The Butterfly in Amber (13 page)

‘I was trying to get up the courage to shoot him. I'm glad he came close enough that I could hit him instead.'

‘Wouldn't want to have to arrest you for murder,' Maloney said.

Emilia grinned. ‘What should we do with him now?' she wondered, bending over the pastor in concern.

‘Don't you dare find him a soft cushion for his head,' Beatrice cried hoarsely, limping from the cell. Luka stood behind her, his arm about Mimi's thin shoulders, grinning broadly.

Emilia leapt forward with a cry of joy. Beatrice's
black hair was matted and wild, and her face was bruised badly about the mouth, but she was smiling. She embraced Emilia warmly. Something hard and heavy in her hand knocked against Emilia's back. It was an iron muzzle, with a cruel curb to fit over the tongue. Emilia remembered her dream. She had seen Beatrice with this iron cage fitted over her head. She cried aloud in distress, and gently touched the dark bruises at her sister's mouth.

‘Did he . . .' she began.

‘Aye, he did,' Beatrice said. Her beautiful voice was raspy. ‘For singing our Mimi a lullaby! So let us lock it over his head now and see how he likes it.'

Maloney laughed, and took the iron muzzle from her hand. ‘Serves him right,' he said and knelt beside the pastor.

Half laughing, half crying, the sisters hugged each other close.

‘I cannot believe you're here! It's a miracle,'
Beatrice whispered. ‘And with a royal pardon, signed by Cromwell himself. How on earth did you manage it?'

‘It's a long story,' Emilia replied with a crooked smile.

B
ack in the cell Maggie sat on the ground still, her back hunched like a buzzard.

‘Baba!' Emilia fell on her knees before her grandmother, frightened by her frailty.

‘Milly, darling girl, you came,' Maggie murmured in Romany. ‘Is all well?'

‘Aye, all is well. Look, Baba, we found all the charms.' She showed her grandmother the bracelet, gleaming at her wrist.

‘Good, good,' Maggie said. ‘Is the tale true? Do the charms have power?'

‘Aye. They brought us luck many times. Believe me, we needed it!'

‘You are safe, you are well, all is good. Come, you will need to help me. I cannot get up.'

Emilia and Beatrice tried to help their grandmother to her feet, but her bones were locked in place. Luka was just hurrying to help them when Maloney stepped forward.

‘Ma'am, can't you stand? Here let me help you.' He bent and lifted the old woman into his arms as if she was a little child. ‘We'll have you tucked up in your own bed before you know it.'

‘There's only one caravan left,' Luka said to his mother. ‘They've sold the horses too, I'm afraid, I'll have to see if I can find one to borrow.'

‘We don't want to be nabbed again for horse-stealing,' Silvia said, trying to smile. Once a pink-cheeked, plump woman, she was now gaunt and sallow, the long black hair she had been so proud of hanging in lank rats' tails.

‘You can borrow my horse,' Maloney said over his shoulder. ‘He's sturdy enough to pull the caravan, as long as it's not too far.'

‘We'll go to Richmond Park, we have friends waiting for us there,' Luka said. Maloney nodded and disappeared down the stairs, Maggie trying to hold herself upright in his arms, not at all pleased to be carried. Lena and Silvia stumbled after them, Mimi and Sabina clinging tightly to their hands, their dark eyes wide and fearful.

‘Where's Noah?' Emilia asked, looking around. ‘I've been so worried. I had a terrible dream . . .'

‘He's in the next cell,' Beatrice said. ‘He's not been well. We heard him coughing all the time, but they would not let me go to him. It's all been so dreadful.'

Luka had already hurried to the other cell and was unlocking it swiftly. He was almost bowled over by the press of men trying to get out. Apart from Luka's father Jacob and his uncle, Ruben,
there was a neatly dressed man with ink-stained fingers, a one-armed soldier, several thin shabby men with desperate eyes, and a number of filthy hedge-birds with wild matted hair and beards and stinking rags. Most of them barged past and ran down the stairs, almost trampling each other in their desire to get out, but the gentleman with ink-stained fingers bowed and nodded, and said, ‘I thank you. I will not forget this service tonight.'

‘Don't thank me, thank Old Ironsides!' Luka said irrepressibly, waving the pardons.

‘I'll thank Providence,' the gentleman replied, and went quietly but swiftly out of the cell. Luka rushed into his father's arms.

‘Luka!' Jacob cried. ‘I thought I heard your voice. I could hardly believe it was true. Let me look at you. Why, you've grown. Look how tall you are! But so thin.'

‘I need to get some of Baba's stew into me,' Luka grinned. He hugged his father fiercely.

Emilia had run straight past her uncles to kneel beside her brother, who lay on a pile of damp straw. The little boy was a ghastly shade of blue, with purple shadows under his eyes, and colourless lips. His eyes were shut.

‘He's very ill,' Ruben said. ‘We've done what we could for him.'

Beatrice and Emilia both knelt beside their brother, murmuring endearments, patting and stroking him. He did not stir.

‘We need to get him away from here,' Emilia cried. Tears were hot in her eyes. Jacob nodded and bent to pick up the little boy, carrying him gently out of the cell. Noah's head lolled sideways, and his arm hung limply. Beatrice and Emilia hurried after him.

Luka grinned when he saw the scold's bridle locked on the pastor's head.

Hopefully he'll sleep all day
, he thought,
and by then we'll be far, far away!

Outside, the rain drummed down, turning the ground to mud. In the few scant seconds it took to run across the yard, Emilia and Beatrice were drenched through. The rain seemed to have woken Noah, for his eyes were open and he was turning his face from side to side. Jacob laid him down gently in the bunk.

‘You're safe now, darling boy,' Emilia wept, hugging him close. ‘We'll have you well again in no time! Don't you worry about a thing now.'

‘Milly?' Noah whispered. ‘Where am I? What's happened? Are you real?'

‘Of course I'm real,' Emilia said. ‘You're here in your own little bed.'

‘But . . . we were in the cell . . . I can smell it still . . .'

He groped out with one skeletal hand, his face turning anxiously from side to side.

‘It's your clothes you smell,' Emilia said. ‘Here, let me take them off you. There are some other clothes here in the chest.'

As she turned away, Rollo pushed past her, whining and wagging his tail so hard his whole body wriggled. He jumped up and put his paws on the bunk, licking Noah on the face.

Noah smiled. ‘Why, it's Rollo,' he whispered. ‘You've come back.'

‘Aye, darling, we're all back, we're all safe,' Emilia said, gently undressing the little boy. ‘Everything is fine now.'

She and Beatrice together sponged away the worst of the filth with rain water, dressed Noah in a clean shirt and tucked him up warmly. Rollo whuffed with joy and leapt up onto the bunk, curling up in the crook of Noah's knees, his nose pressed into the little boy's hand. Noah, smiling, closed his eyes and let himself drift away into sleep.

Emilia smiled and sniffed, wiping her nose with
the back of her hand. She turned to tend to her grandmother, sitting hunched in her rocking-chair. The big guard was waiting quietly on the step, and Emilia's heart lurched in sudden terror. But he smiled kindly at her, and ducked his head inside the caravan to nod at Maggie.

‘Goodbye, ma'am,' he said. ‘Thank you.'

‘Thank
you
, Maloney,' Maggie answered. ‘For everything. And please, when the little one is born, bring her to see us in Norwood. I'll make her a little blessing for you to hang above her cradle.'

His eyes lit up. ‘It'll be a little girl then?'

She nodded wearily.

‘Oh, that's wonderful news,' he cried. ‘I can't wait to tell Jenny!'

‘Well, you may as well go on home and tell her,' Maggie said. ‘I'm afraid you're out of a job, at least till they fill the gaol up again, which I guess won't take them long.'

He shrugged. ‘I never liked being a guard
anyway,' he said. ‘I might turn my hand to raising sheep, like you suggested, ma'am.'

She nodded and leant her head on the back of the chair, her face all hooked nose and hooded eyelids in the soft glow of the lantern. ‘Wool will do well when the king comes back.'

He bent and seized her thin, claw-like hand. ‘We'll name her Maggie,' he said. ‘In remembrance for all you did for us.'

She crooked her mouth. ‘Better name her Jenny,' she advised.

He grinned. ‘We'll call the next one Jenny.'

‘And both very good names too,' she said. ‘Goodbye, Maloney!'

‘Goodbye, ma'am,' he said. The caravan swayed and rocked under his weight as he stepped down, and Noah sighed and murmured in his sleep.

Emilia gazed at her grandmother, thinking that the old woman never failed to surprise her.
Maggie, without opening her eyes, said, ‘Go help the men harness up the caravan. I want to feel the road under our wheels again.'

‘Aye, Baba,' Emilia said and jumped down the steps again.

The men were all busy getting the caravan ready to go, even though Maloney was begging them to wait for the storm to blow over.

‘What's a little rain?' Jacob scoffed. ‘It'll wash away the prison stink.'

Luka was helping eagerly, his monkey back on his shoulder, her little paws gripped tight around his throat.

‘So where's my Sweetheart then?' Ruben asked. ‘She back at the camp?'

Luka and Emilia looked at each other. Slowly they shook their heads.

‘I'm sorry,' Emilia said.

‘They shot her about a hundred times. There was nothing we could do.'

‘She saved us,' Emilia said. ‘More than once.'

Ruben stared at them, grim-faced, then bowed his head and went on with his work.

Slowly Emilia and Luka plodded along the muddy road, the cold wind plucking at their hair and clothes, carrying gusts of icy rain. Tom stumbled just behind, just as wet and bedraggled as the two gypsy children, for he had insisted on giving up his bunk in the caravan for Maggie and little Mimi. The other members of the Finch family trudged along before and behind, barely finding the strength to lift one foot after another.

It was almost dawn. The thin grey light showed a scene of utter devastation. Trees were uprooted, roofs had been torn off houses, and fallen branches lay across smashed walls.

‘This has been the longest night ever,' Luka said.

‘It feels like it's been years,' Emilia said and yawned so widely her jaw cracked.

‘My legs don't want to walk anymore.'

‘Me either.'

But they trudged on.

‘Will they be there, I wonder?' Luka asked.

‘Of course they will,' Emilia answered, smiling across at her sister who tried to smooth back her matted hair with one hand.

Hooves hammered the road ahead. Tense with fright, the children looked up. It was not Coldham riding towards them, though, or a troupe of soldiers. It was Felipe and Sebastien and Lord Harry, waving their hats and hullaballoing.

‘Here they are!' Lord Harry shouted, drawing up his horse beside them. ‘We rode out to look for you, afraid you may have been hurt in the storm, but look at you! Hale and hearty and with friends, no less!'

‘This is our family,' Emilia said.

‘We rescued them ourselves!' Luka cried.

There was a glad hubbub, as quick greetings and explanations flew back and forth.

‘We were worried when we did not find you at Gallows Pond,' Sebastien said. ‘So, is all well? You broke your family out of gaol yourself?'

His eyes scanned the crowd and found Beatrice, turning away, her shawl drawn up, ashamed of her dirt and dark bruises. Sebastien dismounted and strode quickly to meet her, calling her name in delight. A rosy bloom rose in Beatrice's cheeks, banishing the tense whiteness of a moment before. Sebastien seized her hand, then said, ‘Come, let me put you up on my horse. You look worn out! We'll soon have you warm and dry by the fire, eating some good stew.'

‘Thank you,' Beatrice whispered, allowing him to lift her onto the horse's back. In a moment, the others were mounted too, Luka up behind his
mother, and Emilia clinging to Tom's waist. The horses strode out smoothly, and Emilia sighed and let herself lay her cheek on Tom's shoulder and relax.