The Butterfly in Amber

Kate Forsyth is a bestselling author across several genres. Her titles include the Witches of Eileanan series,
The Gypsy Crown
,
The Silver Horse
,
The Herb of Grace, The Cat's Eye Shell
and
The Lightning Bolt
, the first five books in the Chain of Charms series,
The Starthorn Tree
,
Wishing for Trouble
and
Dragon Gold
. Kate lives in Sydney with her husband, three children, a black cat called Shadow and a very large and boisterous dog called Jessie.

The Gypsy Crown

The Silver Horse

The Herb of Grace

The Cat's Eye Shell

The Lightning Bolt

Dragon Gold

Wishing for Trouble

First published 2007 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Text copyright © Kate Forsyth 2007
Illustrations copyright © Jeremy Reston 2007

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication data:

Forsyth, Kate, 1966–.
The butterfly in amber.

For primary school children.
ISBN 978 1 4050 3785 3

1. Gypsies – Juvenile fiction. I. Reston, Jeremy. II. Title.
(Series: Forsyth, Kate, 1966– Chain of charms; 6)

A823.3

Internal text design by Seymour Designs
Typeset in 11/17 pt Janson Text by Post Pre-press Group
Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

These electronic editions published in 2007 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

The Butterfly in Amber

Kate Forsyth

Adobe eReader format 978-1-74198-055-4
Microsoft Reader format 978-1-74198-056-1
Mobipocket format 978-1-74198-057-8
Online format 978-1-74198-058-5
Epub format 978-1-74262-467-9

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Title Page

Copyright

Map

Characters

The Story So Far . . .

Falling Down London Bridge

The Cathedral

The Cradle and the Coffin

Obedience

Death in the Pot

Rough Justice

Ham House

The Countess of Dysart

Leaving No Shadow

By Fire Struck Down

The Mace and Hand Inn

The Stink of the Prison

The Last Charm

The Facts behind the Fiction

Luka Finch (13)

Emilia Finch (13) – his cousin

Maggie Finch, called Queen of the Gypsies – their
grandmother

Jacob – Luka's father

Silvia – Luka's mother

Lena (14) and Mimi (9) – Luka's sisters

Beatrice (15) – Emilia's sister

Noah (9) – Emilia's brother

Ruben – Luka and Emilia's uncle

Sabina (10) – Ruben's daughter

Zizi – a monkey

Rollo – a dog

Sweetheart – a brown bear

Mala Graylings – an old fortune-teller

Henry Purefoyle – a lawyer

Humility Purefoyle – his daughter

Obedience Purefoyle – his daughter

Justice Purefoyle – his daughter

Faith Purefoyle – his wife

Elizabeth Murray – Countess of Dysart

Mrs Henderson – her companion

Mrs Skipton – her cook

Isaac – her black servant

Pastor Spurgeon – the Puritan minister of the

Kingston-Upon-Thames parish church

Coldham – a thief-taker for Cromwell

Maloney – a guard at the Stockhouse Gaol

L
uka and Emilia Finch are thirteen-year-old gypsy children who have spent the past two and a half weeks on the run, pursued by the thief-taker Coldham, a cruel man who hates gypsies and wants to see them all hang by the neck until they are dead. The rest of the Finch family are locked up in gaol, and if Luka and Emilia cannot find some way to save them, they will face the gallows in a matter of days.

Emilia has collected five of the six lucky charms that once belonged to a gypsy witch. Emilia wears the charms on a chain about her wrist – a golden coin, a tiny silver horse, a sprig of rue, a shell that gleams like a cat's eye, and a lightning bolt forged from the heart
of a falling star. The last charm Emilia needs to find is a piece of amber with a butterfly trapped inside. It belongs to the Graylings family, but no one knows where they are. All the children's grandmother told them was that the Graylings gave up the gypsy roads and went to London.

In 1658, London is a dangerous city, filled with cutpurses and cutthroats, and stalked by the ever-present threat of plague. Not only must Luka and Emilia try to find one tiny jewel in that huge, crowded city, but they must try not to be seen, no easy task when accompanied by a monkey, a large shaggy dog, and an even larger and shaggier brown bear. For Luka and Emilia know that Coldham would not have given up the chase, nor Pastor Spurgeon, the zealot who threw their families in gaol. The pastor has friends everywhere, but most particularly in London.

Oliver Cromwell himself is in London, living in the palace of the king he helped to the scaffold. And the Lord Protector is ill, so violently and mysteriously that
some believe only witchcraft could be responsible, or the secret hand of an assassin. With every day bringing Old Ironsides closer to death, the land is in turmoil. Cromwell's spymasters are arresting anyone thought to be plotting against his rule; secret missives are flying across the Channel to the king-in-exile, Charles II
;
and everywhere people are wondering what will happen when Cromwell finally dies.

Time is running out, for Cromwell, for the Protectorate of England, and for the Finch family in gaol
. . .