Philippa Gregory - Meridon

‘In on what?’ I asked eyeing the black-eyed vagrant askance.

‘Thieving with violence,’ Robert said. He swung the lad down from Snow’s high back, and slid off himself.

‘It wasn’t as it sounds,’ the lad said and Dandy and I smiled as we heard the gentle burr of the Rom accent. ‘My grandma was telling a fortune. A lady gave her a shilling to tell her if her own true love was faithful. My gran has the Sight and she looked into the lady’s palm and told her “no”.’ He sighed. ‘The lady tried to take the shilling back and she was rough with my gran. The old man went to help her and the lady’s footman hit him. My da went in, and so did my ma. The lady’s coachman whipped us all and yelled for the watch. They took us all up for thieving with violence because a lady couldn’t believe that her man preferred another woman.’

Robert shook his head. Katie and Dandy cooed in dismay and concern. I looked at the lad hard-eyed. I had nothing against him and what he said might well be true. I cared nothing one way or another. It was a world full of big thieves and little thieves. Little thieves like his family unquestionably were – for a shilling for a fortune is a gull and a thievery. And big thieves – for the lady and her lord would be the thieving sort who say that the land is theirs, and put up fences; or that the animals and birds which fly and run freely are theirs, and put in man-traps. I had no sympathy for him or his raggle-taggle kin. But I was glad he had joined us. He could do the poaching instead of Dandy, and if anyone hung to put meat in Robert Gower’s stewpot it would not be my sister.

I cared only for her. I had no love to waste on any other living human being. Dandy and Sea were all I loved in the whole world. One selfish young girl and a horse. It was not very much for one person to love, I thought, watching the tear roll down the lad’s face for the father who would hang and the mother who would go far, far away, and the grandparents who would undoubtedly die in gaol. But the years in the wagon with Da and Zima had somehow shrunk my heart so that there was no room in it for more than one young woman and one horse.

‘Can you handle horses?’ I asked him.

His face brightened. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I love horses. My da used to travel around training them in winter.’

I looked at Robert wryly. ‘So you have another rider if you need one,’ I said. The boy was slighter than Jack and wiry; a perfect body for a bareback rider.

Robert beamed back at me in satisfaction. ‘Aye,’ he said. He chinked a purse of coins in his pocket. ‘And they paid me to take him on,’ he said. He turned to William. ‘So you can go home,’ he said. ‘We’ll send you off first thing in the morning. I’ll show you the direction and give you coppers for your meals on the road. You can walk and take lifts. It shouldn’t take you long.’

William’s simple face glowed like a delighted child. ‘Thank you, Mr Gower,’ he said, heartfelt. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘Thank you very much indeed,’ I thought to myself in silence, looking at William’s boots which I thought would not last the distance home and the roads he would have to walk waiting for a passing wagon or cart. But I said nothing. William was not my concern either.

‘The lad can sleep in with you girls tonight,’ Robert said. ‘Tomorrow he’ll come into William’s bunk with us.’

‘Not till he’s washed he won’t,’ I said firmly. ‘He’ll have fleas and lice. I won’t have him sleeping in our wagon until he’s stripped down and washed and gone over his clothes.’

Robert nodded. ‘You’re very nice all of a sudden, Merry,’ he said mildly. ‘I remember when I first saw you, you were all over flea-bites then; aye and lice.’

I nodded. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That was the last time. I like to be clean now, and I’ll stay that way. William can take the lad down to the river and make sure he washes clean.’

The lad clutched at the neck of his shirt as if he were afraid I was going to dip him in boiling oil as a cleansing method. I could not help but chuckle.

‘Don’t look like that, lad. What’s your name?’

‘Rea,’ he said sulkily. ‘What’s yours?’

‘I’m Meridon, and this is my sister Dandy,’ I said. ‘We’re Rom too; and we survived washing. Go now and get clean. And if you see a rabbit or a hare on the way home you can bring it back with you.’

Robert could judge people like he could judge horseflesh. Within days he had Rea setting the rigging as well as William ever did; and before the show he had him practising standing on horseback, and vaulting on and off. He was little, but he was wiry, and he would get up early in the morning and work all the day long without ever seeming to get tired. He was excellent with the ponies and even Sea, who still hated most men, would allow his touch. I was glad, for working with the horses and my little act on the trapeze at every show was tiring.

We kept the show much the same as that first time when the Quality had come from as far away as Salisbury and stood to cheer and showered the flying act with coins.

When we had a barn we would do the show indoors. It meant a smaller audience but Robert charged twopence a head at the gate and people paid willingly, aye, and came back for the second performance and paid all over again. Very few people had even heard of a trapeze act. No one had ever seen girl flyers. We were as much a novelty as if we had two heads apiece.

If Robert could not hire a barn we would work in a field, with the A-frames for Jack and the girls fixed deep into the wet ground and a mesh of rigging pegging it down to hold it still. It was cold working on the outside but people huddled together and cheered and did not seem to mind. I was mortally tired at the end of a day with two shows, and it was worse when we worked in the open air because I was chilled by the end of the show as well. Preparing the ponies and showing them, changing their harness, and then my two rosinback acts were hard work. I could hand the horses over to Rea for the second half but my trapeze act strained my tired muscles, and always I stiffened in a frenzy of tension while Dandy was working up high. Then I had to force a smile on my face for the historical tableau at the end when Jack and I rode Snow and Sea around the ring at a fast canter and snatched Dandy and Katie up behind us to represent the rape of the Sabine women. The crowd loved that. Katie and Dandy wore their indecent trapeze costumes with a veil over their faces and screamed like banshees. Jack and I wore our breeches and blue shirts with little fez hats. We tried it one time with burnt cork smeared on our faces and it went even better.

We did three shows a day if we were in a barn. Robert would hire lanterns and we would work until the light was going. He would sometimes hire benches and do a gala show for invited local gentry if we were in an area of big houses. Katie and Dandy would be on their mettle then, catching the eye of the local squire.

I used to peep through the door of the barn to see the clothes, to smell the clean perfume smell that came off from them. The clothes were so smooth, the cloth so silky. The colours of the women’s dresses were so pale and so regular – the dyes seemed never to have run streaky. Their collars were always white, and if it got hot in the barn they brought out exquisite painted fans and wafted them gently at their necks where you could not see a line where they had stopped washing.

I used to watch them and long to be one of them. It was a dream as foolish as Dandy’s thought of taking the fancy of one of the young squires. But it was part of my old dream of Wide and I longed for clean sheets and a quiet room. The tick of a well-oiled clock and flowers in a vase. The smell of beeswax and the view from the window of other people bent-backed working on my land.