The Seeker - Isobelle Carmody [109]
“Gypsies,” one spat. Gilbert frowned but made no comment, shepherding us through a door into an unadorned room.
The other men continued farther into the building, leaving us alone except for Gilbert. I tried again to breach the block but with no success. It was incredible to think such mental blindness was considered normal.
“Gypsies, eh?” Gilbert said, leaning against the door. “Where were you really headed? The main road would be much quicker than any so-called Olden way.”
I stepped up to him boldly. “I told you already, or are you as deaf as that gatewarden was blind? We are to meet my father in Arandelft.”
Instead of becoming angry, Gilbert threw back his head and laughed with real amusement. “I wondered why a scrap of a girl was the leader over grown men, but now I see you carry the sharpest weapon in your wicked tongue.”
“Why have you brought us here?” I demanded.
Gilbert smiled. “I am the one asking the questions. Tell me, where have you come from, if you insist you are going to Arandelft?”
I hesitated. “We have been in the high mountain country.”
I heard a smothered gasp from Kella, but fortunately Gilbert was too intent on my answer to register it.
“Then … you must have seen Obernewtyn?” he said.
I shrugged carelessly. “Of course.” From the corner of my eye, I could see Matthew looking at me as if I had gone mad.
“Why did you go up there?” Gilbert asked guardedly.
“Why does a gypsy travel anywhere? For silver. My father said there would be winter lodgings there and work to trade for it. He wanted to try trapping a snow bear. One sold in Sutrium last moon fair for a Councilman’s ransom.” I smiled as if the thought of such wealth excited me, then I let my face fall.
“But everything went wrong. There was a curse on that place, and we laid another in leaving. A firestorm had all but laid it to waste. There was nothing left but a few rough huts made of the ruins. The people remaining had no room or food to spare. Then my cousin fell sick, and I had to wait for him while the rest went on without us. And now this,” I snorted petulantly.
“So, there was a firestorm,” Gilbert murmured.
“We were supposed to meet the troupe at Arandelft in time for the harvest of eben berries,” Matthew said.
Gilbert looked at him and grinned. “So, you can speak. I thought you were all mute, having this grubby wench speak for you.”
I held my breath, hoping Matthew would have the sense to see he was being deliberately needled. He only shrugged sullenly and fell silent.
The robed man returned, and Gilbert spoke to him in a low voice. His pale eyes rested thoughtfully on me.
“Take the men to the compound, the boy to the other children, and the girl to Rilla,” the robed man told Gilbert. “You will come with me,” he instructed me coldly.
He led me down the hall to another door.
“… but how can we have missed it …” A deep voice floated out as we entered. I blinked, dazzled by the sunlight streaming from a huge window. The room was an enclosed fern garden. There was a long table covered in books and papers and surrounded by chairs. A number of robed men and several dressed like Gilbert clustered around the head of the table.
“Forgive me, lord,” said the man who had brought me there.
Those bending over the table drew back to reveal a white-bearded man seated in their midst. He wore a plain cream-colored robe like the others, yet there was an aura of authority about him. He had the thin face and body of an ascetic, but his features were curiously mismatched—a beaky nose, a jutting chin, and beetling silver brows. His eyes were his sole visible beauty, dark and strangely compelling. Such eyes might easily see into a person’s mind. I met his penetrating gaze uneasily.
“Who is this?” he asked in a low, sweet voice.
“This is the gypsy girl I mentioned a moment ago. But I had not realized then