by Kate Forsyth
‘We need to get my bracelet back first,’ she said.
Luka looked troubled. ‘We can’t, Milly. We just don’t have the time. It’s a long way to Kingston from here, even if we get a boat.’
‘We have to at least try,’ Emilia said. ‘Let’s just ask if anyone knows where we can find one of these fences. We may get lucky.’
‘Fair enough,’ Luka sighed. He knew how much the charm bracelet meant to Emilia.
But though the children trudged the back-alleys and laneways of London for almost two hours, they had no luck. They were shown numerous gold necklaces, bracelets, lockets, rings, earrings and jewelled combs, but no one they asked had ever seen a dainty gold chain hung with five mismatching charms. At last Luka said gently, ‘I’m sorry, Milly. We can’t wait any longer. If we want to catch a boat up the river, we need to go now, before the tide turns.’
‘But my bracelet . . . all the charms . . . we went through so much to find them! Was it all for nothing?’ Her voice wobbled.
Luka patted her arm. ‘None of it was for nothing. We’ve got powdered fish-berries to drug the guards, and a lock-pick to open the cell doors, and big, strong men coming to help us. And don’t forget those pardons I nicked! We’ll have no trouble saving our families now. Maybe it was the luck of the charms that helped us get all those things, I don’t know. We certainly do seem to have had Providence on our side.’
‘Until now.’ Emilia wiped her eyes on her sleeve.
‘Come on, let’s just get to Gallows Park now, and start laying some plans.’
‘Shouldn’t we stop at Richmond first?’ Emilia said. ‘Isn’t that where the countess is, who bought the butterfly in amber?’
Luka shrugged. ‘I don’t remember. Besides, it’s getting late, it’ll be dark soon. We don’t have time to stop now, Milly, we need to get to Gallows Pond. Tomorrow is the last day of the month, and our last chance to save our family.’
‘But Gallows Pond is in Richmond Park,’ Emilia said. ‘That’s why I remember about the countess. I realised at once that her house must be close to where we’re all meeting.’
‘But Gallows Pond is right at the end of Richmond Park, near Kingston, don’t you remember?’ Luka said. ‘The park is huge! And we really don’t have time to go wandering about looking for some countess whose name we can’t even remember.’
‘It was the Countess of Dysart,’ Emilia said. ‘I remember because it sounds like dessert. And her house is called Ham House. They sort of seemed to go together, like honey and ham.’
‘It can’t be called Ham House!’
‘It is.’
‘What is it, some kind of pig farm?’ Luka said.
‘Would a countess have a pig farm?’
‘Why not? Anyway, who cares? We haven’t got time to be going around asking. Don’t forget our own pig-man. He’ll still be on our trail. And there’s not a hope we got through London unnoticed, leading our dearest Sweetheart around by the nose. Every street caller for miles around will be talking about the two ragamuffins with their pet bear.’
‘But, Luka –’
‘Don’t go on about it, Emilia! We’ve got an awfully long way to go, and not much time. Let’s just get to Gallows Pond, and meet up with our friends, and think about how we can best get everyone out of gaol. Can’t you see that’s the best plan?’
Emilia set her jaw stubbornly, but did not argue anymore, following Luka through the hot, crowded streets to the river. They found a boatman who was willing to take Maggie’s gold earrings in return for some food and drink, and a berth on a boat heading west along the River Thames to Kingston. It was a relief to sit down and stretch out their dusty feet and lift their faces to the breeze. It had been a long day, full of alarms and apprehensions.
Soon the sun set into clouds as high as castles, and an early dusk settled over the countryside. The water was purple-grey, and rocked under the prow of the boat, parting and falling away in two long white curves. Emilia’s head was heavy. She sighed, yawned, and let herself rest her head against her sleeping cousin’s arm. In moments, she was asleep.
Emilia’s grandmother came to her in a dream. Maggie was ragged and filthy, her grizzled hair full of straw, her back hunched with pain. She seemed to be trying to warn Emilia of something. She waved and pointed over Emilia’s shoulder, and mouthed words. Watch out . . . he comes . . .
Emilia woke with a jerk. She sat up, and looked about her anxiously.
All was dark. The only light came from their lantern, which shone like a red star in the night. Far behind them were the lights of other boats, casting fiery ripples across the river. The only sound was the splash of the water against the hull, and the ceaseless melancholy call of frogs in the reeds.
The men rowed on in the darkness. Luka was curled up beside her, Zizi huddled against his neck. Rollo was snoring softly at her feet.
Emilia looked back at the other boats. One was far bigger than the others, and alight with flaming torches which glanced off the metal of many helmets and pikes, dazzling her eyes. Emilia bent and shook Luka roughly awake.
‘Wha . . . what is it?’ he mumbled.
‘Soldiers,’ she whispered. ‘Coming up fast.’
Luka was up at once, swinging his pack onto his shoulder and scooping up Zizi, who clung to his coat, blinking her big round eyes. ‘We have to get away!’ Luka said, scanning the great stretch of black water with worried eyes.
The steersman had turned his head and was looking back towards the soldiers’ boat too. He cursed under his breath. ‘Just our luck,’ he grumbled softly to the oarsmen. ‘When we’re carrying illegal passengers too!’
‘You think they’ll stop us and check?’ one of the oarsmen whispered. ‘But why?’
‘Any chance of raising more revenue for Old Ironsides,’ another said sourly. ‘They’d fine their grandmother for sucking eggs if they could.’
‘There goes our profits!’ said another.
‘You could steer towards the bank and let us sneak ashore,’ Luka suggested, keeping his voice low. ‘The soldiers need never know we were here.’
‘Good idea,’ the steersman whispered back. ‘They’d only make us put you ashore anyway. Better douse that lamp.’
Luka did as he was told.
At once there was a shout from the soldiers’ boat coming up behind. ‘Hey! Lights! No sailing without lights!’
They ignored the shout, quietly steering the boat in towards the south bank of the river. Luka scrambled to his feet, and went to rouse Sweetheart. The clank of her chain and her mumble of discontent sounded very loud across the water.
‘Stop, I say! Stop in the name of the law,’ a voice cried.
Emilia sucked her breath in sharply. She knew that voice. Coldham! Her legs trembled and almost gave way beneath her. She could not believe he had found them again! Did he never give up? She wondered where he had picked up their trail again. They had tried to get aboard the boat without arousing suspicion, but Sweetheart was hard to hide, and maybe their very haste had attracted attention.
The boat bumped gently into the bank. Luka jumped across first, Zizi clinging to his shoulder, and coaxed Sweetheart to follow him. The huge old bear refused sulkily, and he dragged hard at her chain, till at last she obeyed, landing with a loud splash. The tilt boat rocked wildly and Emilia almost overbalanced. An oarsmen caught her and steadied her.
‘I order you to pull over! Light your lantern, else I’ll shoot!’ Coldham shouted. The light of the flaming torches reached hungrily across the water towards them, the soldiers’ boat drawing closer and closer.
‘Don’t shoot!’ the oarsman called back. ‘The lamp’s gone out. We’re trying to light it again. Give us a chance!’
Emilia flashed him a smile, then scrambled down onto the bank. Reeds crackled under her feet.
‘Who goes there? Are you unloading passengers? Light your lamp!’
‘Hold your horses, we’ve almost got it fixed,’ the oarsman called back, bending over the lamp and p
retending to tinker with it. Rollo had jumped down behind Emilia, and together they crept up the bank and into the shelter of some trees, where Luka was waiting impatiently for them. They heard the boats bang together, and the shout of voices and the thunder of boots on wood. They ran away from the river, trying not to blunder too loudly in the darkness.
‘There’s someone there!’ Coldham shouted. ‘Men, get ashore! They could be our fugitives!’
‘There’s no one there,’ the steersman said. ‘We just pulled up to fix our lamp. It must’ve been a rabbit.’
Coldham snorted. ‘A big rabbit!’
Soldiers began to search through the bushes, carrying flaming torches. Emilia could see Luka’s face clearly as he turned back to look for her, strained and white and streaked with dirt. His eyes glittered. He laid his finger on his lips and beckoned her away from the river.
The soldiers were making so much noise that the two children did not trouble to move quietly. Speed was more important now. They ran through the copse of trees, Sweetheart smashing aside the bushes with her bulk, and found themselves facing a high stone wall. They turned away from the torches, running along its length and came to a set of high iron gates. Gilded spears glittered in the wavering torchlight. Luka had the gate open in a trice, and they slipped through, shutting it quietly behind them.
They were in front of a grand house, an upper window lit warmly with candlelight. A formal garden of clipped hedges surrounded a wide stone path, lined by pots of dark, triangular trees and white statues posing in strange attitudes. The forecourt was surrounded on all sides by high walls.
‘I seen them, sir, Mr Coldham, sir!’ a voice called from the wood. ‘This way!’
Luka and Emilia pressed themselves flat against the wall. Their pulses raced, thundering in their ears. Sweetheart crouched beside them, for once as quiet and still as they could wish. Rollo stood, tense and expectant, his head turned back towards the gates. Emilia put her hand on his head, warning him to keep quiet.
‘You saw them?’ Coldham’s rough voice grated on their ears.
‘Sir, I saw two skinny little shadows, running fast this way,’ the soldier said. ‘There was a dog too, I’m sure of it, and . . . something big that had to be a bear.’
‘I knew it. They can’t have got far. Go in and rouse up that house, make sure they’re not hiding in the grounds.’
‘Oh, but sir . . .’
‘What?’ Coldham snapped.
‘I’m not sure we should do that, sir. That’s Ham House. It belongs to the Countess of Dysart, sir.’
Emilia and Luka’s eyes met in sudden joyous astonishment.
The soldier gabbled on. ‘The countess is a regular firebrand, sir. We tried several times to requisition the house, but she gave us the rough side of her tongue and had us driven off, then had the gall to complain to Old Ironsides himself. The Lord Protector was much taken with her and told us not to bother her again, even though her father was one of the late king’s oldest friends.’
‘I’ve heard of the Countess of Dysart,’ Coldham said slowly.
‘The Lord Protector used to be here all the time before he got sick, sir. They say she’s a great favourite of his.’
There was a short silence, and then Coldham said, ‘Very well. We shall not disturb the countess unless we have to. Search the woods, and take special care to examine the ground. That bear will have left a trail. I doubt whether our gypsies will dare go near the house, anyway. They know they’ll be turned over to the law if they are discovered.’
‘Aye, sir.’
‘Don’t let them slip through your fingers, or I’ll have your guts for garters,’ Coldham said menacingly. ‘Do you hear me? I want those brats, and I want them now!’
Ham House
At last they heard Coldham’s heavy tread moving away.
‘Now you’ve got to admit that’s weird,’ Emilia whispered, ‘us landing right outside Ham House.’
Luka pressed his finger against his lips. He jerked his head and quietly they began to move around the perimeter of the forecourt, keeping close to the wall. Zizi was frightened, and clung to Luka’s ear, her tail wrapped tightly round his throat. Luka soothed her with a gentle pat.
‘So we go and find the butterfly charm?’ Emilia pleaded. ‘Since we’re here?’
‘Sounds like the house is the safest place to be at the moment,’ Luka muttered back.
Emilia kept close to her cousin, almost treading on his heels. She was frightened at the strange chance that had brought them here to Ham House. It seemed too uncanny to be mere coincidence. Luka put out one hand and took hers, gripping it comfortingly.
Soon they were close enough to the great house to see it clearly. An elegant building, three storeys tall, it was built of mellow red brick edged with stone. Smoke rose from its tall chimneys.
They crept to the right, not daring to climb the steps up to the grand front door. A narrow passageway led them to a yard, surrounded by dark buildings. A dim light shone from one or two narrow windows at ground level, so that the two children were able to see well enough not to stumble over a rake left leaning up against a wall.
Peering through one of the glowing windows, they found themselves looking down into a cavernous, fire-lit kitchen, where a fat old cook was busy kneading bread at a long table. She looked soft and kind and comfortable. A boy sat at the other end, scouring pans with sand. At first Luka thought his face was hidden by shadows, but then the boy laughed, showing a flash of white teeth, and Luka realised with a start that the boy’s skin was black as a chimneysweep’s.
Holding Sweetheart’s chain tightly so it did not rattle, Luka crept further along the wall until he reached the other lit window. Emilia crouched beside him and together they gazed down into a stillroom, the place where the ladies of the house prepared the jams, pickles, soap and medicines for the household.
A thin woman was bending over a bench, writing on a parchment with a quill. She was well past forty, with gingery hair pulled back tightly, and a long, supercilious nose. Around her neck she wore a very large cross on a chain.
‘The countess?’ Luka mouthed to Emilia, who shrugged.
‘I thought she was meant to be beautiful,’ she whispered back.
‘No accounting for taste,’ Luka said.
They watched as the woman took the parchment she had just written on and held it up to the light. To the children’s surprise, it was quite blank. She then held the parchment over the flame of the candle that stood at her elbow, and slowly, brown squiggly lines appeared. The woman frowned and pursed up her mouth in dissatisfaction. She pushed away the inkwell, which looked as if it was filled with water, and pulled another towards her. Very carefully she mixed a spoonful of gritty grey powder with a few drops of liquid out of another jar, wrinkling up her nose with distaste as she did so. Then she trimmed her quill and dipped it in the resulting liquid, and wrote on another piece of parchment. Again no marks appeared on the page.
‘She’s making invisible ink,’ Luka whispered to Emilia. ‘I wonder why? What would a countess want with invisible ink?’
Just then they heard a sound behind them, and jumped to their feet, pressing their backs defensively to the wall.
It was the black-faced boy, a lantern in one hand. His eyes round with indignation, he opened his mouth to yell.
‘Sssh!’ Luka hissed. ‘Don’t shout. There’s soldiers about.’
Obligingly the boy shut his mouth, though he looked at them with great suspicion.
‘There’s nothing to fear from us,’ Luka said. ‘We’re . . . we’re . . .’
‘We’re here to see the countess,’ Emilia said quickly. ‘We . . . we’ve got news for her.’
Luka grimaced at her, but the words acted like magic on the boy. He nodded his head, looked about him covertly, then beckoned them into the house. With Sweetheart plodding along behind them, her claws clacking on the floor, and Rollo pressed close to Emilia’s legs, the five of them followed the black-skinned bo
y into Ham House.
‘What did you say that for?’ Luka hissed into Emilia’s ear. ‘Now we’re in the suds!’
‘Any better ideas?’ she hissed back. ‘At least he didn’t yell the place down.’
The boy looked back at them inquiringly. They said no more, following him down a steep flight of steps and into the kitchen.
‘Mercy me!’ the cook cried. ‘What’s all this, Isaac?’
‘Found ’em in the yard,’ the boy replied. ‘Said they’ve a message for her ladyship.’
In the light of the tallow candles set here and there about the kitchen, Luka was able to see the boy properly for the first time and realised, with a start of surprise, that the blackness of Isaac’s skin was his natural colour, not just a covering of soot or dirt. Luka had often been mocked for the darkness of his skin, but this boy made him look merely caramel coloured. Isaac’s eyes were as round and black as sloes, his skin was the colour of elderberries, and his hair was as thick and curly as an unshorn sheep. Luka could not help staring.
Isaac scowled at him, then made a dreadful face, screwing up his eyes, waggling his hands behind his ears and sticking out his tongue, which was quite startlingly pink. Luka grinned, and after a moment Isaac grinned back.
‘A message for the countess!’ the cook cried. ‘Heavens above! At this time of night? What is my lady up to now?’ She shook her head and laid down her rolling pin. She caught sight of Zizi, riding on Luka’s shoulder, and gave a little scream.
‘No, please, you must be quiet,’ Luka said. ‘There are soldiers hunting for us! If they hear you, all will be lost.’
He came into the kitchen, one hand on Zizi to keep her close, and Rollo pushed past him, eager to investigate the delicious smells of this warm, dark room. Emilia came in too, and then Sweetheart followed ponderously after her, lifting her snout to sniff the air.
