Elric Swords and Roses - Michael Moorcock [37]
“Raggle-taggle, indeed,” says Master Wheldrake, putting his huge red handkerchief to his face and coughing mightily. “Pray tell me, sir—where does this great road go?”
“Go, man?” The gypsy shakes his head in disbelief. “Why nowhere and everywhere. This is our road. The road of the Free Travelers. It follows itself, little poet! It winds around the world!”
CHAPTER FOUR
On Joining the Gypsies. Some Unusual Definitions Concerning the Nature of Liberty.
And now, as Elric and his companions wandered in amazement amongst the advancing wheels, they saw that behind this first rank of moving villages came a vast mass of people; men, women and children of all ages, of all classes and in all conditions, talking and arguing and playing games as they went, some walking with an air of unconcerned familiarity in the wake of those pounding rims; others unaccountably miserable, hats in hands, weeping; their dogs and other domestic animals with them, like people on a pilgrimage. The mounted gypsies had disappeared by now, to join their own kind, and had no interest at all in the three they had found.
Wheldrake leaned down from his horse and addressed a genial matron, of the type which often took a fancy to him. His hat was swept from his red comb, his little bantam’s eyes sparkled. “Forgive me for this interruption, madam. We are newcomers to your nation and thought perhaps we should seek out your authorities …”
“There are no authorities, little rooster, in the Gypsy Nation.” She laughed at this absurdity. “We are all free here. We have a council, but it does not meet until the next season. If you would join us, as it seems you have already done, then you must find a village which will accept you. Failing that, you must walk.” She pointed behind her without interrupting her stride. “Back there is best. The forward villages tend to be full of purebloods and they are never very welcoming. But someone there will be glad to take you in.”
“We’re obliged to you, ma’am.”
“Many welcome the horseman,” she said, as if quoting an old adage. “There is none more free than the gypsy rider.”
On through this great march, which spanned the road from bank to squalid bank, rode Elric, Wheldrake and the Rose, sometimes greeting those who walked, sometimes being greeted in turn. There was in many parts a festive quality to the throng. There were snatches of song from here and there, a sudden merry barrel-organ reel, the sound of a fiddle. And elsewhere, in rhythm with their stride, people joined in a popular chant.
“We have sworn the Gypsy Oath,
To uphold the Gypsy Law,
Death to all who disobey!
Death to all who disobey!”
Of which Wheldrake was disapproving on a number of moral, ethical, aesthetic and metrical counts. “I’m all for primitivism, friend Elric, but primitivism of the finer type. This is mere xenophobia. Scarcely a national epic …”
—But which the Rose found charming.
While Elric, lifting his head as a dragon might, to scent the wind, caught sight of a boy running at unseemly speed from beneath the wheels of one of the gigantic platforms and over to the banks of refuse (now being freshened by every settlement that rolled slowly by). The boy was trying to scramble up armed with pieces of board on hands and feet which were meant to aid his progress but actually only hampered him.
He was wild with terror now and screaming, but the chanting crowd marched by as if he did not exist. The boy tried to climb back to the road but the boards trapped him further. Again his cry was piteous over the confident chanting