The Silver Horse

by Kate Forsyth

  Luka would not come in, though. He had had a few too many narrow escapes in the past two days. He shook his head and said he would wait outside with Zizi in the dark alleyway that ran down the side of the inn.

  For the next ten minutes, Luka cursed himself for a fool as he waited out in the chilly mist, getting crosser and colder every minute. But then, as he heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves approaching down the high street, he was glad of his caution. For as the horse stopped outside the inn, and the rider dismounted and gave his reins to the ostler with a curt nod and a tossed coin, Luka recognised Coldham’s burly shoulders and heavy, coarse-featured face. He shrank back into the shadows, his arms crossed protectively over his sleeping monkey, his heart beating so hard he felt it would suffocate him.

  Coldham went into the inn, and the ostler led the horse away to the stable, passing so close to Luka that he could have reached out his hand and stroked the horse’s steaming flank.

  Luka tried to decide what to do. He wanted to run away as fast as he could, but he was not sure he could make his way back to the gypsy encampment by himself in the dark. Besides, Luka feared for Sebastien. Coldham had proved himself a nasty, mean man with a hatred of gypsies that ran deep, though Luka did not understand why. He was sure it was not safe for Sebastien to be in the same inn as Coldham, nor was it safe for Luka himself. Once Coldham heard there were gypsies in the area, he would be on their trail again, of that he was sure.

  A window scraped open a few feet along the alleyway. Luka’s chest tightened. He peered through the darkness. He heard the soft thud of feet landing on the cobblestones, and then the stealthy movement of someone creeping along towards him.

  ‘Sebastien?’ he whispered.

  The footsteps stopped.

  There was a moment of tense silence. Luka crouched back down, his heart thundering. Then he heard the footsteps start up again. A dark shape passed him, then stopped at the end of the alleyway, staring up and down the street in evident fear.

  Luka could not help exclaiming aloud in surprise, for he recognised the long fair curls that hung down below a soft, feathered hat, and the pale, aquiline profile of the face that turned from side to side, illuminated faintly by the light of the lantern hung above the inn’s door.

  ‘Tom!’ he cried. ‘Tom Whitehorse. What do you do here?’

  The boy in the feathered hat jumped as if he had been stuck with a pin. He spun round, his breath coming fast between his teeth. Luka took a step towards him, so that the light fell on his face.

  ‘Luka?’ the boy said faintly. He stepped back and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I asked first,’ Luka said. His tone was not exactly friendly, although he had known Tom Whitehorse all his life. It was hard to be friends with a boy who lived in a grand manor house with a hundred servants to look after his every need and desire, and every toy and sweetmeat he ever wanted given to him at the raising of a finger, when you lived in an old caravan with a leaky roof, and had to share a bunk-bed with your two sisters if you did not want to sleep on the ground. Tom Whitehorse had never been hungry, or so tired from labouring in the fields his whole body ached, or shivering wet and cold with a coat so full of holes the wind cut through like a knife. He had never been chased out of town with stones, or cursed for his swarthy skin, or had his dinner kicked into the fire by constables when he was so hungry his stomach felt like it was flapping against his spine.

  ‘I . . . I’m here visiting friends,’ Tom said.

  ‘So how come you’re sneaking about in a dark alley in the middle of the night?’ Luka said sceptically.

  Tom glanced back over his shoulder, then looked at Luka angrily. ‘I fail to see how that is any business of yours,’ he said icily.

  ‘Fine,’ Luka said. ‘Pardon me for barging in on your private business.’ He stepped back into the shadows, his jaw set, feeling the familiar anger that Tom Whitehorse always seemed to arouse in him. ‘Go on,’ he said sarcastically. ‘The coast’s clear. No one’s around to see you’ve been drinking in a common ale house. Run on home to Mummy.’

  ‘I, at least, can state with certainty that, whatever my business, it is honourable and honest, which is more than anyone can say for you,’ Tom retorted furiously.

  ‘Criminy, why do you always talk like you’ve got marbles in your mouth?’ Luka cried. ‘Talk straight, man! Are you trying to say you think I’m up to no good? Then just say so, and I’ll punch your teeth in for saying it!’

  Tom took a deep, ragged breath. ‘For heaven’s sake, be quiet!’ He looked about him nervously again, then hissed, ‘I’m not going to brawl with you in the street, Luka, so don’t even try to provoke me. I cannot think what you are doing here, but I really don’t care. Just keep out of my way, all right?’

  Then, with one last glance up and down the street, he pulled up his cloak about his face and ran down the empty street, disappearing into the mist.

  Luka stared after him, cross and puzzled, then glanced back at the inn. He could not think of a single reason for Tom Whitehorse to be climbing out of an inn window in Epsom on a misty evening. Unless . . .

  His mind was just coming up with a few possible, if unlikely, reasons, when he heard more footsteps approaching stealthily along the alleyway. Once again he stiffened and drew back into the shadows.

  ‘Luka?’ came Sebastien’s whisper. ‘Are you there?’

  ‘I’m here,’ Luka whispered back, and showed himself.

  ‘Let’s get out of here! There’s some nasty-looking brute nosing around, asking after gypsy brats, and bears and monkeys and dogs. He’s got to be after you and Emilia!’

  ‘That’s Coldham, the man I was telling you about,’ Luka said rather shakily. ‘I saw him arrive.’

  ‘Lucky you didn’t go in, you’d have been caught for sure,’ Sebastien said, leading the way down the road at a run. ‘I slipped out the back as soon as I heard he was asking after gypsies. I don’t think he saw me.’

  ‘But others did, didn’t they?’ Luka said, feeling cold with dread. ‘They’re bound to tell him the gypsies are up on the Downs.’

  Sebastien nodded. ‘I’m afraid so. Come on, duck through here, it’s a short cut.’

  ‘We’ll have to get away,’ Luka said.

  ‘Aye, I think so. First thing in the morning.’

  Luka shook his head. ‘No, now. I’ll wake Emilia as soon as we get back to the camp.’

  ‘All right,’ Sebastien said, sounding troubled.

  ‘I’ll have to take Sweetheart,’ Luka said. ‘If we leave her with you, Coldham will know we’re not far away.’ He could hardly manage to get the words out, what with the effort of running uphill in the dark, and the dreadful cold fear in the pit of his stomach.

  ‘Don’t go running off just yet,’ Sebastien said. ‘Hide out for a while, and wait for him to go. If he’s so keen to follow your trail, he’ll be after you in a couple of hours anyway. If you hide out, I can talk to my dad and see if he can’t do something to help you get Beatrice and the others free. And my mum will give you some food and stuff. And then when you go, you can leave Sweetheart with me and get along faster.’

  ‘All right,’ Luka said. ‘Do you know somewhere where we’ll be safe?’

  ‘I know just the place,’ Sebastien said. ‘Come on!’

  Three Chains

  Emilia was woken from sleep by the sound of Rollo growling softly.

  Her eyes were swollen and gritty from crying, but she prised them open and stared around, her heart thumping painfully in her chest. Mist floated along the ground, in pale ghostly wisps that swirled about the caravans.

  Then a hand reached down out of the darkness for her.

  Emilia stifled a scream.

  ‘Ssssh,’ Sebastien said. ‘It’s only me.’

  He looked round as a few people shifted and murmured in their sleep, and waited until all was quiet again before turning back to Emilia, who was sitting up, holding both hands to her c
hest as if afraid her heart would bang its way right through her ribs. ‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered.

  ‘We saw the man who’s chasing you in town,’ Sebastien said. ‘It’ll only be a matter of time before he finds his way up here. I’ve got a place where you can hide until he’s gone. Luka’s there now.’

  ‘All right,’ Emilia said, and pulled her bag towards her. The frying pan tied to it clanked, and Sebastien shushed her again. Emilia nodded. ‘Sorry,’ she hissed as she pulled her skirt on over her chemise and wrapped her shawl about her shoulders.

  She crawled out of the makeshift tent, Rollo close behind her, and followed Sebastien as he tiptoed through the campsite. A great shape loomed at her out of the mist, and she caught a whiff of the familiar scent of damp bear. ‘Sweetheart?’ she whispered.

  The bear moaned in response, and lifted one paw to swipe at her affectionately. Emilia patted her shoulder.

  ‘Sweetheart was easy enough to find, she was sleeping so close to the coals of the fire I thought she’d singe her fur,’ Sebastien whispered. ‘But I couldn’t find your mare, Emilia, she seems to have wandered off. Did you tie her up?’ There was acute anxiety in his voice.

  For answer, Emilia pursed up her lips and whistled softly. At once her mare came trotting out of the darkness, ears pricked, tail raised high like a white silken banner.

  ‘She comes when you whistle?’ Sebastien was impressed.

  ‘I raised her from a foal,’ Emilia answered. ‘She’s better trained than most dogs!’

  ‘And you never tie her up?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried about her being stolen? She’s a fine mare.’

  ‘I’ve put a charm on her to keep her from straying, and another to keep her from being stolen.’ Emilia looked over at Sebastien, who was walking beside her along the top of the Downs, Sweetheart ambling behind. ‘Do you not do that?’

  Sebastien shrugged. ‘Sometimes, I guess. I know my grandmother does, if we have a particularly fine filly or colt. My father’s not really one for charms, though.’

  ‘My mother taught it to me, and she was one of your family.’

  ‘Maybe she learnt it from my grandmother too. How does it go, this charm?’

  Emilia could not tell from his voice whether he really wanted to know or if he was just humouring her, as Luka did when she spoke of spells and charms. But she answered him seriously, saying in a hushed voice, ‘You must cut a lock of your own hair and plait it into the horse’s mane, underneath, where it cannot be seen. And you say, “Stay thou, stay here, thou art mine! Three chains I have, to bind thee to me; one is the wind, one is the sun, one is the earth beneath thy hooves. Where I goest, so must thee; where I stayest, so stayest thee.”’

  Emilia took a deep breath, and then went on, in the same low, hushed, awed voice, ‘Then you gather up a little earth from under the hoof of its left foreleg, and take some hairs from its mane and tail, and three drops of its blood, and you sew them into a little bag with some grass, or straw, and bury them somewhere deep, where it will not be dug up by a dog or a badger. As you bury the bag, you say, “A straw, a hair! May you never be hungry. May he who steals you die; like the hair and the straw, may he go into the ground, never to come out. Earth, these things I give to you, may this horse be strong and fleet and tireless, and forever mine.” ’

  ‘And you did all this? You buried this charm and spoke this spell?’

  Emilia nodded and then, realising he could not see her in the darkness, said, ‘Aye.’

  ‘You think that’s why she never strays?’

  ‘And because she knows who feeds her,’ Emilia said practically.

  ‘Maybe I should try that charm on our horses,’ Sebastien said. ‘For taking our mares, and giving us nothing but bits of worthless paper in return, is stealing, don’t you think?’

  ‘Aye,’ Emilia agreed.

  They walked on in silence for a while, Sebastien’s eyes on the path, which floated before them in the darkness like a pale, undulating ribbon. To the south the Downs fell away very steeply, and it was dangerous to wander them at night, when the ground could suddenly dissolve into emptiness.

  All was quiet. Even their footsteps were silent, muffled by the mist that flowed up around their waists like water. Emilia shivered. Everything was strange and dreamlike; the fog stroking her cheek with pale, clammy fingers; the wind keening softly in her ear; the Downs rolling away, empty and unchanging. She thought she heard someone walking behind them and snapped her head around, but she could see nothing save drifting mist, and, after a long moment, turned back and strained her eyes to see Sebastien, walking only a few paces ahead.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she whispered, as much to hear a human voice as to satisfy her curiosity.

  ‘I know one of the stable-lads at The Durdans, which is a big house down near the town,’ Sebastien answered. ‘It was he who told me this Coldham fellow was asking after some gypsy children, and covered for me so I could get out without him seeing. The stables there are enormous, and there are lots of outhouses and other places where you’ll be able to hide. No one will look for you there, and it’ll be big enough for all of you, even Sweetheart.’

  The path forked, one leading straight on into the darkness, the other tumbling and falling down the steep slope towards the lights in the valley below. Sebastien turned to follow the path down the hill, tugging on the bear’s chain so she followed him. Stumbling in her weariness and fear, Emilia followed him as fast as she could, Alida picking her way daintily behind her, Rollo running on ahead, nose to the ground.

  She was relieved when they reached the familiar landmarks of the valley – road and ditch, hedgerow and trees – all looming up out of the mist and dropping away in turn, so that Emilia knew she was moving forward and not merely walking on the spot.

  Down in the valley the mist was so thick she could see barely a foot in front of her. Sebastien was hurrying so fast she was afraid she would lose him, and so she kept breaking into a run, bruising her feet on the stones of the road, and once turning her ankle as she stepped into a pothole. She caught her breath with the pain, and limped on, tears smarting her eyes. Then Sebastien turned and came back, and lifted her up onto Alida’s back, all without saying a word. She smiled at him in thanks, even though he would not be able to see her face in the dark, and, comforted, let him lead her.

  After about ten minutes, a tall iron fence rose up before them, with grand gates surmounted by a shield. Sebastien did not go up to the gates but led the bear and the horse on down the road. Emilia gazed through the railings at a long house with tall chimneys and rows of windows, some of which still showed a light, even though it was well past midnight. Idly Emilia imagined what it must be like to live in such a house. She imagined room after room, with high ceilings and lots of furniture, and wondered what people did with so many rooms. Tom Whitehorse had once told her that his father’s manor had one room for eating breakfast, another room for afternoon tea, one for dinner when it was just the family eating, and yet another for when they had guests. There was a banqueting hall to eat their dessert in, and a room for the men to smoke their cigars in, and yet another room to arrange flowers in. Emilia had not known whether to believe him or not. It seemed an awful lot of work, having to walk from one room to another every time you decided to do something different.

  She was almost asleep on Alida’s back when they turned down another lane and came to a small gate set in a high wall. Sebastien rapped on it gently with his knuckles, and almost immediately it swung open.

  A boy in the leather gaiters and rough coat of a stable-hand stood on the other side. He put his finger to his lips, and jerked his head for them to come in. Emilia had to duck her head to avoid knocking it on the lintel.

  She peered around in the darkness. They seemed to be in some kind of yard, with buildings looming on all sides. Alida’s hooves clopped on the cobblestones, much to the stableboy’s alarm. He hurried them across the yard and in through a
big door, split horizontally across the middle. Inside, it was black as pitch.

  ‘Sebastien?’ came Luka’s voice. ‘Is that you? Have you got Emilia?’

  ‘Luka!’ Emilia cried in relief.

  ‘Ssssh!’ said the stableboy.

  There was a scrabbling noise, a scrape, scrape, scrape, and then the flare and hiss as the sulphur match caught alight. The stableboy hastily held it to a candle, which flickered into flame. He blew out the match and stowed it away carefully in its box with his tinder and flint.

  ‘You owe me,’ he said to Sebastien. ‘If we’re caught . . .’

  ‘We won’t be caught,’ Sebastien assured him. ‘It won’t be for long. Besides, the whole house will be up on the Downs today, watching the big race, you know that.’

  ‘Your horse had better win,’ the boy said bad-temperedly. ‘I’ve put my whole month’s wages on her.’

  ‘She will,’ Sebastien said with the same easy confidence. ‘Dicky, this is Emilia. I’m betrothed to her sister, which sort of makes her kin.’

  ‘My mother was your father’s cousin, and your grandmother was my grandmother’s cousin, which definitely makes us kin,’ Emilia said. She was still upset and angry that the Hearne family had done so little to help them.

  ‘Right,’ Sebastien said. ‘I knew it was something like that.’

  Dicky nodded his head at them and muttered a greeting under his breath. He looked at them with intense interest, his eyes wide as he took in the sleepy-eyed bear, yawning behind one massive paw, the big shaggy dog, and the monkey peeping out of Luka’s shirt.

  ‘Thanks for hiding us,’ Luka said.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Dicky said. ‘This place is a rabbit warren. You’ll need to lie low, though. Old Matthew, the head groom, is as fierce as a lion and as sharp-eyed as an eagle, and he’ll have my hide if he finds you here.’

  The children nodded, and Dicky gestured with the hand that held the candle, so shadows leapt about the walls. ‘There’s plenty of straw to sleep on,’ he said, ‘and I dug out some old blankets. They’re a bit smelly, but I guess you won’t mind that.’