Meridon. Philippa Gregory

and put my penny back into it.

      ‘I can’t tell your fortune,’ she said to me quickly. ‘I can’t tell you nothing you don’t already know.’

      ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Because I’m Romany too?’

      She looked up at that and she laughed, a high old-woman’s clatter. ‘You’re no Rom,’ she said. ‘You’re a gorgio through and through. You’re a landowner, a daughter of a line of squires and you’re longing for their land all the time, aren’t you?’

      ‘What?’ I exclaimed. It was as if she had peeped into my head and seen the childhood dreams which I had never told anyone except Dandy.

      Her face creased with mocking laughter. ‘They’ll think highly of you!’ she said. ‘You with your gypsy sister and your dirty face and your common ways! You’ll have to break your back and break your soul and break your heart if you want to become a lady and rule the land like them.’

      ‘But will I get it?’ I demanded in an urgent whisper, one look over my shoulder to see that Robert had not heard. She was pulling herself to her feet and picking her basket up, moving away from me into the crowd. I put a restraining hand on her shawl. ‘Will I become a lady? Will I find my home?’

      She turned, and her face which had been hard was no longer laughing but gentle. ‘They’ll bring you safely home to their land,’ she said. ‘In the end, I think they will. Your true ma, and her ma especially. It’s their hunger you feel, silly little chavvy. They’ll bring you safe home. And you’ll belong to their land in a way they never could.’

      ‘And Dandy?’ I asked urgently. But the fringe of her shawl slipped through my fingers and was gone.

      I waited for a moment, looking into the crowd. Then I saw her, bow-backed, slipping her way through to another corner of the square, spreading her cloth, arranging her basket, hunkering down on the cold stone. I looked around for Robert, afraid I had lost him in the crowd, but he was only a few yards away, talking to a red-faced man with his hat pushed far back on his forehead.

      ‘A killer,’ the man said emphatically. ‘That horse is a killer. I bought him from you in good faith and he near killed me. He’s untrainable.’

      ‘No such thing as an untrainable horse,’ Robert said slowly. He was talking very softly, keeping his temper well in check. ‘And I sold him to you in good faith. I told you I had bought him for my son to ride in the show but that we could not manage him, nor waste the time training him. We were travelling through the town as you well knew, six months ago, and I warned you I would not be here to take him back if you misliked him. But you were confident you could handle him and you paid a paltry price for him because I warned you fair and square that he had been badly broken and handled worse before he ever came to me.’

      ‘I can’t give him away!’ the red-faced man broke in, nearly dancing on the spot in his impatience. ‘I brought him here today to sell as a riding horse and he put one buyer on his back in the mud and damn near broke his arm. Now they just laugh at me. You’ll return me my money, Mr Gower, or I’ll tell everyone that you’re not to be trusted as a horse-dealer.’

      That caught Robert on the raw, and I smiled grimly at the thought of him caring for his honour when he was trading in horse flesh, remembering Da’s shady flittings from fair to fair.

      ‘I’ll see the animal,’ Robert said levelly. ‘But I make no promises. I care for my good name and for the reputation of my horses and I won’t have it bandied around the market, Mr Smythies.’

      Mr Smythies looked meanly at Robert. ‘You’ll return my money plus interest or you’ll never sell a horse again within twenty miles of this town,’ he said.

      The two of them turned. I followed Robert through the crowd, keeping my eye on his broad back, but noticing how even in all this press of people there was a way cleared for the two of them. People fell back to make a way for Mr Smythies, he was evidently a Someone. Robert might find he had to buy the horse back, and I had the familiar irritated dread that it would be me who would have to ready the brute for the next fair and the next fool.

      I was prepared to hate it on sight. I knew exactly how it would look, I had seen enough ill-treated horses in my time. Its eyes would be rimmed with white all the time, its coat forever damp with a fearful sweat. If you went to its head he would toss and sidle, an upraised hand would make it rear and scream. If you went anywhere near its tail it would lash out and if you got on its back it would try to get down and roll on you to break every bone in your body. If you fell and stayed down it would paw at you with wicked hooves.

      The only way Da and I ever coped with really bad horses was to cut the inside of their leg and dribble as big a dose of Black Drop into the vein as we dared, sell the horse at once before the drug wore off, and clear out of town as fast as we could. I made a grimace of distaste at the thought of working on a wicked-tempered horse again and caught at Robert’s coat-tails as he rounded a corner and went into a stable yard.

      In the far corner, with his head over a loose box, was the most beautiful horse I had ever seen.

      He was a deep shining grey with a mane as white as linen and eyes as black as ivy berries. He looked across the yard at me and all but whickered in pleasure to see me.

      ‘Sea,’ I said softly, as if I knew that was his name. Or as if it were somehow half of his name, the first half of a name like Sea Fret, or Sea Mist, or Sea Fern.

      I sidled closer to Robert and gave his coat-tail a gentle tug. Mr Smythies was still complaining at his side but Robert’s tip of the head in my direction told me that he was listening to my whisper.

      ‘I can ride him,’ I said, my voice almost inaudible above the rising crescendo of Mr Smythies’ complaints.

      Robert shot a quick look at me.

      ‘Sure?’ he said.

      I nodded. ‘I’ll ride him if you’ll give him to me for my very own,’ I said.

      I could feel Robert stiffen at the threatened loss of cash.

      Mr Smythies on his other side had been joined by two friends. One of them, flushed with ale, had seen the buyer thrown from the horse and was telling a third man who had now joined them how dangerous the horse was.

      ‘Should be shot,’ he said. ‘Shot like a dog. ’Sdangerous.’

      I sensed Robert’s rising discomfort and temper, and I nipped his arm through the thick sleeve of his jacket.

      ‘A wager,’ I said quietly. ‘You’ll win your money back, and more.’

      Robert shook his head. ‘He’s a devil horse,’ he said quietly. ‘I sold him as a problem. You’d not stay on.’

      Mr Smythies was reaching the climax of his tirade. ‘I have some influence in this town,’ he boomed. ‘Aye, and I’m not unknown even in your village, I think. There’s many who would be upset to know that you tried to trick me into buying a horse which no one could ride. A dangerous horse, that has this very day broken a man’s arm. Could have broken his back!’

      ‘’Sdangerous,’ his friend corroborated owlishly. ‘Should be shot.’

      Robert reached for his purse tied deep in his jacket pocket. I grabbed his hand.

      ‘I can,’ I hissed. ‘If I come off, I’ll work for you all year for nothing.’

      Robert hesitated.

      ‘Dandy too,’ I offered recklessly. ‘I really can.’

      Robert wavered for a moment, and truly, so did I. If I lost a bet for him he would not beat me as Da would have done under those circumstances. Robert’s anger would be infinitely worse. I remembered his wife weeping and left on the road as the wagon drew unhurriedly away from her and felt a bolt of sudden doubt. But then I looked again across the yard and saw the horse which could not possibly hurt me. I knew it. It was my horse. And this was the only way I could earn it.

      ‘The