Van had a strange look on his face. ‘Oh, I wish . . .’ he murmured.
Luka at once scowled and gathered Zizi close. ‘Don’t you go helping yourself, you naughty girl. What will everyone think of you? They’ll think you’re a very badly brought up monkey girl.’
Zizi at once pretended to weep.
‘Oh, don’t scold her,’ Fairnette cried. ‘Let her have some more plums, Luka. I have plenty, really.’
Zizi spread her fingers and peeped through coyly.
‘Here, little monkey,’ Van said, and held out another of the reddish-green fruit.
Zizi screeched with joy, then leapt to Van’s shoulder, taking the plum and eating it greedily. She held onto Van’s ear with her other paw, and he stood very still, hardly daring to breathe. Zizi spat the stone out into her paw and offered it to Van, and rather dazedly he took it.
‘Isn’t she funny?’ Fairnette cried.
‘She’ll make herself sick,’ Luka said.
Zizi jumped up and down, showing all her teeth, then her paw darted down into the jar and she grabbed another plum.
‘Zizi, stop it!’ Luka said, not at all liking to see his monkey perched on another boy’s shoulder.
‘She’s all right,’ Van said. ‘She’s better than all right! Is she yours? Where did you get her?’
‘I got her when she was just a baby,’ Luka said shortly. ‘My father saw her in a basket at one of the markets, all sick and covered in sores. He bought her for me. I’ve had her ever since.’ He held out his hand and gave a little chirrup, and at once Zizi leapt over to his shoulder, and pressed her wizened little monkey face into his shoulder, clinging on tight to his arm with both tiny paws. He murmured something to her, and she murmured back, and he rocked her as if she was a baby.
Van watched enviously.
Absorbed in Zizi’s antics, Van had quite forgotten his scars, but now he remembered. He threw the plum stone into the fire, and began to withdraw, his head hunched down once more. At once Fairnette’s look of anxiety returned, and she put out a hand imploringly.
Emilia did not want him to go. So she said, ‘You wondered who we were and what we’re doing here. Well, it’s a long story, full of dastardly deeds and desperate danger.’
He paused, and half turned his head towards her.
‘We’ve been chased over half of England,’ she said, ‘by a cruel man who hates the gypsies and wants us all to hang by the neck until we’re dead. We’ve been helped by all sorts of strange people – a highwayman . . .’
‘Who only robs people who won’t drink a toast to the king with him,’ Luka said with a snort of laughter.
‘. . . and a smuggler . . .’
‘And a witch!’ Luka said.
‘And a poor young widow who hadn’t left her house in seven years,’ Emilia said, remembering Lady Anne Morrow sadly.
‘And a priest who likes to gamble and drink fine French brandy,’ Luka said, grinning widely. He had grown to be very fond of fat Father Plummer, and it had been very hard for them to say goodbye to him.
‘Not to mention Tom!’ Emilia cried, wondering how their friend was doing. They had left him with Father Plummer to recover from a shotgun wound he had got helping them, and she could not help being anxious about him.
Van was staring at them, caught between his desire to retreat into his room once again, and his desire to know more.
Emilia made a little gesture with her hand towards the table. ‘You see, it all began when we went to Kingston Fair to raise some gold for my sister’s bride price . . .’
The Secret Society
of the Swallow Feather
Beatrice sat bolt upright, unable to rest her head back against the stone wall because of the heavy contraption fitted over her head, an iron bar forced into her mouth to clamp down her tongue. It was, she had been told, a scold’s bridle. It was made to stop women from nagging.
Or, in Beatrice’s case, from singing.
She had only been crooning a lullaby to her little cousin, but it seemed Pastor Spurgeon could not abide even that. He thought it a sin to raise your voice in any way but prayer and, in his case, preaching.
All her life Beatrice had sung whenever the whim took her, and she had always been praised for her beautiful voice. Apart from the pain of the bar in her mouth, and the weight of the iron on her weary head, and the dreadful feeling that she was gagging and choking all the time, it was the shock and humiliation of the punishment that had Beatrice weeping quietly in her corner.
She looked across at her grandmother, who sat hunched against the wall, her chin sunk down onto her chest, her breath wheezing. Her eyes were almost shut. Behind the heavy lids, the eyeballs quivered. It gave Beatrice the shivers.
Suddenly Maggie took a deep breath and flung back her head, opening her eyes. She looked around her, as if she did not know what she was doing in this dank, stinking cell instead of out under her favourite tree in the forest. Slowly her shoulders slumped, and she called huskily to Mimi to bring her a little of the ale they had hidden under the damp straw, for Maggie was so crippled with her rheumatism she could no longer straighten her back, let alone walk. The small ale had been brewed especially for them by Jenny, wife of the night-guard Maloney, for no one dared drink the water.
Beatrice did not know what any of them would do without Maloney’s many small kindnesses. She watched as a pale and listless Mimi held the jug to her grandmother’s lips and then crept back to lie once more in the straw, her hand closed around the rag doll Maloney had given her.
‘How are you doing, darling girl?’ Maggie whispered from across the cell. Beatrice jerked her iron-bound head up and down, and waved her hand from side to side.
‘I’ve been walking the roads.’ Maggie’s voice was so hoarse Beatrice could hardly understand her. A sudden wry smile lifted the old woman’s sunken cheeks. ‘I’ve been looking for our darling girl.’
Emilia? Beatrice did her best to frame the word, but the scold’s bridle would not let her. She tried to speak with her eyes.
‘Aye, Emilia and our Luka too. They’ve travelled far, far . . .’ Maggie’s voice sank away into a whisper. ‘But they are so close now, so close to the lightning bolt of iron.’ She sighed. ‘So close and yet still they do not see it . . .’
‘Tell me more!’ Van demanded, after more than an hour had passed. ‘What about the smuggler? Did he really give you an owl feather? Can I see?’
Luka and Emilia were both sitting up at the table, wrapped in old blankets, for Fairnette had refused to let them eat at her table unless their clothes were washed first. Luka got up and hobbled over to their pack, digging through until he found the feathers Milosh had given them. He passed them to Van who took them in his left hand and brushed them against his left cheek, then laid them down on the table, side by side. ‘What does it mean? Why did he give them to you?’
‘It’s their secret signal,’ Emilia explained. She stopped to have another drink of water, for her throat was dry from all her talking. She had done all she could to make the story of their adventures as exciting as possible, and Van had been utterly enthralled. He had forgotten his shyness, his anger and his misery, and sat at the table, his stump resting on his knee, his eyes shining with eagerness. Fairnette had gone quietly about her work, first washing Luka and Emilia’s clothes and hanging them over bushes in the garden to dry, then peeling and chopping up vegetables for their midday meal. Every now and again she cast Emilia and Luka a deeply grateful glance, as she observed the rapt face of her little brother.
‘It means that if we’re in trouble, or need the smugglers’ help, we can show them the owl feather and they’ll know we’re friends, and will not harm us,’ Luka said.
‘It’s a sacred trust,’ Emilia said, who rather liked this expression.
‘Except, of course, we don’t know any of the smugglers by sight. They were all masked,’ Luka said.
Van gave a sudden grin of excitement. It made him seem much more like a real boy.
/>
‘Father Plummer told us about another secret society who use a feather as their sign,’ Emilia said. ‘They call themselves the Brotherhood of the Grey Goose Feather. They’re from the Fens, which is a place up north a bit like the Romney Marshes, all water and swamp and quicksand.’
‘Oh, I like this story!’ Luka cried. ‘Tell Van about the king!’
‘I’m going to,’ Emilia said sternly. ‘Or at least, I would if you’d just be quiet for a minute.’ She turned back to Van, who was waiting eagerly. ‘You see, near the end of the war, when the king was escaping from Cromwell, the only way he could get away from the soldiers was to go by himself into the fens, with no one but an old man as his guide.’
Van picked up the feathers again, and twirled them, his eyes fixed on Emilia.
‘All the king’s advisers thought it was too dangerous,’ she continued, ‘but the old guide said, “Don’t you worry, I’ll initiate him into the Brotherhood and he’ll be safer in the fens than in his own palace.”’
‘Which was all too true, in the end, wasn’t it?’ Luka said.
‘So the old guide took out a goose feather from his pocket, and split it right down the middle, saying . . .’ Emilia paused, and lowered her voice. She loved this part. ‘“Whilst fishes have scales, and birds have feathers, I’ll do what I can for you, and so shall every other man of the Brotherhood of the Grey Goose Feather.”’
‘Did Milosh say that when he gave you the owl feathers?’ Van asked.
‘No,’ Emilia said regretfully.
‘So what happened?’ Van asked, trying to coax Zizi to come to him with another plum. ‘Did the king get through safely?’
Zizi bounded across to him and took the plum eagerly, perching on his shoulder to eat it. Van was utterly delighted. He stroked her very gently with his hand, and she chattered something to him, solemnly giving him the soggy, messy plum stone. He flicked it into the fire, grinning, then wiped his hand on his breeches.
‘Well, the old guide took him all the way across the fens without any trouble, but then they had to cross a river, and the only ford was guarded by two of Cromwell’s soldiers . . .’
‘So what happened? Did the king get captured?’ Van asked, stroking Zizi and then picking up her long tail, fascinated by the way it curled about his finger.
Emilia smiled. ‘The old guide took out his split goose feather and showed the guards, and they said, “Pass, all is well,” and so the king got through safely.’
‘Cromwell’s own guards let him through? Because of the goose feather?’
‘Aye. And when it was discovered how the king had escaped, the two sentries were dragged before Cromwell, and he said, “’Tis better for a king to escape than for the Fen men to go back on a man who carries the split goose feather,” for Cromwell was a Fen man too.’
‘Cromwell was? He knew about the Brotherhood?’ Van was absorbed in Zizi, who was now going through his pockets. She had found an odd collection of stones and flint arrowheads, a couple of small brass coins, a few rusty old bolts and bits of iron, and a brown apple core which she proceeded to eat with great enjoyment. Irritably Luka called her back to his own shoulder. Zizi patted Van’s cheek, not minding the scars at all, then bounded back to her master, the apple core in her mouth. Van, who had been sweeping everything back into his pocket, lifted his hand wonderingly to his cheek.
‘Indeed he did, he was one of them,’ Emilia said. ‘But here’s the end of the story, this is the good bit, you’ve got to listen.’
‘All right,’ Van said, and Emilia went on. ‘Later, the king was captured and sentenced to death, as you know. The night before his execution, he sent a messenger to Cromwell, saying, “The king does not beg for mercy but he demands as a right the help you must give to every man who carries this token.” And the messenger flung down the split goose feather in front of Cromwell. Well, Cromwell told everyone to go out and he sat looking at the grey goose feather, and in the morning when the servants came back in, he was still there looking at it. And the king was beheaded that day.’
‘So Cromwell didn’t help him, he did nothing?’ Van leant forward, his eyes wide.
‘No, he did nothing. He let the king die. And then what happened is all the Fen men in his service sent him their goose feathers, all broken and bent, and they left his army and all went back to the Fens, and refused to serve him any more, for he had broken the oath of the Brotherhood. And Father Plummer said Cromwell’s never been the same man since.’
‘He should’ve helped the king,’ Van said with conviction.
‘I think so too,’ Emilia said.
‘But how could he?’ Luka said. ‘He’d fought and fought to bring the king down, how could he just let him go at the very end? And what would have happened to him if he had?’
‘He still should’ve helped him,’ Emilia said. ‘He swore an oath. It was a sacred trust.’
‘I’d like to be in a secret society,’ Van said. ‘I’d like to know all the hidden ways through the marshes, and be able to escape from right under the noses of the soldiers, and have adventures.’ He lifted his left hand and rubbed the ugly stump of his right arm.
‘Maybe you can one day,’ Emilia said consolingly, but she knew that Van had remembered his scars, and the spell they had woven was broken.
‘We are in a secret society,’ Luka said. ‘We’re all Roms. Even though you Smiths have left the roads and settled down like gorgios, it does not mean you’re not still a gypsy at heart. Why, you could go back on the road any time you want.’
‘With this?’ Van held up his ugly stump. ‘How could I? I’m useless now, good for nothing.’
‘That’s not true,’ Fairnette cried, pausing in her task of plucking the chicken.
‘Aye, it is,’ Van said. ‘You know it is, Fairnette.’
‘We can make up our own secret society,’ Emilia cried, wanting to drive away Van’s unhappy look. She seized a chicken feather from the table. ‘Here you go! We can be the secret . . . well, not the secret brotherhood since Fairnette and me are girls, but we could be the secret society, of the white feather!’
Van could not help laughing, though only briefly.
‘Please, not a chicken feather,’ Fairnette pleaded. ‘Couldn’t we pick something a little more romantic?’
‘Like what?’ Van wanted to know. ‘A crow feather?’
‘No, not a crow!’ Luka was shocked. Gypsies thought crows were dirty indeed, almost as bad as snakes or cats. His eyes fell on the bunch of red roses on the dresser. ‘How about a rose?’ he suggested. ‘It’s not hard to find roses . . .’
‘Except in winter.’
‘You could use rosehips in winter, or a dried rose . . .’ His voice trailed away.
‘How about a swallow feather, since we’re gypsies and so are swallows,’ Emilia suggested. ‘You could pick one up whenever you saw one, and keep it for the day you needed it.’
‘The Secret Society of the Swallow Feather.’ Luka rolled the words over his tongue. He liked the sound of it.
‘We could call ourselves the Swallows . . .’ Emilia said.
‘. . . and mimic the call of the swallow when we wanted to alert each other with no one knowing.’ And Luka pursed up his lips and gave a fair imitation of a swallow’s whistle.
‘What’s the point even thinking about it?’ Van demanded. He got to his feet, the stump of his arm tucked close to his body. ‘You’ll be going once you’ve got what you want from us, and we’ll never see you again. Much good our secret society will be to us then.’
Cursed Bad Luck
Luka 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.