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strength.
    Thal finished his breakfast while the man and
woman observed him in fascinated silence. He licked the grease off
his fingers.
    “I thank you,” he said.
    “You’re welcome. You needed help,” Emerald
said softly and took his dish.
    “Your Czech doesn’t quite sound like people
around here,” Andreli noted, obviously wanting to steer the
conversation to Thal’s origins.
    “Czech,” Thal repeated and pondered the word.
It was the language his mother had spoken.
    Thinking of her made him tense. Her striking
face flashed through his mind. Shaking off his distracting
feelings, he asked, “Where am I?”
    “Up the road from Vyssi Brod Monastery,”
Andreli answered. When he got a blank look from Thal, he added,
“South of Rosenberg Castle. The Rosenbergs rule in the Sumava.”
    The Sumava sounded familiar to Thal. “That’s
the forest,” he said.
    “Yes, the mountains and forest,” Andreli
said.
    “Do you know who we are?” Emerald asked.
    Thal looked around the camp. None of the
people looked very prosperous. They seemed to be living out of
their wagons. He shook his head.
    Andreli chuckled. It was pleasantly
surprising not to be recognized and reviled.
    “We’re Gypsies. I am Andreli Suprinova, Lord
of my Clan. I guide us as best I can,” he said.
    Thal dipped his head to the leader, which
pleased him. “What are Gypsies?” he asked.
    Emerald and Andreli burst out laughing. When
Andreli composed himself, he explained that they were descendants
of a people forced into exile. Their ancestors in Egypt had refused
to give shelter to Jesus and his virgin mother, and they were
cursed to wander. Thal found the information quite bewildering
although the name Jesus was familiar.
    “Oh, stop giving him those nonsense stories
meant to soften the hearts of Church-going simpletons. We travel.
We have no home,” Emerald said.
    “You must’ve had a home,” Thal said with
heavy sympathy.
    “We’re driven out over and over, but don’t
trouble yourself about that,” Andreli said. “Where have you been
driven out from?”
    “You wouldn’t understand,” Thal said.
    “Who better to understand than Lord Andreli?”
he countered and touched his chest.
    Thal hung his head. Who indeed? “I don’t know
how I got here. I shouldn’t be like this,” he said and looked at
his body.
    “That’s right. No one should wander the woods
naked,” Andreli agreed. “So you don’t know how you got here?”
    Thal decided that explaining his
transformation would be unwise.
    “If you have no home, how do you survive?” he
asked.
    Andreli noticed how his guest had flipped the
conversation, but he chose to be indulgent. “We survive as people
wandering the land always have. We have some livestock. We fish. We
trade. And well…not everything men need is available in the
village. We’re flexible in ways that others are not,” he said.
    Thal sensed additional meanings behind
Andreli’s words.
    More bluntly, Emerald said, “Sometimes we
steal, if we have to.”
    “Is stealing bad?” Thal asked.
    Again the man and woman laughed. Emerald
sighed and wiped her eye.
    Andreli said, “I don’t like having my things
stolen, but sometimes a Gypsy must take something from someone, but
only when it’s better that one of us have it and not so much harm
to the person who lost it.”
    Thal tried to wrap his head around the notion
of material possessions. It had been a long time since he had had
anything, except for his fur, but a wolf needed his fur. Thal asked
philosophically, “Does anything really belong to anyone?”
    “No!” Andreli declared. He grinned broadly
and decided that he liked the stranger despite his mystery.
    “Did someone steal your clothes?” he asked,
growing serious again.
    “I had no clothes,” Thal said.
    “Were you attacked by men?” Andreli asked,
guessing this was the likeliest explanation. He had noticed some
mercenaries around the castle, and he knew it did not bode
well.
    Thal shook