The Butterfly in Amber (9 page)

It was in Emilia's mind that the Countess of Dysart had a liking for all that was secret and strange. She made invisible ink in her stillroom, and had letters with clandestine messages written in code. She had bought the old gypsy woman's tarot cards, even though such curiosities could have her branded a witch if they were discovered. She had consulted Mala the fortune-teller several times. Already a plan, a way of wheedling, was forming in Emilia's brain, and she thought the more gypsy-like she looked, the better.

Just then the door opened. The cook stood there, looking both angry and frightened. ‘Out of here now, you naughty girl, what do you think you're doing?'

‘Just getting changed,' Emilia replied innocently.

‘Don't let Mrs Henderson catch you in the stillroom! Come on, out you come.'

Emilia came out willingly, and the cook shut
the door firmly behind her and scolded her all the way back to the kitchen. There Luka was waiting for her, looking quite unlike himself with his curls all damp and combed back, and a clean shirt and breeches. He was even wearing a pair of stout black shoes with buckles on them. Sitting on his shoulder, Zizi was sniffing his hair and wrinkling her nose in distaste.

‘Zizi doesn't know who you are, now you smell all clean and sweet,' Emilia laughed.

Luka scowled. ‘Of course she knows who I am, she just doesn't like the smell of that soap!'

Just then Mrs Henderson opened the door, looking down her nose at them as if they were two particularly large and loathsome cockroaches. ‘The Countess of Dysart will see you now.'

C
arrying a lantern, Mrs Henderson led them into the great hall.

This was very long and grand, and huge, gloomy paintings covered every wall.

They followed Mrs Henderson down the hall and through tall doors to a magnificent wooden staircase, the panels of its balustrade carved with shields and swords, great wooden urns of fruit held aloft at every turn. The ceiling was decorated
with ornate garlands of leaves and flowers, and plaster busts of generals and emperors stared down from above the doors.

‘Don't touch anything!' Mrs Henderson snapped as Emilia put out a wondering finger. Emilia snatched her hand back.

At the top of the staircase was another long hall, as ornately furnished as the room below. Mrs Henderson led them through so fast that Emilia could get no more than an impression of hugeness and richness. Then they came through an enormous pair of carved wooden doors into a room that made all the others seem plain and simple in comparison.

Candles blazed from an elaborate candelabra hanging from the richly decorated ceiling. Candles were also lit on the white marble fireplace, which was carved all round with gilded vines and grapes and cherubs. More cherubs straddled twisted columns, and the towering walls
were hung with richly embroidered tapestries. An ivory cabinet was set against one wall, and the chairs were upholstered in gold-embroidered white satin. Mirrors in heavy gold frames hung on the garlanded walls, and everywhere Luka and Emilia looked there were paintings, and china pots, and silver boxes, and delicate gilded tables, and embroidered velvet footstools with clawed feet, and coy, naked cherubs.

Reclining on a chaise longue before the fire was a white-skinned, red-haired woman in a magnificent blue silk gown. Pearls hung about her neck and from her ears. More pearls decorated the bodice of her gown. She shared the long, supercilious nose of her cousin, Mrs Henderson, and her eyes were large, dark and heavily lidded.

‘The gypsies, your ladyship,' Mrs Henderson said in a disapproving voice, then hissed, ‘Bow, you mannerless dolts!'

Luka and Emilia were so dazzled by all the
richness and luxury about them they did not at first respond. Then Luka snatched off his cap and bowed deeply, and Emilia bobbed a curtsey. Zizi bobbed up and down, screeching.

‘Quite a carnival,' Lady Dysart said in a very high-bred, bored-sounding tone. ‘Now, what in heaven's name are two gypsy children and their monkey doing in my drawing room at this late hour? Anne says you have a message for me?'

Luka cast a wild look at Emilia, all inspiration gone.

Emilia nodded. ‘Aye, my lady. But first you must give to me the butterfly in amber that you bought from the gypsy Fancy Graylings fifteen years ago.'

Whatever the countess had been expecting, this was not it. Her arched eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘But why on earth should I do that?'

‘Because if you give me the butterfly in amber, I will tell your fortune,' Emilia said. ‘I think it is a fortune you will want to hear.'

There was a short silence. Emilia could tell the countess was intrigued.

‘Anne, bring me my jewellery box. The small silver one,' Lady Dysart said at last.

Mrs Henderson bowed stiffly and went out a door at the far end of the room. She returned a short while later, carrying an ornate silver box. The countess took the box and rummaged through it with long white fingers laden with rings. She withdrew a pale golden orb strung on a long chain. It was about the size of a man's thumbnail, and was marred with something crooked and dark inside. The countess coiled the chain about her fingers and let it dangle, so that the amber pendant swung back and forth.

‘Do you know how amber is made?' the countess said, not taking her eyes from the golden stone.

Luka and Emilia shook their heads.

‘Amber's meant to be magic, you know,' she
went on. ‘It's an ancient, enchanted stone, and was once worth more than gold. I've been fascinated by it ever since my tutor told me the ancient Greek myth about how amber came to be.'

Mrs Henderson folded her hands with a longsuffering expression, but the children loved to be told stories and listened intently. Even Zizi sat quietly on Luka's shoulder, her round black eyes fixed on Lady Dysart's face.

‘Phaeton was the son of Apollo the sun god. Every day he watched his father driving the sun-chariot across the sky, and he longed to whip along the wild sun-horses himself. One day he persuaded his sisters to help him steal his father's chariot. He harnessed up the horses and set off across the sky. But of course he lost control, and the horses bolted.'

The countess turned the amber pendant over and over in her fingers. ‘The sun-chariot raced so close to the world that fires blazed up here and
there, thought to be the first volcanoes. In Africa the chariot came so close that all the people there were burnt black, like my boy Isaac. It seemed the whole world would be destroyed. But Zeus, the king of the gods, struck Phaeton dead with a thunderbolt instead. Phaeton's body fell down beside a river, and his sisters were turned into poplars along the riverbank. As they wept over the dead body of their brother, their tears fell into the river and became amber.'

‘That's sad,' Emilia said after a moment.

‘The Greek myths are always sad.'

‘Is it true?' Luka asked.

‘True? Of course not. Only in the way of so many old stories, in that they illuminate the truth. For amber is indeed made from the tears of long-ago trees. It is sap, turned somehow to stone.'

‘How did the butterfly get inside it?' Luka asked.

Lady Dysart smiled briefly. ‘Once, a very long
time ago, that butterfly's feet were caught in the sticky sap. It struggled and struggled, but could not get free. Slowly the sap oozed down over it and trapped it, and then the sap slowly, over many more years, turned into amber. The butterfly is still inside it, trapped forever.'

The children were enchanted and repulsed at the same time.

‘The Greeks called amber
elektron
,' the countess continued dreamily, ‘which means “the sun”. Amber is always the colour of the sun, whether it is pale yellow like the dawn or orange-red like the sunset. And also because when it is rubbed, it gives off sparks of light.' The countess took a fold of her silken gown and rubbed the amber pendant, then slowly approached her finger to it. The children jumped as a bright spark flashed from the pendant towards her finger. ‘No wonder so many people thought amber was magical,' the countess said. ‘It's certainly beautiful.'

Emilia nodded cautiously. Mentally she prepared herself.

‘So the question is, what would two raggle-taggle gypsies want with my amber pendant?' Lady Dysart asked.

‘It's the lucky charm of the Graylings family,' Emilia replied. ‘They've had nothing go right since it was sold.'

‘So you've come to buy it back? But what, then, of my luck? In these perilous times, I need all the good fortune I can get.'

‘If you wish me to tell you your fortune, you must give me the amber pendant.'

Lady Dysart's smile faded. ‘But I paid good coin for it. No, no, I need more than just the lies of a fortune-teller in return for my lucky charm.'

‘I do not lie, I tell true!' Emilia said indignantly.

‘So they all say.'

Emilia had not expected Lady Dysart to
bargain so hard. The countess was surrounded by luxury of all kind, and her fingers were laden with gems. Emilia had hoped she would think of the amber pendant as no more than a worthless trinket, a curiosity.

But it seemed the countess would not give up her trinket so easily.

Reluctantly, Emilia held up her grandmother's crystal ball.

‘If you give me the amber pendant, I'll give you this,' she said. ‘It belongs to my grandmother, the Queen of the Gypsies, the greatest fortune-teller in the land. It is very old, and has great powers.'

Lady Dysart leant forward eagerly, the amber pendant falling from her fingers. ‘Let me hold it.'

So Emilia passed her the crystal ball and the countess cupped it in her hands and looked down into its cloudy, twisted heart. Emilia bent and picked up the amber pendant. It was warm in the palm of her hand. She held it up to the candlelight. It glowed
softly golden, the colour of afternoon sunshine. Emilia could see clearly the crooked shape of a trapped butterfly within, its wings bent. Emilia rubbed her thumb over it, her mouth curving.

She may have lost her charm bracelet, but at least she now had the butterfly in amber! That was some consolation, at least.

‘Will I be able to see things in it?' Lady Dysart asked, turning the crystal ball round and round.

‘If you have the eye,' Emilia replied, sliding the amber pendant into her pocket. ‘It takes time to learn how.'

‘You are young, then, to be telling fortunes,' the countess said, sounding rather sulky. ‘What can you know of life?'

‘Sometimes I think far too much,' Emilia said wearily. ‘But you are right. I am young. I only began to see things a short while ago. Baba says that is how it comes, when a girl is growing into womanhood. Lately . . . well, maybe I've grown
up fast. I've seen . . .' Her voice faltered. ‘I've seen too much,' she went on, very low.

‘You must teach me!' the countess ordered.

‘I cannot,' Emilia replied. ‘We must not stay. There are soldiers after us. We would not want to bring them down on you. And we . . . we are needed elsewhere.'

Luka nodded and moved his feet restlessly, wanting to be gone.

‘How then am I meant to learn?' the countess said crossly.

‘It is not something that can be taught, like cooking a hare,' Emilia said. ‘My grandmother always told me just to look into the ball, to empty my mind, to see what visions came. Sometimes nothing comes, sometimes things I cannot understand.'

The countess gazed down into the ball longingly.

‘You said you had a message for her ladyship,' Mrs Henderson said. ‘What message?'

Emilia glanced at Luka. They did not say anything.

‘You knew enough of the Countess of Dysart to know that we would give you audience at such a declaration, even though it is past midnight and you are naught but raggle-taggle gypsies.' She spoke sternly, her hands clenched tight about each other. ‘I want to know what you know, else I shall make sure those soldiers beating our grounds with their flaming torches know that you are here. Her ladyship was right. These are perilous times. We cannot take any risks.'

‘We don't have to tell you anything,' Luka cried. ‘We offered you news in return for the amber charm, and she wasn't interested. She had to take our Baba's precious crystal ball. Emilia shouldn't have done it. The charm's not worth that much.'

‘Tell us what you know, or I'll call the soldiers!' Mrs Henderson snapped back.

‘And risk having them search your house? I don't think so,' Luka said.

Lady Dysart and her companion exchanged a quick glance. There was a long silence.

‘Let us begin again,' the countess said sweetly. ‘I find I am most curious to have my fortune told after all. How about I cross your palm with gold, my dear? Is not that the usual price? Anne, find me a gold coin.'

‘We'd rather have safe passage out of here,' Emilia said.

‘Though we wouldn't say no to gold,' Luka put in quickly.

The countess smiled. ‘You tell me all you know, and I'll give you some coin, and make sure you don't fall into enemy hands.'

‘Shake on it,' Luka said and spat into his palm and held it out.

Lady Dysart regarded him in horror, then laughed, spat in her own palm and shook hands
with him. ‘My education is growing in leaps and bounds tonight,' she said to Mrs Henderson, who looked most disapproving.

‘So, what news? What could you possibly know that would interest me?'

Luka said bluntly, ‘Cromwell is dying.'

The two women regarded him scornfully. ‘We've had reports of the Lord Protector's illness for weeks,' Lady Dysart said. ‘So far he seems to have survived. I have no doubts he shall continue to thrive.'

‘He will be dead before the week is out,' Emilia said.

‘How can you be so sure?' Mrs Henderson regarded them intently. ‘Is this more of your hocus-pocus, or do you have inside information?'

Emilia found the visions she had had deeply distressing. She did not answer.

‘You have seen this, with your second sight?' Lady Dysart demanded.

Emilia nodded.

‘What? What have you seen? Will he truly die? What will happen then? You must tell me!'

‘I have seen the king ride across London Bridge, regaining his throne without a drop of blood,' Emilia said reluctantly. ‘They will throw flowers for him, and the fountains shall run with wine.'

‘What else? What else?' Lady Dysart demanded.

‘Cromwell will be dug up, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn, and afterwards his head will be cut off and stuck on a stake on the palace roof. All those who signed the king's death warrant will be pursued and punished. Only a few will escape.'