cry out. He jammed himself between my thighs, deep into me. I felt a searing pain, and then a numbness which persisted while he came crashing into me with his loins, groaning and gasping like a man in mortal pain. I closed my eyes and waited for the siege to end. I tried to think of other things, of horses and flying and Django.

  Finally he gave a thunderous wheeze and collapsed with his full weight on top of me, his energy spent. I nearly passed out when that mountain came to rest on my frail body, and I was reminded of a flattened rosebud I had found once in a book in the Grandfather’s library. Dry, lifeless, squashed into paper thinness. A bad omen, that flower. Gypsies don’t believe in picking flowers, because it kills them, and that’s bad luck.

  Then through the haze of pain and shame and hatred that enveloped my brain, I heard a familiar voice.

  “I thought I told you before, Count. She is my virgin.” The weight lifted. I moaned and rolled onto my side, pulling my knees up to my chest.

  "You had better learn to mind your own business, Monsieur,” my uncle growled. “Take your hands off me!”

  I would think that even in this backward land, rape and incest would be regarded as crimes,” Seth Garrett said. The girl is your niece, is she not?”

  “That is my affair,” Alexei snarled. “Get away from me!”

  He threw the stranger away from him. Seth Garrett fell back into a small table. Instead of attacking the man, Alexei dashed to the fireplace. Over the mantle hung crossed sabers, souvenirs of an earlier bellicose generation of Oulianovs. Snatching one down, Alexei brandished it at the intruder.

  “And now I’m going to spit you on this steel, Monsieur,” he said with grim satisfaction. “I am master here, no one else! What I do with this Gypsy baggage is my own affair. She deserved what she got. She is a liar and a thief!” Seth Garrett dove behind a chair as Alexei sliced the air with the saber. I saw that the stranger was wearing his boots again, but not his coat or waistcoat. His ruffled shirt was open to the waist, revealing a brown, brawny chest covered with a mat of soft, dark fur. Alexei pressed the attack. Seth snatched up a small table and held it in front of him, using the top as a shield. He was fresh for the fight while Alexei, his vigor somewhat sapped by his attack on me, soon showed signs of flagging. But Alexei held the weapon, and it was only a matter of time before he broke through the stranger’s defense and had him backed into a corner. Seth grabbed a candlestick and used it to deflect those blows that evaded his shield. I don’t know how he managed to avoid the curved blade, which seemed to me to cut in a thousand directions at the same time.

  I staggered to the fireplace, and reaching up I grabbed the hilt of the remaining saber and pulled it off the wall. I planned to attack Alexei from the rear, but the weapon was fearfully heavy and it dragged at my arm. I couldn’t possibly use it effectively.

  “Over here!” Seth Garrett shouted.

  In a flash I sent the saber skittering across the floor to his corner. He held the little table over his head with one hand while he crouched down and took hold of the saber with the other. Alexei’s blade crashed down on the wood, slicing off a piece from the edge. Then Seth straightened up and tossed the table aside.

  “And now we are equal, Count,” he said softly. “Man to man. Blade to blade.”

  “I will cut you into pieces and feed you to the wolves,” my uncle hissed. With a wild cry that was calculated to frighten, but which only succeeded in provoking a grin from Seth Garrett, he launched himself at the stranger, his saber poised to lop off his opponent’s head. Seth parried the cut neatly, but the clash of steel on steel sent shivers up and down my spine. There was a flurry of swordplay. I am sure that the only reason the din of battle didn’t rouse everyone in the house was that the stranger had remembered to close the doors when he came in. Of course the family’s sleeping quarters were at the other end of the house from the guest rooms, which were directly above us. And the serfs knew better than to interfere in anything.

  Alexei didn’t seem to be planning his moves at all. He slashed in all directions, hoping at some point to make contact with Seth’s body. But the stranger never let him get close. He was cool and deft, and once he had sized up his opponent as a lumbering bear who had no idea at all of the rudiments of saber-play, only a mad desire to draw blood, he relaxed and waited for the Count himself to present the moment for the finishing blow.

  My uncle was sweating profusely and breathing heavily. He lowered the sphere of his attack and slashed at Seth Garrett’s weak leg. But in doing that he left his upper chest exposed, and Seth’s saber cut into his upper arm as easily as a razor into a cooked potato. My uncle reeled back and fell heavily at my feet.

  I recoiled, as if a serpent had come too close to me. Seth Garrett looked grim. He stood panting, then he threw down his saber and turned his back on the fallen man.

  Alexei reached inside his coat and pulled out a tiny pistol. There was no time to cry out a warning. Without even thinking, I picked up the nearest heavy object, a dazzling malachite vase, brilliant and green as a tiger’s eyes, and I brought it down heavily on my uncle’s head. I poured every ounce of my hatred for him into that blow, and as soon as the stone met his skull, I knew I had killed him.

  I wasn’t sorry then, and I’m not sorry now. He was evil. He had done me a great wrong. He would have killed Seth Garrett and he wanted to kill me. He was deserving of death as any poisonous snake.

  He gave a horrible gurgling gasp and fell back. His eyes were open but blind. A sea of blood flowed onto the carpet “May God forgive you the evil you have done," I whispered. “For surely I cannot."

  I wasn’t even aware that I was trembling until Seth put his hands on me to move me away from the body.

  “Go upstairs, quickly," he said. “They’ll think I did it, but by the time they discover him I’ll be long gone. Go now!"

  “No!“ I said. “I’m going with you. I must!”

  “You’re crazy!" he hissed. “Haven’t you done enough for one night? If it hadn’t been for you—”

  “If it hadn’t been for me you would be dead and not he," I informed him. We were both whispering. If we were found now and the alarm raised, we would never get away “But if that’s the thanks I get for saving you—"

  “I saved you first!" he snapped. “Damn. I won’t take you. Get out of here before it’s too late.“

  I dipped down, snatched up my uncle’s pistol, and pointed it at the man’s chest.

  ‘‘If you do not take me, you will not leave here yourself,” I promised. “I have killed once tonig
ht. It doesn’t matter to me—”

  His blue eyes glinted like the steel of the discarded saber. The pistol bobbled in my shaking hand, but I gritted my teeth and steadied it with my free hand. I was fully determined to kill this man if he thwarted my escape.

  “Don’t be a little fool,” he growled. He reached out and plucked the gun out of my fingers, as easily as if he were picking an apple off a low-hanging bough. Only then did the horrors of the evening overwhelm me. I felt weak and dizzy and I pitched forward into his arms. Tears rained down my cheeks and my teeth rattled in my head like the seeds inside a dried gourd.

  “I had to k-k-kill him!” I said. “He d-d-dishonored me! I had t-to!”

  “Listen to me, girl.” His fingers dug into my flesh and he stood me on my feet again. “There will be time enough for hysterics later. We’ve got to get out of here. Wait here while I get my things—”

  “No!” I cast a sideways glance at my uncle’s bloody corpse. I shook myself free of Seth Garrett and sucked in great lungfuls of air to clear my head. “No,” I said calmly, “it is better if I go. I can move as silently as a cat and as quickly as a fox. You stay with him and I will bring your things, then if anyone comes you can kill them, too.” He thought a moment, then nodded curtly. I slipped out of the drawing room into the icy hallway. I was one with the darkness and I was as stealthy as a hungry Gypsy stalking a wary chicken. I ran up to the attic first and scooped up my eiderdown bundle, then I went down to the stranger’s room. His large valise was packed. I gathered it up with his coat, his stock and waistcoat, and his stick. Then I went out into the hallway and back down the stairs to the drawing room.