‘As ice,’ I confirmed, quite unruffled. Then I heaved the heavy hay net up to the hook and pushed past him and went into the wagon.

Dandy was already in her bunk, combing out her black hair and singing under her breath in a low languorous hum. I climbed up into mine, and dozed off at once, barely waking when the caravan started rocking over the field and into the lane. I just opened my eyes and saw the open doorway and the stars ahead of us and heard the noise of many unshod hooves on the hardpacked mud as we headed for winter quarters and Warminster.

We stopped one night on the road. I tumbled out of my bunk to rub down Snow and Bluebell, to walk them down to the stream and let them drink when they were cool, and then the little ponies. The little ones were nervous in the dark and shied. One of them scraped my leg and trod on my toe and I cursed in a voice still husky with sleep but I was too dozy to cuff him.

We put them out on stakes because we were camped by the lane-side and did not want them wandering. Robert himself checked that the blankets were tied safe on Snow and Bluebell to keep them warm. Then we all took our suppers of bread and milk into our bunks, saying not a word to each other. We were all tired and we were used now to saying nothing when we were hard-worked on the road. It was the best and easiest way. We ate in silence, each one alone with private thoughts. Then Robert’s tin mug clanked on the wooden floor as he dropped it down from his bunk empty and said, ‘G’night,’ into the darkness of the wagon. Then I heard Jack’s mug drop, and Dandy’s.

‘Sarah?’ Dandy whispered into the darkness, invoking my childhood love for her by use of my secret name.

‘Yes?’ I replied.

‘You don’t think he’d ever leave us behind, do you?’ she asked.

I was silent for a moment, thinking. In the wordy, bargaining part of my mind I was very sure that Robert would leave Dandy, would leave me, would leave Jack his own son, if his upward struggle from his poverty demanded it. But there was a part of my mind which gave me shivers down my spine. It had given me my dream of wide, it had taught me that my name was Sarah and reminded me constantly that I belonged at Wide with my family. And that part of my mind was heavy with some kind of warning, like the distant rumble of a summer storm.