The Dark Knight by Tori Phillips

appearance that she found very attractive. She stifled a sigh of desire. He’s a married man, she reminded herself.
    “Do you have many children?” Tonia asked in an offhand manner.
    He puffed out his cheeks. “Nay. My wife died in childbirth. She left none for me to remember her.”
    Tonia’s sudden elation shocked her. She should never rejoice at the news of someone’s death. “I am sorry for that and for your loss,” she murmured. “What is her name that I may pray for her?”
    He gave her a long, cool look before he replied, “’Tis not the custom of my people to speak the names of the dead. ’Tis bad luck.”
    “Oh.” Tonia chewed another bit of her cheese while she gathered her courage to broach the real subject that burned in her mind. “Very well. Since we two are still among the living, you can tell me your name.”
    For once, her question seemed to amuse him. “’Tis important to you?”
    “Aye, methinks we have kept company long enough and I am tired of making up titles for you. Surely you can trust me with your name by now. You have already told me your horse’s name and I know how precious he is to you.”
    The Gypsy considered her request in silence before he finally nodded. “Very well.” Lacing his hands behind his head, he leaned back against the wall. “I was baptized Sandor after Saint Alexander.” The r sounds rolled off his tongue.
    Intenseastonishment made Tonia forget the last morsel of the cheese she held in her hand. “You were baptized? In a church?”
    He nodded and a smug grin crossed his face.
    Tonia knotted her brows. “But you are a Gypsy!”
    A wide smile replaced his grin, transforming his features into those of an angel. “Even so I was well and truly baptized in a holy church—in seven of them if the truth be told. ’Twas my father’s little bit of bujo. ”
    Tonia gave him an arched look. “Methinks I spy a rat in the larder. What is this bujo? ”
    His lips curled with merriment. “It means…” He rolled his dancing eyes as he searched for the word. “Gypsy work—not hard labor. To coney—catch the gadje. ”
    Tonia gasped at this bold admission. “You hoodwinked some elderly priest while you stole from the poor box?”
    Sandor held up his hands. “Nay, ’twas not I! I was but a babe at the time—an innocent party. And my father did not steal anything.” He chuckled to himself.
    Despite her shock, Tonia found herself smiling back at him. “So how did your father trick the priest?”
    Sandor swirled the watered wine in his cup. “’Twas the custom in the bishopric of Paris that every new-baptized child should receive a gold ecu from the parish treasury. ’Twas a most generous gift.” His eyes sparkled with mischief. “So first I was baptized in Sainte Marguerite’s church, then in Sainte Marie’s church, then at Sacre Coeur, and so forth. Each time the parish priest gave my mother an ecu. At the end of the day, my family had seven ecus in our bag, and I was named seven times over.”
    Toniaglared at him. “’Tis a sacrilege to steal from the church!”
    Sandor merely laughed. “How could it be called stealing if the money was freely given to us? We did not even have to ask for it. My grandmother always said that you can get more with cunning than with power. That is bujo. ”
    Tonia considered this skewered logic for a moment. “Were you really baptized seven times, or is your story just another tale like the donkey eating the cabbage leaves?”
    Sandor raised one hand toward heaven. “Let me die if I lie!”
    The talk of dying cast a pall over Tonia’s good spirits. “Methinks I am much closer to death than you are at this moment.”
    His expression clouded. Then he pushed himself up from the table. “We burn daylight, my lady.” He picked up the shovel that had been leaning against the wall. “Come. We must give Baxtalo an airing. Methinks he will be glad of your company.”
    Tonia popped the last piece of cheese in her mouth then,