The Command - Brian Jacques - Flying Dutchman 02

The guard watched them hurry inside and winked at his companion. “Good manners, that girl—pretty, too!”

Inside Veron’s main square there was a real bustle of festive atmosphere. Stalls were packed together so tightly that folk had to push and jostle to negotiate the narrow aisle spaces. The friends sat together on a broad flight of steps that fronted a grand manor house with a southern exposure.

Dominic chided Karay humorously. “No sign of Emile or Agnes yet. Oh dear, I wonder where Mother and Father have got to. You’re a great liar, Karay!”

The girl slapped his arm lightly. “Well, at least I got us into the fair, didn’t I, my slow-witted yokel brother.”

Ben chuckled as he ruffled Ned’s ears. “Don’t forget now, you owe those guards seven centimes and two hot pancakes.”

Ned’s thought chimed in on Ben. “Mmm, thick with butter and honey. No lemon for me, thanks.”

Karay’s eyes twinkled. “Pancakes, that’s what we need, I’m famished!”

She rose swiftly and cut off toward the stalls.

Ned pawed at Ben’s leg. “We’d best go after her. There’s no telling what that young madam will be up to next!”

“You’re right, mate.” Ben returned Ned’s thought. He pulled Dominic up from the step. “Come on, Dom, it’s a bit risky letting that little thief wander off alone.”

Karay had found herself a pancake stall where there was only a middle-aged lady attending to it. The girl stood back, watching everything closely.

“Thinking of stealing pancakes now, are we?”

She turned to see Ben, Dominic and Ned behind her. Karay hissed at them angrily. “I’m not stealing anything—she’ll give me some pancakes gladly. Now be quiet and let me study that stall. I’ll get us some food!”

Ned nudged his head against Ben’s leg. “I’d do as Karay says if I were you. Give her a chance.”

After a while Karay sauntered over to the stall, where she waited until the woman was not busy serving. Passing a forearm across her brow, the woman sighed. “Pancakes are two centimes each, three with butter, four with honey and butter, three with just salt and lemon juice. Do you want one, miss?”

The girl stared hard at the woman, letting a silence pass before she spoke. “You work very hard for a widowed lady.”

The woman wiped her butter ladle on a clean cloth. “I’ve not met you before, how d’you know I’m a widow?”

Karay closed her eyes and held up a finger. Her voice was slow and confidential, as if sharing a secret. “I know many things, Madame. The eye of my mind sees the past as well as the present and the future. That is my gift, given to me by the good Saint Veronique, whom I am named after.”

The woman crossed herself and kissed her thumbnail. “Saint Veronique! Tell me more!”

Karay’s eyes opened. She smiled sadly and shook her head. “It tires me greatly to use my skills. I have just come from Spain, where I was given five gold coins for seeing into the fortunes of a noble lady of Burgos.”

The woman’s mouth set in a tight line as she mixed pancake batter. “You’re a fortuneteller! My money is too hard-earned to spend upon such fancies and lies!”

Karay looked proudly down her nose at the pancake seller. “I already have gold coins. What do I need with your few centimes, Madame Gilbert?”

Batter slopped from the bowl as the woman stopped stirring. “How do you know my husband’s name?”

Karay replied offhandedly. “It was never the name of the children you did not have. Shall I see into your future?”

The woman’s face fell. “You’re right, we never had children. If you don’t want money for telling my fortune, then why did you come here? What do you want from me, miss?”

The girl smiled, sniffing dreamily at the aroma from the stall. “My grandmother used to make pancakes for me exactly like the ones you make—proper country style, eh?”

The pancake seller smiled fondly. “Ah, yes, proper country style … You could tell my fortune and I’d give you one.”

Karay turned her head away as if offended. “Only one?”

Shooing off a wasp and covering the honey pail, the woman spread her arms wide. “How many then, tell me.”

Karay played with her dark ringlets a moment. “Eight—no, better make it a dozen. I have a long way to travel, and the food they serve at some inns is not to my taste.”

The woman looked a bit shocked. “Twelve pancakes is a lot!”

Karay shrugged airily. “I could eat them easily, with enough honey and butter spread on them. It is a small price to pay for knowing what life and fate will bring to you, Madame.”

The woman wiped both hands on her apron. “I will pay!”

Karay came behind the planks that served as a counter. “Let me see the palm of your right hand.”

The woman proffered her outspread palm. Karay pored over it, whispering prayers for guidance from Saint Veronique loudly enough for her customer to hear. Then she began.

“Ah yes, I see Gilbert, your husband, he was a good baker. Since he has gone you have worked hard and long to set up your business. But fear not, you aren’t alone. Who is this good man who helps you?”

The woman looked up from her own palm. “You mean Monsieur Frane, the farmer?”

The girl nodded. “He is a good man, even though he has lost a partner, his wife. He comes to help you often, yes?”

The woman smiled. “From dawn to dusk, if I ask him.”

Karay smiled back at her. “He thinks a lot of you. So does his daughter.”

The pancake seller agreed. “Jeanette is a good girl, almost like a daughter to me—she visits a lot, too. Tell me more.”

Karay made a few signs over the woman’s palm. “Now for the future. Listen carefully to what I tell you. Do not go home tonight—take a room at a local inn. Stay a few days longer after the fair. Sit by the window each day and watch out for Monsieur Frane and Jeanette, they will come. You must tell him that your work is tiring you, that you no longer want to continue with it. Tell him you are thinking of selling your house and bakery and moving.”

The woman looked mystified. “But why would I do that?”

The girl silenced the woman with a wave of her hand. “Do you want me to see further into your future, Madame?”

The woman nodded, and Karay continued. “I see you happily married, a farmer’s wife, with a dear devoted daughter. The only baking you will bother with is their daily bread and cakes to eat in the evening around your farmhouse fire. Trust me, Madame, your fate will be aided by your own efforts. Saint Veronique sees you as a good person, I know this.”

Suddenly the woman threw her arms about the girl and kissed her. “Are you sure twelve pancakes will be enough, my dear?”

Back on the steps outside the manor house, two boys, a girl and a dog feasted on hot pancakes spread thick with country butter and comb honey. Ben licked his fingers, gazing at Karay in awe. “Tell us how you managed to do it. Widow, farmer, daughter, husband’s name, and who, pray, is Saint Veronique?”

Karay’s explanation made it all sound simple. “Veron is the name of this place, so I thought Veronique made it sound nice and local. I don’t know who Saint Veronique is, but she certainly helped us. The cart was a good clue. It had been painted over but I could still see the words, the name in white, beneath the last coat: ‘S. Gilbert. Baker.’ He was nowhere to be seen, the woman was working alone and she’d had the name on the cart painted over. So I guessed she was a widow, without children, too. That woman’s middle-aged; if she had children, they’d probably be about our age. If that was so, they’d be helping their mother to run the business. She leaves her house alone to travel here: someone must watch it for her—the farmer Frane. A single woman could not handle it all, so he helps her. If his wife were alive, she would not hear of such a thing. He would not be allowed to spend most of his day at a widow’s house and neglect his own. The woman was wearing a bracelet, a cheap pretty thing, not the sort she would spend money on. I guessed that a young girl had bought it for her. I was right. So, the farmer has a young daughter. They both like the pancake lady. Two people, a widow and a widower, living close to each other. The girl Jeanette likes the widow; to the widow, Jeanette is the daughter she never had. As for the rest, I was only telling that woman what the future could hold if she played her cards right. What’s wrong with her becoming a farmer’s wife and having a daughter? That’s what she wants, isn’t it? I was only telling her the best way to do it. Monsieur Frane and Jeanette would be very sad if she sold up and moved away. It’ll happen, and they’ll be happy together. Mark my words!”