The Gypsy Crown (7 page)

‘Look, it's just a couch,' he said, ‘covered in some kind of cloth.'

Emilia pressed her hand to her hammering heart. ‘I thought it was a ghost for sure.'

‘Me too,' Luka admitted. He moved around the room, pulling more dustsheets off the furniture. Clouds of dust rose into the air, making Emilia cough and Zizi sneeze.

‘Stop it!' she cried. ‘I can't breathe.'

‘I just wanted to see what was underneath,' Luka said. ‘Look, they're not too dusty under those sheets. We could sit on them.'

He had uncovered several tall wooden chairs with hard backs and spiralling posts, and a long settle made of oak by the fire, as well as two big chairs upholstered in a stiff floral fabric. With a tired sigh, Emilia sat in one of the chairs, pulling her legs up under her damp, muddy skirts and wrapping the material about her icy feet. She looked about her, trying not to shiver, as Luka kept on banging about. Then he cried out with joy as he found some firewood in a chest against one wall. Within minutes he had a fire kindled in the hearth.

‘I'll go and see if I can find a pan or something in that kitchen, to cook the fish in, and then I'll bring Alida and Sweetheart in,' he said. ‘Will you be all right here?'

Emilia nodded, even though she would have much preferred not to be left alone. She was too tired to move, though, and the warmth of the dancing flames was comforting. She rested her head on her arm, curling her legs up beneath her, and wondered how Beatrice and Noah were. Tears rose in her eyes and she sniffed them back, determined not to cry anymore.

B
eatrice sat on the hard floor, stroking back Mimi's long dark curls. The little girl had fallen asleep with her head in Beatrice's lap and although she was stiff and uncomfortable, she dared not move in case she woke her cousin.

Light struck in through the bars from the corridor, illuminating the dark humps of the sleeping women. Silvia lay with her arm about Lena, while Maggie sat with her stooped back set against the wall, her eyes glittering in the shadows. Beatrice was too cold and afraid to sleep, but she suspected Maggie was too angry. Her grandmother did not like the
gorgios
. She did not like being locked up in prison, their horses and caravans impounded and their lives threatened. She did not like it all.

It had been an awful moment when the constables had thrown Maggie in through the barred door. Her face had been bruised, with one eye swelling shut, and she had lost several more of her few remaining teeth. Beatrice's heart had sunk right down to the very pit of her stomach. She could only be glad that Emilia and Luka had escaped. Maggie said they had gone for help. Beatrice could not think what two young gypsy children could do to help, but it was a comfort to know that they, at least, were free. She could only wish that Noah had been able to escape too.

She heard a soft murmur of voices from the other cell, and turned her head to listen. A man had just asked a question. It was a cultured, educated voice and sounded kind. ‘Can't you sleep, lad?'

‘Nay,' Noah answered in a shaking voice. ‘I don't like it here. I want to go home.'

‘So do we all, lad,' the man answered. ‘Prison is no place for any man. Be glad that you are here, though, and not in Newgate. Now that's a place to chill your heart.'

‘You've been there?'

‘Aye, though only to visit friends. I've been lucky enough to escape being locked up there. I doubt I'd still be alive if I had.'

‘Why have they locked you up in here?' Noah asked.

‘Why indeed?' the man's voice was bitter. ‘What is this but persecution and slavish fear? What crime have I committed, what foul act, except the desire to do good for the poor and oppressed?'

He was silent for a moment, then Noah said timidly, ‘I'm sorry, sir, I do not understand.'

‘Who could?' the man asked. ‘Answer me this, lad. Was the earth made to allow a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the earth from others, so that they must beg or starve, or was it made to preserve us all?”

‘For us all, I guess,' Noah said.

‘For believing so and saying so, I am locked up in this foul place,' the man said. ‘They mock us and call us Levellers, because we believe that all men should be level with each other, not one raised up to live in idle pleasure, and the others pushed down to work and toil and suffer.'

Noah listened with great interest, for he had often quietly thought such things to himself.

‘Sometimes they call us Diggers too,' the Leveller went on, ‘for is our belief that the good earth should belong to us all, and so we set about to dig up the common land, and sow corn, and eat our bread together. But they took our tools, and beat us, and tore down our houses, and drove us away from the land.'

‘But why?'

‘Who can understand it? For this action of ours, labouring to put to use the waste places of the earth, was an action full of justice and righteousness, and charity to our fellow creatures. There was nothing of pride and covetousness in it. So why did they seek to prevent us? Because of their own greed and pride and tyranny. They do not want us to be raised, or themselves brought down, and all men made of one level.'

Noah made a soft sound of agreement.

‘They can imprison us and beat us, but they cannot stop our hearts from feeling and our minds from thinking and our tongues from speaking, can they?' The man heaved a great sigh, and then repeated, very low, ‘Can they?'

There was a long pause, and the man bestirred himself, and said, ‘So what is your name, lad, and why have they got you here?'

Noah told him his name, and a little of what had happened that morning in the marketplace, and the man sighed again and said, ‘Poor lad. And they call this a righteous government.'

‘What is your name, sir?'

‘Winstanley, lad, and there is no need to call me “sir”. Rather call me “friend”, for we believe that no man should bow to another. It's nothing but tyranny and pride, and so you should not bow, or lift your cap, or call another man “sir”.'

Beatrice stirred, puzzled and afraid, but nonetheless fascinated by the man's strange words. No wonder he was in prison, she thought, for speaking such treason. He was lucky they did not nail his tongue to the pillory.

‘You know, we called it a victory when the common people of England at last cast out Charles, the Norman oppressor, but indeed it seems the yoke of our good and righteous leaders is just as heavy,' Winstanley said. ‘Indeed, they are just as much tyrant as he, and I fear that we cannot cast them out as easily.'

‘Should you say such things?' Noah said, sounding frightened.

Winstanley laughed. ‘Are we not already in gaol? Indeed, is not all of England a prison? The laws of this government are the bolts, bars and iron doors of the prison; the lawyers are the gaolors, and poor men are the prisoners; for let a man fall into the hands of any from the bailiff to the judge, and he shall be hanged for no greater crime than trying to feed his family.'

‘I do not want to be hanged!' Noah said unhappily.

‘Nor I, lad,' Winstanley answered. ‘But surely they will not hang such a little lad as thee?'

‘He says we all will hang.'

‘The pastor?' Winstanley asked. ‘Ah, indeed, he is a god-fearing man, and so would I be if my god was as fearsome as his. It is a sorry tale, and sorry days, where such a man has power over the poor and oppressed.'

Beatrice felt tears well up in her eyes. She had not thought of herself as poor and oppressed before. They never had much coin, that was true, but they were rich in other ways. She thought back to the night where she had been betrothed, and put her hand up to finger the gold coins still hanging about her neck, under her blouse.

‘But is that not just the way it has always been?' Noah asked.

‘Because it has always been so, must it remain so?' Winstanley said. ‘Think on what I say, lad, and remember, for one day the truth shall triumph in men's heart and we shall all be free.'

He is mad,
Beatrice thought.
That is why they have not hung him. They must plan to send him to Bedlam.

But she could not help thinking over his strange, exultant words and wishing that they were true.

Alone and half-asleep in the fire-lit, cavernous darkness, Emilia thought she saw people in old-fashioned garments gathered together weeping and murmuring in shock and grief, while a woman in black, with eyes red-raw with sobbing, sat staring, her hands twisting a handkerchief to shreds. Emilia sat up, unable to breathe for terror, and rubbed her eyes, which were stinging from the smoke. The dream – if that was what it was – dissolved. She found herself with only the shadows of flames for company.

The door creaked open. Emilia sat up, screwing up her mouth self-deprecatingly at the sudden thunder of her heart. It was only Zizi scampering in, proudly carrying a long-handled ladle. After her came Luka, carrying a saucepan and a jug of water, while behind ambled Sweetheart and Alida, both damp and ruffled.

‘It's raining again,' Luka said. ‘I'm glad we're not out there. I found a pan. I thought we'd broil the fish, not having any fat to fry it in.' He saw Emilia blinking and yawning, and said in pretend crossness, ‘Have you been sleeping while I've done all the work? Rouse up, sleepyhead, and cook us our supper. There's potatoes in the bag, and I picked us a bunch of thyme from the garden. It's awfully woody, but you can pull all the leaves off and they'll taste good.'

Sweetheart did not like the cold, dark, dusty house. She pressed against Emilia's leg, who screwed up her nose and pushed her away. Wet bear was not a pleasant smell. Sweetheart lay down before the fire with a sigh. Steam began to rise up from her coat. Luka cleared a spot for Alida to stand, and rubbed her down while Emilia put the water and potatoes on to boil. Luka had already scaled and gutted the fish, and cut it into chunks, for which Emilia was extremely grateful. She hated gutting fish.

She told Luka about her dream while she tossed the chunks of fish into the water. ‘I wonder who lived here, and where they've gone,' she said.

‘I'm just grateful for it,' said Luka pragmatically. ‘We'd have been in trouble if someone still lived here.'

‘Aye, I suppose so,' Emilia answered, stirring the stew. She was feeling very tired and melancholy.

‘Here, I'll do that.' Luka took the long-handled spoon from her. ‘Take off all your wet clothes and spread them out by the fire. We may as well get warm and dry. By then the stew will be ready and we can think what to do next.'

‘Baba said to find our Rom kin and ask them for their help,' Emilia said, unbuttoning her skirt. ‘There's five other families who are kin of ours – they each have a lucky charm, like the one she gave me.' Emilia showed Luka the bracelet she wore on her wrist. ‘Baba said if we joined all the charms together again …'

‘It would do what?' Luka asked.

‘It would help us to better times,' Emilia said, and felt her melancholy deepen. It seemed frightfully vague and imprecise. She stepped out of her skirt and spread it to dry on the back of one of the chairs. It was very muddy, and she wondered if she should go and rinse it off first. Gypsies did not like to wash clothes in the same place as their hands or bodies, though, nor where they would draw water for drinking and cooking, and Emilia was too tired to go looking for running water. She decided to leave it.
It'll only get dirty again tomorrow,
she told herself.

‘Well, one thing at a time,' Luka said. ‘We'll eat and sleep, and then in the morning we'll head to the Downs and look for the Hearnes. You can ask them for their charm if you think it'll help us.
I
plan to ask them to help us break everyone out.'

‘Break them out of prison!' Emilia cried. ‘But … how?'

‘I don't know how,' Luka said. ‘We'll have to think of a plan. I saw where the keeper kept his keys. Maybe I can steal them. Or we could give the guards something to make them sleep …'

‘But surely they'll just chase after us and catch us again,' Emilia said. ‘And what about our caravans and horses, how are we to get them out?'

Luka grimaced. ‘I can't think of everything all at once,' he said. ‘But with a little bit of luck, we'll be able to save them, I'm sure of it.'

A little bit of luck …

Emilia rubbed the old coin between her fingers. ‘Aye,' she said softly. ‘For sure we can.'