The Silver Blade Read Free

abandoned graveyard, filled with silver birch trees which stood guardian over the crumbling tombstones and broken, wingless angels. In the middle were the skeletal remains of a church, its roof long gone, only three walls preventing it from total collapse.

    Yann moved towards it, quickly followed by Didier, both glad at last to have some protection, feeble as it was, from the spiteful wind which hissed and wheezed round the masonry.

    Looking into the bleakness of that devil-dark night, Yann heard no wolf howl, he heard nothing but his own gallow’s-bird thoughts.

    Why hasn’t Sido replied to my letter? Three weeks and not a word. Perhaps I misunderstood her. What did she write?

    Oh Yann, I long for thee.
Come back to me.

    No, I didn’t misunderstand her. We have hidden nothing from each other. Nothing. Except I have never told her I’m a gypsy. I will when the time is right. Now I have told her what I should have told her ages ago, that I love her.

    In the dark of the forest, in the light of his imagination, he pictured Sido as they had stood alone in the garden two years before, the smell of sea and autumn in the air, that moment when he had kissed her and held her. Why hadn’t he had the courage to tell her then he loved her? Instead he had given her his precious talisman to wear, an amulet, the baro seroeske sharkuni , the shell of the shells. She had held it in her hands and brought it to her lips as he turned and walked away. She had whispered into it and he heard her words, soft as the waves kissing the sea shore. Even then he could have changed everything. Why hadn’t he? It was simple: he wanted to earn her love, to prove, despite his gypsy blood, he was worthy of her.

    That was when he started writing to her, frightened he might have lost her altogether. Soon their letters, dangerous as they were, became their lifeline, each more poignant, yet still skimming over what they longed to say.

    Why do I torment myself? I am a tightrope walker over the Valley of Death. If I lose my balance I am lost. Sido’s feet are on the ground, she owns all her tomorrows, has all her years to be arranged. A suitable husband, children. She lives in another country, her time is measured by another clock, her life has longitude and latitude, mine has only now. If I live to see the end of the Terror, I will be a fortunate man.

    He hit his hand hard against the side of the building. Didier looked at him.

    ‘Are you all right?’

    ‘Yes,’ mumbled Yann.

    I love her. What is wrong with that? Everything, and I know it. It will take more than a revolution before society smiles on a gypsy marrying a marquis’s daughter.

    ‘Can you hear it now?’ said Didier.

    Hell, why haven’t I been paying better attention? Didier is right. And a wolf at the beginning of a journey is not a good omen to French gypsies.

    ‘Yes,’ said Yann.

    Didier had started shivering. ‘I don’t like this place. It may sound daft, but my feet don’t feel as though they’re standing on solid ground.’

    Yann had the same feeling.

    ‘Is it man or beast?’ asked Didier, blowing into his mittened hands.

    ‘I’m not sure.’

    Didier looked about nervously.

    ‘That’s not like you,’ he whispered. ‘Can’t you see none of those threads of light thingumajigs you always see?’

    The threads of light, thought Yann. Why are there no threads of light? Even tables, chairs, have straight ones. Everything has threads of light … except the dead.

    ‘Shh!’ said Yann.

    A twig snapped.

    Didier stood stock-still, feeling the hairs prickle on the back of his neck. All around him was an endless, wet, smothering, velvety blackness.

    ‘It’s something evil, I feel it,’ he whispered to Yann.

    ‘It belongs to the darkness, not the light, that’s all I know.’

    They walked through the graveyard, Didier clinging to Yann’s coat, fearful of losing him. They passed the broken remains of a large dovecote and emerged in the formal gardens