Pride and Percabeth

Chapter Sixteen

The stalls displayed the wares of traveling peddlers: leather goods and iron tools for the men; tin and copper pots and pans, calicos and muslins, and glass, paste, and jet baubles for the women. A caravan of traveling-folk was passing through Skye-on-Styx.

A/N "traveling-folk" is a term used to describe the Romani people. I was going to use the more common and period appropriate term "gypsy" but was hesitant because that is considered a slur against the Romani people. Also traveling-folk incorporates the whole population of itinerant peddlers and laborers who would have roamed the English country-side.

Some of them entertained the crowd by playing music or dancing for them. Others sold good luck charms and cure-alls. One old beldame was making a small fortune from all the village girls who wished to know the identity of their future husbands.
Leo spotted Miss Levesque leaving the old beldame's stall with two other girls. One was the tall, pale blonde he had seen with Miss Levesque at church: a willowy, languid, ethereal looking beauty with a long, slender neck which seemed ready to snap under the weight of her mass of golden curls. This gave her the appearance of a wilting, white flower. She shaded her porcelain complexion with a frilly white parasol and chatted with her two friends in a breathy, exhausted sounding yawn of a voice.

Leo could not get a good look at Miss Levesque's other companion. She twirled her pink sunshade and walked over to look at rabbits who were being judged as to which was the finest specimen.