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Wouldn’t hurt a fly.” The big horse turned his placid brown eye on Bean and they held each other’s gaze for a moment. And then Bean leaned forward and laid his cheek against the broad soft neck.
    “There’s your answer,” crowed the man. “Boy knows a good horse when he sees one!”
    Which was true enough.

Ten

    T hey returned to find the Gypsy caravan empty and Mrs. Bewes crouched over her fire, stirring a pot of barley-and-bacon soup. She insisted that Bean and Pell join them, and they ate together, Pell grateful for a hot meal and the luxury of meat. Mr. Bewes snorted when Pell asked if they were missed at home.
    “Six married children, all with children of their own. There’s more than enough of them to run the place into the ground perfectly well without us,” he said. “And Mrs. Bewes does enjoy having no one to please but herself.”
    The lady in question adjusted her skirts and settled back comfortably to prove his point. “Now if only I can prevent Mr. Bewes from finding himself a suitable animal for at least a day or two, I might even have a chance to see the sights.”
    The old couple retired to their wagon for the night, and Pell lay beside Bean on a pile of sacks with Jack tethered close by. She felt comfortable enough but couldn’t sleep, despite being tired. It was impossible to ignore the party that had begun nearby with a pair of fiddles and a Jew’s harp, joined a few minutes later by a makeshift drum, penny-whistles, and flutes. At first the songs were loud and wild, but after some time they turned melancholic, and eventually, in a haze of half-waking, half-remembered dreams, Pell slept.
    She awoke later in the dark to the sound of a gruff burble of words, stern and low at first and then sweet as a lover’s, and she wondered who might have settled behind them. The voice affected her oddly, its soft hypnotic flow insinuating itself into the space between sleep and wakefulness. With no face to put to the sound, she nonetheless felt the tug of it.
    What remained of the night was restless. Men with too much drink in their bellies staggered into strange camps, attracted like moths to any lantern or campfire. Nearby, a stallion, smelling every mare on heat in the square mile, screamed and groaned unnnh unnnh unnnh, rearing up and thudding down with all his might. Those mares were answering him too, and the already volatile atmosphere thickened.
    People began rumbling their annoyance, and a few shouted, “ Shut the beast up!” But the trumpeting, groaning, thudding, and chain-clanking went on, and Pell thought, Someone’s got to do something about that horse. But nobody did, and for the rest of the night she lay awake.
    In the early dawn, when the possibility of sleep had passed, she edged away from Bean and stoked up the fire for the kettle. Quite near to Jack, a man sat awake in the near-darkness nursing a smoldery fire and a pipe; when he spoke, Pell recognized at once the voice she had heard in the night. A pair of shaggy deerhounds lay crouched at his feet like sphinxes, heads up, eyes alert. He had black hair streaked with gray, and his eyes glittered blue-black and gold, reflecting the fire. When he spoke to his dogs, they turned their heads gravely to listen.
    They were the only two people awake in the vicinity, though the entire town would soon begin to stir. When he turned and held her gaze, Pell shivered, unable to look away, knowing what Mam would say about staring at a strange man in a place like this. But he didn’t change expression, just looked at her until his curiosity had been satisfied, and then turned away. When next she dared to look, he and the dogs were gone.
    Mr. Bewes rose and dressed, anxious to revisit his horse, while Mrs. Bewes reminded him that their budget wasn’t a penny over twenty pounds no matter what sort of animal he fell for, if he didn’t want his family going hungry all winter. Her husband tipped his hat and was off, dodging a child dressed in