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bendy tents, lean-tos and other makeshift dwellings, if they evicted this group and the gypsies never came back, how would the hops be planted and harvested without the seasonal influx of willing workers? Gypsy men worked hard and then moved on. The workers Harecross Hall had hired from London had never been as effective, as abstemious, nor as willing to just move on once the work was done.
    Every able-bodied man, most of the women and the older children were even now helping with the harvest of the first vegetables, peas, haricot beans, spinach, as well as luscious strawberries, the first fruit of summer at Wroth Farm, the earldom’s home farm. The earl was not the only one to employ them, though, and in the fall all of the local farmers depended upon gypsies to help with the hops harvest, then pears and apples, and finally ground crops, carrots and feed vegetables for the livestock to winter on, potatoes, cabbages and turnips. Local workers could not possibly do so much as was required.
    This year had been different from the start, Anne had heard when she returned from her spring sojourn in Yorkshire and Cornwall. There was an uneasiness in the village due to a rise in property destruction of a particularly malicious kind, all blamed on the gypsies. Villagers reported mischievous laughter as windows were broken and gardens trampled. Gypsy children, the villagers complained.
    Eyed uneasily by the few women still in the encampment—they were shy of the earl’s daughter, even in their own environment—Anne strolled to the gypsy mother’s cart. It was a simple farm cart fitted with a canvas tent and awning. She went to the draped scarf that served as a kind of door, knowing the old woman would still be abed this early. “Mother, will you see me? It is I, Lady Anne of the Hall.”
    Florrie popped her head out, put one finger to her lips, then crept from the cart and motioned Anne to come with her. Anne followed, noting that Sanderson was speaking with one of the few men too old to work; the fellow was gratefully eating a husk of fresh bread, dipping it in a tin cup to soften it.
    “Mother is not well,” the dark-eyed woman said, twisting a lock of her long hair in her strong, callused hands.
    Anne felt a spurt of fear. “Not well? In what way?”
    “She is not well,” the girl repeated and shrugged. She rubbed her belly, the bulge round, straining the draped skirts of her dress. “She sickened in the night.”
    Anne felt a twisting in her gut. “I must see her.”
    The gypsy woman shook her head, but Anne ignored her and climbed up into the dark fetid cart. Herbs burned in a little metal firepot, and the air was smoky, dim, dank, but nothing could defeat the familiar smell of illness.
    “Madam, what is wrong?” Anne murmured, crouching by the woman’s bed, a pallet with multiple colorful scarves and blankets, cushions and pillows about her.
    But there was no answer. The normally robust woman was sunk into unconsciousness. The younger woman whispered that she had been like that for hours. Anne sat for a long moment, observing, thinking of how similar her case was to Robbie’s. Nothing connected them but the argument between Mary and her, and her telling Robbie’s fortune. But what about the broth?
    Anne asked Florrie about it. The young woman shook her head. No one else was sick, she said, and all ate the same food. With her being unconscious, Anne could not even ask the woman if she and Robbie had shared anything that no one else had eaten.
    She climbed down from the cart. “Are you sure no one else is ill?” she asked Florrie.
    The young woman shook her head. “No, madam, not a one. And we all eat the same.”
    One older gypsy woman, strong, and of about fifty or so years, came forward shaking her fist in Anne’s face. “That woman, that Mary, she cursed our Mother. She said she would bring down the wrath of God upon the Mother. Go to her, tell her,” the woman shrieked, pointing a long bony finger.