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He shot me a smiling sideways glance and bit deep into the crusty meat roll.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I’d always go with it. I’m a showman born and bred. But I’d like to have a big place behind me. I’d like to have a place so big it bore my name. Robert Gower, of Gower’s Hall,’ he said softly. ‘Pity it can’t be of Gowershire; but I suppose that’s not possible.’
I stifled a giggle. ‘No,’ I said certainly. ‘I shouldn’t think it is.’
‘That’ll give my boy a start in life,’ he said with quiet satisfaction. ‘I’ve always thought he’d marry a girl who had her own act, maybe her own animals. But if he chose to settle with a lass with a good dowry of land he’d not find me holding out for the show.’
‘All his training would have been done for nothing then,’ I observed.
‘Nay,’ Robert contradicted me. ‘You never learn a skill for nothing. He’d be the finest huntsman in the county with the training he’s had on my horses. And he’ll be quicker witted than all of the lords and ladies.’
‘What about Dandy and me?’ I asked.
Robert’s smile faded. ‘You’ll do all right,’ he said not unkindly. ‘As soon as your sister sees a lad she fancies she’ll give up the show, I know that. But with you keeping your eye on her and me watching the gate, she won’t throw it away for nothing. If she goes into some rich man’s keeping then she’ll make a fortune there. If she marries then she’ll be kept too. Same thing, either way.’
I said nothing but I was cold inside at the thought of Dandy as a rich man’s whore.
‘But you’re a puzzle, little Merry,’ Robert said gently. ‘While you work well I’ll always have a place for you with my horses. But your heart is only half in the show. You want a home but I’m damned if I can see how you’ll get one without a man to buy it for you.’
I shook my head. Robert Gower’s good-natured speculation about my future need for a man set my teeth on edge.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the reins, you have your breakfast. And for the Lord’s sake pull your bonnet straight. Your curls are all blown out from under it.’
I handed him the reins and crammed the hat on my head, tying it more securely. It was an old one belonging to Mrs Greaves which she had offered me last night together with a demure brown cape. They were both too big for me and I looked like a little girl dressing up in a game to look like a farmer’s wife. But the skirts were the worst. Every time I took a stride I seemed to get my legs tangled up in the yards of fabric. Dandy had hooted with laughter and warned me that I had better take little ladylike steps at the fair or I would fall flat on my face.
Robert kept the reins as we trotted into Salisbury and drove accurately to the Black Bull near the horse market. The streets were full of people and everywhere the warm smell of hot horseflesh as string after string of every sort of animal trotted down the street. The pavements were crowded with pie-sellers and the muffin men rang their bells loudly. Flower girls were selling heather and bright-berried sprigs of holly, and everywhere I looked there were match girls and boot boys, porters and urchins, people selling horses and people looking at them, and on one corner a gypsy telling fortunes.
I glanced across at her. I was always drawn to my own people, though I could remember next to nothing of our language and our laws. But I had a dim memory of my mother’s dark-framed face and her smile, and her strange-tongued lullabies.
The Rom woman was selling clothes pegs and carved wood flowers and fairings out of a big withy basket at her side. Under her shawl she had a little mug and a well-wrapped bottle, and I noticed many men stop and give her a penny for a swig from the mug. She’d be selling smuggled rum or gin, I guessed. Strong spirits which respectable publicans would not touch but which would keep the cold out on a raw day such as this. She felt my eyes on her and she turned and stared frankly at me.
I would normally have drawn back to Robert Gower’s side at such a challenging stare. But I did not, I took a couple of steps forward. In my pocket I had six pennies dedicated until this moment for ribbons for Dandy and sweetmeats for myself, but I stepped forward and held out one of them to her.
‘Will you tell my fortune?’ I asked her.
She bent her head in its dirty red headscarf over my palm.
‘Give me another penny,’ she started. ‘I can’t see clear.’
‘Tell me a misty fortune for a penny, then,’ I said shrewdly. But she suddenly pushed my hand away 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 horse is not so bad,’ Robert Gower said, his voice as loud as Mr Smythies’. Some men walking past the alley paused and turned in to see what was happening in the little yard. ‘I sold him with a warning that he had been badly broke and badly ridden before he came to me. But he was not a killer when he left me, and he is not one now.’
Mr Smythies looked ready to explode, his colour had flushed deeper, his hat pushed back even further on his head had left a strawberry stripe above his popping eyes.
‘Why, my little housemaid here could get on his back,’ Robert said beguilingly, drawing me forward. ‘She rides a little with my show, she goes around crying it up, you know. But she’s just a little lass. She could stay on him, I’d put money on it.’
‘A wager!’ shouted someone from the back and at once the call was taken up. Mr Smythies was torn between a beam of pride at being at the centre of attraction and confusion that Robert seemed to have clouded the issue.
Robert looked thoughtful. ‘I did not mean to say that she could ride the horse here and now,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I was just saying the horse is not so black as he’s been painted.’
‘Yes you did,’ Mr Smythies said, back into his stride as a bully. ‘You said (and my friends here will bear witness) that you’d put money on your little housemaid staying on his back. Well, fifty pounds says she cannot get near him, Mr Robert Gower. If you can’t put that up you’d better give me my money back and a handsome apology with it.’
Robert glanced around; it was beautifully done. ‘All right,’ he said unwillingly. ‘Fifty pounds it is. But she only has to sit on him.’
‘Keep her seat for three minutes by my watch,’ said the drunken man, sobering suddenly at the prospect of some sport.
‘And not here,’ Robert said suddenly, looking at the cobbled yard. ‘In the parish field in ten minutes.’
‘Right!’ roared Smythies. ‘Anyone else want to bet on a housemaid who can stay on a horse which has thrown me? Anyone else with money burning a hole in his pocket? I’ll take bets at two to one! I’ll take bets at five to one!’ He suddenly reached around Robert and grabbed my arm and pulled me forward. I made a half-curtsey and kept my face down. Da and I had sold several pups in this town at one time or another and I didn’t want to be recognized. ‘Damn it, I’ll take ten to one!’ Mr Smythies yelled.
‘I’ll put a guinea on the wench!’ someone from the back shouted. ‘She looks as if she’d keep her legs together! I’ll risk a guinea on her!’
I stepped back in apparent confusion and tugged at Robert’s sleeve again. He bent down to me with an expression of benign concern.
‘Start a book, for God’s sake,’ I hissed in an undertone. ‘And find someone to put money on me for you.’
‘No bets now,’ Robert said authoritatively. ‘We’ll start a proper book down at the field. Come on! Who’ll bring the horse?’
I watched as a stable lad ran to tack the horse up. It was a man’s saddle, and a whole tanner’s shop of leather to keep the poor beast from throwing his head up or pulling too hard, a martingale to keep him from bolting. Everything but a safety strap to bind the rider into the saddle. I slipped across the yard unnoticed.
‘My master don’t want that stuff on him,’ I said pleasantly to the lad. ‘He told me to tell you, just the saddle and the bridle with a simple bit. Not the rest of that stuff.’
The lad thought to argue, but I was gone before he could query the order. I followed the crowd down to the field. We picked up a good couple of dozen on the way. I saw Robert had got hold of a small weasel-faced man who was passing among the noisier famers and placing bets with them. The odds were getting better all the time. I took great care to walk in Robert’s shadow in mincing steps and keep my eyes on the backs of his heels.
In the field they formed into an expectant circle. The horse was led down the path from the inn, he jinked at the leaves rustling on the ground at his feet. The little lad at his head led him at arm’s length, wary of a sudden nip. The horse’s ears were laid back hard and his face was bony and ugly. His eyes were white all around.
‘Damn,’ Robert said softly. The horse was worse than he remembered.
I looked at him as he came towards me under the blue wintry sky and I smiled as if I was warmed through at the very sight of him. I knew him. I felt as if I had known him all my life. As if he had been my horse before I was born, as if he had been my mother’s horse, and her mother’s too. As if he and I had ridden on Wide ever since the world had been made.
‘Sea,’ I said softly, and stepped into the middle of the circle to wait for him.
I had forgotten my bonnet and he shied and wheeled as the ribbons were whipped by the wind. There was a chorus of ‘Look out! Mind his back legs!’ as he backed suddenly and three drunk young bloods swayed backwards out of harm’s way. But then I pulled my bonnet and my cap off too and felt the cold wind in my hair and on my face.
I stepped forward. Robert at my side took the reins from the stable lad and waited to help me up. There was a continual mutter of men placing bets behind me and some part of my mind knew that I was going to make Robert a small fortune this day, but the most important thing was that I was going to win Sea for my very own horse.
I went to his head; he sidled anxiously. Robert was holding the reins too tight, and he could sense the tension among all the people. Robert turned, waiting to throw me into the saddle; but I took a moment to stand absolutely still.
Sea dropped his head, Robert loosened his hard grip on the reins. Sea dropped his head towards me and put his long beautiful face towards me and snuffed powerfully at the front of my dress, at my face, and at my curly hair. Behind us there was a sudden rush of talk as the odds shortened and some people tried to recall bets which had not been recorded. I hardly heard them. I put a gentle hand up to his neck and touched him on that soft piece of warm skin behind the right ear and rubbed him as gentle as a mare her foal. He blew out, as if he had lost his fear and his anger and his remembered pain at that one touch and then I lifted my eyes to Robert and smiled at him and said, ‘I’ll go up now.’
He was too much of a showman to gawp at me, but his eyes were disbelieving as he nodded and clasped his hands together for my boot and threw me up, astride, into the saddle.
‘Stand aside,’ I said swiftly. It was as I had feared. At the touch of weight in the saddle the horse could remember nothing but the pain of breaking and the cruelty of training and the hard sharp joy of ripping back at the men who tormented him. He reared at once above Robert and only Robert’s quick cowardly dive to the ground and swift roll kept him out of range of those murderous hooves.
‘Catch him!’ screamed one man at the stable lad.
But Robert was on his feet. ‘Wait!’ he ordered. ‘There’s a bet on.’
I had clung like a louse when that white neck soared up. When he thudded down I had waited for him to rear again but it had not happened. I stayed as still as a novice rider. My weight was so light, compared to the fat farmers who had tried to train him, he might even think he had thrown me, and all I would have to do was to sit still for three minutes. I saw the man with the watch out of the corner of my eye and I hoped to God he was sober enough to see the moving hand crossing off the minutes.
The horse was frozen. I reached a hand down to his neck and I touched his warm satiny skin. At my touch the fretwork of muscles in his neck trembled as if a human touch was a gadfly.
‘Sea,’ I said softly. ‘Darling boy. Be still now. I am going to take you home.’
His ears went forward his head went up so that he was as trim and as proud as a statue of a horse. I touched him lightly with my heels and he moved forward in a fluid smooth stride. I checked him with a little weight on the reins and he stopped. I looked forward over his alert, forward-pointing ears and saw Robert Gower’s face blank with amazement, jaw dropped. I gave him a little smile of triumph and he recollected himself and looked correctly judicious and unsurprised.
‘Two and a half,’ the drunk with the watch said.
They stared at me as if they would have preferred to see me on the ground at their feet with my neck broken. I glanced around and saw the hungry faces of an audience, avid for a show. Any show.
‘Three,’ the drunk said solemnly. ‘Three minutes, definite. By my watch. Timed it myself.’
‘Fixed!’ bawled Mr Smythies. ‘The horse was trained to let the girl ride him. Damn me, I bet she isn’t even a girl but that dratted son of yours, Robert Gower! Fixed to make a fool of me and rob me of half a fortune!’
At his voice Sea went mad. He shot up on his hind legs so fast that I felt myself falling off the back and had to grab to the saddle to stay on his back and then he took two ludicrous strong strides still on his back legs, his hooves raking at the air. The men before us scattered, shouting in fright, and the noise made him worse. He plunged down, shoulder first to the ground, to throw me off, and I soared hopelessly over his head and smashed into the frosty ground with a blow which knocked the breath out of me, and my senses out of me.
When I came to, it was all over bar Mr Smythies’ complaints. I sat quietly, with my head between my knees dripping blood on to my new grey gown while Robert ticked off his winnings in the book. Once a man patted my bowed head and dropped a sixpence beside me, one man bent down and whispered an obscenity. I pocketed the sixpence – I was not that faint – and waited for the shiny topboots to shuffle past me and away. I lifted my head and saw Robert looking at me.
The little weasel man was counting up the take in a big book. Robert’s pockets were bulging. The little lad had hold of the horse again but was standing nervously waiting for someone to take him off him.
