The Lightning Bolt by Kate Forsyth Page B

slowly took the pipe from her mouth and used it to scratch another mark on the wall.
    Another day gone . . .

The Gypsy Camp

    â€˜F ind Sweetheart!’ Emilia panted, to Rollo. ‘Where’s our Sweetheart?’
    Rollo put his nose to the path and led the way, his plumy tail wagging. When the path came to a fork, he did not take the wider way, but led them scrambling up a rough, brambly path and over a rocky outcrop. Behind them they could hear the crashing of branches as the constables searched through the woods.
    The path led them back towards Horsmonden. Through gaps in the trees, they could see the darkchimneys of the foundry, belching out smoke, its windows glaring red. The hammer pond behind it gleamed strangely as the rays of the sinking sun struck through the bronze-coloured smoke. Clouds hung heavy over the horizon, an odd colour like a new bruise. Beyond the wood and the foundry was nothing but a bare blasted heath, pitted with shallow mines and mounded with ugly slagheaps.
    Crossing the heath towards the village was a huge, burly man in a dark coat, leading along a big brown bear. She went reluctantly, dragging back on the chain, and it brought tears to Emilia’s eyes to see how the man jerked sharply on the chain, hurting her sensitive nose. Sweetheart moaned and sat back on her hind legs, holding her nose in her paws, and the man whacked her with a heavy stick.
    â€˜He’s hurting her!’ Emilia cried. ‘Why is he yanking her along like that? Where is he taking her?’
    â€˜It’s one of the Smiths,’ Luka said angrily. ‘No one else is that big!’
    â€˜Why does he have her? We left Sweetheart in the care of the Hearnes! They shouldn’t have given her to someone else.’
    Luka looked very grim. ‘We should never have done it. Uncle Ruben left Sweetheart in our care. We were wrong to trust the Hearnes, the treacherous, two-faced dogs!’
    Emilia suddenly remembered the card of the Knight of Swords. It had warned her of a treacherous man in their future. She had assumed it meant Coldham. Perhaps, though, it had meant someone else. Cosmo, or Felipe, or maybe even Sebastien. Her heart sank. She hated to think that her sister was betrothed to someone who could heartlessly betray them to a man like Coldham.
    â€˜We need to get Sweetheart back,’ she said. ‘If Coldham knows she’s here, I bet he plans to hurt her somehow. He likes hurting things.’
    Luka stared at her in horror, then grabbed her hand, breaking into a run. He wondered how far ahead of them Sweetheart was. It could not be more than ten minutes. If they ran, they could catch her up, surely. But how were they to wrest her away from that huge man? He was ten times as strong as they were.
    As they ran, they kept their eyes on the big brown bear, so they saw how, when Sweetheart refused utterly to move any further, the big man thrust a hand into a big pot he carried and pulled out something that made the bear stretch out her snout and follow along eagerly.
    Honey! That was why Fairnette’s hives had been plundered!
    The path led down to a clearing not far from the road, where a small encampment of gypsy caravans was set up. Elaborately carved and gaily painted, the five caravans were drawn in a circle round a fire. A few tents had been set up besidethem, no more than canvas slung over stripped saplings. Women in long, colourful skirts were busy about the fire, cutting up vegetables, stirring the big pot on its hook above the flames, mending clothes, or weaving baskets. A few dark, curly-headed children played a game of tip, and dogs lay under the caravans, panting.

    â€˜There’s Alida!’ Emilia cried in joy, seeing her Arab mare tethered close by the wheel of the largest caravan. She clasped her hands together. ‘She looks thin,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘What have they been doing to her?’
    â€˜Racing her half to death, most like,’ Luka