Deadspeak

Harry - the other's deadspeak thoughts drifted back to the Necroscope, and he sensed that they were a little troubled now, - you seem to me to be a very rare person: good, compassionate and wise in your own right, for all that you are young. And you say that you have recognized an older wisdom in me. Very well, so now I would ask you to accept some sensible advice from a wise old Traveller king. Go anywhere else but where you are going. Do anything else but that which you have set out to do!

Harry was puzzled, and not a little worried. Gypsies have strange talents, and the dead - even the recently dead - are not without theirs. How then a dead Gypsy king? 'Are you telling my fortune? It's a long time since I crossed a Traveller's palm with silver.'

The other vseized upon that: With silver, aye! My palms shall never know its feel again — but be sure my eyes are weighted with it! No, cross yourself with silver, Harry, cross yourself!

Now Harry wasn't merely puzzled but suspicious, too. What did this dead old man know? What could he possibly know, and what was he trying to say? Harry's thoughts weren't shielded; the Gypsy king picked them up and answered:

/ have said too much already. Some would consider me a traitor. Well, let them think it. For you are right: I'm old and I'm dead, and so can afford one last indulgence. But you have been kind, and death has put me beyond forfeiture.

'Your warning is an ominous thing,' said Harry. But there was no answer. Only a small cloud of dust, settling, showed where the caravans had passed from sight.

'My route is set!' Harry called after. 'That is the way I must go!'

A sigh drifted back. Only a sigh.

'Thanks anyway,' Harry answered sigh for sigh, and felt his shoulders sag a little. 'And goodbye.'

And he sensed the slow, sad shake of the other's head ...

At 11:00 a.m. Harry booked out of the Hotel Sarkad in Mezobereny and waited by the side of the road for his taxi. He carried only his holdall, which in fact held very little: his sleeping-bag, a small-scale map of the district in a side-pocket, and a packet of sandwiches made up for him by the hotel proprietor's daughter.

The sun was very hot and seemed intensified by the old boneshaker's dusty windows; it burned Harry's wrists where it fell on them, causing a sensation which he could only liken to prickly heat. At his first opportunity, in a village named Bekes, he called a brief halt to purchase a straw summer hat with a wide brim.

From Mezobereny to his drop-off point close to the Romanian border was about twenty kilometres. Before letting his driver go he checked with him that in fact his map was accurate, and that the border crossing point lay only two or three kilometres ahead at a place called Gyula.

'Gyula, yes,' said the taxi driver, pointing vaguely down the road. And again: 'Gyula. You will see them both, from the hill - the border, and Gyula.' Harry watched him turn his cab around and drive off, then hoisted his holdall to one shoulder and set off on foot. He could have taken the taxi closer to the border, but hadn't wanted to be seen arriving in that fashion. A man on foot is less noticeable on a country road.

And 'country' was what it was. Forests, green fields, crops, hedgerows, grazing animals: it seemed good land. But up ahead, across the border: there lay Transylvania's central massif. Not so darkly foreboding as the Meridional!, perhaps, but mountains awesome and threatening enough in their own right. Where the road crossed the crest of low, undulating hills, Harry could see the grey-blue peaks and domes maybe twenty-five miles away. They clung to the horizon, a sprawl of hazy crags obscured by distance and low-lying cloud. His destination.

And from that same vantage point he could also see the border post, its red- and white-striped barrier reaching out across the road from a timber, almost Austrian-styled chalet. Borders hadn't much bothered Harry, not when he had the use of the Möbius Continuum, but now they bothered him considerably. He knew that there was no way he was going to get past this one, not on the road, at least. But his uncomplicated plan had taken that into account. Now that he knew exactly where he was on the map (and the precise lie of the border), he would simply continue to act the tourist, spending the day quietly in some small village or hamlet. There he'd study his map until he knew the area intimately, and choose himself a safe route across into Romania. He knew the Securitatea were keen to keep Romanians in, but couldn't see that there'd be much to-do made about keeping foreigners out! After all, who but a madman would want to break in? Harry Keogh, that was who.

At the bottom of the hill was a T-junction where a third-class road (or half-metalled track, at least) cut north through dense woodland. And less than a mile through the woods... that must be Gyula. Harry could see hazy blue smoke rising from the chimneys in the near-distance, and the gleaming, bulbous domes of what were possibly churches. It looked a quiet enough place and should suit his purpose ideally.

But as he reached the bottom of the slope and turned left into the woods, he heard again that half-familiar jingle and saw in the shade of the trees those same Gypsy caravans which had passed under his window earlier in the day. They had not been here long and the Travellers were still setting up camp. One of the men, wearing black boots, leather trousers and a russet shirt, with a black-spotted bandana on his brow to trap and control his long, shiny black locks, was perched on a leaning fence chewing a blade of grass. Smiling and nodding as Harry drew level, he said:

'Ho, stranger! You walk alone. Why not sit a while and take a drink, to cut the dust from your throat?' He held up a long, slim bottle of slivovitz. 'The slivas were sharp the year they brewed this one!'

Harry began to shake his head, then thought: why not? He could just as easily study his map sat under a tree as anywhere else. And draw less attention to himself, at that. 'That's very kind of you,' he answered, following up immediately with: 'Why, you speak my language!'

The other gri

Harry walked into the camp with him. 'How did you know I was English?'

'Because you weren't Hungarian! And because the Germans don't much come here anymore. Also, if you were French there would be two or three of you, in shorts, on bicycles. Anyway, I didn't know. And if you hadn't answered me, why, I still wouldn't, not for sure! But... you look English.'

Harry looked at the caravans with their ornate, curiously carved sigils, their painted and varnished woodwork. The various symbols were so stylized they seemed to flow into and become one with the fancy scrolls of the general decoration, almost as if they'd been deliberately concealed in the design. And looking closer - but yet maintaining an attitude of casual observation - he saw that he was right and they had been so concealed.

His interest in this regard centred on the funeral vehicle, which stood a little apart from the rest. Two women in mourning black sat side by side on its steps, their heads on their bosoms, arms hanging slackly by their sides. 'A dead king,' said Harry... and out of the corner of his eye watched his new friend give a start. Things began to piece themselves together in his mind, like bits of a puzzle forming up into a picture.

'How did you know?'

Harry shrugged. 'Under all the flowers and garlic, that's a good rich caravan and fit for a Traveller king. It carries his coffin, right?'

Two of them,' said the other, regarding Harry in a new, perhaps slightly more cautious light.

'Oh?'

'The other one is for his wife. She's the thin one on the steps there. Her heart is broken. She doesn't think she'll survive him very long.'