Angelica Read Online Free Page B

and they rode next to each other for the first few miles. “And did you have a successful day?” she asked him. “Were the ironmongers helpful?”
    Dathan laughed. “Yes, indeed! You cannot imagine how much time it took us to barter for the best metal at the best price, and naturally we had to examine each link and joint for any sign of weakness, but I am sure that we came away with good material that will serve us well.”
    â€œAnd then, of course, you had to spend some time celebrating your new acquisitions,” she said.
    â€œA man must celebrate life’s simple joys,” he said.
    She tried asking him a few questions that were more serious, but the replies he gave were nonsensical or incomplete, and she gave up. He rarely drank while the Lohoras were on the road, though when they camped for a few days he would take wine with his evening meal. And at the Gatherings—well, there was many an Edori, male and female, who imbibed too much at that great festival. This was not such a gross transgression. She really did not mind.
    She ranged ahead of him to check on Amram, who sat quite determinedly in the saddle and swore he felt no fatigue at all. She interrogated him rather more closely, for she knew his father had not watched him all day, and she wanted tomake sure he had gotten in no trouble and had fed himself a noon meal besides. But he answered satisfactorily, and even showed her some pipes and whistles he’d bought at a music academy, and so she concluded that he’d spent his day at least as profitably as the rest of them.
    She kicked her mare forward so she could ride with Keren for a while when Bartholomew, who was in the lead, pulled his horse to a sudden stop. Perforce the rest of them halted behind him. They were about an hour outside of the city by this time, and a thin twilight had washed the sky with gold, but visibility was not perfect. Bartholomew squinted a little and pointed with his left hand.
    â€œCampfire? Over there? Did we pass another campsite on our way into the city?” he asked.
    Susannah looked and, sure enough, she could see gray smoke rising up from a central point about half a mile away. It did not look like smoke from a campfire, she thought, though she was not sure why. Perhaps because it did not curl up in one smooth tendril, but seemed to rise from an area so broad that no one would build a campfire that big, not even at the Gathering.
    â€œPerhaps another clan arrived while we were in the city,” Eleazar said. “The Corvallas come this way sometimes in the summer.”
    â€œAnd the Chicatas,” Thaddeus added.
    â€œGood news, then!” Dathan said recklessly. “Let’s go invite them to our camp for the night. We have traveled alone for months now. It would be good to have some company at the fire.”
    It annoyed Susannah, just a little, that he would say such a thing; Dathan was never so happy as when he could meet a stranger. It was as if the familiar and the beloved were never quite enough for him. But she strangled her resentment and quickly added her voice to the general murmur of approval that ran through the group.
    â€œIt might not be Edori,” Bartholomew warned. “It might be Jansai.” That silenced them a bit. The gypsy Jansai clans were almost as mobile as the Edori, though most of them returned from time to time to their single permanent settlement, a city called Breven, which was set up in the desertregion on the far eastern edge of Jordana. The Jansai were merchant traders, and not always strictly honest, and they treated their women like rare possessions that must be hidden from all outside eyes. In general, the Edori could not fathom the Jansai and the Jansai lifestyle—and at times, for no real reason, the Edori feared the Jansai, just a little. The Edori were always wary when they came across the gypsies.
    â€œEven so, let us see who is camped here,” Thaddeus said.