Free The Silver Horse by Kate Forsyth

stuff.’
    The guard gulped. ‘I’m not sure I’m allowed . . .’
    â€˜No need to tell anyone,’ Maggie said. ‘Just a nice bit of stew, with some potatoes in it, or a bit of bread and cheese. It won’t be for long. We go up before the magistrate come the end of the month, and then we’ll be out of your hair.’
    The guard gulped. He knew as well as Maggie did that the gypsies faced the gallows. He lookedback at the little girls, now playing happily with their dolls, and said, ‘I’m sure a bit of stew won’t do any harm.’
    â€˜You’re a good man,’ Maggie said warmly. ‘Tell me, what’s your name?’
    â€˜Maloney, ma’am,’ he answered, and then reddened, for one did not call a tattered old gypsy woman ‘ma’am’.
    â€˜And your good wife?’
    â€˜Jenny.’
    â€˜Give Mistress Jenny my thanks for the dollies. It’s hard on the little ones, being locked up in this bad place.’
    â€˜Indeed it is,’ Maloney agreed, looking sad.
    â€˜Tell me, do you have girls of your own, to be knowing so well what my little ones would like?’
    The guard’s sad look deepened to real grief. ‘We did,’ he said. ‘But they died. Two years ago now. Mary, my eldest, would be eight now, and the little one, Annie, she’d be six.’
    â€˜Oh, that’s hard,’ Maggie said sympathetically. ‘There’s nothing harder, is there, than losing a child? Have you and your wife had no more, to comfort you in your grief?’
    He shook his head. ‘We’ve tried, but . . .’ His voice trailed away, then he squared his shoulders and said gruffly, ‘But I mustn’t be standing here, chitchatting like some old gossip. I’ve work to do.’
    As he turned to go, Maggie stretched out one of her thin, clawlike hands to him. ‘If you’d like, you can bring your wife in to see me,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I can tell her if there are to be any more weans for her and, perhaps, help her have another.’
    He shot her a quick glance from under his heavy brows, and said, ‘You can do that? Truly?’
    â€˜I can try,’ Maggie said.
    â€˜All right,’ he said eagerly. ‘It’d have to be late, I wouldn’t want the pastor or the warder to know.’
    â€˜Good idea,’ Maggie said. ‘Let her wrap hershawl about her head, so no one knows she’s come to the prison.’
    He nodded and went out, shutting the door behind him. Beatrice had time only to turn to her grandmother with a questioning look before he was back, thrusting a little package wrapped in paper into her hands.
    â€˜For the little ones,’ he said. ‘So they don’t go hungry.’
    As he went out again, Maggie opened the paper. Inside were two hard-boiled eggs, a crust of brown bread, some cold bacon, a wedge of cheese and two small red apples.
    â€˜That must be his own lunch,’ Beatrice said wonderingly, surprised at his kindness.
    â€˜It’s better than some cold, maggoty porridge, that’s for sure!’ Maggie sat down again, beginning to peel one of the eggs. ‘Come here, my darling girls,’ she crooned to Mimi and Sabina, breaking the egg in half. ‘Are you hungry?’
    â€˜Wasn’t it dangerous, offering to tell his wife’s fortune like that?’ Mimi’s elder sister Lena said curiously as she came across to demand a portion of the food for herself.
    â€˜I don’t think so,’ Maggie replied. ‘What can they do to me? Lock me in prison, threaten to hang me?’
    â€˜They could burn you as a witch,’ Beatrice said, a tight knot of anxiety in her throat.
    â€˜Well, yes, there is that, but I thought it worth the risk.’
    â€˜But . . . why?’
    Maggie held up the bread and cheese, which she had broken up into small portions for them all. ‘At least he may