Power Play

Neither of them knew that their whispered confidences were being overheard. Rafe had crept into the barn while they were kissing, and was now standing in a shadowy corner, watching and listening.

A fierce rage possessed him. Layla was his…but she had shamed him by giving herself to this gorgio. She had broken the most important of the Romany rules. She was a wanton who would be cast out by the tribe if they knew what she had done. She wasn’t fit to be his woman, but even so he would take her and show her just what she had scorned by giving herself instead to her pretty gorgio lover. But first…

Neither of them saw him move until he was close enough to reach out and push Layla away from Duncan. His knife, so sharp and so deadly, slid between Duncan’s ribs with ease, and up towards the heart.

Duncan made a small sound, a choked protest, that brought a rush of blood to his lips as he dropped to the floor. Rafe had stabbed him through the heart, and as Layla watched with horrified, disbelieving eyes she saw him die in front of her, still reaching out towards her, his eyes so terrified and frightened that she knew she would carry their expression with her to the grave.

As Rafe bent to retrieve his knife, Layla whirled away from him, running as fleetly as a hare over the snow-packed ground, not daring to pause to look behind her.

Rafe let her go. After all, where could she run to? He wiped the blade of his knife clean of Duncan’s blood and stared emotionlessly down at the inert body of his rival. The gorgio had stolen his woman from him and it was only right that he should forfeit his life as punishment. Layla he would punish in a different way. His mouth curved in a cruel smile as he contemplated just how he would punish her. He would not take her as his wife now, of course; she was unclean, tainted by her physical contact with the gorgio, but she would lie in his bed nonetheless.

Rafe had a rare taint in a Romany; he liked to inflict pain. As a small child he had enjoyed setting traps for rabbits and other small animals, not because he needed the food, but because he liked seeing the tormented look of agony in the small creatures eyes.

His father had tried to beat the trait out of him, but all that had done had been to suppress it. Normally Rafe was only able to indulge his taste for inflicting pain on the women he bought whenever he had enough money to do so, but now Layla had provided him with a convenient opportunity to indulge himself to the full without restraint. By her own actions she had set herself apart from the rest of the tribe; by Romany law now, no one would lift a hand to stop him punishing her.

He was in no hurry to pursue her. Where could she go? Her gorgio lover was dead, the tribe would not allow her mother to shelter her from his wrath.

One look at her daughter’s face was enough to tell Naomi that something was wrong. She had a clear mental vision of the Tarot cards, and saw death grinning up at her.

Layla was too distraught to conceal the truth. Naomi recoiled from her in pain and shock when the girl revealed that she and Duncan Randall had been lovers.

“And now Rafe has killed him,” she told her mother.

Naomi’s mind worked furiously. Her first and most important loyalty was to the tribe. Through Layla’s folly, and Rafe’s reaction to it, they would all suffer. The tribe needed a leader…they needed Rafe. They would have to leave the valley, and quickly, and once they were gone from here some story could be concocted that would prevent the truth from coming out. Once the gorgio’s death was discovered the police would question them, of course, but somehow…there must be a way out.

“Go into the van and stay there until I come to you,” Naomi told Layla abruptly.

There was so much to do…and Rafe was not here. She went from van to van, urging everyone to pack up ready to leave. The camp fires were stamped out, the children and animals suddenly restless as they scented the imminent departure.

When Rafe returned to the camp half an hour later he saw from her face that Naomi knew.

“She has told you, then?” was all he said.

Naomi nodded, unable to meet his eyes, so great was her sense of shame. Layla…her daughter had shamed her. How grieved Leon would have been had he lived to see this day!

“We must leave here. The police will come. They will ask questions…”

‘To which our people will not know any answers,” Rafe warned her. He looked at her. “Tonight you will send your daughter to me.”

One look at his face was enough to silence Naomi’s protests, and she returned to her own van with a heavy heart. Layla had offended against one of the strongest of their tribal taboos, and it was only right that she should be punished, but the look in Rafe’s eyes had chilled her through to her bones, and Layla was after all her child.

She found Layla curled up on her bunk staring blankly into space. When Naomi told her of Rafe’s edict, she shook her head vehemently.

“I will not go to him!”

Pain and grief shadowed Naomi’s eyes as she looked at her daughter, so beautiful and so wild. Even now she held her head proudly…too proudly, perhaps. She was completely untouched by her own shame.

“I will not go to him!”

“My child, you will have no choice.”

“No choice.” The words hammered at Layla’s brain. She hated Rafe…if she could she would have killed him herself for what he had done, but she had no skill with a knife, and her strength was puny when compared with his.

Even now she could not comprehend what she had lost. It was impossible to believe that Duncan was dead, shock protected her from reality, and she had not yet accepted that she had lost him.

When the police came to the camp to question the gypsies, all of them responded stoically to their questions, each providing an alibi for the other. Rafe stood apart, silent, watching.

Sir Ian, who had come with the police, looked shrunken and old. Naomi pitied him sincerely. He had lost one who had been as a son to him, and she saw defeat written across the kindly face.

The police had already questioned Rafe. He had been hunting for game, he had told them, producing two other men as his witnesses.

No matter how many questions the police asked they could not break through the wall of silent suspicion emanating from the gypsies. They knew that one of them had killed Duncan; it had to be, and a knife, used so expertly and efficiently, had to have been wielded by a Romany hand.

“Clannish as the devil, if you’ll excuse me from saying so, Sir Ian,” the police sergeant said, as they walked back to the Land Rovers. “We’ll get nothing out of them.”

“But why…why? I don’t understand it. Duncan was such a kind boy…”

“That’s something we’ll probably never know.”

“One of them’s done it, for sure,” the sergeant told his superior later at the police station, “but I doubt if we’ll ever find out which one. They’ve given each other alibis that we’ll never break.”

At dusk, the tribe ate in silence, a pall of mistrust and fear falling over the entire camp. Not a word had been spoken to Layla since her return. She had eaten alone in her mother’s van, and now the time was fast approaching when Rafe would demand his vengeance.

She shivered as she contemplated what he might do to her. Duncan’s lovemaking had opened her eyes to her own sensuality. She had responded to him as joyfully as a flower unfolding to the sun, but she felt no desire for Rafe, only fear and hatred. He had killed the man she loved, and she hated him for that and always would, but she feared him as a woman always fears a man who she senses wants to inflict pain upon her.

“You must go to him,” Naomi told her quietly. “If you do not, you will be taken to him by the other men, and that will be worse. Better to endure what must be with your pride intact.”

“Even though my body might be destroyed!” Layla cried hysterically. She was still young enough to want to cling to her mother and weep tears of fear, but Naomi was right. And her mother would not be able to protect her, no matter how much the tribe might revere her.

It was a night that would haunt Layla for the rest of her short life. She went to Rafe’s van sick with fear. When she managed to crawl out of it hours later when he had finally fallen asleep her body was a mass of bruises and raised weals.

Naomi bathed them for her, her own eyes stinging with tears, but there was nothing she could say. Layla looked at her with the eyes of a wildcat caught in a snare. Her daughter’s spirit was as broken as her body.

Layla did not have the stoicism to endure such physical abuse; hatred for Rafe was the only emotion she could feel now. Not even to her mother could she describe the things he had done to her; the manner in which he had abused her, taking her not as a man but as a perverted animal. Her body shook as she tried to blot out what had happened. Naomi gave her a soothing potion to drink, thinking to help her sleep, but while her mother’s back was turned, Layla poured it away.

She could not endure another night like this one; she would not endure it.

While the rest of the camp slept she crept silently away. The constable on duty at the police station listened to her story in stunned shock, wondering whether or not to believe it. The sergeant, woken from his bed and brought grumbling to the station, took one look at Layla’s white, bitter face, and knew that he had found the motive for Duncan’s death.

They arrested Rafe at dawn; and he was sentenced to death two months later. He never reached the hangman’s noose. Somehow, from somewhere, he obtained a secret poison. He was found dead in his cell one morning, his body already stiffening, his eyes glaring bitterly into emptiness.

The rest of the tribe shunned Layla. They elected a new leader, who decreed that Naomi must be allowed to stay among them, but that Layla must leave.

When Naomi discovered that her daughter was pregnant, she pleaded with the tribe for clemency, and it was granted; Layla would remain as an outcast from the tribe, but she would be allowed to travel with them.

Her daughter’s frail, wraithlike condition appalled Naomi. The thought of the coming child was the only thing that kept her alive. Duncan’s child. Layla said the words over and over again to herself like a mantra.

“It could be Rafe’s child,” Naomi told her.