The Snow Gypsy(16)

Nieve pointed to a trough of sand at the saint’s feet.

Rose placed the three tallow wands with their blackened wicks alongside others already burning there. To her surprise they kindled immediately. And the flames held when she stepped back. Rose glanced up at the statue. The dark face, tinted gold by the candles, almost looked as if it were smiling.

“Nieve!” A female voice hissed across the chamber. Rose wheeled around to see a young woman hugging the child to her. “I told you to stay close!” The words, spoken in kalo, echoed off the walls, clear enough for Rose to understand.

Nieve glanced at Rose, her eyes brimming with tears. Rose stepped forward, wondering how to address the woman. She looked far too young to be Nieve’s mother. Hard to believe that such a slim, lithe body had born a child. Perhaps she was an older sister.

“I’m sorry—your . . . she was helping me.”

“Her candles wouldn’t light, Mama,” Nieve said, “so I brought her down here. Her name is Rose.”

The woman’s expression softened. She tucked a stray wisp of black hair behind her ear and gave Rose something like a smile. Perhaps she was older than she looked. In England it was not unusual for Gypsy girls to be married off at thirteen or fourteen. Maybe Nieve had been born when her mother was that age.

“For my family,” Rose said, gesturing at the candles. “This one is for my brother. These are for my mother and my father.”

The words kindled something in the woman’s eyes. “This one is for my brother. My twin.” She pointed to a guttering stub of wax in the same trough of sand. “And that one is for my mother.” She glanced at Nieve. “She wanted to light them herself—although she never knew them.”

“She’s a lovely little girl,” Rose said. “And she has such a pretty name. I’ve never heard it before.”

“Oh,” the woman replied. “It’s like . . .” She raised her hands above her head and brought them down, rippling her long brown fingers. Then she hugged herself and shivered.

“Ah! Snow!” Rose smiled. “And what’s your name?”

“Lola.” She held out her hand to Rose. “Where do you come from?”

“England.”

Lola cocked her head to one side, surveying her through half-closed eyes. “That’s very far away, yes?”

“It is.” Rose nodded. “What part of Spain do you come from?”

“Granada. But I wasn’t born there, and neither was Nieve. We are Alpujarre?os.”

Now it was Rose’s turn to look puzzled.

“From Las Alpujarras—south of Granada.” Lola outlined a mountain range with the flat of her hand. “Very high—with lots of snow.”

Rose felt her heart shift against her ribs.

“Is something the matter?”

Her face must have betrayed the sudden surge of hope. “I . . .” Rose faltered. She could hear more people coming down the steps. This wasn’t the place to start interrogating Nieve’s mother. And she had left Nathan’s photograph back at the tent. “I’m a little hungry,” she said. “There’s a stall selling pancakes in the square. I wonder if you and your daughter might like some?”



It was almost dark by the time they’d finished eating. In the twilight it was difficult to read Lola’s face. She was listening intently to Rose’s story. It was frustrating, not having the photograph to show her. But it would have been difficult for her to see it properly anyway. That was going to have to wait until the morning.

“There was a village near the place where he lived,” Rose said. She racked her brain for the word she needed. Fuente—that was it. The fountain with the legend. She tried to describe it as best she could. Nathan meeting the girl he wanted to marry the evening he’d drunk from it.

“Yes.” It was almost a whisper. Rose could hear Lola drawing in her breath. “I know that place.”

“You do?” She felt as if the last bit of pancake had got stuck on its way to her stomach.

“It’s only a few miles from where I lived. It’s in a village called Pampaneira.”

“Pampaneira.” Rose breathed the name as if it were a magic charm.

“My mother used to work there—before I was born.”

“Nathan said there were Gypsies fighting alongside him—could any of them have come from your family?” Rose regretted the words as soon as she had uttered them. Lola’s brother and mother were dead. Thousands of people had been killed in the Spanish Civil War—it was highly likely that they had both been among the victims.

“Not my family.” The tremor in Lola’s voice was enough to tell Rose that she had guessed right. “My brother was too young to fight. I never knew my father.”

“I’m sorry.” Rose felt wretched, making her relive what had clearly been a harrowing time in her young life. She glanced at Nieve, who was standing a few yards away, watching a juggler tossing flaming torches. It was just as well she wasn’t close enough to hear the conversation.

“It’s not your fault,” Lola murmured. “I know how it feels, to lose a brother. I understand what you’re trying to do.” She shifted a little on the low wall they were sitting on. “I didn’t know the partisans—but I saw some of them. My brother used to take messages to them when he took the goats out. And my mother let them stay sometimes when they needed to hide. But they—”