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Petro s only reply was another sigh. He had less faith than she. He changed the subject that was making him
increasingly uncomfortable.  So, when you stopped being a frighted tawnie juva, did you touch the qajo, the
Townsman s heart? Should we sell him old Pika for his little son?
I think yes. He is a good one, for Gaje. Pika will like him; also, it is nearly fall, and another winter wandering
would be hard on his bones.
They had made their camp up against a stand of tangled woodland, and a good long way off from the palisaded
town. The camp itself could only be seen from the top of the walls, not from the ground. That was the way the Rom
liked things they preferred to be apart from the Gaje.
The tsera was within shouting distance by now, and Petro sent her off with a pat to her backside. The vurdon,
those neatly built wooden wagons, were -arranged in a precise circle under the wilderness of trees at the edge of the
grasslands, with the common fire neatly laid in a pit in the center. Seven wagons, seven families Chali shared Petro s.
Some thirty seven Rom in all and for all they knew, the last Rom in the world, the only Rom to have survived the Evil
Days.
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 unpick-eted 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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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