Zamora fastened that dark gaze on her. "I am too old to ride around in a wagon, and my bones feel the coldness of the earth around the campfire. Why should I travel about to steal from rich travelers when that can be done right here?" Her lips curved into a teasing smile so that Elyse wasn't certain whether she lied or played at some joke.
"And you tell fortunes with tea leaves?" Elyse replied.
"Tea leaves! Bah!" Zamora shook her head, sending silvery, waist-length hair swinging back and forth at her hips. "That is for silly old women with nothing better to do, and superstitious old fools. I am neither, in spite of what that old dog tells you." She poured two earthenware tumblers full of red wine. Then her smile returned. "Tea leaves are unreliable."
Elyse smiled as she took a sip of the wine. She liked Zamora.
"Do you make the wine as well?"
"It was made by a friend. He brings me more than enough wine to share with friends."
"Is Tobias a friend?" Elyse broke a piece of bread off.
Zamora laughed, the throaty sound coming from deep inside. "Yes, in spite of himself. He is a friend. That is all that matters. And I respect his skills as a physician. I would never have attempted such an operation. His skills have stopped the bleeding. Now Zamora's skills will defeat the poison that will come with the fever. It is not necessary that we like one another, only that we respect each other."
Elyse was surprised by the woman's candor and astuteness.
"And he respects you."
Zamora nodded. "He would rather die than admit it is so, but whenever theRevengeis in Lisbon, Zach comes to see me. And he always asks for my special healing herbs. I am not fooled. I know it is the old man who asks for them, but he is too proud to do so himself." Zamora winked at her.
"He is afraid to admit that an old Gypsy knows more than he when it comes to healing potions. That knowledge is handed down through the generations of Gypsies, unlike the ability to foresee things which comes to only a few."
Elyse's gaze came up, her soft blue eyes darkening. Zamora smiled knowingly.
"Even now you wonder how I know that you have come a great distance."
Elyse shrugged. "I was aboard theRevenge,and we only just arrived."
Zamora nodded. "I do not speak of theRevenge.I speak of another journey, the one you made a long time ago."
"And now you want to tell my fortune?" She'd once had her fortune told by a Roma woman in a traveling caravan that camped on her grandmother's country estate. She was only a child at the time, but she'd quickly learned the woman's technique of drawing out pertinent information with innocent conversation, then turning it around to make it seem she actually was able to know about other people's lives.
"What do you see in me?" She slowly drank the wine.
Zamora's eyes narrowed as she realized that she didn't really believe her. Still there was something about this one. "I do not tell fortunes. Only you can know. I am merely the one who sees, like a window that you look through. But you mock me. You think that I lie." She laughed.
"Always it is the same with those who refuse to believe what I know, in here." She pointed to her head, to her sleek hair bound back by a blue silk cloth. "And what I feel here." She laid a hand over her heart. And I know that you have traveled a far greater distance than the one on theRevenge."
Elyse shook her head. She was tired and in no mood for the woman's ramblings. "I suppose, you can tell me where my journey began and will end."
She immediately regretted her sharp words. Whatever Zamora was or pretended to be, she had been generous with her house, her food, and her care of Zach. Elyse had no right to criticize her.
But Zamora had known countless people who'd doubted her, at first. She nodded. "I cannot tell you. Only you can know that. But I will show you what I mean." Zamora opened her left hand and extended it across the table.
"Each of us has lines on our hands. And these lines mean something. This one," she pointed to the one crossing the top of the palm from just below this finger. “The same line on my hand is long, but broken in many places. I will tell you what I have told no one else." She leaned closer as if sharing a secret.
"I have had five husbands and at least that many lovers. I have loved many times, but never deeply and only for a short time."
Elyse had finished the soup and bread. A warm comfort filled her. She leaned against the edge of the table and sipped the wine that slipped soothingly over her senses.
"The heart line."
"Exactly so," Zamora concluded. "I knew this as a young girl, but I chose to ignore it. Had I heeded the teachings of my great-grandmother and the knowledge I was born with, I would have taken greater care."
Elyse opened her fingers and stared down at her own hand. The exact same line was deeply etched and unbroken. But with everything that had happened, what did it mean?
She thought of the turn her life had taken in the last weeks. Did the heart line account for abductions?
