Neely shrugged, still not watching them. "It doesn't bother me. Would you lot back there keep an eye out behind us for anything that looks like, oh, I don't know, a mass of unwashed illiterates with pitchforks? Good neighbour."

"We're ten," Simon replied. He drew his knees up to his chin; Peter sat cross-legged, morosely looking behind them. "We come from Rummins." He suddenly frowned. "The old lady. Mistress Mag. She said she would take us back to the ship we came from. So we could go home."

"Are they really going to come after us with pitchforks?" asked Peter.

"That's you," Simon teased, nudging his brother. "You're a cynic."

"Nuh-uh. You are." Peter gave a half-hearted shove back.

"No, you are."

"No, you!"

"Miranda," said Neely in a very clear, patient voice. "Please tell the boys to contain themselves until we are well away from the scene of our last fucking crime."

The curse word caused both boys to shut up, awed. They went on in more normal voices. "We were talking to a lady," Simon said. "There was a Hafti lady who said she'd lost her earring at market. She said she would give us each a coin if we helped her look."

"And we didn't find it, but she said she would give us the coin anyway--" said Peter.

"And then we were on a ship," Simon concluded.

"It sounds as if your lady Hafti wasn't a lady Hafti," Neely replied. "She might've been playing a prank. Or deliberately trying to find children. If you knew the name of the ship and if I had any interested at all, ever, in going back to Oireachteigh, I'd ask the captain; she's got a hand in most of the ships that go between Erin and the mainland."

"We have a mama and a papa," Peter said softly.

"God, we've got at least another three days of it, with this wreck." He nodded at the ox. "We are dumping these kids with the next doctor on the route, Miranda." He cut her a look daring her to contradict.

"I think a little?" said Simon. "I never could see how she made it work. The tail's just glued on, though." He scratched the baby goat between the ears. "She also said she had a soul. In a bottle. She kept it under the seat."

Neely shifted in spite of himself. "Did she say whose?"

Simon shook his head solemnly. "People tried to buy it," he said. "But she switched out the bottles right quick and sold them one different, with like smoke in."