Extract from "The Gypsy Crown"

A Devil of a Man

THORNTON HEATH, SURREY, ENGLAND
11th August 1658

Luka whistled as he walked along the country lane, his hat on the back of his head, his hands in his pockets jingling his coins. It was not often Luka had coins in his pocket to jingle, and he wanted to enjoy the sensation while it lasted.

On Luka's shoulder crouched Zizi, a small brown monkey dressed in a crimson skirt and jacket. She was eating a plum that she had stolen from an orchard a few miles back, and every now and again passed it down to Luka so he could have a bite too. The plum was sweet and delicious, and it seemed a fine thing to be eating stolen fruit on a hot summer's day with coins jingling in your pocket.

Zizi sucked away the last of the flesh and passed the plum-stone down to Luka, who flicked it away into the hedgerow. She then took hold of his ear in affection. Her paw was sticky, and he wiped her leathery fingers with his kerchief, scolding her softly.

'You think I want juice dripping down my neck, monkey girl?' he said. 'You need to learn to wipe your fingers!'

Three small wooden caravans rattled along the road ahead of Luka, pulled by huge piebald horses with feathered hooves. A big brown bear ambled alongside the second caravan, a long chain fastened to a ring through her nose, while a pack of dogs ran alongside, occasionally barking in excitement.

---

Once the caravans had been vividly painted, but nowadays there was no money or inclination for painting. In the fifth year of the Lord Protector's rule, it was not safe or seemly to love bright colours, nor music, nor dancing, nor magic, nor any of the things that the gypsies most loved, and which made them who they were. Life was always hard for the gypsies, who lived to their own rhythm and their own rules, but since Oliver Cromwell had seized control, life had been harder - and drabber - than ever.

Luka's mother Silvia walked behind him, a basket on her arm as she searched the hedgerow for berries and wild herbs. Giggling and gossiping behind her were Luka's sisters, Lena and Mimi, and his cousins Beatrice and Sabina, their lips stained with berry juice. A thin brown boy, Noah, dawdled along at the rear, rattling the hedgerow with his stick, a big shaggy mongrel dog at his side.

'Come along, girls,' Silvia called impatiently. 'Do you want to set up camp in the dark? The Hearnes will be there already, and wondering where we are.

'Beatrice is shy, that's why she's dragging her heels,' Luka called teasingly. 'She's scared her bridegroom will have a squint and a humpback . . . '

'And bad breath!' Lena put in.

Beatrice blushed.

'Leave her be,' Silvia said. 'Of course she's a bit nervous, any girl would be. But young Sebastien's a good boy, by all accounts, and fine-looking too.' Luka clasped his hands together, fluttering his eyelashes. 'Oooh, such a fine-looking boy!' Zizi promptly mimicked him, her tiny paws clasped together and tucked under her wizened cheek.

'Don't tease Beatrice,' Silvia said. 'Just you wait until it's time for you to be betrothed, Luka, my boy. Your knees will be knocking too, I promise you.' 'Yuck!' Luka said. 'I'm not ever going to get betrothed. Who wants to have a silly girl hanging on your neck all the time?'

'You'll change your mind one day,' Silvia said, smiling, but Luka screwed up his face in disgust and fell back beside Noah, the only other boy in the family.

'Ahoy there! Out of my way, you slugs!' A girl's laughing voice rang out behind him, accompanied by the thunder of galloping hooves.

Luka's cousin Emilia raced towards him, crouched on the back of a dapple-grey mare, a beautiful creature with an arched neck and a silky tail that she carried so high it flew behind her like a white banner. The mare ran so lightly and fluidly it looked as if she flew, and so she was named Alida, which meant 'Winged'.

Emilia brought Alida to a prancing halt beside her sister, Beatrice. 'Look!' she cried 'Meat for dinner tonight!'

She quickly showed Beatrice the rabbit she carried concealed in her skirts. Although the other girls squealed with pleasure, Beatrice looked worried. 'Milly, be careful! Did anyone see you?'

Emilia shook her head. 'It hopped right out of the hedge and into my arms.'

Luka grinned. From Emilia, this was probably no more than a slight exaggeration. Emilia was a wheedler, a charmer, a whistler of animals. She could cozen a halfpenny from the meanest fishwife, a smile from the dourest of parsons, and birds from the tree into her hand. It was a gift much prized by the gypsies.

'Give it to Baba,' Beatrice said, 'but let no one see you.'

'Another fur for my bed,' Emilia replied exuberantly, and kicked Alida forward until she cantered beside the last caravan, an old stout vehicle with ornate, curled woodwork and a faded blue door. Emilia tossed the rabbit from her lap to the lap of the old woman who drove the caravan, a pipe stuck in the corner of her withered mouth. This was Maggie Finch, grandmother of them all, and often called Queen of the Gypsies, for her fame as a fortune-teller had spread far and wide. She was a thin, stooped, black-eyed woman with a highbridged nose and a thick bun all grizzled with grey.

Her hands on the reins were like birds' claws. Without even glancing at Emilia, Maggie drew a fold of her shawl over the rabbit. The penalty for poaching was cruel, for the landowners did not believe, like the gypsies did, that all creatures of the fields and forests were free.

'Oh, it'll be a feast tonight, Baba!' Emilia cried.

'We'll show those Hearnes how to celebrate!'

'Today we feast and tomorrow we'll starve . . . ' Luka said.

'. . . and the next day we'll feast again!'

Laughing, Emilia finished the familiar gypsy proverb. She kicked Alida into a gallop again, and raced on ahead.

'What did she catch, Luka?' Noah asked eagerly, feeling his way forward with a stick. He cheered when Luka told him, and said happily, 'Roast rabbit for dinner then. I was afraid it'd be nothing but cabbage soup again.'

'Emilia wouldn't let us have cabbage soup for Beatrice's betrothal feast,' Luka said, 'even if she had to steal old Ironsides' dinner out from under his very nose.'

Noah laughed. 'I bet she could too,' he said, looking affectionately after his sister.

Noah was blind. He lost his sight with the smallpox that killed his mother when he was four.

It was partly because of Noah's blindness that the Finch family had stayed so long in the shelter of the Great North Wood, and partly because of the strict laws against vagrants. It was only a few years since thirteen gypsies had been hanged in Suffolk simply for being gypsies. This was the first time in five years that Luka and his family had travelled the roads, and it made them all sing and be merry, to see the highway unrolling before them, and the landscape changing with every step.

It was because of Beatrice that the family had ventured away from the safety of the Great North Wood. She was fifteen, old enough to be married.

The Finch tribe was travelling to Thornton Heath to meet with another gypsy family, the Hearnes. If all went well, Beatrice would tonight be betrothed to one of the Hearne boys. Then, in a week or a month or a season, whenever the bride dowry was raised, Beatrice and Sebastien would eat bread dribbled with their own blood and swear by all the gypsy laws to be true to each other. Then Beatrice would be gone, and they would be lucky to see her again more than once or twice a year.

Emilia was doing her best to pretend she did not mind. She galloped up and down the road, laughing and calling out teasing comments until Beatrice did not know which way to look. At last, though, Emilia grew tired, and came to walk with the others, hooking up the lead-rein so her mare could roam free.

Luka fell back to walk with her. They were only three weeks apart in age, and as close as brother and sister, having been brought up together.

'I hope those Hearnes are nice,' she said to Luka, glowering.

'They're horse-traders,' Luka said. 'They'll drive a hard bargain tonight.'

'Beatrice is worth every penny,' Emilia said.

'They'll say beauty can't be eaten with a spoon,' Luka said. 'You know what they say: Money in hand, Bride on horse.' He slipped his hand into his pocket to jingle his coins again. He had an awful notion that his father would demand he give up the money he had earned picking apples to help raise Beatrice's dowry. It seemed a dreadful waste.

'We'll raise her dowry somehow,' Emilia said resolutely.

It was a beautiful afternoon. Somewhere a skylark trilled, and far above, a kestrel hovered, its wings sharp against the blue sky. Beatrice turned and smiled at Emilia, and fell back to walk with her, Noah clinging to her hand. Emilia hooked her arm through her sister's and hugged it close.

The caravans drew ahead, and soon the others were out of sight around a curve of the road. A small stream ran across the road. Luka felt the squelching of the mud between his toes and grinned. He jumped into the stream, spraying water everywhere.

'Nay, don't, I'll be drenched!' Beatrice cried. 'I don't want to turn up at the camp all wet and muddy!'

'Here, allow me, my fine lady,' Luka mocked and swept Beatrice a mocking bow, pretending to hold out one hand to assist her, but then splashing her with water. She shrieked, rosy with indignation.

Just then a great black carriage, pulled by four black horses, came galloping around the bend in the road. At once the children pressed back into the hedgerow, Rollo growling deep in his throat.

The coach raced through the stream, a great gush of muddy water rising up and wetting the children from head to foot. Luka saw a black cormorant of a man lean forward, staring at them coldly from the window. His frowning eyes fixed upon Beatrice.

At once she pulled her shawl about her face, pressing back into the hedge. The carriage rattled on, the cold-eyed man leaning out to stare back at them. Emilia stood staring after it. 'A devil of a man, a devil,' she whispered. 'I wish he had not seen us.' 'It's nothing,' Beatrice said, trying to smile. 'A parson anxious for his supper, no more. Come on! Let's hurry. I'm hungry too.'

'I'm starving,' Noah said. 'I could eat five hundred roast rabbits!'

They all smiled, and crossed the stream, and hurried on. But somehow their merry mood was gone, and Emilia in particular was pale and silent.