The Butterfly in Amber (14 page)

Soon the travellers reached a gate, standing askew. The caravans turned through the entrance way, bouncing wildly on the rutted road. Although rain still fell in grey veils upon the horizon, the clouds had parted over their heads and a broad ray of sunlight broke through to shine upon the meadow.

A herd of deer lifted their heads to stare at the caravans. Rollo's ears pricked when he saw a family of rabbits frisking about. Before Emilia could grab the big dog, he was hurtling after them, darting first this way, then that way, as the rabbits fled to their burrows.

‘He never catches one, I don't know why he tries,' Emilia said.

‘I wish he would. I'm starving!' Luka said. ‘Do
you realise we've only had a bit of bread and honey since yesterday?'

‘Oh, I realise. I was trying not to think about it.'

The road curved down into a small wood, where a thin ribbon of smoke curled up from beside a gleam of water.

Drawn up around a campfire were the familiar caravans of the Hearne family. Emilia smiled and waved as she recognised face after face. Gypsy Joe and Cosmo Hearne, smoking a pipe by the fire; Old Janka, scolding the younger girls as they washed their clothes in the pond; Sebastien's mother, Julisa, cooking a mess of eggs and bacon over the fire; Milosh the smuggler, and all his men, lying rolled in blankets under the trees. And, there, joy of joys, was the round figure of Father Plummer, tucking into a large plate of sausages and fried potatoes.

Emilia flung herself upon them. ‘You're here, you're here!'

‘More to the point, you are!' Father Plummer hugged her close. ‘We've been worried sick about you. What I was doing, allowing you out of my sight?'

‘When did you get here? Did you have any trouble?'

‘Not I! But I bet you've been having adventures!'

‘Wait till we tell you . . .'

‘And Joe! You're here too. You could get away from the inn?'

Joe Wood, who had given up gypsy ways to become an innkeeper in Salisbury, gave Emilia a broad grin. ‘Those girls of mine can run the inn better than I can! Besides, I had itchy feet. It's been a while since I travelled the roads. Seemed as good a time as any to see a bit of the world.'

‘Thank you so much!'

‘You've got some other visitors here too,' Sebastien said. ‘A Big Man, in every respect. A smith, I believe, by name and by trade . . .'

‘What? Stevo Smith, you mean?'

‘He's been very welcome, he's fixed Mama's best pot and sharpened all our knives,' Sebastien said with a grin. ‘We might have to keep him.'

‘He's brought his brother and sister with him,' Julisa said. ‘Though we haven't seen much of them, they're very shy. The honey they brought is good though.'

‘Best honey in the world!' Luka said with a grin. ‘I can't believe they've come. I never thought Fairnette would leave her father.'

‘Is that the old man who keeps forgetting who he is? Oh, Mama made Nadine stay and look after him,' Sebastien said. ‘She wasn't best pleased about that!'

Luka laughed joyously. ‘Serve her right, the spiteful cat!'

Emilia suddenly had to sit down. ‘Everyone's come, everyone,' she said wonderingly.

‘Though in the end we didn't need any of you!'
Luka grinned cheekily. ‘We rescued our families all by ourselves.'

‘Heavens be praised!' Father Plummer said.

‘Come, come and be welcome,' Julisa said. ‘What a night! We thought the end was nigh. You must be so tired and so hungry. Come sit by the fire, warm yourselves.'

As the Finch family wearily settled down on the ground, looking about them shyly, and being introduced to the crowd of well-wishers, Julisa came and pinched Emilia's and Luka's cheeks. ‘As for you, my weans, look at you! You're skinnier than ever! Fading away to nothing. Come and eat!'

‘We can't afford to feed them – Emilia's horse has been eating its head off for weeks.' Felipe smiled at them lazily.

‘Alida! Where is she?'

‘Over there, my wean, fat and well,' he answered.

Emilia ran through the crowd, her skirts
bunched up in her hands. A loud whinny greeted her, as Alida cantered out from under the trees, tail held high. Emilia flung her arms about her mare's neck, smiling so broadly her cheeks hurt. She stroked the mare's velvety nose, then seized a handful of mane and vaulted onto her back. ‘Come on, Alida, let's run like the wind!' The grey mare
leapt forward. Emilia leant low over her back, hallooing in joy. Round the campfire they raced, leaping over logs and bundles, veering round groups of laughing gypsies, hooves drumming on the ground. The chain about Emilia's wrist caught the sun, flashing golden. She turned Alida's head towards the hill, and they galloped up the sunlit slope. When Alida soared over the crest, Emilia felt as if they could truly fly.

N
ORWOOD
, S
URREY
, E
NGLAND

13th September 1658

T
he warm rays of the setting sun slanted through the trees, turning the leaves to the colour of old coins. The air had a new bite to it, the whetted edge of a year turning towards its end.

Emilia sat back against her grandmother's knees, enjoying the gentle touch of Baba's gnarled fingers in her hair as she plaited the wild mass of curls into smooth plaits, bound with vivid ribbons.

‘So our Beatrice is to be married tonight,' Maggie said. ‘I will miss her pretty face about the place.'

‘Me too,' Emilia said in a constricted voice. She thought she would never get used to the way joy and misery could be twined in the heart, like blond and black hair braided together. ‘But we'll see them. Maybe now we can travel about again. We'll go to Kent for the hop harvest and visit Fairnette and Van, and go to the horse fair and see Bea . . .'

‘Aye, I think we could do that now Old Ironsides is dead,' Maggie said slowly, speaking around the pipe clamped in the corner of her mouth. ‘So, you saw true, my little
drabardi
. The Lord Protector died before the week was out, just as you predicted . . .'

‘Aye. But nothing else has come true . . .'

‘Yet,' Maggie said.

Emilia smiled wistfully. ‘Will I still see true, now that I've given back the charms?'

‘It is your eyes that see true, darling girl,' Maggie said.

‘And will it bring us bad luck, breaking the chain again? I had to do it, Baba. I could not take their lucky charms away.'

Maggie looked round the camp, where all their friends and family were laughing and working together. A rare smile warmed her lined old face. ‘It's a chain of blood as well as gold,' she said. ‘And that's been mended now.'

‘The charms did bring us luck, Baba,' Emilia said. ‘But when I think about that storm I conjured . . . and that lightning bolt . . .' She shuddered.

Maggie went on binding her hair, not replying. Emilia thought about the tempest. It was the worst England had seen in hundreds of years, uprooting ancient oaks, demolishing houses, hurling cows high into the air, flooding rivers and streams.

And three days later the Lord Protector had died, on the seventh anniversary of his greatest
victory against the king. The whole land was stricken with superstitious fear. Surely such a storm was a warning from God? Everyone stayed in their houses, their doors locked, in case of riots or uprisings, while in London the chancellors hurriedly crowned Cromwell's third son Richard the new Lord Protector, even though he was said to be a mild, nervous man who much preferred pottering in the garden to ordering about armies and parliaments.

Emilia sighed. She knew how he felt. She had no desire to raise hurricanes and cast curses. All she really wanted was to wander through the forest, calling squirrels down to her hand, and tiddling a trout out of the stream for their supper.

‘I cannot help feeling sorry, about Cromwell, I mean. His family must be so upset, losing him so close after his daughter died, and his grandson too. I didn't like him at all, of course, but it's still sad . . .'

‘Aye. Any death diminishes us,' Maggie said.

‘Everything will change now, won't it?'

Maggie nodded. After a while, she said, ‘Life is all about change, my darling girl. Seasons come, seasons go; we love, and then we lose. We cannot have one without the other, I'm afraid.'

Emilia touched the golden coin hanging from her bracelet. Luck, magic, providence, faith – Emilia did not know its true name. She had seen it manifest in the lives of those around her, though, and she had seen what happened when it was lost. She did not want to take their luck away from those she loved. So, one by one, Emilia had given the charms back to those who had trusted her.

She had given Felipe back the silver horse that first day after the storm. She wanted no argument as to who Alida really belonged to. Felipe had taken it nonchalantly, but she saw him rub it with his thumb before he gave it back to his mother. She thought he would not dismiss its powers so
blithely now. The Hearnes had agreed to waive their claim to a bride price in return for the promise of Alida's first foal, which was why Beatrice and Sebastien were able to celebrate their wedding so soon.

Gypsy Joe had not wanted to take back the silver sprig of rue. Emilia understood why. For him, as for her, it would always be tainted with the bitter whiff of witchcraft. ‘Give it to Daisy,' she said. ‘It'll bring her luck.'

‘We could all do with a bit of that,' Joe replied and tucked the charm away in his wallet.

She had found it hard to give Stevo Smith back his lightning bolt charm. He was so big, so hairy, and so grim, and she could not forget the story of how Van had come to be so dreadfully scarred. Stevo had taken it silently, with a curt nod of acknowledgement, and he wore it now about his neck, half hidden in the thick black hairs on his chest.

When she had given Milosh the smuggler back his cat's eye shell, he had smiled at her and patted her cheek with his rough, dark hand, giving her the little shell she had given him, only two weeks earlier. ‘For you to hang in your ear like mine, darling girl,' he had said. Emilia had smiled in true delight, seeing this as a gift not only from Milosh, but from poor, restless John, kept locked in a gilded cage. She could only hope that life would grow easier for him now too, and that he could be a doctor, or an inventor, or a botanist, whatever he wanted to be. She wore the earring now and often fingered it, loving its curious green glow, like a wide-open eye.

The butterfly in amber had gone back to London with Milosh, to be surreptitiously given to Obedience. A letter had arrived from her a few days later, sent care of the Squire of Norwood.

Tom had read it to them.

‘
I do hope all is well with you. We are deeply distressed by the death of our Lord Protector, and prudence – or Faith – has dictated that we leave this poor, benighted country and try our luck in other lands. I write this in haste from the deck of our ship, for it will soon set sail and I do not think I can trust to the post from the New World. Aye, it is true! We sail for America this afternoon. It has all happened so fast, our heads are in a whirl.

      
Here is a very odd thing I thought might interest you. There is a man sailing with us that my father is convinced was an old acquaintance of his, the pastor of Kingston-Upon-Thames. Is this not the man who was responsible for your family's incarceration? You only called him ‘Fishface' to me and indeed he does have a face like a fish, with pale, goggling eyes and practically no lips at all. He is very cold to my father, and denies they have ever met before, and indeed he has a different name from that which my father remembers. I would not mention it,
except that he is much struck with my mother – who looks a lot like you, I've always thought, Emilia. He's forever staring at her, and quizzing her about her background. My mother dislikes him very much, but I fear we shall see a great deal of him on this journey, and when we finally reach our destination of Salem, Massachusetts. It seems he is taking up the position of pastor there. I'm not looking forward to that!

      
Thank you so much for the lovely little jewel that you sent me. It was clever of you to hide it in a book of sermons supposedly sent by my friend Lamentation. I'm guessing I should keep it hidden from both my mother and my father. Did it really belong to my grandmother? I didn't even know I had one! It is a beautiful stone, full of sunshine. I do wonder how it came to have a butterfly inside, but I am sure I will find a book one day to tell me. I have strung it about my neck, next to my heart, in memory of you both, my dear cousins.

      
Love, your not-so-obedient Beedee
.

      
PS The name of our new home, Salem, means “peace”, which all sounds very boring. However, I am hopeful we shall have some adventures when we get there!
'

This letter had caused a great deal of discussion among the family. Everyone had feared the spectre of a vengeful pastor, yet no one had been able to discover what had happened to him after the night of the storm. He had just seemed to disappear.

‘He was probably so embarrassed at being found locked up in his own scold's bridle that he felt he had to flee the country,' Emilia cried.

Beatrice, for once, had no compassion. ‘Serves him right, the slimy snake,' she said.

That had left only Coldham the thief-taker to haunt their nightmares. Yet his fate was the most strange of all. It seemed he had joined a pious group of religious dissidents, called the Society of
Friends. Others called them the Quakers, for they were so shaken by their experience with the Inner Light that they often quivered and quaked all over. It seemed Coldham had become an inspiration to those who gathered in their meetings, seeming to be touched by God. Gerard Winstanley, the Leveller who had befriended Noah in prison, had heard Coldham speak, and had been greatly moved, to the extent that he went often to Quaker meetings in the hope of hearing this strange, crippled, lightning-scorched man speak.

The thought of this filled Emilia with wonder. She rubbed her thumb over the golden coin.
Light, luck and magic
. . .

‘Baba, are you sure?' she burst out. ‘That I can keep your charm, I mean? You really don't want it back?'

Her grandmother shook her head. ‘It's yours now, Milly,' she said. ‘I think you've earnt it, don't you?'

Emilia could only smile joyfully, and give her grandmother a hug and a kiss.

As she skipped towards the caravans, shouts caught her attention. She glanced towards the clearing, and smiled. Romping along the grass like a cheeky cub, the ball tucked under her arm, was Sweetheart. The old bear was not as nimble as she once was. She limped where once she had galumphed. Uncle Ruben had found eight bullets in her hide, and thought it was a miracle that she had managed to survive. No one knew how she had got away from the soldiers, that night at Ham House; all they knew was that she had been terrorising households around Richmond for some days, stealing apples, smashing down beehives and begging for ale at the local inn. The news of a bear roaming around Richmond had taken some time to reach Norwood. By the time Uncle Ruben had got there, she was very cross and inclined to sulk. It had taken a whole string of fish
and a small barrel of ale to restore her to good temper, and several more days for her to fully recover from the bullet wounds.

‘No doubt about it, she's a tough old bear,' Ruben said about thirty times a day.

Now Sweetheart roared with rage as Luka tried to wrest the ball away from her. She reared up on her hind legs, clasping the ball to her chest, while the men moaned and clutched their heads and entreated her to let it go.

Zizi leapt up Sweetheart's great length, seized the ring in the bear's snout and tugged it viciously. Sweetheart bellowed, and dropped the ball so she could grasp her sore nose with both paws. Zizi leapt after the ball, seized it in her tiny paws, and took it straight to Luka, as always.

‘Unfair!' Ruben shouted. ‘Interference with the bear!'

‘All's fair in love and war!' Luka called back, running full pelt down the glade towards his goal,
marked out with a couple of rocks. ‘Why do you think I always play with Zizi?'

‘Kick it to me!' Van shrieked, jumping up and down, his hood fallen back, his scars forgotten.

Luka aimed a swift shot at him, and Van clumsily fielded the ball with his foot; then, as Ruben and Felipe and Tom converged on him like arrows, quickly kicked it through the goal.

Cheers erupted from Luka and Stevo and Father Plummer – playing with his robe hitched up above his knees – while Tom groaned and fell to his knees in the grass, banging his head. ‘I don't believe it,' he cried. ‘Zizi should be banned!'

Emilia smiled and went on to the campfire, where Beatrice was getting ready for her wedding, attended by the
romni
. Old Janka was binding back her long hair with a red scarf, and Julisa was tying up the sash of her embroidered skirts. Fairnette sat peeling potatoes nearby, with Noah curled up on a rug beside her, drinking a posset of herbs and
honey she had made for him. The little boy was still thin and pale, but he was so happy to be back in the forest, with soft grass beneath his questing feet and Rollo by his side again, that a smile was never far from his lips. Gypsy Joe was busy with Father Plummer and Lord Harry, setting up the barrels of wine for the night's festivities, while Mimi, Sabina and Lena were being taught how to stuff cabbage leaves with rice and herbs. Other women were plucking pheasants, skinning rabbits or slicing vegetables. The feast promised to be the best they had ever had!

A whole lamb was roasting over the fire, given to the gypsies by Sir Hugh Whitehorse in gratitude to Luka and Emilia for their help in rescuing the Duke of Ormonde and saving Tom's life. He had also brought down a brace of chickens and a sack of potatoes, and a whole barrel of fine wine, which the men had already broached and declared an excellent drop.