Extract from "The Lightning Bolt"

The Knight of Swords

HORSMONDEN, KENT, ENGLAND
27th August 1658

The smugglers had their own secret ways through the dark, sleeping countryside.

Leading ponies laden with mysterious bundles, the Owlers crept down narrow tracks, through sunken lanes, up steep bridlepaths and along forgotten byways. Their ponies were black or bay, and any blaze or sock was darkened with soot.

With their tack and hooves muffled, they moved as silently as ghost-horses, and the men that walked beside them did not speak, or cough, or smoke their pipes.

Slumped on the back of one of the ponies, poked on all sides with boxes and parcels, Emilia felt the night seeping into her very pores. She felt the wind moving over her skin and through the trees; she heard the far-distant bark of a badger and the invisible gurgle of water over stones; she saw a constant ruffle at the edges of the darkness as leaves rustled, clouds drifted, grass swayed and the hunters of the night leapt past on soundless paw or muffled wing. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. And, because she did not need to guide her pony, which blindly followed the tail of the pony before it, Emilia found her eyes giving up their urgent desire to see, and allowing her nose and ears and skin to see for her. The night scents were sharper, the night sounds were stranger, the night air was silkier than she was used to. It was a different world entirely that she found herself riding through, and it so fascinated her that she forgot her fear and her impatience, and rode as if she were some night animal herself, a cat or an owl, eyes as round as a moon.

That is why they call themselves Owlers, she thought. Not because an owl feather is their secret signal.

She was almost asleep when Milosh drew the ponies to a halt.

'Horsmonden is down in that valley,' he whispered to Emilia and Luka, as he helped them down from their ponies. 'Are you sure you do not want to ride to London with me, and wait till I come back this way? The Smiths are hard men. They do not care for children.'

Luka and Emilia shook their heads. They had already discussed this with the leader of the smugglers. He could not change his route to suit them. It was meticulously planned and organised.

Any change and it could all fall apart. Much as the two gypsy children would love to have Milosh at their backs as they confronted the Smiths, they dared not wait any longer. Every day they delayed on the road was one more day in gaol for their family, one more day at the mercy of the cruel, fanatical Pastor Spurgeon. Already it had seemed an agonisingly slow journey for them, since the smugglers only travelled by night and spent the day hiding and resting. Two days already had passed in this fashion, and it had almost driven Luka mad with impatience.

'Thanks though,' Luka whispered, tucking his monkey Zizi up under his collar to keep her warm.

'Will we see you at the end of the month? At Richmond Park?'

'If I can, I will be there,' Milosh answered. He must have sensed their dismay at his reticence, because he added, humorously, 'Only the gallows will prevent me, I promise,' and he gave each of them a white owl feather.

They had to be satisfied with that.

Standing in the dark, the owl feathers in their hands, the two children watched as the train of ponies vanished from view. A few steps and they were gone. Emilia put her hand on Rollo's shaggy back. Although she could not see the big dog, he was satisfyingly warm and solid beside her.

'It's too dark to see the way,' Luka said. 'Let's lie down under the hedge and sleep awhile, and in the morning we'll go on, when we can see.'

'All right,' Emilia said, ashamed of how small her voice sounded.

Silently, they dug themselves a bed of sorts in the leaves under the hedge, and lay down, back to back, Rollo curled up by Emilia, Zizi huddled in Luka's arms. It was cold, and they spread Emilia's shawl over them both, and shut their eyes, sure they could never sleep.

Somehow they did. Emilia woke in the dewbright dawn, rubbing the crust from her eyes.

Luka was still sleeping, and Rollo opened one eye, thumped his tail, then shut his eye again. Emilia huddled her skirts about her cold feet and looked about her.

Fields stretched away on either side of the road, silver with dew. All the harvesting was done, and the farmer had recently ploughed so that the furrows lay across the dark earth like puckered seams. A hare sat up in the verge to stare at her.

Although Emilia was hungry, she did not call to it, to see if it would come leaping into her arms.

They had no cook-pot, and anyway, Emilia liked to see it running wild over the bare earth.

She dug through the satchel until she came to her grandmother's things, wrapped up in a gaudy old scarf that smelt, faintly, of her Baba.

Inside lay a cloudy crystal ball and a pack of worn tarot cards. Emilia touched them gently, tears prickling her eyes. She had not dared look at her grandmother's things since Nonsuch Palace , when she had foreseen Colonel Pride's death. The memory filled her with horror. Even now, almost two weeks later, she dared not look in the crystal ball, for fear of what it might show her. She laid it aside on the grass, and slowly looked through the shabby old tarot cards.

Emilia had grown up with these cards. It had been a rare day when her grandmother had not laid them out, either for herself or someone else. Emilia had always watched as Maggie read their mysteries, utterly fascinated by what she saw.

The cards seemed to tell fantastical stories, of love and war and fate and disaster. Laying them out about her, fingering their bright, strange pictures, of stars and roses, flaming comets and winged lions, bodies pierced with swords, laughing devils, weeping queens and dancing fools, Emilia had to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand.

We have four of the lucky charms , she told herself, and soon we will have the fifth. Soon Baba and Beatrice and Noah will be free, and the rest of the family too, and we can go back to the Great North Wood and live in peace.

Emilia rhythmically shuffled the cards, soothing herself with the easy flow from hand to hand. She then laid out three cards on the grass before her, silently asking, What is to become of us all? This, the three-card spread, was the easiest of all the many different spreads, and at its simplest, stood for the past, the present and the future. Emilia turned over the cards, one by one, and saw:

A tower struck by lightning. That meant calamity, a reversal of fortunes, a stroke of fate.

Seven swords crossed. A trial that can only be overcome by inner strength and courage.

The Knight of Swords. A treacherous man.

Emilia stared down at the three cards, troubled and unhappy, then, as Luka stirred and sighed, swept them up and wrapped them quickly in the bright scrap of scarf, tucking them and her grandmother's crystal ball back in the satchel.

These were the tools of the drabardi, and as such were women's mysteries, not meant for the eyes of thirteen-year-old boys who thought they knew everything.

'I'm starving,' Luka said, sitting up and scratching his dark mop of hair. 'Did Milosh give us any more food?'

'Only some more bread and bacon,' Emilia said, getting the small parcel of food out of the satchel and unwrapping the greasy napkin.

Luka sighed. 'I never thought I'd be sick of bacon.'

'It's not so nice cold,' Emilia agreed, tearing the hard, stale roll in half.

'I'll have that one,' Luka said and grabbed the larger half.

'Not fair!'

'You tore it, I get to choose,' Luka said. 'That is so fair.'

'But it's much bigger than mine! I didn't mean to tear it unevenly.'

'You should've left it to me to cut it with my knife,' Luka said through a mouthful. 'Girls are hopeless at things like that.'

'Are not!'

'All right, then, you're hopeless at it. I suppose somewhere in the world there may be a girl who can measure and cut properly, but you're not one of them.'

Glowering at him, Emilia chewed her bacon roll, doing her best to ignore Rollo who sat very close to her, his soft ears raised, his brown eyes fixed imploringly upon her breakfast. After a moment, she gave him the hard rind, which she did not like. In a snap and a gulp it was gone. She sighed and let him eat the rest of her roll. He swallowed it without chewing, and looked at her hopefully. As soon as he realised she had no more, he transferred his attention to Luka, who let the big dog lick his fingers.

'That barely touched the sides,' Luka said. 'Do you think the Smiths will feed us?'

'Sure they will. Probably some cold pottage and beans.' Emilia sighed.

'What I'd really like is some roast rabbit and potatoes hot from the coals,' Luka said, and tucked his cold hands into his armpits.

Rollo barked eagerly, his tail wagging.

'Rollo does too,' Emilia said with a giggle.

'My darling monkey girl wants some plums,' Luka said, picking Zizi up and swinging her onto his shoulder. She pushed his cap back to the usual jaunty angle so she could seize hold of his ear and croon something into it in her own liquid, monkey language. Luka listened solemnly, then said, 'And some fresh bread with cherry jam and . . . what was that, sweetie? Oh yes, some walnuts and dried figs.'

'I can just imagine the Smiths having dried figs and walnuts,' Emilia said. 'She may as well ask for a satin cushion and a new velvet dress at the same time.'

'Nothing but the best for my little monkey girl,' Luka said. 'And she does need a new dress.'

'So do I,' Emilia answered, shaking out her own skirts rather ruefully. They were badly stained, and covered in pony hair, and the hem hung down at one side where she had caught it on a bramble. It had only been ten days since old Martha of Tanglewood Manor had given her this dress, but it looked as if Emilia had slept every night since in a ditch.

'Well, the sooner we find the Smiths, the sooner we can be begging them for some more food,' Luka said, and set off down the path that ran down through the copse.

'Not to mention the lightning charm,' Emilia murmured, and followed him, her shawl wrapped tight about her shoulders.

The path led them down through the woods, all tangled with sloe berries and crimson rosehips and the fluffy grey seeds of clematis. The leaves of the beech trees above them were bright as new coins against the pale blue sky. Ivy smothered the ground, its invisible flowers sending a faint wild fragrance into the chilly air. Emilia's feet did a little dance as she went down the path, the bracken brushing against her skirt. Luka began to whistle.

She knew how much he had missed his music since he had given away his violin. It made her heart lift to hear him whistling as gaily as any blackbird.

They came out of the woods, and stopped.

Aghast.

A ruin of a landscape lay before them. There were no trees, no hedges of blackthorn, elder or wild rose, no late drifts of wild parsley, no birds singing or rabbits bounding about. The ground was pitted and poisoned, littered with dead trees, and piles of ugly slag, and raw gaping holes from which sounded the dull ring of metal on stone.

Smoke from the smouldering fires of charcoalburners hung over the scene. Shallow pools of poisoned water were edged with nasty red slime like the inflammation of a wound. The only living things to be seen were grey-faced men in filthy smocks, working away with axe or pick or hammer, and the weary-looking horses, their heads hanging low as they trudged along the roads. At the far end of the valley, a huge grey building loomed over a huddle of low houses, its chimneys belching smoke, its windows flaring red.

'What . . . what is this place?' Emilia stammered.

'I guess . . . I guess it's the gun foundry. Milosh told us they make guns and cannons here, remember? They dig out the iron ore, and turn it into stuff - weapons, mainly, but other things too. Horseshoes . . .' Luka's voice trailed away.

'It's awful. Everything's dead. And it smells horrible.'

'We won't have to stay long,' Luka promised.

'Let's go and find the Smiths, and then we'll go.' They both felt nervous as they made their way down the path to the road, Zizi hidden inside Luka's coat, but no one paid them any attention.

After a few minutes a cart came trundling past, and the driver yelled at them to get off the road.

'Hey, know where I can find the Smiths?' Luka cried as they scrambled onto the verge.

'The Smiths? Everyone in this blasted valley is a smith,' the driver yelled back and went on his way.

'I guess he didn't understand what I meant,' Luka said.

They trudged on behind, choking on the dust. Another cart passed them ten minutes later, and again they asked and again they received the same response.

'No, I mean the Smith family,' Luka yelled this time.

The driver shrugged. 'So did I,' he answered, and cracked his whip. 'They're all Smiths round here.'

Luka and Emilia sighed and walked on, Rollo at their heels. They came to a large common in the centre of the town. Houses were crowded higgledy-piggledy all round it, most built of red brick with timber framing. There was a large, prosperous-looking inn on the road, with a picture of a gun hanging above the door, but, much to Luka's surprise, no church. He had never before been to a village that did not have a church.

Two women were gossiping over a front fence, one with a basket of washing on her hip. A big, burly man with a shock of black hair and a huge beard was smoking a pipe on a bench outside the inn, a mug of ale in his hand. Luka saw one of his eyes was miscast, so it was hard to tell if he was staring at them or at some point behind their shoulders.

On the green, children sat in a circle, tossing a ball from one to the other.

'Earth!' cried one skinny girl as she threw the ball away.

'Rabbit,' called the boy who caught it, then he turned and flung it hard at another child, shouting, 'Water!'

'Um . . . um . . . trout!' stammered the catcher, before throwing it on to another child, and shouting, 'Earth!'

Taken by surprise, that child dropped the ball and at once everyone shouted, 'You're out! You're out!' He had to get up and leave the circle, while the other children went on throwing the ball back and forth, shouting out the names of the primary elements and the creatures that lived in them.

'Wind!'

'Eagle. Earth!'

'Cat. Air!'

'Swallow. Water!'

'Herring. Fire!'

At once there was silence. Everyone ducked their heads and stared at their feet. It was so strange to see them sitting so quietly after all the noise and motion that Emilia and Luka stopped to watch. For eight long counts everyone was quiet, then one of the boys wriggled impatiently, and sighed. At once he was made to get up and leave the circle too, and the game went on.

'Why did you all have to sit all quiet like that?'

Emilia asked the boy, who was kicking his boot into the ground, looking cross. 'What does it mean?'

He stared at her in surprise. 'It's Earth, Wind, Fire. That's how you play.'

'But how come everyone has to be quiet when someone says “fire”?'

He looked at her as if she was stupid. 'There's no creatures that live in fire, dummy. Fire burns everything to ash.'

'Aye, I suppose so,' Emilia said, and he ran off to join some of the other boys before she could ask him any more.

'I guess you need to have a healthy respect for fire if you work in a forge,' Luka said, crossing his arms across his stomach to stop Zizi from wriggling out. She was not at all tired and wanted to get out and play too.

'Let's go ask those women there if they know where we can find the Smiths,' Emilia said, and led the way across the road.

The women just stared at them in response.

'Which one?' the woman with the basket of washing said at last. 'For we're all Smiths here.'

'Everyone?' Emilia was flabbergasted. 'In the whole valley?'

'Well, not everyone,' the woman said. 'The Brownes own the foundry, of course, and the vicar's a Poole , and the miller's a Miller.'

'But most of the rest of us are Smiths, if not by birth then by marriage, and if not by marriage then by trade,' the other woman said. They both laughed.

'So who do you want?' the washing-woman said.

'The Big Man,' Luka said. 'Where's he?'

The women exchanged glances. 'I suppose Stevo is the Big Man now,' one said hesitantly.

'But his brother Dax is just here, you could ask him . . .' She turned and glanced at the inn but the big man with the big beard was gone. She shrugged and turned back to the children.

'They're all up at the foundry. You shouldn't go there. It's not the place for children. Wait until tonight when they knock off work. They'll all be here, at the Gun, wetting their dry throats.'

'We can't wait,' Luka said. 'It's important.'

'We'll be careful,' Emilia said with a winning smile.

'I'm telling you, it's not the place for weans, it's dangerous,' the woman insisted. 'No one wants another accident . . .' Her voice trailed away.

'We'll be all right,' Luka said cheerfully.

'Thanks for your help.'

The women stared after them all the way up the street.