The Lightning Bolt (4 page)

‘You sure?'

‘Quite sure.'

Bob threw a couple of stones at the log, then said, ‘So, are you gypsies? Have you come here for the horse fair too? You're all early this year.'

‘No, we're here to see the Smiths,' Emilia answered. ‘We want to ask them a favour.'

Bob looked sour. ‘You won't get any favours out of the Smiths. My mother says their hearts are as black as their hair.'

‘So you're not one of the Smiths?'

‘No, no. I mean, my father is a smith – a blacksmith, I mean – he works at the foundry – but we're not Smiths. Worst luck. The Smiths run everything round here. I mean, the Brownes own the foundry but the Smiths run it, and they give all the good jobs to themselves. There's seven of them, seven brothers and one little girl, but she doesn't live here any more, she's gone up the valley with the old man and . . .' His voice trailed off.

‘You ever seen any of the Smiths wearing a sort of lucky charm . . . shaped like a lightning bolt?' Unconsciously Emilia rubbed the charms hanging from the chain about her wrist, taking comfort in their smooth, familiar shape.

‘Aye, I have,' Bob said in surprise. ‘Old Man Smith always wore a charm like that. I often used to see him fingering it. Haven't seen him round since the accident . . . but last time I saw him he was wearing it, just as usual.'

Emilia was excited. ‘You say the old man doesn't live here any more?'

‘No, he went wandering in his wits, you know, after what happened. The Brownes gave him a cottage up near the woods, and he lives up there with the girl to look after him, and with the boy . . . no one sees any of them any more.'

‘Know where the cottage is?'

‘Up past the church,' Bob said. ‘That's about three miles south of here. Here, I'll draw you a
little map.' He squatted down and began to scratch in the dirt with a stick.

‘How come the church is so far away?' Emilia asked. ‘I've never heard of a village church being three miles from the village.'

Bob shrugged. ‘I guess the village moved when the gun foundry opened. Just about everyone works for the foundry these days. There's nothing out near the church any more but a couple of hop farms.' He gave a wry little grin. ‘Guns and beer are the only businesses worth anything round here. No wonder the rector has trouble filling his church.'

‘Don't they get into trouble?' Emilia was wide-eyed. No one she knew dared miss church. The parish constables would arrest you and throw you in the stocks, or worse.

‘As long as Cromwell needs more guns, the blast furnace will keep on working,' Bob said. ‘Night or day, work day or rest day, it never closes down.'

Emilia was amazed. The Puritans were very
strict about the observance of the Sabbath. No one was allowed to cook or clean or hang out the washing or scrape the mud off their boots, or walk anywhere except to go to church. The only work that was permitted was to feed the animals and milk the cows, for it would have been cruel to do otherwise. Emilia could not believe the foundry men were let off the hook just to make Cromwell more guns.
Old hypocrite
, she thought scornfully, not for the first time, and bent over Bob's shoulder so she could try to make sense of the marks he was scratching in the dust.

It was then she saw Luka running full pelt towards her. He made a broad gesture with his hand, meaning,
Let's get out of here!

Emilia hastily fixed the crude map into her memory, said, ‘That's great, thanks, Bob. Got to go!' and went running to meet her cousin.

‘Coldham's around,' he panted. ‘Let's get out of here!'

I
t was impossible not to imagine the thief-taker lurking behind every slagheap and every pyramid of burning charcoal. Luka and Emilia felt very exposed as they hurried back through the valley, steering clear of the village and the pub with its ominous sign.

As they left the foundry behind them, the air slowly cleared so that their eyes stopped stinging and they could breathe more easily. Glancing back, Luka saw the foundry's windows glaring red and spiteful through a haze of heavy smoke. He
quickened his pace, glad to have fields and copses of trees around him again.

After a little under an hour, they passed the church, its square tower rising high above the towering poles of hops in the fields about it. Next to the church was an oast house, with three tall conical towers, each topped by an angular white wind-funnel that swung round each time the wind moved. A man on tall wooden stilts was checking the hop cones that clustered at the top of the poles. Luka guessed he was seeing how long till harvest time. He himself had never travelled down into Kent for the hop harvest, but he knew his parents and grandparents used to every year, before the Civil War had made it too dangerous to travel away from the safety of the forest.

A little further round the curve of the hill, they came to another oast house next to an apple orchard. This one stood idle, its steep roof all green with moss and ivy choking one of the
roundels from the ground almost all the way to the crooked white windvane. A small cottage, red-tiled and black-timbered, was built between the three roundels, smoke drifting from its tall chimneys. It was surrounded by a colourful profusion of flowers – foxgloves and lavender and roses and columbines. In the apple orchard behind, mossy old trees were heavy with reddening fruit.

Emilia stared. She had never really wanted to live in a house before, but this cottage, with its conical towers topped by steep pointed roofs, was quite the prettiest she had ever seen.

A girl stood in the middle of the garden, her hands full of roses. She had a round, rosy face, sparkling black eyes and a very thick, glossy plait that hung down her back from under a white cap. She was neatly dressed in a plain brown dress and a snowy-white apron, and her neat leather shoes were as black and shiny as her hair.

She smiled when she saw Luka and Emilia trudging wearily up the path. ‘Why, there's only two of you. I was expecting three.'

Luka and Emilia were completely taken aback. ‘You were expecting us?'

‘Well, not you necessarily. I was expecting visitors. The bees told me so this morning.'

‘The bees told you?'

‘Aye. They always let me know when to expect visitors. Come along in. You look like you've come a long way.' She looked them up and down, and said, ‘I expect you'll want a wash.'

She led them round to a small stone room on the side of the cottage. Inside was a deep sink with a pump with a most beautiful ornate iron handle. Buckets, basins and watering cans were all lined up in a perfect row on a shelf, while various tools were hung neatly on hooks on the wall. The stone floor was scrubbed white.

‘Your feet are very dirty,' the girl said disapprovingly, laying the roses down in the sink. ‘Why don't you sit out there on the bench and I'll bring you a basin to wash them in.'

Luka and Emilia were glad to sit on the bench, and even gladder to put their hot, dusty feet into the basins of cold water she brought them. She gave them a long-handled scrubbing brush and
some hunks of brown soap, and obediently they washed their feet and dried them on her linen towels, Zizi slapping the water with her paw and sending it spraying everywhere.

Rollo lay beside them, panting, and she brought him a bowl of water which he lapped up thirstily. ‘The dog and the monkey had better stay outside,' she said, looking them over dubiously.

‘Then we'll have to stay outside too,' Emilia cried, and glanced furiously at Luka, who for once had not leapt immediately to his monkey's defence. He was staring at the black-haired girl as if he had never seen a girl before.

She looked apologetic. ‘I don't mean to be rude, but the monkey is bound to have fleas. And the way your dog wags his tail, he'll knock everything off the shelves and smash them.'

Rollo at once wagged his tail furiously.

‘He'll lie quiet,' Emilia said. ‘He does whatever I tell him to! And Zizi does not have fleas!'

She was rather inclined to take a dislike to this neat girl with her perfect plait and shiny shoes. But then Rollo licked the Smith girl's face, and she laughed. ‘He's trying to clean me up too!' she cried. ‘No, stop it! I'm quite clean enough.'

Emilia decided at that moment to be amused instead of offended.

Zizi, who always liked to copy whatever her loved ones were doing, dipped her tiny paws into the basin too, then daintily dried them on the towel, before dabbing her wizened brown face. ‘Oh, what a little dear!' the girl cried. ‘Are you sure she doesn't have fleas?'

‘Quite sure,' Luka answered, crossing his fingers behind his back.

‘Then I suppose she may come in, as long as she does not make a mess,' the girl said. ‘Come on into the scullery and wash up.'

As soon as they were clean as soap and a scrubbing brush could make them, the girl
mopped up all the water they had spilt, rinsed the towels and hung them neatly back over the rail, and put the basins back in the exact same position they had been in before. When the scullery was spick and span, she opened a door and led them into the kitchen.

This room was as trim and tidy as the scullery. The dark oak furniture gleamed, smelling of beeswax, and the big iron stove and oven had recently been blackened. A fire glowed behind a beautifully wrought iron grille, and a pair of bellows were hung, one on either side of the fireplace, at exactly the same height. Lined up along the mantelpiece was a row of pewter plates, as precise as soldiers on parade. On the top shelf of the dresser were jars of honey, arranged in order of colour from the darkest to the lightest. Each had a square of green and white checked cloth tied over the top to keep out the flies. A cushion of the same material was set very neatly
on the rocking chair by the fire. It looked as though it was never sat upon.

‘You must be hungry,' the girl said, and pulled out some chairs for them. She took a loaf of bread out of a tin and neatly cut off a few slices. ‘Do you prefer heather honey, clover honey, rose honey, apple-blossom honey or thyme honey?'

‘I don't know,' Emilia said and glanced at Luka, wondering why he was so quiet. He was staring at the girl, quite dumbstruck. Emilia kicked him under the table, and he winced and said hurriedly, ‘Whatever you think is best.'

‘The rose honey is very rich and strengthening, and heartens you when you are weary,' the girl said. ‘You both look worn out.' She got down the darkest jar from the shelf. It was the colour of toffee, and very thick. She spread it on the bread and gave them each a slice, perfectly aligned on the plate, then poured them a mug of cold, frothy milk. Emilia and Luka ate and drank ravenously,
while the girl got Zizi some dried apple slices out of a tin.

‘I have a bone the dog could have,' she said hesitantly. ‘I had planned to make soup with it. He would have to eat it outside though.'

‘I don't think he'd mind that,' Emilia said, and the girl smiled at her, recognising the gentle mockery in her voice. She took Rollo outside, to gnaw on his bone with great enjoyment.

‘What is your name?' Luka asked as she came in again, first wiping her feet carefully on the mat.

‘Fairnette Smith,' she answered, taking their plates away, and washing them, drying them and putting them back on the shelf. ‘What's yours?'

‘I'm Luka Finch, and this is my cousin Emilia,' he said, draining his mug. ‘Thank you for the bread and honey. We were starving.'

‘That's my pleasure. Now tell me why you're here. You don't look like you've come to buy my candles. Is it my honey that you want?'

‘No,' Luka said. ‘Though it was the most delicious honey I've ever eaten.'

Emilia glanced at him in surprise. It was not like Luka to be so courtly. He was gazing at Fairnette again, and Emilia felt herself getting cross. She kicked him again under the table. He grimaced at her.

‘Then what do you want of me?' Fairnette asked, frowning slightly. ‘Surely you didn't just stumble on our cottage by chance. We are so out of the way here.'

Luka and Emilia told her their story, talking over the top of each other. The rosy colour ebbed from her face when she heard of their family's plight. ‘How awful,' she said. ‘I wish there was something I could do to help. You say you made wax imprints of this bad man's keys? My father could make copies for you, or one of my brothers, I suppose, only . . .' Her voice trailed away, then she said, ‘And I don't know where the lightning
bolt charm is. My father does not have it now, I'm afraid. I have not seen it . . . for quite some time now.'

‘Is your father here? Could we ask him where it is?' Emilia asked eagerly.

‘He's here,' Fairnette said. ‘I don't know if he'll remember what happened to it, though. He's old now, you see, and wandering in his wits a little. He does not like to think about the here and now, I guess it is too painful for him. So he lives in the past, mainly. But you can ask him. Sometimes he remembers things. Sometimes he seems just like his old self. It never lasts, though.'

As she spoke, she rose to her feet. The other two rose too, Luka swinging Zizi up onto his shoulder. Fairnette pushed both their chairs back into the table, making sure they were set neatly, then led them down a whitewashed hall. Everywhere was evidence of the blacksmith's art – tall wrought-iron candlesticks on the hallstand,
beautifully worked hinges on the doors, and curling iron table legs.

Halfway down the hallway stood a door, standing a little ajar. Curious, Emilia glanced inside as they passed. The door led into one of the towers, a round room dominated by a huge fireplace. A hunched figure in a dark hooded cloak crouched before the fire, poking it with a long stick. The room was dark, with shutters drawn over the narrow windows. It had a strange lingering smell. As she passed, the figure looked up. She saw the pale, miserable face of a boy about the same age as her little brother, Noah, who was nine. He scowled at the sight of her, and picked up a small log of firewood and flung it at the door, slamming it shut. Fairnette looked round at the sound, but Emilia was already well away from the door, her hand on Rollo's back.

A kitchen garden was laid out all along one side of the house. Emilia had never seen such straight
rows of peas and cabbages. A vine grew along a trellis, shading a wrought-iron table and chair. Bees hummed in the rosemary and bean flowers. There was not a weed to be seen.

At the end of the yard was a long, low stable.

‘That's my father's forge,' Fairnette said. ‘He works in there sometimes, on his good days. Not so often any more.'

An old man sat on a bench in front of the forge, staring down at his hands. They were huge and hard and callused, and lay idle on his lap. A pipe smouldered from the corner of his mouth.

‘Father?' Fairnette said hesitantly.

He looked up at the sound of her voice, and took the pipe out of his mouth. He was huge, the biggest man Emilia had ever seen. He wore a blacksmith's scarred leather apron over a rough linen shirt, rolled up to show the strength of his forearms, the collar undone. His eyes were yellowish and watery, with red, inflamed edges.
Although his beard was vast, streaked with grey as if he had wiped his ashy fingers through it, Emilia could see that he wore nothing about his neck. Disappointment stabbed through her.

‘Eh?' he said.

‘Father, it's me, Fairnette. Your daughter.'

He stared at her without recognition, then moved his vacant, rheumy gaze to Luka's face. ‘Do I know you?'

‘No,' Luka said, ‘though we're kin, way back.'