I raised myself up in the saddle and bawled at Sea, over the noise of the creaking leather and the thudding hooves and the flying sand, and he put his head down and went that extra bit faster. I guided him to the side of the path where the greening heather was a better foothold and his strong white legs reached forward, he put his heart into his speed and we forged ahead with a yell of triumph.

‘You win!’ Will shouted as the hill levelled out, and I pulled Sea up. He was panting, his flanks dark with sweat. ‘You win!’ Will said again. ‘And I’ll pay up, though riding on the edge of the firebreak is cheating.’

I beamed at him. ‘I always cheat,’ I said. ‘Especially if the stakes are high.’

Will nodded. ‘I should have known. What’s your game, Sarah? The bones?’

I shook my head. ‘Cards,’ I said.

Will chuckled and we turned the horses for home. ‘Where did you learn?’ he asked, entertained.

The sun was warm on my back and I was happy to be out on the land. A cuckoo was calling loudly and contentedly away over to our right and some early gorse was making the air smell sweet. Will pulled his cob alongside Sea and we went along companionably side by side and I told him about Da and his cheating at wayside inns. I told him how I was taught, when I was just a little child, to go around the back of the card players and to see what cards they had and to signal it to my da. I told him how Da would tell me to fetch a fresh deck of cards from the landlord and how I learned to stack them in the right order to suit Da, whoever had the deal.

‘And did they never spot you?’ Will asked, amazed.

I laughed at him for being a gull. ‘Of course they did, sometimes!’ I said. ‘I was only a little girl, my hands weren’t big enough to hide the stack. Mostly they didn’t. She was there too…’

I broke off. I had been about to say that she was there too and she would sing, or do a little dance with her skirts held out, and that the men who were fools enough to play with Da were also fool enough to take their eyes off him when a woman, even a little girl, was up on a table where they could see up her skirt.

I lost the thread of what I was saying and my face went bitter.

‘I can’t remember what I was saying…’ I said.

‘Never mind,’ Will said. ‘Perhaps you’ll tell me another time.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said. I knew I never would.