The Heather Moon

The Heather Moon

The Border Rogues Series

Book Three

by

Susan King

National Bestselling Author

Author's Cut Edition

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ISBN: 978-1-61417-577-3

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © 2014 by Susan King. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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Dedication

To Audrey LaFehr and Karen Solem—heartfelt thanks for constant faith and support

Prologue

"Fore me! A dainty derived gipsie."

—Ben Jonson,
Masque of the Metamorphosed Gipsies

Scotland, the Borderlands

February 1526

"Your father is a thief," her grandmother said, drawing Tamsin close. "A Scottish rascal and a
gadjo,
a non-Romany. He wants you to live with him in his great house of stone, and he'll come to fetch you this day."

Tamsin had never been inside a house of stone, and wondered what it would be like. Cold and dark, she thought, without the warmth of the sun and the fresh smell of the greenwood that she loved so well. She was not certain that a thief was desirable in a father, either Romany or Scot, but she smiled up at her grandmother, trusting her, knowing that her grandparents would not let her go with her Scottish father if he was a bad
gadjo.

Nona Faw smiled, her wrinkled, high-boned face handsome and tawny, framed in a turban of purple silk. Her eyes were deep black, unlike Tamsin's green eyes, which she had inherited from her father, a man she had seen only a few times in her life.

"Archie Armstrong has a good heart," Nona went on. "Who are we, the Romany, to judge a man for thieving, if he cares for his family and avenges his enemies that way? He has always been generous to our people, though we travel as strangers and pilgrims through Scotland. And he has paid us well to raise you, my little Tchalai, after... the one who bore you went away six years ago."

Tamsin knew that her grandmother still grieved for her daughter, who had died birthing Tamsin. Nona would never again speak her daughter's name, nor would she wear red, her daughter's favorite color. Such gestures were part of the Romany way of mourning. Tamsin was not allowed to wear red either, although she loved the color well and did not remember her mother at all.

Her grandparents would not even use the
gadjo
name that her mother and father had agreed upon when she was born, for it was yet another reminder of her mother's death. Her father called her Tamsin when he visited the gypsy camp, and she thought of herself by that name. She liked the sound of it, and cherished the knowledge that her parents had chosen it together.

Tamsin nodded.
"Avali,
yes, Grandmother," she said. "I will go with the man my father, if you wish it so." In truth, the thought of leaving her grandparents frightened and saddened her, but she had always done as they had asked.

"Your father wants to take care of you, his girl-child," Nona said. "I suspect, now that his two grown sons have died, he needs some happiness in his stone house, which he calls Merton Rigg. You will live there to please him, and to please us."

"I must stay there always?" Tamsin asked uncertainly.

"We promised your father to let you go with him, though you are small yet, and the brightest star in our lives. And so we called you Tchalai, for the pale green stars in your pretty eyes," she added. "But we will see you as often as we can on our travels, my dear. Now, I want you to remember one thing well."

Tamsin looked up at her. "What is that?"

Nona bent close. "Your little hand may frighten some, Tchalai. You must take care to hide it well. Many there are who will not understand what they see."

Tamsin nodded. She tucked her strangely formed hand behind her, curling it into a fist. "I will, Grandmother."