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The hanged man.

This story starts back in the sixteenth century, in the Burgundy region of France. Jean had gone against his parents wishes to the brightly coloured wagons of the gypsies. He couldn’t help himself. He was 13 at the time and the music and dancing the bright colours and the rumours of the power of gypsy magic and their prophetic abilities had captivated him for as long as he could remember.

His friend Abel and he snuck as close as they could to the encampment peering through the leaves of a nearby shrubbery at the strange colourfully dressed people. The strangeness of their culture and the voyeuristic thrill people get from watching others from a hidden location combined to make the experience immensely pleasurable.

The wagons were arranged in a circle in the clearing. A huge pile of wood for a bon fire was being assembled in the center of the camp by the big dusky skinned men in their brightly coloured vests and baggy trousers. Their words were in some boisterous form of growling rolling language. Sitting on a large wicker chair near the wood pile a very old almost ancient woman sat absorbing the sun like an old cat. One of the younger gypsy children brought her a wooden cup of water to drink. Her brown hands with their papery skin seemed to exactly match and blend into the knotted wood of the glass.

“Can we go now?” Abel whispered to Jean in his whiney voice. Though the same age as Jean, Abel was much bigger and more muscled. He didn’t enjoy the sneaking and thinking games that Jean enjoyed so much as hitting things with sticks or chasing animals or play fighting. As it was a small village the two were mostly friends merely for the fact that there was no one else their age to hang out with.

“You can go if you want.” Jean whispered back “I’m staying.”

“Very well” Abel replied and snuck back out of the bushes ducking behind trees and eventually getting back to the village.

Jean sat and watched the gypsies go about their tasks. The women mending and sewing the men gathering and chopping wood. The children playing in the safety of the circle with their dogs. The long haired horses detached from the wagons drinking water from a trough made from a hollowed out half log.

Every year the gypsies came to this clearing in the forest and every year his parents forbade Jean from going to see them. He asked them many times why he couldn’t go and they told him that gypsies are wicked and sinful people. That they practice black magic and that they were lead by a wicked old gypsy witch queen who ate children. That gypsy men all carried sharp knives to kill people who disturbed their camp and that they all knew powerful curses.

Jean who had applied himself at the local church learning to read Latin and Greek from the local parish priest in the hopes of going to the Jesuit school at Lourdes, barely believed in witches at all. Maybe though the old woman in the chair was the gypsy witch queen. But she looked so old and rather nice.

The sun was setting behind Jean’s back and the gypsies lit their fires. Some men came back with coney which they skinned and put on spits in smaller fires built near the wagons. Some of the men tuned old fiddles and mandolins a couple pulled out leather topped drums some of the women began to dance. The women wore belts of bells and huge metal bangles on their wrists and ankles that jingled as they moved and reflected the light of the fire back on their copper and silver and bronze services. Their hands over their heads played tambourines or castanets. The young gypsy men joined their dance clapping their hands and stomping their booted feet throwing their heads back to howl or hoot or laugh from the sheer joy of the dance.

Jean who’d been thinking of leaving found himself even more mesmerized. He felt his heart flutter to the music his pulse beating with every stomp and gyration of the dancers. He wished he could join them but he saw that all of the men had a knife sticking out of the top of their boot. That his parents had been right about the knives suggested that his parents might not have been lying about the danger of disturbing the gypsies. They certainly seemed wild enough with their long hair and animal like howling.

He was truly shocked then to see the widow D’Nance come into the circle of the gypsies camp. Babbitt D’Nance had been a widow since the previous winter. Her husband having added to their larder with hunting. Last winter he’d tracked a deer deep into the forest and stepped into another man’s badger trap. He got his leg free and got home but rot set in and he died of blood poisoning a week later.

D’Nance entered the circle holding up a franc in her right hand letting it catch some of the light of the huge bonfire. The old woman looked at the young widow D’Nance her eyes dark and piercing as those of a crow. Babbitt had once been the prettiest girl in all the village but six months of mourning had turned her complexion sallow and removed the laugh lines around her eyes and lips. She still wore her betrothal ring. Not of fancy metal but hand carved of antler engraved and polished by her dear Stephen’s hands.

The old woman’s voice cracked and cackled into french with a strong Baltic accent. “You wish a word with your dead husband I am to be assuming?” She levered herself out of her chair two of the gypsy children appearing to help her to her ancient feet. “Come into my wagon dear. I will arrange it for you.” An old oak staff helped her support herself as she stumbled into her wagon the widow D’Nance followed behind like a feather on a string almost weightless as she followed behind the old woman.

Outside the festive atmosphere died down. Jean wished he could have gotten near the wagon to hear what was being said but in the quiet he’d surely be heard. After about ten or fifteen minutes the Widow emerged her face covered in tears. A huge sincere smile lit her face from ear to ear returning some of her youth and beauty. “Thank you Lady Rom” she curtsied to the old woman still inside the wagon.

“It is what I have the gift to do.” The old gypsy responded. “Don’t forget what you were told.”

From his concealment inside the bush, Jean watched the Widow leave the clearing. The gypsies then began to play again. Jean quietly moved out of his bush and in the darkness around the wagons he circum navigated the outer edge until he was beside the old woman’s wagon.

Tall grass grew on this side of the clearing abutting the old woman’s wagon allowing him to crouch unseen mere inches from the wagon. He saw another face from the village approach the gypsy encampment. Arnaud the tanner came into the circle holding his livre high to the camp. He was a rough stout man, tan as the hides he worked on and always having a mild odor of leather treating concoctions. He was also Abel’s father. The old woman shouted out to him. “Come in! Come in!”

The music died down and Arnaud walked into the wagon. Jean leaned forward and heard the old lady’s high cracked voice. “I am Madam Rom. You are to be wanting something and I am to be giving it to you. Now unburden your heart tell me. Secrecy is guaranteed.”

“My wife is unfaithful.” Arnaud stated quietly. “I wish to know the name of he who she is being unfaithful with so I may challenge him to a duel.”

There was a sound as if a book were being leafed through and then gentle slaps and the old woman said. “Ah the king of cups the knight of swords. This is a rich man a benefactor a man with much authority. The two of cups a great liar. The chariot a man who sees no obstacles. The emperor he is of noble birth.”

Arnaud screamed. “It is the Lord Vontrell! I will kill him!! But if I do I shall be killed. What should I do?”

The old witches voice became harsh. “Add this potion to your wife’s breakfast. For one week after she takes it any man she lies with will become horribly ill and die. I do not need to tell you not to lie with her for a week. Yes? Good you are smart.”

Arnaud left the wagon. Jean hid behind the wagon as several other villagers came in one at a time secretively. He figured that they knew to approach when the music got loud. And to avoid the encampment when it was quiet. Women and men came searching for love potions, cures to ailments, potions to prevent their loved ones from drinking anymore a thousand dark secrets and hidden maladies were revealed to Jean’s creeping ear.

Hours later no one came to disturb the gypsies and eventually it grew quiet. Jean arose from his concealment in the tall grass. He slowly circumvented the outer edge of the camp keeping at the edge of the light. His foot snagged on a root and sent him sprawling into the light of the camp. The old woman’s voice gave it’s customary greeting from inside her wagon. “Come in! Come in!”

Jean froze up a little inside but he felt himself drawn towards wagon. He entered and the old woman said “Sit young man, you have the franc for me?”

Jean grabbed his purse but found only five sous. The old lady smiled. “Is okay for one so young I help for free. Unburden your heart secrecy is guaranteed. Is something you are wanting to know yes?” Her old sharp eagle eyes burrowed into him.

Jean Could think of only one thing he wanted to know. “What is my future? Will I be succesful?” His heart beat hard in his chest.

“What is this success you are wanting?” The old woman asked. “You are wanting power, wisdom, long life?”

“Yes!” Jean said excitedly “That’s exactly what I want.”

The old lady pulled a deck of cards from a drawer under the little table that sat between them. She shuffled the cards making the fluttering sound that he had heard outside the wagon. Finally she started laying down the cards. She flipped over the first card. A man stared up from the card in front of a small alter a ball of fire a ball of water a ball of stone and a ball of smoke were in the air in an arc between his hands. “The juggler, the mage a man who has great power in the world.” She flipped another card. A man in black armor with blood dripping from the edge of his black sword his face hidden by a helmet. “The Knight of swords. A wealthy man in a position of responsibility.”

Jean looked down at the cards. “Yes! How do I achieve this?”

The old witch looked down and flipped another card. A skeleton standing over an open grave holding a scythe. “Death, the power of change. The death of the caterpillar is the birth of the butterfly.”

“Yes but what brings about this change?” Jean asked urgently.

“One last card to flip.” The old brown hands deftly flipped the card. “The Hanged man, in order to gain one must suffer. The death and transformation of Osiris of Dionysus of Odin. If you’re going to gain your wish you must suffer.”

“I don’t understand!” Jean said impatiently. “But how..”

“No more questions. That is your future and it is for free.” The old woman waved him out. “Now go out and live your life.”

Jean exited the wagon and saw that the campsite had been taken apart and packed up. The old woman exited her trailer. “Oh we are going now. Well young Jean there is only one matter of business that I must handle.” She raised her staff into the air. “Be stone!”

Jean felt his heart freeze in his chest. His limbs grew heavy he folded in on himself. His skin turned deep and gray his clothes became one with his skin. The world grew monochromatic and his hearing became much more acute. The old lady said quietly. “Secrecy is guaranteed. You must remain a stone until all the people who’ve told me secrets and their children are dead.”

Jean remained a stone for 104 years. He heard the search parties look for him then give up. He saw the gypsies arrive each year, and each year the old woman would tell him a secret about how to listen to the power of the earth. After seven years the old witch queen was dead and her young apprentice took her place. The apprentice sat next to the stone that was Jean and communed with him learning the magic of the earth that he had been told by the old Madame Rom.

After 20 more years her life and travels had made her a greater master of magic than he and she taught him all that she learned with each yearly visit until he found himself able to transfer his intelligence into any piece of earth for miles around and then started collecting secrets again as a piece of soil beneath a farmhouse he could hear every word said in the house. He could move his consciousness to the stones beneath the confessionals in the church. He knew every secret in the entire town and without. He knew where each squirrel hid it’s nuts where each dog or wolf buried it’s extra food.

Another 30 years and a new gypsy witch to teach. This one lacked the patience of the other two her clan fell apart and started to steal for all their living. After a couple of years the villagers chased the gypsies away when they attempted to make camp, bringing flintlock rifles and torches. The new witch couldn’t put up any real defense and she was chased off.

Jean had to spend the next 40 years without being able to commune with anyone else. He forgot his name but gained greater and greater attunement to the world of stone and earth. When the final child of the final secret holder died Jean found himself pulled back to his body. His eyes were transformed to reddish orbs in his head. His skin had grown pale. His power over earth remained. He had become a man of about 20 years of age. He never aged again.

In time he joined the legion as it’s herald.



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Ok, now that was a good story. +10