The Butterfly in Amber Read online

  The cook’s eyes opened round as shiny new coins, but she clapped one fat, floury hand over her mouth and said nothing.

  Luka shut the door behind them, and quickly drew the curtains across the windows. ‘We must see the countess at once,’ he said, enjoying the air of intrigue he was creating.

  The cook looked distressed. ‘But it’s so late . . . she’ll be in bed . . .’

  ‘It’s a matter of life and death,’ Luka said. Emilia frowned at him, and he shot her a quick, laughing glance.

  ‘But . . . the bear! I can’t take a bear in to see my lady!’

  ‘Sweetheart’s quite tame,’ Emilia said reassuringly. ‘If you give her something to eat, she’ll just lie down and have a snooze by the fire.’

  ‘But . . . a bear! A bear in my kitchen!’

  ‘Do you have any bread and honey?’ Emilia said encouragingly.

  ‘Well, yes, but . . .’

  ‘That’ll do just fine.’

  The cook hobbled across to the dresser and took down a ceramic pot, cut some bread and spread it with honey. Emilia gave it to Sweetheart, and she gave a little moan of pleasure and gobbled it down, then licked the honey off her claws, looking around for more.

  ‘Goodness, how much will she eat?’ the cook quavered.

  ‘She is hungry,’ Emilia said. ‘So are we, I must say.’

  The cook looked at her suspiciously, but cut several more slices, spread them with honey, and gave them to Luka and Emilia. They gobbled them as fast as Sweetheart had, though Luka fed Zizi the last of his. She ate it daintily, holding it in both paws. The bear got up, complaining, and Emilia quickly passed her the honey pot. Sweetheart grinned, sat down by the fire, and dipped her paw into the pot.

  ‘She’ll be happy for hours now,’ Emilia said.

  The cook put her hands on her hips and glared at her, but Emilia gave her most sweet and winning smile. Against her will, the cook’s lips twitched. ‘Horrid child!’ she said. ‘Remind me of my son, you do. He was always wheedling bits of food out of me too. I suppose you want something for the dog as well?’

  ‘Rollo would love it if you had any scraps to spare,’ Emilia said. The dog wagged his tail at the sound of his name, and looked up at the cook with beseeching eyes. She laughed, and got him a big bone out of the pantry.

  ‘Well, I guess you can leave the dog and the bear here,’ the cook said, as the two animals settled down happily to eat. ‘But I warn you, if that bear so much as twitches a claw, I’ll be screaming so loudly every soldier in the county will hear me.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Emilia said hastily. ‘Just say, “Down, Sweetheart!” and she’ll sit down, I promise you. She’s very tame, and quite harmless.’

  ‘Mmmf,’ the cook said. ‘Harmless is as harmless does. Well, Isaac, I guess you’d better go get Mrs Henderson. She’s in the stillroom.’

  Luka stiffened. ‘Who’s Mrs Henderson?’

  ‘She’s my lady’s second cousin, and her companion, and believe me, you don’t get in to see the countess at this time of night without running Mrs Henderson’s gauntlet first,’ the cook said.

  It was not long before the door opened, and Mrs Henderson came in quietly, followed by Isaac. It was the ginger-haired woman with the heavy cross about her neck.

  ‘Gypsies, I see,’ she said, looking Emilia and Luka over with shrewd grey eyes. ‘Eating our good honey.’

  ‘Aye, ma’am, I’m sorry, ma’am, they were hungry, you see, and I just . . .’ The cook rushed into speech but fell silent when Mrs Henderson raised her hand.

  ‘I cannot see that her ladyship would have any objection to you dispensing alms to the poor and needy,’ she said curtly. ‘Her ladyship is most charitable. Perhaps, however, it would be better if beggars are kept outside next time.’

  Blood rushed to Luka’s face. He would have spoken angrily if Emilia had not gestured to him silently.

  The cook bowed her head. ‘Aye, ma’am.’

  Mrs Henderson regarded Luka. ‘I believe you have a message for her ladyship? Give it to me.’ She held out an imperious hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but . . . it’s for the countess only.’

  She stared at him coldly.

  ‘The countess will want to see us,’ Emilia said. ‘Really she will.’

  ‘It is almost midnight.’ Mrs Henderson folded her arms, looking very stern.

  ‘The countess is not asleep,’ Emilia replied, thinking of the candlelight glowing in the upstairs window.

  A flicker of expression crossed the companion’s face. ‘Very well. I will go and ask her pleasure. Mrs Skipton, please arrange to have these children thoroughly washed and brushed in the interim. I cannot bring them into the countess’s presence in such a state.’

  ‘Aye, ma’am.’

  As soon as Mrs Henderson had gone, the cook bade Isaac pump some water into the sink, and seized a great hunk of brown soap and a scrubbing brush. The two children shrank back in dismay, but she had no mercy. She washed and brushed and scrubbed them until their hands and feet and faces were red and clean as boiled lobsters. She even managed to comb out Emilia’s hair, though she had a handful of knots the size of a kitten by the time she had finished.

  ‘Your clothes!’ Mrs Skipton threw up her hands. ‘They’re nothing better than rags! How can I send you in to see the countess dressed like that?’

  ‘It’s all we have,’ said Luka, offended, but Emilia laid her hand on his arm and said, ‘I have my other skirt in the bag, remember? And surely Mrs Skipton can find you a better shirt than that?’

  The cook went off to find Luka some clothes, and Emilia said to Isaac, ‘I’ll get changed in the other room, all right?’ He nodded, and she took the lantern and their bag into the stillroom at the end of the corridor. She was very curious indeed to have a closer look.

  It was more like a laboratory than a stillroom. Emilia had spent time in the stillroom at Whitehorse Manor in Surrey, so she was familiar with much of the usual apparatus, such as bowls and mortars, scales and measuring spoons. This room had many other apparatus as well, large glass bowls connected with glass tubes, seething with liquids, as well as rows of jars filled with odd-coloured powders and fluids, instead of the usual dried herbs and flowers and berries.

  On the bench below the window were piles of parchment, scraped back till they were almost transparent with age, and numerous quills and penknives, as well as a row of inkwells filled with foul-smelling liquids. There was also a letter. When Emilia examined it in the light of the lantern, she saw it had been written on twice, once in the usual way, with dark ink and a steady flowing hand, and once again, crossways, in small tiny cryptic symbols that looked nothing like any other writing Emilia had ever seen.

  She put the letter back, feeling frightened. Hurriedly she changed out of her rags into her good skirt, made with layers of pink flowered fabrics. The very lowest layer was of shabby red velvet, and had been added only a few weeks earlier by her sister Beatrice, who had sighed and exclaimed over how fast Emilia was growing. Remembering Beatrice sitting on the caravan step, her dark head bent over her sewing, brought a quick sting of tears to Emilia’s eyes, but she gulped them back, tied her grandmother’s gauzy scarf over her curls, and dug out her grandmother’s heavy crystal ball.

  It was in Emilia’s mind that the Countess of Dysart had a liking for all that was secret and strange. She made invisible ink in her stillroom, and had letters with clandestine messages written in code. She had bought the old gypsy woman’s tarot cards, even though such curiosities could have her branded a witch if they were discovered. She had consulted Mala the fortune-teller several times. Already a plan, a way of wheedling, was forming in Emilia’s brain, and she thought the more gypsy-like she looked, the better.

  Just then the door opened. The cook stood there, looking both angry and frightened. ‘Out of here now, you naughty girl, what do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Just getting changed,’ Emilia replied innocently.

  ‘Don’t
let Mrs Henderson catch you in the stillroom! Come on, out you come.’

  Emilia came out willingly, and the cook shut the door firmly behind her and scolded her all the way back to the kitchen. There Luka was waiting for her, looking quite unlike himself with his curls all damp and combed back, and a clean shirt and breeches. He was even wearing a pair of stout black shoes with buckles on them. Sitting on his shoulder, Zizi was sniffing his hair and wrinkling her nose in distaste.

  ‘Zizi doesn’t know who you are, now you smell all clean and sweet,’ Emilia laughed.

  Luka scowled. ‘Of course she knows who I am, she just doesn’t like the smell of that soap!’

  Just then Mrs Henderson opened the door, looking down her nose at them as if they were two particularly large and loathsome cockroaches. ‘The Countess of Dysart will see you now.’

  The Countess of Dysart

  Carrying a lantern, Mrs Henderson led them into the great hall.

  This was very long and grand, and huge, gloomy paintings covered every wall.

  They followed Mrs Henderson down the hall and through tall doors to a magnificent wooden staircase, the panels of its balustrade carved with shields and swords, great wooden urns of fruit held aloft at every turn. The ceiling was decorated with ornate garlands of leaves and flowers, and plaster busts of generals and emperors stared down from above the doors.

  ‘Don’t touch anything!’ Mrs Henderson snapped as Emilia put out a wondering finger. Emilia snatched her hand back.

  At the top of the staircase was another long hall, as ornately furnished as the room below. Mrs Henderson led them through so fast that Emilia could get no more than an impression of hugeness and richness. Then they came through an enormous pair of carved wooden doors into a room that made all the others seem plain and simple in comparison.

  Candles blazed from an elaborate candelabra hanging from the richly decorated ceiling. Candles were also lit on the white marble fireplace, which was carved all round with gilded vines and grapes and cherubs. More cherubs straddled twisted columns, and the towering walls were hung with richly embroidered tapestries. An ivory cabinet was set against one wall, and the chairs were upholstered in gold-embroidered white satin. Mirrors in heavy gold frames hung on the garlanded walls, and everywhere Luka and Emilia looked there were paintings, and china pots, and silver boxes, and delicate gilded tables, and embroidered velvet footstools with clawed feet, and coy, naked cherubs.

  Reclining on a chaise longue before the fire was a white-skinned, red-haired woman in a magnificent blue silk gown. Pearls hung about her neck and from her ears. More pearls decorated the bodice of her gown. She shared the long, supercilious nose of her cousin, Mrs Henderson, and her eyes were large, dark and heavily lidded.

  ‘The gypsies, your ladyship,’ Mrs Henderson said in a disapproving voice, then hissed, ‘Bow, you mannerless dolts!’

  Luka and Emilia were so dazzled by all the richness and luxury about them they did not at first respond. Then Luka snatched off his cap and bowed deeply, and Emilia bobbed a curtsey. Zizi bobbed up and down, screeching.

  ‘Quite a carnival,’ Lady Dysart said in a very high-bred, bored-sounding tone. ‘Now, what in heaven’s name are two gypsy children and their monkey doing in my drawing room at this late hour? Anne says you have a message for me?’

  Luka cast a wild look at Emilia, all inspiration gone.

  Emilia nodded. ‘Aye, my lady. But first you must give to me the butterfly in amber that you bought from the gypsy Fancy Graylings fifteen years ago.’

  Whatever the countess had been expecting, this was not it. Her arched eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘But why on earth should I do that?’

  ‘Because if you give me the butterfly in amber, I will tell your fortune,’ Emilia said. ‘I think it is a fortune you will want to hear.’

  There was a short silence. Emilia could tell the countess was intrigued.

  ‘Anne, bring me my jewellery box. The small silver one,’ Lady Dysart said at last.

  Mrs Henderson bowed stiffly and went out a door at the far end of the room. She returned a short while later, carrying an ornate silver box. The countess took the box and rummaged through it with long white fingers laden with rings. She withdrew a pale golden orb strung on a long chain. It was about the size of a man’s thumbnail, and was marred with something crooked and dark inside. The countess coiled the chain about her fingers and let it dangle, so that the amber pendant swung back and forth.

  ‘Do you know how amber is made?’ the countess said, not taking her eyes from the golden stone.

  Luka and Emilia shook their heads.

  ‘Amber’s meant to be magic, you know,’ she went on. ‘It’s an ancient, enchanted stone, and was once worth more than gold. I’ve been fascinated by it ever since my tutor told me the ancient Greek myth about how amber came to be.’

  Mrs Henderson folded her hands with a longsuffering expression, but the children loved to be told stories and listened intently. Even Zizi sat quietly on Luka’s shoulder, her round black eyes fixed on Lady Dysart’s face.

  ‘Phaeton was the son of Apollo the sun god. Every day he watched his father driving the sun-chariot across the sky, and he longed to whip along the wild sun-horses himself. One day he persuaded his sisters to help him steal his father’s chariot. He harnessed up the horses and set off across the sky. But of course he lost control, and the horses bolted.’

  The countess turned the amber pendant over and over in her fingers. ‘The sun-chariot raced so close to the world that fires blazed up here and there, thought to be the first volcanoes. In Africa the chariot came so close that all the people there were burnt black, like my boy Isaac. It seemed the whole world would be destroyed. But Zeus, the king of the gods, struck Phaeton dead with a thunderbolt instead. Phaeton’s body fell down beside a river, and his sisters were turned into poplars along the riverbank. As they wept over the dead body of their brother, their tears fell into the river and became amber.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ Emilia said after a moment.

  ‘The Greek myths are always sad.’

  ‘Is it true?’ Luka asked.

  ‘True? Of course not. Only in the way of so many old stories, in that they illuminate the truth. For amber is indeed made from the tears of long-ago trees. It is sap, turned somehow to stone.’

  ‘How did the butterfly get inside it?’ Luka asked.

  Lady Dysart smiled briefly. ‘Once, a very long time ago, that butterfly’s feet were caught in the sticky sap. It struggled and struggled, but could not get free. Slowly the sap oozed down over it and trapped it, and then the sap slowly, over many more years, turned into amber. The butterfly is still inside it, trapped forever.’

  The children were enchanted and repulsed at the same time.

  ‘The Greeks called amber elektron,’ the countess continued dreamily, ‘which means “the sun”. Amber is always the colour of the sun, whether it is pale yellow like the dawn or orange-red like the sunset. And also because when it is rubbed, it gives off sparks of light.’ The countess took a fold of her silken gown and rubbed the amber pendant, then slowly approached her finger to it. The children jumped as a bright spark flashed from the pendant towards her finger. ‘No wonder so many people thought amber was magical,’ the countess said. ‘It’s certainly beautiful.’

  Emilia nodded cautiously. Mentally she prepared herself.

  ‘So the question is, what would two raggle-taggle gypsies want with my amber pendant?’ Lady Dysart asked.

  ‘It’s the lucky charm of the Graylings family,’ Emilia replied. ‘They’ve had nothing go right since it was sold.’

  ‘So you’ve come to buy it back? But what, then, of my luck? In these perilous times, I need all the good fortune I can get.’

  ‘If you wish me to tell you your fortune, you must give me the amber pendant.’

  Lady Dysart’s smile faded. ‘But I paid good coin for it. No, no, I need more than just the lies of a fortune-teller in return for my lucky charm.’
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br />   ‘I do not lie, I tell true!’ Emilia said indignantly.

  ‘So they all say.’

  Emilia had not expected Lady Dysart to bargain so hard. The countess was surrounded by luxury of all kind, and her fingers were laden with gems. Emilia had hoped she would think of the amber pendant as no more than a worthless trinket, a curiosity.

  But it seemed the countess would not give up her trinket so easily.

  Reluctantly, Emilia held up her grandmother’s crystal ball.

  ‘If you give me the amber pendant, I’ll give you this,’ she said. ‘It belongs to my grandmother, the Queen of the Gypsies, the greatest fortune-teller in the land. It is very old, and has great powers.’

  Lady Dysart leant forward eagerly, the amber pendant falling from her fingers. ‘Let me hold it.’

  So Emilia passed her the crystal ball and the countess cupped it in her hands and looked down into its cloudy, twisted heart. Emilia bent and picked up the amber pendant. It was warm in the palm of her hand. She held it up to the candlelight. It glowed softly golden, the colour of afternoon sunshine. Emilia could see clearly the crooked shape of a trapped butterfly within, its wings bent. Emilia rubbed her thumb over it, her mouth curving.

  She may have lost her charm bracelet, but at least she now had the butterfly in amber! That was some consolation, at least.

  ‘Will I be able to see things in it?’ Lady Dysart asked, turning the crystal ball round and round.

  ‘If you have the eye,’ Emilia replied, sliding the amber pendant into her pocket. ‘It takes time to learn how.’

  ‘You are young, then, to be telling fortunes,’ the countess said, sounding rather sulky. ‘What can you know of life?’

  ‘Sometimes I think far too much,’ Emilia said wearily. ‘But you are right. I am young. I only began to see things a short while ago. Baba says that is how it comes, when a girl is growing into womanhood. Lately . . . well, maybe I’ve grown up fast. I’ve seen . . .’ Her voice faltered. ‘I’ve seen too much,’ she went on, very low.