The Lightning Bolt (7 page)

L
uka and Emilia looked at each other unhappily. Both knew he spoke the truth.

Emilia ran her fingers over the charms at her wrist. Golden crown for luck, silver horse for the beasts of field and forest, rue flower for the power of plants, cat's eye shell for sea and water, and the power of seeing clearly. She wished she knew what had happened to Van, and to the lightning bolt charm. She felt the truth was hidden here somewhere, if only she could see it.

‘But we have our whole lives ahead of us, Van,'
she said. ‘It's true we need to leave here very soon. If we cannot rescue them in time, our families will hang! We cannot stay here, as much as we like you. But once our lives have returned to normal, then why cannot we come and stay with you again? Or you could come to us. The Great North Wood is very beautiful. You could come to Beatrice's wedding! We'll sing and dance and feast.'

He stared at her, startled. ‘But . . . I cannot dance . . .'

‘Why not?' Luka said, and Emilia knew he was about to say, ‘You've still got both feet, don't you?'

‘Of course he can!' she cried. She did not want Van to curl back into himself like a hedgehog, all his sharp spines raised. ‘I bet you're a beautiful dancer, Van. It'd be great fun. You should hear Beatrice sing, Van, she sings like an angel.' But then her shoulders drooped, and she turned her face away. ‘Though if we can't break our families
out of gaol, there'll be no wedding because Beatrice will be dead.' She did not need to pretend to cry. Sobs were shaking her narrow rib cage. ‘And Baba and Noah too!'

‘Not to mention all my family,' Luka said soberly.

Emilia looked at Van pleadingly. ‘We really need your help, Van.'

‘My help? What could
I
do?'

‘You could ask Stevo to make some keys for them,' Fairnette burst out. ‘They've got moulds, they just need someone to copy the keys.'

Van's face closed down. He turned away from them, saying nothing.

Fairnette hurried on. ‘You know Stevo would do it if you asked him, Van. He'd do anything to make it all up to you, you know that. Or you could ask Father. He wouldn't suspect
you
of being some kind of spy.' Bitterness rang through her voice. ‘Either of them would do it in a flash, if you asked them.'

‘And you could tell us what happened to the lightning bolt charm,' Emilia said softly.

Van spun round and stared at her with eyes wide with shock.

‘What?' he croaked.

‘Your family's good luck charm,' Emilia said. ‘The lightning bolt.'

‘Why?' he said shortly, through his teeth. The blood had drained away from his face, making the red scars uglier than ever.

She showed him the charms hanging from her wrist. ‘Our Baba sent us to find them,' she said. ‘They're the luck of the Rom. If we could gather them all together again, we could –'

‘They're not good luck!' Van cried. ‘They're cursed bad luck!'

‘Why, what do you mean?' Fairnette said. ‘I've never heard that said before. Father always used to say the charm had brought us luck.'

Van shut his teeth together smartly and would not speak.

‘Please tell us,' Emilia said gently. ‘We really want to know.'

Van sighed, then said in a compressed voice, ‘It was all because of the charm that I got burnt.'

‘But . . . how? Why? I don't understand,' Fairnette said unhappily.

Van did not look at them. ‘Stevo and Father had been arguing about that stupid charm for weeks. Stevo thought Father should give it up to him. It's always worn by the master smith, you know, the Big Man . . . and that was really Stevo now, for all that Father went up to the foundry every day.'

‘But I thought . . . do you mean Father was not really doing the job?' Fairnette was surprised.

Van stared into the fire. ‘Father was getting rather vague about things, like ordering more limestone . . . and there'd been a string of accidents
at the foundry, mostly small ones, not like mine. Stevo thought Father was . . .' he hesitated, ‘. . . not keeping a close enough eye on things.'

‘Damned interfering pup!' the old man roared. ‘Always thinks he's right!'

They all jumped and looked round. The old man was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed over his burly chest, his eyebrows bristling.

‘Is that true, Father?' Fairnette asked, looking upset. ‘Is that what happened?'

‘It's all a lie,' he said. ‘I'm as good a foundry master as I ever was!'

‘But the charm?' Emilia said. ‘What has it got to do with the lightning bolt charm?'

The old man looked stricken. His hand groped up towards his neck, then fell away, fingers empty.

‘Van?' Fairnette asked.

‘That day . . .' Van paused and looked at Fairnette pleadingly. ‘I know I was not meant to go to the foundry, but Dax had been teasing me,
calling me a wean and a whelp and a spoilt little baby, so I . . . I went up, just to look around, just to show him I wasn't scared. Father and Stevo were arguing again. Stevo was saying there was not enough charcoal in the pot, the pig iron was coming out too grey, too brittle. Sparks were flying everywhere and Father was yelling at Stevo to mind his own business and go back to school –'

‘How dare he tell me how to run my own foundry,' the old man muttered, and sat down heavily at the table. Fairnette moved automatically to pour him some mead, and he drank deeply.

‘So what happened?' Luka asked.

‘Father said he would give Stevo a clip around the ear for being so cheeky, and Stevo said he wasn't a wean any more, and Father had no right to beat him, and then Father swung a punch at him and got Stevo on the side of the head, and Stevo grabbed his hand, and anyway, they began going at each other hammer and tongs, you know what they're like once they lose their tempers.'

Fairnette nodded, looking more miserable than ever.

‘Anyway, Father heaved Stevo right over and gave him a kick, saying that'd teach him to disrespect his elders, and Stevo got up and went for him. I thought he was going to strangle him! He had Father about the throat, and he grabbed the chain and it broke, and he had the lightning bolt in his hand. He stood there, holding it, panting, and he said, “You don't deserve it, Father. You're old now, and forgetting your craft.
Someone's going to get killed if you don't be more careful.”'

‘Impertinent young pup,' Mr Smith said, glowering into his cup.

‘So what happened then?' Fairnette asked.

‘Nothing!' Mr Smith banged the cup down on the table. ‘Nothing happened! It was an accident.'

Fairnette turned her dark, unhappy gaze back to Van's face.

‘Father ran at Stevo, roaring and shouting, and tried to snatch the charm back,' Van said. ‘He pushed Stevo and he fell back, and bumped into me. I was sort of hiding behind one of the grapples. I got knocked flying, and just then there was a sort of explosion and a big splash of the molten iron came raining down everywhere, all over me.'

‘It was not my fault!' the old man shouted. ‘Van shouldn't have been in the foundry in the first place. It's got nothing to do with there not being
enough charcoal in the pot! Stevo has no right to say so.'

He thumped his fist on the table and pushed his chair back so hard it toppled over. ‘Stevo had no right! Blame me, will he? If he'd given me the respect I deserve, it would never have happened! It wasn't my fault!' He stamped out of the room, banging the door behind him.

There was a dreadful silence.

‘What happened to the charm, Van?' Fairnette asked, her voice very low. ‘Did you see?'

He shook his head, not looking at them. ‘No. I don't remember much after that. Stevo threw me in the water barrel, and then brought me home. You know all about that.'

He lifted his stump helplessly.

Fairnette nodded.

‘I asked Stevo if he had the lightning bolt charm, and he said he knew nothing about it,' Luka said angrily.

Van looked at him wearily. ‘He would not want to give it up for anything. It's forged from a falling star, did you know that? By the very first gypsy, the one that made the nails for the crucifixion. It's the Smith family's most precious thing. The Big Man always wears it. It means . . . I guess it means power.'

‘But we need it,' Emilia whispered. ‘Truly we do. Without it we'll never be able to save our family.'

Tears stung her eyes, and she wiped them away.

‘But why?' Fairnette whispered. ‘I don't understand.'

‘It's magic,' Emilia said. ‘The charms have magic. Apart, their magic is . . . well, not broken . . . but weaker. Together, they are so much more powerful.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I just do,' Emilia said. ‘I feel it.'

Luka was frowning. She knew he did not have the same faith in the charms that she did. So far,
he had humoured her insistence that they search for all of the charms because he had wanted to get more practical help, like the sleeping drug the innkeeper Joe Wood had given them, or Milosh's promise to come with men and ponies. She did not know how to persuade him. She put her hand up to finger the charms, rubbing them one after the other. ‘It's hard to explain. Things have happened, just when we've needed them to. Rain coming, or mist, or Coldham's coach being held up by Lord Harry.'

‘Luck, pure and simple,' Luka said.

‘It's too uncanny to be simply luck,' Emilia argued. ‘And there's more. The longer I've been wearing them, the more clearly I seem to see things. It's like . . .' She struggled for words. ‘It's like on a really bright, frosty morning, when you can see for miles, and everything is so sharp against the sky, and you can
smell
things, like you were a fox, and hear them too. Everything seems
so much clearer. That's what it's like, wearing the charms. And each time I add a new one, the powers of the ones I already have get stronger. I can't explain how. I just know it.'

‘What powers?' Fairnette whispered, fascinated and afraid.

‘Making things happen,' Emilia said after a moment. ‘Changing things.'

‘I wish you could turn rocks into gold, and then we could buy our family free,' Luka mocked, and she sent him a hurt and furious look. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, and on his shoulder Zizi bounced up and down, shrieking derisively.

Emilia's fingers caressed the golden crown.
Luck, and life, and magic . . .

‘Without them we would not have come so far,' she said insistently.

Van stared at her, his hand thrust in his pocket, his eyes troubled.

Luka shook his head. ‘Stevo will never give us
the charm, Milly. You heard Van. He'll never give it up.'

‘Not for us,' Emilia said. ‘But he might, if Van asked him.' She looked pleadingly at the scarred boy.

Van shook his head. ‘No. I can't. I can't go to the foundry. No.'

‘You wouldn't need to go to the foundry. You could go to the inn in the town. They said your brothers are there every night.'

‘No! Are you mad? Go to town, looking like this?' He flung back the hood and shook back his sleeve so they could see the full horror of his scars.

Emilia was struck dumb with pity. He met her look challengingly.

‘You only need to go once,' she whispered. ‘To help us, Van.'

‘You could go at night,' Luka said.

‘Nothing could make me go,' Van cried. ‘Nothing!'

‘Nothing?' Emilia whispered, bitterly disappointed.

Van's eyes suddenly flicked towards Zizi, who was combing Luka's hair lovingly with her tiny paws.

Luka went white. ‘No!' he cried. ‘You couldn't ask me to give up Zizi! She's like my own little baby, I've had her all her life. She'd never understand. It'd be cruel. She'd mope to death.'

Van said nothing.

Luka clutched his monkey close to him, his eyes suddenly bright with tears.