A warning: this story contains some themes that may not agree with some people: readers are asked to keep an open mind and respect the characters and their author. Otherwise, enjoy...
*immediately outside a small meeting house for 8 guards, in northern Paris*
Chucho cursed inwardly as the guard approached the hole. The disadvantage to good hiding spaces was that getting out was impossible. A sliver of sickly light cut across his wrist, and the light seemed to blaze on contact with his skin. If the guard�s eye followed the light, and it would, it would trace the beam to that brown bundle of tendon and bone Chucho called his own: and if the guard recognized it as a wrist, everything attached to it would be in great danger. Moving the wrist would have the same effect: the guard would see the movement. Same ending. Chucho winding up in the stocks for a day, or somewhere too horrible to think about...the darkness of the Palais.
So here it is, he thought, the end. For what? To know that there would be an extra guard at the docks come Lundi? To know that the corporal�s wife had boils? To know that nothing more exciting had happened that day beyond a rundown of some unfortunate pick-pocket?
A spy�s life, he reflected, was one of luck and no luck. One in a hundred times he would hear something new, one in two hundred he would hear something important. And now, stocked with thoroughly useless information, he was about to be caught. He couldn�t reach for his battered excuse for dagger: he couldn�t move in any direction but forward, into full view. And even moving forwards would cause noise of cloth on stone, a rasping sound like a million coughing invalids, a sound so terrific that only...Chucho told himself to shut up immediately. The guard came closer, a pair of gray legs and boots. He was talking to the guards back in the main room, about some street dancer whose act was, apparently, very engrossing.
Chucho�s left fist tightened from excitement and fear. Beneath his knuckles gritted the unspeakable grime that had collected in the little notch between the back of the stable wall and the side of the building, dirt and cobwebs and more than one piece of refuse thrown in the back. Chucho did not like this hiding space at all: but who was he to argue with the last spy here? Only a boy, assigned here because he could fit.
The guard turned his head towards the yellow lit room, laughed, and walked past the cramped space. For a moment his head was haloed with candlelight, a bizarre angel. Then: gone, only the sound of footsteps in the stable and the murmur of a horse being led out. Chucho�s muscles relaxed and he could almost feel himself melt into the cobblestones. It was safe, now, to move his wrist out of the light. The meeting of the guards was coming to a close, and then he would make his way through the lower streets of Paris and out to safety. Relatively speaking. Yes, the guards were departing, the remaining seven men stretching cramped legs and exiting into the hellish night. The fire was extinguished, and a heavy bolt placed. Chucho would wait until the last of them had been five minutes gone. It was a silly idea to leave as soon as they had left: guards were more intelligent than generally credited, and more than one Romani spy had vanished due to a clever trap. Chucho had sworn to himself he would never be caught: and, he told himself, he kept his promises.
The most unpleasant thing about this hiding space, he reflected, was the stench. Through the cracked wood in the back, the stable�s wall, came the smell of horses and rotting hay and rats. Insects came back into his hole, built nests in the far corners to feed off of the filth. Guards threw pieces of food back as well, inviting more rats. One time Chucho had sat nervously, feeling a rodent continually brush against his legs, paws scratching his skin.
When the last guard was assuredly gone, Chucho painfully eased his way out of the space. His joints were stiff, knotted from two hours of crouching. He briefly shook out his fluid frame and then hoisted himself onto the stable roof. Above him, the sky was clouded, a cape of espionage. Good for hiding, bad for navigation. Once, he recalled (recollection is essential to a spy), he had fallen off of a roof. There hadn�t been enough light, and his ankle had wedged itself into convenient hole and sent him skidding down to the wet street. Luckily, no other Romani had been there to laugh at him, and there had been nobody on the street to yell. He had clambered back up onto the rooftops and cursed at himself the rest of the way. That had been a year ago: he was much better now. Much better.
He crept across the stable�s roof, and was about to jump from the far end to the roof of a shop when somebody from below hissed out.
"Chucho? Are you there?" The person was by his hiding place, searching for him. He didn�t recognize the voice, and he found his blood pushing rather quickly through his veins. He flattened himself against the damp roof, glad for the tattered midnight cloak he had wrapped around his shoulders.
"Chucho? It�s Marilena," the voice hissed again. He had to strain his ears to hear, prick them like a fox�s...and he remembered the voice now, Marilena�s indeed. She might have been caught, he reminded himself, she was being led here by a guard. Chucho hadn�t seen anybody or heard anything before. He scuttled nervously back across the roof, so he could see her directly below him. She was a swath of dark hair falling out from under a large brown blanket, some time-worn remnant wrapped around her, covering her head. Chucho pulled a sliver of half-dry muddy wood from the roof and sent it spinning down onto her shoulder. The young woman whirled around, and then looked up. A pair of black eyes squinted up at him in the darkness.
"You�re too quiet to be alive," she said, broad lips spreading. A thick-fingered hand brushed the wood off of a shoulder.
"Don�t talk up. Move away from the stables, to the cobbler�s shop, and then stand by his doorway," he rasped. Marilena was bright, and knew where to find him, but wasn�t cautious enough for his tastes. She was a half-breed, the unfortunate product of a rough meeting between her mother and an anonymous Parisian. She was a decent contact; the middle ground for the Court�s spies, the one of many who would report back to Clopin Trouillefou with information. Nobody noticed her, a bland looking creature in her brown blanket, perhaps the daughter of some less successful merchant, a servant, an unlikely fille de joie. She knew her way around the city as well.
"Now," Chucho whispered, when she had reached her destination, "what on earth are you doing coming right to me? What a stupid thing to do, we both know that. You�re not Parisian enough to fool everybody!" When the words were out he regretted them. There was a momentary silence from below, a few seconds of fury in the night.
"I came, you wet-headed rat, to tell you that there�s a meeting tonight, in the usual place. You would have gone back to the Court at sunrise unless I told you, so don�t say I�m stupid. I made certain that the street was abandoned before I came. Otherwise I wouldn�t have." Then she was gone, dashing down the cobblestones.
"Touchy," he said to himself. "For good reason, you mongrel," he reprimanded silently. Chucho had little luck in conversation. He had been taught to trust very few people, and to vigoursly test those he did. His mind shifted from Marilena to her message. A meeting? There hadn�t been a meeting of spies in weeks, for the very reason that they had been found: and suddenly the Court had lost nine spies to the Palais. Their information, for the most part, had been passed to contacts already, but there were things spies don�t tell people other than the king...he had been expecting this for some time, but had not expected to be invited. The meetings were for the established spies, the ones who had important information. This one would be for the spies in the north, of course, there would never be a meeting of all the operatives outside the Court. And even there it was risky. Spies have spies have spies have spies.
Chucho was unimportant. He was either going to be executed, reassigned, or...
Speculation is useless when one is already on the way to their destination. A slender figure swooped across roofs in the night.
*A back alleyway: congregation of 'spooks' in the north quarter of Paris*
Chucho
A soft click sounded as he stepped into the back path, stepping over the garbage. Two more responded, from the rooftops and down the way further. In his mind, Chucho translated their code: six spies were here, the others, the minor spooks, at their posts. Chucho was the seventh.
"The boy�s here. Come down, Almo," a rough throat gargled, not ten feet away. A quiet impact told Chucho that two men had come down from the awnings of the disheveled buildings. The garbage underneath his feet reeked, a mixture of filth and bones. He was glad for the pair of shoes he had inherited, whispering leather twins that made rough surfaces seem so soft.
"We�re changing posts," the same voice said to him. Chucho caught the movement of a dark head of hair, a pair of hooded eyes. The presence of the others filled the alley around him. "You�ve already decided," he said breathlessly. A new post, new interest. A chance at something more intriguing than a meeting of lieutenants.
There was one click, an inch from his left ear. The rough voice, the leader, smiled at Chucho�s response, a slight leap backwards. White teeth, most of them there, glowed in an unearthly grin. Jean de Chartres. "Yes. Hope you weren�t falling in love with Marilena. No team no more. Don�t look so suspicious, you little idiot, you�re a better snoop than most of us. Not a compliment." A northern accent, very slight. "But you�re late. The last here. Don�t be late, boy. Orders: go back to the Court before dawn tonight. You�ve been called. By Trouillefou, how�s that for a party! Trying to take our jobs, eh?" There was a half invisible motion, of de Chartres ushering the others away. Chucho could make out the hushed sounds of five men making their way out of the alley. The lead spy clapped Chucho�s jaw fondly. Then even he was gone. Chucho always marveled at how Jean de Chartres could vanish. He was a ghost, a demon, beyond even the performer�s magic, a being of the supernatural. And he had complimented Chucho. Now he was being asked for, by an even more imposing creature, the king. Chucho had never been asked for, and he felt his excitement rise. A thrilling evening. He dampened his emotions down quickly: excitement meant carelessness meant being caught.
*The catacombs, just before dawn*
Chucho
The sentries in the catacomb greeted him with cat calls, skeletons half illuminated by Chucho's damp torch.
"Who�s this brown wench? A girl or boy? Ah, no luck!"
"Did the little sneak get in trouble?"
"Out with the ladies again, lovebird?"
"Back early? Did you get scared?" The man laughed, and their jokes echoed in the miserable hallway.
"Gentlemen!" A high voice cried out, "I highly advise you to quiet down!" From behind a stack of bones stepped a curious creature, the long-legged form of Clopin Trouillefou. Chucho gritted his teeth at the righteous pose the man struck. The gypsies went quiet, but still chuckled among themselves.
"Scurvy mongrels," Trouillefou said, shaking a gloved finger at them. "I wouldn�t advise you fools to bother the young spy." The Romani man smiled wickedly at Chucho. "Besides, if you were as good at spooking as he, you wouldn�t be rotting in here, now would you?" A few of the skeletal sentries snorted and crawled back to their positions. Chucho stood silently in the water, his hand tight around the makeshift torch he had lit outside. He had never spoken directly to Clopin Trouillefou, although he had watched the man from a distance. He admired the gypsy�s fluid motions, his acrobatic feats made even the lithe Chucho wistful. To be able to perform, to stand in front of a crowd and keep them interested, was something foreign to him. He was best at assimilating, at going unnoticed.
"Since you�re here early, I think it best that we return to the Court," Trouillefou said, wheeling backwards. "I doubt that you want to remain in here. I�m done with this fellows for the evening: I can�t spend all his time waiting for rats to wander in. Come along." His earring glinted briefly from the light of the torch, and once again Trouillefou smiled. Chucho followed behind the king�s graceful form, the torch showing flashes of purple and gold and black in front of him. Chucho was struck with wonder and a sense of distance: he was no longer attached to the nervous thing sloshing through the muck. The thing named Chucho. Only the being in front of the boy was visible, a guide from another world, a creature born of the macabre. Then the boy was snapped backed into self-awareness and he felt the water pushing against his legs again. The charisma of the Romani man electrified the air and raked against Chucho�s senses. He could sense people�s auras, in a way: Chucho could tell when somebody was coming around a corner, who was standing behind him, who things belonged to. Clopin Trouillefou�s energy and power was enormous, a globe of certainty and skill. Chucho had seen Trouillefou execute a few people, as well. That was most intimidating. The king had done it with such a carefree nature, almost a bloodthirsty zest. And to have such control over so many gypsies? Trouillefou couldn�t have terrified Chucho more. He almost expected the king to ambush him here.
Thankfully, the orange light of the Court struck his eyes, and they both stepped out of the mud and into the cavernous home. Many were sleeping, silent tents and caravans hunched dreamily in corners. Like Paris itself, though, many more were awake. Dangerous games were played out by stick fires, an old man mumbled to himself, a nervous trade was debated, a song was sung softly in a foreign language.
Trouillefou removed his tattered hat, an almost religious gesture, as he entered. A head or two turned, a few greetings were spoken. One or two people looked at Chucho with harsh eyes, and he felt a twinge of resentment. Young people were not well trusted, especially quiet ones. He would always slip in after dawn, when things were busy, when people were too occupied to learn the face of a young man. Chucho slept during the morning, until early afternoon. No matins for him.
"Come with me," Trouillefou said sternly, "no lagging behind. I have important things to attend to: namely, sleep."
"Yes, sir," Chucho responded, but it was lost as Trouillefou moved swiftly forward. He kept pace with the king, still nervous. He eyed somebody�s meal enviously: even such an exciting encounter as this wouldn�t silence his stomach.
"Forward, young knave," Trouillefou trilled gruffly, gesturing to the tent that the performer, when not otherwise occupied, called home. Chucho pushed aside the heavy flap and was greeted with a minuscule fire in the center of the structure. He glanced automatically at the cloth ceiling, and found the expected gap in the fabric, a well constructed ventilation hole. He quickly took in the other things in the tent. It was an attractive mixture of mildly occult objects, theatrical props, and various other oddities. A heavy man sat in the tent already, and Chucho nervously recognized him as another one of the alternate sentries, who watched the catacombs in the day. A formidable creature, a monster of heavy-set bones and earrings.
"Who's this brat?" The mountain asked. Behind Chucho, the curtain moved again and the form of Clopin entered.
"Your new pet," came the sharp reply, and Clopin stepped forward and folded his arms. The gypsy man sighed and stood, shaking out stiff knees. "Time for me to go on duty, anyway," he mumbled in accented Romani. The king waited until the man was out of the tent, and the cloth flap had gone still. For a moment he stroked his beard, looking blankly at the tent wall. Chucho shifted nervously. He got the uncomfortable impression that the man was still nearby.
"He's still outside," Chucho said quietly. The slender Romani man looked at him with a mixture of doubt and interest. Black eyes scanned the boy for a moment, and an inscrutable expression passed over Clopin's angular features.
"I can see your shadow, Jorge. I meant be gone, be gone," Clopin said to the side of the tent. He briefly removed his eyes from Chucho. There was a distant sound of movement from outside. Trouillefou looked, almost expectant, at Chucho. Chucho nodded.
"He's gone." He realized, immediately, that he had almost challenged the king, almost tried to show him up somehow. His throat dried a little.
"Now that it appears..." Clopin began, then shook his head. The earring moved slightly and the king moved gracefully to the center of the tent. He sat down on a nondescript pile of blankets. The sentence begun was lost: either through weariness or forgetfullness. "De Chartres informed me that you have promise as a spy. I never made you official: you're simply a spook, un espion enfant. I gave you Marilena, is that the name, or rather, de Chartres gave you Marilena, as something of a safeguard. Do you understand?" Chucho gazed through the darkness at the figure of the man. The statement amounted to 'there was no reason to trust you'...or so he believed. Chucho was gifted with intelligence, but it found no definitive meaning in the words now fading into the smoky air.
"Yes. I haven't done anything wrong. I reported the guard at the crossroads, remember?" He was grappling for something to assure Clopin Trouillefou of his faithfullness.
"Not particularly. There's too many incidents to remember." Clopin made a frustrated gesture with his left hand, and Chucho followed the black glove as it swooped through the air. Trouillefou, he noted, was never still. Either a hand or a leg moved, a constant cycle of motion. It was almost entrancing, and made the king all the more intriguing. "The point is that you've been...noticed." Clopin glanced up with half-concealed bleary eyes. "It's much too late for this. Jean will speak to you tomorrow sometime about finding you a new post." How to respond? A nod, a murmured response, or simply leave? Chucho found himself at a panicky loss. To look stupid now, of all times. He had no idea why his emotions were so wild. Clearly Trouillefou wasn't even seeing him: he was just some skinny boy that Jean de Chartres had pressured him into talking to.
"Don't look so bewildered, boy. You think perhaps I'm getting too old for late nights?" A grin spread across the features, and for a moment the meager fire illuminated the gaunt face. "You're a real spy now, after a fashion. I believe that your food is already seen after, and whatever pay can be found...none of us are rich down here."
"I need no reminder," Chucho said softly, fingering the thinning cloth around his shoulders.
"I can tell that much," Clopin answered, eyeing the thin creature before him. Chucho ran through his head what Trouillefou was seeing. An unremarkable young man, young enough to have a clean face, with a longish head of hair, straggled clumps brushing bony shoulders. A broad nose, perhaps a little more memorable than he would have liked. Chucho was thin, yes, but tall enough, an average height. He was well-proportioned, at least, no gawky legs or arms. A contrast, in fact, to the man observing him. Chucho was not particularly dark-skinned, merely a dirty color; the only gypsy-like trait he truly had claim to was the near-black hair. Brown eyes. A normal Parisian boy with Spanish blood, or a normal Romani boy, perhaps a bit poor. Just ragged enough that he wouldn't attract attention. Clopin Trouillefou absently yanked a glove off and set it on the ground beside him. "There's no such thing as a "real" spy, of course," he said, drawing his eyes away from the boy, "but I let my sources do as they will...I keep track of operatives, but only as much as I need to." He glanced up, and for moment his eyes were locked into Chucho's. The young man stiffened, feeling his hair rise slightly. Without moving, Clopin said in a flat voice, "I hope you do well." The second glove came off. It came to Chucho quite suddenly that this was masterful intimidation, thework of a man who knew how to frighten and overwhelm a person when needed. He swallowed shakily and nodded. The king made aswift gesture wih an ungloved hand, and Chucho nodded again (dumbly, he thought) and removed himself from the tent.
The flap grazed his hairand he brushed it out of his eyes as he stepped out into the smoggy atmosphere of the Court. There was motion now, the sounds of small children screaming, fires being lit, tents being assembled and taken down, thin animals untied,coins put away, water hissing. Chucho felt the presence of the king in the tent behind him and walked swiftly away from the rough material towards the nearest fire. He warmed his hands briefly and looked about the room with suddenly grimy eyes.
His vision found the disheveled wagon of Girolama. He stayed with the stringy old woman and her crowded family for now, acharitable agreement. Before going out at nights, Chucho would find whatever burning material he could in the city. A moldedshingle, a handful of thatch, dirty straw. Sometimes he would bring her an armful of wood, sometimes nothing at all. That was her only request: his only payment. Chucho would sleep in the cramped wagon during the mornings, nose shut to the acidic scent of goat's urine that filled the compartment. His food was provided, for the most part, by Girolama, supplemented by whatever food he could buy with the coin or two he received from Marilena. Marilena gave him money from Clopin himself, he supposed, the result of various performances and odd services done by other gypsies. Much was communal in the Court, he reflected, but sometimes a whole community went hungry.
Spy, his heart buzzed. He drew long hands away from the fire's warmth. To be a real spy: a little more money, maybe a sliver of recognition. A little gratitude. Selfish wishes, he knew quite well, but he was human and a skinny gypsy boy besides, a creature not to be trusted at all. What would the others do to him, to ensure his "real"ness? Some blood oath, some gruesome splitting ofwrists, dark blood jumping from vein to vein. A challenge, maybe, or some scar to be inflicted. The spy's mind is creative: and Chucho's, at the moment, was beyond even that. He could conjure up half a thousand terrifying things that might be done to him. Like an eager young soldier, he almost anticipated some great pain with glee.
For now, though, he set out to reach Girolama's ramshackle shelter.
All materials copyright (c) Covielle1998.