Emilia caressed the gold coin at her wrist, and said in rather a shaky voice, ‘It was more than luck that saw you save us tonight. If it was not for you, we’d be on our way to the gallows.’
‘Luck or Providence, who knows?’ Lord Harry bent and patted his saddlebags, where he had thrust the papers he had taken from Coldham’s coach. ‘Either way, I got what I was after, as well as some nice swag. I’ll be off to Gypsy Joe’s in the morning to sell those nags, and –’
‘Gypsy Joe?’ Both children sat up to attention.
‘Aye, do you know him? The innkeeper of the Herb of Grace in Salisbury?’
The children looked at each other, torn between hope and disbelief. An innkeeper did not seem very likely, but the name of the inn was encouraging.
‘Do you know his last name?’ Luka crossed his fingers, and Emilia held on tight to the golden coin.
‘Wood, I think. We generally just call him Gypsy Joe, he’s as dark as any gypsy.’
Luka and Emilia caught their breath in delight. The innkeeper was one of the Wood tribe, maybe even the one who carried the sprig of rue that was that family’s lucky charm. But what was a Rom doing running an inn in Salisbury?
‘We think he may be the man we are looking for,’ Luka said carefully. ‘He’s a relative of sorts. But we thought he lived in the New Forest.’
‘Oh, all the gypsies have been cleared out of the New Forest,’ Lord Harry said. ‘Cromwell’s cutting down all the trees to build new ships for his navy.’
‘What happened to them all?’ Luka said.
Lord Harry glanced at him, then said gently, ‘I don’t rightly know.’
Luka said no more. Zizi looked up at his face, then patted his arm.
‘Why don’t you come with me to the Herb of Grace?’ Lord Harry said. ‘Then you can see if Gypsy Joe is the man you seek. We’d need to leave pretty soon, though, as I have no desire to ride into Salisbury in broad daylight with four horses that belong to one of Cromwell’s pursuivants!’
‘All right,’ Luka said.
Emilia yawned, and rested her head on her hand.
‘Why don’t you get some sleep in the meantime?’ the highwayman suggested. ‘It’s very late.’
Emilia lay down, pulling her shawl about her, but Luka felt in the dark for his violin, which lay in its case next to his knee. ‘Would it be safe for me to play my fiddle?’ he asked. ‘Just for a little while. We’ve been running and hiding for so long, it’s been ages since I’ve played, and she should be played every day. It’s bad for her to lie quiet.’
‘We’re miles from anywhere here,’ the highwayman said. ‘Play away.’
Luka took out his violin and fitted it to his chin. He tuned the strings carefully, then began to play, glad to fill his ears with music. The lack of it had been a hollow ache inside him all these days.
His fingers found their way into a lament. Luka shut his eyes, playing by touch and sound alone. The music soared out into the starlit darkness, wild and plaintive, an incoherent wail of grief. When Luka at last laid down his fiddle and opened his eyes, he felt much calmer and happier. He was surprised to find Emilia lying curled in a ball, tears streaming down her cheeks, and Lord Harry surreptitiously knuckling his eyes.
‘I haven’t heard a fiddle in a very long time,’ the highwayman said, clearing his throat. ‘I’d forgotten how beautiful its music can be.’
Luka smiled and stroked Zizi’s fur. The little monkey was sitting bolt upright, her black-button eyes fixed on his face, her head cocked a little to one side. She knew when Luka played music to dance and tumble to, and when he wanted her to sit and listen.
‘I want my mumma back,’ Emilia suddenly sobbed. ‘I want her back and alive, and Beatrice and Noah out of gaol, and Baba . . . I want . . .’ Her voice failed. ‘I want to go galloping on Alida . . . and I want Rollo! Oh, Rollo!’
She buried her face in her hands, her whole body shaking.
Luka patted her arm awkwardly. ‘Never mind, Milly.’
He wished that he had Emilia’s way of always saying the right thing. He searched for something else to say that might comfort her. ‘We’re going to get them all out of gaol, don’t you worry. Haven’t we got this far already? And I’ve got a plan, Milly, really I have. So don’t you worry now. Try and get some sleep, and we’ll go find that rue charm tomorrow, and see what Gypsy Joe can do to help us. All right?’
Emilia did not uncover her face but she nodded her head emphatically. He saw her hand move to touch the charms hanging from her bracelet, letting out her breath in a long sigh.
He patted her shoulder again, then lay down beside her, looking up at the stars, his hands behind his head. He wished he really did have a plan, but all he had was a number of different ideas, most of which would probably never work. He thought of the wax imprints of Coldham’s keys, and what he could do to find out what locks they fitted, and fell asleep still turning over different strategies in his head.
Noah lay curled on a rough blanket, his arm tucked under his cheek so he did not have to feel its harshness against his skin. He did not like the feel of coarse fabrics. He wished he was at home in his own bunk, with the softness of his rabbit-fur rug tucked around him, and the smell of apple-wood burning in the stove, and Baba’s soft voice telling him wondrous tales of mute hunchbacks and swans, kings and tinkers, witches and seelies.
It smelt very bad in this cell. All the men had to share a single chamber-pot, and it was only emptied once a day. The sounds were all horrible too. No birdsong, no wind rustling in the heather, no horses stamping and snorting, no darling dog panting as he lay beside Noah, his tail beating on the ground. Noah missed Rollo so much it physically hurt him. Without Rollo there to guide him and protect him, Noah felt truly blind for the first time.
Noah missed his violin too. The bad man had smashed it to smithereens. If he could have played his violin, and filled the cell with music, it would have drowned out the dreadful sound of the sick man coughing, coughing, coughing, and the squeaking and rustling of the rats in the roof, and the clang of iron doors slamming shut. Noah thought he hated that noise more than any of the others. It was the sound of iron bars, and heavy iron locks, and chains and manacles and shackles. It was the sound of his soul being imprisoned.
Noah pressed his face into his arm. His eyes may not be able to see, but they could still weep tears.
‘Do not cry, my boy,’ a low voice said beside him. A warm, gentle hand patted his shoulder. ‘You must not let them break your spirit. That is why they persecute us, you know. They seek to keep us broken and in bondage. Fear, sorrow, desperation, madness, they are the chains of the mind. You must not let them fetter you.’
Noah sniffled and sat up, turning his blind face towards the speaker. It was Gerard Winstanley, a strange yet compelling man who had been locked up on the same day as Noah and his family. Like them, he was waiting to be taken up before the magistrates in a few weeks, charged with sedition. Noah could understand why. He had never met a man with such peculiar notions. Winstanley thought all people should be equal, and that the fruits of the earth should be divided evenly between them so that none were rich or poor, powerful or weak.
Noah found his words quite intoxicating, even though he understood how dangerous they were. He said, very low, ‘But we are fettered, we’re locked up here in prison, and we can’t get out.’
‘They may fetter our bodies,’ Winstanley said softly, ‘but they cannot fetter our souls. Remember that.’
Noah sighed and shut his eyes, trying to imagine he was running through a warm, sweet-smelling meadow, Rollo beside him. It was hard.
Emilia opened her eyes, her breath harsh in her chest.
She had been trapped in a dream, a terrible dream, where she had been running through endless stone corridors and cells, looking for her family. She had called and called their names, but her voice was strangled. She had not been able to find them.
Something had woken her. A rustling in the bushes, a small cr
y like a broken bird or a frightened baby. Lying still, every muscle rigid, Emilia listened. Her heart was pounding so hard it filled her ears. The sound came again, and Emilia threw aside her shawl and scrambled to her feet, straining her eyes to peer through the darkness. The only light came from the fire, where the log had collapsed into smouldering coals. The sky above glowed faintly, filled with stars.
‘Rollo?’ she whispered, and went forward blindly, feeling her way with her feet.
She heard it again, a faint whine, and turned towards it. Her shins bumped into something soft and hairy. Tears of joy pouring down her face, Emilia flung herself to her knees, throwing her arms about the neck of the big dog who was creeping along slowly, his head hanging. ‘Rollo, Rollo,’ she cried. ‘You’re alive! You found us! Good dog, good dog!’
He gave a faint whuff and licked her face, then laid his head on her knee. She stroked his rough fur, and found a wet sticky patch between his ears. Although she at once flinched and snatched her fingers away, Rollo whined again.
‘Oh, you poor boy, you poor darling boy. That bad man hit you, he hit you so hard. But you found us, you found us. Did you smell where we had gone? Did you follow the coach? Oh, what a clever dog, what a good, clever dog.’
Rollo licked her fingers.
‘Come on, boy, come on, I’ll get you some water. You must be so thirsty. Come lie here, near the fire, and I’ll wash that cut, and get you a drink. Good boy!’
As Emilia stirred the fire up again and added some wood so she could see, Rollo lay down and put his aching head on his paws, his tail stirring up a little puff of dust. Emilia brought him a pan of water to drink, and then lay down beside him, stroking his ears, the tears running down her face. Occasionally she lifted her hand to wipe her face.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she whispered to the exhausted dog. ‘I’m so glad you found us, Rollo!’
She thought to herself, Everything’s going to be all right. Already the magic of the charms is helping us, protecting us. Tomorrow, maybe, we’ll find the rue charm . . .
The Herb of Grace
SALISBURY, WILTSHIRE, ENGLAND
18th August 1658
It was a mad ride through the darkness before dawn. Lord Harry crouched low over the saddle, never losing his balance as his bay swerved and leapt over the worst of the ruts. The only sound was the heavy hooves hitting the road, the jingle of the harness and the blowing of the horses’ breath.
‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll take a tumble and break your neck?’ Luka demanded, when at last the highwayman slowed down, allowing them to draw their big black horses up on either side of him.
Lord Harry laughed. ‘Better to die in the saddle than at the end of the hangman’s noose.’
‘But why take up the bridle lay?’ Luka asked. ‘You could have turned yourself in, and taken your pardon, and paid the fine for the return for your land.’
‘With what?’ Lord Harry replied. ‘We were utterly ruined by the war. My father mortgaged himself to the hilt to raise funds for the king’s army. After Worcester the Roundheads burnt the house to the ground, and all the barns and stables too. Besides, to beg pardon would have meant betraying everything we fought the war for. This way I am still fighting for my king, in the best way I can, and raising money to restore my lands once he is back on his throne where he belongs.’
‘How is holding up coaches helping restore the king?’ Luka wanted to know.
‘I only rob Roundheads,’ Lord Harry replied shortly. ‘And in particular the king-killers.’
‘But how do you know?’
Lord Harry glanced at him in exasperation. ‘I get information, from innkeepers and stagecoach drivers and post boys and anyone else willing to pass on news for a few coins. And I lie in wait for them, and let anyone else by.’
‘But what do you do if you pull up the wrong coach?’ Emilia asked, turning to check on Rollo who had fallen some way behind. She wished Lord Harry would remember Rollo’s sore head.
‘I ask them to drink a toast with me to the king,’ Lord Harry replied. ‘If they refuse, I rob them and reprimand them, and let them go on their way, but if they agree, we share a nice drop of brandy and we part friends and comrades.’
Luka laughed out loud.
‘Many of us highwaymen are Royalists, sworn to have our revenge on the Roundheads. Have you heard of Zachary Howard? He’s the most famous of us, having held up the Earl of Essex himself, and bested Cromwell too, and made him a laughing-stock all over the country.’
‘Why, what did he do?’ Emilia asked.
‘Oh, Zachary was a cheeky fellow. One day he found himself staying in the very same inn as Old Ironsides. So he passed himself off as a Roundhead, and got on so famously with Cromwell that the traitorous dog asked him to dinner. Some days later, having lulled them all into a false sense of security, Zachary broke into Cromwell’s room and found him on his knees, praying, the old hypocrite. So Zachary binds and gags him, and takes all his swag, and then says to Old Ironsides, ‘So you want to be crowned like a king, do you? I’ll crown you as is fitting,’ and he takes the full chamber-pot and up-ends it on his head, and leaves him there, with all the muck running down his face.’
‘He didn’t!’ Emilia exclaimed.
‘He did! Though to my mind he should have shot the traitorous dog there and then, and rid the world of him.’
‘He would have been caught, though, and hanged,’ Luka said.
‘He was hanged anyway, not long after.’
‘Surely you don’t want to die by hanging?’ Emilia exclaimed.
‘No, of course not,’ Lord Harry replied. ‘But I’d rather die in service to my king than surrender tamely to this upstart Cromwell and his blue-nosed cronies.’ He sounded sad and angry all at once.
‘I can’t see how turning a chamber-pot upside down on the Lord Protector’s head is helping the king to win back his throne,’ Luka said, adding hastily, ‘though I can see the joke, of course.’
‘I don’t just rob coaches,’ Lord Harry replied testily. ‘I work for the Royalists too. I carry messages, and information about troop movements, and help guide fugitives to the coast and the king’s agents about the country. Quite a few of us knights of the road do that, for we can move about freely, while many who support the king cannot. You know it is against the law for a Catholic to move more than five miles from home without a permit? That makes it very difficult to coordinate an uprising, particularly since Cromwell’s spymaster has all the mail opened and read.’
‘So are you planning an uprising now?’ Emilia asked in high excitement, thinking of the Cavaliers she had seen in close conversation at the racetrack, and the man with the dyed-black hair, whom she had heard named the Duke of Ormonde, one of King Charles’s right-hand men.
‘Now that would be telling,’ he smiled, and spurred his horse on.
All along the east the horizon was smudged with colour, and birds were beginning to sing. It was not long before Lord Harry rose in his stirrups and pointed. ‘Look! There lies Salisbury.’
They saw a small grey town set within medieval walls, from which soared the cathedral spire, so high and so fragile it seemed impossible it would not snap. It was like a sword point held to the heart of the brightening sky, sharp and infinitely dangerous. It was the highest church spire in all England. Luka wondered that the Roundheads had not sought to tear it down.
‘Let’s get a move along,’ Lord Harry said, tapping his heels to his bay gelding’s side. ‘I’d like to be within the walls before the city begins to wake up.’
The town rose on its hill on the other side of the River Avon, roofs and towers rising from behind the thick walls. A stone bridge crossed the river, and they clattered across to the barred gate, which was manned by two guards with pikes. A wink, a quick flash of gold, and the gates were hauled open and the five horses and three riders were allowed through. As they rode down the narrow street within, the buildings leaning over them and almost obscuring the sky, the gate s
wung shut behind them. Emilia gave a little shiver.
‘Isn’t it a bit of a risk, letting the guards see us all like that?’ she whispered.
‘No way into Salisbury except through the gates,’ Lord Harry said cheerfully. ‘They’re good fellows, though, those two, and goldmines of information. They won’t give me away.’
‘Are you sure?’ Emilia asked.
He shrugged. ‘Let’s say I hope I’m sure.’
The town was a maze of narrow streets and higgledy-piggledy houses, but Lord Harry showed no hesitation as he led the way, the horses’ hooves clip-clopping on the stones. Emilia kept glancing behind them, to make sure no one was following them, and to keep an eye on Rollo who was plodding along slowly, his head hanging.
Everywhere, people were beginning to stir. Maids were flinging open windows and shaking out rugs, or scrubbing the front doorstep on their hands and knees. A water cart clattered down one street, and people came out with jugs and stood chatting as they waited for their turn to fill them up. A young woman went from door to door selling eggs from a basket, and someone else led a cow around, calling loudly, ‘Milk-o! Milk-o!’
By the time they reached the Herb of Grace, the sun was up, gilding the river so it hurt to look at it. The inn was long and low and white, cross-hatched with heavy oak beams, with tall chimneys sprouting from the thatched roof. Hanging above the front door was a large, vividly painted sign depicting a yellow flower growing from a bunch of grey, three-lobed leaves. The inn had a magnificent view of the cathedral set in its rolling green lawns, and was bounded by the river on one side and the high road on the other. Already coaches were preparing to leave, with luggage piled high on their roofs, and coachmen in their heavy coats perched on the driving seats, shouting and swearing as they tried to squeeze past each other.
Lord Harry took them down a side alley, and into the stable-yard behind the inn. Here all was quiet and peaceful. Horses stood in dim stalls, heads in nosebags, their tails whisking at the flies. A groom was mucking out one of the stalls. He nodded his head at Lord Harry and said, ‘You’re late. I’ll get Joe.’