Chapter Two
"COME," THE MAN SAID, breaking the spell that the Court of Miracles seemed to have placed upon the women and children. "I will take you to meet the king."
Madalina exchanged a glance with her mother. Both of them seemed to be thinking along the same lines: the king? Madalina knew that France had a king, but what would he be doing in the underground catacombs of Paris? Nevertheless, they followed the man who had guided them through the sewers into the depths of this great cavern.
"There are so many people," she remarked, speaking more to herself than anyone else. This many Rom rarely congregated together; they tended to form smaller clumps and banded together, rather than having large groups. "Does everyone live her . . .?"
"Not usually," their guide replied cheerfully, startling her slightly. "Only some live in the Court full time, such as those too elderly to travel or those with very young children, or simply those who do not wish to live outside of the safety of the Paris walls. Many rejoin us in the long winter months, but in times like these, most are in camps outside of Paris who come within the walls during the day to earn money. Our king, however, always lives inside the Court of Miracles, in case there is ever anyone who is need of him."
At last they approached a large, violet tent. It was placed off to the side, away from the hustle and bustle of what appeared to be the "main square" of the Court (which also, curiously enough, included a platform with a noose mounted on it). The man walked to the flaps of the tent and knocked on the fabric a few times.
"The tribe from Romania have arrived, my friend," he called. "I have with me the women and children. Clopin has gone with two others to fetch the rest."
What king was addressed in such a way? Madalina was immensely confused, yet she said nothing. Nicoleta approached the front, as was her duty as the wife of the leader of their clan. Her son clung to her hand, no longer the "mighty, brave warrior" that he often claimed to be. After a moment, a man and a woman emerged from the tent. Despite the late hour, both seemed to be wide awake. They smiled warmly at the exhausted, dirty gypsy women and children before them.
"Welcome to Paris," the 'king' said. "I am Léon Trouillefou, the King of Thunes, Gypsies, Bohemia, and all of Paris, if you will. This is my wife, Julienne."
His Royal Highness, Léon Trouillefou, stood tall, much taller than his petite wife. He was barrel-chested and broad with a warm smile on his bearded face and black, twinkling eyes. Julienne, his queen, was small and thin with a dark, angular face, a pretty smile, and a pointed nose. Her black hair was perfectly straight and streaked with gray, though her face showed barely a single line. She reminded Madalina very much of her own mother.
"Thank you," Nicoleta replied, inclining her head to both of them. "I am Nicoleta Salazar. My husband, Dragomir, is the leader of our tribe. We have come a long way from our homeland, and we thank you from the depths of our hearts for your extraordinary kindness."
Julienne smiled. "The Court of Miracles is always open to those who need it. Some people come to stay the night and end up staying for a year. For some, it is a temporary shelter, but for others, like my family, it is a home. Do you have tents of any kind?"
Nicoleta shook her head. "We were forced to leave behind such things. We have slept out in the open for the past two months, and we are willing to do so again."
"That will not be necessary," said Léon with a dismissive wave of his hand. "We have spare tents that are free for you all to divide amongst yourselves. Once you are settled in Paris, you are free to stay in the Court as long as you like, though many do choose to leave the walls of the city to one of the many gypsy camps. Tomorrow, if you feel up to it, we can have someone show you around Paris."
"Thank you," Nicoleta said, bowing her head once more. "We cannot begin to express our gratitude."
"We must wait for our husbands," Violeta said, turning to Madalina once the king and queen and retreated into their tent. "You, my dear, must get the children into a tent and to sleep. After that, you may have a tent to yourself."
Madalina's eyes widened. "You do not wish that I share with Jaelle?"
Alina glanced from her four-year-old daughter, fast asleep on Madalina's shoulder, to her eldest. "No," she replied. "Like your father says, you are a woman and not a child. Things will be different here, my pet. You will . . . fit in more. You will not be different from other young women your age."
Madalina said nothing. She knew that her mother meant the difference in culture among the Rom in France as opposed to Romania. In their homeland, it was expected that parents marry off their daughter as young as twelve or thirteen years of age. But here, some girls didn't marry until they were eighteen. It seemed ancient to Madalina, at sixteen, but if she would no longer be seen as different . . .
It was all Madalina could do to lead the five children of the tribe to a vacant tent and not find one of her own in which to curl up and forget about the world. In one arm was her youngest sister, Catherine, and in her other was her cousin's son, Radu. The other children—Dragomir, Andrei, and Jaelle—trailed behind her sleepily. Madalina wished she could be among them, to possess the innocence of childhood that she sorely missed. All they cared about was snuggling under warm blankets and sleeping. Had they already forgotten the horrors of the past two months? Had little Andrei, the son of Madalina's sister Violeta, already forgotten the death of his tiny baby sister, Stela, who had died only three weeks after they had begun their journey? Or what about little Nicolæ, the baby who had been born to Madalina's cousin Ruxandra, who had died only two weeks previously, for whom his poor mother was still grieving? Were the memories just as lost as the babies themselves? And they had not been the only ones who had perished on their long, hopeless journey.
Madalina shook the dark thoughts from her head by the time they reached an empty tent pointed out to them by Julienne. The children walked in groggily, the three older ones bumping into one another and stumbling. Inside the tent was a larger straw mattress and a mound of cushions. Madalina sent Dragomir and Andrei to the cushions and arranged Jaelle and the two babies on the mattress. As she placed a kiss on the forehead of each child, Jaelle clung to her.
"Don't go," she pleaded softly.
"Mamă will be here soon to take Catherine," she assured her, smoothing the dark hair from her forehead. "She and Tati will say good night to you then. You will not be alone, pireni. Be brave for Radu and Catherine."
When Jaelle nodded, Madalina smiled, gave her one last kiss, and hurried from the tent before any other child could stop her. As she walked to another empty tent, she rejoiced for the first time that she was not married. While her twin sister, fourteen-year-old Ecaterina, and all of the other women waited for their husbands, Madalina was able to find a tent that would be her very own and fall asleep. As she passed the few people who were still awake, no one looked at her, a woman of sixteen walking alone, strangely. They smiled kindly and greeted her in Romani and French. She was not seen as the same person she had been in Romania. Here, in Paris, she was simply Madalina.
THE FIRST STRANGE THING that Madalina noticed when she woke up was that she did so naturally. She could not remember a time that she had not either woken with the dawn to begin her daily chores or that she had not been woken by her mother or someone else in the tribe. But, she supposed, it was possible that the others in her tribe were busied by the tasks of their daily lives and didn't really have time to spare a passing thought about her. It wouldn't have been the first time it had happened.
The second strange thing Madalina observed were the sounds. She had become so used to hearing the sounds of the outside world: the wind in the trees, the sounds of animals, water bubbling over rocks in a creek, the fire crackling as the women prepared their next meal. But now she heard many, many voices that seemed to echo strangely throughout the Court. There were the sounds of footsteps upon stone, of things being dropped, rolled, and thrown. The smells of spices and cooking food masked the previous odor of the catacombs.
The small trunk that contained all of her worldly possessions had been deposited in her tent at some point during the night. This, she assumed, meant that all of the men in her tribe had arrived safely with Clopin, their guide. Madalina rolled from her straw mattress and onto the floor of the tent, crawling on her hands and knees to wear the handmade, ornately designed chest waited. Inside was the only other dresses she owned which she had kept safely locked away to prevent them from getting dirty and torn like the one she had worn throughout their travels. One was simple with white sleeves, a black bodice, and a yellow-red skirt. The other was a dress that she had made purely for her performances. It had nearly every color imaginable in its wide, flowing skirt. Some said that, when she wore it, she became the only bird of paradise that they would ever see. Nestled in the trunk, protected by her dresses and other fabrics, was her sole means of earning money: her prized gittern. The four double-stringed instrument had been crafted by a member of her mother's family and passed down through the generations to each eldest child. Before her marriage, Violeta had relied on fortune telling and palm reading to make money. But Madalina used her music.
A sense of calm overcame her as she plucked one of the strings, listening to its deep, unique sound. Alina had taught her to play as a little girl just as Alina's father had taught her. And one day, Madalina knew she would teach her firstborn child to ensure that her family's song never became lost.
Knowing she needed to rise and finally emerge from the tent, Madalina replaced the gittern back into the box and quickly donned her spare dress. As she put on her brass bracelets and her bandana and shawl with the dangling, Romanian coins, she finally began to feel like her old self. Taking a breath, she took one last look at the interior of her red tent before walking out through the flaps and into the Court.
Immediately, she collided with someone.
The man she had run into was tall and lean, his limbs exceedingly wiry and muscled at the same time. His face was long and pointed, his eyes black and twinkling. There was a gold hoop in each ear and a violet hat with a yellow feather atop his head. His entire outfit was violet and blue, complete with a small dagger hanging at his hips.
"Good evening, mademoiselle," he said, his smile charming and slightly teasing. Madalina recognized his accented voice immediately: it was Clopin.
"Evening?" Madalina repeated, taken aback. Her eyes met his for a brief second, but she quickly looked downward, preferring to gaze at his shoulder instead. "I . . . I'm sorry I ran into you."
"The fault was mine, mademoiselle," Clopin said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
"What is that you call me?" Madalina asked, managing to raise her gaze to his chin.
"I call you mademoiselle," Clopin replied easily. "It is what one calls a young woman in French. You will have to learn French if you wish to make a living here."
"I don't know if I can," said Madalina, her cheeks reddening. "I know only Romani and Romanian, and neither will be of use to me in Paris."
"Perhaps I can teach you," said Clopin. "I'm sure you will be able to get the hang of it quickly enough. Besides, if you don't plan on telling fortunes, then not knowing French might not be so bad."
Madalina shrugged self-consciously. "In Romania I played my gittern to earn money."
"Your what?" Clopin arched an eyebrow, clearly confused.
"It is an instrument," Madalina explained. "It was given to me by my mother when I . . . well, some years ago."
Her cheeks reddened further, but Clopin didn't seem to notice her sudden hesitance. He nodded thoughtfully, stroking his goatee.
"It was I who led you into the city last night," he said after a moment, a jovial smile appearing on his face once more, "in case you did not recognize me. I am Clopin Trouillefou."
"Trouillefou?" Madalina attempted to repeat, struggling with the difficult pronunciation. "Then you are—"
Clopin's smile widened. "The prince, yes," he said, somewhat mischievously. "One day I shall be king of this band of truants and beggars, for I am the king and queen's eldest son. And may I have your name, mademoiselle?"
Madalina was slightly flustered. She'd had no idea that their first guide the previous night had been the prince. She didn't know why the leaders of this Romani tribe in Paris were called the king and queen, but perhaps that meant the Trouillefous were more important than those such as Dragomir and Nicoleta, who bore no such titles. Their three children, Ruxandra, Radu, and Dragomir, were certainly not a princess and princes. (Although sometimes Ruxandra acted like a princess.)
"I am Madalina Salazar . . . Your Highness," Madalina mumbled. What was she supposed to call him? She recalled that the man who had led them from the catacombs had addressed the King of Gypsies as "my friend." But perhaps he was of some high status, as well.
But the moment she addressed him so highly, Clopin laughed, quickly shaking his head.
"I have no need for such names," he said, his tone not unkind. "To all, I am simply Clopin just as my father is simply Léon. We may bear royal titles, but we do not sit higher than any other at the dinner table, I assure you."
"Oh," Madalina muttered, lowering her eyes even further.
Clopin finally seemed to sense her shyness. He took a half-step backward and glanced around casually before asking his next question.
"The little girl you were holding last night . . . she's your daughter, yes?"
Now Madalina's eyes snapped to his, widened with surprise. "No," she said quickly, shaking her head. "No, of course not. Jaelle is my sister. I . . . I am unmarried and have no children."
"Ah." Clopin shrugged. "I was unsure. I had heard that it was sometimes a custom among the Rom in your country to marry at a much younger age than here, so I was uncertain."
Madalina nodded uncomfortably. "Yes, it is," she replied. "My twin sister married at the age of thirteen and had her son that same year; my cousin Ruxandra was married three years ago when she was fourteen; and I . . . well, I am the oddity in my clan, I suppose."
"Ah, but now you are part of the Trouillefou kingdom," Clopin said grandly, a reassuring smile on his face. "Young gypsy maidens do not marry until they are at least sixteen here, sometimes not until eighteen, or sometimes not at all. Here, you are perfectly normal, mademoiselle. It is the other girls in your family's tribe who will be considered unusual."
There was no way Clopin could know or understand the sense of relief that Madalina felt at his words. In Romania, she had been almost an outcast. She'd had nothing in common with other girls her age because they had all been married for at least a year and only talked about things like their husbands, their children, sewing, cooking, and everything Madalina didn't care about. Though Madalina cooked and sewed for herself, she was glad she didn't yet have to do so for a husband or children. If what Clopin said was true, then maybe there were other Rom in Paris her age who were unmarried. Maybe, finally, she would be able to fit in somewhere.