thick snow and howling east winds straight off the Russian seas. Sir Ian MacGregor was a kindly man brought up in a tradition that made him, as chief of his clan, as responsible for their welfare as he was for that of his own immediate family.
The MacGregors had never been a particularly wealthy clan; they owned lands, yes, but the land was fit for nothing but running sheep and renting out as grouse moors to rich Americans. When his factor told him that the gypsies had arrived and were camping in their usual valley his first thought was relief that they had arrived safely. The gypsies had been camping in that valley for more than two hundred years, but this year the heavy snowfalls had delayed them. His second thought was concern for their survival in the bitter cold, so he sent his factor into the valley with bales of straw for the ponies and some meat from the deer that he and his ghillie had shot just before Christmas.
Duncan Randall was not just the MacGregor’s factor, he was also his nephew and heir, a tall, rather withdrawn eighteen-year-old, with black hair and a narrow bony face. Duncan was a dreamer and an idealist. He loved his uncle and the land, and in his soul he carried the poetry of his Celtic heritage.
An overnight fall of snow had blocked the pass through the valley so that the gypsies were completely enclosed. Dark faces and wary eyes monitored his progress in the Land Rover as he drove towards their encampment. Smudges of smoke from their fires hung on the horizon, small groups of wiry, silent children huddled round their warmth.
It had been a bad year for the tribe. Their leader had died in the autumn, leaving the tribe like a rudderless ship. He had been sixty-eight years old and it was to Naomi, his widow, that the rest of the tribe now turned.
There had been only one child of the marriage—a girl. Layla was fifteen and according to the custom of their tribe she must now be married to the man they had chosen as their new leader.
Rafe, her husband-to-be, was thirty years old, the younger son of a leader of another Lee tribe. To Layla at fifteen he seemed both old and faintly alarming. Her father had spoiled her, because she was the child of his old age, even though her mother had warned him against it, and she was a wild, almost fey creature, as changeable as April skies. Naomi worried for her, knowing that hers would never be an easy way through life.
Naomi had pleaded with Rafe to wait until Layla was sixteen before marrying her. Her birthday fell in the spring, and Rafe had reluctantly agreed, but all the tribe could see how he watched the girl with jealous, brooding eyes.
Layla had always been contrary and awkward; Naomi despaired of her. Rafe was a man any other girl would have been proud to call husband, but when he looked at her, Layla tossed her hair and averted her eyes, giving her smiles instead to the boys she had grown up with.
Since this was his first year with the tribe, Rafe had not visited the valley before, and he watched suspiciously as the Land Rover made its slow way in towards their camp.
“Who comes here?” he demanded of Naomi in their Romany dialect.
“It is the nephew of the MacGregor,” Naomi told him, putting her hand on his arm to stop him as he moved forward. “He is a good friend to us, Rafe.”
“He is a gorgio,” Rafe protested bitterly.
“Yes, but we have been made welcome here for many generations. See, he has brought fodder for our animals,” Naomi told him, watching as Duncan stopped the Land Rover and climbed into the back to unload the bales of hay.
The children ran to help him. Layla was with them, Naomi noticed, frowning as she watched the way her daughter’s skirts lifted as she ran.
To a Romany it is a wanton act for a woman to reveal her legs to any man other than her husband, and although she knew this very well there were times when Layla almost seemed to deliberately flout their conventions.
Layla didn’t want to marry Rafe, Naomi already knew that, but she had no choice, like must marry like, and Layla, like Rafe, was descended from one of their greatest leaders. Both of them carried his blood in their veins and it would be breaking an unwritten Romany law for Layla to marry outside her own blood. Even so, her heart was troubled for her wayward child.
The bales of hay were heavy and shifting them was hard work, but a year of outdoor activity had tautened and developed Duncan’s body so that he was able to take the weight quite easily. He was aware of the gypsies’ silent scrutiny, but he strove to ignore it even while it unnerved him.
Across the small clearing containing their fires he could see the old woman and the man watching them. He could feel the man’s resentment and dislike and it made him uncomfortable. Poor devils, it was no wonder that they resented him. He would hate to live the way they did, almost on the verge of starvation, constantly moving from place to place. He shifted his glance away from the brooding intensity of the man’s stare and saw the cluster of children staring up at him. Several of them had running sores on their faces, all of them looked thin and hungry. His uncle had sent down a sack of porridge as well as the meat, and as he reached into the Land Rover to get it out he saw the girl for the first time. She was standing slightly apart from the others, watching them as he did, but there was pride in her eyes and she had a way of holding her body that defied him to feel pity for her. Where the children were thin, she was slender and supple, reminding him of the reeds that bent beneath the wind at the edges of the lochs. Her hair was long and black, shining in the harsh sunlight, her skin smoothly golden. Her eyes flashed anger and arrogance at him as she met his stare; golden eyes like her skin. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The sack he was holding slipped in his slackened fingers and he caught it up, feeling the red tide creeping up under his skin and with it a fierce upsurge of desire.
Layla knew enough about men to recognise his desire. Although she hid it from him it excited her. There were very few young men of her own age in the tribe, and certainly none as handsome as this dark-haired, fair-skinned gorgio boy, who was so much taller and broader than the men of her tribe, and whose eyes betrayed his wanting for her.
She tossed her hair as she walked past him, filled with a sudden surge of exhilaration. She didn’t want to marry Rafe; he frightened her, although nothing would ever make her admit it. She sensed a cruelty within him that instinctively she feared.
Her mother called sharply to her and she scowled. She was not a child who needed to heed its parents’ every sharp word. She was a woman; and she would choose her own way through life. Avoiding Rafe, she darted through the snow and into the caravan.
Duncan saw Naomi walking towards him and knew from his uncle’s description that she was the wife of the leader of the tribe. Her English was thickly accented, but Duncan understood enough of what she said to realise that her husband was dead, and that Rafe was now their new leader.
Later, while he and Sir Ian ate the hot potato cakes smothered in melting butter and drank strong dark tea in front of the peat fire in his uncle’s study, Duncan told his uncle how surly and uncommunicative he had found the gypsies.
“It is just their way. They are very slow to trust us, Duncan, and you can understand why. They are in many ways a persecuted and little understood race, whose habits and customs are not ours. They adhere to a much harsher code than our modern laws allow for, but then their life is much harsher than ours. Their women are still cruelly punished for adultery, and they consider their marriage to be a sacred rite that can be set aside by death alone. They are a fascinating people, though, and a very proud one.”
It was on the tip of Duncan’s tongue to tell his uncle about the gypsy girl, but before he could, the housekeeper came in with a plate of fresh scones.
Sir Ian lived well but simply, and already Duncan was ceasing to miss his more sophisticated life in Edinburgh at the University. His mother was Sir Ian’s sister. She had married outside the clan, and her husband, Duncan’s father, was a solicitor.
Ian MacGregor was much older than his sister. His only son had been killed at the end of the war. His wife had died shortly afterwards, of a broken heart, so some said, and Ian had refused to marry again, so that now Duncan was his only heir. Duncan had willingly given up his law studies to take over the job as his uncle’s factor—a training for