by Kate Forsyth
‘What?’ he croaked.
‘Your family’s good luck charm,’ Emilia said. ‘The lightning bolt.’
‘Why?’ he said shortly, through his teeth. The blood had drained away from his face, making the red scars uglier than ever.
She showed him the charms hanging from her wrist. ‘Our Baba sent us to find them,’ she said. ‘They’re the luck of the Rom. If we could gather them all together again, we could –’
‘They’re not good luck!’ Van cried. ‘They’re cursed bad luck!’
‘Why, what do you mean?’ Fairnette said. ‘I’ve never heard that said before. Father always used to say the charm had brought us luck.’
Van shut his teeth together smartly and would not speak.
‘Please tell us,’ Emilia said gently. ‘We really want to know.’
Van sighed, then said in a compressed voice, ‘It was all because of the charm that I got burnt.’
‘But . . . how? Why? I don’t understand,’ Fairnette said unhappily.
Van did not look at them. ‘Stevo and Father had been arguing about that stupid charm for weeks. Stevo thought Father should give it up to him. It’s always worn by the master smith, you know, the Big Man . . . and that was really Stevo now, for all that Father went up to the foundry every day.’
‘But I thought . . . do you mean Father was not really doing the job?’ Fairnette was surprised.
Van stared into the fire. ‘Father was getting rather vague about things, like ordering more limestone . . . and there’d been a string of accidents at the foundry, mostly small ones, not like mine. Stevo thought Father was . . .’ he hesitated, ‘. . . not keeping a close enough eye on things.’
‘Damned interfering pup!’ the old man roared. ‘Always thinks he’s right!’
They all jumped and looked round. The old man was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his burly chest, his eyebrows bristling.
‘Is that true, Father?’ Fairnette asked, looking upset. ‘Is that what happened?’
‘It’s all a lie,’ he said. ‘I’m as good a foundry master as I ever was!’
‘But the charm?’ Emilia said. ‘What has it got to do with the lightning bolt charm?’
The old man looked stricken. His hand groped up towards his neck, then fell away, fingers empty.
‘Van?’ Fairnette asked.
‘That day . . .’ Van paused and looked at Fairnette pleadingly. ‘I know I was not meant to go to the foundry, but Dax had been teasing me, calling me a wean and a whelp and a spoilt little baby, so I . . . I went up, just to look around, just to show him I wasn’t scared. Father and Stevo were arguing again. Stevo was saying there was not enough charcoal in the pot, the pig iron was coming out too grey, too brittle. Sparks were flying everywhere and Father was yelling at Stevo to mind his own business and go back to school –’
‘How dare he tell me how to run my own foundry,’ the old man muttered, and sat down heavily at the table. Fairnette moved automatically to pour him some mead, and he drank deeply.
‘So what happened?’ Luka asked.
‘Father said he would give Stevo a clip around the ear for being so cheeky, and Stevo said he wasn’t a wean any more, and Father had no right to beat him, and then Father swung a punch at him and got Stevo on the side of the head, and Stevo grabbed his hand, and anyway, they began going at each other hammer and tongs, you know what they’re like once they lose their tempers.’
Fairnette nodded, looking more miserable than ever.
‘Anyway, Father heaved Stevo right over and gave him a kick, saying that’d teach him to disrespect his elders, and Stevo got up and went for him. I thought he was going to strangle him! He had Father about the throat, and he grabbed the chain and it broke, and he had the lightning bolt in his hand. He stood there, holding it, panting, and he said, “You don’t deserve it, Father. You’re old now, and forgetting your craft. Someone’s going to get killed if you don’t be more careful.”’
‘Impertinent young pup,’ Mr Smith said, glowering into his cup.
‘So what happened then?’ Fairnette asked.
‘Nothing!’ Mr Smith banged the cup down on the table. ‘Nothing happened! It was an accident.’
Fairnette turned her dark, unhappy gaze back to Van’s face.
‘Father ran at Stevo, roaring and shouting, and tried to snatch the charm back,’ Van said. ‘He pushed Stevo and he fell back, and bumped into me. I was sort of hiding behind one of the grapples. I got knocked flying, and just then there was a sort of explosion and a big splash of the molten iron came raining down everywhere, all over me.’
‘It was not my fault!’ the old man shouted. ‘Van shouldn’t have been in the foundry in the first place. It’s got nothing to do with there not being enough charcoal in the pot! Stevo has no right to say so.’
He thumped his fist on the table and pushed his chair back so hard it toppled over. ‘Stevo had no right! Blame me, will he? If he’d given me the respect I deserve, it would never have happened! It wasn’t my fault!’ He stamped out of the room, banging the door behind him.
There was a dreadful silence.
‘What happened to the charm, Van?’ Fairnette asked, her voice very low. ‘Did you see?’
He shook his head, not looking at them. ‘No. I don’t remember much after that. Stevo threw me in the water barrel, and then brought me home. You know all about that.’
He lifted his stump helplessly.
Fairnette nodded.
‘I asked Stevo if he had the lightning bolt charm, and he said he knew nothing about it,’ Luka said angrily.
Van looked at him wearily. ‘He would not want to give it up for anything. It’s forged from a falling star, did you know that? By the very first gypsy, the one that made the nails for the crucifixion. It’s the Smith family’s most precious thing. The Big Man always wears it. It means . . . I guess it means power.’
‘But we need it,’ Emilia whispered. ‘Truly we do. Without it we’ll never be able to save our family.’
Tears stung her eyes, and she wiped them away.
‘But why?’ Fairnette whispered. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s magic,’ Emilia said. ‘The charms have magic. Apart, their magic is . . . well, not broken . . . but weaker. Together, they are so much more powerful.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do,’ Emilia said. ‘I feel it.’
Luka was frowning. She knew he did not have the same faith in the charms that she did. So far, he had humoured her insistence that they search for all of the charms because he had wanted to get more practical help, like the sleeping drug the innkeeper Joe Wood had given them, or Milosh’s promise to come with men and ponies. She did not know how to persuade him. She put her hand up to finger the charms, rubbing them one after the other. ‘It’s hard to explain. Things have happened, just when we’ve needed them to. Rain coming, or mist, or Coldham’s coach being held up by Lord Harry.’
‘Luck, pure and simple,’ Luka said.
‘It’s too uncanny to be simply luck,’ Emilia argued. ‘And there’s more. The longer I’ve been wearing them, the more clearly I seem to see things. It’s like . . .’ She struggled for words. ‘It’s like on a really bright, frosty morning, when you can see for miles, and everything is so sharp against the sky, and you can smell things, like you were a fox, and hear them too. Everything seems so much clearer. That’s what it’s like, wearing the charms. And each time I add a new one, the powers of the ones I already have get stronger. I can’t explain how. I just know it.’
‘What powers?’ Fairnette whispered, fascinated and afraid.
‘Making things happen,’ Emilia said after a moment. ‘Changing things.’
‘I wish you could turn rocks into gold, and then we could buy our family free,’ Luka mocked, and she sent him a hurt and furious look. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, and on his shoulder Zizi bounced up and down, shrieking derisively.
Emilia’s fingers caressed the golden crown. Lu
ck, and life, and magic . . .
‘Without them we would not have come so far,’ she said insistently.
Van stared at her, his hand thrust in his pocket, his eyes troubled.
Luka shook his head. ‘Stevo will never give us the charm, Milly. You heard Van. He’ll never give it up.’
‘Not for us,’ Emilia said. ‘But he might, if Van asked him.’ She looked pleadingly at the scarred boy.
Van shook his head. ‘No. I can’t. I can’t go to the foundry. No.’
‘You wouldn’t need to go to the foundry. You could go to the inn in the town. They said your brothers are there every night.’
‘No! Are you mad? Go to town, looking like this?’ He flung back the hood and shook back his sleeve so they could see the full horror of his scars.
Emilia was struck dumb with pity. He met her look challengingly.
‘You only need to go once,’ she whispered. ‘To help us, Van.’
‘You could go at night,’ Luka said.
‘Nothing could make me go,’ Van cried. ‘Nothing!’
‘Nothing?’ Emilia whispered, bitterly disappointed.
Van’s eyes suddenly flicked towards Zizi, who was combing Luka’s hair lovingly with her tiny paws.
Luka went white. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘You couldn’t ask me to give up Zizi! She’s like my own little baby, I’ve had her all her life. She’d never understand. It’d be cruel. She’d mope to death.’
Van said nothing.
Luka clutched his monkey close to him, his eyes suddenly bright with tears.
‘You can’t ask it of him!’ Emilia’s voice shook. ‘It’s not fair. He’s already given up so much. He gave away his violin and his telescope that he really loved – you couldn’t ask it of him, could you?’
But even as she spoke, she was thinking of her own mare Alida, who she had loved at least as much as Luka loved Zizi. Her cousin glanced at her. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and cuddled Zizi so close she squeaked in protest.
‘You’re asking me to go where people can see me,’ Van said passionately, his voice shaking as much as Emilia’s. ‘You say he’s lost his violin, and his telescope. So, tell me, what have I lost?’
Once more he shook his stunted red stump in their face, then turned and ran out of the room.
A Storm of Bees
There was no one to eat Fairnette’s roast chicken but Luka and Emilia – and Rollo, who enjoyed the best meal he had had in weeks as each of the three children surreptitiously passed him down tidbits from under the table.
Fairnette took a tray to Van’s room, but he would not open the door to take it, and she took another tray to the forge where her father was banging and hammering away but not actually making anything, which was, she said, a very bad sign.
‘I’m sorry we’ve brought trouble upon you,’ Emilia said unhappily.
Fairnette sighed. ‘You didn’t bring the trouble, Emilia, it was already here.’
They helped her clear away the remains of the meal, and put the chicken bones on to simmer with a bunch of herbs to make soup. Luka in particular was very quiet, and kept Zizi cuddled close to him. They all felt very low and miserable. Fairnette brought in their clothes, stiff and smelling of soap, and deftly sewed up any rents and tears while Emilia and Luka washed and dried the dishes for her. No one said very much.
Then Rollo lifted his head from his paws, and growled, deep in his throat. Luka and Emilia at once tensed and looked up. They heard a low, sullen humming that quickly increased in pitch and intensity.
Fairnette lost all her rosy colour. ‘The bees . . .’ she whispered.
A storm of bees swept in through the open door. Instinctively Luka and Emilia ducked low, arms over their heads. Zizi gibbered with fear and dived under the table, pressing her face into Rollo’s shaggy fur. Rollo buried his face in his paws, whining.
Slowly Fairnette bent and thrust a taper into the fire until its tip was burning brightly. She then straightened and began to sweep the taper through the air, trailing smoke this way and that. ‘What is wrong, noble bees?’ she crooned. ‘What has angered you?’
The bees were confused and lulled by the smoke. They stopped their furious zooming, and bumped about her head.
‘Is there danger?’ Fairnette asked. ‘So many of you, here in the house. Are we to have a whole crowd of visitors today?’
Luka and Emilia looked at each other in sudden alarm. Coldham! Constables!
‘Fairnette,’ Luka said in a low, urgent voice. ‘We need to get away. There are constables on our trail. I did not think they would track us here but –’
‘Bob!’ Emilia cried. ‘The boy who told us where you lived. He would not know to keep it quiet.’
‘We must hide . . .’ Luka bent and swooped Zizi up into his arms, and she wrapped both skinny arms about his neck.
Rollo growled and rose to his feet, his body stiff, the hair on his neck standing up. He was staring at the door. They saw a flicker of movement, a flash of light on metal.
‘They’re all around,’ Emilia whispered. ‘What are we to do?’
‘Quick, hide in the old oast house,’ Fairnette said. ‘We only use one of the towers. The other one is full of junk. They might not find you there.’
Luka and Emilia flashed an anguished look at each other. Might not was not good enough!
‘Is there any way out?’ Luka asked.
‘There’s a door to the outside, where they used to load the bags of hops onto the cart, but it’s bolted on the outside,’ Fairnette said.
Luka grimaced. ‘What about through that white thing at the top?’
‘You mean through the cowl?’ Fairnette asked doubtfully. ‘But how would you get up there? And the hole is very small. Zizi could get out, I guess. It’s really a chimney, you know, that cowl, and it’s just as narrow as a chimney.’
‘I can climb a chimney,’ Luka said.
‘He can climb anything,’ Emilia added loyally. ‘He’s a monkey boy.’
‘And Milly’s a monkey girl.’ Luka grinned at her, sharing a very old joke.
‘Hopefully you won’t need to try,’ Fairnette said, opening a door in the side of the kitchen. ‘It’s an awfully long way down to the ground!’
The door led into a round, dark, cavernous room. Along one wall was a huge fireplace like the one in Van’s room, though it was cold and bare of anything but cobwebs. The strange smell was much stronger in this tower, and the floor was covered in brown leaves and petals that crunched underfoot and sent the smell up in dizzying waves. Everywhere were barrels and sacks and peculiar equipment covered in dust.
There was nowhere safe to hide.
A ladder led up to the next floor. Luka and Emilia scrambled up it, Zizi leading the way. Rollo put his paws up the ladder and whined, but it was too steep for him to follow.
Above was a vast, empty space. The floor was wooden, and scattered with dried hop cones. The roof narrowed to a point far above their heads, and there was the white post of the wind vane, letting in a thin beam of light and a faint draught to move the dried hops so they murmured about the children’s feet.
Luka stared up at it, wondering. ‘Could we, if we had to?’ he whispered.
Emilia frowned. ‘It’s very narrow.’
‘We’re only skinny.’
‘Aye, but skinny enough?’
‘Lucky we didn’t eat much lunch,’ Luka grinned.
‘What would we do about Rollo?’
Luka did not answer, only pressed his lips together.
They crept back down the ladder and put their ear to the door.
‘Open up, else I’ll knock the door down!’ a rough and all-too-familiar voice was roaring. Coldham!
They heard Fairnette open the door, and then her voice, sounding scared, ‘What is it? Who are you?’ Then she screamed. ‘Ow! Let me go! You’re hurting me! Father, Father, help me!’
‘We’re looking for a couple of gypsy brats,’ Coldham snarled. ‘They had a dog with them,
a savage, hairy brute, and a horrible flea-bitten monkey. They were last seen coming this way.’
‘Aye, they’ve been here,’ Fairnette said.
Luka and Emilia stared at each other in horror. Never would they have thought Fairnette could betray them. ‘They were here at the crack of dawn,’ Fairnette went on. ‘I don’t know what they wanted, none of it made any sense. I sent them on their way.’
‘Where? Where were they headed?’
‘I don’t know,’ Fairnette said crossly, then screamed again. ‘Ow! Don’t! You’re hurting me!’
They heard Van’s door creak open. ‘Stop it! Leave her alone!’ he cried, sounding frightened. Then Fairnette screamed again.
‘London!’ Fairnette sobbed. ‘They were headed for London, I’m sure.’
Luka and Emilia could only gaze at each other in consternation. They were indeed planning on going next to London, because that was where the last of the Graylings was meant to be, but they had not told Fairnette so. She was only guessing, or perhaps, more likely, saying the least likely place she could think of.
‘London!’ Coldham said. ‘Why on earth . . . All right! Men! Rip this place to pieces. I want to make sure this girl isn’t lying through her teeth. If those gypsy kids are hiding here, I want them found.’
They heard a great clatter of boots, a cry of dismay from Fairnette, and then the crash of furniture being overturned, plates falling, pewter jugs clanging, glass smashing, iron clanking, fists hammering, and doors banging.
Rollo barked angrily.
‘The dog!’ Coldham cried. ‘That dog’s here! Find it!’
‘Sssh, Rollo, sssh!’ Emilia hissed. She exchanged an agonised look with Luka.
‘We’ll go out the cowl,’ he decided.
‘But . . . Rollo!’
Luka seized the dog by his thick ruff and dragged him over to a pile of sacks by the big double doors that led out to the courtyard. ‘Down, boy, down. Stay!’
Obediently Rollo lay down on the sacks, and Luka draped more sacks over him. ‘Stay, boy. Sssh now.’
‘He’ll never stay quiet if the soldiers come in here,’ Emilia protested. ‘He’ll fly at them and they’ll shoot him . . .’ She gave a little sob.
