But then, not a great deal had survived the Evil Days. Those trees, for instance, showed signs of having once been a purposeful planting, but so many generations had passed since the Evil Days they were now as wild as any forest.
Chali headed, not for the camp, but for the unpicketed string of horses grazing beyond. She wanted to sound out Pika. If he was willing to stay here, this Mayor Kevin would have his gentle old pony for his son, and cheap at the price. Chali knew Pika would guard any child in his charge with all the care he would give one of his own foals. Pika was a stallion, but Chali would have trusted a tiny baby to his care.
Petro trusted her judgment in matters of finding their horses homes; a few months ago she had allowed him to sell one of their saddlebred stallions and a clutch of mares to mutual satisfaction on the part of horses, Rom, and buyers. Then it had been a series of sales of mules and donkeys to folk who wound up treating them with good sense and more consideration than they gave to their own well-being. And in Five Points she had similarly placed an aging mare Petro had raised from a filly, and when Chali had helped the rom baro strain his meager dook to bid her farewell, Lisa had been nearly incoherent with gratitude for the fine stable, the good feeding, the easy work.
Horses were bred into Chali’s blood, for like the rest of this kumpania, she was of the Lowara natsiyi—and the Lowara were the Horsedealers. Mostly, anyway, though there had been some Kalderash, or Coppersmiths, among them in the first years. By now the Kalderash blood was spread thinly through the whole kumpania. Once or twice in each generation there were artificers, but most of rom baro Petro’s people danced to Lowara music.
She called to Pika without even thinking his name, and the middle-aged pony separated himself from a knot of his friends and ambled to her side. He rubbed his chestnut nose against her vest and tickled her cheek with his whiskers. His thoughts were full of the hope of apples.
No apples, greedy pig! Do you like this place? Would you want to stay?
He stopped teasing her and stood considering, breeze blowing wisps of mane and forelock into his eyes and sunlight picking out the white hairs on his nose. She scratched behind his ears, letting him take his own time about it.
The grass is good, he said, finally. The Gaje horses are not ill-treated. And my bones ache on cold winter mornings, lately. A warm stable would be pleasant.
The blacksmith has a small son—she let him see the picture she had stolen from the qajo’s mind, of a blond-haired, sturdily built bundle of energy. The gajo seems kind.
The horses here like him, came the surprising answer. He fits the shoe to the hoof, not the hoof to the shoe. I think I will stay. Do not sell me cheaply.
If Chali could have laughed aloud, she would have. Pika had been Romano’s in the rearing—and he shared more than a little with that canny trader. I will tell Romano—not that I need to. And don’t forget, prala, if you are unhappy—
Ha! the pony snorted with contempt. If I am unhappy, I shall not leave so much as a hair behind me!
Chali fished a breadcrust out of her pocket and gave it to him, then strolled in the direction of Romano’s vurdon. When this kumpania had found itself gifted with dook, with more draban than they ever dreamed existed, it had not surprised them that they could speak with their horses; Lowara Rom had practically been able to do that before. But draban had granted them advantages they had never dared hope for—
Lowara had been good at horsestealing; now only the Horseclans could better them at it. All they needed to do was to sell one of their four-legged brothers into the hands of the one they wished to . . . relieve of the burdens of wealth. All the Lowara horses knew how to lift latches, unbar gates, or find the weak spot in any fence. And Lowara horses were as glib at persuasion as any of their two-legged friends. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the Lowara would return to the kumpania trailing a string of converts.
And if the kumpania came across horses that were being mistreated . . .
Chali’s jaw tightened. That was what had set the Chosen at their throats.
She remembered that day and night, remembered it far too well. Remembered the pain of the galled beasts that had nearly driven her insane; remembered how she and Toby had gone to act as decoys while her mother and father freed the animals from their stifling barn.
Remembered the anger and fear, the terror in the night, and the madness of the poor horse that had been literally goaded into running her and Toby down.
It was just as well that she had been comatose when the “Chosen of God” had burned her parents at the stake—that might well have driven her completely mad.
That anger made her sight mist with red, and she fought it down, lest she broadcast it to the herd. When she had it under control again, she scuffed her way slowly through the dusty, flattened grass, willing it out of her and into the ground. She was so intent on controlling herself that it was not until she had come within touching distance of Romano’s brightly-painted vurdon that she dared to look up from the earth.
Romano had an audience of children, all gathered about him where he sat on the tail of his wooden wagon. She tucked up against the worn side of it, and waited in the shade without drawing attention to herself, for he was telling them the story of the Evil Days.
“So old Simza, the drabarni, she spoke to the rom baro of her fear, and a little of what she had seen. Giorgi was her son, and he had dook enough that he believed her.”
“Why shouldn’t he have believed her?” tiny Ami wanted to know.
“Because in those days draban was weak, and even the o phral did not always believe in it. We were different, even among Rom. We were one of the smallest and least of kumpania then; one of the last to leave the old ways—perhaps that is why Simza saw what she saw. Perhaps the steel carriages the Rom had taken to, and the stone buildings they lived in, would not let draban through.”
“Steel carriages? Rom chal, how would such a thing move? What horse could pull it?” That was Tomy, skeptical as always.
“I do not know—I only know that the memories were passed from Simza to Yanni, to Tibo, to Melalo, and so on down to me. If you would see, look.”
As he had to Chali when she was small, as he did to every child, Romano the Storyteller opened his mind to the children, and they saw, with their dook, the dim visions of what had been. And wondered.
“Well, though there were those who laughed at him, and others of his own kumpania that left to join those who would keep to the cities of the Gaje, there were enough of them convinced to hold to the kumpania. They gave over their Gaje ways and returned to the old wooden vurdon, pulled by horses, practicing their old trades of horsebreeding and metal work, staying strictly away from the cities. And the irony is that it was the Gaje who made this possible, for they had become mad with fascination for the ancient days and had begun creating festivals than the Yanfi kumpania followed about.”