The Nostradamus prophecies

37

Gavril was twenty minutes out of Les Saintes-Maries when he remembered that he didn’t have a weapon. He had thrown it at Stefan in the scuffle.

The thought struck him with such an impact that he actually stopped his horse, mid-canter and spent a full half minute debating with himself whether to turn back.

But the thought of Badu and Stefan persuaded him to continue. The pair of them would be baying for his blood. They would be out scouring the streets of Les Sainte-Maries for him at this very moment – or else having their knives sharpened at Nan Maximoff’s pedal-stone. At least, on horseback, in the middle of the Marais, no one would have a hope in Hell of catching him.

The two men in front of him had no idea that he was following them. In fact, now that they’d finally left the roadway, he didn’t need to get within five hundred metres of them, such was the impact of the trail they were leaving behind them through the brush. Two galloping horses churned up the ground in a very satisfactory manner and Gavril could easily tell new horse tracks from old ones.

He would simply follow Alexi and the gadje ’s trail and see what occurred. If the worst came to the worst and he lost them, he could always ride on through to the outskirts of Arles and hop on a bus. Make himself scarce for a while.

After all, what did he have to lose?