The Lightning Bolt (8 page)

‘You can't ask it of him!' Emilia's voice shook. ‘It's not fair. He's already given up so much. He gave away his violin and his telescope that he really loved – you couldn't ask it of him, could you?'

But even as she spoke, she was thinking of her own mare Alida, who she had loved at least as much as Luka loved Zizi. Her cousin glanced at
her. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and cuddled Zizi so close she squeaked in protest.

‘You're asking me to go where people can see me,' Van said passionately, his voice shaking as much as Emilia's. ‘You say he's lost his violin, and his telescope. So, tell me, what have I lost?'

Once more he shook his stunted red stump in their face, then turned and ran out of the room.

T
here was no one to eat Fairnette's roast chicken but Luka and Emilia – and Rollo, who enjoyed the best meal he had had in weeks as each of the three children surreptitiously passed him down tidbits from under the table.

Fairnette took a tray to Van's room, but he would not open the door to take it, and she took another tray to the forge where her father was banging and hammering away but not actually making anything, which was, she said, a very bad sign.

‘I'm sorry we've brought trouble upon you,' Emilia said unhappily.

Fairnette sighed. ‘You didn't bring the trouble, Emilia, it was already here.'

They helped her clear away the remains of the meal, and put the chicken bones on to simmer with a bunch of herbs to make soup. Luka in particular was very quiet, and kept Zizi cuddled close to him. They all felt very low and miserable. Fairnette brought in their clothes, stiff and smelling of soap, and deftly sewed up any rents and tears while Emilia and Luka washed and dried the dishes for her. No one said very much.

Then Rollo lifted his head from his paws, and growled, deep in his throat. Luka and Emilia at once tensed and looked up. They heard a low, sullen humming that quickly increased in pitch and intensity.

Fairnette lost all her rosy colour. ‘The bees . . .' she whispered.

A storm of bees swept in through the open door. Instinctively Luka and Emilia ducked low, arms over their heads. Zizi gibbered with fear and dived under the table, pressing her face into Rollo's shaggy fur. Rollo buried his face in his paws, whining.

Slowly Fairnette bent and thrust a taper into the fire until its tip was burning brightly. She then straightened and began to sweep the taper through the air, trailing smoke this way and that. ‘What is wrong, noble bees?' she crooned. ‘What has angered you?'

The bees were confused and lulled by the smoke. They stopped their furious zooming, and bumped about her head.

‘Is there danger?' Fairnette asked. ‘So many of you, here in the house. Are we to have a whole crowd of visitors today?'

Luka and Emilia looked at each other in sudden alarm. Coldham! Constables!

‘Fairnette,' Luka said in a low, urgent voice. ‘We need to get away. There are constables on our trail. I did not think they would track us here but –'

‘Bob!' Emilia cried. ‘The boy who told us where you lived. He would not know to keep it quiet.'

‘We must hide . . .' Luka bent and swooped Zizi up into his arms, and she wrapped both skinny arms about his neck.

Rollo growled and rose to his feet, his body stiff, the hair on his neck standing up. He was staring at the door. They saw a flicker of movement, a flash of light on metal.

‘They're all around,' Emilia whispered. ‘What are we to do?'

‘Quick, hide in the old oast house,' Fairnette said. ‘We only use one of the towers. The other one is full of junk. They might not find you there.'

Luka and Emilia flashed an anguished look at each other. Might not was not good enough!

‘Is there any way out?' Luka asked.

‘There's a door to the outside, where they used to load the bags of hops onto the cart, but it's bolted on the outside,' Fairnette said.

Luka grimaced. ‘What about through that white thing at the top?'

‘You mean through the cowl?' Fairnette asked doubtfully. ‘But how would you get up there? And the hole is very small. Zizi could get out, I guess. It's really a chimney, you know, that cowl, and it's just as narrow as a chimney.'

‘I can climb a chimney,' Luka said.

‘He can climb anything,' Emilia added loyally. ‘He's a monkey boy.'

‘And Milly's a monkey girl.' Luka grinned at her, sharing a very old joke.

‘Hopefully you won't need to try,' Fairnette said, opening a door in the side of the kitchen. ‘It's an awfully long way down to the ground!'

The door led into a round, dark, cavernous
room. Along one wall was a huge fireplace like the one in Van's room, though it was cold and bare of anything but cobwebs. The strange smell was much stronger in this tower, and the floor was covered in brown leaves and petals that crunched underfoot and sent the smell up in dizzying waves. Everywhere were barrels and sacks and peculiar equipment covered in dust.

There was nowhere safe to hide.

A ladder led up to the next floor. Luka and Emilia scrambled up it, Zizi leading the way. Rollo put his paws up the ladder and whined, but it was too steep for him to follow.

Above was a vast, empty space. The floor was wooden, and scattered with dried hop cones. The roof narrowed to a point far above their heads, and there was the white post of the wind vane, letting in a thin beam of light and a faint draught to move the dried hops so they murmured about the children's feet.

Luka stared up at it, wondering. ‘Could we, if we had to?' he whispered.

Emilia frowned. ‘It's very narrow.'

‘We're only skinny.'

‘Aye, but skinny enough?'

‘Lucky we didn't eat much lunch,' Luka grinned.

‘What would we do about Rollo?'

Luka did not answer, only pressed his lips together.

They crept back down the ladder and put their ear to the door.

‘Open up, else I'll knock the door down!' a rough and all-too-familiar voice was roaring. Coldham!

They heard Fairnette open the door, and then her voice, sounding scared, ‘What is it? Who are you?' Then she screamed. ‘Ow! Let me go! You're hurting me! Father, Father, help me!'

‘We're looking for a couple of gypsy brats,'
Coldham snarled. ‘They had a dog with them, a savage, hairy brute, and a horrible flea-bitten monkey. They were last seen coming this way.'

‘Aye, they've been here,' Fairnette said.

Luka and Emilia stared at each other in horror. Never would they have thought Fairnette could betray them. ‘They were here at the crack of dawn,' Fairnette went on. ‘I don't know what they wanted, none of it made any sense. I sent them on their way.'

‘Where? Where were they headed?'

‘I don't know,' Fairnette said crossly, then screamed again. ‘Ow! Don't! You're hurting me!'

They heard Van's door creak open. ‘Stop it! Leave her alone!' he cried, sounding frightened. Then Fairnette screamed again.

‘London!' Fairnette sobbed. ‘They were headed for London, I'm sure.'

Luka and Emilia could only gaze at each other in consternation. They were indeed planning on
going next to London, because that was where the last of the Graylings was meant to be, but they had not told Fairnette so. She was only guessing, or perhaps, more likely, saying the least likely place she could think of.

‘London!' Coldham said. ‘Why on earth . . . All right! Men! Rip this place to pieces. I want to make sure this girl isn't lying through her teeth. If those gypsy kids are hiding here, I want them found.'

They heard a great clatter of boots, a cry of dismay from Fairnette, and then the crash of furniture being overturned, plates falling, pewter jugs clanging, glass smashing, iron clanking, fists hammering, and doors banging.

Rollo barked angrily.

‘The dog!' Coldham cried. ‘That dog's here! Find it!'

‘Sssh, Rollo, sssh!' Emilia hissed. She exchanged an agonised look with Luka.

‘We'll go out the cowl,' he decided.

‘But . . . Rollo!'

Luka seized the dog by his thick ruff and dragged him over to a pile of sacks by the big double doors that led out to the courtyard. ‘Down, boy, down. Stay!'

Obediently Rollo lay down on the sacks, and Luka draped more sacks over him. ‘Stay, boy. Sssh now.'

‘He'll never stay quiet if the soldiers come in here,' Emilia protested. ‘He'll fly at them and they'll shoot him . . .' She gave a little sob.

‘We'll get out the cowl and then open the doors and let him out,' Luka said. ‘Come on! We have to be quick!'

They could hear banging and crashing in the kitchen, and the sound of Fairnette crying, ‘Father!' Emilia could only hope the soldiers would not notice the door to the oast house, which was white-panelled like the walls and easy to miss. It was a faint hope.

Under the cover of the noise, Emilia and Luka quickly climbed to the next floor, and looked up at the tiny crack of light so far above them.

‘No help for it,' Luka said.

A rope and pulley was attached to the cowl so that it could be moved to catch the wind, funnelling air down to the drying hops below. Luka had to jump and jump before he could catch the end of the rope and draw it down towards him. Then Emilia swarmed quickly up it, and Luka and Zizi followed swiftly behind.

The hole at the top was not much bigger than Emilia's head, and the mossy red tiles of the roof fell away steeply. Emilia was afraid.

‘I'll hold your ankles,' Luka said. ‘Can you see the ivy growing up? It looked thick and strong. Try and grab it, hold on to it.'

Emilia took a deep breath, then squeezed her head and shoulders out through the tiny hole. She had to twist and squirm to get her body through,
and there was only the narrow windvane for her to cling to as she wriggled out. Luka had a tight grip on her ankles, but the roof was too tall. She could not reach the ivy growing over the gutter. So she kicked her feet free of Luka's grasp, and slithered helplessly down towards the edge of the roof, making a great clatter as she went. Over the edge she went, at high speed, and the ground hurtled up towards her. In midair, she managed to grasp the top of the ivy. At once it pulled away from the house, but it had slowed her descent long enough for her to bring her body somersaulting round so her head was up and her feet down.

Her feet found a thick branch. Panting, she clung to the side of the tower, and rested her hot face against her scratched and filthy arm.

Zizi paused by her head, chattering derisively, then bounded easily down the wall to the ground. Slowly, her heart still hammering, Emilia followed.

Luka catapulted himself through the tiny hole at the top of the tower with great speed and very little thought, and, like Emilia, found himself slithering down the steep slope of the roof with no way of slowing his descent. He saw the edge of the roof coming, grabbed it with one hand, and slid sideways, sending old tiles crashing down. Then he too found the ivy, and managed to grab it before he slid right over the edge. It was an old, stout plant, very strong and wiry. Luka was able to climb down it as easily as if it had been a tree, and soon found himself, rather scratched and shaken, on the ground.

Quietly he dragged back the bolts and opened the door to the oast house. Rollo leapt up, whuffing with joy, and their hearts sank. They dragged him out, bolted the door again, then ran into the woods, Rollo bounding at their heels. Behind them, they could hear soldiers shouting.

‘Did they see us?' Emilia panted.

Luka shook his head. ‘They must've heard Rollo though. You're a bad, noisy dog! We told you to be quiet.'

Rollo wagged his tail happily.

‘It could be any old dog,' Emilia said. ‘They've got no way of knowing it was Rollo barking.'

‘Coldham will know,' Luka said grimly.

They came to the glade where the beehives were, and stopped in sudden dismay.

Someone had smashed open all the hives and stolen the honey.

‘No wonder the bees were in such a rage!' Emilia said. ‘Look! They're all wrecked.'

Slowly the two children went forward, afraid of the bees. There were only a few, though, buzzing aimlessly about. They did not seem to know what to do. The hives lay broken on the ground, their contents hacked out. Honey dribbled from one like blood from a wound. Dead bees were stuck in it.

Luka bent and examined the ground. ‘Milly, look!'

Emilia came to see. There, in the soft ground before the beehives, were the marks of a big boot.

And the large, heavy and unmistakable print of a bear.

The two children stared at each other, scared and astounded.