The Butterfly in Amber Read online

  ‘But I’m so tired,’ Luka said, sitting back on his heels. ‘And we can make money here …’

  ‘We need to get out of the city,’ Emilia said. ‘Coldham will be on our trail.’

  ‘But the city’s so huge, how could he find us?’ Luka said, even though he knew as well as Emilia did that their menagerie made them conspicuous, and Coldham seemed to have friends – or at least fellow spies – all over the country.

  ‘I just know we need to get moving,’ Emilia said, and folded her arms firmly across her chest.

  Luka sighed, and put his hat back on his head. He swung Zizi up to his shoulder. ‘Safer that way, anyway,’ he said.

  ‘You heading off again?’ Annie said in surprise, looking up from the coins she was counting in her hand.

  ‘You know us gypsies, we can never rest,’ Emilia said, attempting to smile.

  Annie’s face turned hard. ‘Gypsies, are you? Better not have pinched any of my things.’ She bent and picked up her little son, holding him close as if she thought they might steal him.

  ‘We don’t want any of your things,’ Emilia said crossly. ‘We just want to find our kin.’

  ‘Have you seen any gypsies roundabouts?’ Luka asked, settling the pack on his shoulder.

  ‘Heard there’s a mortal lot of gypsies out at St Giles,’ Annie answered shortly. ‘That’s out west from here, in the marsh.’

  ‘Could you show us where?’ Emilia begged, and begrudgingly Annie drew them a rough map in the mud, keeping her son hitched close on her hip. She backed away when Emilia and Luka bent down close to see, but told them all she knew about St Giles willingly enough.

  ‘You’ll have to run if you want to get out the city gates tonight,’ she said. ‘They shut at nine, and I heard the bell toll eight some time ago.’

  ‘Thank you for letting us sit by your fire,’ Emilia said in a small, forlorn voice, and helped Luka haul Sweetheart to her feet. The bear had been quite comfortable by the fire, and did not want to leave. They had to tug hard on her nose-ring before at last she lumbered after them, complaining every step of the way.

  The streets were dark and quiet and scary. Emilia was glad of Sweetheart’s bulk, and Rollo’s swift strength. A fog was rolling in from the river, smelling of frog slime and fish eggs. It bandaged their eyes and gagged their mouths. Walking through it was like a game of blindman’s buff. Only the clatter of Rollo’s claws on the cobblestones stopped them from bumping into walls or stumbling into potholes.

  ‘I see a lantern ahead,’ Luka said, peering through the mist. ‘It’s hung high. Do you think it’s the city gate?’

  ‘Could be,’ Emilia said. ‘Come on.’

  They hurried forward, holding hands, Luka gripping Sweetheart’s chain and Emilia clutching Rollo’s ruff. Church bells began to toll the curfew. Luka and Emilia broke into a lurching run. The glow of the lantern was blurred by the fog, but by its indistinct light they could see a large wooden gate being dragged shut by the hunched shapes of two men.

  ‘Wait!’ Luka hollered. With Sweetheart lumbering along behind, and Rollo bounding ahead, they ran full pelt down the hill, Zizi clutching onto Luka’s flying hair with both paws, shrieking with glee.

  The watchmen paused and stood aside, letting them run through before closing the gate behind them. They heard the bolts being slammed home.

  ‘That’s Coldham shut up behind us, at least,’ Luka said.

  ‘With any luck,’ Emilia answered. Without thinking, she put her hand up to touch her charm bracelet, only to feel her wrist bare and bony. She let her hand fall, and trudged after Luka, her heart aching.

  The Cradle

  and the Coffin

  St-Giles-in-the-Fields had grown up around a leper hospital, Annie had told them, which had been built out in the marshes to keep the lepers away from the city. But St Giles was the patron saint of beggars and cripples as well as of lepers, and so the church had a reputation for charity towards those who were stoned out of town elsewhere.

  So of course gypsies ended up here as well, Luka thought to himself, with a bitter edge to his self-mockery.

  As Luka and Emilia approached the crossroads at the outskirts of the village, they heard a sort of shuffling noise, like a beast turning in its corner. Then they heard a deep groan that made them jump. Rollo growled. Luka managed to get their lantern alight, and lifted it high.

  He stifled an exclamation as the light fell upon a cage of iron bars, set on a low stone pedestal. Someone was crouched inside the cage. The lantern flame made his eyes gleam through the wild tangle of grey hair that covered his head and shoulders. He reeked of rotten fruit and excrement.

  ‘Why, it’s a couple of young children,’ the old man said. ‘What in heaven’s name are you doing wandering the streets at this time of night?’

  ‘What are you doing in a cage?’ Luka asked.

  ‘These are sorry days indeed, when saints are seen as sinners, and sinners as saints.’ The old man shook his wild head in sorrow.

  ‘Are you trying to say that you think you’re a saint?’ Luka said, unable to keep the scorn out of his voice.

  To their surprise, the man in the cage smiled.

  ‘They called us all saints once,’ he said. ‘We were the Parliament of Saints, hallelujah! Less than six months we lasted. Then they threw us out of Parliament and gave our powers to Cromwell, who set himself up as king in all but name. And now see how far I have fallen, for no other crime than telling the truth. Jesus Christ shall return to rule as King of Kings, his saints at his right hand, and I shall be among them. Hallelujah! The year sixteen hundred and sixty-six shall mark his coming, for is it not in Revelations that six-six-six is the number of the beast? There will be fire, and plague, and war, and all those who have set themselves up as kings in Christ’s place shall be felled.’

  Emilia said gently, ‘So it’ll happen soon, the great fire, do you think?’

  The old man stared at her in surprise. ‘You, too, have seen the coming of the Lord?’

  ‘I’ve seen that there will be a fire,’ Emilia answered. ‘And that a king will come. I thought it was a real king, I mean an earthly king, but I could have been wrong. I do not understand most of what I see yet.’

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings . . .’ the old man whispered. ‘Hallelujah!’

  Luka took advantage of the old man’s sudden thunderstruck silence to say quickly, ‘Do you know St Giles well? We’re looking for some of our kin. By the name of Graylings. Mala Graylings.’

  ‘Mala?’ he mused. ‘Aye, I know that name. An old gypsy woman, a fortune-teller.’

  ‘Do you know where we can find her?’ Emilia asked. ‘We’ve come such an awfully long way.’

  ‘I’ve seen her at the Cradle and the Coffin many a time, when I have gone to preach against the evils of drink,’ he answered. ‘She used to tell fortunes there, in return for a sup of soup and some brandy.’

  ‘Is that an inn?’ Luka asked. ‘Where can we find it?’

  The old man drew his shaggy brows together. ‘I could try and give you directions, but I warn you, it’s very easy to get lost in St Giles.’

  ‘If I let you out, will you show us the way?’ Luka asked.

  ‘And how do you propose to do that?’ the old preacher asked, rattling his bars, which were secured with a stout padlock.

  Luka dug out his lock pick. ‘I knew this would be useful,’ he said with a quick grin to Emilia. He approached the bars cautiously, trying not to breathe in the stink. ‘Don’t think of trying anything,’ he warned the old man. ‘I might be young, but I know how to fight, and our animals are trained to kill.’

  The old man peered at the dark hulk of the bear. Sweetheart was sitting back on her haunches, scratching her belly amiably, while Rollo was stretched out asleep, one ear flopped over his eyes. Luka and Emilia exchanged a rueful glance, and looked at the preacher who smiled at them.

  ‘I would do you no harm,’ he said. ‘Is not the little girl a saint as well?�
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  Luka snorted, but managed not to reply, while Emilia did her best to look saintly, folding her hands and casting her eyes up to heaven.

  It took some time for Luka to open the padlock, for he was still not adept at manipulating the lock pick and the only light came from his lantern. The old man asked them their names, and told them that he was called Henry Burgess, but that most people called him Hallelujah.

  ‘Thank you, dear children,’ he said, crawling out of the cage. ‘When the King of Kings returns to rule over His earthly dominions, you too shall be accepted into the company of His saints. Hallelujah!’

  ‘I hope so,’ Emilia said politely. She and Luka helped the old man as, tottering, he led them into a dark maze of alleys and laneways, courtyards and cobbled squares.

  ‘Tell me, Mr Hallelujah, sir,’ Emilia said, ‘have you ever noticed this old fortune-teller wearing a . . . a stone, or a jewel? A little charm?’ For even though Emilia had lost her charm bracelet, she still hoped to find the butterfly in amber that belonged to the Graylings tribe. One charm would be better than none, she reasoned.

  Hallelujah nodded. ‘Aye, indeed. A lovely little jewel, yellow as sunshine, except it had something in it, some kind of dead bug.’

  ‘Not a butterfly?’ Emilia was so excited she let go of his arm to clap her hands together. Hallelujah almost fell over, and she hastily put her hand under his skinny old arm again.

  ‘Aye, that’s it. Strange thing to have inside a stone. I wonder how it got in there. Indeed, God’s work is mysterious.’

  ‘Does she still have it, do you know?’ Emilia asked.

  Hallelujah shook his wild, grey head. ‘I have not seen it for a long time. I daresay she pawned it years ago. Or perhaps she gave it to her daughter. I remember seeing her weeping one day, in great distress, for her daughter had run away.’

  ‘We heard her daughter had married a lawyer,’ Luka said hopefully.

  ‘I hadn’t heard that,’ Hallelujah replied. ‘But I don’t know her well. She thinks I’m a crazy loon.’

  They did not talk much after that. Emilia and Luka were so tired it seemed as if they wandered in a nightmare. The air smelt of cinders and cesspits. Slimy things squelched under Emilia’s bare feet. In the thin ray of light from the lantern, she saw the damp, crooked walls of ramshackle houses, a rat dragging a dismembered hen, a runnel of green slime, the hand of a man lying dead drunk (or so she hoped), piles of old gnawed bones and filthy rags and scuttling cockroaches.

  ‘This is a fool’s errand,’ Luka muttered. ‘We could’ve been sleeping by the fire, getting back our strength. What are we doing wandering round this hellhole at midnight? We’ll be lucky if we get out alive.’

  ‘Sweetheart will keep us safe.’ Emilia’s voice shook, and she took a deep shuddering breath. She felt small and vulnerable. Her left wrist was too light and bare, the absence of her bracelet weighing her down as the charms had never done. Footsore, heartsore, and unutterably weary, Emilia trudged on.

  The only light came from lanterns hung outside the doors of the inns, illuminating the shabby signs that hung above the steps. The inns all seemed to be called something black, like the Black Jack or the Black Lamb. One was called, oddly, the Vine and the Rose. Emilia had never seen a less rosy-looking place. Then Hallelujah led them into a dark square where the rickety wooden buildings all leant upon each other’s shoulders like melancholy drunks.

  ‘That is the Cradle and the Coffin just there,’ Hallelujah whispered. ‘It’s not a place for children.’

  Luka lifted up the lantern. Its frail light wavered over a filthy, narrow building, with tiny horn windows and a door with planks roughly nailed over a hole at the bottom, as if it had once been kicked in. Lying in the doorway was a bundle of noisome rags. Then the pile of rags stirred, and mumbled.

  The children inched closer, their breath tight in their chest.

  It was an old woman. She looked about two hundred. Her skin was scrunched and spotted like old parchment, and two massive hairy moles sprouted from her chin and cheek. She half woke as the light shone in her face, and cracked open an eye like a toad’s, dark and protuberant between brown, leathery lids. She winced away and muttered something, showing rotten, diseased gums where only a few broken teeth remained. She wore three vivid skirts of different colours, and so Luka and Emilia knew at once she was a romni.

  ‘Sar’sharn, Baba?’ Luka whispered the traditional Romany greeting.

  At once the old woman cracked open her eyes. ‘Si’n Rom?’

  ‘Aye, we’re Rom. We’re looking for one of our kin. Baba Mala Graylings.’

  She stared at them suspiciously. ‘What for?’

  Emilia squatted down on the cobblestones. ‘Greetings to you, Baba Mala,’ she said softly. ‘We’re your kin, the grand-weans of Maggie Finch.’

  ‘So?’ The old woman hunched down again.

  Luka had an idea. ‘Look, Baba Mala, I have a present for you.’ He found the bottle of elderflower wine, yanked free the cork and offered it to the old woman. Her face lit up, she seized the bottle and gulped down a few mouthfuls. She wiped her mouth with satisfaction, and said, rather indistinctly because of her lack of teeth, ‘What you want?’

  ‘We want to ask you about your amber charm, the one with the butterfly in it.’

  The old woman spat. ‘Fancy took it.’

  ‘Fancy? Your daughter?’

  ‘Little snake.’

  ‘Your daughter took your charm?’ Emilia asked. ‘Where is she now?’

  The old woman glanced at her sideways, then took another swig of the bottle. ‘Fancy gone.’

  ‘Where has Fancy gone?’

  The old woman rocked back and forth, muttering. Her grey hair hung in rats’ tails, so thin they could see the bluish colour of the skin beneath.

  ‘Baba’s in gaol,’ Luka said. ‘We want to try and get her out. We were hoping you and your daughter could help us. The Smiths heard one of your family married a lawyer. Was that your daughter Fancy?’

  ‘Fancy thinks she’s too good for her poor old ma,’ the old woman said. ‘Stole my charm and my tarot cards, and ran off to marry a gorgio. Haven’t seen her in years.’

  ‘Do you know the name of the gorgio?’ Luka asked. ‘Is he really a lawyer?’

  ‘What you want her for?’ the old woman said. ‘She’s no good, I’ve told you that.’

  ‘We need the charm,’ Emilia said, at exactly the same moment that Luka said, ‘We need a lawyer.’

  They made a face at each other, then Luka went on, ‘I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives afraid of being caught and dragged back to gaol. It’d be better if we could find some way to get them out legally – or at least, with the appearance of being legal . . .’

  ‘If you would tell us about your daughter?’ Emilia begged. ‘Did she really steal your charm? Why? What did she do with it? And did she really marry a lawyer?’

  Mala snorted. ‘Much good it did her. As much good as it’ll do you. He’s as blue-nosed as they come.’

  ‘What is his name?’ Luka asked desperately.

  ‘Pure something or other. Pure by name and pure by reputation, I’ve heard,’ Mala said. ‘Not that I’ve ever met him. Too good for the likes of me.’

  ‘Not Henry Purefoyle,’ Hallelujah exclaimed, then whistled in astonishment. ‘He briefed the bench, I heard, that tried the king. Might even have put his name to the execution order. He married your daughter?’

  ‘Doesn’t know she’s a gypsy,’ Mala said. ‘Fancy got herself all dressed up like a fine lady, pretending to be a blue-nose too. She hasn’t been to see me for close on fifteen years.’

  ‘But she took the charm from you, the butterfly in amber? You’re sure?’ Emilia asked.

  Mala nodded. ‘Aye, she took it, when she was not much older than you. I hope it brought her luck, is all I can say. I certainly haven’t had any since it was gone.’

  Emilia sighed and looked at Luka questioningly.

  ‘I guess we sho
uld try to find her, if we can,’ he said. ‘We have only one day left before we need to head back to Kingston.’

  ‘I know where Henry Purefoyle lives,’ Hallelujah said unexpectedly. ‘He lives near Gray’s Inn, not so very far from here. It’s just off High Holborn Street, which leads from the crossroads where you found me. All the lawyers live round there, near the Inns of Court. You could be there in less than half an hour, if you walked swiftly.’

  ‘I’m so tired I don’t think I can walk another step,’ Emilia said, almost groaning at the thought.

  ‘It’s either walk out of this place, or spend the night sleeping on these disgusting stones,’ Luka said, getting up with fresh energy. ‘I say we get out of here, and make camp in a field somewhere. Then we can go and find this Henry in the morning. What do you say?’

  Emilia’s words were swallowed by an enormous yawn. When it was finally over, she said, ‘Sounds good! As long as we find a field soon. All I want to do is sleep.’

  ‘And sleep and sleep and sleep,’ Luka said. ‘But not here! In a field under the stars. One with a stream so we can scrub away all this filth.’ He looked back at Mala, rolled once more in her stinking blanket. ‘I just can’t understand it,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘She’s forgotten her roads,’ Emilia answered sombrely.

  Obedience

  GRAY’S INN ROAD, LONDON, ENGLAND

  30th August 1658

  Luka and Emilia lay under a weeping elm tree in a small square abutted on all four sides by a road lined with large, gracious houses that all looked exactly the same.

  It was a fresh and clear morning, with the promise of heat to come. Luka felt much better after a good night’s sleep in a haystack, a wash in a stream, and some bread and cheese. Emilia, however, was still drooping with misery over the loss of her charm bracelet.

  ‘At least we’ve found the lawyer’s place,’ Luka said. ‘Maybe he’d come and talk to the judges for us, and then we won’t need any good luck.’

  ‘It’s not just that, Baba trusted me! And the others too. How can I tell them I lost their lucky charms?’