The Silver Horse, Page 2

  ‘Look, Mam, they’ve brought the bear!’ a little boy cried.

  ‘Will it play football with us?’ another demanded.

  ‘Not tonight, darling boy. Hush now,’ his mother said, rocking him on her lap.

  ‘Look, there’s the monkey too!’ sniggered a sallow girl of about fifteen called Nadine. ‘It’s a travelling zoo!’

  ‘Nice horse,’ her father Cosmo said, and ran an expert eye over Alida. Even muddy and exhausted, with her tail and head hanging, the mare’s beautiful lines were obvious. Felipe whistled in admiration and stepped forward to run his hand down the mare’s curving neck, and lift her lip to examine her teeth.

  The Hearnes were well-known horse-traders, which was a polite way of saying horse-thieves, and so Emilia drew Alida a little closer to her. Felipe took no notice, lifting her hoof and then expertly counting her ribs. When he saw that Alida had only seventeen ribs, one less than most horses, he glanced at his brother Cosmo meaningfully.

  ‘So, an Arab,’ Felipe said. ‘Out of Maja, is she?’

  Emilia opened her eyes wide in surprise. Maja had been her mother’s horse and was indeed Alida’s dam. Emilia’s mother, whose name was Elka, had died five years earlier, from the smallpox. She had given Maja to Emilia to care for, but Maja had been confiscated by Roundheads three years ago, when Alida was little more than a foal. They might have taken the filly too, but Emilia had hidden Alida in her own bunk, under a blanket. Cromwell had confiscated many fine horses, wanting to produce a new breed of light cavalry horses for his New Model Army. Horses like Maja and Alida, called hot-bloods since they came from the scorching desert lands of Araby, were particularly desirable for their speed and endurance. The horses of Araby had been made by God from the fierce desert wind, Elka had once said, because He wanted to make a creature who could fly without wings.

  ‘How did you know about Maja?’ Emilia demanded, keeping a tight grip on Alida’s halter.

  Felipe grinned, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth. ‘Your mother Elka was my cousin. I grew up with her. They gave Maja as part of her dowry when she married your father. She was a fine mare, descended from the great mare Baz, or so my father said.’

  Emilia knew the story, of course. Baz was a horse out of mythology, said to have been captured and tamed by the great-great-grandson of Noah. She was the root stock of all the horses bred by the Bedouins of Araby, famous for their fleetness, grace and beauty. Emilia had always liked knowing her Alida was bred from such magical stock.

  ‘Look at her dished face,’ Cosmo said. He was a thin, scraggy man with a hooked nose and bad teeth, who looked as if he had won a hard battle with smallpox, for his skin was badly pockmarked. Nadine had unfortunately inherited his nose. ‘Pure Arab, by the look of her. Who was her sire?’

  ‘A stallion owned by our local squire, Sir Hugh Whitehorse. Some ancestor of his rode to the Crusades and brought back some mares and a stallion, all greys. That’s where they get their name from, they say. They’re famous for their horses.’

  ‘So how did ye get a foal out of the squire’s stallion?’ Nadine demanded. ‘You must have snuck your mare in late at night.’ She sniggered.

  ‘Enough, Nadine,’ Felipe said sharply.

  She pouted and flicked back her hair, leaning to whisper something into Sebastien’s ear. He frowned and shook his head, moving away from her.

  ‘The Whitehorse family have been good to us,’ Emilia said defiantly to Felipe. ‘They let us camp on their land, and give us work. The squire knew my father and often had him up to the manor to play his fiddle for parties. They had an arrangement over the horses. The squire took any colts and left us the mares. One he bought from us, for gold! And another Papa sold at the market, when I was a baby. Alida I kept.’

  Felipe made an expansive gesture with his hand. ‘Come, sit down. Eat, drink, rest your bones. Do not fear, your horse is safe with us.’ He gave a sudden, flashing smile. ‘And your bear and monkey too.’

  Luka nodded and sat down by the fire. He was very hungry and the stew smelt good. Zizi crept down into his lap and snuggled up close to him, looking about with her round, bright eyes. After a moment Emilia sat down too, though she still looked cross and suspicious. Alida moved away a few paces, dropped her head and began to crop the short grass.

  Someone brought them ale and they drank thirstily. Sweetheart sat up expectantly and Emilia passed her the cup. The big bear drank it down to the dregs, burped noisily, and then wiped her paw across her snout and held out the cup, begging for more. That made everyone laugh, and some of the awkwardness eased.

  The others sat down by the fire too, and Sebastien leant forward, looking very anxious. Even though he had not known Beatrice before their betrothal, he had been much struck by her beauty and gentleness, and by the sweetness of her singing. ‘So what happened?’ he burst out. ‘Is Beatrice all right?’

  ‘Sssh, lad,’ his father said. ‘Let them eat, and then we’ll hear their tale.’

  Sebastien subsided reluctantly as an old woman eased herself down to the ground with many sighs and groans, and then waved her hands imperiously at the younger women, saying, ‘Go! Go! Stop gaping and get us some food, you idiots!’

  The stew was very good. Emilia could taste hare and mutton and some kind of bird, as well as lots of baby potatoes. She wondered where they had got the mutton.

  ‘I am sorry to hear about your family,’ the stooped old woman said. She wore a green striped scarf wrapped about her head, and had two large hoops in her ears. Her face was furrowed and cracked like old leather, and about her neck she wore a quantity of gold necklaces. More gold clanked on her wrists. Her skirt was brown and patched, though, and her blouse frayed at the collar. ‘What happened?’

  ‘We went to Kingston Fair, to earn us some gold,’ Luka said.

  ‘Not singing and dancing?’ Felipe said in dismay. ‘It’s a nest of Puritans there now, with Cromwell just across the river at Hampton Court. Best for our kind to stay away.’

  ‘You were the ones who told us about the fair,’ Luka said angrily. ‘Why didn’t you tell us it was a blue-nose town?’

  ‘I never told you any such thing,’ he said, frowning.

  ‘She did!’ Luka said, pointing at Nadine.

  Everyone looked at Nadine.

  She tossed back her hair. ‘I never thought you’d go to the fair! I thought everyone knew it was a Roundhead town. I guess you’ve been holed up in the Great North Wood too long.’ There was a faint shade of contempt in her voice that made Luka flush. He put down his bowl.

  ‘We’d have warned you if we’d thought you’d go to the fair,’ Felipe said, sounding troubled. ‘But your father said you’d be heading back Norwood way.’

  ‘We changed our minds,’ Luka said shortly. He was the one who had suggested visiting the fair and he could not help feeling as if everything that had happened was all his fault.

  ‘What are the charges?’ Cosmo said.

  ‘Singing in the marketplace,’ Emilia said indignantly.

  ‘Begging and vagrancy,’ Luka said.

  ‘Something about not having a licence,’ Emilia said.

  ‘And murder.’ Luka’s voice was husky. He still could not believe they had charged his mother with murder, when all she had done was hit a constable over the head with her basket. It was not her fault an ironmonger’s stall had fallen on him.

  ‘Murder!’ the gypsies all cried, and exchanged glances.

  Luka’s heart sank. ‘It wasn’t really murder,’ he said, and told them what had happened. They all shook their heads, though, and looked away.

  ‘Well, there’s nothing we can do then,’ Felipe said apologetically. ‘They’ll never pardon a gypsy involved in a constable’s death. Even if we tried to bribe the judge, he’d have no sympathy for us, and would just pocket the money and hang them anyway.’

  Emilia swallowed a sob and looked wildly at Luka, then back to Felipe. ‘Please, you’ve got to help us!’ she cried.

  ‘I don’t see
how,’ he replied, and dropped his eyes.

  Gypsy Gold

  ‘Gypsy gold does not glitter,’ Emilia’s grandmother had always said. ‘It gleams in the sun and neighs in the dark.’

  Lying still and quiet in the cocoon of her blanket, watching the firelight make strange patterns on the canvas that was flung over a stick above her head, Emilia remembered these words, and felt her anger and despair build. The Hearne family were as rich as any gypsy family could be. They had a whole string of horses quite as fine as Alida. They had plenty of gold on their women’s necks and wrists, and five caravans. Yet they planned to do nothing to help Emilia’s family. Nothing!

  They had soothed her with soft words and smiles, and promised to think on the problem overnight and see what solution they could come up with, but Emilia could tell by their eyes that they thought it best not to stir up trouble for themselves. Felipe, smiling, had asked Luka to play his fiddle for them, which he had done gladly, filling the night with his music, wild and fierce and heart-rendingly sad all at once. None of the Hearne family could play like Luka, and they demanded song after song until at last the fire began to sink into ashes and he laid down his fiddle, his hands shaking with weariness.

  Emilia had sat and watched, Zizi curled asleep in her lap, occasionally scrubbing surreptitiously at her eyes. When Luka came and picked up his little monkey, cuddling her up to his neck, she could not meet his eyes, her feelings were so raw. They gave her a blanket and said she could share a tent with some of the other girls, including Nadine, for whom Emilia had conceived a strong dislike. Sweetheart had drunk a bucket of ale and was now snoring by the fire, while Rollo was curled up in the crook of Emilia’s knees, his nose on his paws. She did not know where Luka was. He had gone off with Sebastien, and Emilia could only hope he was doing his best to persuade Beatrice’s betrothed to break her out of prison. Somehow.

  Now the older gypsies were sitting round the fire, smoking their pipes and telling tales, as was their custom. Emilia should have been feeling warm and comfortable and safe, with a belly full of stew and a buzz from the ale in her blood, but she felt as desolate and lonesome as she had ever felt. Not wanting anyone to see, she shut her eyes and pretended to sleep, as Felipe told the old story of Marko and his piebald horse, Sharatz.

  ‘As you all know, my weans, Marko was the son of a fairy queen and a dragon, and so was no ordinary boy. He could find no horse to carry him, and was always on the lookout for a good steed. He’d pick the horses up by their tails and swing them round his head, and then shake his head and go on his way. Until, one day –’

  ‘– one day he found a horse he couldn’t swing about his head,’ piped up the smallest of the Hearne family.

  ‘That’s right, Whitby, my lad. And that horse was blotched and spotted all over, black on white, like no other horse Marko had ever seen. And so –’

  ‘– so he said, “That’s the horse for me!”’ cried a little girl.

  ‘Am I telling this tale or are you?’ Felipe said sternly, and the children subsided back onto their mothers’ laps. ‘Now, where was I? Oh, yes. So he found this spotted horse and named it “Sharatz” which means “piebald”, and for one hundred and sixty years it was his closest friend and companion, sharing wine from the same cup and bread from the same plate.’

  ‘Urrgh,’ the little girl said.

  Felipe ignored her. ‘They used to call Marko “a dragon mounted on a dragon” for Sharatz was worthy of his master’s love. He was so swift he could outrun the wind. Sparks of fire flashed from his hooves, and he breathed blue flame from his nostrils. The very earth cracked beneath his feet, yet he ran so smoothly that Marko could sleep peacefully on his back. In battle, Sharatz would kneel at just the right moment to save Marko from an arrow, and rear up on his hind legs to save him from a sword swipe. He trampled the enemy beneath his feet and bit off the ears of their horses. He could bound into the air as high as three lances set one upon the other, and bound forward as far as four lances laid down end to point on the ground.’

  There was a soft sigh from the children. Felipe stopped to have a swig of his ale.

  ‘You’ve forgotten the end,’ the boy Whitby said, yawning and rubbing his eyes as his mother fondled his wiry black hair. ‘You can’t forget the end.’

  ‘Hold your horses, I was just wetting my whistle,’ Felipe said. His little joke made the children laugh, and he drank another mouthful and then said, ‘Well then, Whitby, my boy, since you know the story so well, how about you tell us the end?’

  ‘All right,’ Whitby said, flushing with pleasure. ‘Well, they say that Marko and Sharatz are asleep under the mountain, waiting for the time when they will be needed again. Every now and again Marko wakes and looks to see if it’s time, for his sword is slowly but surely rising from its sheath, and when it is fully drawn, it will be time.’

  There was a little round of applause, and Felipe cried, ‘Bravo!’

  ‘Well done, boyo,’ his mother said, and carried the little boy away to tuck him up in his bed.

  For a moment all was quiet about the fire, as the mothers put the small children to bed, and a few of the men replenished their pipes and their mugs of ale. Emilia, lying with her eyes shut, heard the wind rushing over the Downs, soughing through the grass and causing the canvas to flap.

  ‘Have you heard,’ Cosmo said, ‘the tale of the Wild Hunt?’

  ‘Not for a while,’ Felipe replied, and the old woman gave a little cackle and sucked noisily on her pipe.

  ‘It’s on a night like this, when the wind tears across the sky and howls through the valley, that you might see the Wild Hunt,’ Cosmo said. ‘It is led by Herne the Hunter, and is well known in these parts. Why, Good King Harry is said to have seen him many times, racing through the forests of Windsor.’

  Someone laughed and made a wry comment about the trustworthiness of King Henry the Eighth. Cosmo paid him no heed, but went on, lowering his voice in such a way that Emilia could not help feeling a little thrill.

  ‘Herne the Hunter is dressed all in deer skins, with a helmet on his head made from a stag’s skull. A large horned owl flies before him, and a band of wood-demons rides behind him. Their horses are all coal-black, with fiery red eyes, and smoke gushes from their nostrils as they race through the forest, faster than the wind, a pack of hellhounds at their heels. It is said that the sight of the Wild Hunt means death.’

  ‘Or at least death to one of your wives,’ someone called. ‘How many times did you say Good King Harry saw the hunt?’

  The old woman chortled. Cosmo gave a grimace and drank down his ale, saying sourly, ‘I just hope you don’t see old Herne riding out one wild night, Burke. Then you won’t be so bold.’ He tapped out his pipe and leant forward, saying in a meaningful voice, ‘And if any of you weans wonder why it is our name is so like that of Herne the Hunter, well, think on this. Who else do you know that rides on horses faster than the wind?’

  There was a little sigh from the children, and quite a few rolled over in their blankets and went off to sleep, imagining themselves galloping over the woods on night-black horses with fiery eyes and breath that gushed like steam.

  ‘If we’re telling horse tales tonight, have you heard about the Cavalier that vanished right in front of the Roundheads’ eyes?’ Felipe said. ‘I tell you true, I had this tale from an old gypsy from the west, who said he heard it from the Cavalier’s own wife’s maid.’

  ‘Must be true then,’ Cosmo said.

  ‘Truer than your mouldy old tale of the Wild Hunt,’ Felipe replied with a wry grin.

  ‘So tell us the tale,’ the old woman said.

  ‘A Cavalier was fleeing from a battle where the king’s forces had been most severely routed, with the Roundheads hot on his heels. They chased him all the way across country and were close enough to loose an arrow into his shoulder as he galloped up the driveway to his manor house. They saw the doors to the great hall swing wide open, and the Cavalier galloped straight through them and into t
he hall. Yet when the Roundheads came bursting in a few moments later, there was no sign of him, no sign at all. There was nowhere the horse could have gone, just an old oaken staircase up one side, and a few doorways into parlours and halls and suchlike. He simply vanished into thin air.’

  There was an impressed silence.

  ‘Must’ve had one of those priest-holes,’ the old woman said.

  ‘A secret panel or door,’ Cosmo said.

  ‘Or a trapdoor in the floor,’ another said.

  ‘So the Roundheads thought. But though they tapped and probed and ripped down panelling all over the place, and camped out in the hallway for days, they found no sign or sound of the Cavalier or his horse. Just a few drops of blood on the steps. Nothing more.’

  ‘Mmmm, good story,’ the old woman said. ‘Nice to hear a new one.’

  There were a few little sighs and rustles, as everyone stretched and yawned. Quite a few people said ‘Goodnight’, and crawled into their tents or climbed up their steps into the caravans, ready for sleep.

  ‘So are all the weans asleep?’ Felipe said, after a long while.

  ‘Think so,’ the old woman said, and she clambered with a groan to her feet and came over to the tent where Emilia lay quietly, the other young girls pressed close about her, all breathing quietly. She lifted up the edge of the canvas sheet and looked down at Emilia, who lay still. She felt Rollo stir and lift his head, and growl softly in his throat. ‘Sssh, sssh, all’s well,’ the old woman said, dropping the canvas and stepping back to the fire. Rollo put his head down again. ‘Snug as a bug,’ the old woman said to the men.

  ‘So, Felipe, what are we to do?’ Cosmo said. ‘The whole Finch family, locked up in county gaol!’

  ‘It’s bad,’ Felipe said. ‘And us connected to them through the betrothal! It could not have come at a worse time. Janka, what do you think? Is there anything we can do to help them?’